Casimir, Lord of Crows | A Fantasy Short Story

Beady eyes, black wings, and bloodlust.

It’s that time of the week again! That’s right; another fantasy short.

This week, I have a dreary little tale titled “Casimir, Lord of Crows.”

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Casimir, Lord of Crows

By J. Louis

Casimir massaged the sore spot on the right side of his face and stared into the depths of the well, tears rolling down his cheeks, hoping the darkness wouldn’t judge him for his pathetic state.

Why did they have to be so cruel? Why couldn’t they just accept him for who he was?

He was an odd boy, sure; Casimir had the self-awareness to understand that. He preferred to spend his time alone, watching the marsh birds soar across the sky or skulk through the swamp grass, rather than play with the other boys. But that was hardly an excuse for the bullying. He had just spotted a rare black rail, with its distinctive white speckles and red eyes, feeding along the water’s edge when Bobby Baker jumped him.

Casimir could hear him even now. Bird brain. Bird boy. Chicken!

“But chickens don’t fly,” he said. That comment earned him the bruise on his cheek.

Casimir wiped his tears away with his sleeve, then lowered the bucket into the well. He had been gone a while, and his mother would be wondering where he had gotten off to.

He pulled the full bucket up, and that’s when he heard it–a weak caw from a tangled mass of feathers and twigs. A baby crow poked its head out from the broken remains of a fallen nest. Three others surrounded it, their little bodies twisted and lifeless.

“Where’s your mama, little guy?” Casimir stroked the bird’s developing plumage. “Can’t you fly?”

The crow cocked its head and looked at him, its beady black eyes as deep and dark as the well.

“Well, you can’t stay here alone. You can come with me. Mom won’t be too happy… She always says to let the wild things stay wild.” The crow cawed and rubbed its head against Casimir’s fingers. “But you don’t seem too wild to me. I’ll call you… Kalas. How does that sound?”

He placed the baby crow in his satchel, and the bird didn’t object. Smiling, with a spring in his step, Casimir picked up the full bucket, its contents sloshing over the sides, and headed back toward Fenwood.

Brothers, a feast awaits.

What was that voice? And where did it come from?

Casimir felt a pain shoot through his forehead, right between his eyes, and he collapsed to his knees. All went dark, and then he was flying, soaring through the sky. The wind lifted him up and he found he had not arms and legs, but black wings and talons. Everything looked so crisp, so clear. He could see for miles around, across the marshes, through the fog, all the way to the mountains far to the west.

But he only cared about the smoke rising from his village, billowing out into the sky in great black waves. His neighbors’ fading screams rolled across the wetlands, their terror floating on the breeze. Crows gathered around him, their cries filled with revelry. Hunger boiled in his gut, along with a sickening anticipation, but for what, he did not know. He perched on what was left of the Fenwood general store’s roof–it had caved in from the fire raging below–and scanned the ruins of the village with sharp eyes.

Old Joan Taylor and her daughter Bea stared at the sky with empty eyes. The Fisher twins slept in a pool of blood, holding hands until the end. Bobby Baker and the rest of his goons laid disembowled, slumped against the rubble of the inn, their eyes wide with horror even in death.

That’s when he saw them in their skins and furs, with their wicked blades and blood-soaked smiles. Demons masquerading as men.

One of the bandits, a tall man with the right side of his face covered in tattoos, stood over a pair of thin villagers–his parents. They held up their hands, begging for their lives, but it wasn’t enough. The bandit’s axe drank deep, and they fell mutilated to the ground, clutched in each other’s arms.

Casimir wanted to scream, but all he could let out was a shrill caw.

The bandits ransacked the village, then left as quickly as they had arrived. He wanted to go to his parents, to find them, to hold them as they breathed their last. Yet he had no control over his body. He pushed and pushed, yet the crow would not budge.

Until it did.

He descended upon the ruins of his home, and an evil taste filled his mouth–the taste of flesh, blood, and death–one he would never forget.

Or forgive.

Casimir soared through the sky, his dark wings casting even darker shadows across the marshes.

Even inhabiting Kalas’ body, as poor a sense of smell as the corvid had, Casimir could sense the slightest hint of rot festering below. Fog rose off the waters, obscuring the putrid depths behind a veil of white. Some of the fog would burn off with the day’s heat, but that would not be for several hours. Still, the rising sun’s light dispelled the bitter cold and warmed his bones. It felt good to stretch his wings after the evening’s roost.

On mornings like this, it was hard to think of his power as a curse.

It had taken several years, but Casimir eventually figured out the push and pull, and he could–for the most part–keep the crow in check. Yet with rot and carrion all around, it remained a constant struggle. Kalas was a headstrong bird, stubborn and clever–not at all one to accept direction without compromise.

The bandits had left a trail of carnage in their wake. Perhaps a dozen men at most, the savages burned every small village in Mergerentur from the mouth of the river Furvus to the shores of Lake Noctis in the south. Out in the sticks, there was little to stop them; peasants with pitchforks could only do so much against the brutal, well-armed men. No lords paid them any mind, and no knights would dare to enter this godforsaken land to pursue them. Only a madman would.

Or one bent on vengeance.

Casimir had been tracking them for weeks, but every time he closed the distance between them, the bandits would disappear into the wetlands. The awful weather didn’t help; rainwaters had gorged the marshes and caused the Furvus to spill over into the floodplains, making travel impractical in most parts and impossible in others. And unlike Kalas, Casimir could not fly.

At least, not in the physical sense.

Off in the distance, he saw it: a thin tendril of gray, wispy smoke rising through the dense canopy, just past the tree line. Only Kalas’ keen eyesight could have picked it out, obscured as it was by the fog. He descended and skimmed over the standing water below, fetid pools full of cattails, lily pads, and swamp grass. A cloud of insects flitted around his wings, and he felt the pull of the crow’s will, compounded by his empty belly.

Fine, he thought. Have it your way.

Casimir snapped at the insects, catching and crushing their tiny bodies with his beak.

Yuck. Swampflies. Hope you’re happy, Kalas.

With a great flap of his wings, the insects scattered and Casimir closed in on the shoreline. Water-gums drank from the black waters, their roots reaching deep into the depths. Frogs chirped in eerie near-synchronization, disturbed only by the occasional splash from something that lurked beneath the marsh’s surface. He perched in a sycamore and peered through the fog, his crow vision cutting through it like hot steel.

At last, he had found them: the men who destroyed his home, slaughtered his family, and upended his life.

There were fewer than he remembered. Half a dozen men, wrapped tight in furs and skins, slept close to the dying embers of a small fire. Their swords and axes, with crude, jagged edges stained crimson with blood, lay scattered on the ground just within arm’s reach. A grizzled monster of a man, the right side of his face covered in tattoos, warmed his hands over the coals.

That’s him.

The skinned, half-butchered carcass of a deer hung from the drooping branches of a willow. Picked-clean bones littered the campsite, strewn about as if it were the site of a giant game of knucklebones.

Kalas tugged at his mind like a wild horse and he let out a harsh, impatient caw, and his vision went dark.

Casimir sat cross-legged on a stone, his hands in his lap, and listened to the Furvus’ waters slowly trickle downstream. His head spun and stars flashed before his eyes. Snapping back to his own body always disoriented him. Still he held the position and focused on the sounds of the marsh as his consciousness settled back into his own body. The bubbling of the waters, the scent of sulphur, and the dampness of the morning grounded him as his sense of self evened out. Satisfied, he took a deep breath and felt the cool air fill his lungs.

That never gets easier, Casimir thought, and looked to the west. He closed his eyes and reached for Kalas; the connection with the crow was still there, albeit distant. But the crow felt satisfied, at least for the moment.

Groaning, Casimir stretched his legs and dusted off his trousers. What he wouldn’t give for a warm night in. He fingered the hilt of his knife strapped to his side.

Soon, he thought.

Casimir traipsed through the marshes for several miles, using his connection to Kalas as a waypoint, sticking to dry land as much as possible to avoid run-ins with the marshes’ more dangerous predators. By the time he found the campsite, the sun had crested, and the morning’s chill had given way to a wet, sticky humidity, though the eerie fog lingered. The bandits had left, making no attempt to cover their tracks; perhaps they did not feel the need, not when leagues of wetlands surrounded them on all sides. The bandits had thrown damp soil over the fire, yet the scent of smoke still clung to the air. The pungent deer carcass had been cut down, half-sunk into the mud, crusted with flies and maggots and picked at by carrion feeders.

Casimir gagged as Kalas landed on his shoulder and pecked at his ear affectionately. He ruffled the bird’s feathers and squinted through the fog. Muddy tracks and trampled undergrowth indicated they headed south toward Mosshollow.

Another village of victims.

By the time he caught up with them, it was too late.

Mosshollow was a small settlement deep in the swamp, where little sunlight made it past the dense wetland canopy. Reed huts rose up out of the waters on stilts–or they would have, if they still stood. Several had been hacked to pieces and left abandoned to the depths, their contents floating amongst the stilled waters.

And the bodies.

Not of the villagers, to his surprise, but the bandits. Some floated face-down in the water. Others laid on the reed platforms, their bodies contorted into hideous positions. All dead, save one.

The man with the face tattoos.

The leader sat slumped against one of the huts, a pitchfork thrust through his stomach. It was the kind of wound from which a man died slowly, painfully. Flies buzzed around the wound and crawled across his skin. Kalas left Casimir’s shoulder and perched in a nearby willow, eying the bandit hungrily.

“You,” Casimir said. “What happened here?”

The bandit coughed. “They were ready. Heard stories of us, apparently. Killed my boys, and left me for dead.” He laughed sadistically then coughed again, harder, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. “Guess it was bound to happen sooner or later, eh?”

“Do you remember Fenwood?” Casimir watched as the bandit’s eyes widened. “You killed my family. Destroyed my home. Tell me, what was it all for? Why did they all have to die?”

“A survivor, eh? You should know.” The bandit let out a wet groan. “It’s tough out here in the sticks. But I’d be lyin’ if I said it didna’ make me feel strong. Powerful, even. Ya don’t look twice when a fen wolf takes down a deer. But the second you kill another man–”

“That’s your reason?” Casimir gripped the handle of the pitchfork and twisted. The bandit screamed. “And here I thought you had some ambition or another. You’re nothing but a beast.”

The bandit spat blood at Casimir as he stood and turned around, facing toward the willow. More crows gathered, cawing alongside Kalas.

Watching. Waiting.

“Kill me, then. And take your revenge.” The bandit’s voice croaked. “Kill me,” he repeated, as fury turned to despair, his words snuffed out by the cawing of the crows.

Casimir thumbed over the hilt of his knife, then shook his head. He had dreamed of this day for years. To be the one to kill the man who killed his parents. But now that he was here, in front of him, helpless and on the verge of death, he hesitated.

In truth, he felt nothing. No rage, no sadness. Only emptiness. And no amount of bloodshed would fill the void in his gut.

He’s all yours, Kalas.

A cacophony of flapping wings, delighted caws, and pained cries erupted behind him as the murder of crows descended.

From the Prompt Vault

Next, it’s your turn!

Write a story inspired by the prompt: marsh.

If you use this prompt, restack this post and tag me in it so I can read your work. I love seeing what the fantasy community comes up with week to week.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Until next time…

Cheers,

Josh

🚨 P.S. Did you catch last week’s story? If not, you can read it below. 🚨

The Vine Whisperer | A Fantasy Short Story