On Ebon Wings, prologue

          Prologue
          Crey

          Vendale isn’t a very big town. Everyone knows everyone else, at least by face, so things usually stay pretty peaceful. We get the occasional tavern brawl, and sometimes the kids do stupid shit like breaking windows or stealing jewelry, but in general things are pretty quiet here. Sometimes, though, the outside world comes knocking on your door, and excitement finds you, whether you want it to or not.
          Trouble had actually been brewing for a long time now, but I didn’t see the signs, or chose to ignore them, until a young woman staggered into the Pauper’s Lens, her left side wet with her own blood. I rushed over to her, but she just growled and pushed past me. She made it about three steps toward the bar before collapsing in a heap onto the hardwood floor.
          As the Lens’s bouncer, dealing with stuff like this was technically my job, but people in Vendale don’t usually stab each other, so I was a little off guard, to say the least. I just kinda stared at the unconscious woman for a good ten, maybe fifteen seconds, until old Jake started barking orders. I hauled the woman into one of the inn’s beds, then Sabrina shooed me out while she bandaged the woman’s wounds.
          I waited. And I waited. And I waited some more. And when I was done waiting, I got up, knocked on the door, and was promptly told to be patient. So I kept waiting. Finally, when I thought I was going to die of boredom, Theresa, the town healer, showed up. She walked in, and then I waited some more
          After a few minutes, Theresa and Sabrina opened the door and told me that the mystery woman would be fine, but that I should watch over her as she slept and tell them if anything happened. That was fine by me, so I sat down on a stool next to the bed and waited. Again. But this time, it was ok, because there was a pretty girl in the bed next to me, even if that was all there was to it.
          I must have dozed off, because I remember waking up with Sabrina yelling at me for not changing the woman’s bandages. Of course, she would have yelled at me if I had changed them, but I guess I was supposed to run and get her when the bandaged needed changing. Whenever that was.
          Anyway, I tuned out Sabrina’s scolding (trust me, it gets easier with practice) and admired the unconscious woman on the bed. She was small. Not so much short, although she certainly wasn’t tall, but skinny, almost like a young boy except for the chest, and even that would go unnoticed in baggy clothes. I generally go for curvier women, but she was pretty all the same, especially once one factored in the smooth lines of her face and the long, straight hair, as black as a raven’s wing.
          Sabrina finished yelling and shooed me out of the room to change the woman’s bandages. A little while later, she let me back in, and told me to watch the woman again and come get help if anything happened. Or if the bandages needed changing.

          “Let’s see, I’m in pain, hungover, and lying in a strange bed in what I can only hope is an inn, with a man twice my size standing over me and only scattered memories of last night. I can only hope I’m not adding up the pieces right.”
          Ok, that startled me. Typically, people moan a bit before they wake up. Sometimes, especially coherent people sometimes forgo the moaning and skip straight to a “where am I?” or something similar. This woman had lost a fair bit of blood, and still the first thing out of her mouth wasn’t just a complete sentence, but an entire damned paragraph! That just wasn’t right.
          “Well? You gonna reassure me, or should I take your silence as your way of breaking it to me gently?”
          “Er, no, nothing happened last night. Well, actually, a lot happened, but nothing, you know, happened.”
          “Ok, good to know. What did happen, then?”
          “Well, you were stabbed, or something. You staggered into the Lens, collapsed, and I carried you here, where Sabrina and Theresa tended your wound. It must be almost midday now, so you’ve been asleep for about half-a-day.”
          “Half-a-day. Not bad. Father always said I healed quick. How long until it’s safe to move?”
          “Uh, I have no idea. I can go get Sabrina, if you want. She’d probably know.”
          “No thanks. I can wait. It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”
          “No, I guess it isn’t.”
          And then there was an awkward silence.
          And some more awkward silence.
          And after that, even more awk—hey, wait, I have something to ask her!
          “So, uh, what’s your name?”
          “Raven Falmer. Call me Falmer.”
          Heh. Someone’s parents lacked imagination.
          “Ok. Um, I’m Crey Gregor. You can call me Crey.”
          “How delightfully informal.”
          “Yeah, so, uh, I don’t recognize you. Are you new in town?”
          “I suppose.”
          “Where’d you come from?”
          “Caeliheim.”
          “Caeliheim? That’s pretty far away. What brings you out here?”
          “I’m looking for someone.”
          “Oh? Is he important?”
          “Yeah, but it’s not like that.”
          “What’s it like, then?”
          “I’m hunting him.”
          Once again, I was caught off-guard. This just wasn’t my day.
          So, if she was hunting someone, what did that make her? An avenger, seeking justice for some past wrong? An assassin, silencing a witness to a crime? A vigilante, tracking some great criminal mastermind in order to foil his plans? A bounty hunter, caring only for the price on her quarry’s head? I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know. I just wished, with all my heart, that I wasn’t stuck in a room with her.