Raven's Watch [m] α

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feathery green and the reek of raven shit, cold stone and colder water. snow on the air, and the taste of that last was something skorpa held between his teeth. another moment and he would leave this ledge, go to taste the ground and find these wolves.

before him the branches shuddered, and he fell back with a wrinkled lip, body falling at once into deportment of man holding rusted axe, ready to bring it down upon warring head. what he found was no battle, no stricture of teeth, only a woman wearing the hues of an early spring rain.

there had been no time to learn the words of this place, but skorpa did not need to know their sound to understand her fright, to comprehend that regnvand fled from something. his stare flared beyond her to the hemlock leaves. some — metallic tang clung to this stranger. skorpa weighed her in a brief but heavy moment, but decided at last that he was not a dane who could deny himself silver.

a squalid smile spread his reddened mouth; in a moment he stepped to circle, to gesture her ahead of him. a thrall? did the gods send him in poetry to free her? and it must be so, for suddenly the man was there, the man whose scent melded with that of regnvand. he placed himself between them and offered the same slow, dangerous grin to that stranger. "jeg tror ikke, hun ønsker at tilhøre dig," he pointed out conversationally, though the hunch of his shoulders said other matters might soon burn.

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