Tale of the Crebain by Anne Wolfe

Many years ago, so long ago that nobody but the trees can remember it, a young boy lived in the hills between the great road and the Grey Mountains. In his childhood he was called Drust, because he had cried so loudly when he was born that he had awoken all the people of the village.

To the south of the village was a terrible fortress in a ring of stone, and this Drust did not like at all. To the east were the Grey Mountains, and these he was yet too young to climb. To the west was the great old road, and beyond that the great waste where the kings from over the sea had cut down the forests. Drust was not old enough to remember the forest, but he did not like the way the kings’ emissaries, which were always traveling up and down the old road, looked sideways at him when they chanced to meet. North of the village were more hills and forests, much like his own, but none the same as the last. In the hills north of the village he had met his dog, whose name was Lleucu, and had made many friends in the other villages.

One day Drust set out upon a new journey. He thought to go farther than he had ever gone before, and see what lay beyond the hills and villages that were like his own. He took up his sling and his stones, and said goodbye to his village, and set out. Lleucu went with him, for her puppies were now nearly full-grown dogs, and she was minded to see what deeds they might do if she left them to their own devices. Indeed in time many of them would grow to be great dogs in their own right, but those tales are too long and too many to tell now.

The beginning of the journey was easy, through hills and villages that Drust and Lleucu knew as well as their own. But in time they came to the strange country that Drust had sought. At first it was not strange; the green grass and the small flowers were the same, and the trees were the same, and the people of the last small village he passed spoke the same. But when the two came to the place where the cold border-river flowed down from the mountains, they knew that once they had crossed it they would truly be in a strange land.

The stones of the strange land lay in twisted, broken shapes, and the song of the wind rushing over them hurt the heart like a wound. Drust had grown strong enough to carry Lleucu while she slept, but for his own part he did not sleep, going onward and onward with every turn of the moon and sun. The land was fey, but it had taken hold of him, and he knew he had not seen all that he needed to see.

One day the two reached the top of a hill, and saw a great waste of ruined stones. They wandered the stones for a time, wondering who had once lived there. But in their wanderings, they chanced upon a great wolf, who held a crow in his mouth. He turned his eye upon them, and dropped the crow, readying himself to lunge upon them. At once Drust loosed a stone from his sling, hitting the wolf in his eye, and Lleucu leapt forward, tearing out the wolf’s throat.

Drust went to the crow, and took her up in his hands. She was mortally wounded. But on her dying breath he thought he heard words in his own tongue, urging him to go deeper into the maze of stones, and care for what he found there. He went in the way that she had told him, and at his path’s end found a nest and three crow chicks. After he had built a cairn for the dead crow, he took up the nest, and vowed to care for the chicks as she had asked. In his own two hands he carried the nest home to his village, and in his care it came to no harm.

Perhaps you have heard the tale of how, some years after that, Drust slew the greatest warrior in all the lands beside the mountains with a hailstone thrown from the very same sling, and of how he wedded the lady Eseld, and of how the people of all the villages he had visited in his youth gave him honor, and called him Corentin. It is far too long a tale to tell now. But no matter how great he became, or how many gathered around to hear his commands, still he watched over the three crows, and over their nests, and over their chicks’ nests, for all of the time that he lived.

At first the crows wandered over all the lands, except when the time came to lay eggs. But over the long years they came to love the house of Corentin, and they became his friends, and his children’s friends. And Corentin spoke with the young crows, learning their tongue and teaching them more of his own. They told him their true name, and ever after his people knew them as the crebain. In time the crebain shared secrets that only they had known, about all the lands and forests they knew, so that among all his people no one knew the secrets of the land better than he did. 

In time he grew to be an old man, and was called Gorhendad. And he taught his children and their children to speak with the crebain, so that they might know the secrets he did. And they vowed to guard the nests as their forefather had done, for as long as their line should last. In this way they gave honor to the vow he had made to the dying crow, so many years ago.

Chapter End Notes

I don't think I've ever been surprised by an OC quite like I was here! Drust quickly became one of my favorite characters I've ever written. I may have to actually write some of the other stories I alluded to - or, since my to-do list is approximately one thousand years long, perhaps you would like to write your own take on them! If anyone wants to write recursive fanfiction of this, especially one of the dog stories, I'd love to hear about it.