There was a large crow sitting in the orchard. Not in the trees, which wouldn’t have drawn the Keeper’s attention, but in a stone pedestal in the center of the small grove. A cursory glance showed the Keeper that there were others of its kind perched atop the windowsills and ledges of the surrounding buildings, but these seemed like normal birds. They fluttered and looked around, cawed and shuffled amongst one another. A few even took flight, jockeying briefly for the better position with one another before settling back down. But not the large raven. This one didn’t move, didn’t caw, didn’t as much as blink. It simply sat there, on the granite pedestal, and stared at the Keeper with large, knowing eyes.

“Crows,” the Keeper said, half-expecting the bird to dart away at the sudden noise, despite its odd behavior. It didn’t. The Keeper frowned.

“Corvus,” he continued, approaching the bird. “A group of crows is called a murder. Often seen as trickster spirits or psychopomps,” the Keeper paused, looking around at the murder of crows surrounding him. “Ferrymen of souls. Omens of death, war, and plagues. Which are you, I wonder?”

The Keeper cocked his head to examine the bird. It was sleek and shiny, a paragon of its kind. But this crow was no normal crow. That much the Keeper could see. Up close it was obvious that there was an intelligence behind those eyes, an intelligence which surpassed the normally high intelligence of this particular species. This crow was a messenger of some sort. Or a message.

The Keeper walked around the pedestal as he pondered the mystery. That too, was one of the crow’s purviews, though it was more often attributed to their cousin, the raven. The crow simply stared at the Keeper, implacable, its body shifting only as much as necessary to maintain its gaze. Not a bob, not a step, not a flutter.

“Alright then,” the Keeper said, returning to his initial spot. “I’ve given up, my friend. What is your purpose here? What is your message for me?”

Moving faster than the Keeper could follow, the crow’s beak shot forward and snapped a strip of flesh from the loremaster’s cheek. Startled, the Keeper jerked back and put a hand to his face, but the crow had already spread its wings and lifted by the time he felt the wetness trickling down his cheek. The bird rose with the barest flutter, then looped a single loop around the orchard before settling on a nearby ledge. Crows that had been crowding the area darted quickly out of the way as the large crow came to rest, each bird bobbing in a way that reminded the Keeper of subjects bowing to passing nobility. The summer sun caught the curve of the crow’s obsidian beak, glinting a flashing red. Then the crow opened its mouth and issued a single high pitched caw which made the Keeper’s ears ring and set of the rest of the crows in a raucous chorus.

A pair of acolytes came running out into the orchard, drawn by the noise. The air was suddenly filled with the fluttering beat of a hundred pairs of wings as the murder of crows took flight.

“Keeper, what was that?” the first acolyte noted before going pale. “Keeper, you’re bleeding!” The second fumbled for a handkerchief, passing it over to the loremaster. The Keeper idly took it and pressed it over the wound, never taking his eyes off the large crow which was still sitting on the ledge, starting at him. Until suddenly, it wasn’t.

“Well,” he said, “I suppose that answers that.”

The acolytes looked at one another, confused.