Whispers to a Crow

By Tristan Gray

Paid to unearth the fate of the children of the Three Willows, Fiadh expects the work of a predatory fey.

But this was a very different kind of monster who preyed upon the village folk. One that would leave her no choice but to journey into

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tristan Gray
• Release date: Apr 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781838485412

Book preview

Whispers to a Crow

Tristan Gray

Copyright © 2020 Tristan Gray

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-8384854-1-2

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and foremost, my thanks go to my partner Jude Telford who has supported me crafting this tale even whilst I guarded its contents away until I was certain it deserved being read. Thank you for your endless encouragement and patience. Everything is easier knowing you are with me every step of the way.

To my Mum and Dad, who inspired my creativity from my very earliest memories, without which I would never have set hands to a keyboard to begin with. To my brother, Callum, who I forged those memories with.

Thank you to Gillian Hamnett from Dark Sky Pages for going above and beyond with her work on the Scots dialogue editing. She helped shape the words the people of the Three Willows to build this story from.

Thank you to Margaret Kingsbury, editor for Salt & Sage Books, for her work on the developmental edit that gave this story its upgrade it needed to become my first published piece of work. Her guidance was exactly the support I needed to complete these forty-odd pages. To Erin Olds, as well, for keeping on top of my messy emails and keeping the two of us in touch.

To my friends Matt, Vinn, John, Ben, and Joy, thank you for your help with the final polishes and putting up with my seemingly endless mentions of the existence of drafts you never actually were able to see. I hope the wait was worth it!

FOREWARD

Throughout this short story you’re likely to find dialogue that will be harder to get to grips with than even phonetically typed accents. That’s because this dialogue is written partly in Scots – A language related to English spoken across much of Scotland.

The two languages split around the 800s CE, similar to the divide between Danish and Norwegian, and most Scottish people you meet will speak some Scots.

I introduced Scots into my writing because I felt that it was important to give something back to the culture that has inspired so much of the mythology and world of these short stories. Scots is experiencing a revival in Scotland and doing my small part to support that feels like an important return on the inspiration this country has given to me.

The Scots dialogue has been mixed with English to be more friendly to readers with no background in Scots, but I encourage you to learn as you read.

I have provided a glossary in the back for translation of some of the more distant words. There are many resources to learn more, from the excellent Len Pennie’s ‘Scots word of the day’ to more thorough material from the Scottish Book Trust.

I hope you enjoy learning from them as much as I have.

Whispers to a crow

A lonely light shone in the darkness, a single candle-lit lantern swinging from the tavern’s door through the fog. A single beaten path led to its door, far from the well-travelled road.

This was no place for travellers. There was no stable to shelter her steed, nor a sign to announce some alliterative name that waifs would remember and pass on to their fellows in other taverns along the way.

But this was the place. Too far for any but the desperate to travel to, where only an empty purse or a more personal cause could make the journey worthwhile.

She dismounted and knotted Dìleas’ reins about the sturdiest post of the dilapidated fence. Pausing for a moment, Fiadh pulled the note from her pocket and looked over it once more. The scrawl was difficult to decipher, clearly attempted by someone with little skill with writing, but the directions were clear enough. Only the desperate put out a note seeking aid from one of her