An unkindness of ravens passed low overhead. Or was it a murder of crows? He was never too sure of the difference, and anyway, even at this relatively low level it was impossible to tell. No doubt others would have taken this as a bad omen, but his people did not believe in such things. Omens, yes, but portended by birds of the sky? No. He found himself musing upon the reason behind the odd names for any gathering of either bird, and why they had such dark connotations. Indeed, why did humans in particular – almost exclusively, in his experience – find the need to name groups of animals in weirder and weirder ways? Some made a certain sense: a pride of lions. Well, yes: lions were proud and they walked as if they owned everything around them, so you could (probably completely incorrectly) ascribe pride to a gathering of such magnificent beasts. Wolves travelled in packs, and yes, they were packed together to a degree, so again maybe. Even the animal most closely related to the lion, neither of which were generally seen around here and were only to be encountered in large numbers on the southern continent, the tiger, could have its collective noun justified, as an ambush of tigers sounded particularly appropriate, given their habit of attacking quickly and without warning.

But some of these groupings made no sense. A shoal of fish? Sometimes humans called this a school. A school? He thought, mentally rolling his eyes at the thought. What exactly did the humans think fish learned in the sea, and who taught them? Then there was the bear. A group of them was apparently named a sloth. A sloth? Bears were a little slow, yes, but to compare and link them to one of the slowest creatures on the planet was perhaps pushing it, but not so much as cats (a clowder, whatever that was supposed to be), clans for badgers, a surfeit of skunks, or even a pace of asses! It went on: a shrewdness of apes, a span of mules, a richness of martens, a wake of buzzards, a pod of seals, a convocation of eagles, a charm of finches – oh yes, now we're back to the birds again, he scowled. A murder of crows indeed!

He supposed that looking up at them as they passed over, and listening to their raw, croaking calls he could understand why the humans had felt they should label them with such a dark name for a gathering of the birds, a chilling, scary, ominous name heavy with foreboding and dread. The fact that they were completely black (or very nearly; he had never seen one close-up enough to be sure, but they certainly looked like it from any distance from which he had observed one) and made that odd sound had led to their earning themselves a name in popular literature, ancient and recent, and he knew of at least a dozen adventure novels which used the raven – oddly enough, never the crow: it was always the raven. He assumed this was because it was bigger, looked more dangerous and evil and that its name fitted better with the general belief that these birds were involved in mischief – as a figure of evil, dark portent, even in some cases the avine alter-ego of some dark wizard.

Crowmurder, A Dark Wing Passing. Raven's Eye (also, but not by the same author and a completely different book, Eye of the Raven). Time of the Raven. Ravensclaw ... the list went on and one. One author who was either quite clever or else misunderstood the groupings had titled her seven-volume pseudo-historical romance series An Unkindness of Crows. Or was it A Murder of Ravens? He wasn't sure which, but the woman had definitely mixed up the nouns. Human legend would have you believe that these presumably blameless and possibly even brainless birds would alight on a tree branch, wall or other perch, stare at you intently, recording everything they wanted to know about you, or had been told to discern, and then fly off with a cackle of triumph to their dread master in some dark tower in (probably) an even darker forest, or on an island somewhere, or halfway up a mountain. There were even those who believed that the humble raven was the servant on the Surface of the Devil himself, the very ruler of Hell, and that these birds brought back not only news of mortals, but on occasion could deliver to him their souls.

Utter rubbish, of course, and as a writer himself he was vaguely offended by the ease with which these authors of fiction would twist and reshape the raven into whatever villain or tool of the dark wizard or enchantress suited their purpose, and enlarged their bank account of course. People – and not only humans, he knew – ate it all up greedily, and to be totally fair, when one of these ravens or crows looked at you with their sharp, dark, shiny eyes, you could have a momentary belief that they were looking at you with intelligence far beyond their humble body, or that they were the conduit for a mind far sharper than theirs or yours, and when they flew off – almost always suddenly, as if they had received a summons or completed their task – you could fancy that there was some truth in the idea that they were reporting to a higher power. A look from a raven could chill you, and make you believe in things that you would otherwise lend not the slightest bit of credence to.

Looking up at the dark, bruised sky above him, Gloki sighed and noted that though the rain, which had been almost continuous since he had left Deadwitch four days ago, had now stopped, the chill in the air remained and the sun refused to come out from behind thick, heavy clouds. It was going to be a cold night, and he needed to find shelter. Since being turned away from Hard Rain two days ago he had had to sleep rough, which as a dwarf bothered him little, but his supplies were dwindling and he needed a hot meal, while a soft bed to lie in would not go amiss either. He knew that very soon now he must turn away from towns entirely, striking out across the dark fields and into the encroaching forests that lined the way for hundreds of miles, travelling through places no-one of larger stature than he could go, so the next stop, wherever it may be, would have to be his last, and he must stock up and try to make contact with other dwarves he knew around this area. He had been annoyed not to have been able to enter Hard Rain, as he knew the hearth Faery at the Bear Claw, and had not seen Robbie in some time. He would have obtained much information from the nixie, especially if he paid for her Sparkle. But something bad had happened in the small town and though he had been given no details of what that was, it was quite clear that wards had been placed around the town limits, and nobody would be let in, so he had ridden on.

He remembered too the odd feeling he had of being followed, though when he had pulled off into a small turning in the road barely large enough to hide him, and watched to see who passed him, nobody did, and he had had to admit to himself that perhaps he was being paranoid. Who, after all, would be coming after him? Sir Eradon could certainly spare no more knights, and even if he had changed his mind and sent some to escort Gloki on his journey, why would they then not hail him, make themselves known? The issue had been pushed aside though, as the rain had decided at that very moment to see if it could hammer him into the ground, and he had had to ride for the nearest shelter, which turned out to be an old abandoned mine he knew about. Mostly collapsed now, it led nowhere and was not one of the “secret places” he had assured Eradon that only he could go, but it served as a makeshift camp in which to wait out the falling night and the heavy rain. With the last of his rations eked out to the morning, he was now running on empty, and while a dwarf was hardy and did not need as much sustenance as a human to keep going, his stomach was complaining and he groaned in sympathy with it.

“Well, well, well! What have we here?”

The sound came from one side of him, to the right, and he realised he had just reached a crossroads, from the right fork of which four men were approaching him. No, he looked again: two men and two women. They were not armoured but they were armed, and the lack of co-ordination in their garb seemed to point to them being common bandits, the kind of scum that were very prevalent out here on the more lonely roads, people who made a living by taking the goods, and often the lives, of others. He glanced in their direction and was briefly cheered to see the distant lights of a town or village: that should be Long Lane, where he hoped to find lodgings for the night.

“Greetings.” He curtly nodded at the four, deciding it was best not to actually look for trouble, given that he was one against four, and by his own admission not the greatest of fighters. One of the bandits, a woman by her voice though you could not tell from the face, as all four had scarves wound around most of their faces, leaving only the eyes visible, barked a callous laugh.

“Hey! It talks!” She half-turned to her companions, who all echoed the laugh. There was no humour in any of it. She turned back, leaning down from the neck of her horse, peering at him intently. “What the fuck are you, anyway? A midget?” Again she turned slightly to the others, cocking her head back at him. “Never seen such a tiny little man before,” she remarked. “Nor such a tiny horse! Hey!” A thought seemed to strike her. “Maybe it's a kid!” She leaned down again, her arm reaching out to him, as if to touch him. As she stretched out towards him he noticed she had some sort of drawing on her arm, a tattoo that looked like a bat attacking a snake, though he could not be sure. Her eyes, sharp and clear and full of cruelty, regarded him with interest as she asked “You somebody's little boy, huh?” More laughter greeted this question. The four of them were obviously under no illusions that he was anyone's child.

“Somebody's,” he agreed shortly. “But it's been a long time since anyone called me boy.”

The demeanour of the woman who was speaking, who clearly was their leader, changed to a hard, stern tone. “Yeah?” she sneered. “Look like a boy to me. Don't 'e look like a boy to youse?” She turned to secure the support of her comrades, and Gloki decided he had better move. His hand flashed to his axe and it flew from his hand, burying itself in the middle of the woman's forehead. She screamed – screeched, really, more a sound of rage than pain – and toppled backwards off her horse, landing heavily in the dust of the crossroads. For a moment, everything was utterly still, then one of the men roared, and spurred his horse forward. Deprived of his main weapon, Gloki had to rely on his short sword, which was no match for the big heavy broadsword the man wielded. The two blades met and the weight of the bandit's weapon, coupled with the forward momentum of his horse, tore Gloki's sword from his hand. Weaponless now, he kicked his heels to the flanks of his own steed and made off at speed, but the trio, roaring in pursuit and with vengeance for their slain leader in their eyes, easily caught up to him.

One whirled a rope around and let fly. The dwarf felt its embrace as it pulled him tight, dragging him off the horse, which, maddened with fear, thundered off down the road without him. He smashed down onto the ground, hauled along by the bandit who had roped him. All three remaining robbers were now whooping and hollering as he raced along the dusty ground, feeling his skin tearing and stones and other debris on the road jamming into him, stopping for a split-second then letting him go, but not before leaving him a parting gift – a bruise, a long cut, an abrasion, a stunned blow to the head – as he careened along on the ground.

Consciousness was rapidly fading, as were the voices of the bandits, and the last thing he saw as they pulled him up and down the road was the dead body of the leader, his axe still sticking out from between her eyes. Her dead face seemed to accuse him, and if so, then her comrades were exacting their bloody revenge for his crime. As the world spun around him and began to dissolve, his last thought was that perhaps those ravens had been a bad omen, after all.