The Great Ravens
'fifteen-foot wingspans' (GotM, UK Trade, p.56)
'Magic was ambrosia to Great Ravens. They were drawn to it by the scent of blood and power, and within its aura their lifespans lengthened into centuries. Its musk had other effects as well.' (GotM, UK Trade, p.143)
Crone's thoughts: The Great Ravens were born like maggots in the flesh of the Fallen One and that, oh, that will damn us! But wait! Have we not been honourable guardians of the Crippled God’s magic?...A magic we can unleash, if forced to.(MoI, UK Trade, p.86)
Korlat: 'Crone believes the secret of her kind’s birth is not known to us. It is the shame of their origins, you see – or so they themselves view it. Rake is indifferent to its . . . moral context, as we all are...The Great Ravens are unnatural creatures. The bringing down of the alien being who would come to be called the Crippled God was a . . .violent event. Parts of him were torn away, falling like balls of fire to shatter entire lands. Pieces of his flesh and bone lay rotting yet clinging to a kind of life in their massive craters. From that flesh the Great Ravens were born, carrying with them fragments of the Crippled God’s power. You have seen Crone and her kin – they devour sorcery, it is their true sustenance. To attack a Great Raven with magic serves only to make the creature stronger, to bolster its immunity. Crone is the First Born. Rake believes the potential within her is . . . appalling, and so he keeps her and ilk close.’(MoI, UK Trade, p.91)
Great Raven Names
Crone
Hurtle
Kin Clip
Ravens! Great Ravens!
Your damning cawls deride
histories sweeping beneath
your blackened wings –
Shatter the day
O flags of night,
rend with shadows
this innocent light
Ravens! Great Ravens!
Your drumming clouds arrive
swoop’d sudden sheer,
hissing travails
from no place
t’ the other –
Shatter the day,
O flags of night,
rend with shadows
this innocent light
Ravens! Great Ravens!
Your beaks clatter open
disgorging the sweat
of straining dismay
the clack of bones
promised this day –
I’ve seen the sheen
of your eyes the laughter
that rimes the living
your passing but an illusion –
we stop, we stare
we curse your cold winds
in knowing your flight’s path
wheeling you round us
again, oh, for ever again!
Ravens
Collitt (b.978)
(GotM, UK Trade, p.462-3)