So-o, on Monday I featured an Alice Hoffman quote on crows, which I like very much — as well as quoting from the poem A Murder of Crows by that maestro of the mot juste, Joanna Preston.

Today, I’m rounding out my crow theme with some excerpts from The Wall Of Night series, which I believe “speak” to why the Alice Hoffman quote appeals.

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“The fog in front of him lifted slowly and drifted apart, revealing the tall figure of a man.  His back was turned to Kalan and a long black cloak fell almost to his booted heels; his right hand grasped a tall, hooded spear and a crow perched on his left shoulder.  The bird’s head turned, snaring Kalan’s gaze with one bright eye, then it lifted its wings and cawed, the harsh cry echoing through trees and mist. …”

~ from © The Heir Of Night: The Wall of Night Book One, Chapter 19 — The Huntmaster

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Malian’s dream was darkness: blackness without stars, water without light, a tower without a shadow that she remembered climbing—but that too fell away as she plummeted, diving head first through the dream. She kept her eyes open, remembering the crow in the shadow tower, the one that had told her this was something she would need to learn how to do.

~ from © The Gathering of the Lost, The Wall Of Night Book Two – Prologue

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“Malian had sold her cob in the nearest market town and abandoned the identity of Heris the scribe for that of Crow, Raven’s companion hedge warrior … two itinerant swords-for-hire, of indeterminate origin but sporting cloth head-wrappings and the bone-and-feather fetishes favored by Lathayran mercenaries. She had even woven the hair on either side of her face into the narrow braids favored in Lathayra, working in crow’s feathers pulled from a hedge outside Stoneford to give color to her mercenary’s name. …

Birds of ill omen, she thought wryly, recalling how both innkeepers and caravan masters had eyed them askance … “

~ from © Daughter of Blood, The Wall Of Night Book Three – Chapter 14, Crow