Crows

The whole scene from Voyager

This was hell. But James Fras­er was unfor­tu­nate­ly not dead, after all.
The body of a man lay across his own. Its dead weight crushed his left leg, explain­ing the absence of feel­ing. The head, heavy as a spent can­non­ball, pressed face­down into his abdomen, the damp-mat­ted hair a dark spill on the wet linen of his shirt. He jerked upward in sud­den pan­ic; the head rolled side­ways into his lap and a half-open eye stared sight­less­ly up behind the shel­ter­ing strands of hair.
It was Jack Ran­dall, his fine red captain’s coat so dark with the wet it looked almost black. Jamie made a fum­bling effort to push the body away, but found him­self amaz­ing­ly weak; his hand splayed fee­bly against Randall’s shoul­der, and the elbow of his oth­er arm buck­led sud­den­ly as he tried to sup­port him­self. He found him­self lying once more flat on his back, the sleet­ing sky pale gray and whirling dizzi­ly over­head. Jack Randall’s head moved obscene­ly up and down on his stom­ach with each gasp­ing breath.
He pressed his hands flat against the bog­gy ground—the water rose up cold through his fin­gers and soaked the back of his shirt—and wrig­gled side­ways. Some warmth was trapped between them; as the limp dead weight slid slow­ly free, the freez­ing rain struck his new­ly exposed flesh with a shock like a blow, and he shiv­ered vio­lent­ly with sud­den chill.
As he squirmed on the ground, strug­gling with the crum­pled, mud­stained folds of his plaid, he could hear sounds above the keen­ing of the April wind; far-off shouts and a moan­ing and wail­ing, like the call­ing of ghosts in the wind. And over­all, the rau­cous call­ing of crows. Dozens of crows, from the sound.
That was strange, he thought dim­ly. Birds shouldn’t fly in a storm like this. A final heave freed the plaid from under him, and he fum­bled it over his body. As he reached to cov­er his legs, he saw that his kilt and left leg were soaked with blood. The sight didn’t dis­tress him; it seemed only vague­ly inter­est­ing, the dark red smears a con­trast to the gray­ish green of the moor plants around him. The echoes of bat­tle fad­ed from his ears, and he left Cul­lo­den Field to the call­ing of the crows.

He was wak­ened much lat­er by the call­ing of his name.
“Fras­er! Jamie Fras­er! Are ye here?”
No, he thought grog­gi­ly. I’m not. Wher­ev­er he had been while uncon­scious, it was a bet­ter place than this. He lay in a small decliv­i­ty, half-filled with water. The sleet­ing rain had stopped, but the wind hadn’t; it whined over the moor, pierc­ing and chill­ing. The sky had dark­ened near­ly to black; it must be near evening, then.
“I saw him go down here, I tell ye. Right near a big clump of gorse.” The voice was at a dis­tance, fad­ing as it argued with someone.
There was a rus­tle near his ear, and he turned his head to see the crow. It stood on the grass a foot away, a blotch of wind-ruf­fled black feath­ers, regard­ing him with a bead-bright eye. Decid­ing that he posed no threat, it swiveled its neck with casu­al ease and jabbed its thick sharp bill into Jack Randall’s eye.
Jamie jerked up with a cry of revul­sion and a flur­ry of move­ment that sent the crow flap­ping off, squawk­ing with alarm.
“Ay! Over there!”
There was a squelch­ing through bog­gy ground, and a face before him, and the wel­come feel of a hand on his shoulder.“He’s alive! Come on, Mac­Don­ald! D’ye lend a hand here; he’ll no be walkin’ on his own.” There were four of them, and with a good deal of effort, they got him up, arms draped help­less about the shoul­ders of Ewan Cameron and Iain MacKinnon.
He want­ed to tell them to leave him; his pur­pose had returned to him with the wak­ing, and he remem­bered that he had meant to die. But the sweet­ness of their com­pa­ny was too much to resist. The rest had restored the feel­ing in his dead leg, and he knew the seri­ous­ness of the wound. He would die soon in any case; thank God that it need not be alone, in the dark.

All rights for the Pic­ture from Outlander go to the right­ful owner Starz/Sony
Picture from Leanach Cottage by Heike Ballegeer
Quo­te and Excerpt by Diana Gabaldon from “Voyager”
I own not­hing but the editing