Raven's Ladder by Jeffrey Overstreet Page A

remnant of Abascar crosses the Expanse to find a new foundation, the better.”
    “You want us to go beyond Fraughtenwood? To the Forbidding Wall?”Tabor Jan laughed, incredulous. “Such a journey seems too foolish to risk on a guess.”
    “Cal-raven will return with something better than a guess.” There was that smug, knowing smile that Tabor Jan resented. “His most difficult challenge is this—to get the people past an easier and more alluring possibility. Abascar’s prejudice against the Bel Amicans is failing fast.”
    “Cal-raven has no desire to go to Bel Amica. The Seers have—”
    “You know your old friend better than that. Cal-raven hates the Seers, sure. But his desire to walk through those halls and marketplaces again is almost unbearable. He wants it so badly he scares himself. That’s why he’s desperate to find something, anything else. He knows that the distractions of Queen Thesera’s house could be Abascar’s undoing.”
    A commotion drew their attention to the north end of the camp. The guards’ shouts were hostile at first but quickly turned to excitement.
    Tabor Jan could not help but cry out in the dark. “Shanyn!”
    “It’s begun,” sighed Scharr ben Fray. “I wish you good ground, safe campsites, and the best of the Cragavar’s summer bounty. Yours is the greatest exodus since Tammos Raak led the children of the curse over the Forbidding Wall into the world we know today. I will leave you to tend to the healer.”
    Tabor Jan welcomed the swordswoman into the firelight even as he heard Rumpa’s stride fade. He let others explain the exodus to Shanyn as they carried the bundle to the beds where Say-ressa and the other wounded lay in fevered sleep.
    Tabor Jan placed a hand on the healer’s burning forehead while Shanyn folded the chillseed pods in a cloth, pounded them to powder with a stone, then cast the powder into a bowl of hot water and stirred up a cloud of steam. Tabor Jan held Say-ressa’s head while Shanyn spooned the tea into the sleeping woman’s mouth. And they waited, a crowd of golden faces shining in the dark all around them.
    Not far away gentle notes of music drifted along like sparks from the fire, and Lesyl’s voice rose in a quiet, hopeful song. “Help is coming. But the night is dark and long. Help is coming. Until then, kindle me a song.”

7
C AMP F IRE IN THE C RAGAVAR
    O n the third day of their journey, four vawns followed Jes-hawk as he rode in a sulking slump. Cal-raven smiled sadly, understanding the archer’s disappointment all too well. Now both of them had hearts divided.
    The company slowed only to skirt the edge of a vast, overgrown berry patch, the vines interwoven into an impenetrable wall. They picked berry-rolls—thick, juicy husks that curled into scrolls as they grew; when unrolled, they exposed rich beds of crimson berries, shiny as fish eggs. Soon Warney’s grin was as red as the stains down his tunic.
    I’m not the only one who has missed the forest
, Cal-raven thought.
    During their run through sparse stands of haircloak trees, a long-ear was startled from its dig in the lee of a fallen tree. The stag-sized rabbit bolted, and Jes-hawk was off in hot pursuit. It was an hour before the exhausted archer returned, more discouraged than before, and the way he chewed a gob of root-gum, he might as well have been cursing.
    Dusk began climbing the grass and the tree trunks. Cal-raven had anticipated a swifter voyage. Even now the red moon would be peering over the Forbidding Wall, glowering down on the Expanse like the eye of the overlord from whom Tammos Raak had fled. He could sense the company’s weariness, and Say-ressa would tell him that he was not a good judge of his own need for a pause. At his order Jes-hawk drew them aside into a canopied chamber of violet trees.
    A light rain returned; sharp hissing notes sang from the fire. Breezesteased the flames, and Cal-raven knew that these winds moved on the momentum gained while