Free Ravenspell Book 1: Of Mice and Magic by David Farland

best she could. “So, do you just want me to eyeball things?”
    “We don’t know squat about the little lady yet,” Rufus said. “Word is that she’s a mouse of the snake-bait variety—straight out of a pet shop.”
    Lady Blackpool seemed to consider that bit of news. She stopped and gulped loudly. She fell silent, and it seemed that the night closed in, and even the curtains of cobwebs went still, as if listening. “So, she was born to be snake bait, eh? They’re a barbaric lot. Uncouth, ill-mannered, ignorant of even the most basic lore of mousedom . . . Why should I save her—”
    The shrew fell silent and stopped twitching for a second. That alone seemed miraculous. But then her eyes began to glow a bright magenta, and she looked to the west and focused on something miles and miles away. Rufus knew that the witch was having a vision, and she’d want to use all of her concentration to see and hear.
    “I see her there,” Lady Blackpool cried. “I see Amber, the Thirteenth Mouse—and the forces of darkness are gathering against her!”
    The Thirteenth Mouse? Rufus wondered. That was more news than his spies had been able to obtain. Did the enemy know who she was yet?
    Distantly, Rufus could hear something—the growl of thunder—and he could see lightning flashing in Lady Blackpool’s eyes, as if reflected in them, and he could hear the screams of death and war, and he saw strange shadows—mice in a pitched battle, carrying weapons. “A storm is coming. A storm that will sweep the world,” Lady Blackpool said.
    Suddenly, the vision ended, and her glowing eyes faded to a dull purple with only the slightest hint of light. Lady Blackpool whispered desperately, “I’ve seen the future. I must go to her. Now.”
    The shrew raced past Rufus, down the trail, while curtains of cobwebs stirred in her wake. She was in such a hurry that she left her candied crawdads.
    She ran to the edge of the swamp, and Rufus followed in big hops, trying to keep up. Just where the ground surrendered to water, Lady Blackpool shouted, “Sea Foam, Lord of the Deep, I summon you!”
    The water, dyed black by the tannins of cypress bark, began to swirl in a wide vortex, and waves lapped against the shore. An alligator made a burping noise and dove for cover. The water whirled faster and faster, like a whirlpool, only in reverse, for instead of sinking down, the water began to bubble above the surface, rising in a column.
    Suddenly from out of the black water, an enormous sea turtle sprang up, flopping into the air.
    He arced up into the trees, then dropped to the ground on his back, and lay there flapping his flippers in shock, trying to turn over.
    He began to sputter, “What’s . . . what’s going on?”
    “No time for chitchat,” Lady Blackpool said. “I need help, and you owe me.”
    Sea Foam gulped and looked around with wide eyes.
    “He owes you?” Rufus asked.
    Lady Blackpool ignored the question, and Rufus suspected that he knew why. Though Lady Blackpool screamed and ranted and did much to nurture the impression that she was the wickedest witch in the swamps, she had a good heart and had probably done something to help the sea turtle at one time or another. She would just never confess to it, of course.
    So instead she said in a venomous tone, “I need a ride, Sea Foam, in an armored vehicle. And you’re it.”
    The turtle gulped and flapped his flippers helplessly. “I’ll give you a swim wherever you want to go—if you’ll just help flip me over.”
    Lady Blackpool went to the huge sea turtle, who had to weigh three hundred pounds, and flicked him with a finger of her left paw. The turtle whirled in the air and fell—splat!—on the ground. He looked about, panting, with a dazed expression.
    Lady Blackpool hopped into his shell, just in the crook of his neck, and stood there muttering an incantation.
    “Where to?” the poor turtle begged.
    “That way!” Lady Blackpool said in a determined voice.