Free Raven's Ladder by Jeffrey Overstreet Page A

faraway islands, seen the fishing nets burgeoning. If his half-starved, exhausted people ever tasted those riches, all that had survived Abascar’s collapse would be ruined. He mouthed one of Scharr ben Fray’s lessons: “The greatest threat to what is best is something persuasively good.”
    There was only one direction open to him now—the path into vision, the way to New Abascar.
    An arrow slammed into the underside of a thick bough nearby. Dangling from its shaft was a sling, and glittering seeds were spilling down into the campsite.
    Cal-raven laughed. “Chillseed!”
    “The Gatherers found it, my lord!” came Jes-hawk’s happy cry. “And in less than two days! Let’s go home!”
    The company was jubilant with relief, and the king proclaimed Krawg and Warney as “Abascar’s Masters of Herbs.”
    But the joy dissolved as Cal-raven handed the sling of chillseed to Shanyn and announced that now they could begin the second stage of their mission.
    Shanyn flinched. “You can’t mean it. You brought me because it’s dangerous out here. I beg you—”
    “And I’ve begged myself to find a better solution. I covet your company. But the mind must rule the heart in these matters, and you can get back to Say-ressa faster than any of us.”
    “Must I go alone?”
    “Send Gatherers,” mumbled Bowlder.
    “Starvation and illness are as dangerous as beastmen and bandits,” Cal-raven growled. “Krawg and Warney can find food and healing herbs. Further, they look like ordinary travelers. Where we’re going, we mustn’t attract attention. Shanyn looks like nothing less than a king’s defender.” He shrugged. “Really, must you be so impressive?”
    He did not get the laugh he wanted.
    “I can be ugly if I have to be.” Shanyn exchanged a furtive, troubled glance with Jes-hawk, a fleeting connection that told Cal-raven more than he had guessed about them.
    “Shanyn will take the chillseed,” he said with finality. “We’ll go on, following signs Scharr ben Fray left for me. He says they’ll lead to an answer for Abascar. If Red Moon Season passes before we get there, the vision will fade.”
    “Vision?” Snyde groaned.
    “If my teacher is right,” said the king, “then we’ll return with a story more exciting than anything shared at this campfire. It may be that the people of Abascar will rise up and march out from Barnashum with new hope and a new purpose.” His speech inspired a worrying silence. Cal-raven cleared his throat. “Shanyn, I am grateful. Ride fast for Barnashum, and I suspect you’ll arrive before midnight.”

    The bristling plains were restless. Seedpods crackled. Springnippers sprang. And the golden waves of brush seemed to undulate, a trick of the light as a gauzy haze muddied the sun’s glow.
    Quarreling and distressed, the people made their way down Barnashum’s cliffs and out into the maze. Archers and soldiers formed a protective perimeter around them as they entered the dark sea of thorn-barbed branches through which a host of beastmen had charged only a few months past. Who could say what prowled there now?
    Flies moved in clouds across the paths. A flock of peskies appeared, darting through the tapestry of boughs and twittering giddily as if the exodus were the most exciting thing they’d seen all summer. But when a brascle crossed the sky, the peskies vanished, and the people of Abascar wished thatthey, too, could take cover.
When brascles soar, beastmen prowl
—so went the children’s verse.
    Tabor Jan scanned the parade for the mage, eager to learn what he could about this new threat growing in the ground. But Scharr ben Fray had not appeared since their encounter in the corridor.
    The sun had only begun to descend when Tabor Jan moved to the front of the line and entered the Cragavar. As he did, he heard the archers behind him hiss a warning.
    A vawn skulked beneath the trees. The creature was not trying to hide; her head wagged low, her long reptilian tail