However, he wasn’t a passenger out for a ride but a parcel of meat in transit. As soon as these claws let go, he was going to be ripped into very small gobbets of flesh. His father had always said to keep a lookout in the woods, in case he fell victim to the raven-gift. Well, that’s what he was now. Sugar and spice, gristle is nice. A gift for some animal’s guts. His goddess was a long way away now, and feebly whispered prayers, no protection.

Maybe he’d imagined the mealworm’s purr. For a moment, he tried to feel his way into this other creature’s mind. But all he saw was a shunning blackness. He even thought about the feather in his bag, but what good was a feather against a whole bird? His arms and legs were squeezed tight in this tiny cage. The stench of his captor was overwhelming, a foul animal stink of decomposing tissue that seeped into his nose.

The wound slashed across his chest began to throb.

The bird paused, hovered for a second.

Ark peered through the claws, his eyes trying to comprehend the sight ahead of them as the bird then began to climb. The trees had vanished, beaten back in a long straggly line. He could make out a rocky wilderness that sloped up and up again. Oh! A chill began to invade Ark’s bones. Mountains! Great soaring crags that towered over the forest, curving away both north and west in a gigantic circle. They were bare places, treeless, like a Dendran without clothes! The raven’s black wings carried him over ice- and snow-covered summits that looked sharper and more dangerous than any claws. Then, at last, they began to spiral downward, down out of the night and toward the forest on the other side.

Ark remembered the far tales from his childhood. The West was where the sun rested its head. If you didn’t say your prayers, sleep would carry you there, to the land of nightmares. Once upon a time, there was a forest that the ravens returned to at night. A place of twisted trees, ruled over by a dark queen. The Ravenwood.

Then they were over the trees, descending so quickly, Ark only saw streaks of branch and leaf reaching up to him. He closed his eyes, waiting for the sharp stab of beaks, as the claws that held him retracted and he tumbled into what felt like the inside of a goose down bedstead. Feathers tickled his nose and he was unable to hold back a sneeze.