Ark found his heartbeat speeding up as his eyes nervously tried to pierce the shadows. “Corwenna?” he croaked, dry-throated. His legs had the sudden urge to turn around the way they came and run holly-for-leather.

Too late. As the drumming grew into a roar, the thicket ahead of him suddenly gave up its secrets.

“Oh!” Ark gasped. When Corwenna had mentioned hunting, he had no idea she meant this.

A phalanx of wild boar thundered straight toward him along the path. They were only twenty feet away, closing fast.

Ark had seen the odd boar back at home. Occasionally, one found its way into town from the wilder parts of Arborium and everyone ran around screaming at what was basically an overgrown pig. Admittedly, the tusks might give you a bad cut if it charged you, but boar weren’t terribly intelligent. Step out of the way and they would run on, leaving most Dendrans shaking but safe.

Corwenna had warned Ark about the Ravenwood. She was right. These beasts, like the trees around them, had been twisted and stretched out of all recognition. They were mountains of muscles on legs, with the addition of a pair of tusks that could easily impale a whole family on their sharpened lengths. One was enough to take your breath away and remember every prayer that had ever been thrown upon the wind. But a horde of them, shaking the very wood they thundered along? He didn’t stand a chance.

Every word Corwenna had spoken instantly fled from his mind, except that it was obvious he was born from the trees. Ark was rooted to the spot in the center of the path. Like a sissy sapling, he was about to be snapped in half.

31• HUNGER TO LIVE

If Mucum had been around, he would have made a joke about being boared to death. But there was no best mate to invent an instant plan of action. Instead, Ark faced a battalion of wild beasts. If the thundering of their hooves didn’t shake him off the branch, then their tusks were guaranteed to punch daylight straight through his guts.

Corwenna said she was his mother! Would a mother really leave him to be trampled to death? Ark felt the sweat on his forehead. The boars were so close he could smell their scent, rank and strong. Their unblinking eyes were like bright coins. He was terrified.

Corwenna’s last words suddenly came to him. Remember the guards! What had he done as he and Mucum were trapped behind the door? The boars were ten feet away now, their heads lowered, ready to scoop him from the path.