It was almost impossible to choose Skurn’s single most annoying trait, but certainly high on the pile was the fact that unless something had terrified the bird into silence, he talked incessantly. Relieved by their new direction, the raven yammered on throughout the day, loudly at first, then more quietly after Vansen threatened to drag him on a rope behind the horse, naming trees and bushes and sharing other obscure bits of woodlore, and going on at great length about the wonderful things to eat that could be found on all sides—an urpsome subject that Vansen throttled shortly after being told how lovely it was to guzzle baby birds whole out of a nest.

“Can you not just stop?” he snarled at last. “Close your beak and just sit silently, for the Trigon’s sake, and let me think.”

“But us can’t sit quiet, Master.” Skurn squatted, holding his beak in the air in a way Vansen had learned was meant to suggest he was suffering—either that or he was fouling the saddle, one of his other charming traits. “You see, it is riding on this horse that has us so squirmsome, and when us talks not, us squirms more and the horse takes it ill. You have seen him startle up, have you not?”

Vansen had. Twice today already, Skurn had done something to make the horse balk and almost throw them. Vansen couldn’t blame his mount: Skurn had trouble holding on, and when he lost his balance he sank in his talons, and if he happened to be off the saddle and on the horse’s neck at the time, no matter.

Skyfather Perin, I beg you to save me, Vansen prayed. Save me from everything you have given me. I doubt I am strong enough, great lord. Aloud he said, “Then tell me something more useful than how to catch and eat yon hairy spiders, for I will not be doing that even if starvation has me in its grip.”

“Shall us tell tha one story, then? To make time slip more easy, eh?”

“Tell me about the one you called Crooked, or this Jack Chain you are so frightened of. What is he? And the others, Night Men and suchlike.”

“Ah, no, Master, no. No talk of Jack, not so close still to his lands, nor of Night Men—too shiversome. But us can tell you a little of the one us called Crooked. Those are mighty stories, and all know them—even my folk, from nestlings to high-bough weavers. Shall us speak on that?”

“I suppose so. But not too loudly, and try to sit still. I don’t want to find myself in a ditch with my horse running away into the forest.”

“Well, then.” Skurn nodded his head, closed his tiny eyes, rocked slowly against the saddle horn.

“Here he came,” the raven began in a cracked, crooning voice that seemed half song, “tumble-dum, tumble-dum, crooked as lightning, but slow as the earth rolling over, all restless in her sleep. He limped, do you see? Though just a child then, he came through the great long war fighting at his father’s side, and were struck a great blow near the end of it by the Sky Man, so that ever after, when it healed, one pin he had longer than the other. Was even captured, then, by Stone Man and his brothers, and they took away from him summat which they shouldn’t have, but still he would not tell them where his father’s secret house was hid.