Brevolo looked back to the entrance. "We're taking all of it north through Fraughtenwood. As fast as we can."

The four horse-drawn wagons-the first crowded with passengers, the others heavy with oil sacks-were brought out of the barn into beams of the eastern sunrise.

Archers lined up alongside the wagons, armed with flaming arrows and shooting whenever another tangle of vicious branches came crawling forward.

From her vawn Brevolo issued the command. Shanyn echoed the cry from behind her.

The horses charged forward, as terrified of the flames around them as they were of the viscorclaws beyond. More of the monsters were waiting, clearly visible, some the size of thorn bushes, some the size of trees.

Leaving the smoking hilltop behind, the wagons thundered down the stony slope. The first, carrying Warney, Emeriene, her sons, and several other Bel Amicans, pulled away fast. The heavier cargo wagons were slow, and archers inside them held torches as far from the flammable cargo as they could.

Viscorclaws scrambled and tumbled down the stony hillside on both sides as the frantic parade lumbered along. Those on the right prowled intently, but those on the left seemed to slow as if the ground had gone sticky.

"What's happening?" Brevolo called to Shanyn, gesturing to the slope.

Mounds of stone were melting and sliding, drowning the crawlers in liquefied rock.

They heard an explosion behind them. The barn had collapsed.

Below them, Fraughtenwood was restless, branches shaking like the limbs of animals caught in traps. We'll never get through.

"There's a rip in this oil bag!" an archer shouted from the hindmost wagon. "We're spilling fuel."

"Patch it," said Brevolo. "Patch it or drop it."

Brevolo looked back again. The whole hillside had changed. What had been a field of scattered boulders now looked like a sculpted shell. Except for a few clusters of jerking wooden limbs, the viscorclaw swarm was paralyzed, caught in a gluey tide.

Stonemastery, she thought, looking about.

"Look out!" called an archer from the second wagon.

A tree, its roots ripping free of the ground, plunged down between the second and third wagons.

The horses pulling the third wagon reared. The drivers steered them around the treetop. A crackle of splintering wood seared the air as blackening branches tore themselves free of the trunk and clutched at the earth for a hold.

"Get the wagons away from the tree so we can burn it!" Brevolo roared.

Already clusters of twigs were dragging themselves toward the wagons like scraps of metal drawn by a magnet. Shanyn shouted for arrows.

Three wagons had escaped the scene. The fourth was motionless behind the tree.

Brevolo's heart sank. She leapt off the vawn and let it run ahead with the procession. Then she hurried back around the tree.

One of the wagon's drivers was already dead, a cluster of crawlers flinging pieces of him around the trail. She ran at them, picking up his fallen torch and swiping at his attackers. The predators scattered, limbs aflame. Then she turned her attention to the wagon. Inside, another fallen man thrashed about, screaming, arms wrapped around what appeared to be a tangle of vines.

She threw the torch away from the wagon. Then she reached with both hands into the man's bloody embrace and seized the hard backbone of the many-legged monster that had torn into his chest. She raised its wriggling bundle, shouting with the effort. It bent its flailing limbs backward to aim sharpened claws at her. One of its talons punctured her left wrist, numbing it at once.

As the wounded man slumped, silent and still, between the cargo and the wagon side, Brevolo stumbled to her knees in the puddle of his blood.

A dark figure with a torch leapt aboard. He seized the viscorclaw with a massive hand and dragged it away from her, uprooting the claw from her arm. She drew her arm in close against her and blinked into hazy sunlight.

Her rescuer, growling like a beastman, pressed the torch's flame to the frantic viscorclaw. Then he flung the fiery predator away and thrust out a hand to Brevolo.

She recognized his face with its terrible scars and gigantic, toothy grin.

With her good arm she reached around behind her and unsheathed a dagger. "You lying, murderous, traitorous fiend!"

Ryllion jumped from the wagon, the dagger sailing past his ear.

Brevolo righted herself, found a loose arrow lying in the wagon, and leapt after him. "You don't get to help us, you Seer-serving coward!" As she stalked toward him, someone sprang to her side and seized her arm.

"Let him go, Brevolo."

She dropped the arrow.

This soot-blackened newcomer picked up the dead driver's sword. "Ryllion's here to help. Settle things with him later." He laughed. "Don't you know me?"

"Master!" It was Shanyn's cry. She dropped from her saddle. With one hand grasping the reins of the frightened steed, she reached out with the other to clasp the king's open hand. "You're alive!" She did not even see Ryllion.

Brevolo scowled. All she could think about was how Ryllion had lured her away from Bel Amica and sought to seduce her. She had not told Tabor Jan, although she knew he might suspect it. Worst of all, she had almost given in, enthralled with Ryllion's strength and promises.

Beside her, Shanyn was saying, "You're making a habit of dramatic returns."

"Not on purpose," said the king. "Get this wagon rolling."

There was a commotion behind them. The path was blackening with viscorclaws. Brevolo spat at Ryllion. "If my king would let me, I'd knock out your teeth for a necklace." Then she clambered onto the blood-stained driver's bench and slapped the reins. "Move!"

The animals could not have been more eager, as they pulled the wooden cart around the disintegrating tree.

Advancing crawlers made a sound like a stream of snakes. Cal-raven and Ryllion raised torches and swords and strode to meet them. They became a frenzy of motion, scattering black branches across the ground around them.

Brevolo urged the horses on, then glanced back to see a small twist of smoke rising from the wagon's tarp. She abandoned the reins and climbed on top of it. There she found a viscorclaw's dead, burning husk. She swept it off with her hand before the flames could burn through the tarp, and it fell into the dirt on the path behind, flowering into a blaze.

Then she saw the spray of oil from the cargo bag, showering the ground behind the wagon. She slid back down to the rider's bench. The horses were running hard now, without anyone steering them, and the rugged ground set the wagon to bucking as if it were trying to break free.

Lying against her numb left arm, she reached to one of the rods that bound the wagon to the horses' harness. "Gonna let ... this one ... go." With her knife she sawed through it. It snapped. The wagon veered sharply to the right, bound to the horses now with only one harness strap. She shifted and cut at the last tether.

The horses stumbled forward as they suddenly lost the weight of the wagon. They sprawled in the dirt, then kicked themselves back upright and leaned forward into a desperate run.

The wagon, stopping suddenly, threw Brevolo into the dirt and cast its cargo forward as well. She felt the weight of the oil bag fall on her, a splash of warm fuel seeping through her hair and running in syrupy lines down her back. She crawled out from beneath the bag, spitting out dirt and debris.

Several crawlers dropped from beneath the wagon and advanced.

With her teeth Brevolo pulled off her riding glove and looked at the fresh, blue marriage tattoo on her left hand.

She could still feel the burn of it.

Tabor Jan had tenderly sketched it the night before while she lay stretched across him, the breeze cooling their warm, exhausted bodies in the chamber that Frits had given them as a gesture of privilege. She had brushed tears from her husband's face-her own tears. That had made him laugh. For the first time since the days before Abascar's fall, a deep line in his brow had smoothed over as if it had never existed.

"I understand that you live for Cal-raven," she had whispered. "Not anymore," Tabor Jan had said, and she had felt his voice reverberate in his ribs.

"No, you mustn't say that," she said. "These people must think that you are New Abascar itself. That they can depend on you. That you will act always and only in its best interest."

"Even if Cal-raven returns? Even if he charts a course that drives you mad?"

"I am pledging myself to you, Tabor Jan. And you are a man who keeps his promises. I may not always trust those you trust. But while the people of Abascar depend on you, you can depend on me. I'll keep you safe."

"You'll be my foundation?" he murmured, touching her eyelashes with his fingertips. "If that's so, shouldn't we trade places?"

And then she had laughed, resting her brow on his shoulder.

Remembering this, Brevolo raised her hand and kissed the rune of Tabor Jan's name.

Then she reached down for her sputtering torch and growled at the viscorclaws as if she were a fangbear protecting her den from predators.

As Cal-raven swept away the last of the viscorclaws from the path behind the wagons, he heard horses shriek, and he turned.

He saw the horses charging off without the fourth wagon. He saw the cargo lying on the ground before the halted cart. A cluster of viscorclaws dropped from their hold beneath the wagon and stalked a torch-bearing figure.

"Brevolo?"

One of the viscorclaws sprang at her. She fought with it, falling back. The attacker sprang away, its back ablaze. Others came scrambling down to keep her from rising. The torch fell from her hand and touched a trail of seeping oil. It looked like a snake of flame was born, and it slithered from the torch toward the cargo.

Cal-raven drew in a breath, but his shout was erased by a noise like a thunderclap.

The ground shook. A fireball engulfed the whole scene, leaping into the sky, red and gold on a pillar of luminous blue, bursting with tumors of smoke. A ring of dust and heat spread outward, slamming Cal-raven to the dirt.

"Get up!" Ryllion dragged him to his feet. Now they were running past the mountain of smoldering debris as blazing shreds drifted down upon the dead forest underneath a spreading continent of smoke. "This fire's just beginning."

"Brevolo," the king groaned.

"It's too late," Ryllion roared. "Go after the others. They need you. I'll keep my distance."

Cal-raven nodded, numb with shock. Leaving Ryllion behind, he ran.

A short distance ahead he found Shanyn riding her vawn in a circle to slow the two liberated horses. Cal-raven stepped toward the rearing, foam-spewing animals, speaking softly and holding out his hands. Then he stepped between them, grabbed the reins of one, and sprang onto the saddle of the other. "I've got them," he shouted. "Go."

And so Cal-raven rode after Shanyn's vawn in pursuit of the other wagons, north through Fraughtenwood. The horses needed no urging; they ran as if wolves snapped at their heels.

He saw Tabor Jan just ahead, and a burden heavier than the thought of the threat surrounding him almost dragged him to the ground.

21.

BATTLE IN THE FEARBLIND RAVINE.

s rubble spilled into the canyon and poured down toward Auralia, she stepped into a heavy boulder's lee. The world seemed to be going to pieces. Behind her, Fraughtenwood was in flames, the smoke a swift tide breaking against these rising hills. The air still crackled as trees twisted and separated. And every few moments an unseen hammer smote the ground.

Her ankles bled from scuffs and falls. But she knew she could not rest. The Abascar company, which had set out from the glass mine close-knit and ordered, had scattered in haste as a fiery rain and advancing viscorclaws besieged their caravan. Auralia did not want to be outside the circle of King Cal-raven's protection come nightfall.

When Cal-raven had arrived at the glass mine bloodied and severe, Auralia had wanted nothing more than to run to him, to hold out her hand with its emerjade ring, to awaken his memory of her. But as Krawg and Warney's meeting became a riot of embraces, curses, and accusations, the king declared there would be no rest, no meal, no reunion celebration. He announced that the foothills of the Forbidding Wall were in the path of a rushing storm made of fire and predators. The Fraughtenwood flames were spreading fast, devouring viscorclaws and trees without distinction. It would not grant travelers any grace. Some from the Abascar company that had gone out from the glass mine to answer the hilltop distress call had lost their lives in the first surge of that storm.

She could see in the king's ravaged expression that he had witnessed horrible things. But he did not detail the dire tidings during his urgent appeal at the glass mine gates. Still, rumors did their damage, disheartening the company. At the sight of Tabor Jan, stumbling and colorless, her heart sank.

The king wanted Tabor Jan's company to assemble and depart at once, follow him north and east through the foothills, and seek refuge in the destination he had chosen. He wanted them ready, packed, and moving without the burden of broken hearts. Auralia was ready.

He invited Frits to close the mine and bring his people along in search of higher ground, greater safety. Bowing in gratitude, Frits declined. He would seal his workers into their tunnels and meet viscorclaws with fire. So without any more ceremony than a promise of collaboration once the crisis passed, House Abascar and the miners parted ways.

They did not leave without new companions. A host of the merchants camped in Frits's settlement quickly pledged themselves to strengthen the exodus. Abascar's company was larger now, armed with fire and a wealth of torch oil, trekking eastward through the barren hill country along Fraughtenwood's northern border, toward a pass Cal-raven had found in old Bel Amican trade maps-a dry riverbed that wound its way up the sloping country toward the Forbidding Wall.

A figure pushed through the dustclouds and seized Auralia's wrist. Krawg.

"If I tried to tell this blasted story," Krawg shouted, kicking away the debris that had piled up around Auralia, "they'd say it was impossible. Too much badness crashing down on too many folks too fast. Fire, crawlers, now a quake? What've we done wrong?"

"Wrong?" Auralia stepped out from the boulder's protection. "With all this badness crashing down, I'd be more inclined to say we must be doing something right. And that wasn't an earthquake. It was something heavy hitting the ground. I've felt it in these parts before."

"I'd say it was Old Wenjee falling down," Krawg said with half a laugh. "But then, she's dead, so I shouldn't."

"Wenjee." Auralia winced. "That name's familiar."

Krawg fixed her with a startled gaze. "You know that name?"

Auralia nodded softly. "I think so." She could see the question in his bloodshot eyes again. He had recognized her before she recognized herself, and she knew that he was afraid to ask.

"For the love of mashed beets, we can't stop. Come on." They pressed on through the desolate gullies and ravines. The hills here swelled like waves on a turbulent ocean, and all about them jags of crimson rock protruded like the prows of sinking ships.

They picked their way cautiously through the maze, wary of landslides. Needle-bushes defied the bitter soil, and it seemed all the snakes, rats, and gorrels fleeing the Expanse had gathered in their sparse shade.

As Auralia ran on, following Krawg's awkward stumbling stride, her eyes were drawn to the pluming clouds above snowbound peaks. "Just ... just look at that," she exclaimed. "An endless white sheet strung on a line as long as the horizon."

"Or a dam pressed to breaking," said Krawg, "and we're all about to drown."

Auralia laughed in spite of the trouble. It was coming back to her, the way she and Krawg used to exchange wild descriptions.

"It's like ... like the land itself is a ship and that's the sail," she said.

"Come on, Milora." Krawg scowled at the front line of the smoke's dark tide as it advanced upon the Forbidding Wall.

Auralia looked back. "Where is everyone?"

"They can't be far."

But all they heard was the burning, which moaned and whistled like some sinister choir. A ferocious noise turned Auralia around to find flames pursuing like a ravenous tiger, blackening one patch of scrappy green after another.