Raven Flight Read Online Free PDF Page B

short a time,” I said. “It’s perilous to travel anyway, with the king’s men possibly on the lookout for me, or for someone like me. I have no idea where the Guardians are, except west, north, east. I’m hoping I need not seek out the Master of Shadows again; from the way he spoke to me, it sounded as if I might see him from time to time along the way, perhaps when I least expect it, and perhaps that means I don’t have to travel south. But the others … how do I even know where to start looking? I thought I could ask the Folk Below, but they won’t come out. Won’t even open their door to us. Yet I have to do it. Regan believes in me. His plan depends on me. I can’t let him down.”
    “There’s one answer within your grasp, at least.” Sage spoke briskly. “You know it full well.”
    “You mean I should call them. Use my gift, compel them to open their door to me.”
    “Why would you not do that, with time running so short? Since they will not open to you when you wait politely, this seems the only way.”
    There was nothing to say to this. The last time I had used my gift as a Caller, men had died horribly. It hadn’t seemed to matter that they were Enforcers, the enemy, and that my action had turned the tide of a battle. Looking at their broken bodies, I had not thought of them as king’s men, but as brothers, fathers, sons, and comrades. To wield such power was monstrous. It was only in the face of Regan’s eloquent arguments that I had agreed to learn the skillful use of my gift and to aid the rebels in their struggle. The fact was, every rebel faced the same kind of dilemma. Freedom could not be won without immense personal cost. But it felt wrong to use my gift here at Shadowfell. I would hardly endear myself to the Folk Below if I forced them out against their will. And what if something went wrong, and I caused more damage?
    “A year and a half,” murmured Sage. “Not long. Not long at all.”
    “There’s no need to keep telling me that!”
    “No?” She regarded me with brows raised and a crooked smile on her small features.
    “I’ve tried already, Sage, you know that. Every single day I’ve gone down the spiral stair and waited by that stone wall, thinking they’d come out if I gave them enough time. When I met you and the others in the woods above Silverwater, I didn’t have to call. I was by my campfire, and there you were. Later on too—when I needed you, you came.”
    “Ah,” said Sage in a weighty tone. “But we’re different.”
    “You and Red Cap are my friends, as Sorrel was; but not all of your clan believed in me back then. Silver and her cronies were quite hostile. But they came out too, without my making any sort of call.”
    “We’re Westies,” Sage said, as if that should explain everything.
    “Westies—you’re talking about belonging to the Watch of the West? What difference does that make?”
    She shrugged, as if the distinction should be obvious. “We’re quick, like water. Fluid and adaptable. The Northies—” She lifted her hands in a gesture I took to mean the Northies were almost beyond hope. “They hold fast to their ways. If they choose to, they can make themselves deaf as stone. You’d need something akin to a bolt of lightning to shift them. They’ll be aware of your presence; they’ll be able to feel it even through that wall they’ve put up. But they’ve chosen to ignore you.”
    “Isn’t it more likely they don’t know I’m here?”
    Sage shook her head of gray-green curls. “You’re a Caller. All the Good Folk feel your presence, like a tune they can’t get out of their heads, or something buzzing around them that can’t be swatted away. It’s a matter of how long they can hold out against it. Could be the Folk Below will hold out a year and a half, or longer. Either you head off on your journey in spring without talking to them, or you use your gift to summon them.”
    “But what if—”
    “No what if . You need their