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spilled down the cliffs in the quiet that followed, dust sighing into the thickets below.
    “Cal-raven,” he said. Another name came to mind.
Brevolo
.
    Then came a distant cacophony of voices. Rivers of people were rushing out onto the open ledges.
    Even as he scanned the scene for the woman he loved, Tabor Jan pushed his way through the crowds, shouting to soldiers that their first priority was to find Cal-raven.
    Hagah bounded suddenly into Tabor Jan’s path. The soldier seized the dog’s flabby neck. “Hagah—Cal-raven!”
    Thrilled by the command, the dog turned as if jerked by a chain and almost threw himself off the cliffs. It was all the captain could do to keep up with him.
    He found himself running toward the sound of triumphant yelps beyond the base of the cliffs. Dog had found master. The king was alive.
    Kneeling among the brambles, Cal-raven embraced Hagah, blinking as if he’d been knocked silly by a falling stone.
    “Are you hurt?” Tabor Jan scanned the shadowed ground.
    “Didn’t you see it?” Cal-raven pointed north toward the Cragavar.
    “See it? I felt it. I think they may have felt it in Bel Amica. We may have cave-ins. I’m taking you back.”
    “No, not the quake,” said Cal-raven, exhilarated. “Didn’t you see it?”
    Tabor Jan braced himself. “See…what?” Then the exuberance of Cal-raven’s expression triggered a spasm of alarm. “No! Don’t say it!”
    “But Tabor Jan, I saw—”
    “Swallow that story, my lord!” He would have preferred a beastman sighting. “Don’t speak of it to the people. Especially not tonight.”
    “Not tonight! What could bring them more comfort than to hear—”
    “If the grudgers hear you respond to this quake with some wild description of a phantom on our doorstep—”
    “Grudgers attacked me tonight.”
    “Did you see their faces?”
    “No, but I became acquainted with their arrows.” He laughed. “I also became quite familiar with the Keeper. Nose-to-nose, in fact.”
    Tabor Jan scowled. “I haven’t slept for so long I’m having nightmares while I’m awake.”
    “It pointed me north, Tabor Jan! We’ve got to ride—”
    “We’ll ride tomorrow, Cal-raven. Just as you planned.” He urged Cal-raven back toward the cliffs, and they clambered over piles of rubble newly shaken from the heights. A tumult of voices filled the sky.
    Hurrying down a steep ridge, an enormous guard came stumbling to meet them.
    “Bowlder, how many are hurt?”
    “Cave-in!” he wheezed. “Must…dig out…three people.”
    “I assume you’ve called for Say-ressa. Without her healing hands we…” Tabor Jan stopped, stricken as he read Bowlder’s expression.
    He turned to Cal-raven, but the king was strangely preoccupied with the moon above the northern horizon.

2
T O S AVE THE K ING
    W ynn had made up his mind a few hours before the quake. He would take one of Abascar’s horses and follow King Cal-raven on his secret search for House Abascar’s next home.
    You wouldn’t assign stable sweeping to a tracker or a hunter. I’ve got to show the king I can ride among his best
.
    Pacing in front of the stalls, he considered the vawns and horses that hadn’t been chosen. Their stalls were closed, their large, clawed feet visible below wooden doors.
    The stew of smells was stifling—bramblegrass and ivy, fresh scrap-apples for bribing the animals, vawn dung and horse manure. He sneezed.
    The sneeze was answered by a sharp slam of a horse’s hoof against wood. He recognized the scarred black mare by the color of her ears above the stall gate. Small but sturdy, she had a broken lip and a hide that appeared to have been raked by fangbear claws.
    She wasn’t the horse for stealth. But that seething, that eagerness—Wynn knew he’d found his volunteer.
    Ten nights earlier—Wynn had counted them—the king had come to examine the steeds and to check the condition of his leg shields and woods-cloak. He had dismissed this mare with an affectionate