Raven Flight Read Free

“I know how that feels. It’s something you learn to live with, because it’s the nature of what we do. This war won’t be won without losses. Regan will balance up the value of your gift against the risk of someone getting hurt protecting you, and he’ll insist you have a guard. If not one of the Good Folk, then one of us. You’ll have to swallow your scruples.”
    When I said nothing, she went on, “The north isn’tentirely empty. There’s a regional chieftain there, Lannan, sometimes called Lannan Long-Arm, with a number of district chieftains answering to him. Lannan is kin to the leaders in the northern isles. We’ve been told his personal fighting force is substantial.” She hesitated. “Our negotiations with Lannan are at a delicate stage. Of Alban’s eight regional chieftains, this is the most powerful. He hasn’t attended the Gathering for several years; his relationship with the king is less than cordial. Distance is his friend. Keldec’s unlikely to send a war band rushing up there only to see them lost in the mountains.”
    There was a pause.
    “You understand what I’m telling you, Neryn?”
    “That whoever wins Lannan over to their side has a big advantage. Yes?”
    “Mm-hm.”
    “Does that mean Regan is traveling north himself in spring?”
    Tali shook her head. “No need. We’ve a team talking to Lannan already. There’s more to Regan’s Rebels than this small band at Shadowfell, Neryn. This is the center of the operation, yes; Regan is the beating heart of the rebellion. But we couldn’t do it with so few. We’re spread out in many parts of Alban, in places where a single dissenting voice has grown into a force for change. We do have to be careful. You know what happens when the king gets the merest whiff of disobedience.”
    I knew all too well. I had seen villages burned, the innocent put to the sword, leaders who stood up for justicesummarily executed. I had lost my entire family to the Cull, the seasonal sweep of Alban’s villages that weeded out the rebellious and those with canny gifts. Keldec feared magic above all else. And yet he used it for his own ends. His Enthrallers, of whom Flint was one, were able to work an enchantment to turn someone who had displeased the king into a flawlessly loyal subject. Sometimes, though, the charm went wrong, and the victim became a witless husk of his former self. That too I had seen. It had been the worst night of my life.
    “If Regan’s teams are spread out all over Alban,” I asked, “how do they communicate? How can you put a complete strategy in place when the time comes?”
    “We have folk here and there who carry messages. Trusted folk. Believe it or not, there are some of those in Alban still. But, yes, it is a weakness. These things take time.”
    I thought of the boy who had brought messages to Flint, when he and I had spent the long days and nights of my illness in a little hut halfway up the Rush valley. I had wondered about that boy; wondered if he was like my brother, who had died with a spear through his chest when the Enforcers raided our home village, less than four years ago. Only a fool or a hero would dare carry messages for the rebels. Perhaps such folk were both heroes and fools.
    “It’s not a quick process,” Tali said. “Winning the chieftains over, I mean. Those who are prepared to support a rebellion dare not be open about their intentions. In every stronghold there’s someone ready to slip word to the Enforcers for a few pieces of silver. And once they dothat, whether their information is true or false, the king’s wrath comes down like an ill-aimed hammer, striking innocent and guilty alike. All of us want the rebellion soon, as soon as possible, before people are too worn down to care anymore. But a word to the wrong ears could wreck the whole endeavor.” She glanced at me sideways, her dark eyes narrowed. “That means no blundering into unknown parts and saying too much, whether it’s a