She was right. He rose, saying, "You should heal yourself first. You can't make it too far like that."

She nodded quickly and recited her plea to Chauntea. Her eyes contained an intensity Vheod hadn't seen in her before now. He watched as her own gashes and bleeding cuts disappeared, her healing magic sealing the wounds as if they'd never existed at all.

"You saw him," she said. Vheod wondered if she blamed him for his failure to bring Whitlock down. He'd been so close…

"He was still alive, wasn't he?" she asked as she stood and grabbed her brother's weapons.

"Yes," Vheod lied. "I saw him breathing." He handed Whitlock's boot to her-he'd held on to it the whole time.

She forced a weak smile and took it. "We've got to get going, then. It flew to the west."

The two of them ran back through the pine copse once again. They crossed though the wooded vale. Neither spoke.

Crossing through the trees, they ascended the hill and reached their camp. Melann stored Vheod's sword and crossbow on her horse and quickly threw their packs over the steed's back. Vheod helped load Whitlock's horse.

Melann paused only long enough to ask Vheod one plaintive question: "What's going on?"

"Orrag spoke of someone called the Ravenwitch. He said I should beware her. This can't be a coincidence." She only nodded and went back to her work. A tear-probably more from exasperation than anything-flowed down her cheek. Something inside Vheod grew tight at the sight of it.

When they were finished loading the horses, Vheod climbed into the saddle of Whitlock's mount. It snorted and stomped as if it sensed something wrong. It took Vheod a moment to realize that what it sensed was him. The creatures of this world would never let him forget how different he was. He jerked hard on the reins with a grimace crossing his face. His might brought the horse under control, but he kept the grimace. Melann looked away from this scene and mounted her mare. The two of them beckoned the animals to speed.

They headed west, looking upward for the raven. The sky was still filled with birds, but the diabolical creatures no longer paid them any attention. As they flew to the west as one, they made it easy for Vheod and Melann to follow.

The saddle chafed at a wound on his leg that Melann's healing hadn't coped with-Vheod's body still sported a number of small scrapes and scratches, in fact. He looked down to his thigh and saw that his leggings were ripped open. He did remember a pain there early on in the fight. He saw that the Taint had been slashed by a raven's beak. The pain he remembered, however, came before ravens swooped down on him, Vheod thought, and it had been more of a prickling than the sharper pain he now felt from the wound.

Melann hoped that keeping up with the ravens would be easier, but even with their swift, well rested horses she and Vheod fell behind. The birds didn't need to worry about the physical landscape, while Melann and Vheod were forced to guide their mounts around trees and rocks and ride up and down steep slopes. The ravens flew straight and swiftly together like a flight of arrows launched from powerful bows.

Melann thought about Vheod's words. She didn't like the sound of someone who called herself the Ravenwitch. What could this witch possibly want with Whitlock? Was it something special about him, or was he just a random victim of some horrible desire? Had they fallen into someone's trap, or was Whitlock simply in the wrong place at the wrong time?

She glanced at Vheod and saw the grim determination in his set jaw. Melann was glad not to be alone. If Vheod hadn't been with her, she was sure the ravens would've carried her off as well. His presence comforted her, though she was still just a little afraid of him as well.

The savage fury that Vheod displayed reminded her that he was, in part, a demon. When she saw him fighting with the ravens, for a short while it seemed he took on a completely different countenance. He'd seemed a different person-if a person at all. She didn't like thinking these thoughts, but they came to her unhidden. A part of Vheod was, and probably always would be, a monster.

The glimpse of the savage Vheod she'd seen seemed the exception, not the rule. If she could keep him from getting into similar situations, perhaps she could help him resist his evil nature. Of course, having him ride with her to encounter the ravens again-and perhaps their mysterious mistress-probably wasn't a good start. She vowed to herself to do whatever she could to help him fight to be the man he wanted himself to be. Perhaps that was part of the reason the Mother of All had brought them together.

Or perhaps Chauntea knew Melann would need Vheod's help to rescue Whitlock. She shuddered again at the thought of riding into unknown danger like this alone. Surely Chauntea was guiding her and taking care of her.

They followed the ravens, pushing their horses as much as they dared. The sky remained mostly overcast, and the air was cooler than it had been. Whitlock and his captor were out of sight, but Melann and Vheod moved fast enough to see the cloud of smaller ravens moving steadily westward. Once or twice they lost sight of the birds but saw them again once they crested the next hill.

They entered a wide valley filled with trees and lush greenery. Melann assumed that a river most likely flowed through the area, fostering and nurturing all the plant life. Once again, they lost sight of the ravens. The canopy of trees was thick, casting shadows over large areas, but letting in just enough light in others to produce a thick undergrowth of grasses, bushes, and climbing vines. The air was still.

Wordlessly exchanging glances of indecision, the two slowed a little and rode westward through the woods. As they rode, Melann wondered if they'd lost the ravens for good. Perhaps the birds led them into this wooded area for just that reason. They'd seemed rather intelligent, at least in their ability to coordinate their actions. Melann wondered if she and Vheod had been drawn into a trap-a fate as horrible as that which befell Whitlock. Melann steeled herself against her fear, but she remained wary.

Blood coated the blade of his sword. Vheod looked around and discovered he had no idea where he was, or how he'd gotten there. He stood on a smooth wooden floor, thin wisps of gray-blue mist coiled around his feet and partially obscured the floor, but he could see and feel enough to know it was made of wood. Rounded wooden walls rose to either side, each almost close enough to touch. Smatterings of black moss grew on the wood, clinging like perspiration. The air was cold, but damp. He held a torch in his left hand, which had been burning for some time, it appeared. He didn't remember lighting it. The light revealed that, forward and back, this passage of wood extended into darkness.

Where was he? What had happened? He saw that the blood on the blade was mixed with some yellowish substance he couldn't identify. He was wounded, and while he remembered a number of scratches from the battle that morning-he assumed it was that morning-he seemed to have a few new cuts and something that looked like a bite on his leg. The Taint had moved to the back of his hand, and seemed no worse for the fact that it had been cut by a raven's beak earlier in the day.

Melann was nowhere to be seen. Vheod stood in a dark corridor that seemed to have been hollowed out of wood. He looked down the corridor and listened closely. He heard nothing ahead- He checked behind him, and this time he heard movement in the distance, impossible to identify.

Vheod decided to move back that way. Before he did, however, he whispered an intense, "Melann!" He repeated it a few more times. No response came. Nothing changed.