I started to say something. He snapped, “Be quiet, Croaker. Don’t distract me.”

We stayed in that cloud, unseen and unable to see, for two hours. Then Catcher said, “Time to go down. Grip the frame members and don’t let go. It may be a little unsettling.”

The bottom fell out. We went down like a stone dropped from a cliff. The carpet began to rotate slowly, so the forest seemed to turn below us. Then it began to slide back and forth like a feather falling. Each time it tilted my way I thought I would tumble over the side.

A good scream might have helped, but you could not do that in front of characters like Raven and Soulcatcher.

The forest kept getting closer. Soon I could distinguish individual trees... when I dared to look. We were going to die. I knew we were going to smash right down through the forest canopy fifty feet into the earth.

Catcher said something. I did not catch it. He was talking to his carpet anyway. The rocking and spinning gradually stopped. Our descent slowed. The carpet nosed down slightly and began to glide forward. Eventually Catcher took us below treetop level, into the aisle over a river. We, scooted along a dozen feet above the water, with Soulcatcher laughing as birds scattered in panic.

He brought us to earth in a glen beside the river. “Off and stretch,” he told us. After we had loosened up, he said, “The Limper is four miles north of us. He’s reached the meeting place. You’ll go on from here without me. He’ll detect me if I get any closer. I want your badges. He can detect those too.”

Raven nodded, surrendered his badge, strung his bow, nocked an arrow, pulled back, relaxed. I did the same. It settled my nerves.

I was so grateful to be on the ground I could have kissed it.

“The bole on the big oak.” Raven pointed across the river. He let fly. His shaft struck a few inches off center. I took a deep, relaxing breath, followed suite. My shaft struck an inch nearer center. “Should have bet me that time,” he remarked. To Catcher, “We’re ready.”

I added, “We’ll need more specific directions.”

“Follow the river bank. There are plenty of game trails. The going shouldn’t be hard. No need to hurry anyway. Whisper shouldn’t be there for hours yet.”

“The river heads west,” I observed.

“It loops back. Follow it for three miles, then turn a point west of north and go straight through the woods.” Catcher crouched and cleared the leaves and twigs off some bare earth, used a stick to sketch a map. “If you reach this bend, you’ve gone too far.”

Then Catcher froze. For a long minute he listened to something only he could hear. Then he resumed, “The Lady says you’ll know you’re close when you reach’ a grove of huge evergreens. It was the holy place of a people who died out before the Domination. The Limper is waiting at the center of the grove.”

“Good enough,” Raven said.

I asked, “You’ll wait here?”

“Have no fear, Croaker.”

I took another of my relaxing breaths. “Let’s go, Raven.”

“One second, Croaker,” Soulcatcher said. He retrieved something from his bundle. It proved to be an arrow. “Use this.”

I eyed it uncertainly, then placed it in my quiver.

Raven insisted on leading. I did not argue. I was a city boy before I joined the Company. I cannot become comfortable with forests. Especially not woods the size of the Forest of Cloud. Too much quiet. Too much solitude. Too easy to get lost. For the first two miles I worried more about finding my way back than I did about the coming encounter. I spent a lot of time memorizing landmarks.

Raven did not speak for an hour. I was busy thinking myself. I did not mind.

He raised a hand. I stopped. “Far enough, I think,” he said. “We go that way now.”

“Uhm.”

“Let’s rest.” He settled on a huge tree root, his back against a trunk. “Awful quiet today, Croaker.”

“Things on my mind.”

“Yeah.” He smiled. “Like what kind of reward we’re set up for?”

“Among other things.” I drew out the arrow Catcher had given me. “You see this?”

“A blunt head?” He felt it. “Soft, almost. What the hell?”

“Exactly. Means I’m not supposed to kill her.”

There was no question of who would let fly at whom. The Limper was Raven’s all the way.

“Maybe. But I’m not going to get killed trying to take her alive.”

“Me either. That’s what’s bothering me. Along with about ten other things, like why the Lady really picked you and me, and why she wants Whisper alive... Oh, the hell with it. It’ll give me ulcers.”

“Ready?”

“I guess.”

We left the riverbank. The going became more difficult, but soon we crossed a low ridgeline and reached the edge of the evergreens. Not much grew beneath them. Very little sunlight leaked through their boughs. Raven paused to urinate. “Won’t be any chance later,” he explained.

He was right. You do not want that sort of problem when you are in ambush a stone’s throw from an unfriendly Taken.

I was getting shaky. Raven laid a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll be okay,” he promised. But he did not believe it himself. His hand was shaky too.

I reached inside my jerkin and touched Goblin’s amulet. It helped.

Raven raised an eyebrow. I nodded. We resumed walking. I chewed a strip of jerky, which burned off nervous energy. We did not speak again.

There were ruins among the trees. Raven examined the glyphs incised in the stones. He shrugged. They meant nothing to him.

Then we came to the big trees, the grandfathers of those through which we had been passing. They towered hundreds of feet high and had trunks as thick as the spans of two men’s arms. Here and there, the sun thrust swords of light down through the boughs. The air was thick with resin smells. The silence was overwhelming. We moved one step at a time, making sure our footfalls sent no warnings ahead.

My nervousness peaked out, began to fade. It was too late to run, too late to change my mind. My brain ban-celled all-emotion. Usually that only happened when I was forced to treat casualties while people were-killing one another all around me.

Raven signaled a halt. I nodded. I had heard it too. A horse snorting. Raven gestured for me to stay put. He eased to our left, keeping low, and disappeared behind a tree about fifty feet away.

He reappeared in a minute, beckoned. I joined him. He led me to a spot from which I could look into an open area. The Limper and his horse were there.

The clearing was maybe seventy feet long by fifty wide. A tumble of crumbling stone stood at its center. The Limper sat on one fallen rock and leaned against another. He seemed to be sleeping. One corner of the clearing was occupied by the trunk of a fallen giant that had not been down long. It showed very little weathering.

Raven tapped the back of my hand, pointed. He wanted to move on.

I did not like moving now that we had the Limper in sight. Each step meant another chance to alert the Taken to his peril. But Raven was right. The sun was dropping in front of us. The longer we stayed put, the worse the light would become. Eventually, it would be in our eyes.

We moved with exaggerated care. Of course. One mistake and we were dead. When Raven glanced back I saw sweat on his temples.

He stopped, pointed, smiled. I crept up beside him. He pointed again.

Another fallen tree lay ahead. This one was about four feet in diameter. It looked perfect for our purpose. It was big enough to hide us, low enough to let fly over. We found a spot providing a clean aisle of fire to the heart of the clearing.

The light was good, too. Several spears broke through the canopy and illuminated most of the clearing. There was a little haze in the air, pollen perhaps, which made the beams stand out. I studied the clearing for several minutes, imprinting it on my mind. Then I sat behind the log and pretended I was a rock. Raven took the watch.