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around,” Martis said, “the ravens wouldn’t be here. We’ll be quite safe.”
     
    There was no sign of Herger’s boat. It must have floated down the river. Cautiously the boatman paddled until the hull scraped a rock. Martis got out and waded ashore, pulling the boat after him. The ravens watched from a nearby tree.
     
    “What are you going to do now?” the boatman asked.
     
    “If I can find the men’s tracks, I’ll follow them.”
     
    “Then I wish you good luck—but this is where I turn back home.”
     
    “If you see any militia,” Martis said, “please tell them about this.”
     
    “That I’ll do, mister. That I’ll gladly do.”
     
    The man paddled away, back down the river. In a moment he was out of sight, around a bend. Martis studied the ground. Eight men were bound to leave tracks, and Martis found them. He followed them to the edge of the wood. There the group had churned up the leaf litter. Here he found a path, and it was obvious that the men had taken it.
     
    “Snatchers, most likely,” Martis thought—men who captured children and lone travelers and sold them to the Heathen. They were always active in the eastern parts of Obann. Helki had driven many outlaws out of Lintum Forest. These men were probably some of them, Martis thought.
     
    He’d lost the little knife he always kept under his belt, but he still had his dagger in its sheath. But his best weapon would be the snatchers’ certainty that they’d killed him by the riverside.
     
    Martis trotted down the path, as far as it would take him, and by sundown found the snatchers’ campsite.
     

     
    Ysbott stuck to the woods all morning, but by noon he had to turn and cross some open country, taking the shortest route to Silvertown.
     
    Jack had been through some of this country once before, with Obst and Ellayne, on the way to Bell Mountain. Soon they’d be into the wooded foothills. Jack had never been to Silvertown, but he had a rough idea of where it was—Obann’s mining center, perched on the west slope of the mountains. An army of the Thunder King held it; Obann had not yet mustered the strength to force them out.
     
    Jack did his best to slow the men down, purposely stumbling, complaining of sore feet, and trying to act like someone who wouldn’t last a day in this wild country by himself. Maybe they’d hold him in contempt and get careless. Maybe he’d get a chance to escape. But one of the men got tired of his act and cuffed him. The next thing that man knew, Ysbott had him by the beard with the point of a long, sharp knife pressed dangerously close to his eye.
     
    “Don’t damage the goods,” said the chief, “or I’ll split your face wide open. I hope that’s clearly understood!”
     
    The man couldn’t nod without jabbing his eye into the knife. “S-s-s-sorry, boss!” he stammered.
     
    “To show your good faith, you may carry this tender-footed king across your shoulders for a while,” Ysbott said. And so Jack had an uncomfortable ride.
     
    Many times in his life he’d been in danger, some of it worse than this, but always there would be Martis to rescue him, or Helki or Wytt. But Martis would never rescue anyone again, and Wytt was back in Ninneburky with Ellayne—and he would never see either of them again. This time there was no one to help him. He missed Ellayne! “I’m not going to get out of this,” he kept on thinking.
     
    He tried to pray as Obst had taught him you could pray, silently. “God can hear your thoughts as clearly as He can hear your words,” Obst said. Jack had seen the old man in a state of communion with God: you could set his clothes on fire, and he wouldn’t know it. Jack had never achieved anything like that, but just now he wished he could.
     
    There was no convincing these men that he was not King Ryons. Ysbott simply didn’t believe him. You could almost laugh at them, Jack thought. They didn’t know there was already one false king—Fnaa, the king’s