Wren and the Ravens Read online

  Wren and the Ravens

  By

  Eric Buffington

  &

  Sam Ferguson

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Dragon Scale Publishing, 212 E Crossroads Blvd. #119, Saratoga Springs UT 84045

  Wren and the Ravens

  Copyright © 2018 by Sam Ferguson

  ISBN 13: 978-1943183456

  ISBN 10: 1943183457

  Published by Dragon Scale Publishing

  All Rights Reserved

  To Matthew, I hope you will always be up for whatever new adventure comes your way!

  And

  For Erik, may you be stubborn in your pursuit of happiness, and relentless in developing your talents.

  Other Books by Eric Buffington

  Kingdom of Denall Series:

  The Unmarked (Coming Soon)

  The Troven

  Secrets at the Keep

  The Changing

  Other Books by Sam Ferguson:

  The Sorceress of Aspenwood Series

  The Dragon’s Champion Series

  Son of the Dragon

  The Dragons of Kendualdern series

  The Fur Trader

  The Haymaker Adventures

  Flight of the Krilo

  The Moon Dragon

  The Beast of Blue Mountain

  The Dwarves of Roegudok Hall comic Episode 1

  Epic Farm Boy

  Other Books by Dragon Scale Publishing:

  The Lost City of Alfarin by Keaton James and Sam Ferguson

  The Protector of Esparia by Lisa M. Wilson

  Wisp the Wayfinder and Other Tales by J.M. Hauser

  Blood Bound by B. Griffin

  Favored, by B. Griffin

  The Bohemian Magician, by A.L. Sirois

  Tharzule’s Tome of Wishes

  Codex of Light, by E.P. Stein

  Codex of Darkness, by E.P. Stein

  The Dream Chest, by E.P. Stein

  For more, check out Dragon Scale Publishing’s website:

  www.DragonScaleBooks.com

  Table of Contents

  Other Books by Eric Buffington

  Other Books by Sam Ferguson:

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  About the Authors

  Other Books by Sam Ferguson:

  Chapter 1

  Drip.

  Drip.

  Drip.

  “Do you…”

  “Shh!” Liden held his finger to his mouth as he listened to the rhythmic dripping. When the droplet fell from the stalactites on the ceiling of the large cave, it took two seconds to pass the jagged, sharp protrusions on all sides to hit the small pool of water below.

  “It’s impossible to tell how deep the water is from up here,” Knell said, breaking the silence again. She threw her pack down on the slick rock floor.

  Liden rose to his feet and stepped back from the edge of the underground drop off. “I can see why they never started mining in this cave. There’s no way to get any kind of equipment past this point.”

  “And it’s too close to the ocean,” Knell added. She pulled her blond hair forward over her shoulder and sat down next to her pack, not caring that she would have a mud spot on the backside of her leggings and a wet smear on the back of her shirt from the damp stone walls. “You can hear the water moving down there. You can’t exactly hold back the ocean.”

  Liden nodded. He could tell by the slick floor and the smooth walls that this section of cave was regularly under water. Whether it was flooded each time the tide came in, or just during the wet season, he didn’t know, but it was clear that on a regular basis this section of the abandoned mine shaft was filled with about three feet of water.

  “What do you think we could find down there?” Knell asked, pointing toward the steep drop off.

  “It doesn’t really matter,” he answered. “We’re not going to set up a mining operation just to have it flooded out every day. It’s a dead end.”

  “It’s not a dead end, it’s just a temporary delay,” Knell said. “If nobody has ever mined here before, maybe there’s something valuable we can find.” She reached into her bag and pulled out three small rocks. Each one was from a mining expedition they had undertaken in the past where they found something of value, even if it was just a little bit. She tossed each rock to Liden and he juggled them in a small circle before tossing them back to her.

  He ground his teeth and sat down next to her, resting his head in his hands, frustration clear on his face. They had spent several hours digging out the entrance and searching down this abandoned mine just to find several caved-in shafts and this dead end cave. “It’s starting to feel less like a gold mine every minute.” he insisted.

  Knell picked up a small rock and threw it out over the edge of the cliff where they stood. It clacked against some rocks below before making a plunking sound into the water. “The water is more than just a puddle; that much is clear. We have to check down there.” She wasn’t completely convinced that this side trip in the mines would lead to anything profitable, but she had always known they’d need to chase a few rabbits before finding their buck. While Liden’s treasure hunting hadn’t resulted in a good haul in a few weeks, whenever they did find something rare, it was an amazing rush and it helped to keep their families comfortable until they made their big break.

  “It’s pitch blackness beyond the torchlight, and there are slick rocks on all sides. The only thing that is clear about this is the fact that it’s clearly a dead end.” He ran his fingers through his light brown hair and punched his pack. “Just like everything in Ryr,” he added as an afterthought.

  Knell hefted her hammer and tapped lightly against the wall, smashing off some of the rock and catching the dust in her hand. She threw the small pebbles into Liden’s hair and chuckled as he tried to brush it out. “That is why we’re here isn’t it?” she asked. “To get out of Ryr? Nobody ever found gold digging in the iron mines. We’ll strike it soon, then we can leave this place behind.”

  “I know, I just thought this one would be it for sure. It has the feel of a gold mine, doesn’t it?”

  Knell scrunched her face up. “The feel? What are you talking about? It feels like a damp, unused hole. But then again, you’ve had some good ideas from time to time, so maybe damp, unused holes can be good for something,” she remarked, tapping him on the head.

  For the first time since coming to this cliff inside the mine shaft, Liden smiled. “You’re a pain, you know that?” He got up off the ground and started to gather his things. “Tomorrow is another day. I actually saw another pit a couple hundred feet up in the mountains when I was exploring last week. It could just be a cave, or it could be something bigger. Either way it’s farther away from the ocean, so it shouldn’t be flooded.”

  “Wait a sec!” Knell s
aid, standing up and putting her hand on his chest to stop him from leaving. “You’re giving up already? It’s barely past sunrise. If you think this dingy place has the feel of a goldmine, then let’s give it a real try.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest and looked at her with his head tilted to the side in that I-know-what-you’re-thinking kind of way. “There isn’t a safe way down to the water, and we don’t know what else is down there. Unless you know how to fly, we’re not getting farther into this cave.”

  “How do you know I can’t fly?” she answered with a tilt of her head.

  “’Cause you don’t have wings.” He tried to walk past her, but she sidestepped in his way again.

  “Okay, fine!” she responded, shoving him to the side. She walked to the edge of the cliff, grabbing the torch off the wall as she walked. At the edge, she stopped and held it out. “Can you hold this?” She handed him the end of a rope that was tied to her harness.

  He grabbed the rope and braced himself as she leaned over the edge to get a better look. “Slick rocks, shadows, darkness”

  “Sounds like fun,” Liden responded sarcastically.

  “Catch,” she tossed the torch to Liden.

  He reached out and caught it by the end, too distracted to stop what he could clearly see she was about to do. “Don’t you dare!”

  She jumped out into the blackness, blond ponytail whipping through the air as she dropped.

  Liden gripped his end of the rope. Despite leaning back to brace himself, after dropping a few feet, he still jerked forward when the rope tightened. He held the rope tight and heard a thud and some scratching as she smacked into the stone cliff face below and slid against it. Although she was barely out of sight, there was no telling what she had encountered.

  “Knell! Knell? Are you alive?” His heart was pounding in his chest as he waited to hear from her.

  He started pulling on the rope to bring her back up to the top of the cliff when she finally replied.

  “Wait!” Knell called up.

  “Knell, are you okay?”

  “You really are thick headed, you know that?” she called back up to him.

  “I’m thick headed? I’m not the one who just jumped into a dark cave with no idea what was down there!” He argued.

  “No,” she replied in a playful way, “I jumped in not knowing what was down here. You, on the other hand, tried to pull me back up before I could even get a look around. That would have been a total waste!” Liden sat quietly holding the rope, wondering if he should even dignify her with a response. Before he could think of something clever to say she called up again. “Secure that end and send me down a light!” She called.

  “I’m glad you’re alive,” he called out, “but did you hit your head? There’s nowhere to secure the line up here. Remember, it’s like the walls are polished smooth. If you weighed any more, I’d probably have slid right off the cliff after you,” he added.

  “Aww, that’s nice of you to say.” He tied the rope to his waist, grabbed the torch he had dropped, tied it to another rope from his pack and awkwardly tried to feed the torch down over the edge of the cliff while keeping it from going out. “Little lower.” He continued giving more slack to the torch to let it drop farther past the edge of the cliff. “There! That’s perfect. Just tie it off right there.”

  “Need I remind you there is nothing here to tie the rope on?”

  “The divine gave you two legs for a reason,” she retorted. “And if you could speed it up, that would be great! I’m kinda doing the splits between two rocks and it’s a bit of a pain.”

  “Do you want me to tell you where you’re being a pain for me?”

  “Only if it’ll make you move faster.”

  Liden exhaled an exasperated sigh and scrambled to work. He released some slack on the rope and backed up farther from the edge of the cliff. He fastened one rope securely around his waist with a knot that would allow him to feed more slack to Knell, and, as much as he hated doing it, he tied the rope with the torch to his leg. He sat back using his own weight as an anchor, then tugged on the rope several times a little harder than he really needed to. “Ready.”

  He felt her putting her full weight on the rope again. “Another six feet,” she called up.

  He kept feeding the rope to lower her down. After about a minute, the weight pulling on the rope was gone. “What are you seeing?”

  “One sec,” she grunted. There was some more shuffling on the rope, then it stopped moving. “Just needed to get into a better position.” Liden didn’t need to see her to know that a better position for her might be a terrible position for anyone else. For all he knew she was hanging upside down from her feet wedged into a small rock crevice, thinking it was a great place to take a rest. He had seen her climb up mountain faces he thought would be impossible, scurrying up them like it was nothing. That was one of the reasons he always took her on these cave diving expeditions. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. The crack above me opens up into a huge underground opening. The walls are all smooth and the water is steadily flowing through here.”

  “That doesn’t sound too strange?” Liden responded. Underground openings eroded by water were a common occurrence near the ocean. “Are there any veins you can see?”

  “No nothing like that. What is different is that one section of the rocks, the part I needed to climb around, is not smooth at all. It has long edges, like blades that are razor sharp sticking out in all directions. When I first touched it I cut my hand.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, it’s nothing major,” she replied. “I’ll just need to be very careful if I want to get out of here with my arms attached.”

  “The rock is probably just harder than the rest down there so it doesn’t erode as quickly. Do you think we could bring some back with us?”

  “Let’s think about this for a minute. It’s sharp as a razor and stronger than the other rocks down here. I don’t think I can just grab some and bring it up for you,” she replied. He could tell by her sarcastic tone that she was starting to lose her patience with him.

  “Is there anything else I should know about what’s down there?”

  The rope shifted a little as if she was doing some more climbing to get another look around. “There is one thing I think you you’ll find very satisfying. I need to tell you that you were right.”

  “What? Is there a vein of gold?”

  “No,” she replied quickly. “I just thought you’d like to know that, like you thought, this cave is definitely a dead end.”

  “Are you kidding me?” He gave the rope a slight tug, just enough to let her know he was annoyed.

  “No. I’m not! It’s very clearly a dead end. Why do you make me repeat myself?” she called back, though he was sure the question was rhetorical.

  Liden pulled in some of the slack from the rope, preparing for her ascent. It was difficult to gauge how much slack to give her on the rope, but she hadn’t yelled up a sarcastic criticism, so he guessed he was doing well. Without warning the rope went taught, Knell screamed out, and Liden was pulled forward. “What’s going on?”

  Silence

  “Knell, are you okay? What happened?”

  “I’m okay,” she responded, though her voice seemed forced. “The rocks down here are either smooth and slick, or sharp as daggers. I just grabbed onto the wrong kind.”

  “No worries. I’ll just pull you back up.” Liden started hefting on the rope, pulling it back toward himself. He heard it scraping on the rocks below, but didn’t give it a second thought until the rope snagged a little. With a small tug, he fell backwards, landing flat on his back as he heard a scream and a splash. The rope had obviously been cut on one of the sharp rocks she was talking about. “Knell, are you all right?” He pulled the rope up, confirming his suspicions that it was cut. It was surprising how cleanly it had been severed. She wasn’t kidding about how sharp the rocks were. He tied a large knot in the rope with a circ
le for a foothold.

  “I’m doing great down here,” she responded. “The water is a lovely temperature. You should come down here and join me.”

  “Rope is on the way,” Liden responded, ignoring her comment. He gathered the rope together and threw it out over the ledge in a bundle, letting the heavy knot pull the rope down toward her.

  “It’s definitely ocean water, like we thought,” she called up. Liden could hear some splashing as she swam in the pool. “Got it!”

  “Pull me up, muscle man!” He felt two quick tugs on the rope. Liden anchored the rope around his waist, leaned back, and started walking backwards, dragging her up from the water. Pulling her out of the water was easy, but once her full weight was hanging on him he strained a little to keep her moving.

  “Stop!” she shouted.

  Through gritted teeth, he responded. “Almost there.”

  “No. You need to stop.”

  Liden stopped walking and sat down, giving his legs a rest as he used his weight to hold her in place. “What is the problem?”

  “Two things,” she shouted. First off, the rope is rubbing right next to the sharp rocks. Right now it is on a flat edge of the rock, but if it shifts it’ll cut the rope again.”

  “Can’t you just grab onto the walls and climb up around the sharp parts?”

  “Not with my hand cut up. I can barely grip this rope.”

  “I don’t see a way around this,” Liden replied. “We’ll just pull you up as far as we can, then double up the rope, or see what climbing you can do. Worst case, you end up taking a swim again.”

  “That’s the other thing,” Knell responded. “There’s something moving around in the water. It’s big and black and seems to be attracted to my blood that is dripping.”

  Liden sat in silence for a long moment. If she was right, it sounded like a shark was in the water beneath her. It made sense that some ocean life would be in here, but he never expected to find a shark in a cave.