The Raven

The slope was worse than it looked. Snow hid loose stones, and twice his boots slid out from under him. On the second fall, his knee struck rock. Pain flashed bright and clean. He lay there with one cheek pressed to the snow while wind combed the hood from his face.

For a moment, he wanted only to remain still.

Then something croaked above him.

“Rrrah.”

Eliya lifted his head.

A raven stood on a stone ten yards away, black feathers slicked by snow. It was larger than any raven he had seen at home, with a heavy bill and eyes that caught the pale light like wet obsidian. It tilted its head, studying him.

Eliya pushed himself upright.

“You lost too?”

The raven gave a rough clicking sound.

It hopped once, then spread its wings. The wind seized it, but the bird did not fight the gust. It climbed in a dark spiral, crossed the basin, and landed on a crooked slab near the river.

Eliya watched it.

The raven looked back.

“Wait,” he called.

The bird turned away.

Eliya staggered after it.

By the time he reached the slab, the raven had moved again, this time to a low ridge where the snow had been scoured down to tundra grass. Eliya climbed toward it, slipping and grabbing at buried stones. His knee had stiffened. His fingers were numb despite the gloves.

The raven waited until he reached the ridge.

There, sheltered from the worst of the wind, Eliya found a shallow hollow beneath a shelf of rock. Someone - or something - had used it before. A few dry willow stems lay tucked against the stone. The discovery was so small it nearly broke him.

He dropped into the hollow and began pulling the stems together.

The raven watched from above.

“You know the way out,” Eliya said.

The bird’s beak opened. No sound came.

Eliya unfastened his pack. The zipper dragged through ice. He took out the granola bar, its wrapper stiff and shining with frost, and held it up.

The raven’s head snapped toward it.

“I have this,” he said. “And meat.”

The raven hopped lower.

“If you show me a road, I’ll give you everything.”

A gust struck the basin. Snow streamed over the ridge, whitening the bird’s wings. It crouched into the wind, claws gripping stone.

Eliya tore the granola bar in half. The oats inside had frozen into a hard brown brick. He placed one piece on the rock.

The raven did not take it.

“You want all of it?”

Its eye fixed on him.

“Fine.”

He set down the other half. Then he removed the dried meat and laid the strips beside the bar. The food looked pitiful against the black stone.

“There,” he said. “That’s my last real meal. Lead me to people, and it’s yours.”

The raven descended.

Its claws clicked against the rock. It seized the granola bar, tossed it once, and swallowed. Then it took the meat one strip at a time, lifting its head each time to work the food down. Eliya watched the last piece disappear.

The bird wiped its bill on the stone.

A strange anger rose in him.

“You could at least pretend to be grateful.”

The raven turned its head toward the far side of the basin.

Then it flew.

Eliya stared after it. The bird did not go downriver, where the braided channels might eventually meet a road or settlement. It crossed toward a broken line of ridges leading away from the basin, into country where the snow lay deeper and the spruce stood thick along the ravines.

“Hey!”

The raven circled once.

Eliya gathered his pack and climbed out of the hollow. His knee buckled when he put weight on it. He caught himself against the rock and breathed through the pain.

The bird landed on a dead spruce below.

“That isn’t the way,” Eliya said.

The raven called again, a low, throaty sound that seemed almost like laughter.

Eliya looked behind him. The basin was already closing. Snow erased his footprints as fast as he made them. The ridge shelter offered no warmth, no water, and no hope of being seen. If the storm cleared, perhaps searchers would find the basin. If it did not, he would freeze before morning.

He took one step toward the spruce.

The raven flew farther into the trees.

“You’d better know what you’re doing.”

The bird vanished among the black branches.

Eliya followed.

The spruce forest began suddenly, a dark wall at the edge of the tundra. Snow clung to the lower boughs, and the branches raked his shoulders as he entered. The air became quieter. Wind whispered high above, but beneath the trees he heard only the crunch of his boots and the faint, uneven pull of his breath.

The raven appeared ahead, then disappeared, always keeping just far enough away.

Eliya stumbled over a buried root.

“Slow down!”

The raven answered from somewhere to his left.

He pushed through a curtain of branches and found the bird perched on a fallen spruce. Beneath the trunk, the snow had formed a hollow. It was deep enough to crawl into.

Eliya dropped his pack.

The raven flew down and pecked at the snow beside the trunk.

“What?”

It pecked again.

Eliya knelt and scraped away the crust with his gloves. Beneath it, the snow was soft and dry. He dug a narrow trench under the fallen tree, widening it with his hands until he could fit his shoulders inside.

The raven watched.

“You’re making me work for my bargain,” Eliya said.

The bird fluffed its feathers.

Eliya crawled into the hollow. The ground beneath him was cold, but the wind could not reach it. He pulled his pack inside and wrapped himself in the emergency blanket. Its metallic surface crackled loudly in the small space.

Outside, the raven settled on a branch.

For a while, neither moved.

Then Eliya said, “What do I call you?”

The raven’s eye glinted.

“Raven is too obvious.”

The bird clicked its bill.

“Crow?”

The raven gave a harsh croak.

“Right. You hate that.”

Snow sifted from the branches. Eliya curled his fingers around the bottle and held it against his chest. The water inside remained solid.

“My name is Eliya,” he said. “Eliya Northwind.”

The raven leaned forward.

“You can call me that if you want.”

The bird made a sound unlike its earlier calls. It rolled low in its throat, almost forming a syllable.

Eliya smiled despite himself.

“Close enough.”

The light faded quickly. Interior Alaska did not ease into evening in late fall; it dropped into it. The trees became pillars. Snow beneath them turned blue.

Eliya’s stomach cramped. He had traded away the food that might have carried him through the night. He knew it. The raven knew it too, if ravens knew anything beyond hunger.

“You better be right,” he said.

The bird remained silent.

Eliya shut his eyes. At once he saw the basin again - the white emptiness, the river splitting and splitting, the compass needle trembling. He saw the faces of the people who would search for him, each one turning toward a different horizon.

A wing brushed the snow outside.

He opened his eyes.

The raven had dropped into the hollow beside his head. It was close enough that Eliya could see the fine gray feathers hidden beneath the black ones, the small scars along its bill, the pale frost gathered on its toes.

The bird looked at him.

Then it spoke.

Not with a human voice. Not quite. The sound came in broken notes, shaped by the throat and tongue of a raven, but beneath it ran a rhythm that carried meaning. A story, perhaps, or the beginning of one.

Eliya listened.

The raven told of a time before the rivers had chosen their beds, when the world was dark and the first light was locked inside a chief’s house. Raven, hungry and curious, had found a way inside by becoming small as a needle, then smaller still. He had stolen the light and carried it into the sky.

Eliya did not know whether the tale came from the bird, from some old memory buried in the land, or from the fever beginning behind his eyes. Yet as the raven spoke, the darkness outside seemed to gather around its voice.

“And then what?” Eliya murmured.

The raven’s head tilted.

“What happened after he let the light go?”

The bird gave a soft, bubbling croak.

Eliya understood only the feeling of it: that Raven had not released the light out of kindness. He had released it because he wanted to see what would happen.

“Sounds like a bad reason.”

The raven stepped closer.

“But it worked,” Eliya said.

Outside, wind moved through the spruce tops with a long, hollow moan. The fallen tree shuddered. Snow sifted down over the two of them.

Eliya’s eyelids grew heavy.

He fought sleep. Cold could make a person welcome it. Cold could turn death into a gentle suggestion.

The raven struck the trunk with its bill.

Eliya jerked awake.

“What?”

The bird struck again, then hopped out of the hollow.

Eliya saw a narrow line of tracks leading between the trees. They were not boot prints. They were small, sharp marks in the snow, nearly hidden beneath the branches.

The raven followed them.

Eliya crawled out after it. “Now?”

The bird flew low, from spruce to spruce.

He should have stayed beneath the fallen tree. He knew that. The shelter was poor, but it was shelter. Yet the raven had eaten his food, and the bargain had been spoken aloud. Eliya had offered everything for a way out.

He could not abandon the bargain before it began.

He lifted his pack and limped after the bird.

The tracks led away from the river.

Soon the trees thickened, and the ground dropped toward a ravine Eliya had not seen from the basin. A stream moved below, black water sliding beneath a skin of ice. On the opposite bank, the raven waited on a white-barked birch.

Beyond it, the wilderness rose in dark folds.

Eliya stopped at the edge.

“That’s deeper in.”

The raven spread its wings.

“I said out.”

The bird flew across the ravine.

Eliya looked back once. Through the trees, the basin was gone. The wind had sealed it behind him.

He stepped onto the ice.

It cracked beneath his boot.

Eliya froze.

Across the ravine, the raven gave a single call - not warning, not comfort, but command.

Eliya shifted his weight to the next patch of ice. It held.

Then another.

He crossed slowly, each step sounding like a small gunshot beneath the snow. When he reached the far bank, his knee was shaking and his breath tore in his throat.

The raven waited until he climbed beside it.

Then it turned toward the deeper forest and flew on.

Eliya followed, carrying no food, no certain map, and one promise that had already begun to cost him more than he possessed.

End of chapter one. 21 more chapters in the full book.