Yanshi

Luding needed to know more. He needed his friend in the Yushan fortress to be less coy. Luding summoned birds from the air even as he moved through the woods in the failing light. Now he was climbing summits. The descent on the north side was never as steep as the ascent had been, and he was going higher and higher into the mountains. The trees thinned, and he moved faster as the land opened up.

A pair of ravens descended to his fists as if they were hawks to a beastmaster. He spoke to them, planted messages in their wise heads, and sent them to the Yushan. No one ever suspected ravens. They rose above him and then soared away to the southeast, and he turned and saw how very high he had come.

He looked out over the wilderness. At his feet – far, far below – was the chain of beaver ponds like miniature lakes sparkling in the last of the sun. The stream that connected them was a thread of silver, visible here and there in the warp and weft of trees.