Holding his injured side with his left hand, he rose to his feet, slung a rope around the bird’s neck, and pulled it taught. Shrieking and beating its wings wildly, it leaned down to snatch up the rope in its beak as he pulled on the other end and moved closer. He pulled again on the spellbound rope, and the magic within took hold.

More corvus birds now surrounded him from all sides. They moved about the cliff’s outer edge, looking on at Fen with wispy eyes. As the other birds began to move closer, he used the rope to mount the glossy black bird. With a crack of the rope, he was airborne and soaring high on the back of the corvus. It would have taken a fortnight to sail to the land of the perimeter by sea. By air he arrived by dusk – just as the magic in his rope had taken a firm hold. The corvus landed near the stables where his family waited.