The city of Collen threw a festival to celebrate the advance of fall, bowling pumpkins into wooden buckets and drinking cider until they were warned against going too near the edges of the butte. In Narashtovik, the first snows would soon arrive, but Dante had a feeling winter would be in no hurry to come to the desert.
The morning after the holiday, as he came in from growing what felt like his eight thousandth crop of potatoes, Blays intercepted him.
"You're needed on the war balcony." Blays tapped his temple. "I had an idea."
The other three members of the Hand were already there. Boggs looked like he'd enjoyed too much cider the night before. For that matter, so did the Keeper.
"Here it is," Blays said. "You know that fancy road the king built? We're going to destroy it."
Dante glanced between the others. "Right. With no road to advance on, they'll have no choice but to stop at the border. As long as we steel ourselves against their curses, we'll be sitting pretty."
"Roads aren't built to get the soldiers to do something besides whore and gamble. They make your army faster. This is a tricky leap of logic, so listen closely—but if we destroy the things that makes armies faster, then we make Mallon's army slower."
"Even with the road gone, the basin is mostly open desert. Unless we train the tumbleweeds to throw rods in their axles, it won't slow them down by more than a few days."
"That gives us a few extra days to prepare. Or to harass their every move. Or to throttle each other by the neck and ask why in the hell we thought we could stand against Mallon."
"Their supply lines will pay a tax, too." Cord spat the word "tax" like it was as bitter as lemon pith. "If they leave their wagons behind, we can raid them."
"It does open up some tactics," Dante said. "But if you destroy the roads, you'll shut down trade. You two might not always be at war."
"Trade is the worry of a free people! If our children don't have to spend their days fighting, they'll have plenty of time to rebuild the roads."
"It's their land," Blays said. "If they want us to wreck it, who are we to refuse a good smashing?"
Boggs slid a large parchment map along the table, tapping a spot to their southwest. "They got a second road near the coast. Ain't much used except by smugglers and pilgrims. But they might try to get sneaky."
"We'll take care of that, too," Dante said. "We'll need fast horses. I get the feeling Mallon could march at any time."
On hearing the plan, Naran requested to come along with them. All three were provided with a pair of asties, the mottled, endurance-bred horses favored by messengers and scouts. They rode hard down the pavement, getting some final use out of it.
Dante didn't bother to tear up any of the road that day, opting instead to raise a patch of potatoes beside it. The next day of hard riding, however, they entered lightly wooded hills. Without a road, wagons would be lucky to advance faster than a mile per hour.
They stopped in the shade and dismounted. Dante gazed down the road. "It's funny. I've spent years building these to Narashtovik."
"Great," Blays said. "Then you've earned the right to destroy one."
"They're more valuable than anyone imagines. Like rivers made of stone. Bearing commerce, knowledge, and news. It almost feels wrong to destroy it. Like burning a book."
Naran gave the passage a severe look. "If your enemy can use a book to attack you, then you're right to burn it."
"That sounds reasonable," Dante said. "But that's the same rationale the Mallish use to burn the Cycle of Arawn."
Blays tapped his fingernails against the pommel of the sword on his left hip. "I've conducted a thorough examination, and it turns out this road doesn't have any family. We can kill it without worrying about anyone coming after us."
Dante sliced open the back of his arm. Nether zipped to him from the undersides of leaves and stones. He poured it into the earth like black rain. The road's cobbles sunk into the surface, splitting apart at the seams as the soil fell away from beneath them. He let some sections of the earth collapse while raising others several feet, making it impossible for anything with wheels to advance.
He followed the road westward, splitting, burying, and lifting it as he went. After a while, he realized that with the terrain so disrupted, he didn't have to demolish every last inch of road. So long as at least half of the ground was torn up, it would still be faster to cut a trail through the woods than to try to negotiate the craters and steps.
He'd brought several shaden with him, deploying them to augment his strength as they continued onward. Each mile brought them closer to Mallon. Blays and Naran watched the woods, but saw no sign of the enemy.
Another day took them to the border. Dante waited for nightfall before continuing into enemy lands, the road melting away with each step. Two hours before dawn, with his control of the nether growing clumsy, they turned around and led their horses back into Collen.
With the king's road thoroughly smashed, they turned south, making for the smuggler's trail alongside the ocean. According to Boggs, it wasn't cobbled, but by filling in a few narrow spots, or collapsing a cliff or two, it might be possible to render it completely unusable.
As they neared the sea, the air grew denser, cooler in the day and warmer at night. The forest petered out. A few old farmhouses sat in the scrubby land, boards gone gray with age, roofs rotted out, but Dante didn't see any sign of current inhabitation.
They traveled along the western edge of a shallow valley that varied from a few hundred feet across to as much as a mile. Running roughly north-south, portions of it were so straight it looked as though it had been made by a plow dragged by a sky-sized ox. The grass and shrubs in the valley were greener and thicker than on the higher ground to either side.
Once upon a time, Dante would have simply looked at it as a valley and left it at that. Knowing what he did, however, he thought it had once been the bed of a river. One that had been rerouted or destroyed when his ancestors lifted the mountain range to the east.
Cresting a ridge, the sea glittered to the south. Dante stopped to take in the sight. Birds drifted over the distant waves. Here and there, a white sail stood out from the blue-green sea. As the valley neared the waters, it grew shallower and shallower, the floor lifting until the valley disappeared altogether.
Dante's mouth dropped with laughter. "We're wasting our time. We can do more than slow the Mallish down—we can stop them from entering Collen altogether."
~
Dante traced his finger along the map, sweeping it over many miles of hills and scrubland. Across from him, Boggs, Cord, and the Keeper watched his every move.
"This is your border," Dante said. "Although since there aren't any rivers, mountains, or oceans to form a natural barrier, said border might as well be here, here, or here." He tapped to either side of the meandering line. "And that is Collen's main problem. The border's too wide to defend."
He stuck a pebble on the border. "If you stuck a fort somewhere, Mallon would just march around it. The city of Collen is the only truly defensible spot in the entire country. But when you retreat to your city, that leaves your towns and farmlands wide open. Mallon can pillage whatever they want. Even if you eventually drive them out, you'll have to spend years rebuilding. And just as you're ready to start growing again, here comes another invasion. This process has kept the basin in chains for centuries."
"That is an accurate summary," the Keeper said. "But it isn't news. We are Colleners. To us, this isn't history—it is our lives."
"It doesn't have to be. I can close off your lands."
"How? It's as you said. Our only defense is in this city."
"I'll give you three guesses," Blays said. "It rhymes with 'leather' and it's so dark that the night itself looks at it and says, 'Damn, you're awfully dark.'"
She crinkled her brow. "You mean to use the nether to alter the land. You have the power to change so much by yourself?"
Dante nodded. "With enough time, yes. I don't h
ave to change much. By raising the high places and lowering the low ones, I can form bottlenecks that could be defended by a hundred soldiers. In the right locations, two or three forts could make your lands impregnable."
"I wish to believe this. But I've been disappointed so many times before."
Cord narrowed her eyes at Dante. "What will this cost us? When a god offers to make your wishes real, she never does it for free."
Dante muttered something unpleasant. "Don't tell me you're buying into the Keeper's propaganda. If you're still not convinced of my mortality, you're welcome to inspect my chamber pot."
"But here you are telling us you can reshape the land we live on! If you have the power of a god, then what more do you need to be counted as one?"
"Worshippers," Blays said. "Right now, his follower count sits at one. And that's only if you include himself."
"Setting aside the god issue," Dante said, making an effort to keep his voice level, "the cost is that this can't be undone. Parts of your land will be changed drastically. Rendered completely unusable. As long as you remain hostile toward each other, Mallon will be able to intercept every caravan you try to sneak into their land. Even if relations repair enough to resume official trade, you'll have to expend resources to protect your routes. Otherwise, bandits will eat your merchants for breakfast. Additionally, fortifications can always be used against the people who built them. If Mallon ever took the border from you, they'd command the region until you took it back."
He stopped to think. Blays motioned eastward. "Don't forget the part where forests become deserts, rivers reroute themselves to your neighbors, and cats start sleeping with mice."
The Keeper drew back her head. "Are you planning to raise entire mountains?"
"It would take me years to do that," Dante said. "But even though the changes I'll be making will be relatively small, there's no telling what impact they'll have."
"We already live in a gods damned desert," Boggs said. "Unless you're planning to take away our dirt and make us try to grow wheat from rock, I don't see what we have to lose."
"Take a minute to think about this. Not just as it stands now, but how it will impact your grandchildren, and their grandchildren after that. We're talking about forever."
The three Colleners exchanged meaningful looks. The Keeper was the first to speak. "It may be that there is a time when the cost of freedom is too dear to pay. But that time is not now. Free us, Dante. That is what you are here to do."
He had known that would be their decision. They were so starving for independence they'd lob their firstborns into the volcanoes of the Plagued Islands if that's what it took to win it. His question had been little more than a formality, a way to spare his own conscience in case things turned out for the worse.
Then again, it was their lives. Their land. And their fate. If they'd decided to take the risk, who was he to tell them he knew better?
"I'm not sure what's more appropriate here," Dante said. "Very well? Or so be it?"
The Keeper smiled in pure satisfaction. "How soon will you begin?"
~
They rode back into the desert, accompanied by a small contingent of guides and scouts. Dante sent moths, dragonflies, and wasps soaring over the contours of the land, following its heights and depressions, discovering the precise course his work would take.
The Green Mountains, a small range far east of the Mallish city of Whetton, would mark the northern end of the border. The ocean would mark it to the south. That left close to 150 miles to cover. At first, it felt like he'd accepted an insurmountable task—even excavating a 150-mile-long ditch could take months—but as he learned the land, he found his prediction was true, and that it would take far fewer modifications than one would guess. Bolstered by the shaden they'd liberated from Grayson Fort, he thought he could finish the job in as little as two weeks.
He returned to Collen to present his plan to the Hand. They examined his maps with two parts wonder and one part horror, seeming, at last, to understand how much things were about to change.
Boggs tapped the southern range of the proposed border. "Could run into trouble there. That's giant territory."
Dante frowned at the map. "I was just there. It's not that big."
"The land ain't big, you fool. I mean the people who live there."
"Exactly how big are we talking?" Blays said. "Big enough to stamp you underfoot? Or just tall enough that the tailor's annoyed at how long it takes to make their trousers?"
"Taller than any man you've ever seen. Strong enough to tear you in half. More monster than human."
"You've seen them yourself?"
Boggs nodded. "Only from a distance. Keep to themselves, which is fine by me. They come and go as they please, though, so watch out."
Blays scratched the corner of his jaw. "Nomads? Other than big, what do they look like?"
"Stouter than cows." Boggs spread his hand wide and made a pulling motion down over his face. "Beards from here to eternity. And ears so small you'll wonder where they went."
Dante and Blays looked at each other. At the same time, they said, "Norren."
"You know 'em?"
"Not the ones here," Dante said. "But we know many of them up north. If there's a clan where I need to work, I don't think we'll have any problem getting them to relocate."
Boggs got a quizzical look. "You mean to deal with them? I was only telling you about them so you wouldn't get clubbed and eaten."
They rode out once again, taking the swift-legged asties. As soon as they'd convinced the norren to move, Dante would strike north, altering the land as he went. Unless Mallon marched in a matter of days, he'd seal off the basin before they could breach it.
Boggs had claimed the norren were often seen around the shallow seaside valley, which they used to hem in herds of deer and antelope. As Dante, Blays, and Naran neared it, they slowed, moving from ridge to ridge to take in the surroundings. Tall grass carpeted the valley floor, yellowed from the long summer, though some was starting to regain its green with the autumn rains. A few thorny trees stood in small clusters like gossiping soldiers.
"Well, better get down there," Blays said.
Naran looked puzzled. "We have a much better vantage here along the rim."
"Which means that we'll never see them at all."
The captain blinked at this. "Since they will see us first. You believe they'll try to stay hidden?"
Blays moved his horse toward a game trail down the gentle slope of the valley. "Norren tend to keep away from humans. They have a cultural aversion to being murdered and enslaved."
"How do you know so much about them?"
"Because Dante and I are official clan members. I won a swimming contest, you see. And also we freed their entire people."
The expression on Naran's face said two things: first, that he still didn't understand. And second, that coming to understand would be more trouble than it was worth. Instead, he turned his attention to the wind-tossed prairie. Grasshoppers leaped around them, fat and green. Crickets chirped like they'd forgotten how to do anything else. To left and right, chaotic skeins of spiderwebs matted the grass.
Dante pointed to one messy cluster of threads. "Notice that?"
Blays nodded. "And no spiderwebs across the trail. Either they've been through here in the last couple hours, or we're about to find out how extraordinarily tall deer taste."
The path forked repeatedly. Each time, they took whichever branch was clear of webs. Grass rustled. Dante stopped, listening to the winds.
"If we find them," Naran said, "are you that sure they'll be willing to speak to us?"
"It wouldn't surprise me if they want nothing to do with us." Dante dismounted to take a look around on foot, tying his horse to the branch of a thorn tree. "But they need to hear what we have to say."
Blays dismounted as well. "We're practically family. When we explain that—"
A bow twanged. Something rammed Dante in the shoulder, knocking him
to the ground. As he struggled to stand, the bow thrummed again, the arrow coming straight for his throat.
6
In Raxa's experience, there were three kinds of people in the world.
The first kind, and by far the most common, was those who liked to have done something. In the Order of the Alley, that was the type who pulled a job, then were happy to spend the next six weeks sitting in pubs, laughing with their friends and drinking away the evenings. Most of these weren't so interested in thieving for thieving's sake, but rather because of all the down time that came with it. If these people stumbled into a big enough sack of silver, they'd never pull another job again.
The second kind of person was those who preferred to think about doing something. The planners and the plotters. The dreamers and the schemers. For them, the kick came from the preparation. Casing the joint. Drawing up maps. Placing an inside man or bribing somebody who was already there. Assigning the right people to the right roles. Anticipating contingencies, and making backup plans to deal with them.
If you ever wanted to pull a job bigger than picking pockets, you needed people like these. Good ones were worth their actual weight in silver. Most, though, they didn't live up to their potential. They'd get so wrapped up in the thinking that they delayed the doing—and sometimes never got around to it at all. For some, following through on it was boring, since they'd already completed the act in their mind.
Then there was the third type: those who wanted to do the doing. Who only felt alive when they were inside the darkened house, listening for sentries, lifting the jewels from the dresser.
Raxa was the third type. As she sat down with Vess to work out how to steal the original Cycle of Arawn, it became clear that Vess was a schemer.
"Stop," Raxa said in the middle of a long proposal about tunneling into the Citadel from the outside. "Don't worry about getting in or out. I've got that covered."
Vess gave her a skeptical look. "You sound sure."
"That's a bad thing?"
The Cycle of Galand Box Set Page 96