The Black Star (Book 3)

by Edward W. Robertson

  "What's happening?" Lew screeched.

  "I met a kapper," Dante said. "And discovered their manners are extremely poor."

  Ast appeared beside them. "You went outside? In the night?"

  "To see the lights I was sent here to investigate? Yes, how foolish of me."

  Ast gave him a long look. "We don't live in high holes because we think the ground smells funny."

  "Obviously, it makes more sense to me now!"

  In the woods, the kapper thrashed and yanked. With a great crack, its horn came free. The pine stuttered, popped, groaned, and fell, boughs hitting the dirt with the sound of incoming surf. The kapper shook its head, backed up, and gazed straight up at Dante.

  "Are they smart?" Dante said.

  "I've never engaged one in conversation," Ast said. "As predators, however, they are impeccable."

  "I noticed. They're impervious to nether! No wonder the priests of Ancient Narashtovik exterminated them. It would be like living barefoot in the land of loose nails."

  "Where did it go?" Lew said.

  Dante turned back to the woods. Starlight glittered on frost. The trees stood alone. The only sound was the whisk of the breeze in the branches.

  "You see what a hunter it is?" Ast said. "It's trying to trick us. Not wise to descend before dawn."

  "No problems on that front," Dante muttered. "It has successfully scared the shit out of me."

  He watched the woods for a minute, then withdrew from the entry to tend to the deep red gash in his leg. The nether sewed it up with no trace of the wound but puffy pink flesh. Less could be done for the leg of his pants, but Lew had been an acolyte in the monastery for years, and was well trained with the mending of the monks' robes and underclothes. By the time he finished, the pants were wearable, if susceptible to the winds.

  Somehow, Dante was able to get back to sleep. When he got up, it was an hour past dawn. The grounds around the cliff had been clawed up, but Ast had already climbed down to scout, and assured Dante the kapper was gone. As Dante ate breakfast and shook the fog from his head, he stared at the fallen pine. Its trunk was broken in jagged shards. He tried not to imagine what the kapper's horns would have done to the trunk of his body.

  Once they'd eaten, they resumed their course into the mountains. They spoke little, crossing first the forest, then another field of sprawling talus. This descended to a high valley of waving grass broken here and there by buttes. To the east—the direction of last night's lights—the ground sank in a series of terrifying cliffs. Miles away, the skyline was interrupted by dominant peaks. The sun dropped. Ast began to search for a good place to set up a cave, looking for a cliff with an eastern exposure.

  He found a short butte, forty feet high and carpeted with yellowing grass. For the third day in a row, Dante carved a hole in the wall and an inset ladder leading up to it. They ate their standard fare, which was dwindling. If they turned back toward Soll tomorrow, they wouldn't face any problems on the food front, but if they tarried beyond that, they'd have to forage or go hungry. The latter wasn't a pleasant scenario when they were marching up and down mountains all day long. Dante would probably be able to knock down a few birds and squirrels, but cleaning and cooking the game would slow them down.

  And he didn't like the idea of building a fire. All that smoke would be a dead giveaway of their presence. Nevermind that they appeared to be completely alone in a pristine landscape. That just made him feel more exposed.

  They climbed up to the cave. Dante had modified this one to have a higher entrance with a shallow deck-like landing that would permit all three of them to watch the night skies. Low clouds streaked past, reddened by the sunset. Within minutes, the day had fled, chased away by the stars and a quarter moon already halfway across the heavens.

  "It was the kapper, wasn't it?" Lew said, hushed. "That's what's been killing the sheep."

  "The bull-sized pile of teeth, horns, and impenetrable plate?" Dante said. "What makes you think it's capable of killing a ball of wool?"

  Ast surveyed the land below them, a brief plain interrupted by another sheer ravine. They had reached the last of what could be called the foothills. Any further east and they'd be climbing into the staggering upslopes of the spine of the Woduns.

  "It's unusual for them to descend into shepherd territory," Ast said. "I've only seen two others in all my life here."

  Dante glanced his way. "Yet despite their rarity, Soll is built around protecting yourselves against them."

  "They're rare because our ancestors learned to allow them no reason to come to our homes."

  Dante chuckled. "Trust me, after facing one—or more accurately, backing one, as I fled from it at full speed—I would be living in cliffs, too."

  Lew leaned forward. "Or getting the hell out of the mountains altogether!"

  Ast shook his head. "People live in lands with hurricanes, wildfires, warfare that leaves the fields buried in three inches of ash. This is no different." He was quiet a moment. "Although the sight of a village ravaged by a kapper is as grotesque as any war."

  Dante opened his mouth to ask for details. Pink light seared across the east. At first it came in beams straight from the sky, shading Lew's face rosy. Then the beams curled and dispersed into multicolored sheets of purple and green. For minutes, the colors shifted and swirled, floating lower and lower until they seemed to graze the jagged peaks.

  Dante's interested waned. It was pretty enough, but so was everything in nature when you sat and looked at it. And with the exception of the initial beams, this looked like just another expression of the Ghost Lights.

  The kappers were genuinely troubling, however. If the animals were venturing below their normal grounds, the Council of Narashtovik might be able to repay and curry favor with the eastern peoples by dispatching a force to root out the monsters. And Dante believed they'd have more to gain from such a venture than mere favor. If he could study a kapper, and determine what enabled it to resist the nether, it could be a tremendous boon to the strength of Narashtovik's priests. It would lend them an advantage over every other nethermancer in the land.

  Without warning, the lights coalesced from ethereal sheets into a tangle of curved lines. One, thicker than the others, stood straight in the sky, pointing to the heavens. Each of the thinner lines curved toward it, connecting to it. The light paled until it was as silver as the stars.

  "That's Barden," Dante said flatly.

  Ast leaned forward. "The White Tree?"

  "It looks exactly like that."

  "That looks like an oak."

  "Really? How many oaks have you seen with branches like scimitars? Because remind me to stay away from that forest."

  "They kinda look like swords," Lew squinted.

  Dante frowned. "Haven't they taken you to see it?"

  "We're not supposed to visit. Except on the holiest occasions."

  "Well, that's ridiculous. Barden sits at the center of our beliefs. Remind me to change that policy as soon as we return."

  Lew watched him sidelong, attempting to gauge if he was serious, but Dante only had eyes for the tree in the sky. It shimmered, swaying not as if it were in a wind, but as if it were moving on its own power. The lights sharpened—Dante could make out the teeth budding from the bone branches—then collapsed to a single blinding flare. The ball of light wavered to the eastern peaks. It disappeared in a flash of white.

  He blinked against the sudden darkness, the image burned into his vision. "Well, we have to go see that."

  "Did you mark the spot?" Ast said.

  "How could I? It's miles away in the middle of the night."

  "My point exactly."

  "We've already come this far. I think we can spend another day to find the resting place of the awe-inspiring bundle of light."

  The tall man shrugged. "You are the captain. But it could have come down anywhere in that range. It will take many days and better equipment than we've got to fully search it."

  Dante shook his he
ad but didn't bother to argue further. He was the captain, and they would do as he said. This was something Olivander continued to drill into him. Dante was used to operating on his own, accountable to a handful of superiors. Now, he was the superior. People like Ast were accountable to him. It was his role to ask them for more than they believed they were capable of—and to recognize when they were correct. He didn't expect to search the whole range, but Ast could at least provide him with a look.

  They watched for another hour. The night grew frozen, too cold for the chirrup of insects. An owl hooted for a while, then gave up. After a little longer, so did Dante.

  As first light hit the ridges, he extricated himself from his blankets and returned to the mouth of the cave to try to mark the spot where the light had fallen. He believed he had it: a rocky bowl between two great peaks, elevated roughly halfway between the treeline and the snowline. It was just a few miles away, as the sparrow soars.

  "A lot further as the schlub walks," Lew said.

  "We'll be there by noon," Dante said. "Spend the afternoon searching. If there's nothing to see, we head back toward Soll tomorrow morning. But I didn't come all this way to turn around when I'm literally in sight of it."

  "'It' being?"

  "I don't know. That's the whole point."

  He glanced at Ast, but if their guide had opinions, he kept them to himself. They brought their gear down and headed across the grassy field. Very soon, a ravine etched the earth. It was fifty feet deep yet no more than thirty across and extended to left and right as far as Dante could see, blocking their way forward. It felt unnatural, as if the earth were a series of paving stones and a flash flood had washed away the mortar that had once cemented these two together. Ast lowered his pack and went for the rope.

  "Don't bother," Dante said. "I'm through wasting time."

  He sliced open his much-abused left forearm and fed the blood to the hungry nether. As it built, he reached his mind into the ravine's edge. The shadows waiting there were orderly, easy to grasp and eager to move. A rope of limestone flowed from the cliff face and extended toward the other side. Once it touched, Dante sealed it fast, then drew more from the wall, thickening the bridge from a rope to a trunk. Once it was reasonably thick, he widened it four feet across, then stepped back, finished.

  Lew blinked. "That doesn't look remotely safe."

  "Then you'd better cross first," Dante said. "That way you'll get it when it's still fresh."

  The young monk narrowed his eyes, attempting to read Dante's face, then scowled, moved to the cliff's edge, and explored the bridge with an extended toe. When it failed to pop, groan, or crack, Lew gritted his teeth and edged onto the platform, half turned so he could leap back to solid ground should it threaten to give out.

  It held. Lew walked forward, knees bent, hands held out for balance, as if he were walking a tightrope instead of a path as wide as a hallway. As he neared the far side, he picked up his pace, running to the safety of level ground.

  "I didn't die!" he hollered.

  "Were you joking about him going first?" Ast said.

  "Not really," Dante said. "Go ahead. I'll keep an eye on things as you cross."

  Ast moved to the bridge, hesitated for a moment, then crossed without so much as a wobble. Dante settled his pack on his shoulders and followed. The bridge was silent and didn't give the slightest bit, but Dante stopped ten feet across, the chasm yawning below him. He'd never made a crossing of this sort and had no idea how stable it truly was. He delved into the nether woven into the stone. Looked as strong as when he'd first drawn it across the gap.

  On its physical surface, however, tiny pale twigs were mixed into the rock. Dante knelt for a closer look and nudged a protruding nib with his fingertip. The twig flexed. There were others melded with the rock beside it. He had seen these items before, on dozens if not hundreds of occasions, but given the context, it took him an embarrassingly long time to identify them as fish bones.

  He glanced up at the others waiting at the end of the bridge. They'd been watching him from his first step; both had leaned forward when he stopped and knelt to examine the limestone. At this very moment, their expressions were going through a drastic phase transition: eyes popping, jaws dropping, spines straightening like spears.

  "Shit!" Lew screamed.

  Assuming the bridge must be collapsing despite all sensory evidence to the contrary, Dante popped into a low crouch, arms held out from his sides. Movement flashed in the corner of his eye. On the side of the ravine he'd just departed, a kapper bounced forward, turf and dust flying from its claws.

  Dante inhaled so hard he choked. He broke into a dead run across the bridge. Ahead, Ast's sword flashed in the dawn. Dante didn't think about drawing his. If the nether had failed to crack the kapper's hide, there was no hope for steel.

  The limestone was smooth and slippery. Five feet from the end, he stumbled, sprawling on palms and knees. The kapper loped onto the bridge, plates clicking. Lew scrambled forward and grabbed Dante, hauling him to his feet. Dante stomped, spiking nether through the platform. A slab of rock sheared off and tumbled away. More followed, falling into the empty space. The remainder of the bridge collapsed beneath the kapper.

  It honked with ear-punishing fury and leapt from the falling structure. Dante cried out and backed onto solid ground. Ast moved beside him, sword ready. The beast arced toward them through the air, front feet catching the stump of the bridge. The stone shrieked under the kapper's claws. It slid down, scrambling, then its vast weight pulled it loose. Its call echoed up the ravine. Seconds later, so did the whomp of its impact.

  Dante edged forward, convinced he would see the kapper up on its feet and already halfway back up the cliff. But all he saw was a squashed black body and a settling bloom of dust.

  He turned on Ast. "I thought they only came out at night!"

  "They do," Ast said.

  "Did someone forget to tell me today was one of those night-days?"

  "I have never seen nor heard of one hunting during daylight. If they did, we'd never be able to leave the caves."

  Dante wiped cold sweat from his brow. "Then how do you explain this?"

  The tall man shook his head. "Maybe we've wandered too close to its home. Or maybe it got the smell of you and wouldn't let go."

  "Well, we need to get down there for a better look."

  "Gross," Lew said. "Why?"

  "Because that thing batted away the nether like a stray moth. I need to slice it up to learn how it did that. And also for revenge."

  Securing the rope to the cliff and then descending took as long as it always did, but the delay gave Dante the chance to ensure the damn thing was well and truly dead. The rock wall was pale limestone, a sharp departure from the black basalt of the foothills. Once Dante stood on the ground, however, he only had eyes for the body.

  Which he approached gingerly. And poked with his sword before coming any closer. It wasn't breathing and blood pooled beneath it. One of its eyes had been smashed in the fall. The other gazed dully at the cold sky.

  Lew hung back, nose wrinkled. "Is it..?"

  "Smashed into monster-paste?" Dante said. "Thoroughly."

  The fetid odor of viscera and interrupted digestion hung in the base of the canyon. The rubble of the bridge lay in jagged piles. The kapper's jaws were beak-like, capable of snapping through an arm or a leg without resistance. Dante knocked on one of the plates, producing a heavy, dull sound.

  He cocked his head. "Lew, in the course of your studies, did you ever perform any dissections?"

  "No!"

  "Sounds like it's time for you to learn."

  While Lew busied himself looking horrified, Dante assessed the creature's anatomy. The plates on its back were up to two and a half feet wide. Not the sort of thing Dante felt like lugging up and down the escarpments and cliffs. Those on the skull were much smaller, but skulls being skulls, they'd probably be the most difficult to cut through. The armor around its ankles, however, was m
ore akin to scales than full-on plates, and with a brief test, Dante determined they were also deflective of nether. He got down, set out an array of knives, and began cutting.

  The ankle scales overlapped, protecting each other, and it took a lot of time and cussing before he was able to pry one up and saw away at its leather-tough connective tissue. He cut free a thumbnail-sized scale, pocketed it, and detached three more in quick succession. He stood, giving some thought to trying to excavate one of its spiral horns, but again, skulls. Besides resorting to chunks of the fallen bridge, he didn't have any tools for heavy-duty work. Anyway, he wasn't much for trophies.

  He gave the body one last look, probing it with the nether, which slipped off the scales but was able to penetrate the eye, nose, mouth, and posterior orifice. No other obvious points of ingress.

  He knew there was more to learn, but if he stayed in the ravine any longer, they might not reach the place where the light had fallen until after dark. Dante intended that day's encounter with a kapper to be his last.

  They climbed out of the canyon and continued east up a series of steep slopes interrupted by rock-strewn plateaus. During the more strenuous climbs, Dante had a hard time catching his breath; the air had thinned. Between that and his heavy expenditure of the nether, he had difficulty keeping pace with the others. He was happy for the rest when they stopped at an ice-cold stream to fill their skins.

  Finally, even the grass had a hard time clinging to the dirt. Peaks reared to right and left; they'd entered the bowl where he thought the light had landed the night before. The valley had little features besides a smattering of boulders that blocked line of sight. The area wasn't large, however, and the three of them spent the afternoon wandering back and forth across the rocks, searching for—well, Dante didn't know, precisely. For anything that looked like it might have fallen from the sky in a bed of light.

  They encountered nothing that fit that description. Or much of anything, for that matter. The land was too high for life to take hold. The day left Dante exhausted, cold, blistered, and annoyed. He barely had the strength or interest in fashioning them a cave for the night.