The Black Star (Book 3)

by Edward W. Robertson

  "No part of that is feasible," Dante said. "Crossing the Woduns requires nethermancers, but the Woduns are infested with man-killing kappers that are impervious to nether." He narrowed his eyes at Minn. "Which can't be coincidence. One more thing we have to thank our forebears for, don't we?"

  "That's beyond my knowledge," she said.

  Dante turned back to Tarkon. "Even if we got people across, after our first attack, the enemy will fortify the other trees. You'd need an army to fight your way up the stairs of a fortified loren. We'd only have one shot."

  "Okay," Blays said, his head buzzing with light. "So we take it."

  Dante frowned. "We do the thing I just said was impossible and stupid?"

  "That's the one."

  The scorn in Dante's face retracted. He was watching Blays closely now, the way a fox and a badger might regard each other at dusk. "What have you got in mind?"

  "Know what, nevermind. It sounds like you think it would be dumb."

  "Given what we're up against, every idea is dumb. Why don't you spit it out and add it to the crowd?"

  Blays thumbed his nose. "Well, my feelings are hurt. So why don't you beg me for it?"

  Everyone was watching them now. Dante leaned back in his little throne. "Quit this nonsense. Tens of thousands of lives hang in the balance."

  "It isn't my city."

  "You'd put them to death out of spite?"

  "Blays!" Minn turned and craned back her head at him. "That's enough."

  "Oh, all right." He paced behind her chair. "Traveling over the mountains is a no-go, right? So we don't go over them. We go under them."

  Dante grasped the basic idea at once, shaking his head. "I don't have the power for that. It would take me months to tunnel to Spiren."

  "You've gotten really bad at this, you know? You wouldn't be acting all by yourself, Sir Lone Wolf. You'd be assisted by other people. Like, of the Pocket."

  Dante laughed dumbly. "That...could work."

  "The People would never go for that," Minn said.

  Blays adopted a stung expression. "I can be very convincing."

  Olivander glanced from side to side. "Even if we have a passage to Weslee, what of it? We hardly have the forces to defend ourselves, let alone to mount an offensive war in a distant land."

  "We're not going to attack them with an army," Dante said. "We're going to sneak in with just enough people to make one raid. And we're going to take back Cellen."

  Another silence overtook the Council. After a few seconds, Tarkon started laughing. He elbowed old Joseff in the ribs. Joseff scowled and punched him on his bony shoulder.

  "What size and composition of force do you suggest?" Olivander said.

  "The People of the Pocket are critical." Dante pressed his palms together and leaned over the table. "Without them, we've got nothing."

  Blays bit his lip. "I can get them to open a tunnel for us. Probably. I severely doubt they'll help us after that."

  "An army's too many. No way we can march thousands of troops to Corl without being seen. But we might be able to make it with a couple hundred—enough to fight our way to the palace if it turns out we can't sneak in. A few platoons of our best soldiers. As many monks and Council members as we can spare—and are willing to volunteer. And I think it's time to call in a favor from the norren."

  "What if the Minister decides to unleash Cellen upon you?" Olivander said.

  "Like you said earlier. If he uses it to destroy a few of us, Narashtovik is safe until the next time it rolls around."

  "If he doesn't need Cellen to defeat this hypothetical incursion, your loss would leave us considerably less able to defend ourselves."

  "I don't think Narashtovik has much chance with or without us." Dante let out a breath, deflating. "If you think we're better served staying here, say the word. I put the decision before the Council."

  Blays watched their faces with the attention of a dog parked beneath the dinner table. The Council—those he knew, anyway—were good people. Smart. Capable. Probably knew things about the Cycle of Arawn that could blow his simple mind. But many of them were strangers, and with the exception of Olivander, Somburr, and Dante, he doubted any of them had Blays' experience in the field.

  "Someone say something before I forget what we're talking about," Tarkon said.

  Laughter coursed around the table. Joseff was the first to recover. "It's what Cally would have done."

  There it was again, the former leader's ghost hanging over the table like a morbid chandelier. For all Blays knew, Dante had filled his place more than adequately. He sure idolized the old man. Even so, it was very strange to think that Dante was—or soon would be; Blays wasn't quite sure how the Council's power was currently distributed—responsible for the entire city. Weren't they still children? Maybe not. Maybe they'd seen too much for that.

  But they weren't far from it. That could have been part of it, his urge to run away. Things had become too big, too real. So many lives depended on them. It was more than that, Lira and the rest of the war and the way Dante seemed able to shut out all the consequences so long as they were in pursuit of "what had to be done," but there was also this other thing, this feeling that it was time to step into his father's shoes but his feet were too small. It was so tiresome. He wished his mind would make up its mind.

  Around the table, the others were nodding, murmuring in agreement, verbally patting each other on the back. They'd reached a consensus.

  Olivander inclined his head forward. "Blays, would you like an escort to Pocket Cove?"

  "They're more paranoid than a man whose wife has received a private invitation to see the baron," Blays said. "If they see me traveling with anyone but Minn, they'll never let us inside."

  "Then we'll send you with nothing more than a loon, the fastest horses we've got, and our prayers. Somburr, gather whatever you need for your skullduggery—we'll send you with the main force. If they fail to attain Cellen, perhaps you can still tangle the Minister's feet with your machinations. Dante, if you feel like the norren can help us, get to it. I'll gather a list of soldiers and prepare the logistics. The rest of you, start thinking about whether you can better serve on the expedition or here at home. In the meantime, if you have any ideas, any concerns, any little thing that might save our hides—for the love of Arawn, come tell me about it."

  The faces around the table were grim, but their eyes and spines showed the steel of people who knew what they must do. Together, they stood. Minn followed Blays back to his old room. As he opened the door, she lifted her eyebrows. He let her inside.

  "Are you sure you want to do this?" she said.

  "This city hasn't been my home for a long time." He went to the door to his balcony and threw it open. The snow-coated city glimmered below him. "But this is the best I've felt in a long, long time."

  She smiled. "I'm glad."

  "Hang on, am I getting the sense you're proud of me? Let's hold off on that until we've got more compelling results than 'convinced a bunch of people who've never been to Pocket Cove that its fanatical hermits can be reasoned with.'"

  Minn took a moment to sort that out. "It's an incredible plan. If it falls apart, I know you'll be able to come up with another."

  She left his room for her own. He knew he needed to get to bed so they could leave first thing in the morning, but he stood on his balcony a long time, watching the city.

  A servant came around in the morning to make sure he was up and to deliver breakfast and a bundle of clothes fit for travel. Blays ate, dressed, and made his way down to the courtyard. In the gray light of the approaching dawn, a half dozen horses stood saddled and provisioned, snorting and tossing their heads, as sleek as the thighs of a woman raised to fight.

  The Citadel door opened. He expected Minn, but it was Dante, lobbing a small clinking sack to himself.

  "Riches." He underhanded the pouch at Blays' chest. "Use them wisely. Failing that, amusingly."

  "Fifteen thousand codpieces it is." B
lays tucked it away in the pocket of his doublet, a clean, clingy shirt that felt like this was the first time it had been worn. "I'll see if I can bring back the People of the Pocket, too."

  "Think you can do it?"

  "Sure thing. I know a surprising number of norren tailors."

  "The People, smart guy."

  "I have about as much confidence in this as I've had in any of our other ventures."

  Dante's laugh echoed across the courtyard. "Then maybe we should try to negotiate with the Minister."

  He stood there, watching. Blays turned to the horses, checking to ensure their various straps were secure. By the time he looked up, Dante was gone.

  Minn arrived a few minutes later. She too had been given new clothes, gray leggings and shirt with red stitching and piping.

  "Don't you look fancy," Blays said.

  "It was this or the silver and black." She swung herself into the saddle. "If my people see someone approaching in Narashtovik's colors, they'll dump us into the center of the earth."

  Blays frowned at his clothes. "Then I suppose we should grab some scissors before we leave."

  He sent a servant up for a pair and quickly doctored his clothes to make them more agreeable to the people he was about to ply for aid. There was no big fanfare to see him off. Everyone was too busy with their own duties. The gates creaked closed behind them. As Blays rode forth, he was struck with deja vu. To be doing this again. Questing, like some hero from the sagas. He supposed he'd know that he'd really made it in life once he was the one watching from a high window as young armed people clattered across a courtyard to accomplish great deeds for him.

  They exited Narashtovik and tore down the road. He'd had faster horses, but these were built for the duration, and with three apiece, they were able to gallop along like they were outrunning a fire that threatened to devour the world. He knew the road well, its villages and inns and stables. Each night, he checked in with Nak. Dante had left for the Norren Territories a day after Blays, and the Citadel was a hive of preparation, but there had been nothing new out of the Woduns.

  He and Minn reached Dollendun, followed the road down the river toward the north coast, then cut overland around the northern horn of the Gallador mountains. This carried them within spitting distance of Setteven, but they were off the roads, trotting through a patchwork of foothills, pine forests, and prairies, and Blays knew the land well enough to avoid the manors of the Gaskan lords.

  With no other need for the nether, Minn deployed it to cleanse the muscles of their mounts. She tried to show Blays how to do the same, but it wasn't something that came natural to him, and when they stopped to rest he was generally too tired to practice. Incredibly, just five and a half days after leaving Narashtovik, the black wall of Pocket Cove manifested on the horizon.

  "Suppose they'll see us coming?" Blays said.

  "There's always someone watching from the Fingers."

  "Suppose they'll let us in?"

  "In ten years at the Pocket, I've only seen two people leave. They never came back."

  "Then we'll have novelty on our side." Blays moved to brush his hair from his brow, but Narashtovik's barber had seen to it during their brief stay. "I'm guessing you should do the talking."

  Minn laughed. "If they're willing to talk at all."

  Blays thought she was being pessimistic. She was one of them, after all, and if you were going to break the big rule about never leaving, your excuse could hardly get better than stopping a couple of royal bastards from smashing up the world. On the other hand, she knew her people much better than he did. Despite spending months with them, he'd lived in a hole at the very fringe of their settlement. That was a pretty good metaphor for how deeply he'd been allowed into their culture, too.

  The cliffs concealed the sun behind them before they rode up to their base. Minn could have built her own passage up to the Fingers, but apparently this would have been frowned upon. She rode south, peering up at the blank rock, hunting for a staircase she was used to seeing from above.

  "Ah." She stopped short, hopped down, and tied her horses to a patch of stunted trees.

  Blays did likewise. The cliffs looked the same as ever, but as they walked up to them, a woman appeared high above, blurred by the mists streaming from the Fingers.

  "Stop there," she called down. "Or die there."

  Minn pulled back her hood. "It's me, Koa."

  "Then I sound my warning twice as loudly."

  "Oh, cut the horseshit! Go tell Ro it's about Cellen. See what she has to say to that."

  Koa said nothing, then disappeared.

  "We'll stay here," Minn said to Blays. "Climbing up top would be looked on very unfavorably."

  He nodded, more than content to follow her lead. They waited twenty minutes before three silhouettes poked above the ridge.

  "You're back," Ro said. "And you brought your project with you."

  I brought news, too," Minn said. "We've traveled far to the east. The Black—"

  "There is nothing to speak about!" Ro's voice cut through the brittle air. "You left the Pocket, and now the Pocket is closed to you."

  With a bone-rattling roar, the stairwell collapsed into dust.

  35

  The hills stretched before them, relentless and ancient, untouched by the geometry of homes, the order of crops, the garbage of habitation. At first the hills were brown and gray, but as the group crossed from human lands into norren, the slopes shaded to dull green and the white of snow. The Woduns held more grandeur; so had the lorens of Spiren, the grasslands of Camren, and the sweeping dunes of the unnamed desert. Anyone would agree. By comparison, the landscape before them was common and bland.

  Yet something about the norren hills captivated Dante. The age. The pristine quality of their gnarled, bare ridges. The tenacity of the grass that fought to fill every inch of soil, slumbering for months at a time under thick mats of snow. These hills were a reminder of how old the world must be, and by contrast, how fleeting his human, mortal concerns must be. Dante hadn't thought of it before that moment, but he was glad that, whatever happened next—whether they plowed through the mountains to strike at the Minister, or fortified Narashtovik in advance of his wrath—his last free moments would be spent here, among the empty hills.

  "Think that's them?" Cee pointed down into the next valley. Shrubs and short trees spotted the bottom, dabs of color in the snow. He didn't see any people there until he did, and then he couldn't not see them.

  "You've got eyes like a hawk," Dante said. "One that hasn't eaten in about two weeks."

  "I'm not sure dead hawks can see. Unless they're being piloted by you."

  They rode toward the glen where the clan was encamped. Dante supposed he ought to loon ahead and make sure it was the Herons, but doing so would make him look foolish (not to mention distrustful of norren). Poor idea, considering what he was about to ask of them. Anyway, as far as he knew, he didn't have a single enemy among the norren.

  Though you never knew anything for sure with the norren.

  He led his horse down a game trail stamped into the snow. He didn't see the clan scouts, but knew they were watching him from behind cover. The fact they gave no audible warning to the others was either very good or very bad. Just in case, Dante kept the nether close.

  The horses' hooves turned up the smell of damp earth. Tents were strung between trees, yurts concealed behind screens of shrubs. Dante's paranoia faded. If the clan were concerned, they would never have let him and Cee within bowshot.

  Instead, the norren sat around on logs and stones, chatting and working at their nulla: sewing, carving, fletching, painting. A few looked his way, but none acted surprised or interested. To someone unfamiliar with norren ways, such cavalier disinterest in strangers approaching their winter camp might feel ominous, but that was simply how they were.

  The first person to greet them was Orsen, a gangly boy whose friendliness was uncharacteristic of both teen males and norren of any age. He grin
ned at Dante. He still had some growing to do, but even though Dante was on horseback, Orsen was already so tall he hardly had to look up to meet Dante's eyes.

  "Where's the trouble?" he said.

  Dante glanced around. "Who said anything about trouble?"

  "The only time you come to visit your clan is when you've got trouble." His gaze slid to Cee. "Is it her?"

  "She is only trouble in the sense that she's as hard to remove as a tick." Dante glanced at Cee. "A very competent and useful tick."

  "Don't worry," she said. "I took it as a compliment."

  He turned back to Orsen. "Been tossed out into the woods for your trials yet?"

  "This spring," he grinned. His beard wasn't as thick as the men's, but it was far denser than what Dante could grow. "He's down by the water. Of course."

  "Of course." Dante smiled and rode past.

  The water, in this instance, was a lazy stream half frozen over by the ice accreting on the banks. Hopp crouched over it, dabbing a paintbrush in the frothy current. A canvas was stretched on a frame beside him. Two black lines streaked its surface.

  "How can it take you so long to paint so little?" Dante said.

  Hopp looked up, brows bent. "That the lines are so few is why each takes so long. What do you want?"

  "For you to help me sneak into a foreign, impenetrable nation and steal an item of unimaginable power."

  "Oh. So you failed to find Cellen."

  "Wrong," Dante said, flushing. "I found it. I had it. It was stolen from me."

  Hopp sidled toward his canvas, crab-like, and dabbed his brush in a pot of black ink. "How many days did you cry for?"

  "The person who stole it is going to use it to destroy Narashtovik."

  "And thus you haven't stopped crying? Then it appears I have asked a trick question."

  "This isn't a joke, Hopp."

  His brush hovered over the canvas. "Does it sound like I'm joking?"

  Rather than argue, which was exactly what the norren chieftain wanted, Dante launched into the story. It took more than a few minutes to relay. As he spoke, Hopp moved the brush near the canvas, withdrew it without touching, then extended his hand again. As Dante neared the end of the tail, Hopp laid a single stroke below one of the others, a parallel mark that neatly showed the bristles of the brush at its end.