The Black Star (Book 3)

by Edward W. Robertson

  "I am impressed by the severity of your situation," Hopp said after he finished. "And as your chief, I am, naturally, concerned for your safety."

  Dante sighed. "But what does this have to do with you?"

  Without turning, the norren smiled. "I knew I was smart to permit you to join the Broken Herons."

  "First off, as you mention, I'm a member of this clan, and worthy of support, I'd say. Second, if the Minister destroys Narashtovik, you'll find yourself sharing borders with a madman."

  "We don't have 'borders.'"

  "If he has his way, you won't have anything else, either."

  "You don't know that."

  "He's violent and moody. He killed one of our monks for trespassing. For being in the wrong place. How do you think he'll take to the panoply of norren eccentricities?"

  "I couldn't say. I don't know him, and I doubt the two of you have had much in the way of deep, personal conversations, either." Hopp slashed another line across the canvas, connecting it to the tip of the previous line at a perpendicular angle. "We suffered in the war as well."

  "I know," Dante said. "I was there."

  "Do you think there is something in you that likes these things?"

  "Who likes war? Besides the worms?"

  "Have I ever told you the story of the flagfish?" Hopp smirked; Dante smoothed the impatience from his face. "Don't worry, it's not a lengthy story. In the old days when all such things happened, the flagfish was the most beautiful creature in the river. Its fins fluttered from its sides like silken banners. The trout and the perch watched it strut past with envy; the catfish buried itself in the muck to hide its ugliness.

  "The flagfish saw this, and was prideful. It turned this way and that, putting itself on display. Finally the catfish could stand no more. It burst from the mud and bit the flagfish's shimmering fin, spitting the piece out in the water. 'What did I do to deserve this?' the flagfish said. The others gave no answer. It turned with a flourish and the perch nipped its tail.

  "The flagfish fled down the river to a pond. For a while, it kept its fins tucked close. Soon, however, it was flashing them again. When the schools of carp could stand no more, they swarmed the flagfish and chewed its fins down to the nub. The flagfish could no longer swim: so of course it died."

  "Illuminating stuff," Dante said. "This time, it wasn't my fault."

  Hopp dabbed his brush in its ink pot. "I will have to take your word."

  Dante scowled at the rushing stream. He knew the norren as well as any human alive, yet there were times their thoughts remained as opaque as when he'd first met them. Opaque by human standards, that is—and that was his problem, he was thinking like a human. In virtually all situations, norren valued the abstract above the concrete.

  "If the Minister smashed Narashtovik and menaced the Territories, you would just walk away with the clan, wouldn't you? Or hide in the wilds where he wouldn't care to hunt you down."

  "That sounds likely."

  "I won't pretend you're in our debt," Dante said, sounding out his thoughts. "The war benefited Narashtovik, too. We're our own place again, as we used to be. So the question is this: Is Narashtovik's existence, as a material thing and an idea, worth fighting for?"

  "To you, that's the most compelling question? If we fought for everything worth fighting for, when would we not be at war?"

  The question put Dante back on his heels. "But if you follow that path to its end, nothing is ever worth fighting for. How can that possibly be true?"

  Hopp smiled slowly. "Now that is a question that cuts."

  "Can we agree there is no responsibility to fight for anything except survival?"

  "Assuming survival is deemed to be good? We can agree to that."

  "Then I ask you to ask the clan if they value Narashtovik enough to fight for it." Dante smiled. "Tell anyone who does to be at the Sealed Citadel in no less than a week."

  Hopp grinned, added a final stroke to his canvas, and stepped back to regard it. "A good dodge."

  Dante spent an hour catching up with anyone who felt like speaking to him; he spent less time with his clan than he liked, but still felt as if many of them were his friends. He and Cee rode out at mid-afternoon.

  "So?" she said.

  He glanced downhill at the camp in the trees. "Hopp rightly views this as a suicide mission. He won't unilaterally decide to throw the clan into that. But he was unable to object to asking for volunteers."

  "That's what all that talk about philosophy and mythical fish was about? Why not come out and say what you mean?"

  "Because he's a norren. And a chieftain. His people chose him because of that ability to see and pursue the meaning behind the decisions posed to him."

  She chuckled dryly. "No wonder Gask kept them in chains for so long. Imagine if human leaders were expected to act the same way?"

  "I try to."

  "I'm sure you do," she said with irritating lightness. "Where to next?"

  "The Nine Pines." Dante fiddled with his earring. "Except Mourn isn't answering his loon."

  "What could that mean?"

  "He's asleep. Or he isn't wearing it. Or he lost it." Dante's horse crested the hill and started down the other side. "Their territory is a couple days' ride from here. I'll keep trying."

  They rode until sunset, then camped in a draw. Dante had no idea what the Broken Herons' response would be to his plea. He would be no less surprised if none of them volunteered than if all of them did. He was consoled by the fact that recruiting the norren wasn't critical to the success of their mission. A troop of norren warriors would be an extremely valuable asset—and they needed every single advantage they could get—but they could infiltrate Corl without a single norren beside them.

  Blays' end of things was a different story. Dante checked with Nak every night for updates, but there was little to hear. He was fairly certain Blays meant to do as he said, and when it came to getting things done, there was no one Dante trusted more.

  But if Blays' heart wasn't in it, or it was beyond him, Narashtovik would find itself in dire straits. They could still attempt to cross the Woduns the typical way, but the logistics would be a nightmare. And there would be casualties. Impossible to guess how many. The cold would claim more than enough. He couldn't possibly hollow caverns large enough for a full troop of soldiers and their beasts of burden. A single kapper attack could decimate them. They would be much slower, too. What would befall them if they were deep in the Woduns when the Minister cracked apart the peaks?

  That didn't sound like much of a plan. Better to wait in Narashtovik and prepare the best they could than to throw away soldiers, nethermancers, and resources doing battle with the mountains.

  Two days later, they entered the lands where Dante believed the Nine Pines spent the winters, the rough hills (some grassy, some pine-coated) that abutted the mighty river demarcating the border between human and norren. Mourn still hadn't answered his loon. It must have been destroyed or lost—or its owner was.

  Dante rode from ridge to ridge, checking every stream and pond big enough to sustain a clan of fifty-plus norren. At one, they found fish bones, still clean and white, and filled-in latrines. Tracks indicated the norren had headed upstream. A couple miles later, they found more bones and refuse. The third such site was fresh enough you could still smell the dung. It was at the end of the line, a hill-fed pond out of which the stream sprung.

  But they hadn't seen a single norren all the while.

  Cee toed a chunk of antler that had been deemed unfit for carving. "These guys are supposed to be friends of yours, right?"

  "I'm closer to many of them than I am to my own clan. Why?"

  She stood. "Looks funny, that's all."

  With no more trail to follow, they burned two more days criss-crossing the hills. These felt endless, but the territory of any given clan was relatively circumscribed, and Dante thought they'd covered much of the Nine Pines' grounds. On the clan borders (which were unmarked, permeable, and elastic
), they twice ran into other clans, one of whom Dante knew fairly well. He stopped to explain the situation to the chief and was allowed to address the entire clan. Unsurprisingly, most had little interest in running off to die for Narashtovik, but two young men and one middle-aged woman volunteered on the spot. He asked them to head to the Citadel as soon as they could.

  Both clans claimed to have seen the Nine Pines recently and suggested they were still in the area. Dante got Nak to loon the tribes Narashtovik was in contact with. None had seen Mourn or his people, but Nak informed Dante, with no small pride, that he'd been able to convince three warriors to join the cause.

  Dante wondered if he should give up on Mourn and visit the other clans instead. There were thousands of norren scattered across the hills, and Dante would be happy to come away with just a score of recruits. But he trusted Mourn and the Nine Pines above all others, both personally and as warriors. Anyway, at this point, he was starting to get worried about them.

  On the morning of their sixth day since leaving Narashtovik, with three to go before they'd need to head home, Cee returned from foraging with a sack of frostberries and an odd look on her face.

  She glanced back into the trees. "You up for something really stupid?"

  "You're going to have to be more specific about the nature of this stupid. Is it potentially lethal stupid?"

  "Nothing that would get you killed. More likely, you'll want to crawl into a hole until the shame goes away."

  "That's where all my best ideas come from," Dante said. "Let's get dumb."

  "Great. Hand over your clothes."

  "You didn't say anything about nude stupidity."

  She rolled her eyes. "Your spares. And your cloak. Let's go."

  He handed over his cloak and the change of clothes he carried in case he got soaked or soiled. Cee glanced into the woods again and carried his clothes and her pack into a thicket. Twigs snapped. Leaves crunched. Dante sat on a rock and tallied up the other clans who might be worth contacting. If they called off the hunt for the Nine Pines today, they could take a meandering route back to Narashtovik, with time to speak to several clans along the way. That decided it. Better to come back with his second choices than to return with nothing.

  Cee emerged from the brush dragging a bulky object that snagged in the twigs and thorns.

  "What—?" Dante started.

  She shushed him. "Get in the thicket. Don't say a word. Got it?"

  He nodded and moved past her. She was lugging a scarecrow made from his clothes. As he settled himself inside the shrubs, she heaved it on top of his horse and lashed it in place. She mounted up and led his horse out into the clearing just past the trees.

  Dante crouched in the thorns, feeling as foolish as she'd promised. He was cold without his cloak but not so much that he was shivering yet. He didn't know how long he was supposed to wait. Until Cee decided to come back, he supposed. He wrapped his arms around his legs to stay warm.

  Ten minutes later, an animal rustled the branches the opposite direction Cee had gone. Dante went still, ducking his head. Two norren walked through the trees, a man and a woman.

  "Oh hell." Dante stood and forced his way through the brambles, screening his eyes against the thorns. He emerged to the sight of two drawn bows. He sighed. The two norren lowered their weapons, looking sheepish. "How long have you been following us, Fenn?"

  The woman shouldered her bow. "A couple of days."

  "Where are the others?"

  She was silent a moment. "Following behind us."

  "So you wouldn't ever see us," the male added, confirming what Fenn had implied; Dante had met him before, but couldn't recall his name offhand.

  Dante cupped his hands to his mouth. "Hey, Cee! They fell for it!" He turned to Fenn. "Well, come on and let's go see Mourn."

  Cee rode back grinning in triumph. She shook the leaves from Dante's clothes and handed them over. He walked his horse behind the two Nine Pines scouts. Mourn and the others were encamped in tents in the woods a couple miles away, on ground Dante and Cee had covered earlier that day.

  As soon as they arrived, Mourn walked out to meet them, massive shoulders rolling. "Oh. There you are."

  "Why do I feel like you already know why I'm here?" Dante said.

  "Because you're reasonably intelligent." Mourn shook his head. "This sounds like madness."

  Dante's face fell. "You won't help us."

  The norren lifted his eyes. "I didn't say anything about whether I or the Nine Pines would help. All I said was this sounded like madness. As mad as trying to swallow your own bones."

  "But your bones are already inside you."

  "Exactly."

  "If you didn't say you won't help us, does that mean you will?"

  "I still haven't said anything about that, have I?" Mourn's shoulders slumped. "Of course I'll say yes."

  "What? Then why hide from me?"

  "So I wouldn't have to say yes."

  Dante bent with laughter. "I don't know if I've ever heard you more miserable in all my life."

  "Me neither. As long as you're here spoiling my day, you may as well take some of my stew, too."

  He led Dante and Cee to a blanket on the grass. Someone had started a fire beside it and a handful of norren were poking at the kindling and setting up racks and pots above it. The air filled with the smell of roasting potatoes and melting fat. While they waited for it to cook through, Dante related the full story; Mourn had the broad strokes, presumably from Hopp or one of the others Nak had spoken to, but was missing many of the fine touches.

  "Blays is back?" Mourn said. "Somehow, that's more surprising than anything else."

  Dante eyed the simmering stew. He hadn't had a hot meal in days. "He feels guilty about handing Cellen over to the Minister. But getting it back will likely mean violence, and then he'll feel guilty about that, and run off again."

  "A person who feels guilty about hurting others? He sickens me."

  "It isn't the guilt that's the problem. We all feel it. But he lets it rule him. Even when we had no other choice. When our actions made the world a better place."

  Someone handed Mourn a bowl of stew. He held on to it, ignoring the steam curling from its thick surface. "And you can set it down like I can set down this bowl?"

  "In time? Of course."

  Mourn honked with laughter. "You don't know how lucky you are."

  Dante had nothing to say to this. "You still haven't told me what you think of the plan."

  "I think that if I die, I'll be able to quit pretending I know how to lead this clan."

  "Is it really that bad?"

  "Don't tell me you like being in charge of Narashtovik. Because, now that I think about it, I know you do. So telling me that would be redundant." Mourn gazed across his people as they ate and worked and talked. "The only thing that I have learned as a leader is that I'm not fit to lead. And neither is anyone else."

  Someone delivered Dante a bowl of stew and conversation ceased for a while. After he finished, he sat back, comfortably stuffed, lips slick with grease.

  Without warning, Mourn stood. He stared into the twilight and raised his voice to his clan. "I'm about to ask you if you want to do something very foolish. Foolish in the sense it will be dangerous to your physical well-being. Some of those who go with us may not make it back. Because we won't be able to carry the bodies back with us."

  He paused. Possibly it was a dramatic choice, letting his people conjure up wild scenarios in their heads, but Dante thought he was doing just what he appeared to be doing: fighting to find the best way to express what he felt inside.

  "But perhaps it would be foolish not to go. Because our goal is to avert a war against Narashtovik. They are being attacked because of a crime committed so long ago that no one in these lands remembers that it happened. They have no choice in the matter. But we do, and here is our question: do you value Narashtovik's existence enough to risk your own?"

  Pale things moved in the firelight: ha
nds being raised. Not all of them, not even a third, but it was as many as Dante could have hoped for. Yet as he sat beside Mourn, watching as people with no ties of blood or power to Narashtovik pledged to fight for it, sadness coiled in his chest.

  Because Mourn was right. Some of these people would die. And Dante was the one who had brought that death to them.

  36

  A thick cloud of powdered stone gushed from the wall. Blays turned and pulled his cloak over his face. The dust whispered over him, layering the damp grass. Minn stood undaunted, face caked with it; she flipped back her cloak, knocking it off with a flourish.

  "You will listen to me, Ro! Cellen has returned—and it has been taken."

  Ro remained standing at the edge of the cliffs. She was an intimidating leader and knew the best time for an exit is after a dramatic moment like pulverizing a staircase. The fact she was listening made Blays think Minn might have a chance.

  "So what?" Ro said.

  "The man who took it is from Weslee. He still blames Narashtovik for the devastation of his homeland. He's going to use Cellen to destroy them."

  "I say again: So what?"

  "It's a crime they had no true part in! If anyone deserves to be punished, we do. It's our responsibility to save them. Hiding here is wrong."

  "We washed our hands of Narashtovik and all it represents an age ago," Ro said. "It was their decision to stay."

  Minn lowered her eyes and glared at the dark cliffs; Blays could see her willing herself to calm down. "Ro, you don't even know what you're refusing. We could save thousands of lives at no risk to ourselves. If you'll let me up to talk to you for five minutes—"

  Blays touched her arm. "She's gone."

  Minn lifted her gaze back to the cliffs. The three women were nowhere to be seen. "Ro!"

  The wind answered, shuffling through the grass. Blays folded his arms. "Should we go, then?"