"What does it matter?" Dante said, poking at his bowl of too-hot fish stew with a wooden spoon. "They're cut off. Miles behind our lines."
"And what part of the body are people most afraid of being stabbed in?" Blays said.
Dante frowned. "The balls?"
"The back, you idiot. If we turn ours toward the frontlines, it could wind up sheathing two hundred Gaskan knives."
"So post a scout with a loon near the fort. If they try to move out, he alerts the clans."
"That's how you'd treat this blister?" Hopp said.
The wind shifted, blowing sweet, dry woodsmoke into Dante's eyes and nose. He picked up and moved around the fire. "Is the fort actually impregnable?"
"Have you ever known one that was?"
"Pocket Cove might be. Aside from that? Unbreakable fortresses are as mythical as wish-granting fish."
"You've caught enough to know, haven't you?" Hopp picked his teeth with a fish bone. "So what do you suggest?"
"We go see this place for ourselves."
"Anything else?"
Dante gave him a look. "Do you always speak in questions?"
"What form of speech is better than a question? A statement is certain. A question is fluid. To make progress, isn't it better to flow than to sit?"
"I've got one for you then," Blays said. "What's stopping us from going and taking a look?"
Hopp got out his loon and spread word to Cally they were looking for any information about Borrull, particularly routes inside. In the morning, Hopp decamped the clan and struck east through the low hills, covering most of the distance to the fort before settling down in a grass-lush draw, where he sent scouts to stand guard and search for water. Dante napped as soon as they made camp. It could be a long night.
At twilight, Blays splashed water on his face, startling him from his blanket. Dante swiped water from his eyes. "That is not an acceptable way to wake a person."
"Yeah, but it seemed like it would be fun."
"My thudding heart disagrees."
"Tell it to shut up. We're on the move."
Dante stretched, ate a few strips of dried venison, and joined the small team, which consisted of the three humans, Mourn, Hopp, and Erl, a relatively short norren with a long bow and the steady, quiet focus of those who know how to use them. A second contingent of warriors had already advanced to a high hill halfway between camp and Borrull. At its top, they'd gathered wood for a bonfire to light in case the king's soldiers sallied from the fort; ideally, the redshirts would be misled by the signal fire while Hopp's advance party rallied with the reserve contingent to the north. Dante suspected these preparations would wind up completely unnecessary, yet he admired their cunning nonetheless, the easy coordination between clansmen. No wonder the tribes still thrived hundreds of years after the Gaskan empire had swallowed their lands.
Hopp led them through the early night's darkness in a brisk walk. They moved in silence, pausing whenever an unseen animal crackled through the dead leaves. With the hill looming ahead, hooves thumped across the grass not thirty yards away. Dante jerked down instinctively. There was nearly a second of silence between each bound—not the churning thumps of a charging horse, but the soaring strides of a deer. Hopp flashed him a grin, teeth white in the moonlight.
The land rose in a wedge to Borrull, plateauing some three hundred feet above the surrounding ground. A couple small fires flickered atop the butte. Hopp circled around the sheer cliffs that surrounded three sides of the fort. He had expressed some optimism they'd find a hidden stairway, an old shepherd's trail or the like, but the cliffs were every bit as impassable as those surrounding Pocket Cove, with screes of loose rock slumped against their feet. After a few hours, their group returned to the front of the wedge convinced its slope was the only way up. The rise was half a mile long and a few hundred yards across, a blank stretch of open grass. Any trees had been lumbered long ago. It was a killing field, coverless and exposed.
A road reeled straight up the slope's middle. Hopp paralleled it at a distance of fifty yards, grass brushing his thighs. It swallowed Dante to the waist. Mice hopped in the darkness. Near the top of the plateau, a wall of black stone stretched from one edge of the cliffs to the other, hiding the town behind it. A quarter mile from the fort, Hopp stopped and knelt in the grass.
"What do you think?" he murmured. "Probably about as close as we get, huh?"
Erl shook his head. Blays clucked his tongue. "I don't know how much more there'd be to see, anyway. It wouldn't be much of a wall if they'd left any man-sized holes in it."
A mouse paused in the dirt eight feet to Dante's right. "Hold on a minute."
He lashed out with the nether. The mouse fell in half, bisected through its ribs, twitching. Dante muttered. Another mouse hopped through the grass a few seconds later. This time, Dante shaped a pin of shadows and poked it through the mouse's skull. It fell down without a sound.
He had it back on its feet a moment later. It waited in perfect stillness until he commanded it to run up the hill. It disappeared into the jungle of grass.
"What did I just witness?" Hopp said.
"Dante's love of animals in action," Blays said.
The mouse hurtled through the high stalks, dew clinging to its fur. Dante withdrew his vision. "Spying. And if they can pick off that mouse, we may as well pack up and go home right now."
Sprinting all-out, the undead mouse reached the walls within minutes. Hints of smoke reached its nose. Two turrets flanked the iron-banded doors of the gate. Dante sent the mouse squirming underneath the doors. It entered a short, fat hall with a second set of doors waiting at its end. Black arrow slits were cut into the walls. If the norren were able to break through the first doors, the defenders would choke the hall with their dead before they could pound through the second.
But there was no grille. He wouldn't have known what to do about a grille.
He brought the mouse back outside the doors and ran it along the walls just to see what it could see. Another turret stood near both ends of the wall, commanding the plains. Besides that and the rounded merlons along its upper edge, the wall was all but featureless, solid granite several feet thick and some fifteen feet high.
Dante dropped his sight from the mouse. "There are gates."
"What, for getting in and out?" Blays said. "I would have thought they'd just jump off the cliffs. Much faster."
"I can bring down gates."
Hopp peered at him in the moonlight. "By yourself? Are you hiding a battering ram on your person?"
"And it makes walking quite a chore," Dante said. "Listen. Doors are built to keep men out. They're not much good at stopping the nether."
Hopp grinned, foxlike. "Do you suppose it's time for another meeting?"
* * *
As valuable as the loons had already proven to be, conducting a full-fledged discussion between a dozen chieftains was well beyond Cally's capabilities as the hub of their web. Instead, Hopp reached Cally, who in turn spoke to the chiefs about an in-person battle-council. Two days later, Hopp took Dante and Blays to reconvene at the hilltop with the circle of stones. All the chiefs from the previous gathering were there: red-haired Kella; sunweathered old Wult; three-fingered Stann. There were also two more chiefs Dante didn't recognize and one he did, a middle-aged man whose left cheek was nearly beardless from crosshatched scars—Orlen of the Nine Pines.
"You're quite a ways from your homeland," Dante said.
"My homeland moves as I do." Orlen gave Dante a blank look. "Has Mourn died yet?"
"Would that make you happy?"
"I won't know until I hear it."
"He's fine," Dante said. "He's found a new home with the Clan of the Broken Heron. As have I."
Orlen laughed. "I had heard that. I didn't know whether to believe that."
"Where's Vee?"
His smile became a small thing. "In the valley of Josun Joh. Or dead in the woods on a hill beneath the sun and shade. Whichever you prefer."
/> Dante drew back his head, searching for words of condolence that wouldn't be as trite as all the rest, but the moment passed. Hopp stood and called the group to order, a process that involved naming all those present whose names he knew and asking the names of any he didn't. Once that was accomplished, he ran his hand down his stubbled face and gave the chiefs his sly grin.
"What would you say if I said we could retake Borrull?"
Kella glanced up. "Since you like humans and their ways so much, I would ask what you want carved on your grave. "
"I would like it to say 'Why Do You Care Who Is Buried Here?' Moving on, I have the following to say: we can retake Borrull."
"Is that something we need to do?" Kella said.
"We don't need to do anything," Orlen said. "But I would like to kill any soldier who steps foot on our lands."
"I haven't written any books on the art of war, but Borrull is a fort. Unless you like dying, you don't attack forts."
"You do if you hate the people there."
Kella cocked her head. "The Nine Pines is smaller than I last saw it. How did that happen?"
Orlen's nostrils flared. His former impassivity seemed to have been replaced by something feral and reckless. For a moment, Dante feared he would stand, cross the circle of stones, and drive his clenched fists into Kella's face, ending the meeting then and there, but Orlen smiled abruptly.
"And if that's what it takes to drive the redshirts out, the Nine Clans will shrink to none."
"I would rather take my clan to new hills than bury them on Borrull."
Stann scratched his beard with his three-fingered hand. "What's the strategy, Hopp? Tell me it's better than marching up and knocking down the gates."
"You don't think that would work?" Hopp said.
"I think we'd be better off fortifying the base of the hill and starving them out." Stann raised his eyes at Dante. "Humans eat, don't you?"
"Whenever we're not too busy killing our neighbors," Dante said.
"Well, then that would be my vote."
"I'm not talking about chopping down the doors." Hopp pointed at Dante. "He's a nethermancer. How long would it take you to knock them down?"
Dante tipped his head to the side. "If I'm not interrupted? A matter of seconds."
"The gate is all they have," Hopp said. "If they retreat to the houses, then we burn the houses."
Wult pushed his white hair away from his sun-lined forehead. "My clan will go if others go."
"Why not try the siege?" Stann said. "They may do something dumb. Enough pressure cracks a stone."
Kella waved her hand. "My clan lives on the wind. I don't care about a few hundred fools cowering behind a wall."
Assault them, besiege them, ignore them—with no central authority to make the decision, the chiefs debated these options for more than an hour. Hopp pressed them opportunistically, darting in to ask pointed questions or interrogate unfounded assumptions about the dangers of a frontal assault after the fortifications had been essentially nullified, swaying two more chieftains to pledge support to an aggressive attack, but that was the best he could do.
"They can't hurt us from behind their wall," Kella summarized. "If they come out to try, then they're no longer behind a wall. That's when we strike."
Hopp stood. "Then the Broken Herons will watch the fort to make sure the redshirts do no harm while we wait. You know how to speak to me if you change your minds."
As if the chiefs had been waiting for a moment like this, they stood as one, breaking into groups of two or three or wandering away from the circle of stones. Hopp set off without a word.
"I never thought the clans would let an enemy stay in their lands," Dante said. "We could do this!"
"Don't you think I know that?" Hopp said over his shoulder.
"Then what now?"
"Like I said. We watch the hill."
Back at the camp, Dante found Mourn to tell him he'd seen Orlen. "He seemed wrathful. Vee died. It sounds like the Nine Pines have seen battle."
"It's what they do," Mourn said. "Along with all the other things they do."
"You're not...upset?"
"Of course I am. It wasn't the clan's fault I left. Except for the portion of the clan that is Orlen and Vee. But I don't want them to die for that. Not when they were fighting for their cousins' lives."
Dante nodded, falling silent. Perhaps Mourn was right. Orlen had manipulated them without shame, but it had been an impersonal act, collateral damage in pursuit of a noble goal. Still, if Dante had been in Mourn's place, he would have felt betrayed. Furious. Righteous. He might even have accepted news of Vee's death with something like a happy sense of justice served.
Hopp relocated the clan to a pond a few miles from Borrull, rotating scouts in and out of the nearby hills. Dante took his turns with neither joy nor complaint. He checked in with Cally twice over the following week, but the old man had no major news. A few more border-skirmishes. The further enlistment of troops in the far west. After some hard words towards and from Gallador, both the merchant league and the king had reached a detente; according to Cally's sources, the lakelands had no intention of providing support to the king's armies, but showed no inclination to resist in any way, either. Cally congratulated Dante on that point before cutting off the loon to field a message from a norren chief.
Eight days after the meeting, a low horn blasted across the pond. Dante pulled in his fishing line and sprinted towards the sound. Other Herons rushed down from the hills. The horn sounded again, rippling through the warm springtime air. At camp, the warriors strung bows, belted on swords, and strapped on leather breastplates and bracers.
"What's happening?" Dante said.
A woman named Gwenne tied her loose hair back into a tight bun. "The Clan of Laughing Foxes surprised a troop of redshirts. Redshirts fought them off long enough to make a run. They're headed for the fort."
The clan was ready within minutes. Leaving behind their tents, blankets, spare shoes, and everything else except weapons and the small pouch of food, water, salt, and other essentials each warrior carried at all times, they jogged east for the butte of Borrull. Four scouts sprinted ahead, bows in hand. Lira jogged between Dante and Blays. Her face was as calm as the pond they'd left behind.
The scouts returned in minutes. The king's men were just beyond the next ridge, on the verge of reaching the slopes up to Borrull. Hopp gritted his teeth and shouted his clan on. Forty-odd warriors raced up the hill and spilled down the other side. In the shallow valley, a troop of some fifty men in red shirts marched up the base of the butte. The clan gained quickly until the enemy soldiers spotted them in the open grass. Faint shouts lofted from below as the redshirts broke into a jog, hampered by exhaustion and their wounded. The clan reached the bottom of the valley while the enemy was just a third of the way up to the safety of the wall.
A high trumpet blared down from the fortress. Hopp swore. Riders spilled from the open gates, followed by dozens of foot soldiers.
"We're too late," Hopp yelled. "Get back up the hill. Fast as you can!"
Dante turned and retreated with his fellow warriors, several of whom snarled, frustrated by the lack of battle. He glanced over his shoulder, gathering up the nether in preparation for a fight, but the soldiers from the fort met those running up the hill and stopped to help them up to the cover of Borrull. When the clan reached the ridge, Hopp paused to let them catch their breath and assess the enemy. A mile away, the swarm of redshirts clustered outside the wall and funneled through the gates.
They jogged back to their lakeside camp. Hopp dispatched scouts and spent several minutes exchanging loon-messages with the other chiefs. Blays went to the shore to towel off his sweat. He'd been bathing with some frequency lately. Shaving, too.
"Well, that was fun," he said when he returned, damp-haired. "I suppose it beats maybe dying."
Dante leaned over at the waist to stretch his back and legs. "But now they've got 250 men instead of 200, I'd say our over
all chances of maybe-dying have shot right up."
"Let me ask you something: do you care?"
"Do I care if I might die soon?"
"Yeah."
"A bit," Dante said. "In the sense that yes, completely, I care. What are you, insane?" He paused, mouth twisting between a grin and a grimace. "Wait, you're not in love, are you?"
Blays flapped his hand. "That's not what I'm talking about. Does this feel real to you? Does it feel like a war? The kind of thing bards sing songs about?"
"Sure. I'm working on a song myself."
"Really?"
"I call it 'The Ballad of History's Greatest Sorcerer, and His Homely Sidekick Whose Name Was Unfortunately Lost to Time.'"
"Come on."
"Too long?"
Blays shook his head at the pond. It wasn't long until sunset and yellow light poured in through the branches of the trees. Flies floated down to the water and disappeared in swift ripples of rising fish. Someone had lit a fire. Smoke and pan-fried fish drifted on the cool air.
"Maybe it'll sink in soon," Blays said. "But right now we're standing by this pond. We're about to eat some fish. There'll be salt and white pepper and whatever those spriggy little herbs are. We'll get up with the sun and we'll fish and walk through the hills and come back and sleep."
"And we just got back from chasing a gang of Gaskan soldiers until more mounted soldiers chased us off."
"But now we're here. By this pond."
"And it doesn't feel like five miles between us and those soldiers," Dante said. "It feels more like five thousand."
"Exactly!" Blays nodded.
"Nope," he said. "Feels like war to me."
Blays made an exasperated noise and wandered off to find Lira. In truth, there were moments where it did feel like an idyllic dream, like one long voyage between streams and hills and mountains with no pressing destination in sight, but those moments were few, compressed between endless thoughts of days to come, of fishing to feed the tribe so it could fight, of practicing intricate tricks with the nether to keep himself sharp, of probing the earth to learn its language and raise walls to keep the enemy out. He tried to notice the light on the pond, but soon found himself thinking of the clans instead, and what he would do when it came time to knock the doors of Borrull right off their hinges.
The Cycle of Arawn: The Complete Epic Fantasy Trilogy Page 88