Hopp drew back his head. "Who knew about this but the chiefs and our clans? Which of them would possibly sabotage the entire battle?"
"That's what I'm about to find out. Also, I should probably go help with that war thing up there."
"I'm staying with him until he's safe," Lira said, standing beside Dante. "I still owe him."
Blays hiked up his belt. "Leave me to fight a legion of redshirts by myself. Very loving."
"If you need a hand, just ask one of the hundreds of norren warriors."
Blays grinned and dashed uphill. Lira touched Dante's shoulder. "Are you all right?"
"Better than a minute ago." Throughout the talk, he'd been weaving himself back together, stopping up squirting veins, bringing flesh back to flesh. It was more than muscle, skin, and fat—something else had been punctured, too. He feared it was his kidney. He didn't allow himself to look too closely at what the nether mended. He simply guided it from afar, bridging his torn matter back together, restoring what had been ruined to its natural form. "You should go up with the others."
She just laughed. "I'm not interested in having this conversation again."
"Hopp's here."
Hopp smiled his fox's smile. "And now that he's made sure his newest brother won't be the battle's first loss, he should join the fight before his other siblings start to wonder where he is."
The norren unfolded from his crouch and handed over the torchstone. He reached back to touch the greatsword on his back and lumbered uphill. Fighting had broken out atop the wall, swords flashing in the torchlight. A body plunged off the side and didn't rise. The norren had flung open the remaining two doors in the half-wrecked gates and the passage was clear of battle.
"Looks like they're kicking ass," Dante said.
"Forts only work as long as the gates are closed." She peered at him in the light of the torchstone. "You could kill me right now, couldn't you? After breaking down a wall and saving yourself from a mortal wound. You could still kill me with a gesture."
He saw no point in lying. "Yes."
She gave him a strange smile, an ethereal thing better meant for a fairy-circle in a pitch black wood. "It's a wonder all your type hasn't been burnt alive."
"In Mallon, we're kept as the attack dogs of the nobility. You can be killed for flashing the wrong talent at the wrong time." He shifted, testing his wound. It pulled, but the pain was a faraway ache, more the memory of pain than something real. "Cassinder isn't the type to brook threats to his power. If the Norren Territories fall and Narashtovik follows, I expect we'll be forced to serve in Setteven or be hanged from the highest branches."
"He's a ways from the throne yet."
"He'll move closer if he acquits himself in the field. Anyway, Moddegan hasn't exactly displayed a Mennok-like patience and wisdom towards threats himself. Would be easy enough for an ambitious man to plant him in a grave." Dante leaned forward onto his knees and found he was able to stand. "Shall we join them?"
"Are you insane?" Lira rushed to grab his arm. "Ten minutes ago you had an arrow through your back. Sit back down before you keel over and I have to explain to Blays why I'm holding another man in my arms."
Dante shrugged free. "If we never fight except when we're in perfect health of mind and body, we'll never fight at all."
He didn't test himself yet by running. He could walk fine, if stiffly, but there was an alien weakness to his legs that was neither the exhaustion of overexertion nor the soreness of the day after. Bodies lay scattered in front of the gates, mostly human. Arrows jutted from the grass. A bow twanged and Dante jerked down his head so fast his teeth clacked. He could smell metallic blood and the hot, fetid belch of punctured guts. Cries and orders barked through the streets beyond the wall. He and Lira drew their swords with the hiss of steel on leather. Blood tacked the floor of the hallway through the gates. Dante touched one of the severed hinges as he passed. Its edge was as sharp as scissors.
Dozen of bodies lay beyond the second set of doors, human and norren alike. Most of the norren showed arrows in their chests and necks. Most of the humans had been gashed open by giant swords and axes. More than one had been beheaded or outright struck in half. Suddenly fearful he'd see Mourn among the dead, Dante tried to catch a look at each face, but the numbers were too many, the darkness too deep.
Past the wall, a few dozen homes scattered the plateau. They were a mix of human and norren styles—some stone, some wood, some earthen; some boxy and squared, some round, others set flush into the sides of short rises. All had high-peaked roofs to keep off the snow. Several of the wooden ones crackled with flame. Corpses sprawled in gardens. Down the street, a gang of goats trotted past, bawling in confusion.
Off to the left, clan warriors shouted to some twenty of the king's men, demanding they lay down their arms. Dead ahead, a host of norren surrounded a large wooden structure that may have been a church—though Dante doubted that; even city-bound norren worshipped with little organization, heading instead to the forests and hills for their rare rituals and official celebrations—and were busy hacking at the door with heavy axes. Others knelt, bows in hand, to exchange fire with redshirted soldiers sniping from the upper floors.
Dante broke into a jog. An arrow whisked past his head. He raised a bloody hand and knocked a hole through the archer's forehead. The man flew back from the window in a mist of blood. With a creak and a boom, the doors gave way. Norren surged inside. Steel rang against steel. Dante hit the edge of the crowd and tried to force his way through. Hillocky shoulders bounced him back. He opened his mouth, then let it close without a word. Demanding passage based on his name or title wouldn't budge them an inch. These were norren clan-warriors. They had no more use for the prestige of Narashtovik than they would for lace slippers.
He pulled the nether to his fists and used it to shove men and women aside until he reached the door. Behind him, Lira laughed in a way that might have been disapproving. Inside, norren and men battled between rows of benches. Shouting carried from a stairwell to Dante's right. The voice was Orlen's.
Dante pounded upstairs. The third floor opened to an A-frame room with bare rafters propping up the steeply pitched roof. Ten soldiers in red cloaks stood across the room with their hands up, swords at their feet. A step in front, a man with a tidy salt-and-pepper beard and several silver medals on his doublet faced Orlen, who held his gleaming sword high above his shoulder. Close to twenty norren crowded behind him. Dante recognized several members of the Nine Pines. With a lightening of his heart, he saw Mourn was there, too.
Orlen's sword twitched toward the commander. "Stay completely still or I will make sure you are no longer capable of movement besides whatever parts of you the worms and ants carry away."
"What kind of man are you?" The commander's face was a mixture of anger and fear. "What kind of man strikes a—"
"Your tongue counts as you!" Orlen shouted. Dante couldn't remember hearing the chief raise his voice before. "Kneel!"
One of the Nine Pines leaned forward. "Orlen—"
Orlen whirled, his scarred face contorted like a wolf driven mad by its own wounds. "Why would you think I want you to speak, either? Does it look like I want anyone else to speak?"
The commander held his clenched fist out toward Orlen. "If this is how you honor your—"
Orlen pivoted on his heels. His sword wheeled. Its blade passed through the commander's neck without slowing down. The man's head tumbled across the floorboards. His body stayed upright, his arm lowering as slowly as a man falling asleep in a chair by the fire. Then he fell, a cut puppet.
His men shouted in protest and fear. Dante wedged through the throng of norren. "What the hell are you doing? He was surrendering!"
"He moved," Orlen said.
"And if you look closely you'll see he doesn't have a fucking sword!"
Orlen smiled sickly. "Who do you think set fire to those houses outside? It wasn't us. What do you think they're hoping to burn?"
Mourn moved
past Orlen to crouch beside the body of the dead commander. The redshirted soldiers watched with stark expressions. Dante stood square on Orlen. Boots scuffed behind him.
"There's no excuse for war crimes." Dante gestured to the unarmed soldiers. "These men are prisoners."
"Of their consciences, for now," Orlen said. "Soon, of hell."
Mourn unfolded the fist of the dead man. He blinked, then plucked something hidden in the man's hand.
"I will tell you what Orlen is doing," Mourn said. "He is destroying the evidence of his crime." He unfolded his hand. In his palm rested an earring, part silver, part bone. A tooth dangled from a silver chain. "Why did this human have this?"
Orlen went still. Dante's heart went dark. "It was you."
"He was supposed to wait." Orlen didn't turn.
"What is happening in this room?" Mourn said softly.
Dante tried to force Orlen to meet his eyes. "Do I tell him or do you?"
"I told them how to kill him." Orlen swiveled his chin toward Dante. "They were supposed to wait for my signal. They must have deduced you were bringing down the gate."
Mourn sat back on his haunches, the loon forgotten in his hand. "Why would you want Dante dead? He is the one who should want you dead. Unless that is why you want him dead."
Orlen laughed. "He's the reason Vee's dead, you traitorous coward. He's the one who touched the fire of war to the brush of our hills."
Mourn's face flooded with horror. "You're the one who lured him into an attack on Gaskan royalty."
"And you helped too."
Mourn vaulted to his feet and grabbed Orlen in a clinch. Orlen gasped, face white. One of the Nine Pine warriors shouted. Three others advanced, swords in hand. Orlen staggered back and then lowered himself to sit crosslegged on the floor. The bone handle of a knife projected from his heart, twitching with each beat.
"I only regret I didn't get to see both sides burn," Orlen said. He frowned down at his hands, then slumped to the side.
A terrible silence descended on the room. Dante backed up a step to stand beside Mourn. Lira followed.
The clansman who'd shouted out swiveled his face at Mourn, his loose black hair swinging below his chin. His words were barely audible over the patter of blood. "Why did you do that?"
Mourn lowered his hands to his sides. "He tried to kill my brother after blaming him for his own faults. He risked the lives of every norren here to settle a delusional score. And he'd already betrayed Dante—an ally—once before! Why do you think I left the clan in the first place?"
The long-haired man exchanged glances with the other warriors of the Nine Pines. Dante reached for the nether. Lira's hand drifted toward her sword. The clansman lowered himself to his knees.
"I will follow you across the hills."
The other eight warriors of the clan in the room followed suit in both gesture and word. Dante gaped. "You're not going to...kill him?"
The long-haired warrior gave him a sly smile. "What would possess a clansman to kill his own chieftain?"
"Oh no," Mourn said. "No!"
"You are loyal. Thoughtful. But fearless to act on your conscience when it is stung. We all speculated why you had left the clan. If you did so out of honor to a man you barely knew, what kind of honor will you bring to the Nine Pines?"
Mourn bared his teeth. "Tragically, I can't accept. That is, I could, but at the same time, I can't. I have since joined the Clan of the Broken Heron."
The warrior stood and clapped Mourn on the shoulder. "Then we will see what your new chief has to say. Perhaps it is time for the Broken Herons to come to the Pines to roost."
Dante shook his head in disbelief. Behind him, a man coughed. The soldiers. He tapped Mourn's arm. "Let's get these men outside. I mean, if that is in accordance with your wishes, my liege."
Mourn groaned through his beard. To the Nine Pines warriors, he said, "Please see they are unarmed."
The warriors removed the few weapons the soldiers still had and marched them downstairs, where a few more redshirts had decided to surrender rather than join the corpses draped over broken benches and splayed across the floor. Outside, the streets smelled like charred flesh. Lira quickly found Blays. The fighting was over. Hopp had survived, too. Kella hadn't. Stann had taken a spear in the gut and might not make it through the night. All told, three-quarters of the redshirts had died or were expected to, leaving sixty-odd prisoners. Norren casualties amounted to just over seventy, a tenth of their force. While a team of warriors set to work digging a mass grave, others reeled up pails from the wells to put out the fires still raging in four of the wooden houses.
The king's soldiers watched this with sullen despair. Dante soon learned why.
Once the first fire was out, two warriors went in to check for survivors. Their howls pierced the night. Inside, a dozen norren women lay dead. Some were burnt beyond recognition, but others showed staved-in skulls, the blood not yet clotted. All had splints on their broken shins.
Dante didn't try to stop the norren. The warriors ordered the prisoners out of the great hall where they'd been temporarily quartered and marched them to the edge of the butte. Pairs of norren warriors grabbed the redshirts and, one by one, flung them over the side of the cliff.
Only one of the soldiers tried to run. He was cut down mid-stride. The others went without speeches or anger. Once it was finished, no one went down to check whether any of the men had survived.
Dante went to Stann to treat the strategist's spear wound. Midway through the process, Dante passed out cold.
* * *
He slept for two days, or so he was told when Blays woke him up. He sat up hard, the wound in his back twingeing. "Two days? What about that incoming army?"
Blays shook his head. "Camped about ten miles west, say our scouts. Meanwhile, we just killed two of theirs a few minutes ago. Best guess is they'll arrive in force tomorrow afternoon."
"What are we going to do? Are the gates still down?"
"Sorta."
"So we're only sorta exposed to the swords of a thousand soldiers?"
Blays rolled his eyes. "You do remember what happened, don't you? That thing where you sliced the hinges straight in half, rendering them totally useless as hinges? One of the norren smiths is working on some new ones, but with as little time as we've got, they're not going to be half as strong."
Dante swung his legs out of bed. A bed in a room he didn't recognize. His legs were shaky, but his bladder demanded he put them to use. Blays pointed out the privy and hung around outside while Dante made its acquaintance.
"So did Mourn really stab Orlen in the heart?" Blays said through the door.
"Assuming Orlen had one."
"Hopp released him from the Broken Herons, you know. He's in charge of the whole Nine Pines. Is that clan very wise or very dumb?"
"I think norren spend a lot of time thinking," Dante said. "If they've already worked out exactly what they want from a leader, they can choose a new one in a snap."
"Mourn actually begged Hopp not to let him go. Hopp just smiled that dog's smile of his. I think he might be evil."
"Considering we're still members of his clan, I hope he uses that evil for good." Dante finished up and stepped back into the hall.
"Are you all right?" Blays said. "Judging by the smell, you've died and I'm talking to a ghost."
Dante brushed past him. "Are you just now learning what toilets are for?"
"If I had any lingering doubts, being forced to climb up one cleared those right up."
"Well, let Lira and Mourn know I'm up and around, if they care. I'm going to get ahold of Cally."
Blays headed outside. Dante returned to his room, found his loon, and clicked it over to Cally. Instead of Cally's ragged voice, he heard the pregnant nothing that told him Cally was already speaking to someone else. Five minutes later, he heard that same eerie non-sound. Ten minutes after that, there was no noise at all. Cally's loon was dead or shut down.
Dante dressed
, ate, wandered outside. Mid-afternoon sun painted the plateau in warm yellow light tempered by a winding breeze that still smelled lightly of ash and charred fat. Hammers rang on wood and metal. Norren were thick in the streets, pulling down wooden houses and hauling the planks to a fresh palisade in the throes of construction behind the main wall. Dante recognized several members of the Herons, Nine Pines, and the other clans he'd recently fought beside, but he found himself wandering away from their labor to the east end of the butte. It was just a couple hundred yards from the center of the village, but it felt as isolated as his last two days of dreams.
He stopped at the cliffs where the king's soldiers had been chucked to their deaths. He'd been drawn here. Called by a voice too deep to hear. The smell was as faraway as the cries of the hawks. Not too bad just yet—that tolerable lull between the knifing stink of fresh guts and the lung-clogging reek of rotting ones. Far below, blackbirds hopped among the bodies, pecking eyes and tongues. Shadows flitted between broken fingers and teased the cracks in skulls. An unseen pressure pulled on Dante's collar, drawing him closer to the stark edge.
He backed away, crossed the village to the disabled gates, and walked down the slope to where it met the valley floor. Within an hour, he stood before the scree of stones at the foot of the cliffs, corpses broken among the rocks like fat and fleshy eggs.
Flies buzzed in schools. Birds squawked and hopped from dinner to dinner. But there was more than birds and flies among the swollen dead. There was nether, too. Lurking in half-seen pools that dissolved as soon as he looked at them straight on. Sweating from the men's pores and crow-pecked sockets. But it wasn't only escaping from the bodies to the ground. It was rising from the ground to the bodies, too, as if the violence of their landing had cracked a vein in the earth. As if the dirt had been waiting to reclaim the flesh that had been born from it.
In an instant, his understanding shifted as roughly as thunder and as radically as a landslide. Moving the earth wasn't about speaking to the earth. It was about finding the death in the earth. Finding the death and making it move. Move the death, move the earth.
The Cycle of Arawn: The Complete Epic Fantasy Trilogy Page 90