15
"A white sword," Ast said. "Well, we'll never hear from the monsters again."
Dante lifted its tip. "This sword is taken from Barden."
Ast laughed. "The White Tree doesn't shed leaves or branches. Since the day it sprouted, it hasn't been broken."
Dante nodded, mildly impressed by Ast's knowledge. "Until I got there."
He wheeled the sword over his head and slammed it into the table. The blade hit the wood with a jolt to his wrist. Instead of the ring of steel, the impact made a flat crack. The sword passed through and bit into the ground. The table teetered, then fell in half, parted down the middle.
Onlookers gazed at the weapon. After a pause, Vinsin knelt by the table and rubbed the cleaved edges. "Waste of a good table."
"Kappers may be toughened against nether." Dante wiped dirt from the sword's tip. "But this could cut the clouds from the sky."
Ast rubbed his hand down his mouth. "Are you provisioned?"
"For a month or more."
"Then we move now. If the blizzards beat us to the divide, no amount of want will get us through."
Cee tipped back her head to the clear blue skies. "Do you know something we don't, pal?"
"Yes." Ast patted his pockets, reminding himself of what was on his person. "The names of three dozen men who've died on those peaks."
"Oh."
"Don't you want to discuss your payment?" Dante said.
"A man of your stature has the means to make it worth my while—and I'm sure a man of your honor will see that it is fair." He excused himself and jogged toward the cliffside homes.
Somburr moved beside Dante. "You know this man?"
Dante nodded. "Like I said. He's the one who led us to the lights."
"I don't trust him."
"You don't trust anyone."
"People have odors," Somburr said unhappily. "He reeks of betrayal."
"Then it's good you're here to watch my back."
While he waited for Ast to return with his personal effects, Dante spoke with Vinsin about compensating Soll for the table. Vinsin attempted to brush it off on the grounds that whatever mission Dante was on would likely enhance the village's safety, but Dante sat at an intact table and penned a quick note to Olivander, to be delivered to Narashtovik by whoever was heading that way soonest. As he finished, he allowed himself a small smile. This was just the sort of responsibility Olivander would want to see him take.
Ast returned wearing a long sword with a round guard, its scabbard carved with a spiral reminiscent of a kapper's horn. Dante assigned him a pony. Ast eyed the creature, ran his fingers through its thick mane, bent to examine the tufts around its sturdy hooves. Satisfied, he swung into the saddle and moved to the point.
The ponies trudged up the switchback north of town without hesitation. At the grassy meadow above, shepherds shaded their eyes to watch the team strike out for the wilds. Lew raised his hand and waved. A woman waved back.
The ponies had some problems with the talus field beyond the meadow. They picked their way step by step, planting each hoof firm before trusting it to hold. They resumed their pace at the pine forest. Dante could smell the cold in the air. Pine needles, too, but the odor had changed. It was more brittle, as if the trees had retreated into themselves in advance of the coming freeze.
As the daylight grew hard and yellow, Ast spoke for the first time since departing from Soll. "Where do you intend to sleep? The ponies can't climb up to a cave."
"Somburr and I worked that out on the way here," Dante said. "It's a bit gruesome. But less so than waking up to a herd of mauled ponies."
Ast scowled. "Anything would be."
They rode along the cliffs edging the forest, stopping once they spotted the cave Dante had created on their first time through. It was too small for all of them to sleep in comfortably, but three could fit in it without problem—and should disaster strike, in the form of malevolent beasts or indifferent storms, they could pack themselves tight until Dante was able to expand it enough to stretch their legs.
They grazed the ponies on the thin, dying grass. As soon as the sun fell below a ridge, Dante heaved up a saddlebag and extracted a squirrel, two possums, three rats, two rabbits, and eight mice. All were undead. He and Somburr had been collecting them since Somburr devised this plan on their second night out from Narashtovik. It was straightforward enough that Dante likely could have conceived it on his own, but he appreciated a) that Somburr had shown more foresight and b) was not squeamish about using the animals as sentries.
He sent his half of the creatures scattering into the twilight to keep their eyes out for kappers and more mundane predators. There would be bears in the mountains. They might have already retired to their caves for the winter, but any wolves in the area would be growing hungrier by the day. Somburr kept his half of the scouts on the fringes of camp, near enough that their rustling made Dante's heart leap every few minutes.
"Where exactly in Weslee do you intend to go?" Ast asked during their dinner of completely unremarkable travel fare.
"We're not yet sure," Dante said. "Do you know it well enough to offer suggestions?"
"You're braving the Woduns. On the verge of winter. And you don't know where you're going?"
"We're following the lights. We were told we could learn more about them in Weslee. Do you know of such a place?"
Ast chewed, thinking. "No."
"Then get us through the Woduns via the safest route possible. We'll take it from there."
Both he and Somburr could have slept the whole night—the creatures would wake them through their mental link should they encounter anything dog-sized or larger—but Dante stayed up the first few hours anyway, listening to the woods, its screeching owls and lonely coyotes. He was glad he wasn't alone.
The cold of the night persisted through the morning. The others were stiff and grouchy and so was he.
"Think we can risk a fire tonight?" he said.
Ast glanced across the woods. "Kappers know that campfires are attended by their favorite kind of walking meat. So it depends on how much confidence you have in your rats—and your sword."
Dante nodded, mildly annoyed at Ast's lack of faith. Dante may have been an outsider, but he wasn't some wealthy, sheltered nobleman hiring locals to help him hunt cougars or bears. He compressed his irritation and prepared for the day's ride.
The forest quit abruptly, depositing them into an endless scree of rocks of all sizes. Ast scouted ahead for paths of solid stone that would be better suited for the ponies. Eager to prove himself, Dante joined the search. He may not know the mountains, but he could damn well tell the difference between jumbled stones and an even surface. They rode for miles, stopping whenever the ponies balked and needed to be detoured.
"Did you intend us to skirt the ravine?" Ast asked as the day wore on. "Or were you thinking of bridging it?"
"Bridging," Dante replied at once. "This time, I don't have to worry about conserving myself to build caves each night. Nor about exhausting my power to heal or do harm. In his own right, Somburr's just as capable as I am."
Ast didn't look entirely convinced, but he didn't object. They exited the spread of talus and stopped before the ravine. While the others took the opportunity to dismount, stretch their legs, and have a snack, Dante cut open his arm and let the blood fall to the ground. This gap was wider than anything he'd bridged, so rather than extending a path direct from one side to the other, he drew out his supports first, extending diagonal struts of rock to connect in the middle of the canyon. He fleshed these out with triangular junctions to help disperse the weight of their passage, then paved his bridge across the gap.
Somburr watched with naked curiosity. "I've always meant to ask, was that hard to learn?"
"The work of months," Dante said, letting out a shaky breath. "And refining it's taken years. Do you think it would come in handy on your ventures?"
"It occurs to me that, if you were to open a hole in the floor
beneath a person—an enemy king, say—you could drop him inside and reseal the hole and no one would ever know."
"That's a disturbing thought."
"No," Somburr said. "What's disturbing is the thought of liquid stone flooding their mouth to choke off their screams."
He couldn't argue with that. Dante walked across the bridge himself to test it, delving his focus into the reshaped rock. He felt no hint of weakness or strain. Though the icy stream glittered a hundred feet below, the ponies were well used to clambering around on narrow paths and mountain slopes, and didn't slow down as they were led to the other side one by one.
They crossed a snowfield, descended to another forest. That night, Dante spent his time on watch looking out for the Ghost Lights—for Cellen—but saw nothing out of the ordinary in the skies or on the ground. At the second ravine, where he'd slain the kapper, he repaired his broken bridge and buttressed it with additional supports. Below, white bones showed within broken black shells.
They made good time before their next camp. That night, a feeling like numbed pain spiked him from sleep long before dawn. His link with one of the mice had gone dead.
"Did you lose one, too?" Somburr said.
Dante jumped. "Just now. When was yours?"
"Twelve minutes ago."
"Have you been counting the seconds?"
Somburr nodded. "Haven't seen the attacker."
Dante hopped between the sight of each of his remaining scouts. Their night vision was better than his, but showed nothing more than trees and pale pockets of snow.
"Go back to bed," Somburr said. "I'll sleep in the saddle."
When Dante got back up, clouds skidded across the sky, mounting on the eastern peaks. He joined the others for breakfast. "We lost two scouts last night."
Lew looked up from his cornbread. "Kappers?"
"Owls, I expect. But keep your eyes open."
"Good tip," Cee said. "As it turns out, eyes are especially useful when you're stumbling around the mountains."
"We've got more than kappers to worry about," Ast said, ignoring her sarcasm. "We'll see a storm this afternoon."
Ahead lay the boulder-strewn field where their last trip had ended. Since they were no longer hunting the lights, Ast skirted it, swinging to the north through a notch in the ridge. Snows crusted the slopes, shrubs clinging gamely to any hold they could find. The mountains were already so high Dante thought they must be crossing the divide, but the other side opened to an up-and-down jumble of hills, screes, and cliffs, glued together by blue-white glaciers striated by the constant winds. On the horizon, another spread of mountains soared yet higher.
Dante's ears ached. Since the day before, even moderate strain had left him taxed for breath. Ast seemed little worse for wear, and Somburr's expression was as elsewhere as always, but he saw the discomfort in Cee and Lew's faces, too.
"Is it much further?" he said.
Ast pulled his scarf down from his mouth. Steam gushed from his nose. He pointed to the distant peaks. "That's the divide."
"Oh, thank the gods," Lew said.
Dante felt relief, but not much. The glacier field looked like the work of two days by itself. And unless Ast knew a hidden pass through the divide, they'd have to climb another thousand feet or more of stark terrain before they looked on Weslee.
But it was a bit late for complaints. They moved on. Dante and Somburr sent their animal scouts bounding ahead to check for pathways through the ice. After a short descent, they slogged through four inches of powdery snow overlaying hard-packed ice that likely never melted. The ponies crunched along. An hour into the walk across the ice, one pony stopped and danced away, holding up its left front hoof. Dots of red pattered the snow; it had sliced itself on a blade of ice. Dante instructed Lew to heal it.
Lew dismounted and sent the nether to wipe away the animal's wound. The pony snorted and hopped sideways, kicking its foot about as if it itched. Abruptly, it calmed down and gazed across the snow like nothing had happened.
The skies grayed. Glittering powder gusted in flurries. One of the dead rabbits stumbled on an alternate route a quarter mile to the southeast. It required navigating a tricky frozen slope, but the glacier at the bottom flowed like a solid river for at least a mile, a much cleaner path than the eskers and slants ahead of them.
Ast agreed and they angled toward the idle rabbit scout. The powder in the air thickened, accumulating in the folds of their cloaks. It wasn't just the wind. It was snowing. By the time they got to the slope, the skies were charcoal; incoming snow whirled around them, dropping visibility to a couple hundred yards.
Ast paused before the descent. A long ramp of ice fed down to the glacier hundreds of feet below. The ice was solid and broad, but ahead and to the left, the edge plunged sharply, riddled with deep blue folds.
"We'll lead the ponies." Ast dropped from the saddle. "Slow and steady. If you hear a crack or a pop, abandon the beasts as fast as you can."
The lower half of Lew's face was muffled, but concern shined in his eyes. And yet the angle looked worse than it was. Ast led, swiveling his head to gauge the ground. There was little powder on the slope and the ice beneath Dante's feet was gritty and irregular, making for relatively solid footing. They proceeded in a loose line, careful not to follow directly behind one another in case of a mishap.
Halfway down the decline, with another tenth of a mile to go, Ast's pony yanked its head, tearing the reins from his gloved hands. He cursed and stomped after it. The ice to Dante's right crackled. The hair stood up on the back of his neck. He dropped the reins and tensed his legs.
But it wasn't a collapse or an avalanche. Fifty feet away, from behind a low mound of snow, a kapper stalked onto the ice.
Dante's pony shrieked. Perhaps he did as well. Somburr rushed forward, knives appearing in his hands. Dante drew his sword. Originally, the raw rib had been heavy and unwieldy, but using a combination of nether and steel chisels (which had gone blunt after two good whacks), he'd shaved and shaped the bone to the desired shape. By the time he'd finished work in Samarand's basement, the sword was three and a half feet long from point to pommel, gently curved. It was thicker than most steel blades of the same shape, but hardly any weightier—and unimaginably stronger.
He held it from his side and faced down the kapper. The beast dipped its head, swaying its horns back and forth. Ast's pony took a faltering step to the left. The kapper padded forward. A bow twanged behind Dante. With a hard whack, the arrow struck the kapper in the middle of its plated skull and deflected away. The kapper accelerated into a lope. Heart hammering, Dante stepped forward and raised his sword to a guard.
Another pony screamed, an unnatural, whinnying cry. Lew shouted. Dante glanced back. Two more kappers stalked down the slope behind them.
"Deal with that one," Somburr said, pointing to the first. "We need to clear room to run."
Dante nodded and gripped the sword with both hands. Animals skittered on ice behind him; ponies brayed, hooves scraping. One bolted to the left, slipping on the ice. The first kapper dropped its head and rushed Dante.
He could try to knock a hole in the ice. Send this one plunging to its death and race to face the other two. But he had no practice manipulating ice, and even if it operated along the same principles as earth—and he suspected it would—he didn't know how the rest of the sheet would react if it were suddenly sheared open. He might slip and join the kapper, and any fall sufficient to kill it would surely claim him as well.
So he leveled his sword and trotted forward. The kapper closed on him, snow twirling past its twin horns. He stopped and planted his feet. Moments before it impaled him, he leapt to the left, slashing at its head with his sword. The bone connected with the kapper's horn. A two-foot spiraled point spun into the ice and stuck there.
The monster thundered past him and smacked straight into a pony's flank. The animal shrieked. The kapper drove it into the ground, then backed off. Blood spurted from the pony's ribs, dripping fro
m the kapper's intact horn. Upslope, the other two monsters charged through a loose knot of people and ponies. Cee's bow thrummed. Ponies galloped toward the left edge of the sheet, sliding as the grade fell away. Shadows lanced through the air and burst harmlessly against a kapper's armored hull.
The first beast, now down half a horn, twirled away from the downed pony and romped toward Dante. He timed his second effort better, diving away at the last instant, raking his blade down its side. It bellowed. Dark blood stained the snow. Dante landed on his hip and rolled. The kapper stumbled, snow spraying from the impact of its body. Dante popped to his feet and sprinted toward it. As it found its footing, he whipped the sword into its neck.
The blade ripped through the plated armor, passed through the flesh like it was no more substantial than the powder beneath their feet, and jarred to a stop against the kapper's spine. Drunkenly, the kapper swung its head around, attempting to face him. Its legs gave out and it collapsed on its face. He yanked the sword clear.
The scene behind him was sheer mayhem. Two more ponies were fallen, unmoving. As he watched, another skidded on the left slope and fell into an unseen crevasse. A second followed, braying all the way down. One kapper chased two more back uphill. The other charged straight toward Cee while Somburr and Lew maneuvered to either side. She flung herself flat. It bounded over her, kicking snow.
Dante was already running, sword tight at his side. Nether darkened the air. The kapper ducked its head and squeezed its eyes shut and the bolt caromed from its head, sparkling away through the anarchic snowflakes. The creature opened its eyes. It blinked as Dante's sword ripped into the top of its head.
A slice of skull went flying, trailing plates and scalp. Dante glimpsed an open, pink bulb of brain. The kapper planted its front feet, skidding through a semicircle that left it facing him. Distracted by its maneuver, Dante tripped. Ice gouged his chest and banged the side of his head.
The Cycle of Arawn: The Complete Epic Fantasy Trilogy Page 129