Blays stiffened, altering the tempo of the bouncing. "Because I'm not a fan of you bleeding to death on my shoulder. How do you feel?"
"Bounced."
"Not deathy?"
"I blocked most of his strike. Wouldn't have been able to block another. Is he really dead?"
"Pretty sure."
"How sure?" Dante said. "Last time he walked away from having a six-hundred-foot tree chopped out from under him."
"Fortunately, when I was in the palace, I got some practice stabbing him in the heart. This time, I was much better at it. And did it ten times instead of once. Then cut off his head."
"I always thought the secret of your success was your thoroughness."
Blays' head jerked around. He veered toward a cluster of branches. There, Mourn and a dozen norren had gathered to prepare for their next push.
Blays set Dante on his feet and walked up to Mourn, breathing hard. "Time to do some fleeing."
Mourn looked between the humans. "Have we done all that we came to do?"
"And then some."
The norren drew a horn dangling from his neck and lifted it to the rain. The note was long and shrill. It was repeated by the horn of Narrinor, Dante's captain in the field. Dante leaned against an upturned floor as he waited for the troops to withdraw. The retreat was swift, and given the conditions of the field, extremely orderly: either the Minister's men had already begun to pull back, or the loss of their commander had set them adrift.
Somburr arrived, bloodied but intact. Ulev was missing, as was one of the monks. The sergeants ran a hasty headcount. They were down fewer than ten percent.
"Where's Ast?" Dante said.
Mourn shook his head. "He fell in the charge."
A thought hung between Dante's ears: a descendant of those destroyed by Narashtovik had finally been killed by the same.
At that moment, he had no time for guilt. "Do we have everyone still standing?"
Narrinor stepped forward. "A few are unaccounted for. But if we stay any longer, we'll all join them."
Dante's head was still foggy and thick. But it was clear even to him that they stood in the middle of an enemy capital—one they had just partially razed—and that a hundred miles of forest stood between them and land that wasn't under the direct control of the Spirish. He nodded at Narrinor. Narrinor gave the order and they withdrew from the wreckage of the tree, jogging toward the small reserve force at what was left of the roots.
As they met with the rest of their soldiers, a few bolts sailed from the neighboring loren, along with plates, sticks, and lorbells. Dante was helped onto a horse and they headed west, following the road. A handful of norren lagged behind to watch for pursuit.
Dante tried to stay awake, but he had nothing left. He slept in the saddle.
When he woke, the sun was up, the rain had stopped, and so had they. The troops sat in loose circles, eating lorbells and rubbing their eyes. Some looked unsure. Others looked shocked. The events of last night felt like a dream. Dante eased himself from his horse, every muscle aching, and walked into the middle of his people.
"We have taken Cellen," he said. "The Minister has fallen, along with his people's ability to make war. I'm not proud of what it took to accomplish that. But I am proud of you. You volunteered for an impossible task. One that might well have killed every last one of us. In doing so, you have saved Narashtovik from horrors far worse than we witnessed last night. I thank you. And so do all our people."
He lowered his eyes. There was no applause or cheers, but he saw a few smiles. When they were ready to resume travel, he gave his horse to a soldier whose wounds hadn't yet been seen to by one of the monks. The road was so muddy the troops found it easier to walk beside it.
Blays caught up to him. "Nice bit of morale boosting there."
"It never feels like enough," Dante said.
"I'm sure that constant self-dissatisfaction is what makes you such a fine leader."
"Then is your constant self-satisfaction the reason you've never looked for a crown?"
"That sounds more than plausible." Blays glanced up at the loren they were passing beneath, the shadows of its flats crossing his face. "You didn't use Cellen to bring down the tree, did you?"
"Do you want the truth?"
"I can't know that until I hear it. Either way, I get to blame you, so there's that."
"But you already know it, don't you?"
They looked at each other. "What was it like?" they blurted at the same time.
Blays laughed. "I saw a bunch of stars. Like I was walking across the night sky. Only I didn't have a body. It didn't even feel like I was me."
"Like Arawn's field?"
"Sort of. Different than they say. More like...how the wind must feel. Separate from it all, yet able to touch everything at once."
"For me, it was like being presented with a world of doors," Dante said. "Each door opened to a world of its own. Inside was anything I could have imagined."
"Anything?" Blays rubbed his chin. "So could you have made yourself a hundred feet tall?"
"I didn't see that one," he laughed. "But I wasn't looking for it."
"What were you planning to do with it? Before I screwed everything up?"
"I don't know."
"Bullshit. You always have a plan. Ten plans. Which was it?"
"I would have lived a thousand years," Dante said. "And when Cellen returned, if I'd found it, I might have lived a thousand more."
Blays gazed across the forest. "Why?"
"To live a thousand years." His boots crunched on the snow. "And, if I were doing my job, to keep Narashtovik safe all the while."
Blays gave Dante a sly look. "You were tempted, though, weren't you?"
"Why would you ask that?"
"You're right. As usual, I already know the answer." It began to rain again and Blays pulled up his hood, concealing his expression. "But you didn't."
They were quiet a minute. "What happened in the palace with the Minister?"
Blays explained the number of surprises he'd run into. "Next time I'm about to stab someone in his sleep, you might remember to tell me he's the most powerful nethermancer in the world."
"He wasn't," Dante said. "I'd just worn myself out. And I had no idea he was a nethermancer."
"I'm not sure if that makes it better or worse."
"He was asleep. It shouldn't have mattered if he was an elephant."
Blays grinned and shook his head.
After a few miles, Dante thought to finally loon Nak. "It's finished."
Nak cheered so loudly Dante yanked back his head in pain.
"We're not out of the woods yet," Dante replied. "Literally or metaphorically. Narashtovik won't truly be safe until I seal the tunnel behind us. Even then, the Spirish will want revenge more than ever."
"What did you do this time?" Nak said.
"What I had to. I'll tell you when I'm home. I don't know all the details myself yet."
He closed the connection, picked Cee from the crowd of norren and soldiers, and walked beside her. "So how did you find it? We could have searched that field for a year and still missed it."
She tipped back her head. "I have my ways."
"I see. Sheer luck."
"Hardly. I saw a body curled around something, holding its hands to its chest. Figured there was only one thing more precious to a person than their own life."
A slow frown spread across his face. "We're lucky he didn't hand it to the Minister before the tree fell."
"Was it just luck?" She laughed wryly. "I figured he meant to run off and use it for himself."
"Why didn't he? While the tree was falling? Do you have to be in touch with the nether?"
"I don't know. And we never will."
He supposed she was right, but that didn't stop him from thinking about it as they continued to march. He got no closer to the answers.
Mourn's pickets came in. They'd ambushed and killed a couple Spirish scouts dogging the proces
sion. At a bridge over an icy stream, Dante waited on the other side for the troops to cross. He ordered them to get off the road and head overland. Once they were on their way, he moved into the earth and smoothed away their tracks in the mud. To anyone following them, it would look as if they'd trudged up or down the stream in an effort to hide their passage. The enemy scouts could waste hours searching for leads that weren't there.
Over the day, they moved further and further from the road. The rain swelled from a trickle to a storm, washing out their tracks. With little chance of being spotted except by chance, they sheltered the night in a loren, allowing the soldiers a full night's sleep. In the morning, the scouts reported a few strangers in the vicinity, but they turned out to be citizens foraging for something besides lorbells. It was possible they hadn't yet heard of the devastation of their capital.
Dante continued the trek. Within a few days, the last of the lorens stood behind them. With Ast gone, Dante wasn't certain he'd be able to find his way back to the tunnel through the mountains. Fortunately, Somburr corrected their course. After a long leg of pine forests and snowy hills, Dante gazed across a valley at the tunnel.
It was already afternoon, so they camped outside it, meaning to be rested for the long march to the great hall halfway across it. In the morning, once everyone was inside, Dante called to the rock and sealed the last thirty feet of the tunnel with a plug of solid stone.
A bit of ice had formed around the vents, but there was no sign it had been used by others. After two days of travel, they emerged into a clear, cold morning and breathed the Gaskan air.
Very soon, they looked on Narashtovik. Though rumors had flown, Olivander hadn't revealed the nature of their mission to the people. Their return was met with simple curiosity. Until they reached the Citadel. Then, cheers poured down so loudly they threatened to shake loose the walls.
As the others were fed, bathed, and otherwise treated to whatever they needed, Dante was hustled upstairs to the Council chambers. One of the many perks of command. The other nine members were brought in, along with Captain Narrinor, who had witnessed much of the battle Dante hadn't been privy to. Over the next several hours, Dante, Somburr, Pinya, and Narrinor explained exactly what had happened during the venture, particularly what had taken place once they'd decided to move on Cellen.
There were few inquiries until it came to when Blays had died outside the palace.
"Pardon the interruption." Olivander leaned over the table. "You say he died?"
"That's correct," Dante said.
"But I saw him walking around the courtyard."
"We'll get to that." Dante went on with the explanation.
He'd only reached the point where he and Somburr had leapt down from the tree when Olivander leaned forward again. "So you decided to chop down a tree housing thousands of civilians?"
"Correct."
The big man shifted. "Do you think your judgment might have been clouded by the fact Blays had just died?"
"Of course it was."
"I make this point because this entire conflict was spawned by an atrocity our people once committed against theirs. Now, in the course of defending ourselves, we have committed a second."
Dante gazed across the table. "Would you have done differently?"
Olivander pursed his lips, then laughed wryly. "Yes. I would have. But only because it never would have occurred to me to attempt such a thing."
"And we're agreed there was nothing more important than stopping the invasion of Narashtovik?"
"Of course."
"At that point in time, it seemed like the only option with any chance of success. Decide for yourselves if I made the right decision."
Olivander sighed. "This isn't a trial. We're just trying to understand what happened. Please, continue."
Dante did so, through the felling of the tree and the subsequent search for and discovery of Cellen.
"That's how you did it." Tarkon whooped, glancing around the table in merriment. "That's how you brought Blays back."
Several of them laughed in wonder. Wellimer, the young defector, creased his brow. "Is that true?"
Dante folded his arms. "Do you know another way to return the dead to life?"
"It's just—"
"Consider the context," Somburr said, rolling his eyes. "A mere two hundred of us. In the heart of enemy lands hundreds of miles from home. Closed in on by a man whose talents could rival anyone here. Who had immediate access to several hundred soldiers, the capability to summon hundreds more in a matter of minutes, and many thousands within days. At that moment, in that place, it was more important to remove Cellen than to put it to any specific use."
"But it's Cellen," Wellimer insisted. "An object capable of anything. To use it to restore the life of a single person..."
Dante got to his feet. "I am the leader of this Council and the city it is pledged to protect. May you question me? Yes. Always. That is how we improve. But I've just done the impossible. And you're quibbling with me that I should have done better?"
Silence shrouded the table. Tarkon was the first to laugh. "Shades of Cally."
Those who had known the old man laughed. After a moment, Dante did too.
* * *
As Olivander had said, it wasn't a trial; no punishments were handed out. Instead, they scheduled a feast to honor those who'd put their lives on the line for the city. It was decided to send a diplomatic mission to Spiren—even to offer reparations, if it was possible to do so for such a tragedy—but later, when the weather in the mountains had grown calmer. And, hopefully, so had the tempers in Corl.
Before the feast, Dante prepared a speech, a longer version of the one he'd given to the soldiers the day after the battle in Weslee. But when the time came, and all the eyes in the hall fixed on him, he had only one thing to say:
"As long as I live, it will be in service to this city, my home."
He sat. Olivander had much more to say, and said it well, but Dante had little mind for it. Instead, he was adrift in himself. Some had been lost, including the lives of Lew and Ast, and others had been gained, but for the most part, things were little different than they'd been before the emergence of Cellen from its thousand-year slumber. It seemed wrong to suffer so much strife and earn so little progress. As always, it felt like less justice had been meted out than was deserved. Not for the first time, he wondered why Arawn would allow such bad things to happen and offer so little in the way of consolation.
Yet there were a few. Most of them were there in the room with him, eating and talking, drinking and laughing. Their time together would be too short. If he didn't value it as it deserved until after it was gone, perhaps that wasn't Arawn's fault. Perhaps it was his own.
For a few days, everyone who'd gone on the trip seemed content to do little but rest, eat, and enjoy being someplace warm again. Some of the norren pitched yurts in the courtyard, but others slept in tents hung right inside the great halls. A highly disorganized and low-key party ensued. Already, Dante had work to get to—the needs of Narashtovik never ceased—but he couldn't have thrown them out even if he'd wanted to. As it turned out, he highly enjoyed the chance to do a whole lot of nothing for once.
Six days after their return from Weslee, Dante happened to glance out the window and see the norren packing up their things. He ran downstairs and found Mourn. "Were you really going to leave without saying goodbye?"
"Goodbyes are a ritual that never made sense to me," Mourn said. "But if it means that much to you, 'goodbye.'"
"At least let me thank you!"
"Isn't that what all the feasting, speeches, and drinking was about?"
"You are without doubt the most confusing member of a highly confusing people," Dante laughed. "I hope you know that if you ever need us, Narashtovik is always yours to call upon."
"Then let me express the hope that we never need to see each other again." Mourn could only keep a straight face for a couple seconds. "The hills of the Nine Pines are always
yours, too."
The departure of the norren seemed to be the sign that it was time to start setting things in order. Once the gates closed behind them, Dante went inside and climbed the stairs. The Sealed Citadel was less obsessed with status than many such institutions, but there was an implicit hierarchy in the way rooms were handed out. Cee had been given quarters on the third floor: above the servants, but below the couriers, low-level bureaucrats, and skilled staff. Dante found her door and knocked.
She opened it and smiled lopsidedly. "Do I even have a choice to let you in?"
"What do you mean?"
"You own this place, right? Your very own castle. How's that feel?"
"Exhausting." He moved inside and took a seat. "Now that I've talked the place up, would you still like to be a part of it?"
She took on a guarded look. "In what capacity?"
"Whatever you'd like. But you know the things Blays used to do for the Citadel? That's what I had in mind."
"What about Blays?"
Dante gazed past her. The walls were unadorned and the room was chilly. "I don't know that he's going to stay here, let alone that he wants to resume doing ridiculous things in the name of Narashtovik. Worst case, he sticks around and we've got two of you." He creased his brow. "On second thought, maybe I ought to rescind the offer."
"Too late," she grinned. "I look forward to giving you even bigger headaches than he did."
He hesitated three full seconds before shaking her hand.
On the pretense of catching up with his paperwork, he headed back to his room, but stopped outside the door. He'd been putting it off long enough.
Blays wasn't in his room. Dante checked the great halls on the ground floor; with the norren gone, the revelry had dwindled to a few soldiers and monks sitting around sharing stories and beer. None had seen Blays. In fact, he seemed nowhere to be found. Dante went to ask Gant if Blays had slipped out again while no one was looking, then realized he knew better and diverted his course to the roof. Blays was there, hands in the pockets of his cloak, hair ruffled by the cold wind slicing off the bay.
Dante walked up beside him and looked over the city. "So."
The Cycle of Arawn: The Complete Epic Fantasy Trilogy Page 169