One hung on the opposite wall, but the path to it was blocked by stacks of small wooden boxes. With a grunt, Dante lifted a box and set it aside. Its contents rattled dryly. The timbre of the sound was specific. Familiar.
The lid was latched but not locked. He swung it open. The light of the full moon cut through the windows, illuminating the jumble of bones inside. They were marred by streaks of something like blood or dirt. He picked up a rib.
It wasn't blood. Nor dirt. The sweep of the rib was painted with ancient Mallish runes he'd rarely seen and couldn't read. With tingling dread, he moved his mind into the bone's marrow. It was infused with nether.
"We can't leave yet," he said flatly.
"I see that," Blays said. "That's because you're too busy fooling around with old bones to help us with the shaden."
"These bones are covered in runes. When we first came to Narashtovik, Samarand had me make objects just like these. She used them in the ritual meant to summon Arawn."
Blays straightened. "We're not interrupting a god-summoning, are we? I've made it my life's mission to not get on the bad side of any deities."
"Whatever they're doing, that's why they've brought the shaden here."
"Maybe Gladdic thinks he can summon Arawn and then kill him."
"That's what they're digging for," Dante said. "It isn't to loot the pockets of forgotten corpses. It's to take the bones."
Naran put another snail in the barrel. "If all they wanted was bones, why come all the way to Collen? There are more than enough corpses in Bressel."
"Let's get the shaden out of here and I'll see what I can find out."
Dante got the hook from the wall and returned to the barrels. Tedious work, but with three of them, it went fast enough. Once they'd scooped up every snail they could find, Dante secured a lid to the top of the packed container. Drawing the nether from one of the shaden, he dissolved the rock beneath the barrel. It sank into the floor of the building.
As he slowly extended the hole beneath the barrel, lowering it toward the base of the butte, he sent the rodent trotting toward the mass grave the Mallish soldiers had been unearthing. Blays stood beneath a window, face tipped back as he listened to the night. Dante passed Naran the torchstone. The captain descended the spiral ramp Dante had used to get them up into the room.
Outside, the rodent came to the dig. It was now silent. Rotten clothes and leather armor lay in a jumbled heap. All the bones had been removed from the scene. A path had been worn from the site to one of the better-preserved buildings. Dante sent his scout trotting along the trail.
A bolt of white light flashed toward the rodent. Before Dante could order it to dash away, its vision went black.
"We have trouble," he said in the storage room. "A priest just killed my scout."
Blays frowned. "If he exterminated your rat, then he's either going to want to kill us or bill us. Either way, we should get out of here."
Dante headed for the exit in the floor. As he moved, however, he lost his hold on the earth beneath the barrel, which he was still lowering.
He stopped, teeth clenched. "Get to the bottom. I'll be right there."
Blays brushed past, disappearing around the curve of the ramp. Dante withdrew the rock from beneath the barrel as fast as he could. Feeling it come level with the main tunnel out, he stopped, extending a horizontal passage between the two excavations.
The building's door burst open. A blue-clad soldier rushed into the room, sword glinting. A priest followed on his heels. Dante rushed down the ramp, sealing the stone closed behind him.
Wan light glowed ahead. He stumbled from the spiral ramp into his hallway, rushing into the backs of Naran and Blays, who were wrestling with the incredibly weighty barrel.
"Get back," Dante said. "I'll close it up."
"We can't risk them finding the shaden before we can get back here," Blays said. "There's only one way we can go with this."
"We can't destroy them. Do you have any idea what I could do with this much nether?"
"Sure. About exactly as much as the Mallish could do with it."
Dante pressed his lips together. "You're right. Get back."
Blays and Naran retreated toward the exit. Feeling sick with himself—how was it that he could kill any number of humans without remorse, yet harming a barrel of sea snails made his conscience bleed?—Dante moved away from the barrel. He lashed the nether toward it, cutting loose its hoops. Staves burst apart, spilling sea water and shells across the ground. He moved into the rock. A shelf of stone slammed downward with a gut-churning crunch.
"Not our proudest moment," Blays said. "Now shall we get out of here before they add us to their pile of bones?"
With Naran lighting the way with the torchstone, they jogged down the tunnel. As they neared the exit, Naran passed him the stone. Dante blew it out. They moved into the night. Dante sealed the tunnel behind them. Atop the butte, men hollered to each other. Doors slammed. Steel clinked.
"Better hoof it," Blays said. "I'd like to be ten miles away by sunrise."
They jogged toward the nearest hill, meaning to put it between them and any pursuit. Halfway to it, torches flapped from the top of the butte. Faint hoofbeats carried through the darkness. Dante and the other two paused long enough to ensure the riders were going in the wrong direction, then ran up the hill. They crested it, slowing to a jog as they moved downhill.
Dante waited until they'd made it past the next ridge before speaking. "Well, that could have gone worse."
"Is that what you consider success?" Naran said. "We lost all the shaden."
"Correction," Blays said. "We destroyed the shaden. I'm sure Dante had visions of using them to brand his name across the sky, but the fundamental objective was to get the shells away from the Mallish. Mission acc—"
He had just glanced behind them. He double-taked violently, tripping through a clump of sage. Dante's heart sank. Behind them, three dotted lines glowed white in the dirt. Each spot of light was a narrow oval about a foot long. They began some hundred feet away from Dante, but as he watched, the lines of light advanced across the field spot by spot, stopping directly beneath their feet.
"Ethermancers," he groaned. "They've found a way to track us."
"We must do something." Naran kicked dirt over the closest patch of ether, but his efforts only brought more light to the stretch of ground he'd just disturbed. "They'll be able to see these for miles!"
"Then I suppose we'll have to bury them." Dante reached into the earth, lifting up a shelf of turf and dropping it on top of ten feet of tracks. His satisfaction with his idea died as the area he'd moved the dirt from began to glow as well.
"Interesting," Blays said. "It appears we're screwed."
"Not so fast." Naran pointed to the hill they'd just descended. As they watched, the furthest footsteps faded, the line of light contracting toward them. "Should we stay here? Wait for them all to fade?"
"The ones around our feet don't seem to be going anywhere," Dante said. "But the tracks only last for a few minutes. If we get far enough away, we'll take our tracks with us."
Blays nodded and broke into a run. Dante dropped in behind him, doing his best to overlap his footsteps with the ones Blays was setting down. In a small silver lining, the eerie white light made it better to see where he was going. Blays swung away from the next ridge, opting instead to detour through the low fold where two hills met. The sage was slightly thicker there, and the low elevation would keep their tracks hidden unless a scout crested one of the surrounding hills.
They moved in silence, slowing to a jog after half a mile. The tracks persisted for a few hundred yards behind them. Compared to the vastness of the desert, it was little more than a speck. At night, though, the brightness of that speck was like a lighthouse at sea.
After another hour, eight miles lay between them and the Mallish-claimed butte. Yet after what they'd done to the shaden, Dante wouldn't feel safe until he was back in Collen. They pushed hard, cycli
ng between walking and jogging. It was far more pleasant to travel by night. Dante thought they should have been doing so all along.
Even so, he was starting to wear down. He considered using the nether to wash the weariness from his muscles, but after all the tunneling, his command was shaky. He needed to keep a reserve handy.
When the horn sounded behind him, he knew he'd made the right decision.
"Where is he?" Dante said. "Where's—"
The horn sounded again. Naran's arm jerked forward. Dante followed the path of his finger to a mounted silhouette on the opposite slope. Shadows condensed in Dante's hand. He shaped them into a spike and flung them into the air. The scout was hundreds of yards away and Dante lost sight of the nether almost at once. Seconds later, however, the figure dropped from the saddle.
Dante exhaled heavily. "Time to decide where to make our stand."
"It's all right," Blays said. "We just have to keep running."
"And then outrun the squadron of horsemen that's about to show up? The only reason we've been able to evade them so far is that this place is gigantic. Now that they know where to look, there's no hiding our tracks."
"Then it's a good thing we don't need to. Quit whining and get running."
Dante felt none of Blays' optimism, but often, the only thing required to get tired people moving was for one of them to take action. Once more, he found himself following in Blays' glowing footsteps.
They didn't make it another mile before a second horn sounded. Hooves thumped faintly. Voices carried on the still desert air. White light sprung from a mile across the fields, illuminating at least a score of soldiers. Only a few were mounted.
"Ethermancers," Dante said. "They've been refreshing their soldiers' strength to give them speed."
Blays gazed across the darkness. "Good. Then they'll have less ether to try to kill us with. Come on, then. It isn't much further."
"Precisely what is this 'it'?" Naran said.
Blays didn't deign to answer. They jogged up another hill. Behind them, the riders stuck close to the infantry, yet the circle of light cast by the priest grew a little nearer each minute.
After the next rise, Dante and the others entered a flat plain. Within a quarter of a mile, the ground crackled beneath them. Gray. Matted.
Blays looked down in surprise. "Would you look at that!"
Dante sputtered with the laughter of sudden understanding. "This is evil."
"It's my fault if something bad happens to them? They're the ones chasing a group of thieves across a hostile desert in the middle of the night."
They entered a stretch of old dead snags, the branches broken off close to the trunks. Still on the move, Dante sent his attention down into the dirt. In less than a minute, he encountered a tunnel a foot and a half wide. It extended far below the surface, branching repeatedly.
Dante skidded to a stop. He yanked back a wedge of dirt, exposing the tunnel and forming a ramp down to it. The Mallish forces were almost within bowshot. Dante picked up a stone and dropped it down the hole.
"Move back," he said. "Make it look like we're making our stand."
They retreated to a thick stump well removed from the hole and drew swords. Dante made sure to flash his in the moonlight. The contingent of soldiers slowed, drawing weapons.
A man on horseback trotted to the front ranks. "Lay down your arms."
"Then what?" Blays called back.
"Your deaths will be fast."
"You call that a deal? We can take care of that ourselves!"
The man turned to his soldiers, barking commands. A line of troops marched forward, followed by a second. A priest walked behind them, light shining steadily from the point of his staff.
A series of soft crackles whispered through the darkness. It sounded like fallen leaves rustled by the wind, but there was no wind. No leaves, either. The front line faltered as men strained their eyes into the night.
"What's that?" a man yelled raggedly. "Who's out there?"
The advance stopped. Claws crackled through the blanket of dried, flattened reeds. Shadows stretched across the prairie, impossibly thin and impossibly long, their numbers beyond count.
Men screamed with the unique pitch of those who faced a swarm.
Dante turned and ran across the plain. His feet still left shining prints on the ground, but after a few seconds, the light winked out completely. Another few seconds, and the screams stopped, too.
* * *
In case a priest had survived, they trudged on for another few miles before finally making camp.
"How did they do that?" Blays gestured back to the east. "Lighting up our footsteps?"
Dante smoothed out his blanket. "It might have been a ward of some kind. Anyone who entered the storage room was marked by it. Left a trail for them to follow."
"You don't sound too sure of that."
"Nether is messy and chaotic," Dante said. "It mirrors life. Ether, though, is a reflection of the heavens—or maybe the cause of them. It's orderly. Predictable. Now, think about what happened. Our footsteps were glowing. And when we tried to disturb them, it only made them glow brighter."
"You're forgetting a key point with this lecture," Blays said. "I know nothing about anything."
"I wonder if the ether gets used to the shape of how things are. If you go on to disturb that shape, the ether might hold fast to that memory for a little while until it's adjusted to the new shape of things."
"An interesting lecture on the properties of the ether. But you know what would be even more useful?"
"What's that?"
"If you'd bother to learn how to use it."
"I'd like to," Dante said. "For some reason it's harder for me."
"Maybe it's not that hard. Maybe it's only hard compared to how easy it was for you to pick up the nether."
Any other night, this might have kept Dante up for a while. After the day they'd had, he fell asleep immediately.
They ran into no further problems on the way back to Collen. On the day the city came into view, it had been more than two weeks since they'd left Bressel. If the Wandering Bear clan tasked with traveling to Narashtovik was making all haste, they'd have the loon delivered to the Sealed Citadel in another two weeks.
In the meantime, Dante, Blays, and Naran would keep as quiet a profile as possible. While Dante tried the Reborn Shrine's library for more information, Blays and Naran would take up honest work to earn enough money to keep them fed. Dante didn't have much hope of figuring out what Gladdic had done when they'd tried to attack him in his temple, but there was one mystery he thought he could solve. And the rune-inscribed bones the Mallish priest had been creating gave him one more avenue to explore. Even if that terminated in a dead end, once he was in contact with Narashtovik, Nak or one of the other scholars might be able to help him.
To his relief, the plateau on which Collen rested showed no large plumes of smoke nor invading armies. They made their way to the path up its side. They were filthy from the desert, but so were many of the farmers coming and going. As Dante neared the base of the switchbacks, a boy stared at him for three full seconds, then took off running up the road to the plateau.
Blays nodded after him. "You see that?"
"What about it?" Dante said.
"He had the look of a tiny spy," Naran said. "Are you expecting trouble?"
"These days?" Blays chuckled. "Always."
They had no money and thus no reason to stop at any of the bakeries on the way up. Despite hiking steadily, by the time they got up top, they found the road forward blocked by a sizable group of men and women. Most wore colored ribbons around their elbows. Some leaned on wheels. Others had swords hanging from their belts.
For a brief moment, Dante was heartened at the sight of so many people come to greet them on their return. As he was puzzling out how they'd heard about the defeat of the Mallish, the Collenese warriors drew swords.
Dante sighed. He'd been arrested far too often not to know it
when he saw it.
10
The Marrigan burned across its top floors. Bodies lay crumpled in the street. Swords clashed inside the building. Armed men poured inside the front doors, blades in hand. Strangers.
In the education of the streets, sizing up a fight was one of the first things you learned. Only fools got in fights they weren't likely to win. Strike that: only fools got in fights they weren't overwhelmingly favored to win. Fools, and the desperate.
The scene before her was beyond desperate. The smoke. The bodies. The animal in her wanted to rush in and start cutting throats. But the human in her—specifically, the human that had been trained since age four to deal with life and death decisions on a daily basis—was telling her that if she stayed and fought, the only thing she'd win was a fresh grave.
Twenty men stood out front, watching for any signs of resistance. Raxa backed away, keeping her shoulder tight to the shadows. When she'd put a row of buildings between her and the Marrigan, she turned to run.
And stopped. She might not be able to turn the tide. But she could at least find out who was trying to burn them out of their home.
Anger welling in her like blood from a fresh cut, she ducked into an alley, pressed herself to a wall, and slid into the shadows. The night streets brightened with stray streams of nether. She ran back toward the Marrigan. Out front, four swordsmen dragged a man out the front door kicking and screaming. The man's voice was warped with pain, but she recognized it as Dink's. A recent addition who'd been showing a lot more guts than brains.
They hauled the boy to the street. He kicked up at one of his captors. A man drove a sword into Dink's shoulder. He writhed. Raxa could only watch as another man moved behind Dink's head, lifted a maul, and brought it down on the boy's forehead. The crunch made Raxa want to sit down. A silver mist rose from the blood pooling around Dink's body.
She was wasting time. She ran toward the attackers. They were hooded, dressed plainly, but she doubted their swords would be so anonymous. Cloaks were cheap. Good blades weren't. Besides, when people went out expecting a fight, they wanted to know they could trust the weapon they carried.
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