The man bowed and left. Dante eased the door's bolt closed. Silently, he cursed himself up and down. He should never have spent so much time in the company of the priest. He'd let his greed for intelligence overshadow his caution. Worst of all, he hadn't even gotten any news. All he'd gotten was another body.
The thought made him smile. But the smile made him pause: What if he'd exposed himself on purpose? Knowing that if he was discovered, it would give him a way to unleash his anger toward the Keeper at the Mallish instead?
Self-recrimination could wait. They were currently inside an enemy fort. If he was found with the body, his people might be hurt. Even if they won the fight, it would all but guarantee the continuation of the war. He pulled the blanket from over the spalder. He wanted to get Blays, who could found a university dedicated to the various methods of disposing of dead bodies, but he didn't want to leave the body alone.
Anyway, he had an idea.
The man was dead, but his tissue wasn't. Dante knitted shut the hole in his forehead, found a cloth, and wetted it with water from a ewer. He wiped the blood from Nicols' brow and hair, then tossed the rag into the fireplace, picked up Nicols, and set him in a chair.
There weren't any moths in the room, but a thorough search turned up a gathering of black beetles hidden in the kindling next to the fireplace. He killed one, then sent it outside to trundle toward the granaries. There, his men were shoveling gobs of grain into chutes angled into the wagon beds.
It was going to be a while. He sat across from Nicols and sighed. "That will teach you to gossip."
~
It was the middle of the night by the time they finished loading the wagons. Disguised as Gladdic again, Dante rose. So did Nicols. Dante opened the door for him, leading the way downstairs and outside the silent temple.
Along with the wagons, they'd brought a carriage appropriate for a man of Gladdic's stature. Dante walked to it and opened its door. Stiff-legged, Nicols' body followed after him. Somehow, it made it up the running boards and flung itself inside the carriage.
"Er, pardon me, milord," the guard who'd greeted them said, startling Dante. "Is the spalder…going somewhere?"
"Spalder Nicols will be accompanying me back to the capital." Dante swung into the vehicle, closed the door, then popped it open a handspan. "Who is his supporting priest?"
"Why, that would be Horris, sir."
Dante stepped out, dropping his voice to a murmur. "Is Horris a better man than the spalder?"
The guard's mouth quirked. "Everyone is, sir."
"Then for the benefit of the border, I might also take the spalder with me to Tanar Atain. Good night, soldier."
The wagons rolled out, lumbering heavily. Once they were out of sight of Grayson Fort, Blays jogged over to the carriage and jumped inside.
He froze, staring at the spalder, then gave Dante a dark look. "Another body?"
"This was the only way."
"To what? Draw as much attention as possible?"
"He found out I was an impostor," Dante said. "I had no choice."
"Well, I suppose it's easier than negotiating with them. What are you going to do with the body?"
"I had intended to bury it."
"You should at least have a little fun with it. Point it dead east and tell it to start walking. A year later, if it walks out of the west, you'll prove the world really is round."
Dante didn't know what was stranger: that Blays knew the works of the geometrician Acade, or that he didn't seem to be bothered by the reanimated corpse. Such things had always made him skittish, if not outright disgusted. Normally, he would have been happy to see Blays shrug it off, but he couldn't shake the feeling that the only reason Blays wasn't rattled by it was because he'd seen so much madness over the last few months. They needed to get home. Before all the adventure and warring left them permanently unhinged.
"Anyway," Blays continued, "their grain was more than happy to become our grain. You'll never guess what else we found."
"The world's greatest variety of mouse droppings?"
"A barrel full of shaden."
Dante's eyebrows shot up. "Did you take it?"
"The extremely potent enemy weapon? Drat, I knew I was forgetting something."
"That should make the fight a little easier for us." He considered the dead man. "Though I'm starting to wonder if there's going to be a second campaign at all." He nodded to the corpse. "He seemed to think Gladdic was off to somewhere called Tanar Atain."
"Tanar Atain? Why would he go there?"
"You know about this place?"
"I know it's a wretched southern swamp full of unspeakable horrors. So maybe it's his birthplace. Long ways from here, though. If he's down there, there's no way he's leading another attack this year."
The thought should have been comforting. Instead, it only reminded Dante how wide and unknowable the world was—and how easy it was for people to hide themselves in its fringes.
They arrived in Collen three days later. The grain was sorted and stored. If Dante continued harvesting potatoes and wheat from nothing, Boggs and Cord thought they'd wind up with enough to see them through the winter. He used a few shaden to speed the growth of the fields.
The Reborn Shrine had been destroyed by the gigantic demon, but its subterranean layers had largely survived—along with its archives. Dante asked the Keeper to look into Tanar Atain. She seemed happy to have a project. Now that she'd roped Dante into sticking around, most of the business of the war had been turned over to the commanders and logisticians, leaving her with little to do.
She returned the following afternoon with an armload of books and maps. "Tanar Atain lies hundreds of miles to the south. The swamplands are very difficult to navigate without a guide, and little is known about them. However, three hundred years ago, Mallon did a great deal of trade with the area. That is when the neeling came to Bressel."
Dante examined one of her maps, careful not to further damage its tattered edges. "What are Mallon's relations with them like today?"
"Negligible. Tanar Atain has been closed to outsiders for many decades."
"Then why would Gladdic be allowed in?"
She gave him a flat look. "I will saddle my horse to ride south and ask."
"Maybe he's hiding from us. Waiting for us to leave here. Or maybe King Charles booted him out for his failure and this is his exile. I don't suppose you know anyone from the area?"
"I have spent the last ninety years beneath the Reborn Shrine. I don't know anyone from anywhere."
"I don't like this." He stood, chair scraping. "Keep digging. This could be more important than we realize."
Through the loon, Naran's men reported that Mallish troops were drilling outside the capital. Infantry and cavalry, along with a handful of priests. In Bressel's pubs, soldiers complained about being sent off to eat dust and die away from home with the holidays so close. No official announcements had been made, but there was no mistaking the direction the wind was blowing.
The city of Collen threw a festival to celebrate the advance of fall, bowling pumpkins into wooden buckets and drinking cider until they were warned against going too near the edges of the butte. In Narashtovik, the first snows would soon arrive, but Dante had a feeling winter would be in no hurry to come to the desert.
The morning after the holiday, as he came in from growing what felt like his eight thousandth crop of potatoes, Blays intercepted him.
"You're needed on the war balcony." Blays tapped his temple. "I had an idea."
The other three members of the Hand were already there. Boggs looked like he'd enjoyed too much cider the night before. For that matter, so did the Keeper.
"Here it is," Blays said. "You know that fancy road the king built? We're going to destroy it."
Dante glanced between the others. "Right. With no road to advance on, they'll have no choice but to stop at the border. As long as we steel ourselves against their curses, we'll be sitting pretty."
"R
oads aren't built to get the soldiers to do something besides whore and gamble. They make your army faster. This is a tricky leap of logic, so listen closely—but if we destroy the things that makes armies faster, then we make Mallon's army slower."
"Even with the road gone, the basin is mostly open desert. Unless we train the tumbleweeds to throw rods in their axles, it won't slow them down by more than a few days."
"That gives us a few extra days to prepare. Or to harass their every move. Or to throttle each other by the neck and ask why in the hell we thought we could stand against Mallon."
"Their supply lines will pay a tax, too." Cord spat the word "tax" like it was as bitter as lemon pith. "If they leave their wagons behind, we can raid them."
"It does open up some tactics," Dante said. "But if you destroy the roads, you'll shut down trade. You two might not always be at war."
"Trade is the worry of a free people! If our children don't have to spend their days fighting, they'll have plenty of time to rebuild the roads."
"It's their land," Blays said. "If they want us to wreck it, who are we to refuse a good smashing?"
Boggs slid a large parchment map along the table, tapping a spot to their southwest. "They got a second road near the coast. Ain't much used except by smugglers and pilgrims. But they might try to get sneaky."
"We'll take care of that, too," Dante said. "We'll need fast horses. I get the feeling Mallon could march at any time."
On hearing the plan, Naran requested to come along with them. All three were provided with a pair of asties, the mottled, endurance-bred horses favored by messengers and scouts. They rode hard down the pavement, getting some final use out of it.
Dante didn't bother to tear up any of the road that day, opting instead to raise a patch of potatoes beside it. The next day of hard riding, however, they entered lightly wooded hills. Without a road, wagons would be lucky to advance faster than a mile per hour.
They stopped in the shade and dismounted. Dante gazed down the road. "It's funny. I've spent years building these to Narashtovik."
"Great," Blays said. "Then you've earned the right to destroy one."
"They're more valuable than anyone imagines. Like rivers made of stone. Bearing commerce, knowledge, and news. It almost feels wrong to destroy it. Like burning a book."
Naran gave the passage a severe look. "If your enemy can use a book to attack you, then you're right to burn it."
"That sounds reasonable," Dante said. "But that's the same rationale the Mallish use to burn the Cycle of Arawn."
Blays tapped his fingernails against the pommel of the sword on his left hip. "I've conducted a thorough examination, and it turns out this road doesn't have any family. We can kill it without worrying about anyone coming after us."
Dante sliced open the back of his arm. Nether zipped to him from the undersides of leaves and stones. He poured it into the earth like black rain. The road's cobbles sunk into the surface, splitting apart at the seams as the soil fell away from beneath them. He let some sections of the earth collapse while raising others several feet, making it impossible for anything with wheels to advance.
He followed the road westward, splitting, burying, and lifting it as he went. After a while, he realized that with the terrain so disrupted, he didn't have to demolish every last inch of road. So long as at least half of the ground was torn up, it would still be faster to cut a trail through the woods than to try to negotiate the craters and steps.
He'd brought several shaden with him, deploying them to augment his strength as they continued onward. Each mile brought them closer to Mallon. Blays and Naran watched the woods, but saw no sign of the enemy.
Another day took them to the border. Dante waited for nightfall before continuing into enemy lands, the road melting away with each step. Two hours before dawn, with his control of the nether growing clumsy, they turned around and led their horses back into Collen.
With the king's road thoroughly smashed, they turned south, making for the smuggler's trail alongside the ocean. According to Boggs, it wasn't cobbled, but by filling in a few narrow spots, or collapsing a cliff or two, it might be possible to render it completely unusable.
As they neared the sea, the air grew denser, cooler in the day and warmer at night. The forest petered out. A few old farmhouses sat in the scrubby land, boards gone gray with age, roofs rotted out, but Dante didn't see any sign of current inhabitation.
They traveled along the western edge of a shallow valley that varied from a few hundred feet across to as much as a mile. Running roughly north-south, portions of it were so straight it looked as though it had been made by a plow dragged by a sky-sized ox. The grass and shrubs in the valley were greener and thicker than on the higher ground to either side.
Once upon a time, Dante would have simply looked at it as a valley and left it at that. Knowing what he did, however, he thought it had once been the bed of a river. One that had been rerouted or destroyed when his ancestors lifted the mountain range to the east.
Cresting a ridge, the sea glittered to the south. Dante stopped to take in the sight. Birds drifted over the distant waves. Here and there, a white sail stood out from the blue-green sea. As the valley neared the waters, it grew shallower and shallower, the floor lifting until the valley disappeared altogether.
Dante's mouth dropped with laughter. "We're wasting our time. We can do more than slow the Mallish down—we can stop them from entering Collen altogether."
~
Dante traced his finger along the map, sweeping it over many miles of hills and scrubland. Across from him, Boggs, Cord, and the Keeper watched his every move.
"This is your border," Dante said. "Although since there aren't any rivers, mountains, or oceans to form a natural barrier, said border might as well be here, here, or here." He tapped to either side of the meandering line. "And that is Collen's main problem. The border's too wide to defend."
He stuck a pebble on the border. "If you stuck a fort somewhere, Mallon would just march around it. The city of Collen is the only truly defensible spot in the entire country. But when you retreat to your city, that leaves your towns and farmlands wide open. Mallon can pillage whatever they want. Even if you eventually drive them out, you'll have to spend years rebuilding. And just as you're ready to start growing again, here comes another invasion. This process has kept the basin in chains for centuries."
"That is an accurate summary," the Keeper said. "But it isn't news. We are Colleners. To us, this isn't history—it is our lives."
"It doesn't have to be. I can close off your lands."
"How? It's as you said. Our only defense is in this city."
"I'll give you three guesses," Blays said. "It rhymes with 'leather' and it's so dark that the night itself looks at it and says, 'Damn, you're awfully dark.'"
She crinkled her brow. "You mean to use the nether to alter the land. You have the power to change so much by yourself?"
Dante nodded. "With enough time, yes. I don't have to change much. By raising the high places and lowering the low ones, I can form bottlenecks that could be defended by a hundred soldiers. In the right locations, two or three forts could make your lands impregnable."
"I wish to believe this. But I've been disappointed so many times before."
Cord narrowed her eyes at Dante. "What will this cost us? When a god offers to make your wishes real, she never does it for free."
Dante muttered something unpleasant. "Don't tell me you're buying into the Keeper's propaganda. If you're still not convinced of my mortality, you're welcome to inspect my chamber pot."
"But here you are telling us you can reshape the land we live on! If you have the power of a god, then what more do you need to be counted as one?"
"Worshippers," Blays said. "Right now, his follower count sits at one. And that's only if you include himself."
"Setting aside the god issue," Dante said, making an effort to keep his voice level, "the cost is that this can't be undone. Parts of
your land will be changed drastically. Rendered completely unusable. As long as you remain hostile toward each other, Mallon will be able to intercept every caravan you try to sneak into their land. Even if relations repair enough to resume official trade, you'll have to expend resources to protect your routes. Otherwise, bandits will eat your merchants for breakfast. Additionally, fortifications can always be used against the people who built them. If Mallon ever took the border from you, they'd command the region until you took it back."
He stopped to think. Blays motioned eastward. "Don't forget the part where forests become deserts, rivers reroute themselves to your neighbors, and cats start sleeping with mice."
The Keeper drew back her head. "Are you planning to raise entire mountains?"
"It would take me years to do that," Dante said. "But even though the changes I'll be making will be relatively small, there's no telling what impact they'll have."
"We already live in a gods damned desert," Boggs said. "Unless you're planning to take away our dirt and make us try to grow wheat from rock, I don't see what we have to lose."
"Take a minute to think about this. Not just as it stands now, but how it will impact your grandchildren, and their grandchildren after that. We're talking about forever."
The three Colleners exchanged meaningful looks. The Keeper was the first to speak. "It may be that there is a time when the cost of freedom is too dear to pay. But that time is not now. Free us, Dante. That is what you are here to do."
He had known that would be their decision. They were so starving for independence they'd lob their firstborns into the volcanoes of the Plagued Islands if that's what it took to win it. His question had been little more than a formality, a way to spare his own conscience in case things turned out for the worse.
Then again, it was their lives. Their land. And their fate. If they'd decided to take the risk, who was he to tell them he knew better?
"I'm not sure what's more appropriate here," Dante said. "Very well? Or so be it?"
The Keeper smiled in pure satisfaction. "How soon will you begin?"
The Wound of the World Page 6
