Dante sat up, head spinning. A thick wooden shaft jutted from his left shoulder. Just as he suspected, he had been shot. It ached dully. Injury seemed to slow everything down, including the sensation of pain. Was the slowness real, or imagined? If a sorcerer broke his own toe with a hammer, only to heal it, break it again, and repeat, could he get time moving so slowly that it stopped altogether?
Steel clanged from somewhere in the grass ahead of him. Dante frowned at himself and called to the darkness. Fortunately, he'd already spilled plenty of blood. The shadows plunged into his shoulder. With a slurp, the arrowhead was expelled from his flesh. He closed the wound and stood.
Black spots filled his vision. He staggered toward the tree, bracing himself against its trunk. He was no longer in any pain, but the site of the wound tingled, and his head was still loopy with after-pain. Fifty yards away, Blays and Naran were holding a conversation with what appeared to be a patch of grass.
Dante picked up the bloody arrow—evidence of the crime—and walked over to them. A giant of a man was sprawled in the grass at Blays' feet, disarmed, bleeding from a pair of shallow cuts. A beard covered the entirety of the lower half of his face. He looked younger than Dante, but he was closer to seven feet tall than to six. His fists looked big enough to knock down a bull.
"You shot me." Dante brandished the telltale arrow. "Why?"
The norren gave him a sullen look. "Because you were standing still enough to be shot."
"Do you normally shoot everyone who stops to smell a flower or take a piss?"
"That sounds needlessly hostile."
"Then why," Dante said slowly, "did you shoot me?"
"Well, you were hunting me, weren't you?"
"We weren't hunting you. We were only trying to find you."
The man sat up. "Yes. By hunting me. With weapons."
Blays stepped between them, making a chopping motion. "Mistakes have been made. Arrows have been fired. People have been shot. Now, we can spend all day arguing about who shot who—"
Dante sputtered. "He shot me!"
"—or we can agree that no lasting harm was done. So we can argue about it, and get mad at each other until we get in another fight. One where someone gets hurt badly, or even killed. Or we can put it behind us and get on with our business."
Dante rubbed his shoulder. "Agreed."
"Agreed," the norren said. "Then again, you've got your sword pointed at my throat. So I'd probably agree to anything. Except the suggestion that I should be stabbed with it."
Blays sheathed his swords. "We need to speak to your chieftain."
"He's not here."
"I'm going to assume by 'here' you mean 'in our immediate presence.' In that case, I request that you go wherever he is and get him for us."
The man stood, brushing off his trousers. "Then I'll go do that."
Dante narrowed his eyes. "No you're not. You're going to run away."
"Are you giving me permission?"
"A great calamity's about to strike your lands. If your people are here when it happens, you'll get calamitized, too. You need to convince your chieftain to see me."
"It sounds like all I need to do is tell him there's a terrible calamity." The norren regarded him for two long moments. "But I'll tell him he should talk to you." He bent to pick up his bow and spear. "Stay here. Or you can choose to leave, I'm not your human king. But if you do leave, we won't know where to find you."
Dante smiled tightly. "We'll be here."
The man gazed at them, then turned and walked away. Dante had half a mind to follow him with a dead grasshopper, but the norren were skittish enough already. If they happened to have a sorcerer capable of detecting the grasshopper, they'd never speak to him again.
Even so, he posted a couple of lookouts in nearby trees in case the clan would rather have a human-hunt than a conversation. Less than an hour later, a lone figure approached through the grass. His height topped seven feet and he looked like he'd have to turn his shoulders to fit through a human door. Their beards, bulk, and features made it harder to peg a norren's age, but Dante had spent enough time among them to guess this man was in his late twenties or early thirties. Feathers and fine silver chains dangled from his spear. His armor was composed of boiled leather and black iron bands, the metal etched with rune-like depictions of wolves, deer, owls, and snakes. His bearing was as proud as his armor.
Wordlessly, he stopped across from the three humans, his gaze settling on Dante. "Alok says he shot you. But you don't look very shot to me."
"I got better," Dante said. "You're the chieftain of this clan?"
"That's who you sent for, isn't it? My name is Ramm. Alok said you think a disaster's coming to the Valley of Northern Spirits."
"It could hit within a matter of days. Before winter at the latest. You need to relocate your people."
"What kind of disaster? And how do you know it's coming?"
"The land will be transformed." Dante paused; he'd been on the brink of saying that he knew it was coming because he was the one bringing it. If he confessed to destroying the clan's land, however, it wouldn't be an illogical response for the chieftain to hoist Dante on the end of his fancy spear. "I'm a…prophet. Of Arawn. He's sent me a vision of this valley being destroyed."
Ramm scratched a bushy eyebrow. "That could mean anything. Gods don't like to show mortals the exact future. What you saw was probably just a metaphor."
"For what?"
"How should I know? Do I look like Arawn?"
"Trust us on this," Blays said. "I know we look like short, scrawny little humans. But my friend and I are members of the Broken Herons Clan from the hills north of Tantonnen."
The chief snorted. "It's impossible that any clan would ever admit a human. So your claim that the Broken Herons took two humans is double impossible."
"Our chief's name is Hopp. This happened several years ago, during the Chainbreakers' War. Did you hear of that one?"
"No. And since you're a liar, I can only conclude you're about to tell me more lies. Goodbye, liars." He turned and walked away, broad shoulders swaying.
Blays spun on Dante. "Does Hopp still have one of our loons? Can we get him to talk to this guy?"
"It's worth a shot." Dante jogged after the norren. "Ramm! Do your people speak to Josun Joh?"
The norren stopped in his tracks. "Do they what?"
"In the north, the clans venerate the god Josun Joh. Some speak to him. Do you do that here?"
Ramm's brows bent together. "You mean Dozundo. Wait here."
"For what?"
"For me to get our chieftain."
Dante's mouth fell open. "You said you were the chieftain!"
"No I didn't. If our chieftain would come talk to a trespassing human, that wouldn't make her much of a leader, would it? Now stay here." He jogged away, spear rattling.
Dante clamped his fingers to his temples. "Why did we ever help these people again?"
"We were young and foolish." Blays seated himself under the tree and swigged from a flask of something that probably wasn't water. "Anyway, if these guys are that annoying, then we won't feel bad if they're all killed when they don't listen."
Ramm was back in less than half an hour. He was accompanied by two other men with bows and long spears and a woman in a plain brown cloak. Most norren carried an air of calm unflappability around with them, but her bearing was so steady you could have built a house of cards on her.
"I'm Kadda," she said. "I'm chief of the Walking Fish. You're in our valley. What do you want?"
Dante repeated his warning, along with his fabricated credentials as a prophet. "By year's end, this valley will be ripped apart. Please, move your clan before it's too late."
"Do you know why we're here?"
"Because we came to your land, and insisted on seeing you, and showed enough knowledge of norren matters that you relented. Is that a complete enough chain of causality for you?"
Kadda smiled crookedly. "You do know ot
her norren, don't you? It could be that our ancestors knew the ancestors of your friends. Years on top of years ago, we lived in the north, too. Every year, the humans would come for us to take us. Put us to work in their fields and mines. No matter how well we hid, sooner or later, we had to hunt for meat. And they'd find us. And they'd take us.
"One day, the elders gathered. They decided there was only one way out: to leave. So that's what they did. Many died along the way, but at last, our ancestors settled here. For three hundred years, we've been free. The ancestors, they sacrificed their lives, everything they knew, to escape human troubles. Now you're telling me that human troubles have found us again—and again, we need to leave our home because of it."
"That's correct," Dante said.
She burst into laughter. "Do you have any shame at all?"
"Plenty. But my feelings don't matter. Your lives do."
"How do I know this isn't a trick to take the valley for stupid human farms?"
Dante darkened the air around them until their faces were nothing but dark outlines, eyes shining white from within the fog. "If I wanted your land, I wouldn't have to trick you into leaving. I'd just kill you and take it." He dropped his hand, returning the world to its normal brightness. "If I'm right about what's coming, it will happen before year's end. If I'm wrong, you can always come back then."
Kadda exhaled through her large norren nose. "I think you're telling the truth. But we can't go."
"Wrong. You have legs. They will support you in any decision you make."
"When our ancestors came here, they brought a great relic with them. They brought it to that mountain to watch over us." She pointed northwest, where a pair of low peaks rose from the surrounding flatland. "If we leave this valley without it, we'll be cursed."
Blays shifted his eyes between her and the mountain. "Might I suggest you don't leave without it?"
"We lost it long ago. We can't find it—but if you can, that will be proof Dozundo knows you're telling the truth, and wants us to go. If you can't find it, then you are liars, and we will stay."
Dante wanted to kick and scream and hit things with other things, such as her head with a large club. But he knew norren. The harder you pressed them, the more stubborn and indifferent they grew. The only way to reach them was to win their trust.
"Tell me more about this lost relic."
"It's called the Face of Dozundo," Kadda said. "It's carved from blue marble by the master Ellin, whose nulla was stonework. And it's the most beautiful statue that you'll ever see."
Blays squinted at the two peaks, neither of which were tall enough to bear snow yet. "Do you remember the last place you saw it?"
"The only place such a sacred item could be: our shrine."
"Interesting. Have you tried checking the shrine?"
"Yes." Kadda gave a lingering look toward the peaks. "But that was lost, too."
"Come now, everyone knows you have to tether your shrines. Otherwise they'll get up and wander away."
"Only our holiest wiseman knew where it was. Then he got eaten by a bear. But we know two things about the shrine: it rests where the moonflowers grow in rings, and that you will know it by the shine of the sea on its grim and stony face."
"First you want us to find the shrine," Dante said. "Then you want us to find the Face of Dozundo. And once we bring it back to you, you'll relocate?"
Kadda nodded. "We haven't been able to find it, but surely a great prophet and sorcerer like yourself can. Perhaps your god will help you, too."
Dante had one of the clan's best artists sketch him a picture of a moonflower, which was a distinctive silver color with petals shaped like crescents. After making arrangements about where they could find the clan in the event that they brought back the statue, Dante, Blays, and Naran took off on horseback, trotting toward the pair of low blue mountains.
"I don't mean to question your wisdom in this matter, but…" Naran wrinkled his forehead. "Actually, I do. I wish to question it most rigorously. We may be days away from invasion, and your plan is to run off to find a lost idol in a lost shrine?"
"The norren are as stubborn as a constipated mule," Dante said. "They'll never leave just because we tell them to. Trying to push them to do something is like trying to push down the surface of a lake. This type of challenge they've given us is very common—if we follow through on it, it's a sign that we're serious, and that we respect their ways."
"Evidently they have no respect for our time. It could take years to search these mountains!"
"I know. That's why I'm planning to cheat."
By nightfall, they had ridden within ten miles of the foothills. Dante woke before dawn to slay a host of winged insects. He sent these soaring toward the dark mountains. By the time the three of them had eaten a breakfast of flatbread and venison jerky and gotten on their way, his scouts were entering the mountains.
The moonflowers sparkled like steel shavings, impossible to miss in direct sunlight. They didn't grow on the lower half of the mountains, and quit flowering some ways before the peaks, narrowing the search. On top of that, the only areas with a view of the sea were the southern exposures. At an initial pass, Dante only saw six sites on the closer of the two mountains that might qualify for the shrine's location.
The mountains were weathered and slump-shouldered, no trouble for the horses to ascend, especially when Dante could scout the lay of the ridges from ahead. Early that afternoon, they reached the nearest site: a flat shelf of turf a few hundred feet across, bordered on its north side by a low cliff that looked out on the faraway sea. Most of the ground was covered in grass and weeds, but near the center, a lopsided circle of moonflowers bobbed their heads in the wind.
Dante dismounted and walked around the ring of flowers. The three of them criss-crossed the site, eyes sharp for cairns, norren bones, statues, and so on. Finding nothing but rocks and lichen, they reconvened in the middle of the circle.
Dante folded his arms. "Does anything about this look like a shrine?"
"That depends," Blays said. "Do norren worship empty fields?"
"If so, you'd think they'd choose one closer to home."
They moved on to the next site, a rocky field sporting another ring of flowers. It took nearly two hours to check all the boulders and debris for a blue marble carving or other signs of shrineliness.
"This is absurd," Naran said. "Even if the shrine is here, everything here is so weathered that we might not even know it when we see it. And that itself assumes its design will be obvious to human eyes."
Blays swore. "And if it was obvious, you'd be able to see it through the eyes of your bugs, wouldn't you?"
Their logic struck Dante like a hammer swaddled in velvet, leaving him unable to do anything but stand there and stare at them.
"There are only a few more on this mountain," he said lamely. "After that, we'll check the next one."
They moved on to the next ring, an uneven grassy slope. There was nothing there. The sun was already nearing the flatness of the sea. They made it to one more site before the sky grew too dark to see what they were doing. Dante didn't sleep well.
He woke up cold and stiff. They moved out at first light. The next ring of flowers was only a short walk away, but Dante's enthusiasm was waning. Again, they found nothing. They headed on to the final possibility he'd scouted out, a small hilltop rising from the side of the mountain. The view was stunning, but his heart sank to his knees.
"You're right," he said. "This is the Quivering Bow all over again."
Naran swatted at a hectoring fly. "The Quivering Bow?"
Blays chuckled. "That was a fun one. That time, a norren clan tricked us into assaulting one of their worst enemies, hastening the war that was brewing. At least this time they only seem intent on sending us on a wild goose chase."
"I expect that's their game," Dante said darkly. "There's no shrine. There's certainly no Face of Dozundo carved from blue marble. Without my scouts to speed things up, we could hav
e wasted weeks out here."
"Sounds like we should go back and yell at them."
"Agreed," Naran said. "But first, I get to tell you 'I told you so.'"
Dante stalked toward his horse. "And I get to not to listen. It's for your own good, really."
Blays grew thoughtful. "Because otherwise, you would turn him into moonflower chow?"
"Correct."
A frown crept across Blays' face. "Something doesn't feel quite right about this."
"That would be the feeling of humiliation. I'd think you'll recognize it from every time you take your pants off."
"Think about the trick they played with the Quivering Bow. Or just the other day, when they let us assume Ramm was their chieftain. They like to play on ignorance. Sending us on a hunt for something that isn't there isn't very clever. It's much funnier to send us after something we'll never find even when it's right under our nose."
Dante turned away from his mount. "Kadda came up with the relic and shrine business awfully fast. If it's invented from whole cloth, she lies like a Kandean."
"Take us back to the first site. I've got an idea."
Dante led them across the green hills, returning to the flat, grassy shelf backed up by the cliffs. Blays glanced at the grounds, then at the cliffs, then out to sea. He turned back to the cliffs and vanished.
As Blays shadowalked through the netherworld, Dante could feel the barest hint of his presence heading toward the rock wall. And then Blays was gone. A hawk cried out from the heights. Dante had barely glanced back at the cliff face when Blays reappeared.
He grinned, jerking a thumb behind him. "There's a cave back there. Want to open it up?"
Dante opened a cut on his arm. "How did you know?"
"Kadda said it would be at the place where the sea shines on its grim and stony face. I figured she was talking about some big old statue. But she meant a cliff face."
"Stony." Dante shook his head. "Hiding it right under our nose."
He sank the nether into the rock, feeling its shape, then pulled the stone back to either side. A large hollow opened before them. Dante lit his torchstone and walked inside.
The Cycle of Galand Box Set Page 98
