The Black Star (Book 3)

by Edward W. Robertson

  They continued until twilight, stopping with just enough daylight left to toss up a lean-to and rub down the horses. Aldi took a long breather, sitting on a rock while Blays and Minn tended to camp, but the norren didn't look done in. If true, Blays thought they would reach the lands of the Clan of the Splitting Sky early the next morning.

  Aldi checked in through the loon. The Splitting Sky's scouts had located the party from Setteven and were shadowing them from a couple miles away. According to her, Kinnevan's people had been heading east all day. Blays and company had made up significant ground, however. If they continued to press, they might catch up in two days.

  Blays poked at the half-assed fire he'd built. "Do the scouts have any idea what Kinnevan might be after?"

  "Nope," Aldi said. "In fact, they had the same question for you."

  "Something stupendously old? Possibly a book, also old. Or an artifact."

  "So they might possibly be after a thing."

  Blays sighed. "Hey, it's remarkable I've gotten this close. Tell the Splitting Sky to be careful. These men are extremely dangerous."

  Aldi got a twinkle in her eye. "Should I reconsider my role as your guide?"

  "Just get us close. Minn and I will take it from there."

  The days were starting to grow longer, but even after a good night's rest, Blays was up and about before the sun. They got a quick start, traveling due east into the hills. When the horses flagged, Minn was able to restore some of their stamina, allowing them to gain extra miles on the king's nethermancers. During rests, Blays practiced shadowalking. He was able to do it at will, but discovered that unless he leaned on the nether of the kellevurt, he couldn't sustain it for long. After a minute, two at most, the starlit world began to fade, disgorging him back into the real, which always looked disappointing and tame by comparison.

  The first time he did this in from of Aldi, she gasped. He reappeared, grinning sheepishly. "Sorry about that. Should have warned you."

  She laughed. "I should have expected you're able to poof away like a blown-out candle. You're Blays Buckler."

  It was a quiet day, but a productive one. When they made camp and Aldi checked in with the scouts, she determined their group was well inside Splitting Sky territory and that they had more than halved the distance between them and Kinnevan. This was good news, in that they might be able to catch up the very next day, but it raised the question of what exactly Blays ought to do once Kinnevan was in striking range. Sneak up on them in the night and kill them all? Not out of the question, what with the shadowalking, but it was an inelegant solution.

  Additionally, the main reason they'd been able to close on the king's men so fast was that the other group was zigzagging across the hills. Hunting for something. If they went missing, Moddegan could simply send a second group to snatch up the mystery object. Blays would have to stake out the region for weeks or months to make sure any other efforts met the same fate as the first. Frankly, that was a shit solution.

  The only way to do this was to let them find whatever they were after, then take it away from them. In the event the item turned out not to be a tangible object held in the hands, but rather knowledge stored in the sponge of the brain, then Blays was going to be tasked with some unpleasant business. But at the very least, knowing the source of the information should allow him to cut it off, putting Moddegan's scheme to bed for good.

  They got off to their usual early start, trotting eastward. Deer watched from the ridges, then continued their crusade against the year's first grass shoots. By early afternoon, Aldi scheduled a rendezvous with the clan's scouts. They walked down to the spot, a glen between two hills with a sluggish creek flowing from an oval pond. They'd no sooner stopped by the pond's shore when two norren men walked out of the trees.

  "Aldi?" the shorter one said. "Shorter" being entirely relative—he was at least six inches taller and a hundred pounds heavier than Blays.

  Aldi nodded. "You said you had news?"

  "Late this morning, the humans disappeared inside a hill. Galt is still waiting for them to emerge." He sat down on the bank of the pond, resting his elbows on his knees.

  "That's it?" Blays said.

  The norren didn't look up. "Until Galt comes back."

  "I suppose I shouldn't complain about being forced to take a break for once." He found a rock that was dry and sunny and plunked down. After a while, the short norren volunteered that his name was Otus and asked how their trip had been. Blays loosened the collar of his cloak. "Uneventful. Have the humans caused you any trouble?"

  "Since the day they were born," Otus said. "These specific ones? They've done no harm. In the last three days. That we have seen."

  Blays hid his smile. Norren pedantry. That was the end of the conversation. An hour later, leaves rustled up the slope. A norren woman walked from the trees and sat beside them.

  "They came out of the caves an hour ago. Made camp nearby." She related directions and the unnamed man got up to go keep an eye on the place. Galt cleared her throat and went on. "Interesting things. First, six men went in. Five men came out."

  "Lost one to the caves?" Blays said. "Too bad the underworld didn't try a little harder. What's inside?"

  "We're not completely sure."

  He raised a brow. "I thought a clan knew every leaf and pebble of its domain."

  Galt gave him a long look. "I will ignore the fact that is impossible, as new leaves are growing every day. In the sense that we might be expected to know every semi-permanent feature of our territory, I would agree this is unusual. My best guess is they discovered an old catacomb."

  "A norren one?"

  "I can hardly believe it myself. What would a norren tomb be doing in the Norren Territories?"

  Blays suppressed a sigh. "I thought your people tossed your dead on the tops of hills."

  "These days," Galt said. "But not in old days. Maybe we ran out of ground to put them in—we're very large, after all. In any event, our burial practices changed a long time ago. We don't care where every last catacomb might be."

  Minn folded her arms; it was chilly and their blood had grown sluggish as they'd waited for Galt. "You said there were interesting things, plural?"

  "When the men got outside, they ran from the entrance, then stopped in the trees to gather themselves. One man withdrew an object from his cloak the size of a fist on top of another fist. A statue, I thought. It was as black as nothing, but when a shaft of sunlight struck it, it glittered like the stars."

  Blays whacked his thigh and laughed. "I have never heard a more gravid description of a precious artifact. Are they on their way back to Setteven already?"

  Galt nodded. "Before making camp, they put the cavern miles behind them."

  "Heading west? Then we've got to hit them tonight."

  "You're sure they've got what they came for?" Minn said.

  "No. They rudely declined to fill me in on that one. It sure sounds like it, though. And if they make it back to Dollendun, they're on a boat back to the palace and we're left holding our nether regions."

  "Will you need help?" Galt said.

  Blays grinned lopsidedly. "Would you offer it?"

  "These people serve a land that enslaved us for centuries. Also, we probably ought to be upset that they've just looted one of our graves."

  "The best way for you to help will be to make sure they don't go anywhere. Minn and I will handle the theft ourselves."

  If Galt had been human, she likely would have taken offense to the implication that she'd be no use to the strike itself. But norren egos were a less truculent beast. Galt nodded as if Blays' assessment were a matter of fact—or at least, that it was his mistake to make. Everyone understood implicitly that they'd be moving under cover of darkness, so they all sat around the pond, absorbing the sunlight. They got a minor scare when the other scout came back to tell them the men were on the move, but Kinnevan's band was just making use of the remaining afternoon to get a few miles closer to the river. They ha
d found their prize and were taking it home.

  Blays still hadn't glimpsed the king's men himself. Otus told him they were all dressed in the same anonymous travel garb, but that the man who'd been carrying the sparkling object had hair as white as a swan's wing.

  They ate a cold dinner, waiting for the sun to depart so they could get on the move. Galt had left to keep a direct eye on the king's sorcerers. Around ten o'clock, Otus left to spell her. When Galt came back, she informed Blays the king's men had gone to bed three hours earlier. They'd left one man on watch, but according to her, the others were sleeping "like people who have eaten so much it is all they can do."

  It didn't much matter. Not when Blays intended to shadowalk right up to Kinnevan and take his trophy.

  The men were set up in a grove of trees straddling a stream between hills. Galt showed Blays and Minn the way. After a brief hike, she stopped to point out the sentry. The quarter moon was hidden behind a scudding layer of clouds and at first Blays couldn't make out the sentry at all. Then a silhouette rose and paced in a circle, likely to keep himself awake.

  The man was undoubtedly a sorcerer, so even though Blays was about to render himself invisible, he backed off to approach the camp from the side that wasn't being watched. He had already warned Galt about he and Minn's upcoming disappearance, and that if anything happened in the camp, the norren should clear out and give the men a wide berth until they'd left the clan's territory. With his implication the clan wouldn't be able to handle it, a hooded look had come over Galt's eyes—that was how you offended the norren ego—but she had agreed.

  He and Minn crouched down behind a screen of shrubs. There were no lights in the camp and it was too dark and tree-addled to see anyone, but he heard a horse snort. He drew a cut on his arm and gave the nether a little tug. As it rebounded back to its home in the interstices, Blays followed it in.

  The night shifted. It was as dark as ever, yet he could now see the dew on the grass, the gopher mounds pimpling the ground. Beside him, a luminescence flooded over Minn as she joined him in the nether. Together, they rose and walked toward the camp. They weren't entirely removed from the physical world, but their feet whisked through the grass more softly than the first stir of a breeze.

  The trees enclosed them, leafless and reaching. His eyes were drawn to the birds roosting in the branches, then to the horses tied away from the men. In living bodies, the nether nested so densely it fairly glowed—or exactly the opposite—it was hard to say. In either event, it drew the eye.

  The men lay in their bedrolls, breathing evenly. One of them slept on his back with his hair draped like a banner over the rolled-up clothes that made up his pillow. His hair looked pale, but walking in shadows made color do funny things. Blays faded back into the world for a moment. The man's hair was white.

  Blays half expected him to have the relic clutched in his hands, or wrapped up in the clothes beneath his head, but in the half second he was out of the shadows, Blays spotted a small bag beside the sleeping Kinnevan. Something had fallen halfway out of it, a black lobe of matter, a carving or statue. Flecks of silver spat back the starlight. Kinnevan must have been holding it as he went to sleep and it had fallen off his chest.

  Blays ducked back into the shadows. He allowed himself a grin. For once in his silly life, his plans were going easier than expected. He glanced at Minn, then back at Kinnevan.

  Whose eyes were now wide open.

  Blays froze. Minn likewise. Kinnevan wasn't moving aside from the even rise and fall of his chest. Yet Blays felt motion—in the nether. A presence. Prowling, stealthy. He had the distinct impression that if he moved, it would lock on him. At that point, however hard he tried to stay out of sight, he may as well be hopping up and down on one foot waving a flaming brand over his head while blowing into a trumpet with every orifice capable of producing wind.

  The presence circled, silent, leaving no trace behind. He thought he could see it, a dark wedge of forceful awareness sussing through the shadows, but maybe that was a trick of his want to see it, like staring down a dark hall until you're certain there's a silhouette looming at the other end. The feeling drew closer and closer, cold and heavy, like a lump of steel being pushed across a tablecloth. Its chill touched his cheek and moved past his shoulder.

  Kinnevan's eyes remained open, unblinking, staring unfixedly at the stars beyond the bare branches. Blays had been under for a couple of minutes and he felt his hold on the nether slipping, the exact way the sweat on his aching hands would cause him to lose his grip on a ledge. As furtively as he knew how, he wormed his consciousness into the kellevurt shell in his pouch and tapped the darkness in it. His hold steadied.

  Kinnevan's probings moved further and further away. A minute later, they snapped off. He closed his eyes. Beside Blays, Minn tensed, about to move. He gave the tiniest shake of his head. Across the camp, the nether rippled like the fin of a trout stirring the water. The presence blinked to life beside it, but the ripple had been nothing: an ant dying of a sting, a moth eaten by a bat, something like that. It watched for another moment, then faded.

  Kinnevan let a long breath out through his nose. His eyelids slid shut. So far the kellevurt had continued to amplify Blays' supply of nether, allowing him to hang on, but he didn't know how much longer this would last. He gritted his teeth and edged up to Kinnevan, who'd been so focused on feeling out the disturbance in the nether that he seemed not to have noticed the bag had slipped from his grasp. Blays pinched the mouth of the sack and hoisted it up. Green light flashed from inside.

  Blays cinched it shut and stood stock still, uncertain whether the light had been real light, or if it, like so much of what he was presently seeing, was merely a product of the shadow-world. Minn stared across the camp. The sentry was walking briskly back toward them. Blays turned and ran, slipping smoothly through the shadows. He felt more than heard Minn following.

  They were out of the grove and running across the grass when Blays felt his hold faltering again. But there had been no shouts, no lanterns blooming through the branches. Aldi and Galt had retreated to rendezvous on the other side of a nearby ridge. Blays had just enough strength to keep himself in the other world until he and Minn climbed the hill and spilled down the other side.

  As soon as he let go of the shadows, his legs went out from under him, too, spilling him into the dirt. He held tight to the bag.

  Minn materialized beside him. "Are you hurt?"

  Blays tried to get up, but his legs wouldn't hold any tension. "My legs appear to have rebelled. Victoriously."

  "Did you run yourself dry?"

  He nodded. Something was rustling the grass below, closing on them; Galt and Aldi materialized from the darkness. Blays couldn't stand, let alone run, but he was happy enough for Aldi to carry him on her back, his arms wrapped around her muscular neck. After a half mile, she let him down so Galt could take him instead, but his strength had returned enough to jog beside them.

  Back at camp, their horses and two other norren scouts waited peacefully. It was only then that Blays withdrew the item from the bag. It was carved of heavy black stone, a humanoid figure with blunt, oversized hands and feet.

  "It's Yona," Aldi said, turning it in her hand. "See the many arrows?"

  Blays took it and held it inches from his nose. "Those look like an eagle's claw. As carved by a drunk person. Who's never seen an eagle."

  "What's a Yona?" Minn said.

  Aldi gestured to the wilds. "A norren hero. She was the one who found the Black Star."

  Blays and Minn exchanged a sidelong glance.

  "And what did she do with it?" Blays said.

  "Put a stop to a drought. Would you like to hear the story?"

  "Another time. We need to be on the move before Kinnevan discovers it's been purloined." He held it out to Galt. "This is Splitting Sky territory. Seems like this ought to be returned to you. Gotta warn you, Kinnevan might be able to follow it."

  Galt shook her head. "It means nothin
g to my people. And the craftsmanship is a disgrace. Look at the proportions of the limbs."

  Blays chuffed with laughter. "Let me guess, your nulla is sculpting?"

  "I've been doing better work since I was eight years old."

  "Then I'll be happy to bear it away. Which I should do right now." He met the eyes of each norren. "Thank you all. It might not look like much, but I think we just screwed Moddegan but good."

  Galt smiled smugly. Otus nodded in satisfaction. The clansmen turned and walked into the hills.

  Blays smiled at Aldi. "I hate to take advantage of your help and run, but there's one more thing I've got to go take care of." He raised his eyebrows at Minn. "Assuming you're up for it."

  Minn nodded. "I've come this far."

  Aldi glanced between them. "I'm happy to continue on with you. To help however I can."

  "Your devotion to me is as admirable as it is proper. But we're heading back to human lands. And we'll need to stay as innocuous as possible."

  If she was hurt, she hid it well. She hugged them both. Blays and Minn mounted their horses and headed northeast. He had only known Aldi a few days, yet he missed her as soon as they'd parted ways. Throughout his life, he'd left so many people behind that this sudden feeling of missing felt foreign, almost wrong. Disproportionate, too. He glanced at Minn and frowned.

  She lifted her brows. "Ready to tell me where we're riding off to in the middle of the night this time?"

  "Oh, that," Blays said, smoothing his expression. "We're just off to put a stop to another mad sorcerer. Fortunately, I'm much better acquainted with this one."

  "Your friend? How do you know he's after Cellen?"

  "Because when I got to the Pocket, he didn't come after me. He turned around and went home."

  She scrunched up her mouth. "Maybe that's because he knew he would have been up against the entire People of the Pocket. It would have been hopeless."

  "We don't believe in hopeless. If we did, we would have died ten times over at this point. He would have tried something. Unless something else called him away—something much bigger."