The Great Rift

by Edward W. Robertson

  "The Clan of the Broken Heron is camped outside town."

  "They're the ones who fought the king's men?"

  "Chief's named Hopp. If you can keep your eyelids apart, he'll see you tonight."

  Dante knew he couldn't, so he returned to Soll's to nap again. He woke after dark sore but relaxed. The others were just getting in.

  "No time for dinner," Dante said. "We have a meeting with the clan."

  "The clan can wait," Blays said. "My stomach can't."

  Lira socked him on the arm. "Eat while you ride. Or are you one of those people who has to hang on to the saddle with both hands?"

  "Just one. I need the other to cover my eyes."

  Soll put together a sack of bread and sausage and showed them the way, leaving his brother to tend to his still-mending wife. A three-quarter moon drenched the grass in silver. Four miles east from the town, he crossed a stream threaded between two hills, then followed it north for a few hundred yards until Mourn pointed out a trio of fallen sticks.

  "Wildsign."

  He'd no sooner spoken the word than five norren warriors emerged from the trees lining the streambed. They peered at Soll, nodded, and led the group further through the trees.

  The Clan of the Broken Heron had no fires or children. They slept and sat beneath the trees, trimming twigs from arrow shafts, sewing ash-rubbed bone and dull bits of metal into cured leather hides. In a moonlit clearing, a man of late middle age laid clean lines of black paint onto a circular canvas tied to a wooden stand by leather thongs. He was beardless, the first shaven man Dante had seen since Dollendun. On his stubbled right cheek, a circled R was branded into his skin.

  He didn't look up from his paint. "I'm told you're a friend to the norren in Plow?"

  "We're a friend to all norren," Dante said. "Are you Hopp?"

  "How can you be friend to all norren? Are you my friend? Are you friend to my enemy clans, too?"

  "Yes, in fact. It's my intent to ensure that you and all your enemies survive to keep killing each other for generations to come."

  Hopp glanced up, mouth half-open as he considered Dante. "You're from Narashtovik?"

  "And we're here to make both our homelands free."

  "You think we can't keep ourselves free?"

  Dante took a step forward, holding the bag of loons. "I don't know. I do know we'll have a better chance if we all stand the same line."

  "I see." The branded norren laid another stroke of paint on his canvas and chuckled in satisfaction. "We'll be fine on our own."

  Dante quashed a surge of anger. "Do you know what loons are?"

  "Do you?"

  "As well as how to build them." He held up the bag of earrings. "We want to give one to each of the clans. We can coordinate movements. Attacks. Bring all the norren to bear against the king's armies."

  A woman laughed from the darkness. Dante startled. She sat against the trunk of a nearby tree, her remaining teeth white in the moonlight. Hopp smiled over his painting.

  "Okay," he said.

  "You'll take it?"

  "Who wouldn't want to fight together in perfect harmony?" He held out his hand. Dante fished a loon from the bag and set it in his palm. It was bone and bluish silver, the color of moonlight.

  "A drop of blood on the bone will link it to you," Dante said. "Let us know whenever you see Gaskan troops. With enough warning, we can prevent what happened in Plow from befalling any more towns."

  "That would be nice, wouldn't it?" Hopp said. "Good night."

  The contingent of warriors saw them back across the river. Soll led them back towards town.

  "Chalk this up to cultural differences," Blays said, "but I didn't get the idea he took that very seriously."

  "It's hard to say," Mourn said. "Not hard in the sense that I find the words physically difficult. They are no harder than other words. But in the sense that norren can be guarded even between clans. Trying to read their responses to humans is like reading the face of a fish."

  At Soll's, Dante tried to raise Cally to tell him the news, but the old man didn't answer. Dante paced, contemplating a second attempt, then realized it was somewhere after 2 AM. He went to bed and tried again in the morning.

  Cally answered within seconds, his tone somewhere between annoyance and amusement. "I take it you made contact with your first clan."

  "Did Hopp reach you?" Dante said. "What did he say?"

  "I will recount the entire conversation. First, there was a fart. Followed by 'Goodbye.' Then came a splash. Our chat concluded with an hour of what sounded like rushing water until the loon went dead."

  "A...fart?"

  "Yes," Cally said. "That's what I choose to believe, anyway, as the alternative would be far worse to contemplate."

  Dante rubbed sleep from his eyes. "Maybe a child got ahold of it."

  "The timbre was notably adult. Of the voice, that is."

  "Okay. I'll go speak to him and find out what happened."

  "Do that. Where are you, anyway?"

  "A town called Plow," Dante said. "Few miles from the border. Yesterday, Moddegan's men burned half of it to the ground."

  "Plow," Cally said, distant. Paper ruffled in the background. "Somburr's been in Righmark the last three days. That's due west on the borders. Two days ago, he reported a troop heading east. Another left yesterday."

  "A second wave?" Dante glanced at the sunlight through the window. It was at least nine o'clock, approaching ten. "I'll ride out this minute. If Hopp's got any doubts about us, this should put them to the grave."

  Mourn was already awake. Lira answered at a knock. Blays didn't; Dante had to barge into his small room and rip the sheets away from his bed. As they readied, Dante found Soll pulling planks from a charred home down the street. He nodded at Dante's request to act as their guide and led them back into the wild.

  The Clan of the Broken Heron hadn't moved. Soll was intercepted by a man and a woman a bowshot from the camp. After a brief and somewhat tense discussion, they took Dante alone to Hopp, who knelt by the stream, shirtless, washing black paint from his hands, as if he'd kept painting all night. His back was crossed with switch-thin scars.

  "What happened?" Dante said.

  Hopp smiled at the water. "I was inspired."

  "To drop your loon in the water?"

  "Are you sure that's what happened?"

  "No. You might have thrown it instead."

  Hopp took his hands from the water and dried them with a cloth finger by finger. "I dropped it. I couldn't find it. Have you come to give me another?"

  "If you're sure you won't drop it." Dante reached in his pocket. "I've got another gift, too. More troops are inbound from the west. They could reach Plow today."

  Hopp squinted through the sunlight bouncing from the stream. "Someone ought to do something about that."

  "We'll help if you'd let us. We're stronger than we look. I'm one of the strongest nethermancers in the land."

  "Why are you so keen to help?"

  Dante splayed his palms. "Why is every norren in the world so suspicious of that?"

  A woman laughed the same laugh from the night before. Again, she leaned against a tree, concealed by the grass and the tree's low boughs.

  Dante gasped involuntarily. "Are you scaring me on purpose?"

  "An old woman can't rest her back?"

  "It wouldn't be an issue if she rested more loudly."

  She laughed dryly. "This reminds me of a story. It's a story from very long ago. No one who was there is alive to remember it. Instead, we remember for them. Do you want to hear my story?"

  Dante glanced through the trees in the direction of the others. "Of course."

  "Everyone should listen as well as you." She hunched forward, speaking to the space between them. "And so. Long ago, foxes lived in trees. Why did they live in trees? To hunt what was there, and to go unseen by the creatures of the ground. Foxes never fell. When they did fall, they waved their tails and landed softly. This is how one fox was
spotted by a passing votte.

  "The votte thought about pouncing, but the fox was already back among the limbs. It sat on its haunches and said, 'There is a fire. Why don't you come down?' The fox flicked its tail and said nothing. The votte sniffed the air. 'Can't you smell the smoke? Get down from that tree, or the smoke you smell will be your own bones.' The fox sniffed, nodded, and said nothing.

  "The votte began to pace in the dirt around the trunk. 'This is unreasonable,' it said. 'I can see the fire there on that hill. What do you think you're going to do?' The fox squinted between the leaves, saw the fire, and said nothing. 'The flames are here,' the votte said. 'I can feel them like a smothering hand. Its smoke is maggots in my nostrils. And you're in the tree! Come down, and run with me!'

  "But the fox was gone. The votte ran. The flames pursued." The old woman lowered her hand, bladelike, to her lap. "Much later, when the world changed, the fox changed with it, and moved to the ground. This is the end."

  "What's a votte?" Dante said.

  "I don't know. I've never seen one. They're gone."

  "Did they all die in the fire?"

  "Why would you think that? Do you think the fire burnt the whole world?"

  "Give me another loon," Hopp said. "We've got plenty of scouts. We'll tell you if they come to take the town."

  Dante smiled and handed him another earring. "Give us the word and we'll be there."

  The old woman watched keenly as he returned across the stream. Blays spat out a blade of grass he'd been chewing. "How'd it go? Did the conversation actually take place via mouths this time?"

  "No. Now if you'll excuse me, I need a moment with the creek."

  "I'll be upstream. Far, far upstream."

  "He took the loon," Dante said. "He'll tell us if they see the soldiers. Be ready for a fight."

  They returned to Soll's, keeping the horses saddled and their weapons handy. Compared to the racket of industry of the last couple days, the streets were as silent as the wilds: while they'd been out, Soll's brother had spread word another troop might be approaching. The locals had taken to their homes with swords and hammers and spears and axes and hoes.

  Hours dragged on. They ate a light lunch of cheese melted on flatbread with greens and herbs plucked from Soll's back garden. Dante killed a few minutes by checking on Soll's wife. She was pale and had lost weight. Her arms were perversely thin for a norren; when she sat up in bed, they hung from her shoulders like broken flowers. She spoke and gestured freely, however, and her stomach was pale and cool, free from infection.

  The loon pulsed a couple hours before sunset. Dante's heart pulsed with it.

  "I heard from your chief," Cally said in his ear. "They've located the soldiers. Hopp wants you to meet the clan at Farrow Hill at once."

  "Where's that?"

  "You know, I'm not quite sure. As it turns out, I'm more than a hundred miles away. If you'd like to wait two or three days, perhaps I can ride out and find it for you."

  "Did he say anything else?"

  "He did not."

  "Then I need to go," Dante said. "If you never hear from me again, build me some statues." He broke the connection. The others stared at him, eyebrows raised. He turned to Soll. "Where's Farrow Hill?"

  "Farrow Hill," he said slowly. "South and southwest. Eight or ten miles."

  "Can you take us?"

  "On my back if I have to." He gestured to his wife's room. "I still owe you the world."

  They mounted up and rode south along a dirt path through the grass. Mice darted away from the clop of hooves. Borbirds squawked from the sparse and thorny trees. Dante rode fast over the rising path. The ground rolled for several miles, then began a steady climb. Every stir of the grass made Dante's eyes dart and his heart skip. The hill leveled off. Ahead, the stark ruins of a stone tower waited in the wind. Behind, the land spread like a full-color map, a sprawl of green grass and the haphazard squares of rich brown farms. Dante could just make out the ribbon of the road. Around it, Plow was a tiny cluster of dark mounds.

  Blays gazed at the collapsed tower. One wall stood twenty feet high, orange lichen encrusted to the dark stone. Most of it lay in an uneven mound, half-buried. Grass and spring's first blue wildflowers sprouted between the cracked stone.

  "So where is everybody?" Blays said.

  Dante reached for his loon and made sure it was aligned to Cally. "You there?"

  "Yes," Cally said a moment later.

  "Well, they're not. Have you spoken to Hopp again?"

  "I would have let you know if I had."

  "Can you raise him? I just want to make sure we're in the right place." He switched off.

  "That's Farrow Tower," Soll pointed. "There is only the one, and it is on Farrow Hill."

  Dante stared over the distant plain. "This feels wrong."

  "They probably figured we could win the battle by ourselves," Blays said. "Honestly, I can't blame them."

  "I'm sure Hopp farting into the loon was just a sign of respect."

  "I don't know why we're even wasting time out here. We should march straight to Setteven, storm the palace, carve a tunnel through everyone who gets in our way, and slap the king with a wet glove until he makes Mourn king."

  "I don't want to be king," Mourn said.

  "That's all right." Blays wiped wind-blown grit from his eyes. "You can cede the crown to me."

  Wind rustled. Birds chirped. Three minutes later, Dante's loon pulsed. "What'd he say?"

  "He's not responding," Cally said. "Do you think something's wrong?"

  "I don't know. There's at least forty warriors in their clan. Unless they all fell down the same well, I'd expect one of them to have made it out here."

  "I'll inform you the moment I hear a thing. I know how you get when things are uncertain."

  The link blanked out. Dante stared down the hill, straining his ears so hard they rang with strange tones. He began to sweat under his doublet. Blays trotted around the crest of the hill and found nothing but open grass. As the sun dropped, the wind grew steady and cold. Dante felt sick, tingly, his head overrun by questions and doubts.

  "What exactly did Hopp say to you this morning?" Mourn said.

  "Nothing. That he'd take the loon and scout for the soldiers."

  "That's all?"

  "That's all." He blew into his hands to warm them. "There was an old woman with him. She told me the story of the fox and the votte."

  A frown unfolded beneath Mourn's beard. "How does that story go?"

  "I don't really feel like swapping campfire tales just now."

  "Just tell me how it went. Please."

  Dante gave him a look. His eyes were anxious, guarded. Dante sighed and repeated the story of the querulous votte and the silent fox.

  At the end, Mourn winced like he'd just taken a big bite of soup and chomped down on an unexpected bit of bone. "We should go back to town."

  "What is it?"

  "That story wasn't a story. Well, it was. It told about a thing that happened. But it was also a test."

  "Of his patience?" Blays said. "It didn't even have an ending."

  Mourn shook his shaggy head. "Because there is no ending. The fox can't trust the votte and it doesn't need to because this isn't the first fire it's seen. It already knows the signs of fire and what to do when it comes. And long after the vottes have died or gone away, foxes live on, because they know when to change."

  "Oh," Dante said.

  "You see?"

  "Right."

  "All I see is two cryptic assholes," Blays said.

  "The norren are like the fox," Dante said. "I don't know if the votte is Narashtovik, or Gask, or humans in general. Either way, they can't trust us and don't need us."

  "So Hopp sent us on a votte hunt," Blays said. "Just for a laugh? Or to get us away from something?"

  "Lyle's balls," Dante said. The sun neared the horizon, piercing and red. "We'd better get back to town."

  Twilight slowed their return. It was full dark b
y the time they rode into Plow. Men jogged down the streets armed with bows and spears and pitchforks, whooping and laughing. Soll pulled aside one of his neighbors to get the news. The Clan of the Broken Heron had ambushed a detachment of the king's men miles north of town. Not a single redshirted soldier had survived the skirmish.

  "Is it always going to be like this?" Dante said. "We come with aid, and they send us off in the wrong direction and laugh behind their hands? What will they do when an army of ten thousand sweeps through the hills?"

  "You must understand," Mourn said. "Who are you to a clan? Do you look any different from the king?"

  "Then let's move on. Try a different group. They can't all feel this way."

  "We could waste our time," Blays said. "Or we can try something that'll work."

  "You've got a better idea?"

  "It's very simple. We stop being human and start being norren."

  "I'll see what I can do." Dante splayed his hand, grabbed up a fistful of nether, and flicked it at Blays. "Kablam!" The shadows flashed in a shower of sparks. "Oh dear, it didn't work. Should I try again?"

  "If you're having fun," Blays said. "But my plan's a little simpler." He grinned at Mourn. "I think we should join a clan."

  18

  Dante shook his head. "That is among the dumbest things you've ever said. And I once heard you ask what a female rooster was called."

  Blays quirked his mouth skeptically. "I would rather not know that than have to grow up in the kind of place where it's common knowledge."

  "Like where? The world?"

  "Like your hometown. Not that you can call two cottages facing each other a town. Anyway, it's not like you can tell what sex they are by looking at them."

  "It's a chicken!"

  "Anyway, what do you know?" Blays waved his hand for peace. "Mourn, is this dumb? Or is it in fact brilliantly smart?"

  Mourn's eyes shifted. "If you could join a clan, you would be taken much more seriously by many other clans."

  "Can we join a clan?" Dante said.

  "To my knowledge, which is not exhaustive, and is in fact quite limited, when you consider the small fraction of norren I've known personally, or heard reliable information about, during my as-yet brief life on this—"