"In the trees!" a man shouted. "Right there!"
Faces swung to stare their way. Men broke into dead runs, torches flapping, swords in hand. Archers set their feet. Moments later, the first arrows hissed through the leaves, smacking into trunks and burying shafts half a foot into the damp earth. Blays swore and veered left through the pines, then swung into a sharp right. Lira began to limp.
Blays fell back with her, and after a moment's hesitation, so did Dante. The two norren slowed to a jog as well. Torches flashed between the trees, closing. It was a matter of time.
Yet the chase had strung out Cassinder's soldiers, house-guards with little discipline. Feet thrashed through weeds and leaves. Blays stopped and whirled, ripping his swords from their sheaths. The nearest guard was a good twenty feet in front of the others; his eyes widened as he pounded down the slope, unable to stop.
"Is this how you treat your guests?" Blays' sword sent the man's head spinning into the grass. Three more soldiers rushed down the hill. Dante flung a bolt of nether through the closest man's chest. The soldier's breath left him in a horrid groan. He crashed into the undergrowth, skidding facefirst. The two other stopped, faces painted with sudden fear, torches crackling. Bursts of shadows leapt from Dante's hands. Blood flashed in the starlight. The two men gurgled in the ferns.
"For Beckonridge!" a man screamed from up the slope. Ten soldiers spilled down with him. Something heavy thumped behind Dante. Gala lay in the grass, an arrow jutting from her skull.
Mourn lifted his gaze from the body. Wordless, he strode forward, raised his heavy sword, and slammed it down on the first man to reach him. His opponent blocked with a high, crossward slant. Steel banged on steel; the man's sword shot out of his hand, thudding to the dirt. Mourn's next blow cut straight through the man's warding arm and halved his head.
Swords and blood and screams moiled in torchlight and darkness. To Dante's left, Blays punched his sword forward to meet an incoming blade, the weapons straining between their chests. Blays dipped his offhand blade, jabbed the soldier's foot. The man yelped and fell. Blays stabbed him without looking, parrying the thrust of another guard. A man rushed Dante, straight sword aimed at his chest. Dante intercepted with his own, dropping back two steps from the man's downhill momentum, and sent a spear of nether battering through his ribs.
Beside him, Lira feinted, feinted again, then stumbled. As her opponent closed with a downward stroke, she lunged forward—the stumble, too, had been a feint—angling to the outside of the man's swipe and driving her own blade through his stomach.
Uphill, a mounted man stopped his horse and turned it sideways. His downy hair glowed in the torchlight. Shadows flocked to Dante's fingers. He danced back from a man with a spear, putting Mourn between them, and winged a dark bolt for Cassinder's midsection. White sparks burst from the lord's stomach. Cassinder cried out, slumping from his horse and collapsing to the ground.
"Your lord is dead!" Dante summoned a point of light high above his head, so bright and piercing he thought he could see the soldiers' skulls through their skin. "Do you want to die with him?"
Cassinder's guards shrunk back. Several bolted for their master lying motionless in the grass. A bow whispered; an arrow gashed through Dante's left ear.
"I say we try the running again," Blays said.
Mourn sheathed his sword, grabbed up Lira, and slung her onto his back. She blinked, hoisting her sword to keep it from slashing the giant man. Other than the blood dripping down her temple, Gala still hadn't moved. Dante turned and ran down the hill.
The land dropped sharply. Every step threatened to spill him. Mourn somehow matched pace, Lira bouncing on his back. A handful of arrows hissed past. The guards resumed the chase, torches winking behind trees, but between the skirmish and those who'd stayed behind to tend to Cassinder, the pursuers were less than half the number that had gathered beneath the tower. That, perhaps, explained why they stopped five minutes into the chase, their fires shrinking with each step Dante took through the wet grass. Dante heard nor saw any cavalry, either—the slope was too steep for horses, the night too full—but suspected they'd patrol the roads for days.
Still they ran, leveling out and splashing across a frozen creek, then climbing through slippery pine needles and frost-glittered ferns. At the top of the hill, Mourn called for a stop. Blays bared his teeth, breathing hard. He gazed downhill and planted his hands on his hips.
"Well, I don't think we have to worry about starting a war anymore."
"What are you talking about?" Dante said. "That was a disaster!"
"Exactly." Blays nodded down the slope. Dante turned. At the mines miles to the north, a great fire glared in the night, gouting white smoke. Far south, a second fire burned from the manor where they'd spent the last three nights. "I'd say the war's already begun."
6
"Well then," Dante said. "Let's be on our way."
Blays blinked in the moonlight. "Did you hear me? That war we were trying so desperately to avert? Here it is!"
"Right now, I'm a little more concerned about that." Dante tipped his head to the woody valley, lightly smeared with mist and smoke. Beagles howled from the trees. "I don't think I'll be worried about a war after I'm passed through a dog's belly and deposited on some lord's lawn."
"You think being a pile of shit's going to save you? That will just make it easier for Cally to stomp you."
Dante offered his hand to Mourn, who looked cadaverous beneath his beard. "Sorry to part this way. Perhaps we'll meet again."
Mourn stiffened. "I thought I might come with you."
"We're going back to Narashtovik. We're done with your clan."
"I'm afraid I am, too."
"What are you talking about?" Blays said. "You can't just run off on your clan."
The norren tipped back his high chin, frowning down on them. "I can do whatever I want. I can jump down this hillside if I determine that to be a rewarding course of action. If you wouldn't consider me a millstone around your neck, I'd like to come with you."
"We could use your help with her anyway," Dante nodded at Lira.
Lira raised an eyebrow. "I'll be fine. It's a sprain, not an amputation."
"Lyle's balls, I'm just saying you can't run at a time when we may need to. Can we get a move on?"
She nodded, mollified. Dante cut east down the slope, reckoning by the stars and the twin columns of smoke. His footsteps stirred the scent of pine needles and minty wintrel leaves. Even with Lira leaning on Mourn's shoulder, the huge man moved lightly, stepping over low branches to leave them undisturbed. Not that it would help if the dogs caught up with them. If that happened, Dante would have to resort to methods that would provoke some very sharp words from Blays.
The canopy closed above their heads. Birds peeped from the darkness. The howls of the hounds faded, miles away. Chasing the Clan of the Nine Pines, then. Dante expected the clan could take care of itself.
It had certainly taken care of his own small contingent. Orlen and Vee had played them like a hand of two-bluff. Oh, you're looking for the Quivering Bow? Right this way. It happens to have been stolen by our worst enemy. If you'd like it back, all you'll have to do is everything we ask.
Dante had let them lead him by the hand like a child crossing a thoroughfare. That knowledge tingled in his gut and prickled down his skin, hot and nauseous. In the cold, he felt his cheeks flushing. He'd let himself be swindled, blinded by a fantasy of a bow that could turn the tide of war by itself. Cassinder had done the same, letting his people feed Dante vague hints of the lord's wondrous new weapon, baiting the trap for Dante to make his move.
Blays was right. The burning of Cassinder's estate would spark the very war he'd been trying to stave off. And yes, in all likelihood, that war would have come at some point no matter what they'd done. Gask wasn't going to just shrug as its norren vassals shucked their chains and began governing themselves. Eventually, it would have come to blows. Many thousands of them, in fact.
But it didn't have to come so soon.
The stars had shifted by degrees by the time they struck camp. Fog dripped from the pines, pattering the tarp strung above their heads. Dante had a look at Lira's leg. The healing wound was scarring nicely, but the skin around was swollen and pink. He soothed the ache with a flood of cool nether, then did the same for her sprained ankle.
No one had even bothered to suggest striking a fire. Blays passed around hard sausage and harder bread, crumbs falling from his lips. He thunked down in front of a tree and leaned against its mossy trunk.
"I don't see why we're bothering to run," he said. "Not when Cally's just going to glare off our heads the moment we step foot in the city."
"He knew the risks." Dante gestured in the direction of the Norren Territories. "This whole enterprise was his idea."
"And I think it was also his idea that we not take a torch to one of our enemy's bluest bloods."
"Then he probably shouldn't have sent us."
Blays grinned. "You know, he might actually buy that."
"Who is this Cally?" Lira said. "Another enemy?"
The pair laughed. Blays rubbed his mouth. "I don't know. Do you think a dog considers its worms the enemy?"
Dante tipped his head. "I'd say he's more like a bull who can't tell the difference between the flies and his own hooves."
"I don't follow your path," Lira frowned.
"Cally is the lord of the Sealed Citadel and head of Arawn's Council at Narashtovik," Dante said. "I know him from our homeland. He taught me most of what I know. About the nether, anyway. I wouldn't even want to know what he thinks about art or women. He's an extremely clever and capable leader who runs things in a way that would probably look outright blasphemous to the attendees of his weekly masses. In short, he's cunning, demanding, and unpredictable—but I know him well enough to guess he'll be madder than he's ever been."
"But you were pursuing a just cause. Freeing the people you want to protect. Won't that count for anything?"
"If anything, it'll make him madder."
Blays laughed again. "Anyway, we weren't blazing the trails of righteousness. We were chasing a fairy story."
Dante fought the flush down from his face. "Which won't help."
Lira's face slowly went blank. "Might he try to harm you?"
"He's no Vartigan. He won't stuff our intestines with pork." Dante took a bite of cold sausage. "But to redeem ourselves, he'll probably expect us to do a series of very dangerous things."
Blays scuffed his boot across the dirt, kicking away stray stones. "Then again, that's what makes it so much fun."
Lira nodded, but the lines on her brow and lip suggested what she left unsaid. Dante gazed into the dark woods. Mice crept through the leaves. Every few minutes, an owl screeched like it was calling from another world. He hadn't heard the dogs in a couple of hours. They were miles east of the manor. He wondered if Blays would accept first watch. His use of the nether back at the tower had frayed his nerves; he might pass out soon.
"Do you really think this will lead to war?" Mourn said.
Dante looked up. The norren hadn't said a word in more than an hour. "How closely do you monitor the political sentiment in Setteven?"
"I follow my clan." His beard twitched unreadably. "We keep to ourselves."
"Well, the king's not dumb. Setteven knows what's going on. They can see the norren are gearing up for independence. But we've been very careful to deny them any explosive proof. Tonight, with the assistance of a contingent of humans from Narashtovik, an outlaw clan broke into a nobleman's manor deep in Gaskan lands, made off with his property, and killed any number of human citizens in the process."
"Which other human citizens will take offense to."
"Popular opinion is a form of currency," Dante said. "Tonight, we dropped a gold brick in their laps."
The norren nodded. Through their talk, he hadn't quite met Dante's eyes. His gaze began to drift toward the center of their camp, where they might have built a fire if they weren't eluding pursuit.
"So what's the plan tomorrow?" Blays clapped. "Some light robbery? Fatten our purses enough for three horses and an elephant for that one?" He jerked his thumb at Mourn.
"I thought we'd go downriver," Dante said.
"Northwest."
"That's the way the river goes."
"We are talking about the same Narashtovik, right? The same one that's thoroughly northeast?"
"Hundreds of miles northeast. The distance between which may be thick with people looking for our faces."
"Take the river to the port's at its mouth, then sail back to Narashtovik." Blays narrowed one eye at Lira. "What do you say?"
"Yallen's a busy port," Lira said. "Whatever you think is best."
Mourn didn't glance away from his imaginary fire at camp's center. "I've never been this far north. Unless my parents took me here while I was very small. But even if they did, I don't remember anything that would make my input worthwhile."
Blays shrugged. "I like ports. No one stays there too long for you to get sick of them. And if they do, you can just ship yourself off instead."
Whether or not the rest of the group agreed, that ended the conversation. Dante found his head snapping upright; he'd nodded off.
"I'll take first watch," Mourn said, meeting his eyes for a moment. "For now my brain would rather think than sleep."
Dante didn't pretend to protest. Sleep rolled over him as sudden and unstoppable as a landslide.
* * *
He spent most of the next day's walk to the river thinking about what he'd say to Cally. Maybe that was part of his motivation for wanting to sail home rather than taking the overland route: on a boat, you were much more likely to be wracked on a reef or enslaved by pirates or stranded on an island beyond sight or hope of shore. Some ships just disappeared completely, like they'd sailed beyond the rim of the world. If he got lucky, maybe the same thing would happen to him.