The Black Star (Book 3) (49 page)

That night during his delivery to the Echoes, Kasee beckoned him out of the main hall down a corridor to a room that appeared to be in the midst of a battle between cushions and swords. Despite all the weapons, Dante took it to be her bedroom.

"Don't get any ideas," she smirked. "You up for a change of work?"

"Dying for it."

"Put the letter-theft on hold for now. Starting tomorrow morning, keep Julen's place under watch. No breaks. Send someone running if he moves."

"I thought he never leaves his room," Dante said.

"He doesn't. But according to his last letter, he's about to break that habit."

"What is it? A meet?"

"More than that." Her tone was amused yet wary. "You might call it an orientation."

"The Minister's bringing more people into the city."

"So he thinks." She tapped her nails on her hip. "Anyway, I much appreciate it."

Dante headed back to the inn to apprise the others of their latest task.

"So what," Cee said, "we sit around a pub and watch his building? You mean the same thing we've been doing?"

"Pretty much."

Lew pinched the middle of his upper lip. "Why not surround the building with your watchful rodents? While you sit right next to Kasee? You could alert her the instant Julen moves."

"I'd prefer to keep her in the dark concerning what I'm capable of," Dante said. "I don't want to get sucked in too deep. As soon as Somburr figures out whether there's anything useful in the letters, we're on the move."

"A compromise," Somburr said. "You watch from up here. I position myself in the Echoes. When he moves, you loon me. I alert Kasee Gage."

"Solid plan. Just don't get involved, all right?"

"I have no intention of placing myself between a pair of clashing swords."

Plan set, Dante went out to kill a half dozen more rats. It didn't take long. To slow their decay, he raised them on the spot and shuffled them off to a corner of the closet where they wouldn't disturb Lew.

Though he didn't expect Julen to move until night—that was when such things always took place—on the day of the meet, Dante got up bright and early, pocketed his rats, and took them to the alley behind the inn. In ones and twos, he sent them running toward Julen's building, sticking to backstreets, hunkering down in the garbage whenever someone went by. Completely paranoid, given that there were rats in
every
alley, but there was no sense in attracting attention.

Dante installed himself in the public house. Somburr descended to the Echoes. Lew joined Dante in the pub while Cee and Ast strolled around the neighboring blocks, haggling with street vendors and wandering in and out of clothiers. By early afternoon, with their feet tiring and no signs of anything out of the ordinary, they came into the pub as well.

All the while, Dante watched through the eyes of the rats. This kept him busy: the building had two main exits as well as two side doors, and Dante had to let his attention drift above any one set of eyes, homing in on a specific rat only when it detected motion. This happened scores of times throughout the day and was thoroughly exhausting to follow.

By nightfall, there had been no sign of Julen. Dante had had a few beers over the course of the day and he began to nod off. He got up to take a walk around the chilly night and clear his head. He had barely stepped into the square when the building's side door opened and Julen emerged.

Dante veered the opposite direction, turned a corner, and sat down to pretend to fiddle with the laces of his boots. He opened his loon. "Nak? Tell Somburr he's on the move. Heading north on Cleftridge Lane."

Nak had been asleep and Dante had to repeat his instructions twice before Nak was cogent enough to relay them. A moment later, he let Dante know that Somburr was on his way to see Kasee.

Julen's footsteps had already faded down the street. Dante sent two rats to follow at a distance, then hoofed it back to the pub and told the others the bear had finally emerged from hibernation.

Using Nak as a middleman, Somburr told Dante that Kasee's people were running flat-out through the Echoes to catch up to Julen, who was roughly a third of a mile north of them aboveground. Somburr planned to stay put and keep an eye on Kasee's. In the pub, Dante passed this to the others.

"Sounds like there's about to be a brawl." Cee tipped her mug to examine its contents. "Should we wander over that way?"

There were plenty of reasons to stay at a distance, but Dante wanted a better idea of who they were dealing with in Kasee Gage. Anyway, in the last week, he'd done little but sit around this pub and the inn. They headed out as a group, walking north.

Julen dropped off Cleftridge and cut through a dizzying maze of side streets. The rats followed, advancing in a leapfrog pattern, one following half a block behind Julen while the other lingered. Dante gained ground on him, but lagged blocks behind. Ten minutes after Kasee had left her building, the rearguard rat spied a group of eight people moving swiftly down the alleys. They wore dark clothes, scarves wrapped tight around their brows and mouths. The whites of their eyes shined in the weak light. All eight were armed. Disguised though they were, Dante identified Kasee and Horace.

A couple blocks ahead of their group, Julen hung a sudden left. As he disappeared, a dozen men rounded the corner he'd dodged behind and headed the opposite way. They jogged past Dante's rat. In the street, Kasee saw them and froze.

Still several blocks from the confrontation, Dante stumbled on a loose stone. "It's an ambush."

Cee stared down the street. "Kasee's got them?"

"I think they might have her."

"The Minister's people? Should we help her?"

He waved his hand for silence and delved into the rat's vision, scrambling for a plan. In the end, it didn't matter. He'd no sooner gotten a look at the groups facing off in the moonlight than the strangers charged.

Kasee's people ran to meet them. Blades flashed. A man screamed. Speechless, Dante broke into a dead run. The others fell in behind him. It wasn't easy to run through the dark in a strange city and keep his sight inside the rats', and all he caught were glimpses: the two lines smashing into each other. A man in a scarf thudding to the pavement. Kasee shouting, two short blades whirling in her hands.

The two sides separated, leaving three bodies on the ground. The next time Dante looked, they were fighting again. He could hear the clang of steel with his own ears. Kasee's voice chopped through the night. Dante slowed enough to cut his arm, then sprinted the rest of the way. As their force hit the street, the Minister's men disengaged and ran to the north.

Rather than engaging, Kasee whirled to face the new threat. Seeing Dante, she strode forward, blades in hand. "You fed us straight into the lion's mouth!"

"We're here to help!" Dante said.

"Help walk us into a trap? How would the Minister's men know to expect us unless you told them?"

"It could have been one of
your
men."

Her blades twitched. One was dark with blood. "My men are bricks in an unbroken wall!"

"Well, someone had to tip them off!" Dante's jaw dropped. "The hair."

"Thuhare? Who the hell is that?"

"A few nights back, Julen had a hair laid across his letters. I thought nothing of it. That it had landed there on its own. When I didn't put it back in place, he knew we were reading his correspondence."

Kasee's jaw worked. "And so he fed us bad intel? Tricked us into walking into a setup?"

"None of my people have any reason to betray you," Dante said. "If it wasn't one of your own, this is the only thing that makes sense."

She lowered her swords, then narrowed her eyes. "Your fault either way, isn't it?"

Cee laughed. "You have no idea how careful we've been.
If
it was the hair, this would have happened to anyone."

"But it didn't. It happened to you."

Dante bit down on his cheek hard enough to draw blood. The nether rushed to meet him. Kasee and her men watched him with unwavering stares. He shaped the nether into a killing point.

Behind them, one of the downed men groaned, leg kicking spasmodically. Two of Kasee's people ran to help, pulling the scarves from his face. It was Horace.

"Let me see to him," Dante said. "I'm a healer."

"A thief
and
a healer?" Kasee said. "There anything you can't do? Oh, I got it: tell the truth."

Dante shrugged. "Let him die if you prefer."

A muscle in her jaw twitched. She spat and stood aside. Dante got down beside Horace. His hard leather breastplate had been punctured. Lung, probably. Dante sent the nether inside him and confirmed it. He sent the shadows to work. Horace responded with a gasp, but his eyes stayed shut.

"Check their pockets," Kasee said. Her men moved to the two fallen enemy and searched their clothes.

Dante moved the nether up Horace's lung in a black line, sealing it together. The man wheezed, then breathed steadily. Dante turned to the two-inch puncture between his ribs. In a moment, it was gone.

He pulled back Horace's shirt and wiped away the blood, revealing smooth skin. "He'll be fine."

Kasee had gone still. "What are you? What have you been hiding from me?"

"Nothing." Dante stood. "I've done everything you've asked."

"Bullshit. If I'd known you could sling the darkness around, I would have asked for a whole lot more than letters." She rolled her lips together. "You and me, we're done."

"Fine. Good luck with your war."

Kasee turned and stalked a couple steps away, breathing hard. Dante began to move back to the others, but someone grabbed his arm.

"Wait," Horace said, throat catching. "You brought me back."

"You weren't gone yet." Dante knelt back down. "How do you feel?"

"Like I've just finished a long run." The man's eyes darted to Kasee. He lowered his voice to a murmur. "She hasn't told you everything. I don't have time to explain. If you want the truth, you'll find it in Morrive."

"Morrive? This is a city?"

"Once. Bring the
Speech of the Lost
. Anything that can translate the stones."

"Translate the—?"

"Enough standing around," Kasee said, audibly calmer. "Let's flap our soles before the watch gets here. Last thing we need is to take the blame for sparking hostilities." She met Dante's eyes. "You and yours? I see you again, and I'll bury you in the Echoes."

Dante was much too interested in prying tidbits from Horace to bother exchanging threats with her, but her troops were already helping Horace to his feet. They led him away, glancing over their shoulders at Dante.

"Do we have any reason to stay here?" Cee said. "Then I suggest we take a hint from our former allies and move it."

Dante saw no reason to stick around the streets, either. He turned and headed for the inn, thoughts racing.

"What just happened?" Lew said. "What did Horace say to you?"

"That it's time to leave town. Have you heard of a place called Morrive?"

"No, but I have the feeling I'm about to be tasked with becoming its expert."

"Nak?" Dante said into the loon. "Tell Somburr to get out of the Echoes and get back to the inn. If he sees Kasee, avoid her at all costs."

"It sounds like you're about to have Olivander pacing a rut in the floor," Nak said. "Just a second." He was quiet for a bit. "Somburr says that won't be a problem. What's going on over there?"

"For once, it's not worth worrying about. I'll catch you up as soon as I can."

Nak did some grumbling, then shut down his loon. They got to the inn without further problems. Dante sat in the common room, watching the door for Somburr. Just as he was ready to get ahold of Nak and ask, Somburr slipped inside, eyes roving across the minimal crowd.

Upstairs, Dante told him everything that had happened, including Horace's advice to travel to Morrive.

"You trust this?" Somburr said.

"I'd just saved his life," Dante said. "He seemed sincere."

Cee looked around the low table they were seated at. "Do we have anything left here? Stealing letters is out. Kasee wants to pick her teeth with our bones. Dante hasn't turned anything up at the temples. Sounds like there's nothing to lose by going to Morrive."

"Except our lives," Somburr said.

But even he didn't seem to believe it. In the morning, they all went to work. Dante headed straight to the Stoll of the Winds to ask for the
Speech of the Lost.
Mikkel had a copy, but there was a snag: he only had one, and transcribing it would take days. He knew a collector, however, and sent Dante with a letter of introduction. The collector wound up parting with the book, but it cost Dante everything he had. He hoped it was a wise purchase.

He got back around sunset. Cee had put together provisions. Lew and Ast had procured maps and information. Morrive lay in a desert to the southeast. No one had lived there for as long as anyone could remember.

That did zero to dissuade Dante. The others scraped together the last of their coins to pay the stable fees, then plodded out with the mules at dusk. With the city fading behind them, the wind carried the smell of the grass.

With the worst of the winter behind them, and their purses as dry and flat as their destination, they camped the nights in the open prairie, burning shrubs for warmth and roasting pigeons and rabbits Dante brought down with the nether. A small mountain range lay between them and Morrive and it looked as if they'd have to detour to a pass, but accounting for that, he thought they'd reach the ruins within a week.

As they traveled, he read through the
Speech of the Lost
. It was a Weslean guide to translating the written language of the Morrives. His Weslean had become quite good, but the book's dialect was older. He and Ast muddled through it.

Somburr continued to work on cracking the letters. Dante supposed they might yet turn up something useful about Cellen, but he suspected Somburr felt compelled by the challenge.

He was right about the former and dead wrong about the latter. Three days out of Ellan, with the grass going brown and patchy, Somburr stopped in his tracks, letter in hand.