The Black Star (Book 3) (7 page)

They watched for another hour. The night grew frozen, too cold for the chirrup of insects. An owl hooted for a while, then gave up. After a little longer, so did Dante.

As first light hit the ridges, he extricated himself from his blankets and returned to the mouth of the cave to try to mark the spot where the light had fallen. He believed he had it: a rocky bowl between two great peaks, elevated roughly halfway between the treeline and the snowline. It was just a few miles away, as the sparrow soars.

"A lot further as the schlub walks," Lew said.

"We'll be there by noon," Dante said. "Spend the afternoon searching. If there's nothing to see, we head back toward Soll tomorrow morning. But I didn't come all this way to turn around when I'm literally in sight of it."

"'It' being?"

"I don't know. That's the whole point."

He glanced at Ast, but if their guide had opinions, he kept them to himself. They brought their gear down and headed across the grassy field. Very soon, a ravine etched the earth. It was fifty feet deep yet no more than thirty across and extended to left and right as far as Dante could see, blocking their way forward. It felt unnatural, as if the earth were a series of paving stones and a flash flood had washed away the mortar that had once cemented these two together. Ast lowered his pack and went for the rope.

"Don't bother," Dante said. "I'm through wasting time."

He sliced open his much-abused left forearm and fed the blood to the hungry nether. As it built, he reached his mind into the ravine's edge. The shadows waiting there were orderly, easy to grasp and eager to move. A rope of limestone flowed from the cliff face and extended toward the other side. Once it touched, Dante sealed it fast, then drew more from the wall, thickening the bridge from a rope to a trunk. Once it was reasonably thick, he widened it four feet across, then stepped back, finished.

Lew blinked. "That doesn't look
remotely
safe."

"Then you'd better cross first," Dante said. "That way you'll get it when it's still fresh."

The young monk narrowed his eyes, attempting to read Dante's face, then scowled, moved to the cliff's edge, and explored the bridge with an extended toe. When it failed to pop, groan, or crack, Lew gritted his teeth and edged onto the platform, half turned so he could leap back to solid ground should it threaten to give out.

It held. Lew walked forward, knees bent, hands held out for balance, as if he were walking a tightrope instead of a path as wide as a hallway. As he neared the far side, he picked up his pace, running to the safety of level ground.

"I didn't die!" he hollered.

"Were you joking about him going first?" Ast said.

"Not really," Dante said. "Go ahead. I'll keep an eye on things as you cross."

Ast moved to the bridge, hesitated for a moment, then crossed without so much as a wobble. Dante settled his pack on his shoulders and followed. The bridge was silent and didn't give the slightest bit, but Dante stopped ten feet across, the chasm yawning below him. He'd never made a crossing of this sort and had no idea how stable it truly was. He delved into the nether woven into the stone. Looked as strong as when he'd first drawn it across the gap.

On its physical surface, however, tiny pale twigs were mixed into the rock. Dante knelt for a closer look and nudged a protruding nib with his fingertip. The twig flexed. There were others melded with the rock beside it. He had seen these items before, on dozens if not hundreds of occasions, but given the context, it took him an embarrassingly long time to identify them as fish bones.

He glanced up at the others waiting at the end of the bridge. They'd been watching him from his first step; both had leaned forward when he stopped and knelt to examine the limestone. At this very moment, their expressions were going through a drastic phase transition: eyes popping, jaws dropping, spines straightening like spears.

"
Shit!
" Lew screamed.

Assuming the bridge must be collapsing despite all sensory evidence to the contrary, Dante popped into a low crouch, arms held out from his sides. Movement flashed in the corner of his eye. On the side of the ravine he'd just departed, a kapper bounced forward, turf and dust flying from its claws.

Dante inhaled so hard he choked. He broke into a dead run across the bridge. Ahead, Ast's sword flashed in the dawn. Dante didn't think about drawing his. If the nether had failed to crack the kapper's hide, there was no hope for steel.

The limestone was smooth and slippery. Five feet from the end, he stumbled, sprawling on palms and knees. The kapper loped onto the bridge, plates clicking. Lew scrambled forward and grabbed Dante, hauling him to his feet. Dante stomped, spiking nether through the platform. A slab of rock sheared off and tumbled away. More followed, falling into the empty space. The remainder of the bridge collapsed beneath the kapper.

It honked with ear-punishing fury and leapt from the falling structure. Dante cried out and backed onto solid ground. Ast moved beside him, sword ready. The beast arced toward them through the air, front feet catching the stump of the bridge. The stone shrieked under the kapper's claws. It slid down, scrambling, then its vast weight pulled it loose. Its call echoed up the ravine. Seconds later, so did the whomp of its impact.

Dante edged forward, convinced he would see the kapper up on its feet and already halfway back up the cliff. But all he saw was a squashed black body and a settling bloom of dust.

He turned on Ast. "I thought they only came out at night!"

"They do," Ast said.

"Did someone forget to tell me today was one of those night-days?"

"I have never seen nor heard of one hunting during daylight. If they did, we'd never be able to leave the caves."

Dante wiped cold sweat from his brow. "Then how do you explain this?"

The tall man shook his head. "Maybe we've wandered too close to its home. Or maybe it got the smell of you and wouldn't let go."

"Well, we need to get down there for a better look."

"Gross," Lew said. "Why?"

"Because that thing batted away the nether like a stray moth. I need to slice it up to learn how it did that. And also for revenge."

Securing the rope to the cliff and then descending took as long as it always did, but the delay gave Dante the chance to ensure the damn thing was well and truly dead. The rock wall was pale limestone, a sharp departure from the black basalt of the foothills. Once Dante stood on the ground, however, he only had eyes for the body.

Which he approached gingerly. And poked with his sword before coming any closer. It wasn't breathing and blood pooled beneath it. One of its eyes had been smashed in the fall. The other gazed dully at the cold sky.

Lew hung back, nose wrinkled. "Is it..?"

"Smashed into monster-paste?" Dante said. "Thoroughly."

The fetid odor of viscera and interrupted digestion hung in the base of the canyon. The rubble of the bridge lay in jagged piles. The kapper's jaws were beak-like, capable of snapping through an arm or a leg without resistance. Dante knocked on one of the plates, producing a heavy, dull sound.

He cocked his head. "Lew, in the course of your studies, did you ever perform any dissections?"

"No!"

"Sounds like it's time for you to learn."

While Lew busied himself looking horrified, Dante assessed the creature's anatomy. The plates on its back were up to two and a half feet wide. Not the sort of thing Dante felt like lugging up and down the escarpments and cliffs. Those on the skull were much smaller, but skulls being skulls, they'd probably be the most difficult to cut through. The armor around its ankles, however, was more akin to scales than full-on plates, and with a brief test, Dante determined they were also deflective of nether. He got down, set out an array of knives, and began cutting.

The ankle scales overlapped, protecting each other, and it took a lot of time and cussing before he was able to pry one up and saw away at its leather-tough connective tissue. He cut free a thumbnail-sized scale, pocketed it, and detached three more in quick succession. He stood, giving some thought to trying to excavate one of its spiral horns, but again, skulls. Besides resorting to chunks of the fallen bridge, he didn't have any tools for heavy-duty work. Anyway, he wasn't much for trophies.

He gave the body one last look, probing it with the nether, which slipped off the scales but was able to penetrate the eye, nose, mouth, and posterior orifice. No other obvious points of ingress.

He knew there was more to learn, but if he stayed in the ravine any longer, they might not reach the place where the light had fallen until after dark. Dante intended that day's encounter with a kapper to be his last.

They climbed out of the canyon and continued east up a series of steep slopes interrupted by rock-strewn plateaus. During the more strenuous climbs, Dante had a hard time catching his breath; the air had thinned. Between that and his heavy expenditure of the nether, he had difficulty keeping pace with the others. He was happy for the rest when they stopped at an ice-cold stream to fill their skins.

Finally, even the grass had a hard time clinging to the dirt. Peaks reared to right and left; they'd entered the bowl where he thought the light had landed the night before. The valley had little features besides a smattering of boulders that blocked line of sight. The area wasn't large, however, and the three of them spent the afternoon wandering back and forth across the rocks, searching for—well, Dante didn't know, precisely. For anything that looked like it might have fallen from the sky in a bed of light.

They encountered nothing that fit that description. Or much of
anything
, for that matter. The land was too high for life to take hold. The day left Dante exhausted, cold, blistered, and annoyed. He barely had the strength or interest in fashioning them a cave for the night.

"What do you think?" Ast said once they were installed in it and the sun was dying to the west.

"That I'm fifty kinds of tired," Dante said.

"This is the valley where we saw the light touch down."

"I know that."

Ast went silent, profile illuminated by the gentle glow of the torchstone at its lowest. The man had a tendency to ask provocative questions, then lapse into patient silence once you got tired of being led around by the nose. There was something monkish to it. Either that or it was simply the ability to sit in one place for hours on end that becomes inculcated in men who spend most of their days in the wilderness. In a way, this "lead a horse to water" style reminded Dante of Cally. Except the old man had been far more mercurial, flitting from thought to thought like a strider on a stream. And significantly crankier.
And
not really patient in any way, shape or form, let alone in a monkish fashion. Even so, there were similarities between the two men.

Or there would have been, actually, except that Cally was gone. Lost in service to the war for independence. And for all the power of the Council of Narashtovik, nothing could undo Arawn's summons to the hill below the stars.

Dante sat in the cave entrance, watching the stars of the mortal world twinkle, but no lights came. After a while, he crawled back to the main chamber, which stank with the ripe odor of three travelers who haven't bathed in days.

"We'll have another look around by daylight, then head back," Dante said. "Presuming we aren't devoured by nocturnal monsters."

Ast nodded.

Lew's forehead creased. "Did we see what we came to see?"

"We saw the lights," Dante said. "But if they're telling us something, I don't know what it is. Or what more we can do."

Dante punched his blankets into the least uncomfortable arrangement he could manage and put out the torchstone. He had nearly drifted off when a voice piped up in his ear.

"Er, hello? Hello, Dante?"

Dante jerked awake, heart pounding. Though he had created the object—the loon—now delivering a man's speech to him from a couple hundred miles away, he hadn't used his since the day he and Lew had left Narashtovik. After so much silence, the intrusion hit him with a moment of sheer terror, like turning around to discover you aren't alone.

"I'm here, Nak," he said, failing to purge the annoyance from his voice.

"Far superior to the alternative," his fellow councilman said. "How goes the hunt?"

"It's turning up more questions than answers. Today we were assaulted by a creature I didn't believe in."

"Well, that sounds tremendous. Your life is always so exciting. One of these days, you really must take me on one of your adventures."

"A word of advice, then: prepare your order from the locksmith in advance. After we get home, you'll bar your room and never leave again." Dante glanced across the dark cave where the others slept on. "Is this important, Nak? Or did you just loon me to chat?"

"Oh, it's nothing much." Nak sniffed and shuffled parchments. "We found Blays."

"
What?
"

Nak chuckled. "Thought that might get your attention."

4

Blays gazed dumbly across the table at the duke. So much work flushed away. Along with what might well be his best chance to crack the foundation of the empire. It was the sort of thing that made him want to give up—but it was important to remain mentally flexible, to acknowledge there were always other solutions. Such as the carving knife on the wooden block sitting between them.

To occupy his hand, Blays reached for a cup of beer instead. "I'm afraid I don't understand, milord. Didn't you just agree this was a wonderful opportunity?"

Dilliger nodded, a hint of pain to his smile. "I did, and it is. It's simply the wrong time."

"Wrong time?"

The duke raised an eyebrow, as if Blays were committing an error by asking a single question. Which he probably was. The rulebook for discussing money with blue bloods was thicker than the
Cycle of Arawn
.

"I'm sure I'll kick myself for missing this," the duke said. "But if capital is currency, most of mine is ice. It froze just after I accepted your visit. I'd hoped it would melt before we met—but alas."