The White Tree (23 page)

"I mean, out
there
," Dante said, gesturing his palms up away from each other to take in the woods and the sky. "Something violent."

"If you're talking about life," Blays said with light annoyance, "that started a long time ago." He bit into the leg of a rabbit he and Robert had caught the day before. Dante shook his head and tried to look serious.

"There's going to be a Fourth Scour or something. Cally says we might be able to help him stop it."

"And you trust Cally?"

"You don't?" Dante said with honest surprise. Blays shrugged at him. "It's not just him," Dante went on. "I don't know what you heard while you were in the clink, but it was all over the streets. There's riots down in Bressel. Other places, too. People are getting hurt."

"City people riot over everything," Blays said. He plucked some grass and tossed it at Dante one blade at a time. "One day they're rioting over how it's too hot. The next day they're back in the streets about how it's not too hot enough."

"We'd have to go to Narashtovik. It's on the north coast of Gask."

"That far?" Blays examined him. "Do you want to go?"

"I don't know," Dante said, and found that though those words hid a sea of desires and doubt, they were nonetheless true. "Do you?"

Blays took a last bite from his drumstick and lobbed it into the fast, shallow waters of the stream.

"Whatever you want," he said. "If you think we need to go, we'll go."

Dante nodded. "If we're going, we should leave tomorrow. Waiting will just make things worse."

"I'll tell Robert."

"Think he'll take it okay?"

"I think he'll come with us," Blays said, and Dante could only nod again, silenced by an emotion he couldn't grasp and wouldn't want to put into words. Blays popped up, brushed grass from his legs and dirt from his seat. "Don't tell him I told you, but he thinks you're on to something." He laughed, ruffling his own hair. "He wants to hop onboard your wagon before it rolls off for the land of mead and honey-haired women."

"This needs to stop," Dante said, then laughed too. "I'm serious."

He went back to the shrine and started packing. With little else to do and possessing the brand of spirit that couldn't devote a whole day to any one thing, Blays and Robert had hunted more meat than the four of them had been able to keep up with. Most of it was salting in the cellar, the rest was hanging from a lattice of branches they'd arranged to soak up the smoke from the outdoor firepit and that so far hadn't been molested by a passing bear. Dante gathered up as much as he thought wouldn't spoil on the trip (the nights had been flirting with freezing, giving his guess a lot of leeway) and stuffed into a sack the meat and some of the breads and vegetables Cally had smuggled in from the city twice a month. He gathered his things, his candles and books and papers and knives, and leaned them inside his bedroom door. In the morning, he'd be able to leave as soon as they'd eaten. Cally bumped into him as he was making a final scan of the temple, sized him up, and offered him a slight, solemn nod.

At dinner they ate a great haunch of the boar Robert had brought in days before and drank stream water so cold it stung Dante's teeth. The other three shared a bottle of wine Cally dredged up from the cellar, then a second, then Robert slugged down most of a third. Dante sipped from the same glass all night, rising only when Blays and Robert staggered off to their respective rooms to sleep it off.

"This is the right choice," Cally said then.

"So you say."

"I won't pretend to know how to measure the value of one life against another. But there are times when it's easier than others."

"A few weeks ago I didn't know about any of this," Dante said. He rubbed his eyes. "It still doesn't feel real."

"The legends make it sound grand to be swept into causes you have no part in, but in truth it's grim and it's unfair and it wears you down." Cally stood and moved around the table to put a hand on Dante's shoulder. The skin of his fingers was a lusterless white, flaky from the dry air. Dante didn't move. "Take comfort you won't be alone out there. And that, whatever happens, you're doing something that will keep all these people down here safe."

Though he didn't expect to find any rest in his immediate future, Dante managed to fall asleep in little more than an hour after he laid down. They rose shortly after dawn, gathered up the sacks Dante'd packed, slung them over the three draft horses they'd stolen the day of the Execution That Wasn't and since bought saddles for through the anonymous agents Cally used as go-betweens for his needs. They took up their weapons and their trinkets and their charms. Cally took an old sword from the shrine's walls and gave it to Dante, deflecting his protests with the advice there's nothing more dependable than a sharp hunk of metal. They ate a light, quick meal, then sat in the saddle in the cold morning light outside the shrine, saying their thanks and goodbyes to the old man.

"One last thing," Cally said when they'd hit that final silence between when they'd said everything they needed and when they were ready to ride off. He fumbled in his robes, then produced a wax-sealed letter. "It's for an old friend of mine. He's a monk by name of Gabe. You'll find him in the monastery of Mennok in the town of Shay. It's pretty much on your route."

Dante took it from him and tucked it under his doublet. His gloom from the previous night had evaporated with the daylight and the knowledge they were on their way to somewhere he'd never imagined he'd see. There was a big horse underneath him. The air smelled like damp earth and was lightly cold from a rain during the night, but he knew he'd warm up once they started moving. He was glad, for the moment, to be who and where he was.

"Can't you just fly it to him on the wings of a talking crow?" he said down to the old man.

"Good gods. Just get him the damn letter."

"I'm beginning to doubt you can do anything at all."

"Shut up," Cally mused. He scratched the thick gray beard on his cheek. "Don't leave town before he's read it. He may be some help. He used to be a fairly useful man." He bit his lip. "If he hasn't died, of course. It's been a while."

"We'll die of old age ourselves if we don't head out soon," Blays said. Robert chuckled.

"Then get the hell out," Cally said. "I'll finally be able to read in peace without it sounding like a war outside my window."

"We'll miss you too, old goat," Blays called over his shoulder as they started into the woods. Dante turned in the saddle and waved to the old man. Cally held up his time-gnarled palm and watched them go. A cloud passed over the sun, throwing him into shadow. Dante cupped his hands to his mouth and quacked.

9

Twelve hundred miles, Dante figured. Between winding roads and the detour to Shay, they could count on twelve hundred miles of travel. Honestly, it sounded insane. It sounded like the kind of trip you started off expecting to lose a third of your men along the way. He shifted his seat, trying to get used to the horse beneath him. The way it bumped, the way its muscles rose with more strength than his entire body. Twelve hundred miles of getting jostled around by this monster. Pilgrims and caravans would take a season to cover that much ground. Robert had looked at the horses and the route and projected they could do it in six weeks of steady travel—not counting snow.

Snow could change everything. None had stuck around Whetton yet, meaning they could count on the first two hundred miles to be clear at that moment. The slow rise of the plains could be completely different; so could the weather in the valley in the five-odd days it would take to reach those plains. The valley almost always saw snow at some point, though some years the Lower Chanset didn't get dusted until the full thrall of January. Already it was late November. Unless they could gallop so fast they turned back time, there would be snow by the time they reached the north. In that sense, it wasn't worth thinking about: it wasn't a matter of if, but when, and whether they walked or rode hell for leather, they would see snow before it was through. All they had to worry about was reaching the pass through the Dunden Mountains before it got snowed in.

Cally's shrine was about twenty miles west of Whetton. They traveled northeast, meaning to intercept the northern road a safe distance above town and follow it as far as they could into the mountains. They rode with no particular hurry, both to give Dante and to a lesser extent Blays the chance to learn how their horses reacted to their commands before trying anything fancy (like moving faster than a walk). Dante had done some riding back at Cally's, but by and large the ways of a horse were as foreign to him as those of the neeling.

Twelve hundred miles. Plenty of time to figure out just how crazy all this was.

He pulled his cloak around his shoulders. It had grown thinner and more ragged since the night he'd stolen it off the body in Bressel, poorly mended and open to the wind. They'd need sturdier clothes. Take care of it all in Shay: Cally's friend, nice thick cloaks and blankets, fresh food, maybe even a night in a real bed.

Blackbirds and robins and crows twittered and coughed. Squirrels and rabbits and larger things crackled among the fallen leaves. The sun swung up into the sky and pierced through the bare branches, warming their bodies. They didn't talk much. No sense throwing out their voices on the first day.

"Good to be out of that place, huh?" Robert said after an hour or so.

"I was starting to get the stir-crazies," Blays said.

"Something off about the old man." Robert let the sunlight fall on his upturned face. "Appreciate his help, but I won't miss him."

"He helped more than you know," Dante said.

"No doubt about that. Just not my sort of company."

A stream crossed their path two-odd miles on and they dropped down to drink and let their horses do the same. Dante watched Robert walk up to the stream and stoop to scoop water into his mouth.

"You don't walk funny," he said. Blays and Robert exchanged a look and a laugh. Fine. Dante drank, flexing his fingers against the cold.

"It's just a name," Robert said.

"Pretty weird one."

They stretched their legs, then got back in the saddle. Robert spent a few minutes rubbing his beard.

"I'm thirty-some years old now," he said to no apparent cue. "Couldn't say for sure. Split the difference and call it 35. Back when I was a young man, a couple years your elder, I'd been at the pub long enough to be feeling right when I stood up to go tap my private keg and found my right leg was completely numb. Been sitting on it a while, I guess, and when I tried to walk it just dragged along behind me. Couldn't feel a damn thing." He chuckled, running his fingers through his beard. "Earlier that night I'd thrown some lip at a man I'd just met. One of those loud, boastful men who's always watching to make sure everyone's watching him as he goes on about the strength of his arm and the speed of his blade and how big the tits on the last one he banged. The kind you want to stave in their head just to shut them up. I'd just offered my opinion on the likelihood of a canine presence in his maternal lineage, but him being that kind of man and all, he didn't see the restraint I'd employed to keep our differences purely verbal.

"Well, fellow sees me stand up, or more rightly
hobble
up, between the booze and my leg, and then limp around the room trying to get back the feeling. He sees his chance: not only am I drunk, but evidently I'm lame. Chance to take back his honor without sticking out his neck. Even a man fundamentally scared inside as him thinks he can best a lamed drunk.

"He comes up and at once I see the murder in his eyes. Spend enough time at pub and you develop an eye for that pretty quick. Anyway, without a word I've drawn my sword and he's drawn his and we're squaring off. He's dancing this way and that, right and left, taking pokes at me, trying to get me off my balance. I've got half a mind to what he's up to by then and bide my time, letting my leg wake back up. Drunk as I was I knew I wasn't in any real danger. He was decent at best, but I was good. Damn good.

"Doesn't take long before my leg's tingling and just a few seconds after that it's hurting a bit but I knew I could move it just fine. I kept up the act, shuffling around the same spot, letting him build his spirit, and soon enough he's taking this big swing meant to open my defense for his backstroke. I jump aside like quicksilver on a griddle and strike for his heart."

The man chuckled some more, gazing back through the years. It was clear he'd told this story often. Dante guessed this pause was part of the telling.

"Well, for however clear my thinking, however swift my sword, I was still about half a mug short of stinking, and my blade just went through a lung and a few other parts that will kill you but not exactly clean like a good whack through the ticker. I kicked the oaf off my sword and he fell down and gave me a look like I'd cheated him at cards. 'You're no cripple!' he gasped. 'And you're no swordsman!' I roared back.

"The crowd cheered and rolled him out in the street to die somewhere else. They bought me so many rounds I don't remember much else. Just when I woke up the next afternoon and slouched back in all scared for the watch the crowd cheered again and hailed out 'Robert Hobble!'"

Dante joined their laughter. Robert hadn't meant what he'd said about Cally, he'd decided. He'd just been talking.

"Tried that trick a few times after that," Robert added after they'd settled down. "Every time I realized I'd caused some serious trouble, which wasn't half so often as when I'd actually gotten in the stew. Then I'd catch that look in their eyes and I'd start limping around like a man without a foot. Men are like dogs when they see a man's got something wrong. They'll tear him apart just for being broken. If you can get them to come at you thinking you're somehow less of a man, you'll live a very long time."

"Didn't they catch on after a while?" Dante said.

"Sure did," Robert said. He winked at Dante. "Every man in every pub in Whetton knows my name now. These days when I insult them, they just laugh it off. Imagine that, I have to leave my home town just to get in a fight!"