“Altitude sickness?” Taniel said.
“Comes from being so high up,” Gavril said. “Darden and I, we’re acclimatized. Others get thirsty, and bloody noses, headaches, sickness in their stomach. Of course, you’ll be fine.”
“I’ll be fine? Why?”
Gavril didn’t answer. The Novi woman approached them. “Would you like to rest before heading up?” she asked.
Taniel knew he should, but he couldn’t risk Bo getting wind of his arrival. “No thank you.”
“It should be an easy climb,” she said as she led them through the monastery. “We’ve started clearing the road up to the summit.”
They passed by many adjoining corridors that seemed to stretch deep into the mountain, and by dozens of smaller rooms, doors open, monks within. There were both men and women. Taniel paused just outside one bedroom. A monk sat cross-legged on the floor, leaning over a box of colored sand, making patterns with a long, curved stick. Taniel did not see many monks outside their rooms, though he did hear voices down from the deeper corridors. He’d never imagined that Novi’s Perch was this big, or that so many people lived this high up the mountain all winter long.
Ka-poel paused at every room and hallway, the smile on her face like that of a child who wants to explore. Taniel dragged her along impatiently.
After many flights of stone stairs they reached a sudden end. It looked identical to the entrance on the other side, down to the same double doors.
“The doors will be barred after you have gone through,” the Novi woman said. “There are… others… on this side of the mountain.”
Taniel paused at this. He opened his mouth to ask her, but she retreated down the hallway. Taniel was left alone with Gavril and Ka-poel. The big mountaineer shrugged.
“The monks have strange stories,” he said. “About what kinds of creatures come out during the winter months, up in Kresim Kurga. They’ve been waiting longer each year before letting the pilgrims up.” He shrugged again. “I’ve never seen anything strange up there, myself, aside from the odd cave lion. Ready?”
Taniel put a hand on Gavril’s chest. “I’m heading up alone,” he said. Then, to Ka-poel. “I want you to stay here too.”
She scowled at him.
“I need to have a private talk with Bo. It shouldn’t take too long, and the monks said the road is clear.”
Ka-poel held up a finger, then jerked her thumb at herself.
“No,” Taniel said. “You’re staying here. With Gavril.”
Gavril chewed on the inside of his cheek. “I really should… ,” he rumbled.
“No,” Taniel said firmly. He hefted his rifle. “I’ve got this for cave lions.”
Taniel heard Gavril bar the door after he’d gone out and wondered whether the big mountain man was getting any ideas about Taniel’s visit. He might suspect something. But then, the man was a drunk. Taniel’d get a few drinks in him back at Shouldercrown before he headed off.
The trail widened enough that there was comfortable space between Taniel and the cliff edge. Eventually the sheer rock face on his left softened, until it became a rocky, snow-covered hillside. The trail was not steep here, and he didn’t need his snowshoes.
Taniel spotted the cave from quite a ways down the road. It was easy to see—the entrance was as big as a house. He found a good knoll not long after. It was a small hill, perched just higher than the trail, between the trail and the cliff edge. He climbed it carefully and settled down in the snow. It was perfect for a marksman. He could see the cave entrance completely and he was hidden by snowbanks.
The only downside was that it sat on the edge of the cliff. It might have been ten thousand feet to the bottom, for all Taniel knew. He dug his fingers into the snow. If Bo got wind of Taniel, he’d be swept off the knoll with the flick of Bo’s fingers.
Taniel watched from his vantage for several minutes. His powder trance allowed him to see details of the cave even though it was far off. The entrance pointed just slightly off center from him. It appeared bored into the side of the mountain, with a thin footpath leading up to it and a steep hill of ice and snow on the left. It was perched right on the edge of the cliff.
The cave was occupied. A thin trail of smoke curled from within, rising straight into the windless sky, and the footpath was heavily trodden. Taniel opened his third eye to confirm it—Bo was there, his pastel glow wavering beside a fire inside the cave. Taniel crawled back off the knoll and opened his gear.
Taniel began getting ready. He moved methodically, double-checking everything, cleaning the flintlock and pan of snow and checking the barrel before he began. He bit the cartridge and primed the pan, and then poured the powder and ball into the muzzle. A little powder on his tongue to deepen the powder trance, and then he rammed down the cotton. Lastly, he brought out his sketchbook and flipped open to one of the first pages—Bo. A sketch Taniel had done on the voyage to Fatrasta. Bo was clean-shaven with short hair and wide cheeks, a smirk on his lips. Taniel tapped the likeness with one finger and climbed back up onto the knoll to wait.
He remained there as the sun passed its noon height and began to descend to the west. The air cleared, and from his knoll he could look out to his right and see all of Kez, distant plains and cities shimmering on the horizon beneath the setting sun.
The passing time gave Taniel’s mind the chance to wander. He couldn’t help but think of Vlora. As young lovers they’d spent afternoons shirking their training to take to bed in cheap inns. He smiled at those memories and felt his heart beating faster. No, that wouldn’t do. He had to keep calm as he waited for his quarry. He remembered one of those times, returning to find Tamas waiting. Tamas had informed him that Taniel and Vlora would marry when they were old enough, and that had been the start of their engagement.
Unbidden, images of Vlora in bed with another man came to his mind. His hands trembled until he pushed those images away. He forced himself to seek the calm of his powder trance. Think objectively. Did he love her? Perhaps. He’d always enjoyed her company. But did he really love her?
Taniel often wondered about love. It sometimes seemed a foreign concept—something out of poems. Vlora was the first woman he’d grown truly close to since his mother’s death, when he was six. He had few memories of his mother. Most of what he knew of her had been told to him afterward: that she was a powder mage and a member of the Adran nobility, though her mother had been Kez. She’d been a hard woman on the outside, as hard as Tamas, but he distinctly remembered a gentle nature that emerged when they were at home. Even when Taniel had a governess to watch him, his mother had always been present.
That had changed after her death. Taniel had gone through a string of governesses, whom he strongly suspected Tamas had been sleeping with. And then the governesses stopped, as if Tamas had had enough. The next woman to enter their lives was Vlora. He remembered competing with Bo to try to impress her. It was the only time in his life he’d been able to best Bo for a woman’s affections. Did that mean she was the only one for him? No. It was too big a world for that.
It was surprising to him how little he thought of her now, so many weeks after ending their engagement. He touched his pocket, where he kept the rumpled likeness of her he’d torn from his sketchbook. No, he did not love her. He’d been hurt by her betrayal, but mostly in his pride. Their marriage had been a foregone conclusion for so long that it seemed strange not to have it looming in the future anymore.
He wondered what her assignment was now. Was she still attached to Tamas’s staff? Tamas wasn’t overly sentimental, not by any stretch of the imagination. He’d be angry that the wedding was called off, but he’d not want a talented powder mage like Vlora far off.
Taniel found himself grinding his teeth together. Not sentimental. Ha. Sent his own son up here to kill his best friend. Why would he do that? Was it punishment for letting Rozalia live? Was this some kind of test, to see if Taniel was still loyal?
No, it wasn’t any of those things. It was
pure expedience for the old bastard. Taniel was the best shot in the army. He could shoot a man’s hat off at three miles on a windy day. If that wasn’t an option, Taniel could get close to Bo without raising suspicions, and put a knife in his gut. When would Tamas learn that expedience was not always right? He’d certainly had a dose of it when he threw Nikslaus into the Adsea. Taniel couldn’t help but feel proud of his father for that. The pride was short-lived.
“You’re going to have to take a shit eventually,” Taniel muttered to himself as the day wore on. He remembered a time, crouching on a knoll in the king’s forest outside of Adopest. He’d been fourteen. Bo had figured out where the queen and her handmaidens liked to bathe in the river. They’d concealed themselves on a knoll for almost twenty-four hours before the women had come down to the river. Bo had been armed with a looking glass; Taniel had a horn of powder and the eyesight of a powder trance. It was risky, and they both knew the beatings they’d get if caught. Yet the queen was said to be one of the most beautiful women in the Nine.
And she was. The wait—and the risk—had been well worth it.
There was movement in the cave. Bo emerged. He stood in the entrance to the cave and rubbed his hands together, looking out over Kez not a foot from the edge of the cliff. Taniel wondered how Bo could do that without quaking at the fall. He took a deep breath and steadied himself for the shot.
Bo turned to examine the hillside. He removed a thick fur hood, and Taniel examined his childhood friend down the barrel of his rifle. Bo’s hair had grown long in the Mountainwatch, and he sported a thin, unruly beard. He’d lost a lot of weight since Taniel had last seen him. Bo studied the hillside and then looked down the road toward Taniel.
Taniel resisted the urge to duck. Bo was looking right at him. Bo shielded his eyes from the sun and tugged absently at his Privileged’s gloves. The arcane symbols on the back of the gloves caught the sunlight, and Taniel wondered whether Bo had surrounded himself with a shield of hardened air. Bo’s strongest elemental aura was air.
Did Bo know he was here? Was Bo waiting, laughing to himself, ready to strike Taniel down when he betrayed his position? Was he watching Taniel with his third eye? Taniel couldn’t sense Bo’s third eye, or any kind of shield. Taniel’s finger tightened on the trigger.
Bo stood there for another minute or two, squinting down the road before he turned to go back inside.
Taniel swore to himself. Why the pit didn’t he pull the trigger? He’d had a good shot. He sighed. He knew the answer.
“To the pit with it,” he said aloud, and stood up.
He came off his knoll and gathered his gear, then headed up the path toward Bo’s cave.
Pit, what was he going to say? ‘Hi Bo, how have you been, I came up here to kill you? But don’t worry, I’ve changed my mind. I hope everything is fine between us.’
Taniel gathered his thoughts and his resolve—or what was left of it, anyway. He shook his head. He’d been forced to choose between duty and his friend. He hoped that made him a good friend, because he was a piss-poor soldier.
Taniel took one step onto the thin trail leading to the cave and froze. Bo had come out of his cave again. Perhaps fifty paces separated them. Bo would clearly see the rifle over Taniel’s shoulder. Would Bo recognize him? Taniel pulled the furs away from his face and tried to smile. He raised a hand in greeting.
Bo’s eyes narrowed. Taniel swallowed. Bo tugged on his Privileged’s gloves. They blended in with the snow, all white, save for the gold symbols on the back.
Taniel opened his mouth to call out a greeting.
“Not another step,” Bo shouted. “Stay where you are!” He tugged on his gloves again, and Taniel could see something on Bo’s face that he didn’t like. He knew why Taniel had come.
Bo raised his hands over his head. The pose was almost comical. Bo was not a big man, and his thin cheeks and the wispy beard made him look like a boy. Bo’s chest rose and fell, his breathing wild. He was gearing up for something big. Taniel didn’t have to open his third eye to know that Bo had touched the Else with his gloved fingers. Sorcery poured into the world. Taniel squeezed his eyes shut.
“Get down, you fool!” Bo screamed.
Taniel’s eyes flew open. Something hit him from behind, bowling him over. He flew down against a snowdrift, blood pounding in his ears as something big rushed by. Was that Gavril, all wrapped in his furs?
Taniel felt his heart lurch into his throat. No, that wasn’t Gavril. That was a cave lion.
The name was a misnomer. It didn’t look much like a lion. Its back feet were padded, like a cat’s, but its front feet were clawed like a rooster’s with three great talons as long as sickles. It had a head like a tiger’s and the deep, broad chest and maned shoulders of a lion. This one was bigger than any Taniel had ever seen or heard about. It made a Fatrastan swamp bear look small by comparison, and it rushed down the trail toward Bo on its hind legs.
Bo’s fingers worked in the air as if plucking at the strings of an invisible cello. The air cracked, thunder peeling against the mountainside as lightning burst from the clear sky and connected with the lion’s head.
The creature wasn’t even stunned. It sprang from two feet onto four, bounding with the speed of a jaguar. Smoke rose from its furry mane.
Bo jerked one arm into the air and then let it fall. Ice on the hillside above the cave lion suddenly surged down, a mini avalanche, hitting the lion with the force of ten carriages. The ice split, sliding around the creature as it ran onward, as if it were a shark’s fin cutting through the top of the sea. Wind buffeted it; flames shot from the clear air and sprayed across its face. The lion ignored them all.
The cave lion was fifteen paces from Bo, and Bo was looking tired. Sweat poured from his brow. His fingers twitched, jerked at unseen strings. The lion stopped in its tracks.
It slowed, shook its hoary head, and continued onward.
“Don’t just sit there.”
Taniel felt himself jerked to his feet. Gavril was there. His face was red from a long, hard run. He held a spear in one hand, like the kind used to hunt boar.
“Shoot the damned thing!”
Taniel flipped his rifle off his shoulder and sighted. The creature shook its head, as if dizzy, and let out a low howl. It slapped its ears with both clawed hands. It jerked about, slamming its head against the ground as if its skull was full of bees.
Taniel pulled the trigger. The beast’s head jolted back where Taniel’s bullet hit it. He felt his eyes go wide. The bullet had connected and simply slid off the lion’s ugly face—just like it had the Privileged in Adopest. It howled again and made a gesture of disgust toward Taniel with a taloned hand. There was sorcery in this creature, the kind gods are made of.
Taniel felt the snow beneath him explode. He was thrown into the air, toward the cliff edge. He landed in the snow and slid, unable to find any purchase. He scrambled for some kind of hold. There was nothing. He’d go over the edge in a second.
His boots hit solid ground. Rock jutted from the side of the mountain, a sheet a man’s length across beneath his boots that hadn’t been there a moment before. Taniel struggled to climb back up to the trail. He felt hands grab him.
“Come on,” Darden said. The old Deliv Watcher was armed with a spear in one hand, just like Gavril was. He dragged Taniel up with the other. Ka-poel was there too, lending her small strength. She gave Taniel a wide-eyed stare and then hurried after the others.
Taniel looked for his rifle. It was on the ground, too far away. Did he have time to reload? One glance toward Bo told him no.
Bo retreated to his cave, his back against the rocky wall of one side. The cave lion surged toward him on two feet. It plowed onward as if against a current, each step a struggle. A struggle it was winning.
Gavril reached the lion first. He thrust his spear up, sinking it into the lion’s soft flank. It gave a wail and turned on him. He leapt out of range of the raking claws just in time and rolled back down the trail.
Darden jumped over Gavril’s rolling form, spear held at the ready, and rushed the cave lion.
Darden exploded. One moment he was there, the next he was gone. Blood and ribbons of tissue spattered the mountainside. The cave lion howled triumphantly. Taniel didn’t have time to think, didn’t take a moment to consider Darden’s blood soaking his coat. He aimed both pistols and fired.
A powder mage can float a bullet for some distance. It gives his shots extra range, and it cost nothing but his own mental exertion and a bit of extra powder. He can also ignite powder, transferring the energy by touch. A good Marked can do it with bullets, giving one the strength and energy to pierce rock or steel.
Taniel ignited his whole powder horn and pushed the blast behind his bullets.
They tore right through the cave lion. It screamed as bubbling green blood sprayed the icy trail. The lion turned from Bo, its howls sounding like the scream of a wounded horse, and instead turned to face Taniel. It raised a taloned hand. Taniel felt the heat of approaching sorcery.
Ka-poel squeezed past Taniel on the narrow trail, throwing herself between him and the beast.
“Dammit! Pole, no!”
Ka-poel lifted both hands defiantly. She held something in one hand—a doll. It was naked and about the size of a hand, shaped from wax. The craftsmanship was superb. Every part was accurate to a person—a woman, to be precise—especially the face. It was Julene.
Ka-poel stabbed the doll with a long needle. The cave lion howled again and clutched its side. She jammed the needle into the doll’s head, scrambling the tip about inside the skull. The lion twitched and growled. It scratched at its ears and face, which left long, bloody cuts. Ka-poel bent forward, took a long, deep breath, and then blew on the doll.
The cave lion burst into flame. Bo renewed his attacks, fingers flying, lances of ice bursting from the inside of the cave to smash against the lion. Shakily, Taniel reloaded one of his pistols. He had a few powder charges left, though his horn was empty. What could he do against a creature like this? It was trapped between Bo and Ka-poel’s sorcery but it refused to die. How long could they keep it up?