Барб Хенди - Of Truth and Beasts

Those other shallow, angular protrusions were not embedded boulders. He could see the outlines for what they were—the bones of long-forgotten buildings at various points up the shallow slope.

Had there been a settlement here long ago? That was strange for the middle of nowhere.

Chane walked back along the edge he had exposed. He noticed a fallen tree, weather grayed, lower down the slope. Hacking off pieces, he gathered what he could before turning back the way he had come. But he paused, glancing back once at those ruins’ remains, and remembered what Ore-Locks had claimed at the shattered pylon.

Something is out there, along our path.

Chane was tempted not to mention this place at all.

Before dawn, they had found a decent spot to camp between two ridges up the pass’s western slope. A tiny, if somewhat clouded, stream trickled down a rock crevice to replenish their water casks. Walking into camp, Chane found a fire burning with the remains of last night’s wood. Wynn was bent over a pot at the fireside.

“I’m telling you, they are edible,” she said emphatically. “As long as they are thoroughly cooked with enough water.”

Ore-Locks frowned, almost to the point of disgust, showing more emotion than usual. Lying nearby, Shade grumbled, her head on her paws.

“What is edible?” Chane asked, dropping the wood beside the fire.

Wynn looked up, and he noted her dust-laced hair. She wore it loose tonight, and instead of wispy and light brown, it looked flat and dull in the firelight.

“Oats,” she answered.

Both surprised and dubious, Chane leaned over the pot. “The stone-rolled ones ... for the horses?”

“It’s the most abundant foodstuff we have left. Domin Tilswith and I were forced to live on them several times. They are perfectly edible if cooked down enough ... but a pity we have no honey.”

Shade made a little retching noise and squirmed around to face the other way.

Chane regretted the lost hare from a few nights back, more so when he studied the cream-colored goop Wynn was cooking. Fortunately, he would not have to eat it.

“Did you find anything else?” she asked.

“Nothing to eat,” he returned. “Only ... only a place.”

Wynn stopped stirring. Ore-Locks was still slightly aghast, watching the pot. He blinked and looked up.

“A what?” he asked.

The look in Wynn’s eyes made Chane clench his jaw, wishing he had said nothing at all. But it was too late.

Wynn held her crystal over the half-buried stone remains. Excitement—even hope—slowly built within her.

“Well?” she asked Ore-Locks.

He’d done some digging and unearthed a forearm’s height of a stone wall’s base. He was crouched, examining it.

“This was cut by my people,” he confirmed. “Humans do not fit stone like this without mortar, but ...”

“But what?”

“I see proof of only three dwellings. My people do not live in small villages in the middle of nowhere.”

“So what was this doing out here?” she asked.

Wynn twisted in her squat and spotted Chane a few paces off with his arms crossed. For some reason, he’d been resentful about bringing them here. Shade sniffed the ground all around but didn’t seem any happier than Chane. Wynn ignored them both.

Ever since finding the broken pylon and Ore-Locks’s mention of a ground-level entrance into the mountains, her thoughts hadn’t stopped churning.

“What do you think it was?” she asked Ore-Locks.

She couldn’t keep the tremor from her voice. When she saw her own hesitant hope mirrored in his face, it made her falter for an instant.

“Perhaps a way station for overland travelers,” he said slowly. “My people have constructed a few such north of Dhredze Seatt, along the coast toward the Northlanders’ territory. But those were built on a well-traveled route and—”

“Then Vreuvillä was right!” Wynn cut in excitedly. “Dwarves once used this pass to interact with the Lhoin’na ancestors. But we are nowhere near the range’s southern side and the seatt itself. Where were the dwarves coming from, going to, that they’d require a layover here?”

No one spoke, but Chane’s expression grew darker. What was wrong with him?

Wynn scurried over to join Ore-Locks. “Are you certain your ancestors might be capable of building a passage all the way through the range?”

“If you sages believe much was lost in your Forgotten History, then there is no telling.... But I wonder what knowledge and skills my people may have once—”

“No!” Chane nearly snarled.

Wynn stiffened in surprise as Shade’s head swung toward him.

“Even if you find such a thing,” Chane went on, “we are not wandering down some tunnel beneath mountain after mountain, with little food, nothing to hunt, and only hope of fresh water. If we travel for days and nights and reach only a cave-in, do we walk back out, only to find ourselves worse off than before?”

Chane crossed his arms tighter.

“ Pohkavost !” he hissed, anger making him slip into his own language.

Wynn didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t wrong in calling it “lunacy.” Everything he’d said was valid, but he was not in charge here.

To make matters worse, Shade normally growled if Chane took that kind of hostile tone. She hadn’t, and instead she got up and sat right in front of Chane, glaring at Wynn.

Ore-Locks remained crouched in silence. Wynn didn’t need to glance back to know he was waiting for her to end this rebellion.

She was tired, hungry, filthy, and had no wish to fight with the two companions she trusted—and she certainly had no wish to side with Ore-Locks.

It suddenly occurred to her that while Chane and Shade had both remained at her side, aiding her, the more she gained hope in her purpose, the more reticent they’d become. Did they want her to fail, to abandon this desperate task and just go home—to be the dutiful little sage, finally obeying her superiors?

“If we found a passageway on this side,” she said calmly, “we would not even have to search for the seatt. It would lead us right there.”

Chane took a step forward, his mouth opening to argue, but she stood up in the same moment.

“We have to try,” she told him. “We have to at least look. It’s better than facing another moon or more wandering in the mountains, trying to find the remnants of a lost seatt on the edge of leagues and leagues of desert.”

The words building in Chane never left his parted lips. Maybe now he would finally accept that no matter what, she would still follow her own path.

Shade rumbled at her softly and began walking over. Wynn wasn’t about to tolerate a heated argument of chopped memory-words, either.

“No,” she said, holding out her hand. “We’re doing a search. Maybe I’m wrong and there is no passage, but these ruins, this place, existed for a reason.”

She turned away, facing south, though it was too dark to see the foothills of the pass’s end, let alone the mountains. Then she looked down at Ore-Locks still crouched at the base of the exposed wall’s remains.

It felt wrong to hurt those close to her by turning to him, but whatever his motivations, he was the only one willing to help. If she could find a passage built by the ancient dwarves that led directly into the seatt, half this battle would be won.

“Well?” was all she said to him.

Ore-Locks simply nodded.

Ghassan il’Sänke was no closer to finding a way inside the seatt. He had given up counting days or nights. He searched the lower reaches of the headless mountain until exhaustion took him, and he simply dropped where he was to sleep. When the rising sun, or a sharp wind, or the night’s chill woke him, he searched again.