“About two thousand riflemen. The Palo Nation doesn’t field real armies. They field highly organized groups of skirmishers armed with rifles that rival the Hrusch.”
This was getting better and better. The Palo Nation had just taken control of Yellow Creek, leaving Vlora once more in enemy territory—and she did assume they were the enemy. Everyone was the enemy right now, because everyone wanted to get hold of the godstone. So much for Burt’s promise. What else was he hiding? “We can’t let them know about the stone,” she said. She looked at Prime. “Your wards to keep the stone hidden, are they still in place?”
“No reason they shouldn’t be,” Prime answered.
“Are they looking for the stone?” Vlora asked Taniel.
He seemed to withdraw into himself once again, his face troubled. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“Then why are they in Yellow Creek? If they had the firepower, why haven’t they seized control of the town before today?”
“It’s not like them to act out in the open south of the Ironhook Mountains. I don’t know what they’re up to.”
“I think I liked it better when you seemed to know everything,” Vlora snapped, feeling her tension get the better of her. “Hurry up, old man,” she told Prime. “We need to get a move on. I damn well hope no one stops Little Flerring on her way up here.”
They continued on their circuit around the town and entered Nighttime Vale. A handful of Palo wearing dusters and holding rifles had replaced Jezzy’s guards, but they were the only other people in the Vale and did not seem to notice the small party passing by.
“I’ve cloaked us in sorcery,” Prime explained. “I always do when I come this way. It’s best to keep the artifact hidden.”
Vlora couldn’t sense even the slightest hint of sorcery. The thought made her sick to her stomach.
Prime turned sharply after they passed the entrance to the Vale and led them up the side of the mountain, not more than fifty paces from where Vlora had crossed over the cliffs a few nights before. There was no construction here, none of the mining equipment or tents that were ubiquitous throughout the rest of the valley. There was just the foot of the mountain covered by a landslide of stone rubble from somewhere farther up the mountainside.
Prime stopped and pointed at the mountain. “It’s difficult to see, but if you look carefully, you can trace the path of the landslide that deposited these stones here.”
Vlora squinted up into the sparse cloud cover, barely able to see the peak through tufts of wispy white. If she squinted just right, she could imagine that the mountain’s peak had once been more squared than pointed, and that one corner of that square had sheared off and tumbled all this way to rest in the Vale.
“The godstone,” Taniel said, voicing the same conclusion that Vlora had just reached. “It was up there?”
“It was, yes,” Prime answered. He looked at them sullenly, scowling at the gloves that Taniel still held in his hands. “You claim that you’re here to destroy it. But it can’t be destroyed. I’ve spent the last five years trying to figure out how to do so and came up with nothing.”
“Have you actually tried to destroy it?” Vlora asked. “Or have you been studying it to further your own power?”
“I must study it to learn its weaknesses.” Prime sniffed. “I have never been after power, my dear Vlora. I only seek knowledge.”
Vlora looked at Taniel. “You remember what Bo likes to say about that?”
“Knowledge is power,” Taniel quoted, giving Prime a sallow smile.
Without his gloves, Prime looked like nothing more than an overweight, cranky old man. He scowled at them both, then shook his head. “You cannot destroy it,” he repeated. “I don’t believe it can be done.”
Vlora thought about all the black powder they had piled around the godstone in Landfall, only for it to cause not even a scratch. “We’ll see. Take us to the damned thing.”
Prime scoffed. “You think you’re so smart, but you can’t even see that which is in front of you. Dismount and take three steps forward.”
Vlora did as instructed, feeling outward with her sorcerous senses for an illusion, or a trap, or anything. She could sense nothing, but as she took that third step, her vision seemed to shift. It happened so suddenly that it made her dizzy, forcing her to fall against a nearby boulder.
“Vlora?” Taniel called.
She waved him off and felt her eyes widen as she took in this new perspective.
The slope of old rubble was no longer there, but rather cleared away from her to the base of the mountain to create a flat work area upon which there was a small cabin, an outhouse, and a canvas canopy covering an obelisk that looked exactly like the one in Landfall.
Her breath caught in her throat, and the sight of the thing gave her a sense of foreboding that she hadn’t felt since the end of the Adran-Kez War. Her chest was tight, her vision blurry. This stone—this thing—that had eluded her for the last month was suddenly here, right in front of her face, and she was speechless.
The obelisk lay on its side. It was not as large as the one in Landfall. Eyeing the dimensions, she guessed it to be around thirty feet long and less than four feet wide, tapering at the end. It was covered in ancient script that had been cleaned meticulously of all dirt and grit, and it was made of a light-gray limestone that made Vlora wonder if it was cut from the same stone as its larger twin back in Landfall.
Taniel and Prime joined them. Taniel did not seem as affected by the sight of the thing as she had been, though his breath did grow short. Prime merely scowled at it, like a man returning to a hated live-in relative.
“So they found you, eh?”
The voice made both Vlora and Taniel whirl, drawing their pistols. A woman had stepped out of the cabin and stood by the doorway, her arms crossed. She looked to be in her late thirties: a slim woman of medium height with a shaved head and an old scar that lifted the corner of her lip and crossed her cheek to her temple. Her arms ended in strange gloves that, upon closer examination, were unmoving bronze hands held in place by leather straps.
Vlora had never met this woman, but she knew exactly who she was from Borbador’s stories.
She was another Predeii, personally responsible for the summoning of Kresimir during the Adran-Kez War. If Bo was correct, she was as much a catalyst of the war as Field Marshal Tamas. Vlora was not happy to see her.
“Hello, Julene,” Taniel said, lowering his pistol.
“Two-shot,” Julene purred. “It feels like we were hanging from Kresimir’s ropes together just yesterday. How have you been?”
Taniel seemed neither perturbed nor particularly surprised to find Julene here. Vlora was both, and she kept her pistol raised for several seconds after Taniel had put away his. “That was ten years ago,” Taniel said.
“When you’ve been alive as long as I have, Two-shot, a decade feels like nothing more than a long weekend.” Julene’s gaze fell to Vlora and she pursed her lips. “I told Prime he should have killed you the moment he spotted you in town. But he’s a damned coward. What do you call yourself, Prime? A pacifist?”
“I went to finish her off,” Prime snapped, “but this one showed up.”
Julene took two steps toward Taniel, her nostrils flaring and her eyes narrowing. “Your blood witch is getting stronger,” she said. “I can barely see the wards protecting you.” She let out a sudden, half-mad, barking laugh. “Bad luck for you, Prime. You finally get up the guts to kill someone and the one powder mage in the world who can stop you happens to be about.”
Vlora looked from Prime to Julene. “Some warning that you weren’t alone would have been nice,” she told Prime.
“You didn’t ask,” he responded.