The Great Rift Read Online Free Page A

gamble. If the wrong person gets wind that we're arming the norren and brings that to the palace in Setteven, how long before the entire Gaskan Empire is marching on the Norren Territories? Three seconds?" Dante crunched into a bit of bread, chewing thickly. "Now what if we have a bow that can drop their towers as fast as you drop your trousers? Won't that give them second thoughts?"
    "And you really think this thing exists?"
    "A bow that can win a war by itself? What are you, an idiot?"
    Blays threw up his hands. "If this is a joke, then so is the fist I'm about to put through your teeth."
    Dante pulled his mind from the creature's, where Mourn was chopping long, straight branches and leaning them against the low crotch of a tree. "I just think it's worth sacrificing a couple days to confirm it doesn't exist. At least we'll have finally seen the Clan of the Nine Pines for ourselves."
    "I heard they once killed an entire Setteven troop over the suggestion they start paying taxes."
    "Donn told me they give their children knives as soon as they can stand. Accidentally cutting themselves is part of the process of learning to use one."
    "Well, we've got to get those guys on board. King Moddegan's army doesn't stand a chance against the knife-babies." Blays blew into his hands. "I'll give it two more days. Past that, and I will begin shrieking until you admit your mistake."
    Two days later—two long, cold, relentless days of aching feet, stiff fingers, and dwindling bread that didn't taste good even when his belly was empty—and Dante was ready to turn back himself. Mourn's course kept his resolve from dissolving completely: the norren was headed straight into nowhere. An eastern course into grassy hills and patchy woods too removed from the roads to see any signs of people besides the occasional hermit or roving tribe. Desolate and windy. A person could spend weeks combing these lands without finding a trace of the people he was after.
    That afternoon, Mourn and his undead pursuit entered a wall of trees whose small green buds were just beginning to displace the stubborn, brittle leaves still hanging from the branches. Deep shadows pooled the ground. Mourn walked noiselessly, hardly stirring the crackly blanket of leaves. After spending a good portion of the last few years learning to do the same, Dante envied the large man's effortless skill.
    Yet with the sun a hand's-breadth from the hills, its light fading from the soil like a summer rain, Mourn suddenly began scuffling his feet, tramping through great beds of leaves as if shouting his name to the world. Ahead, a quiet blue lake winked between the trees. Above its shallow, grainy banks, Mourn was greeted by a trio of tall, stone-faced norren.
    "Found them," Dante murmured.
    "How many?"
    "Um." He stopped, ordering the distant skeleton to take a quick jaunt. Men and women sat around fires, hauled wood, reeled in nets from the shore. "Fifty. Maybe more."
    "I have a thought," Blays said. "If these people are as brutal as they all say, is it wise for two strangers to burst in on their secret forest lair?"
    "Good question," rumbled a voice to the left.
    Adrenaline bloomed from Dante's solar plexus. He dropped into a low stance, drawing his sword with his right and the nether with his left. Blays whipped out his blades with a leathery hiss. Twenty feet away, a man stepped from the trees, young enough that his beard only climbed halfway up his cheeks, but still a foot too tall to be mistaken for a human. A cleaver-like blade hung from his hand, the weapon as oversized as his bearish body.
    "We're not enemies," Dante said.
    "The clan will be here to judge that in a minute."
    Dante flicked his eyes closed. At the camp, men and women grabbed up swords and bows and raced into the woods, backtracking Mourn's route. He ordered the creature to follow them back. He reopened his eyes on the lone norren. "How did you alert them?"
    "Josun Joh watches out for us all."
    "Tell them to bring