A few rows back and to one side, Ka-poel and Celine kept their horses close and spoke in Ka-poel’s sign language, eyes on each other’s hands. Styke joined them. “We’ve run out of land,” he told Ka-poel.
The bone-eye dropped her hands and stared back at him before looking toward that same grassy hill on the horizon. Beyond it were the high cliffs of the Hammer and a steep drop down to the beach, and then the narrow ocean that separated Fatrasta from Dynize.
“Are we close?” Styke asked. “I want to find this thing and be done with it as quickly as possible. It’s only a matter of time before a Dynize army picks up our trail. I …” He trailed off, noticing that Ka-poel’s eyes did not leave the horizon. Without a sign, she flipped her reins and headed toward the coast.
Styke rolled his tongue along his teeth, feeling the myriad of old aches and pains that seemed to accompany every day at this age. “Where’s she going?” he asked Celine.
“I don’t know.” Even Celine seemed confused, and Styke sensed that there was something wrong in the stiff way that Ka-poel rode.
He leaned toward Jackal. “Keep a close eye on her, and a hand on your carbine.”
“You expect me to shoot her?” Jackal seemed surprised by this.
“I don’t know what to expect. These godstones are unpredictable.” He took a deep breath, trying to fill his nostrils with sorcery, but the only whiff he got was the scent of Ka-poel’s coppery power. He waited, uncertain, for several minutes before finally heading after her. Jackal and Celine followed.
They reached the cliff tops, only to find that Ka-poel had abandoned her horse and taken a steep path down to the beach. Styke watched her pick her way through the rocks.
“Do we wait for her to come back up?” Jackal asked.
“Maybe the thing is on the beach,” Styke grunted, swinging out of the saddle.
They descended to the beach and joined Ka-poel on the shoreline, who was standing with her shoes discarded and her feet in the surf. The water lapped at Styke’s boots, and he watched the side of her face with a growing concern. Her expression was stonelike, devoid of her usual bemusement or defiance. Her eyes seemed distant, as if she were deep in some kind of dream. He breathed in again, trying to read her sorcery, but nothing about the coppery smell had changed.
Jackal clung to the base of the cliff, watching Ka-poel as one might watch a rabid dog. Styke wondered if Jackal knew something he didn’t.
Celine kicked her shoes off and walked into the surf, too, gently taking Ka-poel’s hand. Ka-poel responded to the touch mechanically, her thumb gently stroking the back of Celine’s wrist, and Styke suddenly felt like an invader in a private moment. He clenched his jaw, letting his irritation overwhelm his discomfort, and stepped up beside the two of them. “What are you looking at, girl?” he asked Ka-poel.
Ka-poel’s brow furrowed, and she lifted one hand and touched her thumb to her chest. Styke recognized her symbol for “I” and the hesitation that followed it.
“What is it?” he urged.
Ka-poel’s hands moved. Celine tilted her head to the side, watching as Ka-poel repeated the short phrase several times in a row. Celine’s face grew concerned, and she glanced quickly at Styke and then back at Ka-poel.
“What is she saying?” Styke asked, his mouth suddenly dry.
“It’s … it’s not here,” Celine translated.
Styke felt a knot form in the pit of his stomach, irritation turning to disbelief, to anger in the flash of an instant. “What do you mean it’s not here?”
Ka-poel spread her hands. I don’t know.
Styke grabbed her shoulder, and she suddenly leapt away from him, stumbling through the surf and falling into a defensive stance, her passive face suddenly angry. That coppery scent grew stronger in Styke’s nostrils, and he became very conscious of Celine standing between them.
“Whoa,” he said gently, reaching out and taking Celine by the hand. He pushed her behind him, jaw tight, then set one hand on the hilt of his boz knife. “Explain.”
Ka-poel looked from Styke to Jackal and back again, no doubt taking note of the carbine in Jackal’s hands. There was something suddenly feral in her eyes that Styke did not like – that he had not seen before. Her gaze shifted slowly to Celine, and that feral look seemed to fade. She straightened; then her hands flashed, repeating the phrase from a moment ago. Then she continued.
“It’s not here,” Celine translated. “I was wrong. My … compass was wrong. This godstone is not in Fatrasta.”
Styke resisted the urge to take a half step closer. “Then where have you been leading us?”
“Toward the godstone.”
“You just said it’s not in Fatrasta …” Styke trailed off, realization setting in. He turned toward the western horizon, staring across the ocean in the direction she’d been facing when they reached the beach. “The third godstone is in Dynize?”
Ka-poel gave a short nod.
Styke thought of all the soldiers who’d died to get them here – of the lancers who’d fallen, of the new recruits who’d been butchered by a vengeful Dynize cuirassier, and of his own wounds he’d gathered on the journey. He bit his tongue, hard, clamping down on his rage, and considered having Taniel Two-shot come after him if he staved Ka-poel’s head in this very instant.
“How long have you known?” he managed when he finally allowed himself to speak.
“I have suspected for a few days.”
“And you didn’t tell me this back at the cuirassier camp? Or any time since as we rode deeper into enemy territory?”
Ka-poel’s anger and defiance finally flagged, her gaze falling. “I needed to be sure.”
“So … what?” Styke raised his hands, then let them fall at his sides again. He paced in the surf. “Your internal compass, this thing that’s been leading as many as two thousand men across a continent at war, is off? By what? A thousand miles?”
“More like five hundred, I think.”
Styke scoffed. Five hundred miles. He pointed to the ocean, finally taking that half step forward. “I can’t ride my lancers across an ocean! Unless you’re hiding something beyond that blood magic, I don’t think you can do anything to change that. Can you?” He paused, feeling suddenly lost. All this time, all these lives. For nothing. “Can you?” he whispered.
Ka-poel shook her head.
Styke climbed back up the cliffs, leaving Jackal to keep an eye on Celine. By the time he reached the top, his mind was made up, his resolve strengthened. He found Ibana and Gustar waiting for him, while the lancers prepared a camp just beneath the rise of the hill, where they couldn’t be spotted by passing ships.
“Pack it up,” he said quietly.
Ibana’s eyebrows rose. “Excuse me?”
“We’re going back. The blood sorcerer was wrong. The godstone lies beyond the ocean.”
Both Ibana and Gustar stared at him, working their jaws, coming to terms with this news. “Beyond the ocean?” Gustar asked, rubbing a hand across the stubble on his cheek.
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” Styke couldn’t feel anything but anger right now, and he fought the urge to go find Amrec, take Celine, and ride off before anyone could stop him. He wondered if he should just do that – if this dream of a reborn Mad Lancers was just a fool’s errand.
He shouldered Gustar out of the way, heading toward Amrec. He heard boots behind him, and Ibana say, in a warning tone, “Don’t meddle with him in this mood.”
Gustar snatched him by the arm a moment later. Styke whirled, his boz knife coming to hand, and snatched Gustar up by the front of his jacket. “Pack,” Styke ordered.