“You look as insane as L’zar right now.”
“Ha.” The troll grinned. “Maybe I am, kid. Feels damn good to be back behind the wheel of something I understand.”
She grinned and gazed out over the brown grassland as they zipped across it through the Outers of Ambar’ogúl. “There is no wheel.”
“I know!”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
They raced across the flat, lifeless plain for another hour before the landscape changed. A huge mountain range curved toward them from the left, then another from the right until they were funneled into a pass twenty feet wide carved between the rocky ledges. Persh’al slowed the skiff to a safer speed once they reached the pass, and Cheyenne studied the high, jagged cliffs on either side of them.
At least there aren’t any faces trying to break through these.
Persh’al stared straight ahead, his eyes narrowed in determination as his mohawk fluttered in the air. “Once we get through this, we’ll be in the Oronti Valley. We’ll see things start to change once we get there. The rest of this? This isn’t the real Ambar’ogúl, not the way I know it. Trust me.”
Cheyenne frowned. “Oronti Valley?”
“Yeah.” He looked at her and raised his eyebrows. “You’ve heard of it, huh?”
“Yeah. I’m not sure it’s like you remember it.”
“What makes you say that?”
She shook her head and watched the end of the pass growing steadily closer. “Some old neighbors of mine used to live there. A troll family with a young kid.”
“Oh, nice. Represent.” Persh’al thumped a fist against his chest and chuckled.
“They made the crossing, obviously. Because of what happened to the valley.”
His smile faded, and he looked away from her for two seconds before quickly returning his gaze. “Were they farmers?”
“I think so. Maybe radan herders?”
“Oh, I see.” The troll shot her a crooked smile and shrugged, his confidence restored as he returned his attention to the end of the pass. “I wouldn’t put too much stock in stories from the Oronti Valley villagers, kid. The outernóre like to make fun of everybody right to our faces. Farmers and herders? They embellish stuff. Like, a lot. We have a saying where I come from: ‘The Crown takes a shit, and the farmers saw her fly off on a dragon.’” He burst out laughing and slapped a hand down on the control panel. The skiff skittered sideways, and he instantly readjusted with a muttered curse.
“Who’s ‘we’ in that scenario?”
“Huh?”
“You said ‘we’ and ‘where you come from.’” Cheyenne fought back a laugh when she looked at his startled, confused expression. “Who else uses that saying?”
“Shit, kid.” Persh’al rubbed his head and slumped his shoulders. “Okay, maybe it’s only been passed around as a joke. An inside joke.”
“Yeah?”
“Okay, between me and myself. Are you happy now?” He shot her a sidelong glance. “How do you do that?”
“I just asked some questions, man. The rest was all you.” The smile broke free on her lips. “You probably don’t hold up very well under interrogation, do you?”
“Depends on what kind.” Leaning away from her, Persh’al stared down the quickly shortening pass in front of them. “Apparently, I’m a sucker under drow questioning. But let me tell you, I can take a beating and keep my mouth shut. I’ve done it before, and I’ve still got it. If that’s what you’re worried about, you shouldn’t be.”
Taking a deep breath, Cheyenne readjusted her position on the hard bench beneath her and glanced up at the cliff walls racing past them. If I’d forgotten why we’re here, he just handed me a fucked-up reminder. “That won’t be something we have to worry about. That’s why we came here, right? So I can see what I need to see before L’zar crosses with me next time and we put an end to all this? The war. The rot coming through the portals. Having to take a beating and keep our mouths shut.”
The troll wrinkled his nose. “That’s the goal, sure. No guarantees in this game, though, kid. L’zar knew that when he started this whole thing. Damn drow acts like he has all the answers to the universe, but he’s always filtering what he can’t control into the equation. Sometimes, shit goes bad.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed.” Cheyenne lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “I guess what matters is how often it goes bad, right?”
“Sure. That’s a good way of looking at it.”
“So.” She rested her forearms on her thighs and leaned forward. “How often does shit go bad for L’zar Verdys and his band of rebel O’gúleesh?”
Persh’al snorted. “You need to trademark that.”
“I’m serious.”
His smile disappeared as he shot her a quick look. “Yeah, you got your serious face on and everything. Honestly, kid, the last seventy-five years have been the quietest. Still some bumps in the road, but nothing we couldn’t handle as soon as we hit ‘em.”
“So you’re saying it’s pretty smooth sailing as long as he’s behind bars.”
“I didn’t—” The troll shook his head and stared straight ahead. “You and your questions.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Okay, look. He’s a crazy dude. I’ll give you that. Maybe not clinically insane, but he’s got his moments. For as much of a pain in the ass as your father is, the rest of us wouldn’t have walked through fellfire and back for him if we didn’t believe in what he’s doing.”
Cheyenne straightened and rubbed her thighs. “I heard L’zar doesn’t care about anything or anyone unless there’s something in it for him.”
“Who told you that?”
“Corian.”
Persh’al hissed out a breath in a mix of surprise and amusement. “Straight from the nightstalker’s mouth. I wouldn’t call Corian a liar, but I wouldn’t call L’zar a tyrant gorging himself on the subjects he’s supposed to be protecting either.”
“Kinda hard to do when he doesn’t have any subjects.”
Persh’al shot her a quick glance and jerked his head forward again. “No, he doesn’t. But that’s what the Crown is doing, and those of us who are fed
