A Cavern of Black Ice (104 page)

"One cup of this in the well
before they wake and draw water for the day will be enough for that."
Magdalena added a pinch of salt to the cup. "You should have at
least three hours to do what you will. A man could uncover much
hidden gold and precious stones in that time."

Thurlo shifted his weight. When he
spoke his voice was low and tight. "Aye."

Magdalena's distaste for him deepened.
Profit was not his motive here. He did not seek to drug the family in
the woods to rob them, though he wouldn't be above poking around
teakettles and forcing locks when he was done. He had seen a
household of women and girls and now had rape on his mind. She had
read the desire in him three nights ago in Drover Jack's, when he
spoke with bright eyes and a mouth wetted by saliva and ale. All she
had done was offer him the means: drugs to render the family
senseless in exchange for information. Now the deal was nearly done,
and Magdalena Crouch was eager to be parted from this man.

She raised the cup. "Taste it, so
that you may know the strength of the drug."

Thurlo Pike thought himself no one's
fool. "You taste it first."

The maiden was more than happy to do
so. The taste of salt was not unpleasant to her, but she still made a
face. "Here," she said, thrusting it toward him. "I
didn't promise it would taste like mother's milk."

Thurlo Pike took the last step he would
ever take. As he raised the cup to his lips and sniffed, the
Crouching Maiden warmed her knife.

It was over in less than a instant: a
blade thrust through the rib cage, lungs, and heart, in that order.
Magdalena preferred to do her killing from behind. The back bled so
much less than the soft flesh of the abdomen and chest. The cup
rolled into the water with a
plop
as a gust of wind shook
the basswoods and ruffled the roofer's collar. Magdalena held the
body upright until she felt the soft slump of unsouled flesh, then
yanked her knife free and let him go the way of the cup. The hole she
had made in the ice fit him perfectly, and he slipped through to the
cold black waters below. Within an hour the surface would be
completely refrozen, and an hour after that the storm would dust it
with snow. Thurlo Pike wouldn't be found until spring.

Magdalena sincerely doubted he'd be
missed.

Turning her back on the pond, she
cleaned her knife, not with water or snow, but with a soft rag
moistened with tung oil. She was particular about such things, and
although her knife was plainly wrought and of little value, she had
no wish to replace it. Its steel carried the sum of lives she had
taken.

With a small movement she removed the
blade from sight before her own reflection had chance to settle there
and catch her eye, then started up the slope. If she was lucky she
would arrive at Drover Jack's one step ahead of the storm.

*** The wolves were drawn by the smell
of sickness. Raif heard them call to each other, long notes that
wailed in the darkness like the calls of children lost, then dropped
away with the wind. Once, when he had looked back, he had seen
one—high upon the basalt ridge, its eyes burning like blue
fire. An ice wolf.

They smelled Ash: the wrongness in her
body, the blood that had rolled from her nose to her mouth and had
now dried to a black crust on her lips. She stank of weakness to
them, like a lame elk, or an aging moose, or a horned sheep riddled
with lasp worms. The smell meant easy prey. Raif tried not to think
about it, tried to force every last bit of his strength into carrying
Ash across the barren, snow-dressed valley he had entered. But the
howling of the wolves took something from him. The creatures hunted,
and as Raif stepped from a trench onto a shelf of hard rock and saw a
second pair of ice blue eyes watching from the shadows, he knew they
were sizing their prey.

There was nothing for Raif to do but
continue walking. "Wolves will not attack a full-grown man,"
Tern had said more times than Raif had fingers to count. "They
know men from the scent they leave on carcasses and traps, and wolves
learn quickly to pair this scent with death." Raif held on to
these words as he trekked through the falling snow. Sometimes his
lips moved as his mind repeated them.

Ash lay motionless against his chest,
her breathing so shallow that it hardly seemed as if she were alive
at all. Raif watched her face. Air continued to whiten as it left her
mouth:
That
was what kept him moving. He could not tell how
many hours he had walked or what sights he had seen since Ash fell
unconscious. He knew only that he couldn't stop. The cold was
something he no longer gave mind to. Within his gloves his hands were
numb, their circulation slowed by the weight of Ash's body upon his
arms and chest. Another time it would have mattered; he would have
paused to wrap them in a second layer or tuck them in the warm
pockets of flesh beneath his arms. Now he thought only of walking
until he could walk no more.

He had broken First Oath and failed his
brother. He would not break the second and fail Ash.

Exhaustion was something he could not
give in to. He kept his spine rigid as he walked, his mind farming
the pain it caused, using it to keep him awake. He could not feel his
feet and could not recall the last time he had been aware of the
slow-working coldness of snow around his boots. His lips were dry to
the point that to stretch them in a smile would draw blood. Good
thing he had nothing to smile about.

Good thing too that he had passed no
tree or rock formation tall enough to supply south-facing shelter. He
did not know what he would do when faced with the decision between
continuing on and halting for the long night of darkness to come.
Halting would help him, but it would not help Ash.

Raif thrust the thought from him.
Glancing up, he saw snow clouds the color of furnace metal. Good.
There's still an hour of daylight left
. His mind was quick
to allow the lie.

On he walked, forcing his body into the
wind. He stumbled often, stepping into snowdrifts whose true depths
were hidden by shadows or uneven ground or placing his weight on a
prostrate tree only to find its dead bark turn beneath his feet. Ice
was a constant danger. Clan had no knowledge of this valley, and the
thick snow cover made reading the land for frozen streams, muskegs,
and ponds near impossible. Sometimes Raif would spot a line of
willows closely following a depression in the valley floor.
Stream
,
he said to himself with little satisfaction. Knowing that was as good
as knowing nothing at all. Mostly he kept to head ground: basalt
plateaus, rocks, and moraines. The many small climbs were hard on his
legs.

He had reached the midway point in the
valley when he first heard the sound of wolf paws breaking snow. It
was silvery dark now, with midnight blue shadows crouching behind
pines and on the east side of rocks. Snow continued to fall, but a
drop in the wind slowed its descent. Already newly settled flakes
were hardening to ice. The wolf cracked this frozen crust as it
padded downwind of Raif. Raif stiffened for an instant, then
continued walking. The desire to increase his pace ran like heat
through his body, and it cost him dear to control it. The massacre on
the Bluddroad had taught him all he needed to know about predators
and their prey. Like men, wolves preferred their victims on the run.

He could not resist glancing back.
Three pairs of ice blue eyes glowed from the darkness behind him. Two
other shadows moved far to his flank: long-legged, loping, their
great shaggy necks thicker than their heads. Aware the eyes of their
prey were upon them, the pack hesitated, drawing their forelegs
beneath their bodies and lowering their heads. They wanted him to
run.

Raif cracked his lips in a grim smile.
He was so far past running, he doubted if he could manage to break
into a trot if the devil himself were at his heels.

Slowly he brought his head forward and
continued on. A crop of rocks, blunt as cornerstones and half-sunk
into the snow, broke the line of the valley floor ahead. The tallest
was perhaps as high as Raif's chest. It would do.

The pack began to close distance.

Raif thought of nothing but reaching
the rocks. He was too exhausted to feel fear. His arms were numb to
the elbows, and his thigh muscles ached with the kind of pain that
only sleep could cure. As he neared the rocks, he prepared himself to
face the pack. Slowly, over the course of many steps, he turned a
half circle in the snow so that his back was against the rocks and
his eyes met gazes with the pack. The wolves were close now, and Raif
could see the black guard hairs that ringed their eyes and their
muzzles and the snow white fleece of their throats. The hackles on
the first wolf rose as Raif looked at it, and its ears dropped flat
against its skull. The second wolf bared yellow teeth. Another
growled, a long, vibrating rumble that skimmed the snow. All slowed…
waiting to see what the pack leader would do.

Keeping his gaze fixed upon Pack
Leader, Raif dropped slowly to his knees. The wolves were nervous,
excited by the smell of blood and weakness, but fearful of the
creature who would turn and look them in the eyes. Raif suspected
fear would hold them only so long. Pack Leader's belly was narrow
beneath its coat of silver fur, its cheeks sunk to the depth of
its eyes. Watching it, Raif knew with cold certainty that his father
was wrong. This one would attack a man.

The wind drove a flurry of snow into
Raif'sface as he lowered Ash's body to the ground. Her weight had
been a part of him for so long it was as if he were peeling away his
skin. She sank motionless into the foot-deep snow, her chest sinking
to the lowest point. Raif risked glancing down to check that the bare
skin of her nose and cheeks was not in contact with snow or ice. The
pain in his freed arms made his eyes tear as he reached out to draw
the hood around her face.

Pack Leader snarled, its blue eyes
shrinking to slits. Lowering its neck, it pounced forward and snapped
its jaws at the air.

Raif flinched. The wolves saw it, and
the air thickened with their calls.

Rising, Raif reached back and pulled
the willow staff from his belt. His hands felt huge and numb, and the
wood hardly registered in his grip. It nearly rolled from his glove
as he stepped over Ash's body and put himself between her and the
pack.

The wolves were claiming space. Teeth
bared, they charged forward, making swift imaginary strikes. The two
wolves bringing up the rear were now only a short distance behind the
lead three, and Raif saw dark patches of matted hair, a white ridge
of scar tissue on a foreleg, and a torn and bloody snout.

Pack Leader ran at Raif. It was all
snout and teeth and maw. Strings of saliva shivered between its fangs
as its eyes winked out to darkness. Raif cursed the aching stiffness
in his arms that made them move so slowly. He barely had time to draw
the staff across his chest and no moment to brace for a blow. The
heat of wolf breath pumped against his throat as Pack Leader charged
at his belly. Raif wheeled back, trusting in the strength of his legs
more than his arms. The wolf's teeth hit wood and the shock of impact
caused both predator and prey to jump back.

The two guard wolves moved forward as
Pack Leader shook its great head and edged back into the pack.

Raif barely had time to curse the dead
flesh of his arms. A second animal came for him, launching its long
gray snout at the unboned flesh at Raif'swaist. Again Raif had no
choice but to step back. His nostrils filled with the rangy aroma of
wolf musk. Gagging, he forced his arms to raise the staff. The
clack
of teeth meeting wood split the night.

Angry at his own weakness, Raif forced
the cold meat of his hands to buttress the staff. The second wolf
retreated, and this time Raif made a show of chasing after it,
sending every wolf except Pack Leader scampering back.

Kill an army for me, Raif Sevrance
.
Raif's jaw tightened. What was one wolf compared to that?

He made his stand twenty paces from the
rocks. Stripping off his gloves, he bared hands mottled blue and
yellow to the night. Swiftly he closed his fingers in a new
arrangement around the butt of the staff. All around him wolves' eyes
burned with silver blue light that looked borrowed from the moon.
Raif had mind for only one pair. Pack Leader stood at the head of the
formation, its snout bunched, its lips pulled back revealing the hard
purple substance of its gums.

Raif dropped his gaze from its eyes to
the muscled bow of its chest… and within an instant sighted
its heart. Big as a man's, but beating twice as quickly, it rested
against the wolf's ribs: a fist of gristle and meat. Blood heat and
blood stench mingled in Raif's mouth, and he had no way of knowing if
they were his own or the wolfs. Pack Leader's heart was his, and it
was all dancing after that.

Snarling, the wolf hunkered for an
attack. Raif raised the butt of the staff high above his head. As the
animal pounced he waited…
waited
… until the
darkness at the center of its open maw was all that he could see. And
then thrust the staff down its throat. Bone crunched. Breath hissed
like steam. Blood shot from the cavity in a fine mist that wetted the
upside of Raif's face. Down the staff went, down the gullet to the
heart.

The wolf hung there, its paws no longer
touching earth, spitted upon a branch of willow like a suckling pig
ready for the hearth. Raif watched as the blue ice in its eyes melted
and the curled bullwhip of its tail fell flat.
Watcher of the
Dead
. Abruptly he threw the staff from him.

The wolfs body slumped into the snow,
raising a cloud of white ice. Blood seeping from its mouth and the
break in its chest fed the frost a meal of scarlet. The other dogs
padded forward nervously, haunches low to the ground, nostrils
twitching as they pulled knowledge from thin air. Raif ran at them,
roaring.