A Cavern of Black Ice (110 page)

"The Hollow River." Raif
could not keep the wonder from his voice.

"So we named it." The Sull
warrior sounded tired now. The horn and metal rings in his hair
clicked softly in the wind. "To reach the cavern you seek, you
must break through the ice crust and walk along the riverbed toward
the mountain. Soon you will come to a tributary that feeds the river
to the west. Take it. It is the only entrance to the Cavern of Black
Ice."

Ark Veinsplitter met eyes with Raif
Sevrance. Snow whipped and swirled between them like clouds of tiny
insects, each one delivering a sting of pure frost. Raif's heart was
pounding in his chest. He wanted to ask the warrior how he had known
their destination, but something warned him the answer was best left
unsaid.
Later. There will be time for questions later, when Ash
has visited the cavern and everything is done
.

"The cavern can only be reached in
winter when the waters that flow around it have drained. You are
fortunate to have come when you did, Raif Sevrance of No Clan."
The tone of the warrior's voice didn't make Raif feel fortunate at
all. Before he could speak, Ark said, "Come. We have stood too
long under this cold, moonless sky. My scars ache like new wounds
tonight."

Raif followed him into the tent. Mai
Naysayer was spreading fresh goose grease on the snowburns on Ash's
face. The Sull warrior with eyes the color of ice turned to look at
his companion as he entered. An unspoken communication passed between
the two, and Mai Naysayer stood and left Ash. Unlike Ark
Veinsplitter, who had laid his weapons in arrangement around his
sleeping mat, the Naysayer had a six-foot longsword couched in a
harness at his back. Raif could not see the blade, but the hilt
was cast from white metal, and its two-handed grip was wrapped with
leather one shade lighter than black. The pommel was shaped like a
raven's head.

Raif let his dead man's cloak slide to
the floor. It was the first time he had seen a raven's likeness
stamped on anything used by a man. All clans and cities had their
badges, and many, like Croser and Spire Vanis, chose birds of prey,
but none had claimed a raven for their own. Raif did not know what
ravens meant in the Mountain Cities, but in the clanholds they meant
just one thing: death. A ghost smile crossed Raif's face. Perhaps it
wasn't such a bad thing to have on a sword after all.

"Raif Sevrance of No Clan, and Ash
March, Foundling."

Raif looked up as Ark Veinsplitter
addressed him. The two Sull warriors were standing behind the
firepit, the light from the flames glancing off the down-facing
planes of their faces. They had spoken briefly in their own tongue,
but Raif's thoughts had been on Mai Naysayer's weapon, and he had
paid scant attention to the rough catch of their voices. Now, though,
he saw that they had been discussing him and Ash, and they had come
to a decision on something.

Instinctively Raif crossed to Ash, and
the two parties faced each other across the smoke and flames of the
firepit.

Ark Veinsplitter spoke. "My
hass
and I have spoken of your journey. Like us, you travel north, and
like us also, your path leads beneath the shadows of Mount Flood. The
Naysayer tells me that the new moon which rides tomorrow brings
storms. He says that those burned once by the frost will likely burn
again. And he ill likes the thought of the Foundling treading snow.
To this end we offer to travel with you and take our axes to
Kith
Masso's
ice."

"Ash March shall have my mount for
the journey," said the Naysayer in a voice so deep it made the
air in the tent vibrate.

"And Raif Sevrance shall have
mine."

Raif looked from warrior to warrior,
and finally to Ash. In the bright light of the wood fire her face
looked paler and more drawn than before. It was too much to ask that
she walk tomorrow; he knew that. But it didn't stop him from wishing
that she would turn their offer down.

"What say you, Raif? You think me
incapable of walking on my own two feet?" Although Ash made both
her eyes and her face strong as she spoke, it wasn't nearly enough.

He loved that she had tried, though.
Crouching down, he felt for her hand through the blanket. "I
know how capable you are of walking, but it would ease my mind if you
rode." He waited until she nodded before giving his answer to
the Sull.

"So it is settled." Ark
Veinsplitter's face was grim. "What say you, Naysayer? Is two
days' hard travel enough to reach the
kith
?"

"Nay," Mai Naysayer said.
"More like three."

Marafice One Eye

So the Halfman is gone?"

"Yes, and God and the devil help
him if he ever returns."

"Are you sure he murdered Hood?"

"Do not question me like one of
your flunkies, Surlord. I know what I saw. Seven dead men cannot slit
a live one's throat."

Penthero Iss studied the Protector
General of the Rive Watch carefully as they walked side by side in
the black limestone vault below the Cask. Something would have to be
done about his eye. He had been back only one full day, yet already
the whispers had started. Marafice One Eye, they called him now. It
was not a sight to warm a mother's heart; the spur he had fallen on
had punctured his left eyeball and raised great welts of flesh in a
sunburst around the socket. Little doctoring had been done, and Iss
suspected that the Knife had simply plucked out the deflated eyeball,
pressed his fist into the cavity to staunch the bleeding, doused the
entire thing with alcohol, and then got thoroughly and disgustingly
drunk. Iss smiled faintly as he stepped into shadow. This would
certainly add to the Knife's reputation. The Protector General of the
Rive Watch might become a legend yet.

Marafice Eye had returned from
Ganmiddich alone, telling a tale of how Asarhia had blasted his sept
with sorcery in the slate fields below Ganmiddich Pass. All the sept
had died, their spines snapped like sticks, their ribs smashed to
pieces and driven like nails into their hearts. Marafice Eye claimed
that although he was flung with equal force to the others, the soft
body of one his brothers-in-the-watch broke his fall. Regrettably,
that brother's boots had been kitted with steel spurs.

"I will not be sent on any more of
your petty errands, Surlord. If you want that cursed daughter of
yours brought back find another fool to do it."

Penthero Iss nodded. It was obvious now
that no one could get near Asarhia until she reached. Better to wait
until it was done and collect her then. Besides, he needed his Knife
here, with him. "You know the Master of Ille Glaive has doubled
the number of his Tear Guard, and has turned no Forsworn from his
gates all winter?"

The Knife grunted. "He swells his
numbers, as all the Mountain Cities do. The clanholds at war is a
tempting target to one and all."

"No doubt. But if anyone is going
to make first claim upon the southern clans, it will be the armies
and grangelords of Spire Vanis. Not the Master of the City on the
Lake."

"There is good land beyond the
Bitter Hills. Swift rivers. Fine grazing. Roundhouses with proper
battlements and defenses, not like those stone turds they build up
north."

So the Knife had liked what he had seen
of Ganmiddich. Perhaps the journey north hadn't been an utter failure
after all. Penthero Iss came to a halt by a limestone column carved
with the image of a three-headed warhorse impaled upon a spire and
turned to look the Knife in his one remaining eye. "A dozen
grangelords are massing armies as we speak. Lord of the Straw
Granges, Lord of Almsgate, and the Lady of the East Granges and her
son the Whitehog are just a few who have been calling their hideclads
to arms. They see the time coming when they will ride north and claim
portions of the clanholds for themselves."

"Lord of the Straw Granges! That
fool couldn't piss out of his own bed, let alone lead an army north."
Marafice Eye punched the column with the heel of his hand. "And
as for that tub of lard Ballon Troak, who now styles himself Lord of
Almsgate…" Words failed the Knife, and he punched the
column again. "I'd sooner follow the bitch of the East Granges
into battle. At least she knows how to ride a man then leave him for
dead."

Penthero Iss smiled thinly. Marafice
Eye's assessment of the three grangelords might be crude, but it was
entirely true. He was clever in low ways, the Knife. It was easy to
forget that. "Whatever their faults may be, meekness isn't one
of them. They want land. All the grangelords do. They have sons and
fosterlings and bastards and nephews, and the cityhold of Spire Vanis
is hemmed in by mountains and barren rocks. North is the only way to
expand. North, into those fat border clans."

Aware that his voice was growing
louder, Iss worked to control it. The thick walls of the Blackvault
created echoes, and broken bits of his own words floated back. "The
world is about to change, Knife. Land will be won and lost. A
thousand years ago Haldor Hews rode out with a warhost and claimed
the ranging ground south of the Spill and all land west of the
Skagway. A thousand years before that Theron Pengaron marched north
across the Ranges and founded the city where we stand today. Now
another thousand years have passed, and it's time to take more. War
is coming, make no mistake about it. Houses and reputations will be
made.
Men
will be made. Fortunes will be brought home and
divided amongst brothers and kin. And the only question that really
matters is, Will Spire Vanis move first to claim her portion, or will
we wait until it's too late and let the Glaive, the Star, and the Vor
take it all?"

Iss met eyes with Marafice Eye. "What
say you, Knife? It's been a hundred years since an army rode forth
from Spire Vanis. The grangelords will raise their own forces and
carry their own banners, but one man alone must lead them." He
stopped there, knowing he had said enough. It was always better to
leave a man enough room to reason things out on his own.

Marafice Eye's face was hideous in the
candlelight. His missing eye needed stitching, and weeks of
white-weather travel had turned his skin to hide. Earlier Iss had
detected a limp, and even now, as the Knife stood silent and still,
he clearly favored his right leg. When he spoke his voice was harsh.
"So you would give me an army, Surlord? Send me to wet-nurse the
grangelords and their armies and claim land in the names of their
soft-arsed sons?"

Iss shook his head. "You will ride
at the head of all armies. First claims and first plunder will be
yours."

"Not enough, Surlord. If I wanted
land, don't you think I would have armed myself and taken some by
now?"

"But what of your
brothers-in-the-watch? Would they turn such an offer down? Clan land
and clan plunder would mean riches to them."

That
made him think. It wasn't
as easy to turn down wealth for his sworn brothers as it was for
himself. The Knife was deeply loyal to his men. Just this morning,
the first thing he had done upon entering the fortress was walk to
the Red Forge and tell his brothers-in-the-watch how he had lost
eight of their men. Fool that he was, he had brought back all the
dead men's weapons, and they had fired up the forge then and there.
The mercury-treated metal was cooling even as they spoke. New swords
had been cast. The refiring deepened the red taint and set the
memories of brothers lost in steel. It was the closest the Rive Watch
came to belief.

"Ganmiddich is fine land,"
Iss murmured, echoing the Knife's own words. "They say in spring
the hunting is so good that a man just has to ride with his spear
sticking out, and elk and deer simply run themselves upon the tip."

Marafice Eye snorted. Still, Iss could
see the gleam of interest in his one blue eye. "Who would watch
the city if the Rive Watch rode to war?"

Careful now, Iss reminded himself. "He
who leads an army must also raise one. Almstown must be smashed. Able
bodies must be recruited and trained. Every man in this city who
can
fight must be made to do so. The grangelords can do only so much.
They are known and feared only in their granges. You, Knife, are
known from Wrathgate to Vaingate and the grangeholds beyond. You
could raise an army and a safekeeping force single-handed."

"The Rive Watch has defended the
city and the surlord for twelve hundred years."

"The Rive Watch was birthed in
war. Thomas Mar forged the first red swords with the blood of his
brothers-in-arms. When he and his last twelve men took them up, they
wrested the northern passage from Ille Glaive."

Marafice Eye could not deny it. Nor
could he deny that it was the Rive Watch who smashed the city of High
Rood, slaying the settlers and masons who had come from the Soft
Lands to build a rival to Spire Vanis one hundred leagues to the
east. The Rive Watch rode forth when it suited them; both Iss and the
Knife knew it. And the only question that now remained was, Would
they ride forth with Marafice Eye come spring?

Iss needed them. The grangelords and
their hideclads were not enough to take on the clans. Oh, they
thought
they were, with their swords of patterned steel and
their horses bred as tough and ugly as moose stags, but the Surlord
knew differently. Without a hard man behind them, they would crumble
as easily as oatcakes in the hands of a child. "What say you,
Knife? Will you lead the army north to crush the clans?"

"My men will be given first claim
on all land?"

"And titles of grangelords as soon
as roofs are raised over land held in their names."

The Knife stroked the dagger at his
belt, his small lips pressed so tightly together that it hardly
looked as if he had a mouth at all. "There is risk here,
Surlord."