A Cavern of Black Ice (29 page)

Dark blood rolled across her fingers
like treacle. Menses. Ash breathed deeply, trying to recall the
calmness she had felt earlier when confronting Katia and Caydis
Zerbina. She needed it more than ever now. Time passed and still her
hand shook, and she realized that this was as calm as she was likely
to get.

Moving slowly, she brought her thighs
together to prevent any more blood from staining her clothes, held
her wet hand clear of the bed, and shuffled to her feet. Once she was
satisfied there were no bloodstains on the sheets, she stripped bare,
isolating her underskirt and underdrawers, which were the only items
stained, then picked up the small fruit knife from the dresser and
began to hack away at the linen. This took time. The knife was almost
blunt and her hands persisted in shaking, and the linen was winter
weave, so doubly thick. All the while, she pressed her thighs
together and held something deep inside her clenched.

Well before she was satisfied with the
smallness of the linen pieces, she began to feed them into the
brazier. The charcoal took a lot of stirring and blowing before it
produced a decent flame, but eventually the fire got under way. The
linen pieces burned quickly, crisping to nothing within seconds.
There was a great deal of smoke, and Ash supposed she should open the
shutters and fan it out, but she had a lot of other things to do and
even more things to think about, and she would get around to it soon
enough.

Tying a linen strip between her thighs,
she crossed back to the bed. The ice was gone, melted to a dark
puddle shaped like an eye. Within an hour even that would be gone,
and soon there would be nothing left to prove that it had ever
existed. Ash contemplated the drying stain. That's what she needed to
do: melt away without a trace.

The
Bluddroad

Red fog surrounded them like the haze
rising from a vat of boiling blood. The air was bitterly cold and so
still that the sound of lake ice cracking under tension could be
heard five leagues away. It was dawn, and Raif supposed the sun was
somewhere, rising over the tops of the Copper Hills, casting its
strange and bloody light upon the road. Raif grimaced. He couldn't
see anything beyond the two riders directly ahead of him.

Frost had warped his boiled leather
cuirass, making it chaff against his neck. He had not slept well. No
one
had slept well. A cold camp raised along the
northeastern edge of the Dhoonehold was no place for a Hailsman to
rest.

"
All halt
!" Corbie
Meese's hiss blew through the mist like a draft of cold air. His
voice, which had been formed by the Stone Gods to do the one
necessary to all hammermen as they fought—bellow at the tops of
their lungs—did not sound right forming whispers. It was like
listening to a dog meow.

Still, everyone was quick to obey him,
reining horses within a space of twenty paces. Metal on all bridles
had been bandaged to prevent frostbite to the horses, so there was
little noise. Even the hammermen had rubbed oat flour into their
chains to prevent them from rattling and betraying a position. Sharp
winds two nights earlier had dumped the snow into drifts, and Raif's
borrowed filly was up to her hocks in dry white powder.

The raid party formed a loose circle on
the sparsely wooded slope, their mounts tightly reined, breath
venting in white bursts, eyes dark as coals beneath their fox hoods.
Bailie the Red had freed his bow from its case and was busy warming
the waxed string between his fingers. Drey and several other
hammermen adjusted the straps on their hammer slings for ease of
draw.

Corbie Meese pulled back his hood so
all could see his face. Jabbing his chin southeast, he said, "Road's
below us, just beyond those stone pines. Should be plenty of cover,
but with this piss-thick mist about us it's hard to tell a molehill
from a moose. We'll know better when Rory gets back. Last time I rode
here there were trees to either side of the road, but that was ten
years back, and times have changed since then. The Dog Lord's no
fool—you'd do well to remember that." A brief glance
included Raif and some of the other younger yearmen. "And he
knows a likely ambush site when he sees one. According to Mace, he's
ordered the felling of all trees along the Bluddroad. 'Course, unless
he's got an army of woodsmen hidden up his dogskin draws, he won't be
reaching here anytime soon. But that isn't the point: The Dog Lord
knows
the dangers. You can bet your bowfingers that any man
of his traveling this road will be armed to the teeth, nervous as a
wench squatting in a bush, and ready to attack at the first sound of
an arrow knocking wood.

"Now the mist's in our favor, but
don't let it make you lazy. There'll be foreriders in the Bludd
party, and when they can't see their own horses' heads afore 'em,
they'll stop looking and
listen
instead. So keep your horses
on tight rein and no moving or drawing steel once you're in position.
Right?"

Raif nodded along with the rest. His
mouth was so dry he could feel the ridges on his teeth. At some point
while Corbie Meese was speaking, the fact of what they were planning
to do had sunk in. He had never shot a man before, never set his
sights on anything larger than a snagcat. But he knew, in that deep
part of himself where the shots came from and the arrows passed
through on their way to their targets, that he would be good at
shooting men.

"Course you'll need to keep an eye
to the mist. If the wind picks up, it'll be gone afore you've had
chance to shift your arses in the saddle." Corbie Meese looked
grim. The hammer dent in his head was filled in with a wedge of red
fog. "More than likely we're in for a wait. The Bludd party
could pass here any time between noon and nightfall, and we need to
be ready when they come. So I'll have no man leaving his mount."

"Aye," chipped in Bailie the
Red. "So piss now or hold it in." When no one in the party
moved, Toady Walker raised an eyebrow and said, "No pissing over
the horses' backs, gentlemen. Riles 'em something rotten."

Everyone laughed in the quick,
reflexive way that owed more to tension than to humor. While most in
the party were busy making last minute adjustments to their weapons'
casings, Drey trotted his black stallion over to Raif. Keeping his
hood up so only those who were directly in front of him could see his
face, Drey leaned close to his brother and murmured, "Whatever
the split, you come with me." Before Raif could answer, he
turned away.

Raif stared at the back of his
brother's head. A split? This was the first he'd heard that the
ambush party would be divided. Uneasy, he reached inside his oilskin
and felt for his lore. It was the first time he had touched it in
nearly a week—ever since the day Shor Gormalin's horse had
brought its master home. Raif took a breath and held it in. The hurt
of Shor's death had not passed. He could still remember the dark look
in Shor's eyes as he left the Great Hearth, still see him flinch the
moment Raina Blackhail admitted joining with Mace. Abruptly Raif
dropped the lore.
Watcher of the Dead
. How many deaths would
he watch today?

Snow crunched ahead, somewhere deep
within the fog curtain. Bailie aimed his bow. Corbie Meese called
softly, "Rory?"

"Aye! Tis me. Don't shoot,
Bailie," came the reply. Raif couldn't help but smile. From his
position well below them, Rory Gleet couldn't possibly see Bailie the
Red, yet he knew enough about the red-haired bowman to guess that
he'd already drawn his bow. Seconds passed, and then blue-eyed Rory
Gleet rode into view, his hood pushed back, his sheepskin mitts caked
in sap and pine needles, and his boiled-leather halfcoat weighted
with clods of frozen snow. He wasted neither breath nor time. "Road's
clear. No sign of horse or cartage since last snow. Five dozen or
more stone pines have been newly felled on the road's south verge,
but whoever was set to the task got bored or cold or sent to another
section before he could finish the job. As it is, the area around
first choice has been poorly balded, but three hundred paces beyond
that there's an area of newgrowth above the road. The pine crowns are
at a height to conceal mounted men, and directly across from them
there's a copse of dogwood and ash. Between the two, there's enough
cover to conceal thirty men."

Corbie Meese nodded. "Aye. Well
done, lad."

Rory Gleet tried but couldn't quite
stop his face from coloring with pleasure. Not for the first time,
Raif found himself regretting the incident at the Great Hearth door
when he'd forced Rory from his post.

"Right," Corbie said.
"Bailie. You head the southern party. I'll take the north. We'll
count a dozen men apiece, and the remaining five will form a rear
guard, quarter league east of the ambush site, to block Bludd's
retreat and pick off runaways." Corbie scanned the ambush party,
his light brown eyes hard as flint, a muscle in his right cheek
pumping. After a while his gaze settled on Drey. "Do you think
you can handle the lead in the rear?"

Drey pushed back his hood. His hair was
plastered against his head, sweat and six days of grease making it
appear darker than the chestnut brown it normally was. His face was
pale, and Raif was struck by how much older he looked than the day
they had shot ice hares by the lick. It was never Drey's way to speak
without thinking, and when he stripped off his glove and turned down
his elkskin collar, Raif guessed he was reaching for his bear lore.
Raif had always envied him the bear. Tern had been a bear, like his
father before him and his uncle before that. Every generation of
Sevrances produced a bear.

Watching as he weighed the bear claw in
his fist, Raif realized why Corbie Meese had chosen him. Drey was
solid, dependable, and he possessed none of the rash cockiness that
took most yearmen five or more years to overcome. Raif felt his chest
ache with envy and pride.
One day
, he thought.
One day
Drey will make a fine chief
.

"I can handle the rear guard."
Drey's voice was level. He slipped the bear lore beneath his
softskins.

Corbie Meese and Bailie the Red
exchanged a glance, and Raif knew that Drey had done right in their
eyes by taking time to weigh his lore. Corbie beckoned him closer.
"Right, lad. Here's the cut. If all goes to plan, there
shouldn't be much for you to do. The Bludd party will pass you a good
three minutes afore they reach us, so your job is to stay back from
the road, high up beyond the tree line, and keep your men silent as
corpses. There'll be no signaling done. I don't want to hear one
clever owl hoot or loon call. Nothing. The only time you move from
your positions is
after
you hear us attack. Then your job is
to get onto the road as fast as you can, and take down any Bluddsmen
who attempt to retreat. Understood?"

Hearing Corbie speak, Raif began to
understand why the hammerman had given the command to Drey when there
were full clansmen available to take it. The real danger and the real
fighting would fall upon the two attack parties: It would be they who
risked their lives, they who fought at close range. Corbie Meese
wanted all the seasoned clansmen with him. Raif could not fault him
for that. The retreat party would be there as a fail-safe to pick off
any runners or stragglers. Drey nodded slowly. "What makeup?"

"Yourself, another hammerman, two
bowmen, and a swordsman. Remember that everyone in the Bludd party'll
be a trained warrior. More than likely they'll be spearmen or
hammermen. They fight fierce and their weapons are weighted, so
unless you fancy a hammer notch to match mine, give them a wide
berth." Corbie Meese poked his dent with a gloved finger. "Keep
your bowmen above the road, and have them shoot from cover."

Party members were picked by Corbie and
Bailie. When Bailie suggested that Raif go with Corbie in the north
party, Drey spoke up. "I want him with me. Take Banron Lye
instead."

Corbie Meese looked at Drey a moment,
perhaps waiting for the yearman to explain himself, but when Drey
said nothing further, he nodded once. "It's your party. The say
is yours. The lad goes with you." Minutes later they set off.
Winding their way through paper birches as pale as wax candles, they
headed east along the slope, high above the road. The horses' mouths
had been soft bound with sheepskin to prevent them from blowing and
whickering as they moved. Raif had braced his bow, and it was now
balanced across his cantle. He rode with an arrow in his fist.

Overhead, the sky was the color of
rotting plums. The fog had begun to thin, and much to Raif's disgust
it had turned from red to pink. Slowly, gradually, one tree and
sandstone crag at a time, the taiga northeast of Clan Dhoone was
beginning to emerge from the mist. The land was a mineshaft of drops,
cut banks, and jutting rocks. Pine roots burrowed deep into the soft
blue sandstone, pulverizing bedrock as they grew, making for
treacherous ground. Small ponds, deep and dark as wells, beaded the
creases between slopes. All of them should have been frozen, but they
weren't, and Raif could only guess mineral salts or mineral oil as
the reason.

No one spoke. Raif doubted if there was
saliva enough in his mouth to roll his tongue, let alone utter a
word. All five of them were yearmen: Bullhammer, Bitty Shank, Craw
Bannering, Drey, and himself. Craw was the second bowman. Raif hardly
knew him; he was older than Drey, dark skinned, with a clever face
and long, tattooed fingers. He might have been betrothed to Lansa
Tanner, Raif wasn't sure. Bullhammer was Bullhammer, a great big bear
of a man with bristles for eyebrows and the most frightening smile
the clanholds had ever beheld. Everyone loved him; it was impossible
not
to love a man who could uproot a five-year-old foxtail
pine with a single mighty hug.