A Cavern of Black Ice (32 page)

Unable to look the girl in the eye any
longer, he turned the filly and rode away. Bludd breeders and
bitches, Mace had called them. What words would he use for the
children?

A series of high-pitched screams led
Raif to a clearing where Drey, Bitty Shank, and Craw Bannering had
rounded up two dozen women and children. All were dressed finely, in
thick wool cloaks, sable hoods, and softskin boots. Some women
carried babes at their breasts, others hid small children behind
their skirts. One woman, a tall matron with a braid that reached her
hips and eyes as blue as ice, stood proud and stared her attackers
down.

Realizing that Drey intended to cause
no harm to the women, simply capture them, Raif exhaled. He felt
light-headed with relief. The madness of the day was finally coming
to an end. All he wanted to do was roll in his blanket and sleep. He
didn't want to think about the Bludd spearman, or the girl with the
dog scar, or Toady Walker's horse-trampled body.

Chest shaking with exhaustion, head
throbbing to a dead man's heartbeat, Raif trotted over to join his
brother. The Bludd women watched him, their faces crusted with soot
and snow, their hands forming knots against their skirts.

Drey's face was grim. "Pull up
your swordarm."

Before Raif could obey the order, Mace
Blackhail broke through the trees on the roan. His broadsword rested
against his dogskin pants, a thin line of liver blood bleeding along
the blade. He looked first at Raif, then Drey. "What are you
waiting for? I said slay them."

No muscle on Drey's face moved. From
the near side of the glade, Bitty looked his way, waiting to see what
Drey would do.

"They killed our chief in cold
blood," Mace Blackhail said, walking the roan forward, his
yellow-and-black eyes fixed solely on Drey. "They slaughtered
your father in his tent. Bitty's brothers were taken where they
stood. And just five days ago, they sent cowlmen into our woods to
slay our women and children on home ground. Yes, they shot Shor
Gormalin, but don't be mistaken: If Raina or Effie had been riding
that trail, it would have been they who rode home dead.

"Bludd broke faith first, Drey.
Not us. If we let these bitches and their litters go, then both our
fathers' deaths go unavenged." Mace Blackhail wiped his blade
clean against his pants as he spoke. "We are Blackhail, the
first amongst clans, and our chiefs life is worth a hundred of their
women's."

Mace Blackhail stared at Drey with such
force, it was as if he were physically pushing against him. Drey
didn't blink or move, but some thing in his face changed. Raif
couldn't tell what his brother was thinking, didn't know what the
sudden lack of light in his eyes meant, but words Drey had spoken on
the journey home from the badlands slipped into Raif'smind like cold
poison.

We'll make Clan Bludd pay for what
they did, Raif. I swear it.

Raif had no way of knowing whether Mace
Blackhail saw the answer he wanted in Drey's face or not, but
something
made Mace move. Kicking bronze spurs into the
roan's belly, he began the charge. Light ran down his newly cleaned
sword like water, gleaming with all the cold colors from white to
blue. He howled as he rode, baring his teeth and drawing low in the
saddle like something not quite human. The Bludd women and children
began to run, scrambling awkwardly through knee-deep snow.

Afterward, when he thought back on it,
Raif realized that by forcing them to run, Mace Blackhail changed
them from wives and children and turned them into game instead. Drey
Sevrance, Bitty Shank, and Craw Bannering could not have slain the
women and children where they stood—Raif believed that
completely. He had to. But Mace Blackhail had all the inborn cunning
of his lore. A wolf hunts nothing that does not move, and when words
failed him, Mace Blackhail fell back on instinct, changing slaughter
to a chase.

Raif felt its pull. Tired and headsick
as he was, part of him
wanted
to go after them, run them
down, hack them at the knees with his sword, and bring them to
ground. He wanted it so badly, the saliva in his mouth ran clean. The
children shrieked and cried, herding close to their mothers as if
somehow they could save them. Clumsy things, they were, foolishly
heading into thicker drifts, bereft of even an animal's sense to pull
out from the snow and head for the shelter of the trees. The women
were worse, stopping to pull one another up when they stumbled or
fell behind, lifting children too heavy to carry. They acted like a
flock of mindless sheep. Covered in snow as they were, they even
looked
like sheep.

When Bitty Shank rode alongside a thin
mewling child whose cheeks were showing the first yellow blush of
frostbite and plowed his blade into the child's shoulder, forcing him
under his horse, Raif felt a hot surge of excitement take his chest.
The thumping in his head changed to a drumbeat, and the weariness in
his bones shifted into something else. He wanted to join Bitty and
take his share of the game.

The sight of Drey stopped him dead:
Drey with his hammer whirling above his head, his eyes sunk deep into
their sockets, and his lips pulled back to his gums.
Drey
.
He was chasing a young mother and her two small children, and every
muscle on his face and neck pressed against his skin like bone. Raif
felt shocked to his core. His raven lore cooled against his skin,
quick as red-hot metal plunged into snow.

Sobered as surely as if someone had
slapped him in the face, Raif took an arrow from his case and reached
to his saddlebag for his bow. He was going to bring down Drey's
horse, heart-kill the beast, make it drop from under him.

Gone. The bow wasn't there. Raif swore
as he remembered what Mace Blackhail had done to it. He couldn't
understand why he'd just sat by and let him do it. What was wrong
with him? Why hadn't he got angry? Raif shook his head. It didn't
matter. He was angry now.

Kicking the filly into a gallop, he cut
across the glade. A killing field of sounds filled his ears: terrible
wails and screams and panting, the crack of severed bones, and the
thick liquid gurgle of blades yanked free of flesh. Children rushed
before him, bare hands clutching at their hair and faces, hoods and
mittens lost in the chase. Mace Blackhail rode through them like the
shadow of a Stone God, forcing them to move, flee,
run
. Any
who didn't were cut down and then trampled, their bodies driven deep
into the snow.

"
Drey
!" Raif
screamed at the top of his voice as he drew close to the cut bank
where his brother had cornered the young mother and her children.
"
Stop
!"

Drey looked round. Momentarily his
hammer slowed in his hand. He looked at Raif a long moment, a trickle
of saliva rolling down his chin, then he turned and drove his hammer
into the side of the woman's face. A sickening crack split the air as
the woman's neck broke and her head twisted to a place where no
amount of sideways glances would ever take it.

The two small children screamed.
Tearing and clutching at each other, heads and shoulders knocking
together, they tried to squeeze themselves into one. A shudder worked
through Raif's body, rattling his bones like pebbles in a jar.
Wrapping the reins around his fingers, he bore down on his brother,
setting his filly on a path to smack into Drey's horse. The filly
turned at the last moment to save herself, and Raif's shoulders
slammed into Drey's side. Drey was knocked forward in the saddle, his
hammer losing momentum and crashing into his thigh. Furious, Drey
shoved Raif with all his might.

"Get away from me! You heard Mace
Blackhail. We weren't first to break faith."

Raif smashed the heel of his hand into
Drey's hammer arm. "Run!" he called to the children. "Run!"

The oldest child simply stared at him,
and the younger one sat down in the snow and began shaking his
mother's arm as if she were asleep and needed waking. Raif wheeled
the filly around, preparing to scare the children into running. As he
dug his heels into horseflesh, a fist of pain exploded in his lower
back. Breath rushed from his lungs in a harsh gust, leaving a sucking
emptiness in his chest. His vision shrank to two dots, and he grasped
at air and bridle leather as he fell into a tunnel of spiraling
darkness where the snow was as hard as glass.

He came to. A spasm of pain ripped
along his backbone, sharp as if someone had gouged a rusted nail down
his spine. Rolling over, he coughed blood into the snow. Something
warm pushed against his ear, forcing him to twist back and confront
whatever it was: the filly, her great wet nostrils pulling in his
breath, testing if he were still alive. Raif raised a hand and pushed
her nose away. The effort cost him. He lost seconds as he dealt with
the pain. Slowly his eyes grew accustomed to the glare of snow. Three
dark forms, impacted in the snowdrift like rocks, broke the line of
perfect whiteness. A pitifully small amount of blood stained the
surrounding snow.

Raif closed his eyes. His heart grew
unbearably light in his chest. Both children had been younger than
Effie.

Sounds far behind him told of a hunt
still running. Those still alive had little breath to scream, and
hoarse cries and sobs were almost drowned out by the noise of hooves
churning snow. Pushing himself up on his elbows, Raif caught sight of
Corbie Meese and Bailie the Red entering the clearing from the west.
Blood had turned their horses and armor black. When they saw what was
happening they exchanged a small, worried glance. Hope surged in
Raif's chest. Corbie and Bailie were good men; they would do what was
right.

"Stop her! She's getting away!"
The call came from Mace Blackhail, who rode across the glade toward
the two men, chasing a heavyset Bluddswoman before him. Mace
Blackhail could have taken the woman himself—she was struggling
in the snow less than thirty paces ahead of him—but that wasn't
what he wanted. Raif knew that at once. The Wolf needed to share the
responsibility for the killing. He needed the two senior clansmen to
run with his pack.

Raif watched for a while, long enough
to see Corbie and Bailie succumb to the lure of the chase and move
swiftly to head off the enemy that Mace Blackhail was intent on
driving toward them, then turned away. Softly he called for the
filly. Leaning heavily against her, he rose and brushed himself clean
of snow. His back burned. When he probed it with his fingers, tears
filled his eyes. At the very least he would have a hammer-size bruise
there tomorrow.

Not trusting himself to mount, he took
the filly by the reins and led her northwest from the glade. He had
to get away. Suddenly he didn't know his brother or his clan.

Escape

I may stop by and visit the Knife
tonight. What's it to you
? Katia's words echoed in Ash's mind.
The tiny dark-haired maid had said them four hours earlier, and Ash
stood in the shadows behind her chamber door and waited to see if
they were true. Her back ached from standing still for so long, but
she didn't dare risk moving away. Barring opening the door and
checking for herself, listening was the only way she had of knowing
for sure if Marafice Eye had left his post. She didn't want the Knife
catching her peeking around the door. It would only make him
suspicious. No. Better by far to keep her position and wait.

Katia has been telling me how your
charcoal brazier was choked with ashes the other night,
almost-daughter. You haven't been burning anything upon it, have you?
I'm sure I don't need to tell you how very dangerous such a thing
would be.

Ash shivered. Penthero Iss had visited
her room late last night, and although he'd said many different
things on many different subjects, she was sure all he had really
come to say was that he knew about the extra cinders in the brazier.
He was sly like that. What the whole thing really meant was that from
now on he would be watching her more closely, as he was now well
aware that she was up to something improper. Ash cursed Katia under
her breath. Cinders in the brazier? Was there no secret, no matter
how inane, that the girl wouldn't tell?

Frowning, she turned her attention to
the door. Little mouse steps pattered on the stone beyond. Something
creaked. Silence… then a bright laugh quickly muffled. Katia.
Katia was on the other side of the door, talking with the Knife.

Please take him to your room,
Katia. Please
. Ash hated herself for wishing it, hated the
thought of Marafice Eye's massive hands pressing against Katia's
spine, yet she needed the little maid to distract the Knife. She had
to leave Mask Fortress. Tonight. And the only way she could slip from
her chamber undetected was if Katia lured the Knife away for a
bedding.

Bedding
. Ash rubbed a hand
over her eyes, trying to dispel the image the word showed her.
Bedding wasn't the right word for it at all.

Feeling her cheeks grow hot, she risked
taking one more step toward the door. Marafice Eye could speak
quietly when he chose to, and she couldn't hear his voice, though a
conversation
was
taking place. Katia spoke, her voice low
for moments, then high with excitement as she continually forgot the
need for secrecy. Ash caught the words
kiss
and
gift
.
A long silence passed, and when it broke rough breaths could clearly
be heard.

"Witch." Marafice Eye's voice
cut through the wood. The word had a nasty edge to it, and Ash felt
the flesh on her arms pucker. Sounds followed, a whole lot of them,
then two sets of footsteps padded along the hall. Ash rested her head
against the door. They were gone, but she didn't like it one bit. Was
it her imagination, or did the lighter set of footsteps appear to
drag? Knowing such thoughts would only slow her down, she pushed them
aside. This wasn't the first time Katia had been with the Knife. The
little maid could look after herself.