A Cavern of Black Ice (52 page)

Angus put a hand on his shoulder and
forced him back down. "Easy, lad. Give the ghostmeal chance to
work."

"Ghostmeal?"

"Medicine to you." Angus
looked over his shoulder, wincing as muscles in his chest were
stretched. "Come. Please. We will not hurt you."

It took Raif a moment to realize his
uncle was speaking to someone else. The girl. Edging around, he saw
she was standing by the far gatepost, watching them. Ragged bits of
her dress blew in the wind, and her pale hair sparkled with ice.
Dried blood formed a black line around her jaw. She did not speak.

Angus stood heavily and at great cost,
pressing a hand to his chest. "You must come with us, with Raif.
They will be back soon. You are not safe here anymore."

"Who are you? Why did you help
me?"

Raif was surprised by the calmness of
the girl's voice. Her gray eyes were cool, and there was an air of
confidence about her that he had not expected from a beggar girl.

Angus' gaze flickered to the city
behind her back. "I am Angus Lok of Ille Glaive, and this is my
kinsman Raif Sevrance. We helped you because you were in need. We
would help you again if you will allow us. You need food and clothing
and protection. Come with us and we will take you to a safe place."

"Where?" Raif almost smiled.
The girl wasn't about to be fobbed off with one of Angus Lok's
typically vague replies.

Strangely, Angus smiled too. His entire
body strained toward the girl as he said, "We head for Ille
Glaive."

The girl nodded slowly. She looked at
Raif. Shouts and horse thunder sounded within the city. Her face
stiffened as she listened.

"Please," Angus murmured. "I
swear on all that is precious to me I will not harm you."

Raif had never heard his uncle speak so
quietly before. It disturbed him. Why had Angus risked his life to
save this thin scrap of a girl?

"Will we leave through Vaingate?"
The girl's calm demeanor was wearing thin as the thud and clatter of
armed men grew louder. Her shoulders twitched as a voice bellowed,
"To
the gate
!"

"You and Raif will. I'll drop the
gate behind you so it looks as if you're still within the city with
me. Then I'll lead the Rive Watch on a fair chase and meet you on the
east road past midnight."

"No. You can't stay in the city
alone." Raif struggled to his feet, battling pain and nausea
with clenched fists. "I'm coming with you."

"No. You must stay with the girl.
A party outside the city gates is too easily found. Someone needs to
draw the Rive Watch away." All the hearty redness drained from
Angus' face as he spoke, and suddenly he looked like a stranger to
Raif. "You must go now. As your uncle I command it."
Without waiting for a reply, he turned and walked toward the gate.
Raif thought he would touch the girl as he passed, for his hand
jerked awkwardly toward her, yet he didn't. Turning, he headed for
the gate tower instead.

Pulleys creaked a moment later as the
break was kicked free of the crankshaft, and then the gate descended
with a crash. Spikes rattled in their sockets like bones in a jar,
and plates of ice that had quickened over the limestone arch above
the gate fractured and fell, revealing a carving of a great winged
beast. The girl began to walk toward Raif. Her eyes were bright and
hard, and they stirred a memory within him… He tried but could
not place it. Shrugging, he slipped the flask containing the last of
the ghostmeal into his coat. He felt lightheaded and full of false
strength.
What in all the gods' names is that stuff?

Angus emerged from the gatehouse
seconds later. The bloodstain on his buckskin coat had spread, and
the great mass of his body pitched unevenly from step to step. "Ride,
do not walk," he said to Raif. "The ghostmeal only gives so
much; you'll feel worse for having drunk it come dark. Head
southeast. In about an hour you'll cross a game trail above a stand
of hemlock. Follow it. It should keep you out of sight of the wall.
When you come to Wrathgate head east. I'll find you along the road."

Let me go in your place
, Raif
wanted to say. Yet he guessed his uncle's argument even before he
spoke it: Angus
knew
Spire Vanis; he did not. A clansman
with no knowledge of the city couldn't hope to evade the red blades.
Looking into his uncle's copper eyes, Raif knew he could do nothing
but nod and say, "Until midnight." Anything more would have
cost Angus time.

The clatter of hoof irons grew louder.
A series of orders were shouted, and the scrape of steel against
leather told of weapons being drawn.

"Take care of the girl,"
Angus warned. Before Raif had chance to answer, he was gone.

Raif turned away from the gate. Four
dead men had his arrows in their hearts: It was not a sight he wanted
to dwell on.

The girl was no longer at his side. She
had stepped clear of the platform and was now walking through the
grainy snow and loose rocks on the slope. Raif ran to fetch the
horses. He caught up with the girl on the far side of the gate and
forced her to step back against the wall. Night was rising in the
east, sending shadows spilling over the snow like black oil. The
limestone was cold against Raif's back, smoother than any stone ought
to be. As he pulled the horses to him, the ground shook as an armed
force descended upon the gate. Breath ached in his throat as he
listened to the red blades rein in their mounts. It would be so easy
for someone to raise the gate.

For the longest moment all was quiet
and still. Raif imagined the red blades standing in silence over the
bodies, their gazes moving from heart to heart. Moose snuffled. Raif
sent Orwin Shank's horse a look to silence the dead. Booted feet
crunched snow. The gate grille chimed softly, moved by either hands
or wind.
Make them turn
, Raif thought. Gods,
make them
turn
.

A call sounded from within the city,
high like the howl of a wolf.
Angus
, Raif knew in an
instant. A cry went up. Horse leather cracked like whips, and then
the ground shook once more as the red blades charged from the gate.
Hunting
.

Raif took a breath. Anger toward the
girl welled up inside him. She was the reason Angus was running
through the city alone. He turned to face her… and saw that
she was kneeling in the snow. Her chin was resting on her chest and
her face was curiously still, the muscles relaxed as if she were
sleeping. Raif pulled the horses forward. What was wrong with her?
Was she half-witted?

The girl didn't raise her head as he
approached. For the first time he noticed how pale she was, like a
statue carved from ice. As he opened his mouth to speak, her arms
began to rise, gliding up through the air like weightless, boneless
things, reaching for something he could not see. Raif felt a pulse of
fear beat close to his heart. Her eyes were closed.

He didn't know what made him act. He
just knew that something was wrong and he had to stop it, and he
reached out with his blistered hand and grabbed the girl's arm.

Reach for us, pretty mistressss.
Break our chains of blood. So close now
… so
close.
Reach
.

Voices crowded Raif's mind. Terrible,
inhuman voices, insane with need, panting with the cold hiss of gases
escaping from decaying flesh. A landscape of black ice opened before
him, a wasteland of jagged peaks and gleaming edges and dark, dark
trenches. Raif's lore flared hot against his chest. His first
instinct was to pull away, sever whatever connection held him here:
This was no place for him to be. Yet the girl's presence held him.
Her heart beat in a way he recognized immediately, and she stopped
being a stranger and became known to him instead.

Suddenly his raven lore was white-hot
steel. It burned through his skin, to the muscle that lay beneath.
Raif gasped for breath. It felt as if the girl were entering him,
boring through his chest along with his lore. She opened her eyes.
Gray eyes. And he knew then that he had seen her before: The
guidestone had shown her to him.

The memory was like cold water on his
skin. Using all the false strength the ghostmeal had given him, he
wrenched his hand from the girl's arm. Air snapped as they parted.
Droplets of Raif's blood formed a red arc between them. The girl
swayed, reached back in the snow to steady herself. Raif stumbled
forward, bringing his blistered hand home to his chest; it felt as if
it had been dipped into the substance of another world.

The girl moaned. Raif paid her no heed.
Turning from her, he tugged his oilskin apart. His undamaged left
hand fumbled with clothing, desperate to get at skin. The raven lore
was unchanged, dark and cool: a bloodless piece of horn from a bird
long dead. Even his skin seemed unaffected. There was redness and a
shallow pressure mark, but no great open wound, no tortured purple
flesh. Raif frowned. But he had
felt
it! He could feel it
now, whatever it was, a burn, a presence, a taint. It' was as if a
red hot poker had been inserted beneath his skin.

Fear brought back his anger. He wheeled
around to face the girl. "Get up. We must be gone."

She looked at him with eyes that were
impossible to read. With her right hand she cupped the portion of her
arm he had touched. "How long?"

Raif did not understand the question.
He made no answer.

"I said
how long
? How
long was I kneeling here before you came"—she struggled
for words—"and woke me?"

Woke
? Raif thought it an odd
word to use. He said, "Only minutes."

The girl nodded.

After a moment, when she made no move
to speak further or rise, Raif said, "We must leave now. The red
blades will be back."

She made a small gesture with her head
toward the gate. "Will he be all right?"

He wanted to say no, tell her that
Angus was in grave danger and it was all her fault, yet he found
himself saying something else instead. "Angus is no fool. He can
take care of himself. If there's a safe way out of the city, he'll
find it." The words were little enough, but he felt better for
saying them. He almost believed they were true.

The girl's face relaxed just a little.
Brushing snow from her ruined skirt, she struggled to her feet. Raif
moved forward to help her, then stopped himself at the last instant.
He didn't know if he wanted to touch her again.

"Please, could you leave me alone
for a moment? I'll come and join you by the horses as soon as I…
I'm finished."

Raif made a point of glancing to the
gate. "Be quick." Purposely he kept his back toward her as
he walked the horses away. He was curious about her request—and
he didn't think she meant to relieve herself in the snow—but
he wouldn't question her or spy on what she did. He made himself busy
fetching things from Angus' saddlebag: blankets, a spare pair of
gloves, a day-old roasted plover packed in a greased cloth, a cake of
sheep's blood and whey, a skin of snowmelt kept liquid by its
nearness to Moose's rump, a little jar of Angus' beeswax. Things for
the girl.

By the time everything was pulled out
and ready, the burn in his chest had subsided to a mild ache. His
hand throbbed, but that might have been blister. Shuddering slightly,
he set his mind away from what he had seen and heard. That was the
girl's business, not his.

"I'm ready to go now." She
stepped alongside him.

He had not heard her coming. He covered
his surprise by asking her if she could ride. When she nodded, he
cupped both hands to take her foot and hefted her onto the bay's
back. Her boots were thick, and when the leather soles pressed
against his palms he didn't feel as if he were touching her at all.
That seemed like something to be thankful for.

He passed her the blankets and the
beeswax first. She accepted the jar of wax in a way that made Raif
think that she was accustomed to having things handed to her. Her
calmness broke when she took possession of the roasted plover, and
she tore at the bird with gusto, eating skin, gnawing on bones,
licking her fingers for grease.

Raif smiled as he mounted Moose. He
liked her better now. "What's your name?"

"Ash."

"I'm Raif."

"I know, the other man…
Angus… said."

Raif felt put in his place. He searched
for something else to say, yet the only subjects that sprang to mind
seemed too dangerous to speak of there and then.

"Raif. You must promise to wake me
again if… if I fall asleep." Gray eyes met his. Knowledge
passed between them, and somehow she knew all that he had seen and
heard. She touched her arm. "They call me," she said. "The
voices."

Raif nodded. That much he understood.
Knowing it wasn't his right to question her, he passed her the whey
cake and the waterskin. Their fingers touched over the creamy surface
of the cake, but he felt nothing, only the thinness of her skin.
"I'll watch out for you," he said.

* * *

Mount Slain's peaks vanished into
darkness as they rode, claimed by a moonless, starless sky. Flames
from the city's watch towers cast a halo of red light upon their
backs and set their shadows flickering. No snow fell, yet the wind
was white, shifting drifts from the high slopes to the low slopes in
quick, brutal bursts.

The deer path was easy to find and
follow. Raif had the feeling that Angus' bay had traveled this way
before, for the gelding anticipated every twist and hook in the
trail. Raif was glad to let the horses lead the way. The fast,
brittle strength that had filled him earlier was gone, drained away
as completely as if it had never been there at all. Ghostmeal: It
seemed important to remember that what it gave wasn't real. Raif felt
as if his body had been trampled by a cart. The only thing that kept
him awake was the familiar torment of his stitches. That and his
promise to the girl.