A Cavern of Black Ice (56 page)

Every so often, tumoffs would present
themselves: black holes in the rock face that always led down. Angus
insisted that everyone stay close to him as they passed them. The
largest was as dark and steep as a mineshaft, cut with a thousand
narrow steps that seemed to lead straight down to hell. Raif felt
cold air kiss his cheeks as they passed it. Ash looked as if she felt
something else. When Angus reached out to hold her arm, she made no
effort to pull away.

"Take a bit of the rue leaf and
chew on it," he said. "Remember what I said?"

"You said scribes use it when they
work through the night. You said it would clear my head."

"That's right. Yes, chew, don't
swallow now. What does it taste like? I've quite forgotten."

Raif listened as Ash spoke her reply,
quite aware that Angus' main aim was to keep her talking. After a
while Raif joined in, and together they nursed Ash through the
deepest sections of the tunnel. At some point during the process,
when the conversation had shifted to long winters—one of the
few subjects they could share without prying into anyone's past—Raif
began to feel something himself. At first it was just a knot of
tension in his shoulder blades, a strain he put down to lack of
sleep, but the sensation spread to his chest, where it pressed
against his heart and lungs like a secret, inner rib cage growing
quietly beneath his own.

It happened so slowly, over hours, that
Raif didn't immediately recognize it as fear.

Even when the tunnel's end came in
sight and Angus halted the party while he performed a small ritual
around the silver band from Raif's hair, Raif still hadn't worked out
what
he was afraid of. Then, over Angus' bent back, he
locked gazes with Ash.

She knew. She knew what it was. "Mount
Slain runs deep," was all she said, yet it was enough for Raif
to begin to understand. Something was within the mountain with them.
Something knew they were here.

"
Ehl halis Mithbann rass
ga'rhal
." Angus' words seemed to come from a long way away.
Raif did not recognize the language. After placing the silver band on
a spur of rock, Angus sprinkled it with the last drops of alcohol in
his rabbit flask, then lit it. Blue flames leaped for the briefest
moment, then died, leaving the silver with a dusky tarnish, patterned
like tree mold. "There," he said softly. "That should
please the Sull gods. The offerings they like best are blood and
fire."

Straightening, Angus reached for the
bay's bridle and began walking toward the tunnel's end.

After a moment Ash followed, and Raif
was left alone by the rock. The desire to reach out and touch the
silver band one last time was great, but he fought it. Instead he ran
his hands through his loose, shoulder-length hair. From now on when
people saw him they would not immediately recognize his clan. It's
for the best, he told himself, unhooking his belt knife and cutting a
leather tie from the neck of his oilskin. He didn't believe it, but
perhaps belief would come later.

Tying back his hair with the leather
strap, he followed the others from the tunnel. A pair of ravens drawn
to guard the entrance barely caught his eye.

Secrets in the
Kaleyard

Effie Sevrance sat cross-legged in her
special place beneath the stairs, and watched the raiding party
return. Great big clansmen, their axes dripping chunks of frozen
blood and muck onto the stone floor, their faces grave and hard,
crossed beneath the greatdoor and into the entrance chamber, bringing
with them the quality of silence that Effie knew meant death.

She tried not to be scared. Her hand
squeezed her rock lore as she looked into the face of every man who
crossed the threshold, searching for Drey.

So many men, some dragging bloody legs
behind them, others with fierce bruises on their necks and faces, and
many with their wounds hidden beneath their oilskins, the slowness of
their walk and the blue tint of their lips giving their injuries
away. A few were brought in on dragsleds, and Effie's eyes scanned
their clothing, searching for the zigzagging pattern of Da's elk
coat. She knew Drey had worn it the day he went away.

Raina, Anwyn Bird, and the other women
with due respect moved among the injured, tending wounds, bringing
black beer and warm clothing and good plain meat. As always when
Anwyn was in charge, there was no fuss or wailing from the other
women: Anwyn wouldn't allow it, saying that it only upset the men.
Raina didn't speak, though she did
count
, taking careful
note of each man who entered, keeping a tally of their numbers in her
head. Her widow's weals were healed now, the skin pale and raised
like cornrows around her wrists. She hardly ever spoke to Effie these
days. She
cared
, making sure that Effie was fed and clothed
and never too long alone, but she seldom brought the food or the
blankets or the company herself. Effie knew they shared a bad secret.
The badness made it difficult to sleep some nights, and Effie ran off
more and more to the little dog cote. The shanks-hounds loved her
almost as much as Raina… and they didn't look at her with dead
eyes.

All thoughts vanished from Effie's head
as she caught sight of a big silhouette in the doorway.
Drey
.
He moved slowly, a little bent at the waist to relieve pressure on a
wound. His face was a mask of dirt and blood, and there was a deep
gash in his breastpiece. His eyes began searching even before his
foot hit the stone floor of the roundhouse.

Effie rose, her heart beating rapidly
in her chest.
Drey
.

He saw her the moment she was free of
the stair space. Something deep and massed inside him relaxed, and
for a moment he looked young, like the old Drey, like he had been
before all the badness had started and Raif went away. Without a word
he opened his arms. If her whole life had depended on it, Effie could
not have resisted him. She wanted to hold him so badly, her insides
ached.

She didn't run; Anwyn didn't approve of
that. Instead she walked forward with slow, deliberate steps. Drey
waited. He didn't smile—neither of them smiled—just took
her in his arms and held her for a long time.

They pulled apart without speaking,
Drey catching her hand in his. He turned his head for a moment and
gave an order to a new-sworn yearman concerning the state and
treatment of some men. The year-man, a small youth with a sword that
was nearly as tall as he was strapped to his back, was quick to do
Drey's bidding. Dent-headed Corbie Meese stopped and asked Drey
something. Drey thought before answering, as he always did. Corbie
nodded his agreement, then left.

Anwyn Bird caught his eye, a question
on her large horsey face. In answer, Drey held up both his and
Effie's hand. Effie didn't quite understand, but Anwyn obviously did,
for she nodded in a knowing way, then changed her path, bearing the
tray of beer and bannock she was carrying toward a group of hammermen
sitting on the floor.

Drey tugged on Effie's hand. "Come,"
was all he said as he led her across the river of clansmen and
clanswomen toward the guidehouse.

"Clan Croser has been threatened
by Bludd."

"… a hundred Dhoonesmen
dead."

"We had to speak treaty before
Gnash would let us pass."

"Corbie dragged him away from the
body. He hasn't spoke a word since. His heart is with his twin."

"Nay, Anwyn. See to Rory first.
This wound is naught but a ticking."

Effie listened to the soft voices of
her clan as she walked at Drey's side. War was full upon them now,
and raiding parties like the one led by Corbie Meese left every day
from the roundhouse. Two nights back, a squad of Bluddsmen had broken
bounds near the lowlands strong-wall and slaughtered a dozen
crofters. Effie had seen the bodies. Orwin Shank and his sons had
ridden out to bring them back. One of the shankshounds had found a
baby alive in the snow. Orwin said the bairn's mother had swaddled
the tiny thing in sheepskins and hidden him in a drift at the side of
her croft as the Bluddsmen approached on their warhorses. Jenna
Walker was looking after the baby now. Orwin had brought the bairn
straight to her, saying he had such a strong little heart and such
hard little fists that there must be something of Toady in him. Every
nursing mother in the clan had come forward to offer milk.

Effie thought about the baby a lot,
thought of him trapped beneath the snow. She wanted to ask Orwin
which of his hounds had found him, but Orwin was fierce and
important, and she didn't have the nerve.

Drey pulled Effie into the smoky
darkness of the guidehouse and bade her sit at one of the stone
benches while he approached the stone. One or two other men from the
raiding party already knelt by the guidestone, foreheads brushing
against the hard, wet surface. All were quiet. Drey found a place and
joined them. He was silent for a very long time: walking with the
gods, as Inigar always said.

Effie knew the guidestone well, better
than anyone else except Inigar Stoop. She had spent much of her life
in its presence, curled up beneath Inigar's chipping bench, staring
at the face of the stone. It
had
a face, that she knew. Not
a human face, for it had too many eyes for that, but it could see and
hear and feel. Today the guidestone was sad and grave. The deep,
salt-encrusted pits that were its eyes glistened with wept oil. The
dark gashes that were its mouths were filled with gray shadows, and
even the new flaw that ran the length of the stone and everyone said
was a bad omen and a sign of the coming war looked like a deep worry
line on the cheek of an old, old man.

Quickly Effie took her gaze away. She
couldn't look at the flaw without thinking of Raif.

Her lore had told her he would go,
pushed the knowledge into her through the skin on her palms. He
had
to go, the lore had said. Even before he'd returned from the
Bluddroad she had known it was so. Sometimes she wished she could
tell Drey, to ease his mind, but she didn't have the words. Drey was
angry at more than Raif. He was angry at Angus, too, for taking Raif
away. He didn't even call Angus
uncle
anymore, just
that
man Angus Lok
. Effie frowned. A week ago she'd caught Drey
standing outside the greatdoor, staring south. At first she thought
he was checking to see if the latest storm had passed. Then she saw
the look on his face. He was watching for Raif… even though
Raina had told him Raif wasn't coming back.

That thought made Effie's insides pull
tight, and her hand crept up her dress toward her lore. The stone was
asleep now, cool and lifeless as a hibernating mouse. It was better
that way. It never told good things. She dreaded it telling her that
Drey would go away.

"Come, little one." Drey
stood heavily and awkwardly, not once touching the guidestone for
support. Walking with the gods had taken something from him, and he
looked tired and old and more troubled than before.

Effie went straight to him, her hand
finding his through the smoke.

"Drey."

Both Effie and Drey looked around in
time to see Inigar Stoop emerge from the darkness at the far end of
the guidehouse. The guide's face was gray with wood ash, the cuffs
and hem of his robes scorched black for war. His dark eyes glanced
only briefly at Effie, yet she knew he saw her completely for what
she was. The guide knew all about the Sevrances.

"Inigar." Drey closed his
eyes and touched both lids.

"Corbie says you fought hard and
well, and took the lead when Cull Byce went down."

Drey made no motion to reply. Effie
knew he was awkward around praise, but it did not account for the
hardness in his face as he looked at the guide. She wondered how
Inigar had managed to speak to Corbie Meese so quickly; last she'd
seen of the hammerman he was battling with Anwyn for more beer.

"You must put the past behind
you," Inigar said. "All of it. Clan needs good men like
you. Do not let bitterness steal your strength. Things are as they
are. Dwell on what they might have been, and the ghosts of the past
will eat you. They have sharp teeth, those ghosts; you will not feel
them bite until they start tearing at the marrow in your bones. You
must put them behind you. Bears do not look back."

"You don't know of what you
speak."

Effie took a quick breath; no one spoke
to the guide that way. No one.

Inigar wagged his head, shaking the
words away as surely as if they were raindrops on oilskin. "My
lore is the hawk, Drey Sevrance. I see much that a bear cannot. Do
not suppose that I know nothing of what happened on the Bluddroad. Do
not suppose that I pronounce you free of blame. But know this: What
is done is done, it is what comes
after
that concerns me
now."

Drey rubbed his hand over his face.
When he spoke he sounded tired. "I must go, Inigar. You must not
worry about me. I know my place is with the clan."

Inigar nodded. "Have you thrown
the swearstone away?"

Drey turned his back on the guide
before answering. "Yes."

Effie felt Inigar's gaze on her and
Drey as they walked the length of the guidehouse. Drey was silent as
they made their way to the kitchens and then picked bread and meat
for them both. Effie saw him wince as he stretched a muscle that
shouldn't have been stretched, felt his body tremble for a moment as
he dealt with the pain.

"Let's find somewhere quiet to
eat," he said.

"We could go to the kaleyard. It's
quiet there, and the walls are high so there's hardly any wind."
Effie was pleased and a little bit anxious when Drey nodded. She
dearly wanted him to like her choice.

The kaleyard was a small square of
ground at the rear of the roundhouse that had been set aside for
growing herbs. Tall walls kept freezing winds at bay year-round, and
someone long ago had thought to build a pair of brick benches so that
two or three people could sit and take advantage of the walled haven.
The kaleyard was Anwyn's territory now, and every flake of snow that
dared to land there was hauled away before it had chance to settle.
Anwyn only had to
look
at Long head to make him start
hauling snow. She had that effect on a lot of men, Effie noticed.