A Cavern of Black Ice (71 page)

Raif glanced at Angus and saw the same
knowledge reflected in his uncle's eyes.

Ash and Cant were as one now, joined as
surely as two stags with antlers racked. Raif shivered as the image
came to him. Three summers ago he and Drey had come across a pair of
elk carcasses at the foot of the balds: bodies head to head, torsos
picked clean, antlers locked together so surely that neither animal
had been able to free itself from the other's hold. They had died
that way, struggling to pull apart over countless days and nights.
Rut deaths, Tern had called them. He said it only happened when two
beasts of equal strength were matched.

Blood smoke rose between Ash and Cant
as the contents of the copper bowl began steaming. Cant's face was
gray with strain. His mouth worked furiously, speaking a clotted mix
of words and sorcery.

Unable to watch any longer, Raif turned
away. His eyes settled on the shadows cast on the wall, and after a
while he couldn't even look at them. Sorcery had never seemed so
wrong and unnatural, and for the second time that night he found
himself staring longingly at the door.

The clanholds lay one day's ride to the
north, yet they might as well have stood in the frozen heart of the
Want. Raif had never felt farther from all that he knew as he did
waiting for Heritas Cant to be done.

Shankshounds

Effie's lore
pushed
her awake.
She'd been having such a strange dream about Raif, about how he was
trapped underground with no way out, when her rock lore pressed so
hard against her chest, it hurt. Effie opened her eyes immediately.
The quality of darkness in her cell told her it was still properly
and completely night. Frowning, she reached beneath the neckline of
her wool nightdress and took her lore in hand.

Push.

Quick as if she'd picked up a hot coal
from the fire, Effie let the stone drop.

She had to go, leave her cell right
now.

The idea didn't come to her in words;
it wasn't really an idea at all. It was just something she knew, like
the time of day or whether the air she breathed was cold or warm or
damp.

Sitting up, she swung her feet onto the
floor. Boots or slippers? Boofe
are warmer
, said a little
voice.
Slippers are quieter
, said another. Effie poked her
feet into the darkness until her toes brushed against the shaggy
softness of her squirrel fur slippers. That done, she pulled the rug
from her bed and wrapped it around her shoulders. She didn't have
time for a shawl.

Her legs didn't help much as she stood.
They felt like rain-soaked twigs that had nothing to do with the rest
of her body and no intention of carrying her weight. Effie felt her
bottom lip start to tremble as she shuffled to the nearest wall.

Push.

"Stop," she whispered, glad
of the chance to give her treacherous bottom lip something to do. "I
know
."

Thinking about what Inigar Stoop would
likely say to her if he knew that she spoke to her lore made Effie
feel better. Rufus Pole had been the laughingstock of the roundhouse
last summer just for speaking to his sheep. Effie had seen Rufus'
sheep—they were clean and healthy and fat as rain clouds—and
she'd very nearly giggled out loud when he'd said he'd rather speak
to them than a good quarter of the people in the clan.

Sheep thoughts helped, and Effie felt
her legs harden beneath her, ready for flight. Clutching the bed rug
around her throat, she moved toward the door.

It was closed, of course—open
doors were the next worst thing to open spaces—but both Raina
and Drey had warned her about bolting herself in. Fingers sliding
over the bolt, Effie considered drawing it and simply hiding from
whatever danger was on its way. She knew straightaway that was
foolish, though. Doors could be easily broken. Taking a shallow
breath, she pushed against the wood and stepped into the new darkness
waiting on the other side.

The roundhouse at night was icy cold,
peopled by strange drafts and grinding noises. Effie knew it well.
The noises came from stone blocks in the walls moving against each
other as the timbers separating them cooled and the drafts blew from
secret rotting holes in the peat-and-graystone roof. Longhead said
swallows nested there in spring, and Effie thought about that for a
bit as she walked along the tunnel leading from her cell. She was
just wondering what swallows found to eat up there when she heard
footsteps pounding on the stone steps directly ahead. A halo of light
descended from above. Someone, a man, coughed with a hard hacking
sound that produced something worthy of spitting. Effie, still
standing in the darkness close to the wall, felt for the nearest
door.

Her hand found the splintery roughness
of wood as the man's booted feet came into view. Thanking all the
Stone Gods—even Behathmus, who always gave her a chill and few
except hammermen ever named—she pushed open the door and
stepped into someone else's cell. Doors were never locked in the
roundhouse, and Effie found herself glad of that fact for the first
time in her eight-year life. More darkness occupied the cell—so
much, in fact, that she couldn't even see the hand she used to close
the door. A series of soft snoring sounds rose from somewhere close
by. People sleeping. At one time Effie would have known the names and
faces of everyone who occupied the cells close to her own, but now
she couldn't be sure who slept where. The roundhouse was swollen with
tied clansmen and their families, all come to seek protection from
the Dog Lord. Most slept wherever they could. Some had caused fights.
Just last week Anwyn Bird had beaten a tied clanwife with a wooden
spoon for daring to spend the night in her kitchen. By all accounts
the woman had gotten off lightly, and the bruises were said to be
nothing that a few weeks of bed rest couldn't cure.

Sniffing slightly, Effie peered through
the shadows in the room. After a few moments her eyes began to pick
out shapes: a box pallet with several hunched forms lying upon it, a
bloodwood stang propping up the ceiling, and a line of fat grain
sacks hanging from the rafters to keep their contents dry. Effie
listened to the sound of breathing and snoring rising from the
pallet, assuring herself that those who lay there were fast asleep.
Then, just as she felt safe enough to think about what to do next, a
sliver of light shone under the door. The man on the stairs was
walking this way!

Effie stilled herself. Footsteps tapped
close… the light brightened… and then receded as the
man on the stairs walked past the door. Suddenly realizing she had
been holding her breath, Effie exhaled in a great gasp of relief. As
she did so, she heard the familiar whine of hinges so badly rusted by
damp that no amount of calf oil could silence them. Her cell door.
Effie breathed in, snatching back her relief. Her lore beat against
her chest like a second, smaller, heart.

Pressing her forehead against the door,
she listened for more sounds from the man on the stairs. Nothing.
What was he
doing
in there? Effie imagined his boots; the
leather was greenish, moldy, the toes ringed with watermarks, and the
soles caked with muddy bits of hay. Not a full clansman's boots.
Effie shook her head. Not even a year-man.

The whining noise came again, pushing
all boot thoughts from her mind. Effie tensed. Suddenly she couldn't
breathe. Her throat felt as if someone had their hands around it.

Footsteps again.
Slap, slap, slap
.
They were so close, Effie could feel their vibration on the part of
her head that was touching the door.

They slowed. Stopped. Effie imagined
monsters. She knew what the man's boots looked like, but what about
his face, his
teeth
? Tiny, hard contractions punched at her
belly. Should she wake the other people in the cell? Might they be
monsters, too?

Then, abruptly, the footsteps started
up once more, receding with a slowness that was another torture in
itself. Effie waited. Even after the footsteps had long faded and
night sounds took over again, she waited, forehead pushed against the
bloodwood door, body held so still that dust settled upon her back.

The soft crunch of a body rolling over
dried grass broke the waiting spell. Effie lifted her head from the
door and glanced over her shoulder. A tiny crack high in the roof let
in a trickle of dawn light. The box pallet was clearly visible now.
Three bodies vied for space upon its grass-filled mattress: a thin
crofter with a silvery beard, a woman with dark hair and a pale back,
and a young dark-haired child. It took Effie a moment to realize that
the child was awake. His eyes were wide open, and he was looking at
her in the interested way children looked at things that might, or
might not, be dangerous.

Pressing a finger to her lips, Effie
warned him not to cry out. He was small and skinny and a good deal
younger than she, and even though Effie wouldn't normally deign to
notice such a boy, she knew they were made of the same child
substance. The boy knew it, too, and acknowledged her sign with a
similar one of his own. Effie was careful not to let her relief show.
They might both be children, but she was the elder, and even after
favors were granted she had a certain superiority to maintain.

They held their places for a good long
time, watching each other in the growing light, neither friendly nor
unfriendly, waiting. When the child's mother stirred, sending out a
hand to feel for her son, Effie knew it was time to go. Part of her
didn't much like the idea of venturing outside, but the sensible,
thinking part knew that dawn was properly here now and no one would
dare harm her in the good light of day.

Raising her hand, she thanked the boy
with a seriousness befitting his deed, then let herself out the door.

The corridor was no longer dark. Sounds
of clattering metal pots, thudding footsteps, and sharply spoken
orders filtered down from the t floors above. Anwyn was in her
kitchen, stoking the fires and warming last night's broth and
bannock. Effie glanced toward her cell.

Push.

No, better not go back there yet.

Massaging the part of her forehead that
she had ground into the wood of the cell door, Effie thought about
what to do. Drey would be in the Great Hearth, sleeping close around
the fire like all the other yearmen. He was becoming important these
days. Rory Gleet, the Shank brothers, Bullhammer, Craw Bannering: All
the yearmen looked to him to lead raids, settle disputes, and talk
with Mace Blackhail on their behalf. He was often away from the
roundhouse: riding the borders, scouting as far as Gnash, carrying
messages between Blackhail and exiled Dhoone. Last week he had ridden
with Mace Blackhail and a host of two hundred full clansmen to defend
Bannen against the Dog Lord's forces.

Drey said the Dog Lord was working to
take over all the Dhoone-sworn clans and fortify his position in the
Dhoonehold. Already he'd taken over Clan Withy, whose funny little
roundhouse with its mine-shafts and mole holes lay two days south of
Dhoone. Even with the combined forces of Dhoone, Blackhail, and
Bannen working to defend the Banhold, the battle had not gone easy.
Drey said the Bluddsmen had fought like men possessed, and the Dog
Lord himself had ridden at the head of their line.

"You should have seen him, Effie,"
Drey had confided upon his return. "He rode an ugly black horse
and carried the plainest of weapons, yet no clansman who matched
hammers with him lived to tell of it." After that Drey had
shivered in a funny way, and Effie had asked him what was wrong. "He
was screaming at us, Effie. Screaming for Blackhail blood."

That had made Effie shiver, too.
According to Drey, the battle lasted well into the night, and even
though Bludd was outmanned they managed to break through the Dhoone
lines and take more lives than they gave.

Drey had been injured in the Bludd
retreat. Mace Blackhail had sent him and two dozen other hammermen
after the Dog Lord and his sons. Ten of the hammermen had died. Drey
had been unseated by a blow from a spiked and lead-weighted
Bluddhammer. The spikes had pierced his plate in two places, and
he'd taken a bad landing upon stony ground.

Effie sucked in her cheeks. Raina said
that once the swelling and bruising had gone down it wouldn't be that
bad. He'd only broken two ribs.

With a small shake of her head, Effie
made the decision not to go and seek out Drey. She knew he would see
her no matter how busy he was—hers was the first face he looked
for whenever he returned home from a raid and the last name he spoke
in his words to the Stone Gods each night—yet she didn't want
to be a burden to him. He had too many worries already.

Raif's leaving still hurt him. He
never spoke of it, and Effie had seen him stiffen in anger when
anyone in his presence dared to mention Raif's name. Yet these days
it was hard
not
to hear talk of Raif Sevrance around the
Great Hearth at night. All the clanholds were in uproar about what
happened at Duff's Stovehouse. Three Bluddsmen had died by Raif's
hand. Three. Effie shivered. It was unthinkable. Watcher of the Dead,
they called him now.

Effie climbed the steps to the entrance
chamber. She wished Raif were here now. She couldn't tell Drey about
the man on the stairs; he'd go straight to Mace Blackhail, and this
time they might actually fight. Effie shook her head. That couldn't
happen. Mace was a bad man. Drey was stronger and a better fighter,
but somehow Effie knew that wasn't enough. Mace hurt people in
different ways. He had hurt Raina, changed her. He might send Drey
from the clan, or worse.

By the time she had walked through the
entrance chamber and past the kitchen, her mind was set. She told
herself that she didn't really know whether or not Mace Blackhail had
any connection with the man on the stairs, couldn't even be sure if
the man had meant her harm. Fearing a push from her rock lore, Effie
knocked it impatiently with her fist. Suddenly she very much wanted
to go to a place where she knew she'd be safe.