Raina kept moving, first along the stream and then north onto one of the trapping paths that led into the forest. Mercy was happy to run. When Dagro had puchased her as a filly from a horse trader at the Dhoone Fair he had been told she was "one-sixteenth Sull." Apparently this number had sealed the deal. Dagro had joked about it later, saying that it meant one of Mercy's ears and half a knee joint were Sullish, but Raina could tell he'd been secretly pleased. It meant that all of Mercy's offspring would be one in thirty-two parts Sull. Yet in the end he'd only let her dam the once. She was Raina's horse by then.
As they approached the first stand of oldgrowth pines, Raina slowed Mercy to a trot. Beyond those trees lay the great northern forest of Blackhail and you had to be in a certain mind and properly equipped to safely enter. An unlined wool cloak would not do. It was one thing to ride carelessly along meadowland. Another thing entirely to take to the woods. Glancing at the sky, she realized it would be dark within the hour and she needed to be heading back. For all she knew Merritt Ganlow was still fuming by the supply cart, wondering what had happened to the goosedowns Raina had promised to deliver four hours earlier.
And then there was Anwyn Bird. As Raina turned Mercy south she wondered what time constituted "supper." It would be after dark certainly. But whose supper exactly? Anwyn's Orwin's?
Raina thought she should get a move on, and kicked Mercy into a brisk trot. The top layer of snow hardened as the temperature dropped and every hoof fall made an explosive crack. It was easier at first to think about Longhead. Five days back she had asked the head keep to come to her if Beade took any further action concerning the Hailhouse. Today he had done just that. In return she had been short and dismissive, when perhaps she should have been grateful. Longhead was no friend of Beade's. Not informing her about the new ward and guidehouse had been a simple error in judgment, Longhead was Longhead: he wanted to get things done. He had come to her hoping she would take a problem off his hands so he could keep working and not have to worry about the distressing events happening in the clan. She had been no help to him. Raina blew air from her nostrils, cogitating. He had caught her at a bad moment. Tomorrow she would seek him out and see if there wasn't something they could do. With all the damage to the east wall, the broken well shafts, the disturbed underground springs, it would be regrettable, but hardly surprising, if the chiefs wife's chambers were to suddenly and unexpectedly flood.
Smiling softly, Raina patted Mercy's neck. Detecting a subtle shift in her rider's spirits, the mare tossed her head and executed some fancy footwork that took her sideways as well as forward. Raina had always wondered who had taught her that. Maybe it was in her Sull blood.
It was growing dark as they rejoined the path along the Leak. Raina forced herself to think of Anwyn, and found little to like about their conversation in the widows' wall. Anwyn Bird was her oldest and dearest friend. Even if she wanted to rid Blackhail of Stannig Beade it did not change the fact of her concern. That night after Raina had fled the chiefs chamber it had been Anwyn who banged on the door of her cell, Anwyn who demanded entry, Anwyn who had looked so murderous upon seeing Raina s inflamed face that Raina thought the clan matron might march through the roundhouse and punch Stannig Beade in the head. It was Anwyn who brought the salves and cool water, and informed people the next morning that Raina had a fever and might be abed for a few days.
It was Anwyn Bird, not Raina Blackhail who had to watch the bruise turn purple and black.
Raina raised her hand to her cheeck, touching the patch ofskin that had come in contact with Stannig Beade's fist. A slight tenderness still remained,
He has cowed you, Raina.
It was the truth, she had been cowed Rains had never told Anwyn what had happened in the Oldwood, but the clan matron must have suspected something. The evening after the wedding had taken place Anwyn had brought Raina her bride's cup in the greathearth. "What's done is done," she had said, handing Raina the traditional drink of milk, bittersweet and honey. "We'll just have to make the best of it."
Raina thought of those words, trying to remember the exact expression on Anwyn's face. There had been stoicism and… disappointment. It was as if Anwyn was disappointed in Raina for not speaking up to defend herself against Mace's claims. Had she known a few words could have stopped all the misery?
Seeing the safelamps being lit outside the stables, Raina picked up Mercy's pace. Orwin Shank had been the one who called her in to account the night after Mace Blackhail had raped her. Orwin had been flustered, upset by what Mace had told him, anxious to get the whole mess over and done with, yet still deeply respectful of Raina. If she had spoken up at that moment, told Orwin the truth, would he have believed her? The answer would not come. It was a different time; Blackhail's chief had just died, Mace was well regarded in the clan and was proving himself capable of taking Dagro's place. The question that mattered now was: Would Orwin take her word over Stannig Beade's?
She was surprised by how foolish the answer made her feel. We are many, Anwyn had said.
Yes, Raina mouthed. We are.
Duggin Lye was lighting the last of the lamps as Raina and Mercy trotted onto the court. Thrusting the burning edge of the torch into the cobbles, he extinguished the flame.
"Take her from me, will you?" Raina asked him, dismounting. "I don't want to be late for supper."
Coming forward to take the reins, he said something Raina did not understand. "Supper's already late."
Assuming it was the grumble of a hungry boy who had gone too long between meals, she ignored it. Dashing across to the east wall, she waved brief acknowledgments to the two men who were spreading burlap sheets over the timber piles and lime barrels. They must be expecting snow in the night. Always when you walked through the east hall there was that jump of metal next to your skin. Raina was expecting it and had her hand ready on her knife.
It was only when she reached the entrance hall that she began to suspect something was wrong. A roundhouse had an atmosphere, you could read it in the way people sat and stood, the number of torches burning, the doors left open, the smells, the smoke, the noise. It was early evening and it took Raina a few moments to understand and then catalog the absences. The luntman had skimped on his rounds and only a quarter of the torches were burning. Too many doors were open and there was an unfamiliar crosscurrent of drafts. It was too quiet for suppertime when normally the great clangor from the kitchen rang through the house, drowning out the noise of the forge.
And there was no supper smell.
The world spun on that one simple fact, passing from light into darkness as it moved beneath Raina's feet.
Raina broke into a run.
She knew.
People tried to stop her, but she slapped them away and hissed at them. Don't Don't Don't, she warned, not knowing if she said the words out loud. When she entered the kitchen Corbie Meese came forward to intercept her, but she would not have it. How she stopped him from halting her progress was something she would never know. Down the little steps she went, hesitating only for a moment when she reached the bottom. Two ways led from the stairs: one toward the gameroom, and the other to the cells and supply rooms. Orwin Shank stood guard outside Anwyn's chamber. When he saw her he shook his head and told her, "No, my sweet lamb, come no further."
But she could not stop moving and he did not possess the might necessary to halt her and she entered the room where Anwyn Bird lay dead.
THIRTY-SIX A Bear Trap
Snow fell as they worked their way east. On the first day it fell lightly, a shimmer of crystals in the air in the late afternoon before dark. The day after it did much the same, but the next morning it began more heavily. A persistent wind blew from the east and it was hard to keep warm, but at least it was not bleakly cold. On the fourth day it was warrrMnough that the ground snow melted… but still it managed to snow. The fifth day was different, colder. The snow had come down in hffl, gipsy pellets; Raif imagined the name for them was "ice." Walking on them
was like walking on marbles and they'd headed north into the spruce forest to avoid them. The next day had passed without snow, but Addie said it couldn't reliably be trusted and it was either snowing somewhere very close or would spring upon them while they slept. He was right, for when they woke this morning a steady snow was falling, and half a foot had accumulated overnight They were growing accustomed to sleeping through it. Though it had been strange not to be able to find the fire let alone relight it. Addie had been stoic. "Next time well set it on a stone to keep the heat in." The good thing was the trees were no longer stunted and could be bivouacked for shelter so at least they had some protection from the weather. It meant that camp took longer to set up so they had to stop Giarlier in the day but they both agreed it was a worthwhile trade. Being snowed on while you slept was an experience not unlike being buried alive. In ice.
Food was growing scarce and the low grade hunting afforded by being constantly afoot rendered little beyond ptarmigan and molting hares. Snow had driven anything larger into hiding. Given time Addie could prepare a decent bird, but he didn't have any love for plucking and usually assigned feather duty to Raif. Raif seemed to recall that Tern had known a couple of ingenious ways to pluck birds, but couldn't for the life of him remember any of them—one might have had something to do with mud. Oddly enough it was the lack of tea that was felt the most. The ritual of boiling water and steeping the herbs was something they both missed. Addie still insisted on boiling and serving water, and had collected various twigs and leaves along the journey in attempt to conjure up new kinds of tea. So far saxifrage, goatsbeard, hagberry and dead nettle had delivered various watery, yellowy weed-tasting teas. Addie was still hopeful. Legend had it that a plant existed called trapper's tea that bloomed with white flowers in high summer and could be found growing amidst rocks. The drink produced from crushing and then steeping its leaves was said to be so delicious that Addie could only talk about in a whisper. "Day we find it there'll be some fine drinking," he'd murmured more than once.
Addie had grown chilblains on his nose and hands and was having a spot of bother with his feet. Every night he would dry livermoss on a stick above the fire and every morning he would stuff the springy filaments into the toes of his boots. The cragsman moved no slower for his troubles, but Raif had seen him hesitate a few times before starting a sharp descent, and then lean heavily on his stick. Raif's own feet were holding up. Both he and Addie wore double layers of hareskin socks that kept out all but the worst of the cold, and Raif's ancient hand-me-down boots fitted him so well that there was little chafing. When he touched his face he felt patches of hard and tender skin and he thought there might be some frost damage, but as long as it didn't hurt he didn't spare it much thought.
It was the shoulder that bothered him. Slowly, steadily, over the course of the past seven days Raif had felt it burning a hole in his chest. He'd once watched as Brog Widdie proofed the temperature on a batch of blister steel he had been firing. With his long, crab-craw tongs the master smith had formed a small portion of the red hot metal into ball, and then pulled it from the fire. Immediately he dropped the ball onto his proofing block and watched how quickly the molten metal burned through the green wood. The ball would blacken and hiss, igniting a ring of flames as it burned a hole through the wood. That's what the Shatan Maer's claw had begun to feel like to Raif; a piece of molten metal incinerating his flesh.
uDo you know how to start a stopped heart?" Yiselle No Knife had asked Addie Gunn in the Sull camp by the Rift. The words haunted Raif, the tone of them, the lightness yet certainty in her voice. She had meant to shock both of them, him and Addie, and she succeeded better than she realized. Until she spoke Raif had managed to squash it into the back of his thoughts. The shoulder hurt. It had grown worse since the creature on the rimrock had smashed him in the back. It ached, sometimes a lot. That was it. Now it loomed constantly in his thoughts, and he couldn't tell if he was imagining that it was growing worse, or if it really was growing worse. Either way Yiselle No Knife had won a victory. She hadn't prevented them from heading east as she had intended, but she had intimidated them. The Sull were experts at that.
"Let's head a mite south," Addie mumbled, surprising Raif by speaking for the first time since they'd broken camp earlier that morning. "After those icestones we drifted too far north."
Raif nodded his agreement. They were both wearing face masks roughly shaped from hareskins, and as it was difficult to talk they'd taken to signing basic instructions and requests. It was snowing in big flakes that were as light and airy as dandelion fluff. The clouds were thickly gray and did not appear to be moving. Underfoot the snow formed complicated layers, by turns mushy, grainy, gravelly and plain hard. Some drifts were as deep as Addie's waist, but generally the cover lay between one and one and a half feet. They'd been lucky with the afternoon thaw two days back: it had prevented the snow from becoming too deep.
Neither Addie nor Raif no longer had much idea of where they were. Most mornings they would align themselves with the rising sun, pick a point far in the distance—a stand of big trees, a ridge, a hummock, a frozen pond—and head toward it. If they reached it before dark they'd pick something else, correcting either north or south depending on how Addie felt about the going. This morning Addie had picked a knoll that stuck out above the forest canopy and glinted with blue-green lenses of ice. Now they slowed their pace while the cragsman chose a second target farther south.
Hiking onto a rock, Addie surveyed the land ahead. His brown wool cloak was deeply ringed with pine sap and his boots had been poked so many times by rocks and branches that the leather looked like it had been chewed on by dogs. Never one to waste much time, the cragsman made his decision, and then carefully lowered himself onto the floor of the slope. "Stream. This way" he said, striking a new path that took them down into the trees.
The cedar forests to the south formed a green lake on the valley floor, leaving the slopes and ridges free for other, scrappier trees. Spruce and white pines took the ground the cedars did not want, but even they stayed clear of the higher slopes. Forest fires and bog rot had killed successive generations of trees and there were many fallen logs and standing deadwoods. For the past day and a half Raif and Addie had walked above the northern treeline, following a goat path along the rocks, but now they entered woodland.
Light dimmed and the air grew colder. The snow underfoot was patchy, but you could hear the great weight of it in the trees. Boughs creaked and whirred as they strained to hold their loads. No decent wind in several days meant the trees had been given little relief. Some pines had bent in the middle, forming white humps that looked like bridges. Branches had failed and snapped. Entire trunks had split in two. Raif suggested they pick up their pace. Addie grumbled but agreed.
It was hard to know exactly where they lay in relation to Bludd. At some point in the east, Bludd forests melted into forests claimed and patrolled by the Sull. Bludd was a huge clanhold, and its northeastern reaches were wild and barely populated. Occasionally Raif and Addie saw smoke, but after the encounter with Yiselle No Knife and the Spinebreaker, neither had managed to work up sufficient desire to investigate. Raif assumed they were still above Bludd's borders, but couldn't be sure. Addie had an understandable fear of traveling too far north—the Want lay that way and you might simply blink and find yourself in the middle of it, unable to get out—and tended to steer them due east and southeast.
The Rift no longer existed as an unmissable marker that divided the continent into the clanholds and the lands of the barren north. The great fissure in the earth had narrowed to a canyon filled with debris, then a gulch choked with willow, then a simple gash in the rock. "It's still there," Addie had said, wagging his head at the ground when Raif asked, "but now you have to look for it. With all this snow we could be standing right upon it and wouldn't even know." Whenever Raif thought of Addie's words he couldn't help looking at his feet. He glanced down now as they made their way through a stand of hundre
d-year cedar. Nothing underfoot only pine needles and snow. "Whoa, laddie," Addie said, gripping his arm.
Raif looked at him, startled.
"Nearly lost your footing then" Above the face mask, Addie's gray eyes searched Raif's. "Probably hit a tree root."
A question lay behind the statement. Raif blinked. He felt as if he'd missed something. He'd been looking down at his feet and then then … Addie had spoken.
"Rest a minute," Addie said, clenching Raifs elbow like a vise. "Take a mouthful of water."
Considering Addie had him in an arm lock, Raif didn't have much choice. His chest felt strange. Tight Inside his boarskin glove all five fingers of his left hand were numb. When he held the water bladder above his head to drink, strange tingles passed along his arm to his shoulder.
Addie watched him. Raif knew what the cragsman was thinking. He tried to formulate a reply to the inevitable questions but couldn't think of anything reassuring that wouldn't be a lie.
Snow sifted down to the forest floor as they stood facing each other, silent. Last year's ferns poked through the ground cover like rusted iron bars. Finally Addie said, "Dead men don't fulfill oaths." Angry, he set off along the path on his own.
Raif bit off his glove, swiveled his arm back and rubbed his shoulder with numb fingers. A point deep in his chest felt hollow. Walking back along the course of his and Addie's footsteps, he searched for the exact spot where he'd looked down to check for the Rift. After a minute or two he thought he found it. His footsteps had been steady, evenly paced and all pointing in the same direction, and then one—just one—went awry. The toe of his left boot had made contact at a slightly different angle to the previous steps and the outside edge that led from it formed a wedge shape as if Raif had been in the process of making a sudden turn. There was no heel mark.
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