A Fortress of Grey Ice (Book 2)

by J. V. Jones

  “Raina! Orwin! I’ve been looking everywhere for you two.” Out of nowhere Anwyn Bird came striding towards them, her long gray braid whipping at her neck. “Raina. Have you forgotten you were to help me take stock in the game room? And you, Orwin Shank. You promised to take a look at the hung mutton—tell me whether its spoiled.”

  Raina and Orwin exchanged a glance. Anwyn stood before them, hands on hips, her brown eyes challenging them to contradict her. They did what everyone in the clan did when faced with Anwyn Bird: they obeyed her.

  The night was growing stranger by the moment, Raina thought, as they filed through the kitchen toward the warren of stockrooms, stillrooms, larders and game rooms that constituted Anwyn’s domain. The light level dropped and the heat of the kitchens fell away. No one spoke. They didn’t need to. They knew their purpose here.

  The game room was kept under lock and key. It hadn’t always been that way, but since Scarpes had started inhabiting the roundhouse food had developed a habit of disappearing. Anwyn opened the door and bade them mind the steps. The room had been built belowground, hard against the northern wall. Even in high summer it was cold. Raina took the steps carefully, her breath whitening, and her nose pulling in the strong bloodless scent of aged meat.

  The chamber was long and low. A thick woodwork lattice was suspended just below the ceiling, and the meat hung there from iron brain-hooks. Whole, gutted animal carcasses swayed in the ventilating breeze. Sides of beef, black as if they had been burned, lined an entire wall. Pheasants and ptarmigans had been hung from their feet like bats, and hams and flitches of bacon—dipped in honey to encourage mold—had been packed into curing cubbies like brood hens.

  At first glance it seemed like a wealth of meat, but Raina could recall the time when the entire fifty-foot length of the room had been packed from floor to rafter with fresh kills. Now only the sides of beef reached back that far, and everything else occupied the first fifteen feet.

  Anwyn led them past the carcasses to an old table she used for trussing. She lit a mica safe-lamp, and then went back to close the door. Raina sat on a little milk stool, leaving the only proper chair for Orwin. Anwyn didn’t need a seat; the clan matron rarely sat.

  An awkward moment passed when no one spoke. Orwin clasped and unclasped his hands, working out the painful stiffness. Anwyn frowned at the table. Looking at them Raina suddenly realized they were waiting for her to begin.

  She took a breath. “Mace Blackhail is no longer my chief. He ordered the murder of Shor Gormalin and Spynie Orrl. He fills this roundhouse with Scarpes, and turns a blind eye when our tied clansmen are dispossessed of their farms. He is waging war with our staunchest ally, Orrl. And I have come to believe that he had foreknowledge of the attack in the badlands where my husband and your two sons, Orwin, met their deaths.”

  There. She had done it. She was shaking uncontrollably, but she met Orwin’s gaze and then Anwyn’s, and she was filled with a sense of her own power. To make things happen you just had to do them. Why had it taken her thirty-three years to figure that out?

  Orwin looked at her hard and long. Signs of strain were showing in his face, and Raina reminded herself that his youngest son lay in the Great Hearth, badly wounded. “What makes you believe Mace had foreknowledge of the badlands attack?”

  It was telling that he had not questioned her statement about Shor Gormalin. The subject of the badlands massacre had to be dealt with carefully. Not until this moment had she dared to speak her thoughts on it out loud. “Remember the day Raif and Drey Sevrance rode home, after everyone thought them dead?” Both Orwin and Anwyn nodded. “Well, I think back on that now and I see things we missed. Remember the first thing Raif Sevrance did? He named Mace a traitor.”

  Orwin shook his head. “That lad’s always been trouble, Raina.”

  “He drew a guide circle for your sons, Orwin. He and Drey took care of the dead.”

  The axman sighed. “Aye. I know it. He’s a decent lad, but headstrong. Impulsive.”

  Raina was quick to agree. “Yes, Orwin, he is decent. No matter what is said about him he stood up in that stovehouse at Duffs and went to fight with his clansmen.”

  “Many don’t see it like that.”

  “Then many should learn to think for themselves.” Realizing she had strayed too far from her subject, Raina started again. “Orwin. Raif Sevrance said things that day that directly contradicted Mace’s version of events. He said the attack took place at noon, not dawn as Mace insisted, and that he and Drey saw no sign of Clan Bludd. And remember how Mace gave that touching speech, about finding Dagro’s body by the horse posts. Raif Sevrance swore that he and Drey found Dagro by the meat rack, and that Dagro had been butchering a carcass when the raiders came.”

  Orwin looked unconvinced.

  But Raina wasn’t done. “Who benefited from that raid, Orwin? Mace Blackhail or Raif Sevrance? Who rode back on a chief’s horse and named himself a chief?”

  The axman had no answer for that, and Raina let the silence last. You couldn’t force a man to believe in something. He had to arrive at it himself.

  At last Orwin nodded, slowly, reluctantly, and Raina knew she had wounded him deeply. To lose two sons to Clan Bludd was a terrible thing, but there was honor in it. To lose two sons to some scheme of a would-be chief held no honor at all.

  From somewhere Anwyn produced a small glazed jar of her special malt. She had been quiet all this time, but watching her pull three tiny cups from a knitted bag she wore at her waist, Raina wondered if Anwyn Bird hadn’t been the instigator all along. Malt and three cups? Had she been the one who told Orwin the truth about Shor’s death? She was certainly close with Angus Lok; he had brought her a gift, Raina recalled.

  Anwyn Bird’s twenty-year malt was a thing to be savored. It tasted like summer smoke. Raina raised the cup to her face and inhaled—the fumes alone were enough to make you giddy. The last time she had drunk it had been on the day Mace Blackhail had stood Chief’s Watch. The twenty-year malt was always a marker of change.

  Raina set down her cup. Small, coin-sized holes had been drilled into the game room’s exterior wall for ventilation—you could not age meat without moving air—and she could hear rain trickling outside as the storm used itself up. It was time to get to the point.

  “If we make a move who will be with us?”

  “This cannot be done quickly, Raina,” Orwin said. “It could take many months, even years.”

  This was not what she wanted to hear. “Will the hammermen follow us?”

  “They must be given time. Yes, they have their doubts about Mace—he tried to put a hammerman’s sister to the fire—but a war is being fought and hammermen are men of war.” Orwin placed his elbows on the table and leant forward. “The moment’s not right, Raina. Mace might have many faults, but he’s proven himself a warlord. Give him time. Let him fail.”

  Reluctantly, Raina nodded. Dagro had valued this man’s advice, and she was beginning to understand why. He was right. In times of war men were less discriminating about their leaders. They needed someone strong, little more. She let out a deep breath. Was this how they were meant to leave it? With a simple “wait and see”?

  Then Anwyn spoke. She was looking at her cup, tracing a finger around its rim. “If we are to be serious about treason we need a chief. Someone we can rally to when the time is right, someone to take Mace’s place.”

  Raina felt a roaring in her ears. She said, “Orwin?”

  He was already shaking his head. “Nay, Raina. I’m too old and irresponsible for chiefdom.”

  She searched her mind. Shor Gormalin should have been chief, but Shor Gormalin was dead. “Corbie Meese? Ballic the Red? Drey?”

  “All good men,” Orwin agreed. “Fine warriors. In time Drey Sevrance may grow what it takes to make a chief, but he’s too young for now.”

  Then who?

  They were waiting, both of them. And Raina couldn’t believe what they wanted. It was madness, total madness. The r
oaring in her ears was so deafening she could barely think.

  But she could speak, and she said what she had to. “I will be chief.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  A Walk on the Edge

  The storm had slowed them. They were five days out of the Rift, but the last two had been little more than a struggle against driving wind and ice. Raif tried not to look south, tried not to imagine how the exact same storm would play out in the clanholds. How there would be rain instead of ice, and flashes of brilliant lightning instead of the oppressive sameness of a sky the color of lead.

  Tempers had flared, and already the small party had fallen into two camps: Linden Moodie’s and Stillborn’s. Yustaffa was the wild card, moving between the two with all the glee of a matchmaker in reverse. Raif watched him now—a fat man on a little horse—as he pushed past Addie Gunn to get to Moodie. Moodie had assumed the lead—another fight there—and Yustaffa had taken it upon himself to inform the leader of his followers’s dissent.

  Raif heard the words, “. . . And you’ll never believe what Stillborn said . . .” quickly followed by, “Addie Gunn swore you’d have us lost by midday . . .” before turning his thoughts elsewhere.

  They were traveling along the rim of a canyon in single file. The storm had scaled everything with frost, and even the dead bushes on the canyon floor glittered like crystal. The way was slippery, but Raif was used to that, and he kept a short rein on his pony. It was hard to accept he was heading west. In all his mad fantasies about returning to Blackhail, he had never imagined this.

  Lowering his head against the wind, Raif thrust the thought aside and rode on. He had chosen a position at the rear, only to have Linden Moodie order him forward. It was almost certain that Traggis Mole had charged Moodie with keeping an eye on Raif Twelve Kill, and just as certain that Moodie was relishing the job.

  They were a small party, eleven in all and three extra horses. Raif didn’t know all the men. He was glad Addie and Stillborn were along, but he was less sure about the olive-skinned outlander, the one who had revealed the bridge that spanned the Rift. The man didn’t look much like a fighter, more like a priest. He kept to himself, and did not eat the meat Stillborn cooked at the campfire each night.

  Raif slowed to guide his mount over a bank of scree, making sure that it was stable before giving the pony its head. The wind funneled through the canyon, raising spirals of ice and dust. The storm had died out in the night, but it had left the land ravaged and the air curiously unsettled. Even though they were not at altitude, Raif’s ears ached with the changing pressure.

  He was focused so intently on guiding the pony across the scree that he didn’t notice at first that Moodie had called a halt. Only when the pony’s hooves rang out on hard rock did he risk looking up. Linden Moodie and Yustaffa had dismounted farther along the path. Moodie had flung back his heavy scarlet cloak trimmed with fox fur and was crouched on the ground, inspecting something. As Raif drew closer he realized why the two Maimed Men had stopped. A giant gash in the rock blocked the way ahead.

  Raif slid off the back of his pony and went to join them. The fissure ran all the way down to the canyon floor forty feet below, and Raif could smell the newness of it; the stench of burned rock and exposed roots. The walls of the fissure were dark and jeweled with minerals, in stark contrast to the surrounding rock that had been weathered to a dull gray.

  Yustaffa sighed with barely contained relish. He was dressed in a tunic made up of bands of alternating rodent fur. Raif recognized the pelts of lemmings, meadow voles and giant hispid rats all layered into stripes. Yustaffa had paired this with glazed leather pantaloons bloused into his boots, and a cloak of dyed and shaved shearling. As the rest of the party drew abreast, he tutted and shook his head. “I knew we should have turned north at Grass Gorge!”

  Everyone ignored him. Air rising from the fissure stirred hair and beards. On the other side of the gash, Raif could clearly see the path rising along the canyon wall and continuing west.

  “This was not here last time I took this path,” Moodie said stubbornly.

  “And when might that have been?” Stillborn asked, coming to stand beside Raif. “Last I heard you prefer staying closer to home.”

  Moodie flashed Stillborn a dark look. “It wasn’t here a month ago, I tell you.”

  “He’s right.”

  Everyone turned to look at the man who’d spoken. The olive-skinned outlander stepped forward. He was dressed in loose robes of drab green, covered by a plain gray cloak. The cold had turned the skin on his face ashy, and his left eye had blood in it. “It’s not Linden’s fault,” he continued, calmly. “This crack has just opened.”

  Stillborn raised his eyebrows. “And who made you an expert?”

  For some reason the outlander looked at Raif as he replied, “You don’t need to be an expert to know that the earth is warping. Something down there is forcing its way out.”

  The Maimed Men shifted uncomfortably. Addie Gunn took a withered apple from his pack and bit into it. Stillborn wandered back toward the scree bank, looking for an alternate path. The outlander continued to stare at Raif. After a few seconds Raif decided he’d had enough, and went to check his pony’s mouth. As he ran a finger between the pony’s bit and its gums, feeling for sores, he sensed the outlander still watching him.

  A heated argument soon started up about the best way to circumvent the gash. Yustaffa suggested they should try and jump it—with Linden Moodie going first. Moodie’s plan was for them to descend to the canyon floor and follow it west. Not many in the party liked that idea. The canyon wall was steep granite mounded with scree. A fall could break a man’s leg. Someone else suggested they climb toward the headland, but even Raif could see there was no feasible ascent and the idea was quickly abandoned.

  Addie Gunn ate his apple and said nothing. When he was done he fed the core to his pony. Voices had been raised by then, and Linden Moodie’s garrote scar had flushed red. “We’re going down!” he cried. “And gods damn the lot of you!”

  Heated protests followed, and in the middle of it all Addie spoke a word. “Gentlemen.”

  The Maimed Men turned to look at him, and he waited patiently, his hand on his pony’s nose, until they fell silent to a man.

  “An hour back we passed a goat trail that led northwest. Follow it and I’d say we’ll make the headland afore dark.” His hand slid around his pony’s nose strap. “Come on, girl. Time we were heading back.”

  The Maimed Men stared at him, half indignant and half relieved. No one doubted him: Addie Gunn was a cragsman, and canyon country was filled with crags. Stillborn was the first to follow him, leading his stout little pony through the tight circle on the ledge. Seeing the other men in the party ready to abandon him, Linden Moodie hastily ordered a turnabout.

  As Raif led his pony back across the scree, he found himself thinking about Addie Gunn. The cragsman had established a place here, amongst these men. They respected him for what he knew. Raif had been on two expeditions with him and both times men had deferred to his judgment. It seemed incredible to think it, but Addie had been treated better by the Maimed Men than he had been by his own clansmen. Raif frowned, not liking what that said about clan.

  “I see you’ve caught the interest of our failed priest,” Yustaffa said, breaking into his thoughts. The fat man was back on his horse, riding directly behind Raif. When Raif made no reply he explained himself. “The outlander, Thomas Argola—I saw him watching you before. A tiresome man, but useful, very useful. Of course, the others can’t abide him. Can’t think why. He hardly eats but two beans a day, and would rather die than pick a fight.”

  Raif put his foot in the stirrup and mounted his pony. “Why is he here, then?”

  “Good question.” Yustaffa trotted his pony ahead of Raif’s. The entire party was back on the path now, and Addie Gunn was leading the way east. “He does have a few tricks up his sleeve. Confusion to the enemy and all that.”

  “He’s a magic-user?�
��

  “Not a very good one.” Yustaffa sniffed. “It half kills him to reveal the bridge. He’s not fit to stand in a Mangali shaman’s shadow. One of them in your party and you can trot right up to a strong room, whip your drawers off and steal everything in sight before anyone knows you’re there.”

  A gust of wind blew out Yustaffa’s shearling cloak, and Raif caught sight of the sword breaker strapped to the fat man’s thigh. He said, testing, “Why would he be watching me?”

  Yustaffa’s laughter was high and tinkling. “Raif Twelve Kill, dear boy. He’s watching you for the same reason Traggis Mole is watching you. Because things have a nasty habit of happening around you, and someone usually ends up dead.” Still laughing Yustaffa rode on.

  Raif pulled on his reins, falling back. He’d asked for that . . . but it didn’t make hearing it any easier.

  Deciding it was better not to think, he hunkered down in the saddle and continued falling back until he reached the rear. Linden Moodie was breathing down Addie’s neck, waiting impatiently to resume the lead. He didn’t notice that Raif was keeping company with the packhorses.

  The day wore on. They found Addie’s goat path and followed it up toward the headland. Whatever force had caused the gash in the canyon wall had sent rocks tumbling into unstable piles and opened up hairline cracks in the earth. Addie had an eye for the dangers, and would signal a slowdown from time to time when everyone would dismount and lead their ponies.

  By the time they reached the headland it was growing dark. Addie wanted to halt and make camp, but Moodie wouldn’t hear of it. “We have to be at the mine by black of the moon—that’s when they shift the gold. Now the weather’s calmed some we need to make up for lost time.”

  No one argued with him. A half-moon had risen, but the cloud cover was too thick to let through much light. The headland was flat, swept clean by hard winds, and the ground underfoot was little more than rock. Hairy weeds grew in the leeward shelter of boulders, and every now and then Raif would catch the eyeshine of tundra foxes.