A Sword from Red Ice (Book 3)

by J. V. Jones

  Everything Traggis Mole said had the hard ring of truth about it, even the stuff about the gold. Raif did not care about the gold, nor did it change his opinion of Stillborn. The Maimed Man had warned him early on that this was not the clanholds and he was no longer clan. Raif frowned. If that had been an attempt by the Robber Chief to switch Raif’s allegiance it had failed. What had not failed were the other things Traggis Mole had said.

  You must grow accustomed to the dark.

  Those words described his life.

  Walking the short distance to the edge of the cliff, Raif look down at the city, forced himself to see it. A bonfire had been lit on the main ledge and Maimed Men were gathered in numbers, probably roasting the meat Addie and Stillborn had brought them. No other fires burned brightly. The glows of dozens of grass and willow fires flickered weakly, a single stick or blade of grass away from extinction. Traggis Mole had once called this place a termites’ nest, and that’s how it looked to Raif as the dark forms of men and women scuttled below him. He did not care about these people, so why had he told Stillborn and Addie Gunn that he would make himself their chief?

  In the light of day it was easy to say things and have them sound like sense. The night was different, full of dark spaces where doubts could grow. Words could get spun back on you. Traggis Mole had found the flaws in Raif’s plan and hurled them back like darts. Raif did not want to spend the rest of his days on the edge of this abyss, battling whatever came out.

  As if reading his mind, Traggis Mole said, “This flaw in the earth is mine. I’ve ruled it for seventeen years and I’ve found it gets no lovelier over time.” Somehow the Robber Chief was now beside Raif on the edge, his finely shaped mouth pouring cold words in his ear. “Men whine amongst themselves, throwing blame. What’s the Mole doing for us? Why haven’t we got more food? Why doesn’t the Mole act and change things? They forget where they are. They grow lazy, burn grass instead of wood and slaughter their ponies for meat. You tell them to go hunting and raiding and they look at you as if you’re cursing in a foreign tongue. This is the Rift. People here do not work toward the well-being of their fellow men. To rule here is to be king of a hole. Once you fall in there is no digging yourself out. Are you prepared for that, Twelve Kill, prepared to feed these ungrateful wretches, break up their knife fights, dispose of their dead? And all the while you have to stand here and watch, one eye on the Rift and the wralls that walk there, and the other eye on your back, marking the men who would slit your throat?”

  The Robber Chief’s gloved hand closed like a vise around Raif’s arm. “I will not let you slit my throat.”

  Raif swallowed. He could smell the Robber Chief, a smell of sweat and minerals and something else just short of sweet. The man’s fingers were like nails being driven into his flesh. Below, the city and the Rift seemed to be tipping toward them. Raif was acutely aware of the slope of the rock. If you were to set a ball by the firepit it would roll off.

  “Tell me you will not slit my throat,” demanded the Robber Chief. The force of his grip made both of them shake.

  Raif’s arm was beginning to numb. Something about the Robber Chief’s smell was familiar and vaguely disturbing, but his mind could not grasp what it was. For some reason he kept thinking about Drey’s dive board. Moving forward was the same as moving down.

  “I will not slit your throat,” he cried out.

  Instantly the same force that held him, yanked him back and he fell backward onto the rock, landing on his butt. He sat there a moment, planting his palms on the ground and breathing hard. Sharp tingles rose up his arm toward the wound made by the Shatan Maer, and suddenly Raif knew what the Robber Chief smelled of.

  He wished he had recognized it sooner for it might have prevented him from taking a step forward.

  And down.

  I will not slit your throat. The words were a lie; he had spoken them knowing he would defy them. Oh, he would have been sure not to use a knife and take it to the Robber Chief’s throat, but in all other ways the statement was false. Raif would have, and might still, kill him.

  Break an oath, kill a clansman, lie to a man’s face: the list of his sins had just grown longer.

  Raising his chin, Raif gazed at the stars. Perhaps, hundreds of leagues to the southwest at Blackhail, Drey and Effie were doing the same. He liked to think of them safe. It gave him something, not strength exactly, more like a solid surface to rest upon . . . as he fell.

  Raif glanced over his shoulder toward the Robber Chief, who had come to rest by the fire. A gloved hand, angling out from his greatcloak and grasping the edge of the firewall, told everything. Raif wondered how he had not seen it sooner. He, of all people, should have known.

  “So you will not slit my throat,” Traggis Mole repeated, a soft bitterness edging his voice. “I will make myself grateful for that.”

  Rising to his feet, Raif said, “The Rift Brothers should be taught how to set traps. There’s small game to the east of here. Rabbits, ground squirrels, coons. Lean meat, but a man could do worse.”

  A strange light glittered in Traggis Mole’s black eyes. “Do it,” he said.

  That cost him, Raif thought, unsure whether or not he had been right to bring it up. Traggis Mole’s pride ran deep.

  “Linden Moodie leads a sortie into the clanholds at dawn tomorrow. You will not be expected to go along.”

  Raif and the Robber Chief regarded each other carefully, searching for the truth behind one another’s statements. Just once Traggis Mole pulled his wooden nose free of his face and took a clear breath.

  “Why here?” Raif asked as the wind picked up, sending the flames in the firepit shivering.

  The robber chief did not shrug or hesitate as other men might. He said, “I fought the pits in Trance Vor; if any life could prepare a man for this it would be that one.”

  Pit fighting. Raif had thought it was a legend. Two men flung into a pit and not allowed out until one of them was dead.

  “The walls were always eleven feet high, do you know why?”

  Raif shook his head.

  “Any higher and the gas lamps wouldn’t be able to throw enough light into the pit and the crowd would be unable to see. Any shorter and a man could jump up and pull his way out.” Traggis Mole watched Raif shiver. “The winner always had to wait for the rope to be lowered. One day I decided I no longer wanted to wait.”

  It was getting colder, Raif realized, yet the Mole did not appear to feel it. He was moving again, this time toward the north edge of the stack where a ridge of rock stretched down and back to join the cliff wall. “My story is no different than a dozen other men and women will tell you here. We’re all lost, desperate. Chased. My mistake was in killing the man who lowered the rope to me that final time. He didn’t deserve it, but I can’t say that worried me much. He turned out to have the sort of brother that would not let the death rest. His name was Scurvy Pine and he called himself the King of Thieves. Took my nose from me and would have taken more if I hadn’t escaped him. Next day he set a thieves’ bounty on my head. A thousand pieces of gold, can you imagine it? Enough money to build a marble pool and drown yourself in riches. Every stableboy, man-at-arms, shopkeeper and villain in the city wanted to find me and chop off my head. And it didn’t stop at Trance Vor. Word of Scurvy Pine’s bounty spread west to Morning Star, Hound’s Mire, Spire Vanis and Ille Glaive. Soon there was nowhere I could rest easy at night. I took to the roads and then the woods, spent a year scratching out a living at a lumber camp deep in the Trenchlands, and then, by some miracle of misfortune, I ended up in the Rift.”

  Traggis Mole’s hand came up as he lightly touched his ribs through the fabric of his cloak. “And here is where I stay.”

  He knows, Raif realized, hearing the bleakness in his voice.

  Traggis Mole met gazes with Raif, breathed hard through his wooden nose and then looked away.

  “Everyone who saw you shoot against Tanjo Ten Arrow at the test of arrows saw what you could do with
a bow. The outlander Thomas Argola reckons you can do more. He came to me the day after the wrall passed through the city, and you know what he said?”

  Raif could imagine, but he shook his head.

  “He said if I were you, Mole Chief, I’d pray for Twelve Kill’s return.”

  The Mole moved and in an instant was directly in front of Raif’s face, his gloved hand grasping the collar of the Orrl cloak. “What did he mean by that?”

  Updrafts were rising, and the first hollow notes of Rift Music sounded. Raif smelled cat meat cooking nine stories below him. “You must have asked him.”

  For a moment Raif thought Traggis Mole would pull out one of his famous longknives and stab him in the throat. Yet he didn’t. With a springing motion of his hand he released Raif’s cloak. “I am asking you.”

  The calm in his voice sounded dangerous to Raif. “I can’t tell you what the outlander knows. I’ve only spoken to him a handful of times and what he said made no sense. I can tell you that I have seen and fought those beings you call wralls. I have killed some. I can do it again.”

  Here was the knowledge he had been waiting for, the one thing that this meeting was about. Raif saw it now, saw the world of fear living behind the Mole Chief’s black eyes. Saw it and knew it wasn’t for himself. We are alike, Raif realized with a small start. Both watching.

  Both wounded.

  Traggis Mole said, “Will you defend your Rift Brothers?”

  The words were formal, and to Raif they sounded like an oath. He thought before he answered. He did not want to speak a second lie. Some wary part of his brain checked for clauses. The words sounded like a simple request; they did not appear to conceal a trap. Only yesterday he had spoken a promise to Stillborn and Addie Gunn. I will become Lord of the Rift. Surely the two were one and the same?

  Raif glanced at the Robber Chief, Traggis Mole. Why did he not ask for anything for himself?

  The answer was beneath his cloak. Perhaps not even realizing he did so, Traggis Mole stood bent at the waist.

  “I will defend the Rift Brothers.” Raif tried, but could not keep the ring of oathspeaking from his voice, and the words bounced off the cliffwall and echoed across the Rift to the clanholds.

  Oathbreaker, that was his Blackhail name.

  But the Robber Chief did not know it.

  Traggis Mole nodded once, and then called to some unseen watcher down below, directing him to lower the drawbridge.

  He and Raif stood feet apart, watching each other as men climbed stairs and loosed ropes.

  “Go,” the Robber Chief commanded once the narrow wooden drawbridge was seated upon the lip of the stack.

  The instant before Raif turned he saw a single curl of black smoke rising through the gap in Traggis Mole’s horsehide cloak.

  The wrall’s sword had sunk deep into the meat between his ribs, and now he was being eaten alive.

  Raif felt the wound in his shoulder twitch in sympathy as he crossed the drawbridge in the dark.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The Menhir Fire

  Raina soaked in the copper bath and let her thoughts drift with the steam. It was good to be weightless. Her breasts floated on the surface, hot and pink, as her hand idly passed between her legs. Later her presence would be needed at the Hallowing of the guidestone, but for now she could simply float.

  Jebb Onnacre had brought the tub to her chamber and Anwyn had drawn a bath with rosemary and precious ambergris. The scent was sweet and peppery, like baked fruit. Oil swirled on the water, trembling as Raina breathed. Dagro had liked to watch her bathe, and she had learned over time to enjoy being watched. Boldly she would raise her legs from the water and ask if he found her clean.

  Pushing her toes against the base of the tub, Raina rose to standing. There was too much confusion down that path. Mace Blackhail had robbed that pleasure from her, the remembering of her first husband’s lovemaking. She could glimpse it but if she looked too long, newer images were overlaid over the old ones. Son instead of father. Dead leaves between her legs. Stepping out of the bath, Raina twisted her wet hair into a knot and wrung it dry. She had never returned to the Oldwood. When she was chief she was going to have it chopped down.

  Anwyn had laid out all manner of pretty things for Raina to dally with. Shell combs, silk ribbons, perfumed unctions, a silver mirror, rouge—how in the name of Ione had she come by that? Toweling herself dry with a yellow shammy Raina frowned in mild puzzlement. There was a message here, in all these maiden’s gewgaws and paints, and if she thought about it long enough it wasn’t flattering. Yes, Anwyn meant to treat her. The clan matron was one of the very few people in this roundhouse who knew what Raina felt about being forced to participate in tonight’s events. Yet a hot bath alone would have sufficed as a treat. This armory of prettiness laid out on a crisply pressed sheet was something more.

  Anwyn must have called in some favors, for she was a woman who when presented with a pot of rouge would use it to grease cow udders. The one thing she had in her corner was her total mastery and control of the clan kitchen. The clan maids might turn up their noses at mutton stew and boiled pork, but they’d hand over valuable equipment for honeycakes, dried and sugared apricots and plum wine. Raina sat on the corner of the bed and picked up a weapon at random. It was a needle of bone with a flat end that felt like sand paper. A buffer? Experimentally, Raina brushed it against her teeth. Dear gods, either Anwyn had made a mistake and included a woodworking tool amongst the trinkets or maids today had declared tooth enamel outdated. Raina put it back in its place and picked up the hairbrush instead. Her hair was tangled from lack of care so she rubbed a little unction on the toothcombs. That was better. It even smelled nice. By the time the waist-length, honey-colored locks were finally combed out the ends were beginning to dry.

  Still naked, she reached for the rouge, sniffed it, tested it on the back of her hand, rejected it, then put some on her cheeks anyway. And then rubbed it off. Crucial seconds passed as she inspected herself in the mirror. No, she did not look like a city bawd. Her face actually looked better with some color, as if she’d been out riding or had an hour or two of sun.

  Of course now that she saw herself she realized Anwyn’s point. Tonight everyone in the clan would be gathered to watch the Hallowing of the new Hailstone. It was a ceremony you could live entire lifetimes and never see. People would be excited and expectant. It had to go well; the future of Blackhail depended upon it. Many clansmen and women would participate in the Calling of the Gods, but only one person would bear the Menhir Fire, and up until an hour ago that person had been walking about the roundhouse as pale and grubby as a cellar maid. Even if she did not honor the stone she must honor her fellow clansmen: that was the catch of tonight. Wisely, Anwyn had understood this and given Raina a gentle push in the right direction.

  Raina Blackhail, wife to two chiefs, must welcome the new Hailstone with reverence, properly groomed and attired. Everyone in the clan had sons, fathers or brothers at war. She must honor them. It was as simple as that. She must think of Blackhail, not Stannig Beade and Scarpe, must imagine the wishes of her first husband Dagro, not those of her second husband Mace.

  Fanning her hair over her shoulders to encourage it to dry, Raina crossed to the cedar chest that she’d ordered brought down from her old chambers. It contained cloaks, dresses, shawls, smallclothes, blouses, boots, stocking, skirts, heeled shoes and other items of clothing. Dust rose as she pushed back the lid. The layers were packed with dried wheat seeds, though she could not recall why. The seeds created a snowfall of gold as she pulled out one dress after another. It had been a long time since she’d cared about how she looked. The old Raina—the one that existed before Dagro’s death and the rape in the Oldwood—had been young and carefree and had not realized her own good luck. Raina felt tender toward her, indulgent of her girlish taste in dresses. Periwinkle blue silk! Such finery had probably cost Dagro an entire horse at the Dhoone Fair.

  She would never again be the woman
who wore this dress to the Spring Lark and pretended not to notice clansmen’s admiring glances as she whirled around the dance floor. Such delight had forever passed. Prettiness and the politics of attracting, yet appearing to disdain, male attention seemed like child’s play. The blue silk would not do. She rummaged further, thrusting arm-deep into the seeds. Finally she found it, right at the bottom keeping company with dried-out spiders, a dress spun from finely woven mohair, russet-colored, with a panel of silver tissue that peeked through a split in the skirt.

  “I know it’s not to your taste, Ray. But mayhap one day you’ll grow into it.” Raina heard Dagro’s voice as clearly as if he were speaking into her ear. He had gone to parley with Threavish Cutler in Ille Glaive and spent the night in the Lake Keep. At the feast he attended, he spotted a fine city lady wearing a dress much the same as this. “She was dancing, and it flashed silver when she moved and I thought to myself: Raina must have one. It was the first time I’d ever looked at a dress and thought of Blackhail.” Raina swallowed. He was a man so he had got the details wrong. A local seamstress had run it up for him, using the fancy city fabrics he had brought her. Raina had never liked it and worn it only once, when the ancient clan chief Spynie Orrl had come to visit. It had seemed old to her and fuddyduddy, though it fit well enough around the bodice.

  Seven years later it seemed just right. Stately and beautiful, heavy as a king’s cloak. She pulled it on and struggled for some time with the lacings. Her waist was the same size but her breasts appeared to have gotten larger—had she always worn her dresses this tight?

  Her hair was close to dry by the time she’d donned stockings and suede boots and a belt of silver chain, and she set about pinning it back. No matronly, serviceable braids. Not tonight. She would wear her hair in thick, loose hanks at her back, banded with silk ribbon.