by J. V. Jones
Tem had once told Raif that far to the south in the Soft Lands of flat-roofed cities, grassy plains, and warm seas, there were others who used guide circles to protect them. Knights, they were called. And Tem said they burned their circles into their flesh.
Raif didn’t know about that, but he knew a clansman would sooner leave the roundhouse without his sword than without a flask, pouch, antler tine, or horn containing his measure of powdered guidestone. With a sword, a man could only fight. Within the hallowed ground of a guide circle, he could speak with the Stone Gods, ask for deliverance, absolution, or a swift and merciful death.
A wolf howled in the distance, and as if its call had woken him from a trance, Drey pushed back his hood and stripped off his gloves. Raif did the same. All was still and quiet. The wind had died, the ravens landed, the wolf silent, perhaps scenting prey. Neither brother spoke. Words had never been the Sevrances’ way.
Drey struck the flint. The kindling caught, flaring fiercely in Drey’s hand. Drey stepped forward, knelt on one knee, and lit the run of alcohol-laced moss he had laid.
Raif forced himself to watch. It was hard, but he was clan, and his chief and his father lay here, and he would not look away. Flames raced toward Tem Sevrance, eager yellow fingers, sharp red claws. Hellfire. And it would eat him as surely as any beast.
Tem . . .
Suddenly Raif could think of nothing but stamping the blaze out. He stepped forward, but even as he did so, liquid fire found the first tent, and the primed elkhide burst into a sheet of flames. Sparks flew upward with a great gasp of smoke, and a thunderous roar of destruction shook the badlands to its core. Flames so hot they burned white danced in the rising wind. Pockets of ground ice melted with animal hisses, and then the stench of burning men rose from the pyre. Rippling air pushed against Raif’s cheek. His eyes burned, and salt water streamed from them, running down his cheeks. He continued to look straight ahead. The exact piece of ground Tem lay on was etched upon his soul, and it was his Stone God-given duty to watch it until it had burned to dust.
Finally there came a time when he could look away. Turning, he looked to his brother. Drey would not meet his eyes. Drey’s hand was bunched so tightly into a fist it caused his chest to shake. After a moment he spoke. “Let’s go.”
Without glancing up to check his brother’s reaction, Drey crossed over to the horse posts, picked up his share of the supplies, and hefted them over his back. From the bulky look of the packs, Raif guessed Drey had chosen to carry the heaviest bundles himself.
Drey waited by the post. He would not look at his brother, but he would wait for him.
Raif walked to meet him. As he suspected, the packs Drey had left were light, and Raif shrugged them on his back like a coat. He wanted to say something to Drey, but nothing seemed right, so he kept his silence instead.
The fire roared at their backs as they left the badlands campsite and headed south. Smoke followed them, fire stench sickened them, and ashes settled on their shoulders like the first shadows of night. They crossed the floodplain and the sedge meadow and headed over the great grasslands that led home. The sun set slow but early, lighting the sky behind them with a lingering bloody light.
Drey never mentioned continuing the search for Mace Blackhail, and Raif was glad. Glad because it meant his brother saw the same things he did along the way: a broken pane of ice on a melt pond, a horse’s hoof clearly stamped in the lichen, a ptarmigan bone, its end black from the roastfire, picked clean.
When exhaustion finally got the better of them, they halted. An island of blackstone pines formed their shelter for the night. The great centuries-old trees had grown in a protective ring, originally seeded from a single mother tree that had matured in the center, then later died. Raif liked being there. It was like camping within a guide circle.
Drey lit a dry fire and pulled an elkhide over his shoulders to keep warm. Raif did the same, and the two brothers sat close around the flames and ate strips of hung mutton and boiled eggs gone black. They drank Tem’s dark, virtually undrinkable homebrew, and the sour taste and tarlike smell reminded Raif so strongly of his father it made him smile. Tem Sevrance’s homebrew was the worst in the entire clan; everyone said so, no one would drink it, and it was rumored to have killed a dog. Yet Tem never changed his brew. Much like heroes in stories who poisoned themselves a little each day to protect against attacks from artful assassins, Tem had become immune to it.
Drey smiled, too. It was impossible not to smile when faced with the very real possibility of death by beer. A soreness came to Raif’s throat. There was just three of them now: he, Drey, and Effie.
Effie. The smile drained from Raif’s face. How would they tell Effie her da had gone? She had never known their mother. Meg had died on the birthing table in a pool of her own blood, and Tem had reared Effie on his own. Many clansmen and more than a few clanswomen had told Tem he should remarry to provide his sons and daughter with a mother, yet Tem had flatly refused. “I have loved once, completely,” he would say. “And that’s blessing enough for me.”
Suddenly Drey reached over and cuffed Raif lightly on the cheek. “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll be all right.”
Raif nodded, glad to his heart that Drey had spoken and comforted by the realization that the same thoughts sifting through his mind were sifting through Drey’s as well.
Sitting back, Drey adjusted the fire with a stick. Red-and-blue flames danced close to his gloved hand as he turned out charred logs. “We’ll make Clan Bludd pay for what they did, Raif. I swear it.”
A hand of pure ice gripped Raif’s gut. Clan Bludd? Drey had no proof of what he said. The raid could have been mounted by any number of parties: Clan Dhoone, Clan Croser, Clan Gnash, a band of Maimed Men. The Sull. And then there was the nature of the wounds, the stench of badness, the feeling that something more than death had taken place. The warriors of Clan Bludd were fierce beyond telling, with their spiked and lead-weighted hammers, their case-hardened spears, their partly shorn heads, and their greatswords cut with deep center grooves for channeling their enemies’ blood; yet Raif had never once heard either Tem or Dagro Blackhail say that Clan Bludd was involved in . . .
Raif shook his head. He had no words for what had happened at the campground. He just knew that any clansman worth his lore would turn his back on such a thing.
Glancing over at Drey, Raif took a breath to speak. Then, seeing how viciously Drey poked at the fire and how the stick he held was bent close to breaking, he let the breath out, unused. In five days they would be back home. All truths would come out then.
FOUR
A Raven Has Come
Angus Lok was receiving kisses. Fourteen of them, to be exact, one for each halfpenny that Beth and Little Moo would cost him. It was Beth’s idea, of course; she wanted new ribbons for her hair, and she was prepared to do anything—kissing included—to get them. Little Moo was far too young to have formed any opinion on ribbons other than that they were good to chew on; yet she was kissing her father anyway, giggling wildly and wetting Angus’ face with sticky, ever-so-slightly gritty kisses that tasted of oatcakes.
“Please, Father. Please,” Beth said. “You promised.”
“Pweez, Papa,” echoed Little Moo.
Angus Lok groaned. He knew when he was beaten. Slapping a hand on his chest, he cried, “All right! All right! You’ve torn your poor father’s heart out along wi’ his purse! Ribbons it is! I suppose I should ask what colors you’ll both be wanting?”
“Pink,” said Beth.
“Noos,” said Little Moo.
Angus Lok picked up Little Moo, lifted her from his lap, and planted her gently on the fox pelt rug at his feet. “Pink and noos it is, then.”
Beth giggled as she laid one last kiss on her father’s cheek and stood. “Blue, Father. Little Moo wants blue.”
“Noos. Noos,” echoed Little Moo happily.
“Angus.”
Angus looked up at the sound of his wife’s voice
. Two syllables, yet straightaway he knew something was wrong. “What is it, love?”
Darra Lok hesitated a moment in the doorway, as if reluctant to move forward, then took a small, resigned breath and walked into the farmhouse kitchen. Coming to join Angus by the fire, she paused to push a stray strand of hair from Beth’s face and deprive Little Moo of a hairy bit of oatcake that the child had just plucked from the depths of the fox pelt rug.
Sitting down on the oakwood bench that her father’s steward had made for her as a wedding gift eighteen years earlier, Darra Lok took her husband’s hand in hers. Checking first that the two youngest of her three daughters were caught up in their own worlds of ribbons and oatcakes, she leaned close to Angus and said, “A raven has come.”
Angus Lok took a deep breath and held it. Closing his eyes, he spoke a silent prayer to any and all gods who might be listening. Please let it not be a raven. Please let Darra be mistaken and it be a rook, a jackdaw, or a hooded crow. Even as he wished it, he knew he was wrong. Darra Lok knew a raven when she saw one.
Angus raised his wife’s hand to his lips and kissed it. He knew the gods didn’t like it if a man asked for one thing straight after another, so he didn’t pray that his fear wasn’t showing on his face. He simply hid it as well as he could.
Darra’s dark blue eyes looked into his. Her normally lovely face was pale, and little lines Angus had barely noticed before were etched deep into her brow. “Cassy spotted it this morning, circling the house. It didn’t come to land until now.”
“Take me to it.”
Darra Lok let go of her husband’s hand and nodded. She stood slowly, reluctantly, brushing imaginary dirt from her apron. “Beth. Watch your sister. See she doesn’t get too close to the fire. I’ll be back in just a minute.”
Beth nodded in a movement that was so similar to the one Darra had just made, it turned Angus’ heart to lead. A raven had come to his house, and although the massive blue black birds with their long knife wings, powerful jaws, and human voices meant many different things to many different people, to Angus Lok they meant just one: leaving home.
Darra walked ahead of him out of the kitchen, and Angus paused a moment to run his hand over Beth’s cheek. “Pink and blue,” he mouthed as he left, so she knew he wouldn’t forget about the ribbons.
It was raining outside, a steady drizzle that had begun just before dawn, and the grounds around the Lok farm were turning to mud. Darra had spent most of the morning harvesting the last of her herb garden before first frost, and the small patch of ground just below the kitchen window was stripped bare. To the side of the herb garden, the chickens clucked nervously in the coup, built in a lean-to against the kitchen chimney. They knew all about ravens.
“Father!”
Angus Lok turned toward the voice of his eldest daughter. Cassy Lok had dirt smeared on her face, her hair was plastered to the sides of her head in two wet sheets, and she was wearing an ancient oilskin cape that had come with the farm together with a milk churn and two rotting plows. Yet to Angus she looked perfectly beautiful. High spots of color glowed in her cheeks, and her hazel eyes were as bright as raindrops glistening on amber. Sixteen, she was. Old enough to be wed and have children of her own. Angus frowned. How was she ever going to meet a young man, hidden out here in the farm and woodlands two days’ northeast of Ille Glaive? She wasn’t. And that was one reason Angus Lok didn’t sleep well at night.
“Have you come to take a look at the raven?” Cassy said, excitement spilling into her voice as she ran to join her father. “It’s a messenger, like the rooks that sometimes come. Only bigger. There’s something tied to its leg.”
Darra and Angus Lok exchanged a glance. “Cassy, go inside and warm yourself. Your father and I will see to the bird.”
“But—”
“Inside, Casilyn.”
Cassy brought her lips together, made a small huffing sound, then turned and made her way inside the house. Darra seldom used her full name.
Angus ran a hand over his face, brushing the rain from his eyebrows and beard. He watched as Cassy closed the kitchen door behind her. She was a good girl. He’d talk to her later, explain what he could.
“This way. The bird has no liking for the rookery like the rest. It’s perched itself in the old elm around the back.” Without waiting for her husband to acknowledge what she said, Darra cut across the yard and down along the side of the house. Angus had lived with his wife too long not to know that her briskness was a cover. Darra was nervous and trying not to show it.
To the rear of the Lok farmhouse lay open woodland. Great old oaks, elms, and basswoods grew tall and spread wide over a rich damp underwood of lichen, dead leaves, loam, and ferns. In spring Cassy and Beth would search for blue duck eggs, wood frogs, and wild mint, and in summer they’d spend entire days in the woods, picking cloudberries, blackberries, gooseberries, and black plums, coming home after sundown with sticky faces and baskets crammed with dark mushy fruits that would have to be soaked in water to drown the maggots out. In autumn they would hunt for field mushrooms and milk caps, and in winter, during those times when Angus’ work took him away, Darra would set traps to catch small game.
Kaaw! Kaaw!
The raven announced its presence with two short, angry notes, drawing Angus Lok’s gaze skyward, up through the branches of the great white elm that provided summer shade for the entire house. Even surrounded by branches as thick as arms, the raven’s form was unmistakable. It perched in the tree with all the arrogance of a panther resting after an easy kill. Black and still, it watched Angus Lok with eyes of liquid gold.
Angus’ gaze shifted from the creature’s eyes to its legs. A marked thickening directly above its left claw was clearly visible: pikeskin, sinew bound, then painted with a resin seal.
Kaaw! Kaaw!
Look, I dare you.
Angus heard the raven’s call as a challenge. Only two people in the Northern Territories used ravens to carry their messages, and Angus knew in the soft marrow of his bones that he didn’t want to hear from either of them. The past lay within that pikeskin pouch, and he and the raven knew it.
“Call it down.” Darra’s voice was low, her hands twisted at the fabric of her apron.
Nodding softly, Angus whistled as he had once been taught nearly twenty years earlier: two short chirrs followed by a single long note.
The raven bobbed its head and shook out its wings. Gold eyes appraised Angus Lok. Seconds passed, and then, making a noise that sounded just like human laughter, the raven flew down from the branch.
Darra stepped back as the huge bird landed. Angus had to fight the urge to step back himself. The raven’s bill was as big as a spearhead, sharp and hooked like the shredder on a plow. Apparently delighted by Darra’s fear, the bird danced toward her, bobbing its head and calling softly.
“Nay, yer little beastie.” Angus grabbed at the raven, one hand circling its belly, the other clamping down on its bill. Pulling the bird from the ground, he hefted it fast against his chest. The raven jerked its wings and clawed its feet, but Angus held it firm, increasing his pressure on its bill. “Darra. Take the knife from my belt and cut the message.”
Darra did as she was asked, though her knifehand shook so much as she broke the seal that she nearly bled the bird. With the sinew and resin bindings broken, the small package, no bigger than a child’s little finger, fell into Darra’s left palm.
Angus turned away from his wife and threw the raven from him. The bird spread its wings and soared into the air, laughing, laughing, as it disappeared into the blade-metal sky.
“Here. Take it.” Darra Lok held out the package. The pikeskin wrapping was badly stained by rain, resin, and bird lime, but small silvery green patches of skin were still visible along its length. Pikeskin was light, strong, and waterproof and could be molded in place when wet. A useful material, yet Angus couldn’t recall the last time he’d received a message so wrapped. The moment Angus’ fingers closed around the soft,
damp package, Darra took a step back. Angus sent his wife a glance. Stay.
Darra shook her head. “No, my husband. I’ve been married to you for eighteen years, and I have never once looked upon any message they have sent. I do not think it would be a good time to break my tally now.” With that Darra Lok ran a hand over her husband’s right cheek and turned and walked away.
Angus cupped his hand to his face where his wife had touched him, holding on to her warmth as he watched her disappear behind the corner of the house. He didn’t deserve her. She was a Ross of Clad Hill, and her father was a grangelord, and nineteen years ago when they’d first met, she could have had any man she chose. Angus Lok never forgot that. It ran through his mind now as he unraveled the roll of pikeskin and pulled out the length of saliva-softened whitespruce bark.
Sliced so thinly that Angus could see his thumb through the fibers, the soft strip of inner bark carried a border of seals chasing quarter moons burned into the wood. The message was also burned in, painstakingly pricked out with the tip of a red-hot needle:
The One with Reaching Arms Beckons
Days Darker Than Night Lie Ahead
Sadaluk
Angus stepped toward the great old elm and leaned heavily against its trunk. Rain dripped around him, forming a curtain of beaded light. Many things he had been prepared for, many terrible, terrible things. But this . . . A bitter smile flashed across Angus’ face. This was something he had thought well behind him. They all had.
It’s your choice, Angus Lok. Make of it what you will. The past pulled like a much used muscle within Angus’ chest. It shortened his breath, making it difficult to breathe. He would have to leave. Tonight. Head for Ille Glaive, meet with those who needed to be told. It never occurred to him to doubt the message. Sadaluk of the Ice Trapper tribe was not the sort of man given to rash communication. Twenty years, and this was the first time Angus had ever heard from him.