A Cavern Of Black Ice (Book 1)

by J. V. Jones

  Raif nodded. He couldn’t speak. As he turned to enter the roundhouse, the raven began shrieking loudly. Corpse! Corpse! Corpse! Raif heard.

  “Rider approaching!” Velvet-cheeked Rory Cleet made the call.

  Even as Raif swiveled around, Ballic the Red brought his bow to his chest. The massive bowman bellowed for all to get out of his way so he could be sure of a clear shot if needed. Raif looked over the graze in the direction Rory Cleet indicated. A white gelding walked across the snow, picking its steps with enormous care, its back held artificially straight. Its rider was slumped forward in the saddle. The man’s chest and head were resting against the horse’s neck, and an arm trailed down over the gelding’s shoulder, gloved fingers still tangled in the reins.

  A muscle in Raif’s neck began to pump. The gelding belonged to Shor Gormalin.

  Slowly, over seconds that stretched like minutes, Ballic slid his arrow from the string. Corbie Meese’s hammer thudded onto the ground, making a sound like a broken bell. Inigar Stoop’s lips started moving, and even though the wind was still high and Raif couldn’t hear what he said, he knew the Stone Gods were being named for the second time that day.

  The gelding, long necked and finely cheeked, with large liquid eyes, slowly picked a path to the court. Everything within him was focused upon just one thing: bringing his rider home. One small misstep, one slight shake of his neck, and his rider would slide from the saddle into the snow. Shor Gormalin was dead. As the clansmen moved forward slowly, quietly, so as not to startle the fine white horse, Shor’s fair hair could clearly be seen. Half the side of his head was blasted away by two fist-size quarrels shot at close range. One of the arrow shafts had broken off, the other jutted out from a mat of blood, tissue, and raised bone like something growing from Shor’s head.

  Without a word passing between them, the ambush party halted in a half circle and allowed the gelding to finish his journey home. Respect was due to such a horse, and twenty-nine men knew it. Shor had fallen slightly to the left, and every muscle in the horse’s neck and shoulders was taut with the strain of holding his rider in place. Dried and partly frozen blood streaked the gelding’s mane pink and black. As horse and rider drew close, Raif saw that Shor’s small unpretentious halfsword still sat firmly in its scabbard. The finest swordsman in the clan had not been allowed chance to draw his weapon.

  “Cowlman,” whispered someone, perhaps Corbie Meese.

  The gelding came to a halt before the clansmen, turned side-on, and then held his position, offering his rider to the clan. Cloud. The horse’s name came to Raif like a gift. Shor had ridden him for eight years.

  A soft tearing sound cut the air as the raven chose that moment to fly away. Watcher of the Dead, thought Raif with a dull stab of self-hatred. The raven had known all along.

  TWELVE

  A Fistful of Ice

  Stomach cramps pumped in Ash’s stomach as she and Katia descended the stairs, heading toward the quad. She was sick of feeling ill all the time, tired of being cooped up in her chamber and tended day and night. She hated her dreams, too. They came every night now. Every night. She couldn’t remember the last time she had closed her eyes and simply slept. Couldn’t recall when she’d last awakened in the morning feeling rested. Instead she woke in the dead of night, in those dark standstill hours where no one but thieves and nightwatchmen were about, feeling as if she’d been running through the streets. Always she awoke drained of strength and shaking. Sweat poured down her neck, her heart beat like a mad thing in her chest, and the sheets were twisted so tightly around her throat, they raised weals that stayed for hours. Lately there had been bruises . . .

  Ash shook her head. Put that thought aside.

  “What’s the matter, miss. Cold already?”

  “No. I mean yes. That’s it. Cold, just cold.” Ash cursed herself. She sounded like such a fool. “Hand me my gloves. Quick now.”

  Katia harrumphed. She might have said something, only they were approaching the lower rotunda and armed men dressed in the black leather cloaks of the Rive Watch, carrying blood steel at their hips and across their backs, were walking through the hallway on their way to the Red Forge. No one, not even a sulky maid like Katia, liked to draw the Rive Watch’s attention her way. The sight of their blades alone could set maidens and goodwives fainting. The red pigment fired into the steel of their longknives and greatswords was said to come from a mix of mercury and human blood.

  Suddenly nervous, Ash snatched her calfskin gloves from Katia and tugged them on with a great deal more force than was necessary. Knuckles cracked. “It’s not snowing, is it?” she asked, stepping into the hallway. Perhaps a dozen or so steps above her Marafice Eye, Protector General of Spire Vanis and Lord of the Rive Watch, followed in her shadow like a terrible and silent hound. It really was quite ridiculous. Didn’t he have something better to do? Ride down smugglers, burn thieves’ hands black, hack the fingers from prostitutes who were slow in paying Protector’s Trove?

  “I said, it’s cold and dry outside.”

  Ash jumped at the sound of Katia’s raised voice. “I heard you the first time,” she lied. Why did she feel so weak? Why did every sharp sound and creaking floorboard make her flinch?

  Reaching the tall iron-gated door that led from the Cask to the quadrangle, Ash tied the last few ribbons on her cloak for good measure. Penthero Iss hadn’t allowed her outside in weeks, and the last time she had ridden in the enclosed space of the quad was late autumn. Things had got a lot colder since then. Bracing herself, she stepped over the threshold. An awful lot colder.

  The stone-flagged quadrangle formed the protected heart of Mask Fortress. Each of its points was occupied by one of the four great towers, and its walls were formed by fortress ramparts and great halls. The quad was long enough to race horses and wide enough to raise lists and stage tourneys each spring. In summer the grangelords held court here, and in the dark months leading to winter Penthero Iss oversaw the trials of high traitors from the obsidian ledge in front of the Bight.

  A thin layer of snow covered the entire quad. Bitter frosts over the past week had glaciated the topsnow, making it crackle underfoot. Every time Ash took a step she felt as if she were breaking something. Most of the quad was paved, but the horse run along the outer wall had long since grown over with the tough yellow grasses that lived on Mount Slain. Shaggy weeds peeked through cracks in stonework, and oily green mosses coated flagstones around the bases of three of the four towers. Nothing grew close to the Splinter, not one spike of grass or cushion of moss. Nothing. The ice-bound tower had foundations like the roots of a black walnut, sending its poisons deep into the soil to kill anything that grew and threatened to rob its light.

  Ash shivered. However did such nonsense get into her head? The ground soil was saturated, that was all. Too much water running down the walls. Aware that her thoughts were skirting dangerously close to the night she had stepped through the iron-plated door and walked along the abandoned east wing, Ash said the first thing that came into her head. “You don’t have to walk beside me as I ride, Katia. You can stay in the stables and keep warm.”

  Katia grumbled something. Her dark glossy hair was currently waging war with a woolen cap, and from the looks of things the hair was winning. Great springy curls had succeeded in tilting the cap at an angle guaranteed to catch a passing updraft—one strong gust and it would be off. Ash watched the maid out of the corner of her eye. Even in a temperature cold enough to freeze the brine in the curing vats, Katia looked beautiful. Her skin glowed like buttered toast, and her lips were fat with blood. Ash knew her own cheeks and lips would be as pale and bloodless as day-old bread, and the harsh light of reflected snow would do the bags under her eyes no favors. The sight of her own face had begun to frighten her. She looked half wasted.

  Not realizing Ash was watching her, Katia glanced over her shoulder toward the Knife. Something passed between them—Ash couldn’t tell what—but a moment later the expression on the little ma
id’s face changed. She shivered elaborately. “Ooh. But it’s cold, miss. I swear I’ll catch my death out here. I’m not like you: iceborn. Mistress Wence says that judging from the color of my skin and the sum of hair I have to pluck off my legs afore they’re decent, my family must have come from the Far South. So perhaps I’d better stay in the stables like you said. I am feeling a bit middling.”

  Iceborn. Ash didn’t like the sound of that one bit. Stepping over a pile of steaming horse dung, she forced her mind back to the subject at hand. Katia wanted to be with Marafice Eye, she was sure of it. The stables were a common enough place for romantic assignations. For as little as a meat pie or a wedge of good cheese, Master Haysticks would turn a blind eye to what went on in any number of his vacant stalls. Some held that the eye he turned wasn’t nearly as blind as it might be, and he had actually carved peepholes in the doors, which he rented out for tidy sums. Ash thought about the peepholes sometimes before she fell asleep at night. It would be interesting to see what people got up to.

  “Rest in the stables, Katia. I’ll be fine on my own out here. I won’t gallop off, I promise.” Ash glanced at the limestone battlements that were topped with iron railings, archers roosts, and murder holes. She wouldn’t be going anywhere.

  Katia pouted prettily. “I’ll stay in the stables if you say so.”

  Ash glanced over the maid’s shoulder to where Marafice Eye stood watching from the shadows along the Cask’s west wall. He had found something buried in the snow—a boulder, or a frozen hare carcass, or a bit of firewood—and was grinding it beneath the heel of his boot until it broke. When he noticed Ash watching him, he smiled. It was a terrible sight to see, such a small mouth stretching. The skin looked as though it might tear and bleed. Ash turned away.

  “What are you waiting for?” she snapped at the maid. “Go on, off to the stables. Tell Master Haysticks to saddle and bring out Cob.”

  Something close to anger crossed Katia’s face as she turned on her heel and made for the stables. Ash regretted her sharpness immediately yet didn’t call the maid back. Rubbing a mitted hand across her face, she took a few deep breaths to calm herself. Coming outside hadn’t been a good idea. Oddly enough, it had been her foster father who had suggested it, last night when he’d visited her chamber after dark. You are so pale, almost-daughter, like a lily trapped beneath the ice. You must go outside tomorrow. Take a ride around the quad, stretch your legs, breathe in some fresh mountain air. Your room is filled with lamp smoke and old dust. I worry so about you.

  Ash kicked at the frozen snow. Iss was always worried about her.

  Master Haysticks emerged from the stable block, trotting his old blue cob behind him. The stablemaster wore a coat pieced together from old horse blankets and bits of harness leather. His large head was covered by a halfcap woven from horsehair, and his stirrups had once been horse’s bits. Nothing was wasted in Master Haysticks’ stables. Once a day he sent out grooms to shovel dung in the quad.

  “’Day, miss,” he said, inclining his head. “Old Cob’s ready for yer. Go easy on the bit; her mouth’s scratched up bad. Been chewing on the stall door again.” He shook his head. “Terrible splinters.”

  Ash took the reins from him. Although she didn’t like Master Haysticks much, she did like the plain way in which he treated her. He had been stablemaster at Mask Fortress since before she was born, when Borhis Horgo was surlord and Penthero Iss held the same position as Marafice Eye did now. Master Haysticks remembered who she was. He knew she was nothing more than a foundling.

  “Pass me yer foot, miss.” Master Haysticks cupped his hands and squatted low to the ground. Ash gave him her foot, and he heaved her up over the cob.

  When she was settled in the saddle, she glanced back toward the Cask. Marafice Eye had gone; footprints driven deep into the snow led straight for the stables. Ash let out a guarded sigh of relief. It was good to be free of the Knife. “Come on, Cob,” she said, kicking the old work mare’s flank. “Let’s take a turn or two around the quad.”

  Master Haysticks watched Ash with a critical eye, satisfying himself that her reinwork wasn’t putting undue stress on the mare’s mouth, before spitting in the snow and heading back.

  Ash felt free to relax only when he was gone. Cob was just about the gentlest horse she had ever known, and in all the years she had been riding her, Ash had never managed to coax the old mare into anything faster than a trot. She didn’t have a name. Master Haysticks called her Cob because that’s what she was. This past year he had taken to calling her Old Cob, which meant she didn’t have many horse days left.

  Turning onto the horse run, Ash put aside all bad thoughts. Now she was higher from the ground, she could see a little of the city over the northern wall. Spires, sharply sloped roofs, and cast-iron turrets rose above the wall like weapons in an arms case. If she listened very carefully she could hear the clatter of carts in the street and the roar and bustle of Hoargate market.

  Ash had always wanted to see Hoargate. Of all the gates in the city, Hoargate was considered the most beautiful. Its great arch was carved from a thousand-year-old bloodwood, cut and carted all the way from the Storm Margin on the western coast. Hoargate faced west; that was the thing. Each of the four gates was built from materials that came from the direction they faced. Vaingate was raised from the plain cream limestone of Mount Slain; Wrathgate, which faced east, was cut from a huge slab of granite quarried from the stonefields of Trance Vor; and north-facing Almsgate was cast from the blue iron that was mined beneath the clanholds.

  Hoargate was the only gate made of wood. Yet according to Katia, who had seen it several times, it hardly looked like wood at all, more like shiny black stone. The masons had forced hardeners and preserves into the wood, turning its insides to steel. Even so, its elaborate facing still managed to attract a thick layer of hoarfrost in midwinter, and it was after this it was named: Hoargate.

  Then there was Vaingate, the dead gate, built from plain limestone, carved with a mated pair of killhounds and their one silver blue egg. The gate where she was found.

  Abruptly Ash looked away from the city. It wasn’t worth thinking about. Her foster father had never once allowed her to step outside Mask Fortress. The most she had ever seen of Spire Vanis was when she was small enough to clamber over the battlements in the Cask and wriggle her way though to the archers gallery at the top. The entire city could be seen from up there: steaming and smoking, its snow black with cart oil, its streets clogged with barrow boys, dog carts, and horses, and its street corners afire with the red eyes of a thousand charcoal braziers.

  Beneath it all, beneath the dark, diseased mass of Almstown, the fine mansions and lodgements of the grangelords, and the ever-expanding marketplaces with their hide-covered awnings and elk-bone struts, the hands of the original masons could clearly be seen. Walls were as wide and straight as ox backs. Original stonework was cut as precisely as clock parts, and roads were flat enough to skate on in midwinter, weighted down with enough hard stone to prevent even the dead from rising.

  People said Robb Claw had broken the back of a mountain to build Spire Vanis. Ash wondered if the mountain would ever strike back.

  Shifting her gaze forward, she saw that Cob was picking a path toward the Splinter. Even from this distance, wisps of ice smoke steaming from its walls were clearly visible. Ash shivered. Like a belt of blackstone pines along a timberline, the tallest tower in Mask Fortress created a climate all its own. It was so cold. Icy air slipped inside Ash’s chest, wrapping long blue fingers around her heart.

  It’s just a tower, she told herself. Stone and mortar and wood.

  Cold or not, Cob seemed happy enough to go there. Ash reasserted her grip on the reins, ready to pull the mare away, then remembered the splinters in the horse’s mouth and let the reins fall slack. What was the harm in drawing close? She glanced at the sky. It was daylight, she was in full view of the Red Forge and the Cask, and it was impossible to enter the tower from outside. The extern
al door had been sealed shut for years.

  As rational as all that sounded, Ash still found herself stiffening in the saddle as she approached. Her thighs gripped the mare’s belly tightly.

  She was hardly surprised when Cob took it upon herself to step from the horse run and trot over to the path that led behind the tower. The old mare was bent on going her own way. Craning her neck, Ash risked a glance at the stables. Still no sign of Katia or the Knife. Katia had once told Ash that when a man and a woman took a tumble together, it took longer for them to unlace and unhook their clothes than to do the actual act. Ash frowned. She could have her own dress stripped off within a minute.

  As she puzzled on that, Cob rounded the curve and entered the short run between the curtain wall and the tower. Puzzlement slid from her face when she spotted tracks in the snow. Footsteps, two pairs of them, and two thick drag lines leading straight to the spire’s unused door. Fresh tracks, by the looks of them, leading in but not out.

  “Easy now,” Ash said, as much to herself as the mare. Looking ahead, she saw that the footsteps had come from the direction of the south gate. Ash knew from experience that if she were to head that way, she’d be stopped before she reached the endwall. The gate was patrolled by a dozen brothers-in-the-watch.

  “Whoa,” she murmured, pulling briefly on the reins. The old mare seemed happy enough to stop and quickly found something to sniff at alongside the curtain wall. Ash slid down, booted feet thudding onto hard ground. Glancing left, then right, she approached the tower door.

  Wooden boards had been pried away from the frame, leaving an outline of bent nails around the door. Candle ice hung from the lintel in fat chunks, and Ash felt water drip on her hood. The keyhole was set in a brass plate as large as Cob’s head, and someone had spent many minutes scraping rime ice from the lock. Ash hesitated, took a step back, then surprised herself by reaching out and pressing against the door. It held firm.