by J. V. Jones
You are raven born, chosen to watch the dead.
“Any others?” Raina’s voice cut through his thoughts.
He shook his head. “I saw no others fall.”
The relief of the crowd showed itself in relaxed fists and downward glances. Some of the older clansmen touched their measures of powdered guidestone, giving thanks. Raif saw Jenna Walker’s questions held, unspoken, on many faces. Raina ensured that no one spoke them out aloud, guiding everyone back to the roundhouse by the simple act of heading there herself. Anwyn helped, promising hot ale and fried bread to all who came inside out of the cold. Raif stood his ground, watching the clansfolk disappear one by one into the roundhouse. More than anything else he wanted to go inside and find Effie, seize her in his arms, and press her child’s weight against his. Yet he no longer knew if that was the right thing to do. Raina had kept her away from the meeting on purpose, wanting to shield her from harm.
That was what he had to do now: shield Effie, Drey, and his clan from harm. Inigar Stoop had made him see that clearly.
“Raif.”
Raif looked up as his name was spoken by a voice he had not heard in five years. A broad bear of a man, with stubbly reddish blond hair and light coppery eyes, stepped from the roundhouse onto the court. Squinting into the snow clouds, he said, “I was hoping for a more favorable light. With a good set of shadows upon me I swear I look a full stone lighter.”
“Uncle.”
It took Angus Lok only three strides to reach Raif’s side. Catching him in a massive bear hug, Angus crushed him so tightly, Raif felt his rib cage bend. Just as quickly, Angus let him go and stood exactly an arm’s length from him and examined him as thoroughly as if Raif were a horse he meant to buy.
Dressed in undyed suede pants and saddle coat, with high black boots and enough leather belts crossing his chest to harness a team of horses, Angus Lok looked every bit the seasoned ranger that he was. His cheeks were red with snowburn, his lips were smothered with beeswax, and his earlobes were bound with soft leather strips to prevent chilblains and the ’bite.
“Stone Gods, lad! But ye’ve grown!” He knuckled the twelve-day beard on Raif’s chin. “What d’you call this? When I was your age I barely had that much hair on my head, let alone my jaw!”
There was no answer to that. Raif smiled. Angus was here, and he didn’t know if that was a good or a bad thing, but he knew that Angus could be trusted and was owed due respect. Tem had said so many times, even after the person who had brought the two men together had died: Meg Sevrance, wife of Tem, mother of Drey, Raif, and Effie, and sister to Angus Lok.
Abruptly Angus’ face changed. Hazel eyes watched Raif closely. “I arrived early this morning. Raina told me about Tem . . . He was a good man, your father. A fine husband to Meg. Adored her, he did.” Angus smiled softly, almost to himself. “Though I must admit I hated him at first sight. There was nothing that man couldn’t do better than me: hunt, shoot, drink, dance—”
“Dance? My father danced?”
“Like a devil in the water! Tem only had to hear a tune once to start snapping his heels and making steps. Quite a sight, he was, with his bear-claw cap and bearskin weskit. I do believe it was the reason my sister first fell in love with him, as he was hardly the handsomest of men. ’Least I didn’t think so at the time.”
Stupidly, Raif felt close to tears. He had never known Tem could dance.
Angus touched Raif’s shoulder. “Walk a while wi’ me, lad. I’ve been in the saddle for two long weeks, and I’ve a hankering to stretch these old legs.”
Raif glanced back at the roundhouse. “I need to see Effie.”
“I’ve just been with her. She’s in good hands with Raina. She can wait a little while longer for her brother.”
Raif wasn’t convinced, yet it was obvious that Angus wanted to talk to him, so he let himself be led away.
Sunlight had turned the graze into a perfect slope, white and smooth as a hen’s egg. Hemlock and blackstone saplings were no longer recognizable as trees, just strange, man-size mounds of snow that most clansmen called pine ghosts. The snow underfoot was loose and grainy, the motion of the wind preventing it from freezing hard. A few hare tracks broke the surface, soft and discreet as snagged wool.
Raif found little comfort in walking through familiar surroundings. Inigar Stoop’s words prayed on his mind. I fear that if you stay amongst us, you will watch us all die before your eyes have had their fill. Raif shivered. Everything looked different now the guide had spoken. Trying to save the Bludd women and children from burning in the war wagon had been a mistake. No lives were saved. And in the end he had only created something worse.
“Here. Drink this.”
Angus Lok’s voice seemed to come from a very long way away. It took Raif a moment to pull his thoughts from the field north of the Bluddroad. Angus pressed a flask into his hand. Raif weighed it for a moment and then drank. The clear liquid was so cold it stung his gums, completely tasteless, and strong enough to render his breath invisible in the freezing air. Angus slowed his pace. After a few minutes he stopped by a pine ghost and rested his back upon it. Clods of snow dropped from the branches onto his boots. He made a small motion toward the rabbit fur-covered flask, encouraging Raif to drink more. Raif took only enough to heat his mouth.
“You had a hard time on the Bluddroad.” It was not a question. Angus unbound his wrist ties and stripped off his fine sealskin gloves. His undyed clothes, the plain journeyman’s blade strapped to his thigh, and his short-cropped hair marked him as an outsider. He was not clan. Tem had said that Angus and his sister grew up in the cityhold of Ille Glaive, close to the Ganmiddich border. Tem had met Meg during the year he was fostered at Ganmiddich, when that rich border clan held a summer dance for its yearmen and clan maids. Angus had been invited—Raif could not recall why—but he did remember that Crab Ganmiddich, the Ganmiddich chief, had forbidden him to come unless he brought a woman of his own to dance with. Angus had brought Meg. Tem saw her, and according to Gat Murdock, who was also present, he never gave her chance to dance with another man all night. They were married two months later, on the very day that Tem was released from his yearman’s oath.
Meg Lok never returned home. On the day she married Tem Sevrance she became clan.
“Raina told me that you can shoot targets in the dark.” Angus busied himself as he spoke, turning his gloves inside out and scraping the lining clean with a handknife. “She also said that when you and Drey returned from the badlands, you mentioned something about sensing the raid as it happened.”
Raif felt his face grow hot. What right did Raina have to say such things to an outsider?
“Others tell me you’re having problems with Mace Blackhail, arguing with him in front of clansmen, disobeying his orders—”
“Say what you mean, Angus. I know well enough how things stand in this clan.”
Angus was unaffected by Raif’s anger. Finished with his gloves, he reversed them and pulled them back on. Only when he had cleaned and resheathed his knife did he see fit to reply. “I have business that takes me south to Spire Vanis. I think you should come along.”
Raif met Angus Lok’s eyes. Irises shot with flecks of bronze returned a steady gaze. How much does he know? Has he been talking to Inigar Stoop? “Why make such an offer now?” Raif said sullenly. “Who put you up to this?”
Angus Lok gave Raif a look that made him wish he hadn’t spoken. Angus wasn’t clan, but he was kin. Respect was his due.
“When a man arrives back ahead of his party, it’s usually a sign that there’s trouble between him and the other members of that party. And when a clansman walks away from battle, he makes himself a traitor to his clan.” Angus’ face hardened along with his voice. “I’m not a fool, Raif. I heard what you said on the court. You knew enough about the fighting, but you said as good as nothing about the wounded. You don’t even know for sure who’s alive and who’s dead. It’s obvious you didn’t see out the fight. So
mething happened, didn’t it? Something happened to make you ride away.”
Angus held up a hand to stop Raif from speaking. “I don’t want to know what it was. Clan business is not my business. My sister’s kin is, and from what I’ve heard this morning, Mace Blackhail has a mind to be rid of one of them. Now, by walking out on an ambush, that kinsman has as good as sharpened the staves for his own hanging.”
Raif looked down. One afternoon, two people. Two people telling him it was best if he left the clan. His hand rose to weigh his lore.
Clan was everything.
All he loved and knew was here. Only eleven days ago he had sworn an oath binding himself to Blackhail for a year and a day. If Inigar Stoop had refused to hear his oath, refused to warm the stone for his yearing, then everything would be different. He would have been just another lad in the clan, not sworn to anyone or anything. If he had left the battle as Raif Sevrance, he would have been forgiven. Raif could almost hear Orwin Shank or Ballic the Red speaking up for him: The lad is young, unsworn, and untested. Who can blame him for acting like a pelt-shorn fool? Instead he had left as a yearman. And no one would wear their jaw finding excuses for a yearman who had left the field before battle’s end. Disobeying an order, quarreling with the clan chief, even wasting arrows on a war wagon that was already alight, were offenses that could be dismissed as heat-of-the-moment anger or overzealousness. Clansmen could and would forgive such misdeeds. But for someone to leave the field while the battle was still raging, ride away without word or warning . . .
Raif closed his fist around his lore. Angus was right: Mace Blackhail would see him staved and skin-hung. The truth of what happened, the hunt and slaughter of the Bludd women and children, would be forgotten. It had to be. Raif knew he would never mention it in his own defense. To do so would dishonor Drey, Corbie Meese, Ballic the Red, and all the rest.
He would not bring such shame upon his clan.
Better to let Mace Blackhail smooth over the incident; let him spin some wolf tale where the Bludd women were armed and trying to escape, let everyone who took part in the slaughter return home believing it, and let the truth lie dead on the Bluddroad.
Raif felt a finger of ice tap his cheek. Watcher of the Dead. For the first time in his life, he understood what it meant to be raven born. The raven circled overhead, watched and waited, and then picked at the lifeless remains. Inigar Stoop had the truth of it in the guidehouse: He was not good for the clan.
The fifth Blackhail guidestone, which had been quarried from the stonefields south of Trance Vor and had stood within the roundhouse for three hundred years, had split because of his actions. The very stone itself had told him to go. Raif could not recall all the images the guidestone had shown him, but one thing was certain: None of the places was home. The Blackhail clanhold harbored no bloodred lakes or forests of silver blue trees. The guidestone had told him to go and shown him the way.
Raif shivered, suddenly colder than the day itself. He looked up and met eyes with Angus Lok. Angus’ large hearty face and bright coppery eyes showed no signs of the temper he had displayed minutes earlier. He looked worried now and kept glancing east, perhaps searching for signs of the ambush party or to track the progress of the storm.
It had been five years since he had come here last. Effie had been little more than a baby at the time. Raif tried to recall all he knew about his uncle. He had a wife and children, yet Raif found he had no memory of where they lived or what they were called. He didn’t even know how Angus made his living. Raif knew Meg had loved him dearly, and when she had been alive Angus had visited the roundhouse twice a year. He always brought gifts, good ones, such as practice swords made from petrified wood, chunks of green seaglass, thumb rings carved from walrus ivory, bowstrings woven from human hair, and little fur pouches made from whole collared lemmings, just the right size for holding flints.
Raif smiled as he remembered how he and Drey had fought over the gifts. One of them would always end up bleeding, Tem would clout both of them, and then Angus would miraculously produce a second identical object from his pack. After that Meg would scold everyone—Angus and Tem included—and shoo them all away until they had found some good sense.
Slowly Raif’s smile faded. He glanced back at the roundhouse. Clan was everything: home, memories, kin. To leave would mean never coming back. A man could not break an oath and desert his clan and ever expect to return home. A muscle pulled high in Raif’s chest. He loved his clan.
“So. What do you say, lad? Will you come with me to Spire Vanis? I’m not as young as I once was and could do with a young buck to watch my back.”
Yes, Raif Sevrance. Perhaps you had better step back, for all our sakes.
Raif closed his eyes and saw the guidestone’s leaking wound. Opened his eyes and saw Drey as he last glimpsed him: a hammer in his hand, saliva rolling down his chin, mouth filled with words Mace Blackhail had given him. No. Raif stopped the memory before it burned itself more deeply into his soul. Instead he forced himself to remember Drey on the court the morning they had left for the ambush. Out of twenty-nine men, he had been the only one willing to come forward and second his oath. If I had such a brother . . . I would not shame him with my words or my deeds.
Raif pulled himself up to his full height, hand coming to rest on the hilt of his halfsword. Inigar Stoop was right. Stay, and no matter what happened he would only bring shame to Drey.
The day grew darker and the badlands storm rolled south as Raif spoke his reply to Angus Lok.
SEVENTEEN
And Now We Must Bring Them War
Vaylo Bludd kept his stallion on a tight rein in the snow. The old horse’s eyesight was failing, and despite its advancing years it was still as mean as a pike. Any man or horse who drew too close could still find themselves the recipient of a swift kick to the shins or balls courtesy of the stallion who answered to the name of Dog Horse. Vaylo Bludd had a soft spot in his heart for the old nag. Although it had long since willfully disregarded all its obedience training, it still remembered two basic things: Dogs and small children were not to be kicked.
Smiling, Vaylo revealed his black and aching teeth. He’d had a terrible time training the stallion. It was a bad horse, everyone who saw it said so, yet here they were eleven years later, the Dog Lord and his bad horse, trotting through territory gained, as comfortable with each other as a man and mount could be.
“Light the torches, man! Light them!”
Riding at the head of the party of twelve, Vaylo heard his sixth son shout for light. Hanro had done little but shout orders all day. Vaylo wasn’t quite sure whom he was trying to impress but swore to himself that next time his sixth son called for torches, scout reports, or wet halts he would make a point of riding Dog Horse close enough to land a swift kick to his vitals. Just because a man shouted orders, it didn’t mean he was leader of the party. Hanro needed to learn that. All his sons did.
Not liking to dwell on the weaknesses of his seven sons, Vaylo turned his attention to his surroundings. Late afternoon light was fading rapidly, turning the snow underfoot blue and translucent like ice. Ahead lay the Copper Hills, once key to the Dhoone’s greatness and military might. Copper mined there had made Clan Dhoone rich, allowing them to build the largest roundhouse in the clanholds, dam rivers, divert streams, and cart a mountain’s worth of topsoil to the northern fellfields, converting barren land left by the retreating Hell’s Tongue glacier into prime livestock graze.
This was the first time Vaylo Bludd had been out riding in the Dhoonehold since he had taken it, yet he had little mind for the fine grasses, the well-stocked trout lakes now sealed for the winter beneath a crust of freshwater ice, or the herds of elk traveling southeast through the blackstone forests, fat and glossy from two seasons of good grazing on the badlands to the north. All he had eyes for was the Bluddroad.
His grandchildren were four days late. The party had been set to leave the Bluddhouse thirteen days back. They should have arrived at
Dhoone by now. Drybone thought it likely that the party had met with bad weather in the hills and had set the great war cart down on its trusses and made camp until the worst of the storm had passed. It sounded likely, and Drybone was a cautious man—for a Trenchlander—yet Vaylo couldn’t shake off a feeling of unease. His dogs were fussy and quick to bite, and the scent of Sarga Veys hung around the Dhooneseat like peat smoke.
In a way it had been a relief to leave the roundhouse. Clan Dhoone was not home. Perhaps in time that would change, when his sons’ wives and their children arrived and claimed the hold as their own, but for now it was a place of strange echoes and foreign shadows and large empty rooms that no amount of birch fires could warm or light. The place made his teeth ache. To add to his troubles, four of his seven sons were living there with him, fighting like foxes down a hole, scheming, bickering over land and borders, and getting drunk as fools each night. And each and every one of them thought he could take the Dog Lord’s place!
Vaylo Bludd spat out a wad of black curd. The dogs trotting at the stallion’s hocks growled and snapped, shaking their heads and worrying against their leather collars and hames. They hated being spat at.
“Use your noses, then,” he barked at them. “You weren’t brought here to plow snow. Search. Find.” Just to spite them, he made the stallion rear and kick out its hooves. Damn dogs! They’d been traveling since before dawn, and the only scents they’d caught were a lone broadback ewe, which they’d sent cowering up a slate crag, and a raven-killed eider whose flesh was one-day froze. Still, even though Vaylo was inclined to be churlish with his dogs, he was secretly quite relieved. No scents meant no people, and no people meant no foreigners on the road.