by J. V. Jones
Raif swallowed as he took the bow from its case. He couldn’t get the taste of metal out of his mouth.
Angus slowed the pace. After a few minutes he looked over his shoulder. “What say we stop and nosebag the horses?”
Raif shook his head. He didn’t want to stop. Already he was searching for game. It was a reflex action of all clansmen upon entering the taiga, but none more so than those who chose the bow as their first weapon. Even as he hated himself for it, part of him welcomed the relief. Hunting meant not having to think.
Time passed. Angus was silent, his hood pulled close to his face. The taiga deepened, revealing narrow corridors leading to frozen ponds, standing stones ringed with crowberries, and clearings bedded with icegrass and touch-me-nots. The smell of pitch settled in Raif’s clothing like dust as he watched the ground for game.
A ptarmigan, fat as a loaf of bread, flew up through the spruces, dislodging snow as its wings clipped pine needles. Raif drew his bow, sighted the bird, then called it to him. Blood warmth flooded his mouth. The rapid beat of the ptarmigan’s heart pulsed like a vein in his cheek. The bird was young, strong, its belly full of crowberries and soft willow leaves. Raif breathed once on the bowstring to warm it and then let the arrow fly.
A soft thuc sounded, then the arrow hit the ptarmigan with such force, it knocked the bird from the sky. Raif didn’t have to see the body to know that the arrowhead had found its heart.
“A pretty shot,” Angus said.
Raif glanced down. His uncle was watching him intently, his eyes the color of old wood.
After a moment Angus turned his horse. “Wait here. I’ll fetch the bird.”
Spitting to clean his mouth, Raif watched his uncle slip through the trees. Absently he ran a hand over the bow. Made of a combination of wood and horn, and tilled so smoothly that it was like touching glass, the bow was unlike any other he had held before. Silver and midnight blue markings had been stamped deep into the riser, but Raif couldn’t work out how.
By the time Angus returned with the ptarmigan, Raif had shot two hares. The first he saw clearly as it ran from the path of Angus’ bay. The second was crouched in a head of sagebrush, and Raif told himself he had seen it before he released the string.
“We’ll eat well tonight,” Angus said, pulling the shafts from the hares and bagging them along with the bird. “I can see it’s going to be useful having you along, Raif Sevrance.”
Raif waited for his uncle to bring up the fact that all three creatures had been heart-killed, yet his uncle said nothing, merely busied himself with cleaning the arrow shafts before the blood froze.
They fastened feedbags on the horses and rode until dark.
Angus led them to a deserted stovehouse that Raif thought only clansmen knew of. Dug out of sandstone and clay, the stovehouse was little more than a hole in the ground. Hidden in the center of an island of stone pines, the entrance was covered by a slab of slate as big as a wagon wheel. Raif worked to clear the moss and rootwood from around the edges as Angus took his pickax to a nearby spawning pond and broke out some freshwater ice.
Raif worked himself hard, pushing aside the entrance slab by himself rather than waiting for Angus to lend a hand. When that was done, his muscles were aching and his inner woolens were soaked with sweat. It wasn’t enough. Taking the hand ax from his pack, he went to cut wood.
Angus found him an hour later, his gloves and oilskin glued with sap, pine needles stuck to his sleeves, veins in his chopping hand open and bleeding, and the yellow bruises of imminent frostbite coloring his skin. A pile of logs, cut almost to splinters, was heaped at his back.
“You’ve done enough now, lad,” Angus said, taking the ax from him and guiding him away. “Come wi’ your old uncle. The stove’s glowing like a warm heart, and there’s good food upon it, and you may not have your clan this night, but you and I are kin.”
Raif let himself be led to the stovehouse.
Angus had done a good job of turning the clay-walled hollow into a place filled with warmth and light. A damp cloth was steaming against the belly of the brass stove, and Angus took it and wrapped Raif’s hands closely to stop chilblains from forming. Next he bit the cork from the rabbit flask that had been cooling in a pot of snow. “Drink,” he said, and Raif did. The alcohol was so cold it burned.
The stovehouse was tiny and low ceilinged. Pine roots had broken through the walls in some places, jutting out like bones from a rain-worn grave. Raif sat on the ground in front of the stove and ate and drank what Angus gave him. The skin on the roast hares was black, and it crackled as it broke, releasing hot juices and scalding steam. The ptarmigan meat was rich and fatty. Angus had stuffed it with wild sage and roasted it in its feathers.
There was a lot of smoke. The smoke hole was open, but the stove was old and warped, and fumes and soot leaked from the stack.
Raif felt numb. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d rested or slept.
“That bird was a beauty,” Angus said, sucking on a wing bone. “Daresay it would have been better for a plucking, but for the life of me I hate pulling feathers.” He watched Raif through the smoke, his large keen face now cleared of its protective oils. Setting aside his dish of bones, he said, “When you shot the bird, did you taste or smell anything?”
Raif shook his head.
“Nothing coppery, like blood or metal?”
“No,” Raif lied. “Why do you ask?”
Angus shrugged. “Because that’s what happens when a man draws upon the old skills.”
“Old skills?”
“Sorcery, some would call it. I’ve never cared for the word myself. Frightens people.” A quick glance at Raif. “Better to use the Sull name: rhaer’san, the old skills.”
Hair on Raif’s arms lifted at the mention of the Sull. The Sull were seldom named out loud. The Trenchlanders, who lived on Sull lands and were part Sull and who traded fur and lumber with the clanholds, were different. Clansmen often took their names in vain. But the Sull . . . no clansman ever dealt with the Sull. The great warriors of the Racklands, with their silver letting knives, pale steel, recurve bows, and proudlocks, wasted neither breath nor time on clan. Raif tried to keep his voice light. “What are the signs that a man is using the old skills?”
“Well, as I said, the one who draws it often tastes and smells metal. He’ll weaken, too. His vision can blur, his stomach cramp, and often he’ll get pains in his head. It all depends upon the level of power drawn. I saw a man fall from his horse once, just plain keeled over into the mud. It was a full week before he could stand on his own two feet. Drew too much, you see, tried to do something he had neither the power nor the skill for. Nearly killed him.”
Raif felt his cheeks burn. He had come close to falling from his horse after he had heart-killed the Bludd spearman.
“There was a time when those who could draw upon the old skills were valued, when mortar binding the Mountain Cities was white as snow, and the clanholds had kings instead of chiefs. Indeed, you’ll find some who’ll tell you that the masons who built Spire Vanis owed as much to the old skills as they did to their chisels and lathes. A few will even swear that Founding Quarterlords had more than a few drops of old blood running in their veins.”
“Old blood?”
Angus’ eyes shifted color. “It’s just a term. Old blood. Old skills. The two are one and the same.”
It was an evasion, and Raif guessed Angus would work quickly to cover it. He was right.
“’Course in those days, it wasn’t unheard of for clansmen to draw upon the old skills. Small things: healing and foretelling and the like. It wasn’t until Hoggie Dhoone’s time that the clanholds turned their backs on sorcery.”
“No clansman worth his lore would take part in anything unnatural.”
“Is that so?” Angus scratched his chin. “And how do you suppose a clansman gets his lore? Chance? Fate? Or does the guide pluck straws from a hat?”
“He dreams.”
�
�Aah. That’s it. He dreams. Nothing unnatural there, that’s for sure.” Angus tilted his head one way and the other, making a great show of thinking. “And then there’s the guidestone itself . . . I suppose each clansman carries its powder with him at all times so he’s never caught short of a spot of mortar. Must come in mighty useful those times when you’re out ranging and you see a poorly built wall. A few cups of water, some fire ash, and a handful of powdered guidestone, and you’ll have it repointed in no time.”
Raif glowered at his uncle. “We carry our guidestone with us because it’s Heart of Clan. It’s what we’ve always done.”
Surprisingly, Angus nodded. “Aye, lad, you’re right. It was wrong of me to bait you. Can’t help myself sometimes—I’m wicked like that. If Darra were here, she’d have me out packing snow by now.” Standing, he fed the ptarmigan bones to the stove.
Raif watched the flames shiver through the smoke hole. His cheek and fingers were throbbing where they had taken the frost, and a deep weariness stole over his body like rising water. He was annoyed at Angus but too tired to make anything of it. “Does anyone use the old skills today?”
Angus did not stop tending the stove, but something in his body changed as Raif spoke. Shrugging to the flames, he said, “Some. A few.”
“In the cityholds?”
“Aye, perhaps. But it’s frowned on there, just as it is in the clans. The cities have their One God, and he’s a jealous one at that. Any powers not of his making have long been forced into the shadows, their time nearly past. Hoggie Dhoone recognized that a thousand years ago, when he drove all who used the old skills from the clanholds. The One God has long arms. He lives within the Mountain Cities, but make no mistake: His reach extends to the clans.”
“But we worship the Stone Gods.”
“Aye, and you’ve got the last of the great Clan Kings to thank for that.”
Raif ran a hand through his hair. He didn’t understand what Angus was getting at. “Why do you keep mentioning Hoggie Dhoone? He hated the cities and their one jealous God. His armies slew ten thousand city men at the Battle of Stone Cairns. He made the Bitter Hills his wall, swearing that no man who was not a clansman would ever raise a roof beyond them. He saved the clanholds. And he had no dealings with the One God.”
Angus began packing the stove for the night, adding only the largest chunks of firewood to the stack. “Aye, you’re right about Hoggie Dhoone: He did save the clanholds. He saw the cities for what they were. He knew that given half a chance they’d march their armies over the Bitter Hills and shatter clan guidestones to dust. He knew what they thought of the clanholds and its nine gods. Hoggie Dhoone was no fool. He fought the cities with one hand, and met them halfway with the other.”
“Hoggie Dhoone never met anyone halfway.”
“Did he not?” Angus shrugged. “So it’s just coincidence that he began outlawing the old skills at the same time the Mountain Cities did? Not the act of a clever man who saw the way the world was turning and chose to turn with, not against it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s simple. Hoggie Dhoone was not prepared to give up the Stone Gods. He knew the Mountain Cities thought them cruel and barbaric, and he also knew that the sort of fanatic wars that raged in the Soft Lands to the south could easily break out in the North. So rather than set himself and his gods apart and risk the self-righteous might of the cities falling upon him, he chose to run with the pack. Everyone who used the old skills was exiled or hounded. It was nothing to him. The Stone Gods have always been hard gods. They’re not known for weeping over the dead.
“In one canny move, Hoggie Dhoone turned the Mountain Cities into his allies. Oh, there were battles aplenty—you know that better than me—but they were always over land, not religion. Shared beliefs may be a powerful thing. But nothing quite binds like shared hatred.”
Raif stared at Angus; he didn’t know what to think. Hoggie Dhoone was the last of the great Clan Kings, and no one in the clan had ever told his story quite like that. It lessened him. “If the Mountain Cities were as fanatical as you say, then why didn’t they go after the Sull? Their gods are older than the clans’.”
Angus closed the stove door, creating darkness. “Because it suited them to strip land, not gods, from the Sull.”
Raif closed his eyes. He thought Angus might say more, but he didn’t and began settling himself down by the opposite wall. Raif almost spoke to break the silence. Suddenly he didn’t want to be alone with his thoughts. Time passed. Angus’ breathing grew shallow and regular, and Raif imagined his uncle asleep. How long before I sleep? he wondered. How long before the nightmares come?
NINETEEN
Swinging from a Gibbet
Ash held her breath, scrunched her face as tight as it would go, and began to hack away at her hair. She couldn’t look. Couldn’t bear to see it fall to the snow. Stupid, she told herself. Vain, weak-minded, and stupid. It was only hair. It would grow back. Still, she couldn’t quite bring herself to cut it as short as she had intended. She tried, but her hands kept defying her, and the knife kept sliding downward, and she didn’t have the heart to fight it.
She had originally planned to cut it as short as a boy’s, but that decision was taken in the broad light of day, when decisions were easier to make and keep. Now, at midnight, sitting on an iron bench cleared of snow in the Street of the Five Traitors in Almstown, hemmed in by shadows, overhanging eaves, and mounds of black, shoveled slush, she didn’t much feel like doing anything. And she was very much attached to her hair—even if it wasn’t curly and bright like Katia’s.
Vain, weak-minded, stupid, Ash scolded herself again as she sawed the blade through the last strands. There. Done it now. Running a hand through her ragged, shoulder-length hair, she tested its new feel and weight. Her head felt uncommonly light, as if she’d drunk too much red wine at supper. Pale silver strands, long as snakes, curled in the snow at her feet. Kicking them with the toe of her boot, she told herself they were nothing really, just a heap of old straw.
Hearing footsteps and thin jabs of laughter, Ash bent forward and scooped up the hair, then folded it into the cloth bag tied at her waist. She could get good money for it on Shorn Lamb Street, but she was no longer sure if selling it was a good idea. She had heard the talk in the city. Everyone who was anyone was looking for a tall, slim girl with long pale hair and no breasts. Ash glanced down at her chest. Slowly, little by little, that particular aspect of her description was being rendered obsolete. It was quite amazing how fast a body could grow when it had a mind to. Even when the body in question was being fed nothing but goose grease and oats.
Ash concentrated on staying as still and silent as she could until the laughter and footsteps had passed. Her rough wool cloak itched, and things living within it crawled as slowly as things living in cloaks did crawl on cold nights in early winter. At least they weren’t biters. Ash supposed she should be grateful for that.
She had sold her old clothes the very same night she had broken free of the fortress, before word of her escape had had chance to leak through the city and everyone knew to be on the watch for a girl matching the description of Penthero Iss’ ward. Her dress had been plain but of excellent quality, and her calf-leather boots were the best to be bought in the city. The old bidwife who had purchased them had been happy to give Ash a whole outfit in exchange, complete with a lined and hooded cloak, thick wool leggings and mitts, a dress dyed a forgettable shade of brown, and a stout pair of “whore’s boots.” According to the bidwife, the boots were named for whores because they boasted soles so thick that a girl could walk the streets all day and not feel the pinch.
Ash wondered about that. Sometimes she caught men looking at her feet. The toes were capped with a particularly bright strain of copper that could be seen across a fair-size street. Just this afternoon she had worked charcoal and horse dung over the metal, hoping to ward off speculative glances from men and ill-humored appraisals from other girls.
The leather belt with a silver buckle that she had worn during the escape had also been sold, and the three silver pieces she had haggled from the bidwife had been enough to buy a loaf of oats and a sausage skin full of goose drippings every morning for the past five days. She had one silver left.
At night she slept alongside beggars and street whores. It was easy, really, watching people, seeing where they went and what they did. Early in the evening, even the poorest and sickest slid away to known dens to sleep. Wedge-shaped spaces under stairs, sewers blocked with ice, collapsed watch towers with makeshift roofs of elkhide, disused roast pits, abandoned outhouses and dry wells, burrows dug into the great mounds of snow that built up along the city’s south wall, and cracks in the very city itself, leading downward to vaults of precision-cut stone and warrens of crawl spaces, under-spaces, and sinkholes: Ash had seen people slip into them all.
The first night had been the worst, after she had left the bidwife’s stall with money in her hand and nowhere to go. She didn’t trust places that were dark and deserted and had chosen to stay on noisy, crowd-filled streets. Through the course of the night she had walked the length of the city, across the great stone court known as the Square of Sorrows, where Garath Lors had declared himself king before being cut down by his brother’s darkcloaks; along the Spireway with its crumbling stonework and rotted spikes; and down into the dim and slushy streets of Almstown, where the soot from a thousand charcoal fires turned every wall, roof, and walkway black. Even the falling snow was black, catching minute flecks of burned matter as it sailed toward the earth.
Ash thought Almstown was a kind of hell. Katia had always spoken about it with a sort of wistful affection, telling how you could buy whole sides of bacon, steaming and ready to eat, warm your hands with mugs of beer so hot that you could set them on the ground and melt snow, and walk down any street and see dark-skinned women dressed in cloth-of-gold hoods and thin-lipped assassins glittering with knives. Ash tried, but she saw only the filth and the smoke and the open sores on people’s faces. She had no money to buy bacon or beer, and the only people she saw were prostitutes fighting with their pimps, pot boys shoveling slush, charcoal burners tending their smoke fires, and tired old men getting drunk.