by J. V. Jones
“Take it.”
There must have been something in his voice, for Angus looked at him hard a moment, then nodded. “As you wish.”
No one spoke for a while after that. Angus took the silver band in his fist and began kneading the metal as he walked. The tunnel grew narrower and the rock ceiling dipped, so both Angus and Ash had to be careful where they led the horses. Moisture wept from cracks in the stone, forming oily pools that everyone avoided.
Raif lit the second torch, and the fresher, brighter light illuminated markings on the stone. No, not on the stone, he corrected himself, in it. Drawings of the moon and stars, inked in dark blues and liquid silvers, shone through a layer of rock as thin as the membrane on a fish’s eye. Somehow the artist had inserted the pigment below the surface, like a tattoo. Raif thought back to Angus’ bow; that had an inlay beneath the wood too. Angus has a Sull bow? Raif held on to the question as they entered a section of tunnel partially collapsed by flood damage, trying to decide what it meant.
Every so often, turnoffs would present themselves: black holes in the rock face that always led down. Angus insisted that everyone stay close to him as they passed them. The largest was as dark and steep as a mineshaft, cut with a thousand narrow steps that seemed to lead straight down to hell. Raif felt cold air kiss his cheeks as they passed it. Ash looked as if she felt something else. When Angus reached out to hold her arm, she made no effort to pull away.
“Take a bit of the rue leaf and chew on it,” he said. “Remember what I said?”
“You said scribes use it when they work through the night. You said it would clear my head.”
“That’s right. Yes, chew, don’t swallow now. What does it taste like? I’ve quite forgotten.”
Raif listened as Ash spoke her reply, quite aware that Angus’ main aim was to keep her talking. After a while Raif joined in, and together they nursed Ash through the deepest sections of the tunnel. At some point during the process, when the conversation had shifted to long winters—one of the few subjects they could share without prying into anyone’s past—Raif began to feel something himself. At first it was just a knot of tension in his shoulder blades, a strain he put down to lack of sleep, but the sensation spread to his chest, where it pressed against his heart and lungs like a secret, inner rib cage growing quietly beneath his own.
It happened so slowly, over hours, that Raif didn’t immediately recognize it as fear.
Even when the tunnel’s end came in sight and Angus halted the party while he performed a small ritual around the silver band from Raif’s hair, Raif still hadn’t worked out what he was afraid of. Then, over Angus’ bent back, he locked gazes with Ash.
She knew. She knew what it was. “Mount Slain runs deep,” was all she said, yet it was enough for Raif to begin to understand. Something was within the mountain with them. Something knew they were here.
“Ehl halis Mithbann rass ga’rhal.” Angus’ words seemed to come from a long way away. Raif did not recognize the language. After placing the silver band on a spur of rock, Angus sprinkled it with the last drops of alcohol in his rabbit flask, then lit it. Blue flames leaped for the briefest moment, then died, leaving the silver with a dusky tarnish, patterned like tree mold. “There,” he said softly. “That should please the Sull gods. The offerings they like best are blood and fire.”
Straightening, Angus reached for the bay’s bridle and began walking toward the tunnel’s end.
After a moment Ash followed, and Raif was left alone by the rock. The desire to reach out and touch the silver band one last time was great, but he fought it. Instead he ran his hands through his loose, shoulder-length hair. From now on when people saw him they would not immediately recognize his clan. It’s for the best, he told himself, unhooking his belt knife and cutting a leather tie from the neck of his oilskin. He didn’t believe it, but perhaps belief would come later.
Tying back his hair with the leather strap, he followed the others from the tunnel. A pair of ravens drawn to guard the entrance barely caught his eye.
TWENTY-SIX
Secrets in the Kaleyard
Effie Sevrance sat cross-legged in her special place beneath the stairs, and watched the raiding party return. Great big clansmen, their axes dripping chunks of frozen blood and muck onto the stone floor, their faces grave and hard, crossed beneath the greatdoor and into the entrance chamber, bringing with them the quality of silence that Effie knew meant death.
She tried not to be scared. Her hand squeezed her rock lore as she looked into the face of every man who crossed the threshold, searching for Drey.
So many men, some dragging bloody legs behind them, others with fierce bruises on their necks and faces, and many with their wounds hidden beneath their oilskins, the slowness of their walk and the blue tint of their lips giving their injuries away. A few were brought in on dragsleds, and Effie’s eyes scanned their clothing, searching for the zigzagging pattern of Da’s elk coat. She knew Drey had worn it the day he went away.
Raina, Anwyn Bird, and the other women with due respect moved among the injured, tending wounds, bringing black beer and warm clothing and good plain meat. As always when Anwyn was in charge, there was no fuss or wailing from the other women: Anwyn wouldn’t allow it, saying that it only upset the men. Raina didn’t speak, though she did count, taking careful note of each man who entered, keeping a tally of their numbers in her head. Her widow’s weals were healed now, the skin pale and raised like cornrows around her wrists. She hardly ever spoke to Effie these days. She cared, making sure that Effie was fed and clothed and never too long alone, but she seldom brought the food or the blankets or the company herself. Effie knew they shared a bad secret. The badness made it difficult to sleep some nights, and Effie ran off more and more to the little dog cote. The shankshounds loved her almost as much as Raina . . . and they didn’t look at her with dead eyes.
All thoughts vanished from Effie’s head as she caught sight of a big silhouette in the doorway. Drey. He moved slowly, a little bent at the waist to relieve pressure on a wound. His face was a mask of dirt and blood, and there was a deep gash in his breastpiece. His eyes began searching even before his foot hit the stone floor of the roundhouse.
Effie rose, her heart beating rapidly in her chest. Drey.
He saw her the moment she was free of the stair space. Something deep and massed inside him relaxed, and for a moment he looked young, like the old Drey, like he had been before all the badness had started and Raif went away. Without a word he opened his arms. If her whole life had depended on it, Effie could not have resisted him. She wanted to hold him so badly, her insides ached.
She didn’t run; Anwyn didn’t approve of that. Instead she walked forward with slow, deliberate steps. Drey waited. He didn’t smile—neither of them smiled—just took her in his arms and held her for a long time.
They pulled apart without speaking, Drey catching her hand in his. He turned his head for a moment and gave an order to a new-sworn yearman concerning the state and treatment of some men. The yearman, a small youth with a sword that was nearly as tall as he was strapped to his back, was quick to do Drey’s bidding. Dent-headed Corbie Meese stopped and asked Drey something. Drey thought before answering, as he always did. Corbie nodded his agreement, then left.
Anwyn Bird caught his eye, a question on her large horsey face. In answer, Drey held up both his and Effie’s hand. Effie didn’t quite understand, but Anwyn obviously did, for she nodded in a knowing way, then changed her path, bearing the tray of beer and bannock she was carrying toward a group of hammermen sitting on the floor.
Drey tugged on Effie’s hand. “Come,” was all he said as he led her across the river of clansmen and clanswomen toward the guidehouse.
“Clan Croser has been threatened by Bludd.”
“. . . a hundred Dhoonesmen dead.”
“We had to speak treaty before Gnash would let us pass.”
“Corbie dragged him away from the body. He hasn’t spoke a word since. His heart i
s with his twin.”
“Nay, Anwyn. See to Rory first. This wound is naught but a ticking.”
Effie listened to the soft voices of her clan she walked at Drey’s side. War was full upon them now, and raiding parties like the one led by Corbie Meese left every day from the roundhouse. Two nights back, a squad of Bluddsmen had broken bounds near the lowlands strongwall and slaughtered a dozen crofters. Effie had seen the bodies. Orwin Shank and his sons had ridden out to bring them back. One of the shankshounds had found a baby alive in the snow. Orwin said the bairn’s mother had swaddled the tiny thing in sheepskins and hidden him in a drift at the side of her croft as the Bluddsmen approached on their warhorses. Jenna Walker was looking after the baby now. Orwin had brought the bairn straight to her, saying he had such a strong little heart and such hard little fists that there must be something of Toady in him. Every nursing mother in the clan had come forward to offer milk.
Effie thought about the baby a lot, thought of him trapped beneath the snow. She wanted to ask Orwin which of his hounds had found him, but Orwin was fierce and important, and she didn’t have the nerve.
Drey pulled Effie into the smoky darkness of the guidehouse and bade her sit at one of the stone benches while he approached the stone. One or two other men from the raiding party already knelt by the guidestone, foreheads brushing against the hard, wet surface. All were quiet. Drey found a place and joined them. He was silent for a very long time: walking with the gods, as Inigar always said.
Effie knew the guidestone well, better than anyone else except Inigar Stoop. She had spent much of her life in its presence, curled up beneath Inigar’s chipping bench, staring at the face of the stone. It had a face, that she knew. Not a human face, for it had too many eyes for that, but it could see and hear and feel. Today the guidestone was sad and grave. The deep, salt-encrusted pits that were its eyes glistened with wept oil. The dark gashes that were its mouths were filled with gray shadows, and even the new flaw that ran the length of the stone and everyone said was a bad omen and a sign of the coming war looked like a deep worry line on the cheek of an old, old man.
Quickly Effie took her gaze away. She couldn’t look at the flaw without thinking of Raif.
Her lore had told her he would go, pushed the knowledge into her through the skin on her palms. He had to go, the lore had said. Even before he’d returned from the Bluddroad she had known it was so. Sometimes she wished she could tell Drey, to ease his mind, but she didn’t have the words. Drey was angry at more than Raif. He was angry at Angus, too, for taking Raif away. He didn’t even call Angus uncle anymore, just that man Angus Lok. Effie frowned. A week ago she’d caught Drey standing outside the greatdoor, staring south. At first she thought he was checking to see if the latest storm had passed. Then she saw the look on his face. He was watching for Raif . . . even though Raina had told him Raif wasn’t coming back.
That thought made Effie’s insides pull tight, and her hand crept up her dress toward her lore. The stone was asleep now, cool and lifeless as a hibernating mouse. It was better that way. It never told good things. She dreaded it telling her that Drey would go away.
“Come, little one.” Drey stood heavily and awkwardly, not once touching the guidestone for support. Walking with the gods had taken something from him, and he looked tired and old and more troubled than before.
Effie went straight to him, her hand finding his through the smoke.
“Drey.”
Both Effie and Drey looked around in time to see Inigar Stoop emerge from the darkness at the far end of the guidehouse. The guide’s face was gray with wood ash, the cuffs and hem of his robes scorched black for war. His dark eyes glanced only briefly at Effie, yet she knew he saw her completely for what she was. The guide knew all about the Sevrances.
“Inigar.” Drey closed his eyes and touched both lids.
“Corbie says you fought hard and well, and took the lead when Cull Byce went down.”
Drey made no motion to reply. Effie knew he was awkward around praise, but it did not account for the hardness in his face as he looked at the guide. She wondered how Inigar had managed to speak to Corbie Meese so quickly; last she’d seen of the hammerman he was battling with Anwyn for more beer.
“You must put the past behind you,” Inigar said. “All of it. Clan needs good men like you. Do not let bitterness steal your strength. Things are as they are. Dwell on what they might have been, and the ghosts of the past will eat you. They have sharp teeth, those ghosts; you will not feel them bite until they start tearing at the marrow in your bones. You must put them behind you. Bears do not look back.”
“You don’t know of what you speak.”
Effie took a quick breath; no one spoke to the guide that way. No one.
Inigar wagged his head, shaking the words away as surely as if they were raindrops on oilskin. “My lore is the hawk, Drey Sevrance. I see much that a bear cannot. Do not suppose that I know nothing of what happened on the Bluddroad. Do not suppose that I pronounce you free of blame. But know this: What is done is done, it is what comes after that concerns me now.”
Drey rubbed his hand over his face. When he spoke he sounded tired. “I must go, Inigar. You must not worry about me. I know my place is with the clan.”
Inigar nodded. “Have you thrown the swearstone away?”
Drey turned his back on the guide before answering. “Yes.”
Effie felt Inigar’s gaze on her and Drey as they walked the length of the guidehouse. Drey was silent as they made their way to the kitchens and then picked bread and meat for them both. Effie saw him wince as he stretched a muscle that shouldn’t have been stretched, felt his body tremble for a moment as he dealt with the pain.
“Let’s find somewhere quiet to eat,” he said.
“We could go to the kaleyard. It’s quiet there, and the walls are high so there’s hardly any wind.” Effie was pleased and a little bit anxious when Drey nodded. She dearly wanted him to like her choice.
The kaleyard was a small square of ground at the rear of the roundhouse that had been set aside for growing herbs. Tall walls kept freezing winds at bay year-round, and someone long ago had thought to build a pair of brick benches so that two or three people could sit and take advantage of the walled haven. The kaleyard was Anwyn’s territory now, and every flake of snow that dared to land there was hauled away before it had chance to settle. Anwyn only had to look at Longhead to make him start hauling snow. She had that effect on a lot of men, Effie noticed.
Kale, which Effie classified in her mind as tough cabbage, was no longer grown in the kaleyard. Dagro Blackhail had forbidden it, calling kale “that foul leaf.” Effie rather liked it, though she did allow that it took quite a chewing. Now Anwyn grew herbs in its place, lots of them, like leeks, black sage, and white mustard, all pulled up for winter so that nothing but mulched-over soil remained.
Effie felt her heart race as she walked around the exterior of the roundhouse. She tried to keep her eyes on her feet and not look up at the wide-open spaces, but sometimes she forgot and found herself staring north toward the badlands and the Want . . . places that had no end. Only when the gate on the kaleyard was closed and bolted and her world was reduced to a size she could walk across in less than a minute did she begin to feel safe.
Drey sat on the nearest bench. Effie, still a little breathless from the walk, chose to sit on the second bench, across from him. She watched as her brother took in the details of the kaleyard, trying to decipher the look on his face. A willow planted in the farthest corner of the yard creaked like a loose shutter in the wind.
“Last time I was here I got a beating from Anwyn Bird,” Drey said after a while. “I was out throwing spears behind the stables, and the wind caught one of them, sent it clear over that wall. Took the heads off a least a dozen cabbages. Of course, Raif tried to fix them. Stuck the heads right back, he did, smearing them with mud to make them stick . . .” Drey’s voice trailed away to nothing. The hard look came back to his
face. “Anyway, it’s been a good many years since I was here.”
Effie nodded. She could think of nothing to say.
Abruptly Drey leaned forward. “Effie, there is just me and you now, and we must look out for each other. We must stay close. While I was riding back with the raiding party, I had time to think. Arlec lost his twin. Bullhammer lost his foster brother . . .” He shook his head. “I’m not much for saying things—I don’t think anyone in our family ever was—but I see things, and I’ve stood and watched as you’ve grown more and more into yourself. I’ve known something was wrong, but I kept saying to myself, Effie will be all right. Effie’s a good girl, she won’t come to any harm. Now I think you must tell me what’s wrong. Every time I see you there’s less than the time before. Raina tells me you take food, but she doesn’t know if you eat it. Anwyn tells me that since the night Raina became betrothed to Mace, you only leave your cell to visit the dogs. What are you afraid of? Has anyone said anything to you? Frightened you? Please, Effie, I need to know.”
Effie, who had been looking into her brother’s brown eyes from the moment he began speaking, looked down as he spoke the last few words. It was the longest speech she had ever heard Drey make. It made her feel sad. She made no reply.
“You went to the woods that day with Raina, didn’t you? That day when she and Mace—” Drey stopped himself. “The day when they became betrothed.”
A small shaking motion was all Effie could manage. She didn’t want to think of that day. Wouldn’t.
Drey rose from the bench with great difficulty, his hand bracing his lower abdomen as he moved, and came and sat next to her. “You’re frightened of something, Effie. I can tell. I saw you hiding under the stairs in the entrance chamber. You didn’t want to be seen. I know these past months have been hard, and I know you miss Da . . . and Raif. But I think there’s something different here. A secret.”
Effie looked up at the word secret.
“Please, Effie. If something is wrong, I must know.”