A Cavern Of Black Ice (Book 1)

by J. V. Jones

  Marafice Eye was clearly visible now, his gloved hands like twin ravens at a kill as he reined in his stallion for the descent to the stream. As Ash sawed at the pannier harness to release the bags, she noticed that one man in the sept had broken formation and was now straggling behind. Although he wore a black cloak like the others, he held no weapon and obviously needed both hands for his horse. As his cloak tails caught the wind and ripped behind him, the white colors of a cleric or anchorite were revealed at his chest. Ash felt a small thrill of remembrance. She had seen the man before. She recognized his pale skin and the sharp set of his shoulders. He was one of Penthero Iss’ creatures, one of those special people whom Caydis Zerbina brought to his chambers after dark.

  “Sarga Veys.” Angus plucked the name from Ash’s tongue, making it sound like one of Marafice Eye’s curses. For a moment his copper eyes turned red, as if the metal there had been heated by a burst of flame. “Raif. Hand me the bow. Now.”

  Raif, who had cut his saddlebags moments earlier, unbuckled the bowcase and quiver and handed them to his uncle. Angus did not take his eyes from the sept as he hooked the quiver to his belt. “We must part now,” he said. “All of us. There are seven of them and three of us, and our only hope is to split them. Raif. You will follow the shoreline north. Fight only if you must. Better to flee and be safe. If you are pursued by many, cross onto the ice. Moose is less laden than the sept’s horses and will be more readily borne. Do not venture farther from shore than the length of four horses.” Angus waited for Raif to nod. “Good.” The sound of the small word was nearly drowned out by the noise of Marafice Eye’s horse fracturing ice as it entered the stream. Others followed, and the slim body of water became alive with dark, pitching forms driving toward the bank.

  Angus ran a finger over the bowstring, warming. “Ash. You must go directly onto the lake ice. You’re the lightest among us—”

  “No,” hissed Raif. “She’ll be killed. There’s no telling how thick that ice is past the shore—”

  “Do you not think I know the dangers, Raif Sevrance?” Angus asked quietly, a muscle pumping in his cheek. “I know the Spill better than you know the graze around the roundhouse, and the bay knows ice better still. He will lead her safely across.” Angus turned to Ash. “You cannot fight, lass. You have only my belt knife as a weapon. The best way I can protect you is to lead you to a safe place. No man can follow you deep onto the ice—the Maker help them if they do. The frost smoke will shield you from arrows. You must trust the bay. Old Blood runs in his heart. He will deliver you from harm. I would not let him take you if I did not believe this wholly.”

  Ash looked into Angus’ eyes. He was shaking slightly; the force of his words still upon him. She believed what he said absolutely. She had seen for herself the bay’s knowledge of ice as they crossed the stream, and if Angus had wanted to kill her, he could have done so a dozen times before now. No. He wanted her alive and safe . . . the truth of that was in his eyes. But why? What made him shake? What emotion was he controlling within himself when he spoke? Did he fear her? Thrusting that thought aside, she glanced across the lake. The Black Spill. It never froze completely, not even in deepest winter. Sorissina of the Elms had taken that truth with her to her death.

  Left outside Vaingate to die. The words came to Ash, as they always did, as a kind of prayer. They were her life, those words. They made her who she was.

  She took the reins.

  Angus breathed heavily, showing no sign of relief. His eyes flicked to the stream. Marafice Eye’s spurs claimed horseflesh as he forced the beast through the last of the ice. His small mouth was clearly visible now, pale and twisted like butcher’s string around a roast.

  “Go! Both of you.” Angus smacked Moose’s rump as he spoke. “Raif. Watch Ash as far as you can, but do not follow where the bay leads. Moose is a good horse, but he’s no skater. Don’t test him. Ten leagues north of here, where the lake bends inward like a quarter moon, you’ll find a grove of white oaks above the shore. If I don’t find you before then, I’ll meet you there after dark.”

  Raif nodded. He did not look pleased. Ash could tell he wasn’t happy about leaving her to ride on the ice. Their gazes met, and Ash watched as he raised his hand to his throat and touched the piece of horn that hung there. Unsettled, but not sure why, she looked away.

  Angus had hold of the bay’s bridle. “Tharra dan mis,” he murmured. Then quickly to Ash: “Trust him. He’ll lead you a fine dance. When all is quiet I’ll call you back.”

  Ash jerked her head in something she hoped was close to a nod. She could not speak. She wanted to ask him what he would do on foot, but there were only seconds left between them, and she feared to detain him with thoughtless speech. Sliding her feet into the stirrups, she took control of the horse.

  “Go,” he said. “Hold your mind in the now.”

  Ash turned the bay and let the gelding find his own way down the slope. Already she could hear the whip of leather and horse tails as the sept sloughed off water from the stream and re-formed themselves into a V. When she glanced over her shoulder, she caught a glimpse of Angus running down the slope away from her, making for the cover of a dense island of spruces.

  “Maker save him,” she whispered, suddenly wishing she had spoken up after all. She should have told him to keep himself safe, asked him the true name of the bay, found out why he’d taken the bow from Raif the moment he’d spied Sarga Veys.

  “There she is! On the bay! Shoot the horse from under her!”

  All thoughts were expelled from Ash’s mind at the sound of Marafice Eye’s voice. She felt as if she had been punched in the stomach. Her child’s terror of him bubbled up from the past. Clutching at the reins, she kicked the bay hard—harder than she knew she should. A salvo of orders followed her down the slope. Marafice Eye was screaming at the top of his voice. “Thray, Stagro, with me. Malharic, Hood, after the clansman. Crosshead, to the trees. Stagro, flank Veys.” He wanted her to hear him. He knew the quality of her fear.

  The bay cantered down the slope toward the hard-froze mud that formed the lakeshore. An arrow shot past his hocks, a second sailed wide of his head. Ash ground her teeth together. The world around her was a blur of trees and harsh, ice-reflected light. Which way had Raif gone? North? She looked that way but could not spot him. The clansman, she had heard Marafice Eye call him. Some small part of her had known that all along, recognizing the rough, almost barbaric manner of his dress from descriptions she’d read in books. Yet he’d never once mentioned his clan.

  The bay slowed his pace as he hit the lake ice. Tugging his head forward, he demanded more rein. It was against all Ash’s instincts as a rider to allow him the freedom to choose his own path in such a place. Trust him, Angus had said. Ash frowned, slid her hands a small way down the reins. She was just beginning to realize how hard such a thing would be.

  The bay’s iron-shod hooves made the shore-fast ice ring like a bell. The water was frozen solid, offering no give, and Ash was jolted around in the saddle as they entered the wall of mist. The temperature dropped immediately, making her cheeks smart as if burned. The light changed texture, and suddenly there were no shadows or highlights—no structure for judging distance or depth. Frightened, Ash looked down. The surface of the lake shone beneath her: wind scratched, snow encrusted, the color of diamonds and salt.

  “Follow me! Don’t lose her!” Marafice Eye’s voice carried perfectly through the mist. Seconds later the lake ice began to vibrate as other horses gained the shore. Ash heard Marafice Eye spit a curse at the mist. Softly he said, “Do your business, Halfman. She must not be lost.”

  Ash shivered. The mist surrounding her was as ragged as rotten linen. Could Marafice Eye see her? She didn’t want to risk looking back.

  The bay’s huge liquid eyes were fixed upon the ice, his entire being bent upon the path ahead. Ash could feel the blood humming along his spine, see the rigid set of the muscles in his withers and neck. Abruptly he changed his course
. Straightaway his hooves began to make a flatter tone when they hit the ice, and Ash caught his ears twitching accordingly. He’s listening, she thought. The revelation filled her with wonder. Where had such a creature come from?

  Behind her she was aware of other horses slowing. They were close now. Even the sound of their breaths carried.

  Ash gave the bay more rein, squeezed his ribs with her thighs. She thought she smelled something familiar, like copper or the stench of lightning during a storm. The sensation passed as the bay altered his course once more, turning into the wind. They were very far out on the ice now. Ash looked ahead into the peaks and plains of frost smoke. Was this what Sorissina of the Elms had seen before she died? This world of white, captured light?

  Something prickled the back of Ash’s neck, like an insect’s touch or a fingernail scored down her spine. Fear came alive in her chest. Everything was quiet. When did I last hear the sept’s horses? She found she could not remember. She didn’t want to turn and look behind her. Didn’t want to see what was there.

  “Stop where you are, Asarhia March,” came a voice from close behind. “Or we’ll shoot the horse.”

  Ash looked back. Four men rode on the ice thirty paces behind her. Marafice Eye, Sarga Veys, a watch brother with a thin face and a nose made ugly by scar tissue, and a fourth man farther behind. Thin Face had a cranked and loaded crossbow resting in the crook of his arm. Marafice Eye was hunched low on his horse, his arms drawn close to his body, his gloved hands knotted at the reins. Beneath the wire of his bird helm, his eyes glinted like lenses of ice. Sarga Veys rode in the middle, his pale and unprotected head rising from the leather plumage of the Rive Watch cloak like something already dead. He was breathing hard, and a film of gray sweat shone on his nose and brow.

  Then it struck her. There was no mist between them. She shouldn’t be able to see them at all; the mist was too thick for that. Ahead she could barely see five paces, yet behind her a tunnel of clear air had been created.

  She swallowed hard. It was an aberration, wrong in every way, like water running upstream or the sun coming out at midnight. The mist had been held back, molded, forced to do the bidding of one man. It made Ash’s flesh crawl. So this is what sorcery is? Not gaudy tricks and flashing lights; control over nature.

  Tht. An arrow shot over the heads of the three men. Even as Ash recognized the crude shape of the shaft and the horsehair fletchings at its tail, she kicked the bay into a gallop. Angus must have fired high because he couldn’t be sure where she was and didn’t want to risk hurting her. It wasn’t much, but it was a distraction. As she lowered her body over the bay’s neck, she heard the crisp thuc of the crossbow discharging. The bay was in the process of switching its path, and the crossbolt scraped along his rump, taking hair and skin with it.

  Ash pressed her lips together to stop herself from crying out. Horse blood spilled over her boots. Beneath the gelding’s hooves, the ice began to creak. Horses charged after them, tracing the bay’s path. Marafice Eye shouted an obscenity at Sarga Veys. Ash heard metal rattle as Thin Face cranked the bow for a second shot.

  The bay galloped faster and faster. Looking down, Ash saw where the ice had grown darker as the deep, lightless water began to shine through. Her foster father had once told her that a man could stand on freshwater ice as thin as a hen’s egg. But what about a girl on a horse? She could recall no wisdom to cover that.

  Ash felt the ice move beneath her. The bay veered keenly to the left. One of his hooves broke the surface with a sharp, wet snap. Crack lines began to appear in the ice, running through the bay’s legs like fast little ants. Lather foamed along the gelding’s neck as he danced across the fracturing plates. Ash felt freezing water spit against her face. Behind her, ice snapped with the force of a felled tree. Someone screamed. A horse squealed, high and terrible like something being slaughtered. Ice pitched and rolled, causing the lake water to swell. The shelf of ice the bay ran across bobbed like a raft in a storm.

  Ash risked a glance over her shoulder. Frost smoke spewed from the surface in a shower of blue sparks. Horses and men plunged through the erupting ice field, arms flung outward, eyes wide with terror, fingers clutching air. Marafice Eye’s horse plummeted into the lake, its forelegs kicking wildly, its rider clawing at its neck. The last thing she saw before turning her back was a pair of gloved hands struggling for a handhold in the cold black water.

  Ash rode across the ice, dancing with the bay.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Strike upon Bannen

  The Dog Lord stood in silence as his fifth son, Thrago, fastened his armor to him. The plate was thirty years old, bashed in places, its many punctures packed with solder, and its pot-black finish scratched to hell. Vaylo almost smiled to see it. Two stone of case-hardened iron . . . and it had been with him longer than any friend.

  “Not so tight, Thrago. I’m not a chicken to be trussed for the spit.”

  Thrago Bludd looked at his father with eyes that were the exact same shape and color as those of old Gullit Bludd. It gave Vaylo a chill to see them. Gullit Bludd was dead thirty-five years now, yet his likeness was borne by all seven of his grandsons. Sometimes Vaylo thought the Stone Gods had arranged such a thing just to spite him.

  He scowled as Thrago tightened the cinches around his waist. Five winters ago this armor had fitted him perfectly; now it rode over his belly like a loose collection of bowls. Damn the thing to hell! Who’d have thought iron plate could shrink?

  “You should have Croda forge you some new plate,” Thrago said, putting his back into the task of making the runnels meet. “Else use the Bludd armor Gullit had made for his—”

  “No.” Vaylo’s voice was hard. He would not wear that man’s armor.

  Put the knife here, boy, so that it will enter the upmost chamber of my heart. Vaylo breathed hard at the memory. He could still see his father lying on his bench of old black wood, his face shrunk with disease, his eyes bulging with swollen veins. Do it! For gods’ sakes, do it! We both know you’ve dreamt of little else for the past seventeen years. Now, when I finally hand you the knife, you stand there with your balls shriveled to hailstones and a bastard’s fear upon you. What’s the matter with you, boy? I thought you had more jaw.

  That was when the knife went in. To this day Vaylo truly didn’t know if he thrust the blade or his father moved forward to take it. It hardly mattered. His hands had been on the hilt. His fingers were covered with the red wetness that gushed from the hole. So much blood . . . pouring over the bench and onto the floor, running between the cracks in the stone. And his father’s eyes . . . triumphant. He had thought himself rid of his bastard son.

  Vaylo rubbed a hand over his face. It had all gone as smoothly as any epic sung by a hearthsinger. Right on cue Arno and Gormalic had burst into the room. He was still standing there, knife in hand, his father choking on his last breath below him. Vaylo hoped very much that he hadn’t seen his father smile then, that the stretching of Gullit Bludd’s lips was nothing more than a death rictus or a trick of that bloody light. Of all the things that happened that day in the chief’s chamber at Bludd, that was the one thing that haunted him the most. That smile.

  Arno and Gormalic had come at him with steel bared. Two longswords against a knife made for slicing fruit. Yet Vaylo could honestly say that there was not one instant when he’d thought he might die. He knew his half-brothers well. Arno and Gormalic practiced for two hours every day on the court. Vaylo practiced for four. Arno and Gormalic were filled with the rage of legitimate sons who had just seen their father murdered by a bastard. Vaylo was filled with a bastard’s rage. His father had tricked him! Gullit Bludd had been dying for months, his teeth rotting from the bone, his gut shrinking to a loose flap of skin, and his fingers shriveling to bird claws. When he called his bastard son to his chamber, he was as good as dead. He would not have lived out the month. Yet this was Gullit Bludd, son of Thrago HalfBludd, and his pride would not allow him to die alone. He had sought to take
his bastard with him.

  Put me out of my pain, boy. I cannot bear it. It eats me, how it eats me. Would you see it turn me into a shitting, drooling babe?

  Gullit had readied the knife himself, Vaylo remembered. He had it waiting beside him on the bench. Blue steel with a hilt of sacred ash. With fingers so pale and wasted they seemed already dead, Gullit Bludd had raised the point to his heart.

  Vaylo closed his eyes for a moment. It might have happened yesterday, so clear were the memories. By the time that day was over three Bluddsmen lay dead in the chief’s chamber, and Vaylo could recount every blow it had taken to send his brothers to the floor.

  They called him the Death Lord later. Legends grew, as legends always did, and suddenly he was no longer a bastard yearman celebrated for stealing the Dhoonestone from Dhoone, he was a killer of men. A usurper. A kinslayer. A chief.

  He had offered no explanations or denials. Even then, thirty-five years ago, he knew it was better to say nothing and let men think what they would think. Who would have believed him, anyway? It was well known he hated his father and his half-brothers. Who would have believed he had killed his father as a mercy, that Gullit Bludd had directed the knife himself and begged his bastard son to thrust it deep to cut the great blue vein?

  Touching his fifth son on the shoulder, Vaylo said, “Enough. I’ll see to the helm and gorget myself.”

  Thrago nodded. “I’ll ready the horse.”

  Vaylo watched as his fifth son climbed the narrow stair that led up from the chief’s chamber at Withy. It was a strange place, this Clan Withy roundhouse, built to confound outsiders. It made no sense, what with its maze of tunnels, mine holes, dead ends, secret chambers, and traps. A man could lose himself, turn a wrong corner, and find himself falling through a trapdoor and into a pit floored with spikes. Molo Bean had broken his ankle when a stone flag had given way beneath him, and Pengo had taken a fall and ended up with a spike through his cheek for his trouble. Vaylo thought his second son looked no worse for the spike hole, yet it had certainly darkened his humor.