A Cavern Of Black Ice (Book 1)

by J. V. Jones

  Blackhail arrows rained from the sky, their shafts black as night, their arrowheads bound to their nocks by cords of silver wire. Vaylo swatted them from the air with his hammer, furious that the men who sent them were out of sight. The Dhoone foreguard felt his wrath as he rode upon them, howling like the Dog Lord that he was. Ranks of mounted Dhoone swordsmen closed around him, yet any man who drew within hammer range received a kiss of lead and steel for his trouble.

  Dhoone steel screeching against his armor, braids lashing against his back, Vaylo screamed for Blackhail to take the field.

  At his back Cluff Drybannock killed men with a cool efficiency that Vaylo found mildly disturbing. Dry’s longsword was sharp and heavy, and its double-edged blade could pierce all but the thickest plate. He was deadly silent as he fought, his face unmoved by fear or anger, his eyes always looking two moves ahead.

  With Drybone at his back, Vaylo felt safe to push farther into the Dhoone line. To the east, he saw the first of the Bannen swordsmen moving to cut off the Bludd rearguard. The Bansmen were dressed in cloaks of gray leather trimmed with moose felt, and their swords were things of clannish beauty, the steel burned with acid until it shone black. The Bansmen sang a slow metered deathsong as they marched down the slope, wailing about some ancient battle where the Wolf River ran with blood.

  The deathsong drove the Dog Lord to distraction, and he prayed that some hawk-eyed bowman would put an arrow through the head singer’s tongue. Vaylo was choked by Dhoonesmen, tantalized by brief glimpses of Hailsmen on the far edges of his reach.

  His hammerman’s chains rattled in fury as he swung his hammer in ever widening circles. His throat was hoarse from screaming. Dead men rode past him, slumped over their horses’ necks, blood oozing from cracks in their plate. A piece of a man’s face was glued to his hammerhead, yet he could spare no moment to pick it away.

  This battle was madness, madness, yet he had no choice but to keep moving forward. A lance shattered against his breastplate, sending splinters flying into his eyes and knocking him sideways in the saddle. When a hand reached over to steady him, he didn’t need to glance over his shoulder to know who it was.

  Mist began rolling north from the Wolf River, and soon the snowfields were a sinking ground of scattered forces and unhorsed men. Vaylo’s shoulder ached with a deep and terrible pain, yet he kept his hammer swinging in spite of it. There were Bludd swordsmen ahead of him now, hacking at Dhoone spears. Vaylo saw one man with a spear rammed so far down his throat that he had been impaled upon his fallen horse. An axman from Clan Gray, the Dog Lord thought with a small shudder. Truly, they are the cursed clan.

  Finally they broke the Dhoone line . . . and Vaylo did not fool himself for one instant that it was his doing. Yes, he had rage and a hammer that never stopped. But it was Drybone and his crew, going one-on-one against the Dhoonesmen, that saved the day. Cluff Drybannock came alive in moonlight. His movements had a grace that all other clansmen lacked, and once he found his rhythm he could strike or unhorse a Dhoonesman with every blow. When the mist came and Vaylo was hard-pressed to see ten feet ahead of the Dog Horse’s neck, it was Drybone who forced a path in the whiteness, Drybone who stood upon his stirrups and murmured, “There’s a break in the Dhoone line to the west.” Vaylo looked and squinted but could see nothing but the arses of Bluddsmen’s horses.

  He let Drybone lead the flight to the south, where Pengo and his hundred men were waiting to escort them off the field. They would not stay and fight. The Dog Lord knew a rout when he saw one. Bannen would not be taken this night . . . and far too little Blackhail blood had been spilled.

  Unsated, the Dog Lord turned for home.

  TWENTY-NINE

  By the Lake

  Raif sat within the circle of light created by the white oak fire and cut arrows. They would not be good ones, for the wood was unseasoned and widely grained and would likely split upon impact, but it was something to do. He had a stone warming at the base of the fire, ready to heat and straighten the shafts when he was done. Later, much later, he would think of sleep.

  It was dark, sometime past midnight, and moonlight came and went as the wind shifted clouds overhead. Angus was kneeling by the bay’s forelegs, rubbing them softly with a shammy. His gloves were clotted with pine sap and blood, but he was too caught up in tending his horse to clean or care for himself. Ash sat on the opposite side of the fire, her face made golden by the flames. Moose’s horse blanket was wrapped around her shoulders, and Angus’ buck-skin coat lay across her lap, yet neither stopped her from shaking.

  Raif had watched as she rode off the ice, her hair sparkling with frost, her eyes fierce and full of light. It was as if he were seeing her for the first time. Suddenly she wasn’t a skinny girl in borrowed clothes, she was a young woman with fine shoulders and a sure way of sitting a horse. The brightness within her had faded as they’d made their way north to the campsite. The reality of wet clothes and aching muscles had set in, and by the time Angus found them an hour later, Ash was crouched in the snow, shivering. Angus had called her his “wee lassie of the ice” and built up the fire to warm her. What destruction she had left behind could not be known. All was hidden by the mist over the lake.

  At least two of the sept were dead. Raif had killed one of them himself. It had been a nasty fight . . . one he’d found he had little stomach for. After he’d taken two fingers from the second red blade’s swordhand, he had shown the man grace and let him live.

  Shor Gormalin had taught him about grace. “You must learn to recognize when a fight is won,” the small fair-haired swordsman had said one spring morning as he’d put Raif through his paces on the practice court. “Some wounds will take the fight from a man as surely as a dragon breathing fire. Others will just make him angry and want to hurt you more. The secret is knowing the difference.”

  Raif remembered waiting for Shor to continue, certain that the swordsman would tell him to be on the lookout for spilled guts, bits of bone poking through skin, or wounds that bled and bled and wouldn’t stop. Instead Shor had said, “The truth of it’s always in your opponent’s eyes. I’ve known hammermen who could fight from noon to sunset with wounds the size of rats in their chests, and I’ve seen swordsmen turn tail and flee with nothing but a fine set of scratches on their necks.” Shor had raised his hand to his own neck, perhaps reassuring himself that there were no scratches there. “When you’ve wounded a man and looked into his eyes and seen for yourself that you’ve taken the fight from him, then you must decide whether to take his life or spare it.

  “Grace is a matter between a clansman and the Stone Gods. They give you a choice—and make no mistake, they’ll judge you for it—yet none but they know the rights and the wrongs of it. Never assume that leaving an opponent alive on the battlefield will gain you entrance to the Stone Halls that lie beyond. With our gods nothing is ever certain. They damned Bannog Tay of the Lost Clan for choosing not to kill his brother at the Battle of the Verge.”

  Shor’s words had run through Raif’s mind as he’d looked into the red blade’s eyes. The man’s sword was lying in the snow alongside two fat fingers and a pool of blood. The fight’s left him, Raif had thought, a strange tightness pulling at his chest, and he’d turned his horse and fled.

  Raif felt that same tightness now. Abruptly he thrust the last of his arrows into the fire and watched as the yellow flames warped the wood then turned it black. Truth was, he didn’t really know if he’d shown grace at all, not in the way Shor Gormalin meant, where one clansman spared another out of respect. It had sounded good in the telling, and even Angus had nodded and said, “That’s your right, Raif, and I will not question it.” Yet Raif wondered if he hadn’t spared the red blade simply to prove to himself that he could; that not every fight he fought and every arrow he loosed was destined to end in death.

  Watcher of the Dead.

  Raif shivered, fed another arrow to the fire.

  “Do you think Sarga Veys is dead?” Ash’s voice broke
the silence of the camp like a tree snapping under the weight of winter snow. Raif couldn’t recall the last time she had spoken, and he and Angus exchanged a small, worried glance.

  Angus left the bay untethered and came and crouched by the fire. Peeling his stained gloves from his fingers, he said, “I will not lie to you, Ash. I have an inkling he’s still alive.”

  “But the ice . . . I saw—”

  “Aye, but did you smell? I heard the ice break, heard the horses scream, but I also smelled sorcery moments later. Sarga Veys is a clever sorcerer. Powerful, too. You may have left him to the frozen waters of the Spill, but such a man is seldom easily killed. There are things he could have done, bodies he could have robbed heat from, drawings he could have made to still and stiffen the ice.”

  Ash looked down. After a moment she said, “What about the Knife?”

  “Marafice Eye is Penthero Iss’ right hand. Veys would be a fool to leave him to damnation. Veys wants power in his own right, yet he knows he won’t get it by returning to Spire Vanis alone. If there was any way he could pull the Knife from the water, then we must assume that’s exactly what he did. I doubt very much if there’s any love lost between those two, but Sarga Veys has a high opinion of himself, one that doesn’t allow for failure.”

  “You know Sarga Veys?” Raif asked.

  Angus fixed Raif with his copper eyes. “Aye, you could say that. We’ve crossed paths before in our time . . . and I’d sooner not think on it now.” It was the end of the subject. Angus made that clear by standing and stretching and turning his back on Ash and Raif.

  Raif traced a line in the snow with the tip of an arrow. His uncle had as many secrets as Anwyn Bird had recipes for mutton. Always there were evasions, lines that couldn’t be crossed. After today there were more mysteries than ever. A sept led by the Protector General of Spire Vanis had hunted them down like game. Sorcery had been used out on the lake. Raif signed to the Stone Gods, touching his closed eyelids and the tine at his waist. Angus might speak casually about sorcery, but as a clansman Raif could not. Some things were too deeply engrained. Clan was earth and stone and mud, things that could be held in the hand and weighed. Sorcery was air and light and tricks.

  Raif sighed heavily. Sorcery had been used in broad daylight, under an open sky. And for what? At first he had thought Angus was the main quarry of the sept, yet the magic user and the Knife had followed Ash onto the lake, not Angus. Glancing through the yellow needlework of flames, Raif looked at Ash. Who was she? The Surlord of Spire Vanis wouldn’t send his Protector General to track down a girl off the streets. Raif took a breath, drawing in the warm air and gray smoke from the fire. The newly knitted skin on his chest pulled tight as he filled his lungs. The stitches were gone now, winkled out by Angus and his knife. The scars left behind reminded Raif of widow’s weals.

  “Why did Marafice Eye come after you?” Suddenly it seemed easier to ask than think.

  The question was meant for Ash, yet Raif saw Angus’ shoulders stiffen as it was asked. For half a moment he thought Angus would speak up and end the subject on her behalf, but he didn’t. Instead he busied himself with his gloves, scraping away ice and pine needles with the edge of his knife.

  “You think he came after me?” Ash raised her head from her knees. A sheen of sweat glistened on her brow, and even the smallest movements she made seemed powerless and disjointed.

  Raif was already beginning to regret the question. Mist trapped in Ash’s clothes would turn to ice through the night. She needed fresh linens, hot food, and extra blankets—none of which they had now that the saddlebags were gone. Angus had taken a few things—some trail meat and medicine, as far as Raif could tell—yet he had no clean cloth to bandage Ash’s thigh and the bay’s rump, and only a splash of alcohol to clean them. Raif shook his head. “No. It doesn’t matter.”

  Ash looked at him with large gray eyes. After a moment she made a small warding gesture with her hand. “It does matter, Raif. It matters because you don’t know what you’re putting yourself in danger for. Even if Marafice Eye and Sarga Veys both died out on the lake, Penthero Iss will send more to replace them. He wants me back . . . I’m his foster daughter, Asarhia March.”

  It took Raif a moment to understand the words. “The Surlord’s daughter?” he repeated stupidly.

  “His almost-daughter.” Ash glanced quickly at Angus.

  Raif caught the look, understanding it immediately. “You knew,” he said to Angus.

  Angus put down his knife. “Yes.”

  “And that’s why you moved to save her by the gate?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think you won’t tell me the whole truth.”

  “Why ask, then?”

  Raif pushed himself to his feet. “I asked because I’m sick of lies, because every time I get close to the truth, you push me away. We are blood kin, yet you do not trust me. I have followed you blindly, trusted you blindly, yet it’s Ash who finally speaks the truth to me, not you.”

  “I have told you no lies, Raif Sevrance. Be sure of that. If I have held things back, it is to protect you. If I have kept knowledge to myself, it is because some things are better not known. I have learned many things and gathered many burdens. Such truths as I hold come only at a cost. What sort of kin would I be if I passed all the horrors I have seen and all the fears that I live with onto you? Once something is spoken it cannot be unsaid.”

  Angus’ voice was low and dangerous, yet Raif hardly cared. He took a step forward. “Don’t treat me like a fool, Angus. You’re content to let me share the danger when it suits you. In the past three days I’ve been hunted, ridden down, and attacked. What more has to happen before you’ll speak?”

  “The less you know, the safer you are.”

  “Why? Who are you protecting me from? Penthero Iss’ sept seemed more than happy to slit my throat regardless of what I knew or didn’t know. No one slowed down between blows to ask questions.”

  Angus shook his head. “Don’t make the mistake of supposing that you are the only person I must protect. Some secrets are not mine to tell.”

  “Tell me what is yours to tell, then. Why was it so important to visit Spire Vanis? What happens when we get to Ille Glaive? How do you know Sarga Veys? And why did you take the bow from me the moment you knew it was him? I had a full flight of arrows. I could have shot the other six.”

  “And the bay,” said Ash, softly. “Who taught him how to dance upon the ice?”

  Both Angus and Raif turned to look at her. In the heat of the exchange she had been forgotten. The Surlord’s almost-daughter, cold and shivering like a child.

  Angus’ face softened. “The bay was given to me as a gift. I saved a man’s life once, a Sull warrior named Mors Stormyielder. He promised me then that he would breed and train a horse in payment. The Sull do not take such things lightly, and the horse was many years in the breeding. Mors’ pride demanded that he send me only the best of his stock, and it took eleven years and two generations of foals before he was satisfied that a horse fitting his debt had been born. He spent another three years training the horse in the Sull manner, teaching it how to hold itself steady beneath an archer taking aim, how to survive in white weather and keep moving through thick drifts, how to endure the sudden pains of rocks and arrows without throwing its rider, how to war in formation with other horses, scent trails, read snow, and dance ice. When Mors was finished he sent the horse to me.”

  “Fourteen years seems a long time to repay a debt,” Ash said.

  “Mors was bound by his word, not by time. The years that passed between my deed and his repayment were nothing to him. He is Sull, he sees things differently from you and I.”

  “What’s the bay’s name?”

  The bay, as if knowing it was being spoken of, whickered softly and stamped snow. The makeshift bandage covering its hindquarters had already been thoroughly sniffed at, then chewed on for good measure.

  “He has a Sull name, one that can’t p
roperly be translated into Common.” Angus smiled as he saw Ash’s next question, already formed, in her eyes. “Ehl Rhayas Erra’da Motho. It means ‘One Who Is Born for a Debt but in the Rearing Becomes More.’”

  Ash smiled sleepily.

  “It’s easier to call him the bay.”

  “I see that now.” She yawned. Closing her eyes, she pulled the blanket over her chest and lay down in the snow. “Ehl Rhayas Erra’da Motho,” she whispered. Then, a few minutes later, “I’m so cold.”

  Raif and Angus exchanged a glance. Raif began to tug apart the ties on his elk coat. He wasn’t angry at Angus anymore. They would speak later when Ash slept—the look Angus had given him had promised that. For now he had to look after Ash. Walking around the fire, he braced himself for the shock of cold air and then stripped off his coat. Frozen leaves and forest matter crunched like glass beneath his feet. As he knelt to tuck the coat around her shoulders, his hand brushed the side of her cheek. Her skin was as cool as ice.

  Slipping beside her, he took her in his arms and pulled the elk coat over them both. He held her, shivering and silent, until she fell asleep.

  Raif’s mind drifted with the icy stillness of the night. Angus kept watch, occasionally walking between the horses and the steep bank that led down to the lake. Strings of mist from the Spill slithered across the snow like snakes. Overhead, the half-moon shone through a mesh of clouds. Raif thought of Drey, of the time Drey had fallen through the ice in Cold Lake and Raif had held him as he held Ash now. Tem had been mad with anger, furious at Drey for running on thin ice. It was a month after their mother had died. All the Sevrances had done wild, dangerous things that month.