A Cavern Of Black Ice (Book 1)

by J. V. Jones

  “Place this upon your tongue.” Cant held out a dried leaf for Ash to take. “Bite through it when I say so.” Ash did as she was told. Raif was watching her so intently, he didn’t see Cant draw the knife.

  “Easy, lad,” Angus said under his breath, reacting to the tension that shot through Raif’s body like lightning.

  Easing back to reassure Angus, Raif watched as Cant drew the knife to his wrist. The blade rested there, above a vein as thin and insubstantial as a curl of smoke, while Cant’s lips spoke words that Raif could not hear.

  The room dimmed. Air became thicker, colder, harder to expel from the lungs. The stench of copper and blood rose in the room like mist rising from a field at battle’s end. Raif’s mouth watered. Sickened, he swallowed hard.

  Ash’s face shone with sweat. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was open, and the skin Cant had bared at her throat flushed pink. Cant stood above her, joined to her by the substance pouring from his mouth. Raif saw it as thick shadow, a mixture of words and air and something else he had no name for. Light ran along the knifeblade as Cant sliced into his skin.

  Blood welled in a perfectly straight line, so bright and hearty it was shocking to see it pump from such pale, misshapen flesh. Following the line of the blade, it dripped into the hammered copper bowl, pattering like a child’s footsteps on tile.

  “Bite the leaf,” Cant said.

  Ash’s mouth closed. Her jaw worked once and then was still. Cant dropped the knife and placed his good hand on the tissue of Ash’s throat. The air in the room shifted, as if moved by an opening door. Raif felt the raven lore grow hot against his skin. Cant’s presence became somehow less than it was, wavering as if seen through the heat from a fire. Pulse racing, Raif became acutely aware of the danger. Ash was a Reach; it meant old skills and old knowledge and power beyond anything he knew. If she fought against Cant, she could kill him.

  Raif glanced at Angus and saw the same knowledge reflected in his uncle’s eyes.

  Ash and Cant were as one now, joined as surely as two stags with antlers racked. Raif shivered as the image came to him. Three summers ago he and Drey had come across a pair of elk carcasses at the foot of the balds: bodies head to head, torsos picked clean, antlers locked together so surely that neither animal had been able to free itself from the other’s hold. They had died that way, struggling to pull apart over countless days and nights. Rut deaths, Tem had called them. He said it only happened when two beasts of equal strength were matched.

  Blood smoke rose between Ash and Cant as the contents of the copper bowl began steaming. Cant’s face was gray with strain. His mouth worked furiously, speaking a clotted mix of words and sorcery.

  Unable to watch any longer, Raif turned away. His eyes settled on the shadows cast on the wall, and after a while he couldn’t even look at them. Sorcery had never seemed so wrong and unnatural, and for the second time that night he found himself staring longingly at the door.

  The clanholds lay one day’s ride to the north, yet they might as well have stood in the frozen heart of the Want. Raif had never felt farther from all that he knew as he did waiting for Heritas Cant to be done.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Shankshounds

  Effie’s lore pushed her awake. She’d been having such a strange dream about Raif, about how he was trapped underground with no way out, when her rock lore pressed so hard against her chest, it hurt. Effie opened her eyes immediately. The quality of darkness in her cell told her it was still properly and completely night. Frowning, she reached beneath the neckline of her wool nightdress and took her lore in hand.

  Push.

  Quick as if she’d picked up a hot coal from the fire, Effie let the stone drop.

  She had to go, leave her cell right now.

  The idea didn’t come to her in words; it wasn’t really an idea at all. It was just something she knew, like the time of day or whether the air she breathed was cold or warm or damp.

  Sitting up, she swung her feet onto the floor. Boots or slippers? Boots are warmer, said a little voice. Slippers are quieter, said another. Effie poked her feet into the darkness until her toes brushed against the shaggy softness of her squirrel fur slippers. That done, she pulled the rug from her bed and wrapped it around her shoulders. She didn’t have time for a shawl.

  Her legs didn’t help much as she stood. They felt like rain-soaked twigs that had nothing to do with the rest of her body and no intention of carrying her weight. Effie felt her bottom lip start to tremble as she shuffled to the nearest wall.

  Push.

  “Stop,” she whispered, glad of the chance to give her treacherous bottom lip something to do. “I know.”

  Thinking about what Inigar Stoop would likely say to her if he knew that she spoke to her lore made Effie feel better. Rufus Pole had been the laughingstock of the roundhouse last summer just for speaking to his sheep. Effie had seen Rufus’ sheep—they were clean and healthy and fat as rain clouds—and she’d very nearly giggled out loud when he’d said he’d rather speak to them than a good quarter of the people in the clan.

  Sheep thoughts helped, and Effie felt her legs harden beneath her, ready for flight. Clutching the bed rug around her throat, she moved toward the door.

  It was closed, of course—open doors were the next worst thing to open spaces—but both Raina and Drey had warned her about bolting herself in. Fingers sliding over the bolt, Effie considered drawing it and simply hiding from whatever danger was on its way. She knew straightaway that was foolish, though. Doors could be easily broken. Taking a shallow breath, she pushed against the wood and stepped into the new darkness waiting on the other side.

  The roundhouse at night was icy cold, peopled by strange drafts and grinding noises. Effie knew it well. The noises came from stone blocks in the walls moving against each other as the timbers separating them cooled and the drafts blew from secret rotting holes in the peat-and-graystone roof. Longhead said swallows nested there in spring, and Effie thought about that for a bit as she walked along the tunnel leading from her cell. She was just wondering what swallows found to eat up there when she heard footsteps pounding on the stone steps directly ahead. A halo of light descended from above. Someone, a man, coughed with a hard hacking sound that produced something worthy of spitting. Effie, still standing in the darkness close to the wall, felt for the nearest door.

  Her hand found the splintery roughness of wood as the man’s booted feet came into view. Thanking all the Stone Gods—even Behathmus, who always gave her a chill and few except hammermen ever named—she pushed open the door and stepped into someone else’s cell. Doors were never locked in the roundhouse, and Effie found herself glad of that fact for the first time in her eight-year life.

  More darkness occupied the cell—so much, in fact, that she couldn’t even see the hand she used to close the door. A series of soft snoring sounds rose from somewhere close by. People sleeping. At one time Effie would have known the names and faces of everyone who occupied the cells close to her own, but now she couldn’t be sure who slept where. The roundhouse was swollen with tied clansmen and their families, all come to seek protection from the Dog Lord. Most slept wherever they could. Some had caused fights. Just last week Anwyn Bird had beaten a tied clanwife with a wooden spoon for daring to spend the night in her kitchen. By all accounts the woman had gotten off lightly, and the bruises were said to be nothing that a few weeks of bed rest couldn’t cure.

  Sniffing slightly, Effie peered through the shadows in the room. After a few moments her eyes began to pick out shapes: a box pallet with several hunched forms lying upon it, a bloodwood stang propping up the ceiling, and a line of fat grain sacks hanging from the rafters to keep their contents dry. Effie listened to the sound of breathing and snoring rising from the pallet, assuring herself that those who lay there were fast asleep. Then, just as she felt safe enough to think about what to do next, a sliver of light shone under the door. The man on the stairs was walking this way!

  Effie s
tilled herself. Footsteps tapped close . . . the light brightened . . . and then receded as the man on the stairs walked past the door. Suddenly realizing she had been holding her breath, Effie exhaled in a great gasp of relief. As she did so, she heard the familiar whine of hinges so badly rusted by damp that no amount of calf oil could silence them. Her cell door. Effie breathed in, snatching back her relief. Her lore beat against her chest like a second, smaller, heart.

  Pressing her forehead against the door, she listened for more sounds from the man on the stairs. Nothing. What was he doing in there? Effie imagined his boots; the leather was greenish, moldy, the toes ringed with watermarks, and the soles caked with muddy bits of hay. Not a full clansman’s boots. Effie shook her head. Not even a yearman.

  The whining noise came again, pushing all boot thoughts from her mind. Effie tensed. Suddenly she couldn’t breathe. Her throat felt as if someone had their hands around it.

  Footsteps again. Slap, slap, slap. They were so close, Effie could feel their vibration on the part of her head that was touching the door. They slowed. Stopped. Effie imagined monsters. She knew what the man’s boots looked like, but what about his face, his teeth? Tiny, hard contractions punched at her belly. Should she wake the other people in the cell? Might they be monsters, too?

  Then, abruptly, the footsteps started up once more, receding with a slowness that was another torture in itself. Effie waited. Even after the footsteps had long faded and night sounds took over again, she waited, forehead pushed against the bloodwood door, body held so still that dust settled upon her back.

  The soft crunch of a body rolling over dried grass broke the waiting spell. Effie lifted her head from the door and glanced over her shoulder. A tiny crack high in the roof let in a trickle of dawn light. The box pallet was clearly visible now. Three bodies vied for space upon its grass-filled mattress: a thin crofter with a silvery beard, a woman with dark hair and a pale back, and a young dark-haired child. It took Effie a moment to realize that the child was awake. His eyes were wide open, and he was looking at her in the interested way children looked at things that might, or might not, be dangerous.

  Pressing a finger to her lips, Effie warned him not to cry out. He was small and skinny and a good deal younger than she, and even though Effie wouldn’t normally deign to notice such a boy, she knew they were made of the same child substance. The boy knew it, too, and acknowledged her sign with a similar one of his own. Effie was careful not to let her relief show. They might both be children, but she was the elder, and even after favors were granted she had a certain superiority to maintain.

  They held their places for a good long time, watching each other in the growing light, neither friendly nor unfriendly, waiting. When the child’s mother stirred, sending out a hand to feel for her son, Effie knew it was time to go. Part of her didn’t much like the idea of venturing outside, but the sensible, thinking part knew that dawn was properly here now and no one would dare harm her in the good light of day.

  Raising her hand, she thanked the boy with a seriousness befitting his deed, then let herself out the door.

  The corridor was no longer dark. Sounds of clattering metal pots, thudding footsteps, and sharply spoken orders filtered down from the floors above. Anwyn was in her kitchen, stoking the fires and warming last night’s broth and bannock. Effie glanced toward her cell.

  Push.

  No, better not go back there yet.

  Massaging the part of her forehead that she had ground into the wood of the cell door, Effie thought about what to do. Drey would be in the Great Hearth, sleeping close around the fire like all the other yearmen. He was becoming important these days. Rory Cleet, the Shank brothers, Bullhammer, Craw Bannering: All the yearmen looked to him to lead raids, settle disputes, and talk with Mace Blackhail on their behalf. He was often away from the roundhouse: riding the borders, scouting as far as Gnash, carrying messages between Blackhail and exiled Dhoone. Last week he had ridden with Mace Blackhail and a host of two hundred full clansmen to defend Bannen against the Dog Lord’s forces.

  Drey said the Dog Lord was working to take over all the Dhoone-sworn clans and fortify his position in the Dhoonehold. Already he’d taken over Clan Withy, whose funny little roundhouse with its mineshafts and mole holes lay two days south of Dhoone. Even with the combined forces of Dhoone, Blackhail, and Bannen working to defend the Banhold, the battle had not gone easy. Drey said the Bluddsmen had fought like men possessed, and the Dog Lord himself had ridden at the head of their line.

  “You should have seen him, Effie,” Drey had confided upon his return. “He rode an ugly black horse and carried the plainest of weapons, yet no clansman who matched hammers with him lived to tell of it.” After that Drey had shivered in a funny way, and Effie had asked him what was wrong. “He was screaming at us, Effie. Screaming for Blackhail blood.”

  That had made Effie shiver, too. According to Drey, the battle lasted well into the night, and even though Bludd was outmanned they managed to break through the Dhoone lines and take more lives than they gave.

  Drey had been injured in the Bludd retreat. Mace Blackhail had sent him and two dozen other hammermen after the Dog Lord and his sons. Ten of the hammermen had died. Drey had been unseated by a blow from a spiked and lead-weighted Bluddhammer. The spikes had pierced his plate in two places, and he’d taken a bad landing upon stony ground.

  Effie sucked in her cheeks. Raina said that once the swelling and bruising had gone down it wouldn’t be that bad. He’d only broken two ribs.

  With a small shake of her head, Effie made the decision not to go and seek out Drey. She knew he would see her no matter how busy he was—hers was the first face he looked for whenever he returned home from a raid and the last name he spoke in his words to the Stone Gods each night—yet she didn’t want to be a burden to him. He had too many worries already.

  Raif’s leaving still hurt him. He never spoke of it, and Effie had seen him stiffen in anger when anyone in his presence dared to mention Raif’s name. Yet these days it was hard not to hear talk of Raif Sevrance around the Great Hearth at night. All the clanholds were in uproar about what happened at Duff’s Stovehouse. Three Bluddsmen had died by Raif’s hand. Three. Effie shivered. It was unthinkable. Watcher of the Dead, they called him now.

  Effie climbed the steps to the entrance chamber. She wished Raif were here now. She couldn’t tell Drey about the man on the stairs; he’d go straight to Mace Blackhail, and this time they might actually fight. Effie shook her head. That couldn’t happen. Mace was a bad man. Drey was stronger and a better fighter, but somehow Effie knew that wasn’t enough. Mace hurt people in different ways. He had hurt Raina, changed her. He might send Drey from the clan, or worse.

  By the time she had walked through the entrance chamber and past the kitchen, her mind was set. She told herself that she didn’t really know whether or not Mace Blackhail had any connection with the man on the stairs, couldn’t even be sure if the man had meant her harm. Fearing a push from her rock lore, Effie knocked it impatiently with her fist. Suddenly she very much wanted to go to a place where she knew she’d be safe.

  Reaching up on her tiptoes, she worked the latch on the side door that led out onto the court. Cold air blasted her face as the door opened. Snow was swirling in heavy gray flakes, and the wind was hard and from the north. Another storm, Effie thought as she stepped outside. The third one in as many days.

  The big stable door had been shut and barred against the wind, and she concentrated on its shape and thereness as she made her way across the court. The open space of the graze, the distant rise of the Wedge, and the far line of the horizon were blurred by the storm, yet Effie knew better than to look at them even now. Just the fact of their presence made her heart race. Not far to the little dog cote, she told herself. Not far now.

  Jebb Onnacre, one of the Shanks by marriage and caretaker of all their horses and dogs, passed within a few paces of Effie on his way back from the stables. Seeing her, he smiled
and raised his hand in greeting. Effie liked Jebb; he was quiet and good with animals and never said anything to anyone whenever he found her in the dog cote. Normally she always waved back, yet today she put her head down and ignored him. His boots were caked in mud, she noticed. He might have sat and taken breakfast with the man on the stairs.

  Disturbed by that thought, she broke into a run, heading north along the stable wall and into roughs beyond. By the time she arrived at the dog cotes her squirrel slippers were stiff with ice. Clutching the bed rug close about her chest, she picked her way around the largest of the two cotes and made for the small stone structure that lay behind them, its round walls sunk deep into the snow like a miniature version of the roundhouse. The little dog cote. Effie’s chest tightened to see it.

  Dog smells and dog noises defied the bluster of the storm. Already one of the shankshounds had gotten wind of her scent and was howling like a mad thing through the roof. Effie grinned. That was Darknose, by the sound of it; he was always howling about something. Crouching down by the little dog-size door, she worked the latch and then jiggled the hinges as necessary. By the time she had forced the door open, a wall of dogs was waiting for her on the other side.

  Effie’s heart filled with joy. “Stop that! Easy now. No chewing on my slippers. Give me that rug back! Bad dogs. Bad dogs.” The dogs accompanied her into their warm, dark lair, tails wagging, tongues licking, amber eyes bright with interest and affection.

  Most people in the clan held that the shankshounds were the nastiest, evilest, most foul-tempered beasts that had ever fetched a stick on the Hailhold. Hell-bred, Anwyn called them. Bears with tails, said someone else. Of course, since one of them had found the crofter’s baby buried alive in the snow, a sort of legend had grown up around them. Due respect was given . . . but always from a safe distance. Anwyn had taken to sending Mog Wiley out to the cotes with kitchen scraps, and Jenna Walker, who now acted as foster mother to the rescued child, would not hear a bad word said against them. Orwin Shank, who everyone held was the wealthiest man in the clan, had even sent one of his best breeding ewes in payment to Paille Trotter for making up a song about them. Effie had heard the song. It wasn’t very good, containing in her opinion far too many words that rhymed with dog, but even she had to admit it was a jaunty tune.