by J. V. Jones
“The water’s not very hot, I’m afraid. Father still imagines that girls are like men: One quick dunk and we’re done.”
Ash grinned. She liked Cassy very much.
“Your father’s a kind man.”
“Tell him that and he’d spend more time denying it than he would if you swore he was a rogue.”
Bracing herself against the coolness of the water, Ash stepped into the iron basin. Cassy began making lather with a hard wedge of charcoal soap and a linen cloth. Ash guessed the cloth was Cassy’s best, as it had little birds embroidered around the border.
Cassy began washing Ash’s hair with the firm, capable movements of a girl who probably performed the same duty each week on her sisters. “How long will you be gone?” she asked as she poured rinse water over Ash’s scalp. “If it’s all right to say.”
“I don’t know. Not long, I hope. A month, perhaps.” As she spoke, Ash imagined a map of the Northern Territories in her head. The Storm Margin lay far to the west, caught between the Coastal Ranges and the Wrecking Sea. She knew only bits of things about the Margin; about the chain of Floating Isles just off its coast that were surrounded by mist year-round and where the Sull King Lyan Summerled was said to have died; and about the Ice Trappers in the Far North, who camped upon the sea ice in midwinter and chewed upon squares of frozen seal blood like clansmen chewed upon curd. Far to the south lay the Seahold, where the Trader Kings lived.
“I envy you.”
Ash looked up to see Cassy Lok watching her closely. It was in her mind to say something lighthearted and dismissive, something about trekking across thick snow in winter not being the sort of thing any sane person would envy, yet when she saw the expression on Cassy’s face, Ash knew instantly that Angus’ daughter meant what she said. Cassy Lok wasn’t the sort of person to say anything lightly.
“I envy you,” Ash replied, and meant it.
THIRTY-SIX
A Moon Made of Blood
Breakfast was eaten in silence. Crusty bread, smoked bacon, and mushrooms drenched in butter were washed down with ewe’s milk flavored with pine nuts. All the plates and cups were made of white oak, so even the business of cutting and spearing did little to break the hush.
Angus ate as slowly as a condemned man, cutting his bacon into ever smaller bits until a substance resembling sawdust filled his plate. Raif sat by the kitchen’s only window, a tub of wax floating in a bath of hot water by his side. Every now and then he’d scoop some of the wax with a cloth and work it into his bow. “Weatherproofing,” he had said earlier to Beth, who never stopped asking him questions. More often than not his gaze was on the dark gray sky outside the window.
Cassy sat beside Ash on the bench by the fire. They did not speak, but the silence between them was comfortable. Cassy had Little Moo on her lap, and the little blond-haired child was sucking on a rasher of bacon as stiff as a twig. Darra Lok sat at the table with her husband and her middle child. Every now and then Ash was aware of Darra’s gaze upon her. She pretended not to notice, but it worried her. What had Angus said to his wife?
Angus chose that moment to push his plate into the center of the table and stand. “We’d best be on our way.”
Everyone, including Raif, stood up on hearing his words, and within seconds the Lok farmhouse became alive with activity. Cassy ran upstairs to fetch Ash’s things, Beth ran to the stables to saddle the horses with Raif, Angus topped his rabbit flask from a keg by the door, and Darra began winding the remains of last night’s ptarmigan in strips of waxed linen.
Ash started the long process of wrapping, buckling, and caulking herself against the cold. She didn’t know if she was sorry to leave or not. Angus’ family were close to what she had always imagined a family should be, yet she had no place in it, and that knowledge left her strangely cold.
She was Ash March, Foundling, left outside Vaingate to die.
The words—her words—made her stronger, and she said her good-byes to Angus’ family and went to join Raif outside.
Saddlebags and bedrolls were buckled onto the horses, last words were spoken, and then the three travelers mounted and rode south through the forest of old trees.
Angus did not look back. Ash did, and she saw Cassy Lok’s hazel eyes filled with longing and Darra Lok’s blue ones filled with fear.
They followed the green river west for many leagues, shoulders hunched against the wind, heads down, silent. Storm clouds formed troughs and swells in the sky, and it wasn’t long before Ash felt rain spit against her face. Warm air driven south before the storm had caused a minor thaw, and the snow underfoot was wet, and not all pond ice could be trusted. Snowshoe was no dancer like the bay, but she was a wily pony and soon learned to follow Angus’ gelding step for step. Gradually the old hardwoods gave way to open fells and stunted pines.
After a noonday meal of cold salted ptarmigan, Angus turned northwest toward the Bitter Hills. Ash sat and suffered the wind and rain. She would have been grateful for any sort of conversation, but neither Angus nor Raif had a mind to do anything but ride.
The Bitter Hills changed color the nearer you drew to them. Ash had first thought they were gray, then blue. Now, as she and her two companions headed straight for the walls and cirques of the hills’ southern approach, she saw veins of green copper, white shale, and black iron threaded through the rock. Ash remembered her foster father telling her that the Bitter Hills had once been named mountains by the people of Ille Glaive, but visiting clansmen had laughed at them, saying, “These wee things? Why, they’re naught but hills.” With storm clouds massed at their throats like furs around a king, the Bitter Hills looked like mountains to Ash.
As darkness came and the rain cooled to sleet, Angus turned his party once more. Locating a path at the base of the hills that ran above an ice-sealed stream, he led them west along the border between Ille Glaive and the clanholds.
They traveled through much of the night. The hills acted as a barrier between the horses and the worst of the storm. As the hours wore on, Ash became increasingly aware of Cant’s wardings. They dug into her chest like wire, painful sometimes when she moved too quickly or breathed too hard. She still didn’t know what to make of Cant’s claim that she was a Reach. Before Cant had spoken she had never heard that such a thing existed. And if a Reach had been born a thousand years ago, why did no one in Spire Vanis know it? Ash knew her history. Haldor Hews was the surlord then, and he had reigned for sixty years. During that time he had extended the reach of the cityhold to the southern tip of the Black Spill and brought so much wealth into the city that he became known as Haldor the Provider. Ash frowned. Yet a Reach had been born then; Cant had said so. And a thousand years earlier . . . Ash thought a moment as she checked her dates . . . Theron and Rangor Pengaron had ridden their warhost north and founded the city itself.
Puzzled, Ash shook her head. It really didn’t seem as if a Reach could bring all the horrors that Cant said.
Not quite feeling relieved, Ash kicked her heels into ponyflesh and turned her mind to other things.
Not much later Angus called a halt, and camp was made hard against the stream. Raif lit a fire, but no one had the inclination or energy for chopping and stripping wood, and it fizzled quickly after the ptarmigan fat had been rendered to make stock. Ash fell asleep with grease on her lips, bundled deep within a goosedown quilt that had been a gift from Darra Lok.
A second, greater storm front moved south across the hills overnight, and Ash was woken by a pebble spray of hailstones on her back. Locks of her hair that had escaped her fox hood were stuck to the ground with frost. The temperature had dropped again, and when she crouched in the bushes to make water, she half expected her urine to freeze. It didn’t. At least not in the time it took to straighten her stockings and skirt.
No one spoke as they broke camp. The wind howled through ridges and canyons, shifting pitch like a human voice. Raif and Angus rode to either side of Ash, buffering her against the storm. There was no true d
aylight to mark the day’s passage. The farther west they traveled, the flatter and more rounded the hills became. Clouds boiled above them, sending sprays of ice and snow to sand already smooth slopes.
“Ganmiddich Tower should be in that bank ahead,” Angus shouted as the stormlight began to fail, flinging his arm toward the clouds. “If we turned north here, we’d be at the pass within an hour.”
Ash looked but could see nothing except hailstones and clouds. Darkness descended even as Angus returned his hand to the reins. Ash kept glancing north, hoping for a glimpse of the tower.
After a while she became aware of a pale glow above the hill-tops. Thick curtains of cloud hid its color and center, and at first she thought it was the rising moon or the north star. Then the wind gusted west, clearing a small portion of sky, and a ball of red fire was revealed.
Ash felt something drop in her stomach. Reaching over, she touched Raif’s arm. His gaze followed hers, and she watched as his eyes and face turned red with reflected light.
“Light in the tower,” he said quietly. “The red fire of Clan Bludd.”
Those were the last words she heard him speak that night.
A flight of arrows skimmed the air, whirring as softly as a fisherman dropping a line. Something thwacked against Snowshoe’s rump, making the pony rear and break with the other horses. Ash sawed at Snowshoe’s mouth, but the pony was scared and determined to flee.
Similar impacts hit Moose and the bay. Raif fought his horse, pulling hard on the reins and wheeling the gelding through a half turn. As Ash looked on, he bit off one of his gloves and spat it into the snow. The bay stood his ground. Sull trained, Ash remembered, glimpsing twin flashes of steel as Angus drew both knife and sword.
A second arrow hit the pony in the chest. This time Ash got a quick look at the head before it fell: a thumb of rounded wood capped with lead. A blunt. As she tried to make sense of what that meant, a troop of mounted clansmen descended the southern slope. Ash saw long oiled braids, sable cloaks, dull plate, and boiled leather dyed the color of blood.
Crack! Ash’s world flashed red and white as a blunt clipped her chin. Her teeth roots rang with pain. Working to steady herself in the seat, she pulled so hard on the reins that Snowshoe reared and screamed. Cool air whiffled past Ash’s cheek as another blunt sailed wide. The arrows were coming from the east. To the north, the mounted clansmen spread wide as they reached level ground.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the rising arc of Raif’s bow. It was Raif’s bow now; it had been Angus’ once, but seeing it bend like a dancer’s spine in Raif’s hand, she knew Angus could never ask for it back.
Fear filled Ash’s mouth the instant he released the string. She didn’t need to look over her shoulder to know that the point would find a clansman’s heart.
Coldness took her. It’s so easy for him, she thought. If he had enough arrows, he could kill them all.
Suddenly Angus was beside her, wheeling the bay so tightly that clods of snow and frozen dirt spattered against her leg. “Behind me,” he said.
The bay’s steady presence calmed Snowshoe, and she stopped fighting against the bit and allowed Ash to maneuver her against Angus’ flank. A blunt skipped off the bay’s neck, yet the great Sull horse held his ground. Ash looked into the gelding’s brown liquid eye and felt a moment of pure reverence. We’ve danced together, you and I.
A dozen clansmen bore down on them across the runoff plain at the base of the hill. There were more somewhere, hidden in the darkness to the east, shooting blunts. Ash watched as the warriors uncouched their steel points and lowered them as they rode. Spearheads set with back hooks to snag flesh reached ten paces beyond the horses’ heads.
Raif took one down, then another.
“Who are they?” screamed Ash.
Angus’ weapons wept oil as he raised them. “Bluddsmen. They’ve taken Ganmiddich and want the world to know it . . . that’s why they lit a fire in the tower.”
“Why bother with us?” Ash was close to hysterical. The sight of Raif drawing his bow was terrible to her. She wanted Angus to stop him.
Pointing his knife at Raif, Ash, and then himself, Angus said, “Take your pick. All three of us are prizes worth taking.”
Ash didn’t know what he meant. What would clansmen want with her? And then: What had Raif done to warrant taking? Even as that thought burrowed deep in her thoughts, a storm of blunts hit Raif and his horse. Moose kicked and howled as his forelegs, ears, and snout were smacked. Raif was struck in the throat and the bowhand, causing him to lose his grip on the bow. Hands scrambling for the reins, he worked to control the thrashing horse.
Ash let out a small cry. Raif’s skin was gray, and something close to madness shone from behind his eyes. Without a thought, she kicked Snowshoe’s flanks. She had to go to him.
Angus’ hand shot out, gripping her wrist so tightly that knuckles cracked. “No!”
Furious, Ash fought him, lashing out with her free hand and driving Snowshoe into the bay. Her fingernails hooked Angus’ cheek, and she scraped four strips of skin from his face. Still he would not release her.
The line of clansmen were closing on Raif. Their steel points shone as red as Rive Watch blades where they caught the tower’s light. Calls passed between the clansmen, terse words roughly spoken. Their black armor had been tarnished so that it reflected no light, and their cloaks-of-fur rippled like living shadows at their backs.
To the east, the company of bowmen finally showed themselves, trotting wide on horses bred for the darkness of their coats.
“Calm yourself,” Angus said, twisting Ash’s arm to stop her fighting. “They will not harm him.”
It was then Ash realized they were going to be taken. She shot Angus an accusation of a glance.
“I will not endanger you by fighting against such odds.” Blood rolled down Angus’ cheek where she had scratched him, yet he heeded it not. His eyes were on Raif. Sobered, Ash let her arm go limp in Angus’ grip.
Raif now had Moose under control, and his halfsword was drawn and ready. He was facing the line of Bluddsmen, yet he glanced over his shoulder and met eyes with his uncle. An unspoken communication passed between the two, and Raif nodded imperceptibly. Turning to meet the Bluddsmen, he raised his sword over his head, skimming the cutting edge against his free hand to draw the blood that was needed as a sign of submission.
For her. Ash knew that in every cell of her being. If she had not been here, riding with these two men, the fight would still be waging. Perhaps Angus would have come up with some clever way to retreat, perhaps not. But Raif would have fought to the end. Ash had seen that madness in him . . . he was never far from death.
The Bluddsmen slowed but held their points. A leader emerged from the line, indistinguishable in every way from his companions except for the fact he pulled ahead. He wore no helm, and the shaved portions of his head had been painted with red clay. When he judged the distance sufficient, he raised a fist and stopped both warriors and bowmen dead.
Ash had never seen a Bluddsman before, but like everyone else in the North, she believed them to be the most savage of the clans. It took all her will not to call to Raif, to have him turn and look at her one last time before he was taken.
“Do not speak his name,” Angus warned, renewing his grip on her wrist.
All was quiet except for the wind. The red fire in the uppermost chamber of the Ganmiddich Tower shone like a moon made of blood. Two men stood twelve paces apart: one with his sword lifted high above his head and a line of dark blood snaking down his wrist, the other with his spear pointed straight at the first man’s heart.
With his free hand, the Bluddsman lifted his lore from his chest and weighed it. Just like Raif, Ash thought, hairs on her arms rising.
After a time the Bluddsman let the small token drop to his chest. Taking his spear in both hands, he broke the shaft in two. The crack sounded like nothing else Ash had ever heard, like a great stone split open or a tree falling to t
he earth. Bluddsmen signed to their gods. Some touched the hide pouches and horn vials that hung from their equipment belts along with blade grease, sheath knives, and dog hooks. A night heron took to the air, its wings curling upward as it crossed the light of the red moon. Somewhere far to the north a wolf howled to its pack members, telling of carrion found and waiting.
Angus whispered two words under his breath. “They know.” Hearing them, Ash was filled with dread. She wanted to ask what it was they knew, yet her throat had lost its power to form words.
Raif’s shoulders held firm. He had neither wavered nor flinched at the spear breaking, and Ash was filled with the certainty that he had been expecting such an action from the moment he had raised his sword.
“I am Cluff Drybannock of Clan Bludd,” the leader said, speaking in a low voice, “and I claim your heart for the Dog Lord, Raif Sevrance of Clan Blackhail, for wrongs done to our clan.”
A cold light shone in the Bluddsman’s eyes for one long moment, then Cluff Drybannock turned his back on Raif. Addressing himself to no one particular in the line, he said, “Strip him of his guidestone. One such as he deserves no protection from our gods.”
Ash glanced at Angus. For the first time since she had met him, Angus Lok looked afraid.
Marafice Eye’s foot stank. Blisters the size of eyeballs wept fluid onto the inn floor. Black and purple skin floated over a mass of swollen tissue. Beneath the shell of dead and shedding skin, the plump pinkness of proud flesh could just be seen. The proud flesh was a good sign: It meant the foot would survive intact.
Well, nearly. The tip of the Knife’s big toe had already come away, cast off in a jelly of red translucent flesh like something birthed in the deepest troughs of the sea. Sarga Veys shuddered at the memory. He hated sickness in any form.
“How much longer before I can put this damned foot in a stirrup, Halfman?” Marafice Eye spoke from the largest chair, set closest to the fire, in the third finest inn in Ille Glaive.