by J. V. Jones
Ash was gone . . . and the tower would have to fall so he could reach her.
FORTY-ONE
An Object Returned
Raif let the madness take him. Hours passed as he tore at the darkness in his cell. When his right shoulder became a bruised and bloody mass, he began driving at the door with his left. When the door held firm, and whatever bar or bolts bracing it on the other side failed to crack or jump their casings, he swung himself up onto the bench and began punching the iron grating. The bars of the grate were as thick as arms, set deep into mortise holes and packed with burned lime: They did not budge under his bombardment.
He shouted until his voice was hoarse, but no one came for him to kill. He charged the walls, then kicked them, and when that failed he clawed at the green riverstone with bare hands. Blood flowed from beneath his fingernails, running along his palms and dripping from his wrists to the river below. Sweat stung his eyes and turned the clothes on his back to sopping bandages packed with salt. He wanted someone to come—anyone. The kill was upon him, and he imagined beating Bluddsmen senseless against the stone walls, then using their swords to carve out their hearts. Watcher of the Dead, they called him. Well, let them come and see for themselves how quickly he could take a life.
Hours passed, and still he raged. Terrible tremors shook him, making his legs bend with exhaustion and his eyes see things that could not be there. Tem was in the cell with him, lying on the stone bench, his arms burned black, and his mouth open and full of worms. When Raif looked again it was his mother, her skin all yellow and loose, her eyes sealed closed with sulfur paste. Soon his legs could no longer hold him, and he dropped into the water and began gouging rotten mortar with his lore. Ash was all that mattered. Getting to Ash.
Dimly, in some distant part of his mind that could still look ahead, he knew his best course would be to lie low until morning, wait until a Bluddsman entered the cell—one hand busy with the bolt, the other balancing a water bladder and a bowl of sotted oats—and take him as he entered. Smash the door in his face, seize his weapon, and run. Yet the idea of doing nothing until morning was unthinkable. Somehow it was all mixed up with Drey . . . he could not break another oath.
As the night wore on, he fought sleep. His mind lapsed for seconds at a time, leaving him blinking in the darkness, gripping his lore. After a time his neck could no longer support the weight of his head, and he rested his chin on his chest as he worked. His eyes closed, but he continued to jab bloody fingers against stone, using the pain to stay awake.
Eventually the pain stopped hurting, and the line between sleeping and waking began to fade. He lost seconds, then minutes, then hours. Still fighting, he fell asleep.
Clacking noises, like the sound of wooden training swords bashing together, filled his dreams. He saw Shor Gormalin parrying with Banron Lye on the court, dead men dueling with swords. Clack! Clack! Clack!
Raif turned in his sleep. The clacking followed him, only now it sounded different, higher, sharper, like steel meeting steel. Someone screamed. Footsteps thudded in the distance. Dogs wailed, their cries growing higher and more desperate until they stopped sounding like things bred by man and howled like wolves instead.
A mighty crash shook the tower. Raif’s right arm skidded from the stone bench and fell into the water below. He opened his eyes. The pale light of winter dawn filled the cell like gray smoke. Something red and bloody lay directly in front of his face, and he stared at it for a long moment before realizing it was his own left hand. As he pulled his right free from the water, he heard a salvo of shouted orders. Sword metal clattered against stone. Footsteps drew close. Breath exploded in a violent hiss. Something, very probably a body, fell with the thud of a rolled carpet toppling onto the floor.
Even as Raif drew himself upright, the cell door burst open.
Blade metal gleamed like cut ice. A fist, gloved in black, balanced a lead-weighted sword close to a chest plated in silvered steel. A face, shadowed beneath a thorn helm of acid-blackened iron, emerged from the darkness behind the door.
Blackhail. Pride stabbed at Raif’s heart: His clan had taken Ganmiddich back.
“On your feet.”
Raif turned cold. His pride drained away as quickly as an exhaled breath. The voice behind the thorn helm was known to him. “Take off your helm.”
The figure shook his head. Eyes gleamed cold beneath a mesh of iron thorns. Raising the tip of his sword, he said, “Stand.”
Raif stood and faced the figure by the door. He was shaking, but the helmed man was not. The hand that gripped the sword was as solid as rock. The chest beneath the armor rose and fell with powerful, even breaths.
“Drey?”
The figure stiffened.
“Brother.” It was almost, yet not quite, a question. The figure before him was barely recognizable as Drey; his voice was deeper, his shoulders broader. Even his attire was different. War dressed in tempered steel and black leathers, Drey had shed the rough hand-me-downs that were the stock of all yearmen and clan sons. He was all hard edges now.
“We are not brothers, you and I. Blood ceased flowing between us the day you broke your oath.”
Raif controlled the muscles in his face. Inside, the coldness in his chest contracted to a single rigid point. Drey was not here to save him. It was a child’s thought, a sudden realization that those you trusted could hurt you, and Raif felt the same sickening shock as if Drey had smacked him in the face. He knew he shouldn’t have been surprised, but the habit of Drey’s loyalty ran deep within him. Drey was always there to pull him out of scrapes, to conceal bloody knees from Tem and broken saplings from Longhead, and to back up incredible stories about bears fleeing over thin ice and lone elk trampling tents. Drey always waited.
Swords clashed in the chamber above. The ceiling shuddered as something heavy and metallic, like a charcoal burner or an arms rack, crashed to the floor. Drey stepped forward, jabbing the air next to Raif’s throat with his sword.
“Move!”
Raif cursed the reflex action that made him flinch. Fixing his gaze on what was visible of his brother’s eyes through the thorn helm, he walked around the blade.
“Up the steps. One pace ahead of me, no more.”
Raif climbed the spiral stair in silence. Light stung his eyes. Fresh air and new sounds made his head swim. Once he stumbled and had to put a hand upon the wall to steady himself. Drey’s sword drew blood from the center of his spine, and he did not stumble or slow down again.
Two Hailsmen stood guard on the floor above. Both men’s breastplates were beaten out of shape, and one man’s gorget was punctured and leaking blood. Their blade edges were caked with chunks of hair and skin. Through the wire of their helms, Raif recognized Rory Cleet and Arlec Byce. As he drew closer, Raif saw that Rory’s handsome face was now marred by a thick white scar running from the crease of his eye to his mouth.
“Stone Gods!” Rory hissed as Raif approached. “What have they done to him?” Rory received no answer, nor did he say anything more. Drey sent a look to silence him.
Raif kept his face hard. He could not stop them from seeing the hurts on his body, but that was all they would see.
“To the skiff.”
Hearing his brother speak those words, Raif realized that Drey had changed more than his appearance. Arlec Byce, a full clansman of five winters, moved on his say.
They climbed through the base of the tower, past snuffed torches, unhinged doors, and a Bluddsman’s decapitated corpse. Black smoke pumped from a doorway, twisting around itself to form a funneling afterbirth of soot and fumes. Raif considered the band of darkness it created, noticed how Rory Cleet lifted his visor so he could rub his stinging eyes and how Arlec Byce held his swordhand to his helm to block the stench of burning flesh.
It would be so easy to take them.
Kill an army for me, Raif Sevrance.
Raif shook his head with quiet force. He would not slay his clansmen. Not even for Ash.
A
fourth Hailsman joined them as they filed out of the tower into the gray stormlight that shone upon the Inch. Raif paid him no heed, yet he knew well enough that it was Bev Shank, kitted out in new-made plate armor and guard chains. His sword was badly notched and would have to be sent to Brog Widdie to be refired. Then again, perhaps his father would buy him a new one; Orwin Shank could well afford it. Raif was aware that Bev’s gaze was upon him, yet he kept his thoughts and his eyes upon the sword.
Spray from the river lashed his cheek as he waited to board the skiff. High winds shaved the surface, slicing the heads off waves and driving dark swells against the Inch. Hailstones battered the tower, drowning out the sound of battle to the north. On the far bank, the Ganmiddich roundhouse glowed orange and green, lit by a moat of soaring flames. Strip fires, Raif thought, to stop the Bluddsmen from forming lines.
The skiff rocked as he stepped into it. Gray water lay two hands deep in the hull, yet Raif barely felt it. Compared with the water in his cell, it was warm and fragrant. Hailstones as big as peas bobbed on the surface.
“Tie his hands.” Drey’s voice was hard. His brown eyes dared Rory Cleet to defy him.
Rory was no riverman, and when he stood to do Drey’s bidding, he sent the keel of the boat pitching into the storm-stripped water. Bev Shank and Arlec Byce struggled to keep the oars in their locks.
Raif held himself perfectly still as he allowed his wrists to be tied. He thought he was going mad. He saw death everywhere he looked. It would be so easy to push Rory against the gunwales and capsize the boat. All of them would be thrown into the water. Some would die. Bev Shank could swim, but his new armor must weigh two stone and a half and he’d sink straight to the bottom. All four of the Hailsmen were wearing helms and plate. The water was cold. Icy. Undertows and storm tows would pull them under in an instant, send them smashing against the Inch. Raif knew he would survive. Cold water was nothing to him . . . and there was no steel on his back, only rags.
Raif sat and did not move. Salt from the river burned his skin. He watched Drey yet did not seem to. He thought of death yet did not act.
It was a long journey to the shore. All four clansmen took up oars. Instead of fighting the current, Drey used it to steer the skiff to the bank, allowing the river to carry the craft downstream. Mounted figures milled upon the bank, rippling in the heat of the strip fires like demons. Hailsmen and Bluddsmen. Raif thought he saw the barrel chest and chestnut braids of Corbie Meese amid a melee of sixty men. He heard the screams of wounded horses and the furious rattle of hammermen’s chains.
“Raise the oars.” Drey snapped the order even though they were still some distance from the north shore, and the skiff carried them even farther downstream. By the time the skiff’s keel scraped gravel, they were clear of the roundhouse and the fighting. Raif looked from face to face as the four clansmen dragged the skiff ashore. No one would meet his eyes.
Mace Blackhail. The thought came with the strength and speed of a reflex action. Mace Blackhail wanted him taken quietly, away from the fighting and the other clansmen. Far better to deal with the traitor alone, get the whole thing over and done, with no interference from the clan. Raif looked across the bank, his eyes skimming over the wooded slopes and wet meadows of Ganmiddich. Any moment he expected Mace Blackhail to ride forward on his roan.
Drey secured the skiff’s lines himself and then straightened to address his men. “Rory. Arlec. Head upstream on foot, find Corbie and Hugh Bannering and tell them the Inch has been taken.” He unsheathed his sword as he spoke. It was the same sword he always carried at his back along with his hammer, yet the grip was new doeskin and the blade had been oiled and whetted to a high sheen. The metal gleamed with all the colors of the storm. “Bev. You go with them. Fetch my horse and a spare pony for the prisoner. Ride them back at haste.”
Arlec Byce and Rory Cleet exchanged a glance. Drey trained the tip of his sword on Raif’s kneecap. “Go,” he murmured, stabbing the bone. “I’ll hold the prisoner until you return.”
Bev Shank was first to start east. Rory Cleet and Arlec Byce were slower getting started, and Arlec looked back several times as he headed along the bank. Raif wondered what had happened to the axman’s twin; the two were seldom far apart.
Drey held his position as he watched the three men scramble over the wet gravel and storm-greased rocks along the shore. Hailstones bouncing off his breastplate made ticking sounds as seconds passed.
Raif’s throat was dry. He was aware of the blade point at his knee yet didn’t look down to check for blood. His eyes were on his brother. Drey’s face was banded by shadow. The glove that held the sword was stretched white at the seams. I’ll stand second to his oath. Drey’s words were suddenly there in Raif’s head. That and the image of Drey kicking his black gelding forward on the court, one man among twenty-nine. The only one willing to back his oath.
Raif almost didn’t feel the rope being cut. Drey’s sword ran with light as he sliced through the horsehair twine at Raif’s wrist, yet no brightness found its way to his face. Raif saw him glance east, to the grove of ancient water oaks that had hidden Rory, Arlec, and Bev from view. Slowly, not meeting his brother’s eyes, Drey shifted his grip on the sword.
“Take it.”
Raif blinked. Drey pushed the hilt of the sword toward him.
“I said take it.”
Confused, Raif shook his head.
Drey sucked in breath. His eyes darted left then right. With a sudden movement he grabbed the edge of the blade and drove the pommel into Raif’s chest. “Cut me!”
No. Raif took a step back. He saw where the sword edge had bitten through Drey’s glove and drawn a line of blood. Even as he watched the steel turn red, Drey moved forward, grabbing Raif’s hand and forcing it around the hilt. Raif fought him, but Drey had always been stronger, and even before he could pull away, Drey stepped onto the tip of the sword.
Metal punctured with a quiet hiss. Drey tensed. His eyes darkened, and his lips twisted as he fought to take the pain soundlessly . . . as Tem had taught him. Horrified, Raif pulled the sword back. Blood, shiny and nearly black, oozed from a jagged slit in Drey’s breastplate. Raif lost his grip on the sword, and it clattered against the rocks, making a sound that seemed too loud.
“Go,” Drey said, fingers working to release the leather straps on his breastplate. “We fought. You took my weapon from me, wounded me, then fled.”
Raif moved forward to help Drey with the straps, but Drey warned him back with a single glance. His face was gray. Blood rolling down his armor pooled in the waist crease and dripped from the runnels. The wound was high in the belly, just below his ribs. How deep had the blade gone? Could it have punctured his stomach or lungs?
“GO!”
Raif’s body swayed at the force of the word. How can you expect me to leave while you are bleeding? he wanted to scream. We are brothers, you and I.
Drey sucked in breath as he peeled the breastplate from his chest. Fresh blood gouted from the wound, and he forced his knuckles into the wetness. Seconds passed as he dealt with the pain.
Raif forced himself to watch. He could not believe what Drey had done. Drey Sevrance was not the sort of man to commit treason lightly. He lived for clan, like Tem before him, and his bear lore drove him hard and true.
When Drey next looked up his eyes were clouded. With hands bloody from his wound, he poked at the packages hanging from his belt. “Here,” he said, snapping the horn containing his portion of guidestone from its brass hook, “take this. Inigar has hewn your memory from the guidestone. He cut a portion of stone the size and shape of a man’s heart and gave it to Longhead to cart away. Mace had him smash it to dust.”
Raif took a breath and held it. Excised from the guidestone, like Ayan Blackhail, second son to Ornfel Blackhail, who killed the last of the Clan Kings, Roddie Dhoone. Ayan Blackhail had thought his father would thank him for putting an arrow in Roddie Dhoone’s throat, yet Ornfel Blackhail had turned on his son and cut off
both his hands. “An arrow is no way to kill a king,” he had said. “You should have used your sword, or naught at all.”
“You are no longer my brother or my clan,” Drey said quietly, pulling Raif back. “We part here. For always. Take my portion of guidestone . . . I would not see you unprotected.”
Their eyes met. Raif looked at his brother and saw a man who could be chief. He did not speak. There was no place for questions about Angus and Effie and clan. There was only enough time to look at Drey, lock his face and his presence into memory.
And in the end there wasn’t even enough time for that.
A shout sounded downstream. A mounted figure crested the high bank above the river, pushing his likeness in woodsmoke before him. A wolf’s head cut into his breastplate had been rubbed with acid until it burned, then worked with pure carbon so that its blackness was one of empty eye sockets, open mouths, and charred wood. Mace Blackhail. He had not spotted them yet.
For one brief moment Raif let himself imagine that Drey was coming with him, that they would ride through the Northern Territories, swords in hand, warriors and exiled clansmen alike. It wasn’t to be. There was Effie and clan . . . and Ash. And days darker than night lay ahead.
Raif took the tine from his brother. He had to leave now, before Mace Blackhail saw them together. Raif had little care about himself—and there was something in him that welcomed the chance of getting close enough to kill Mace Blackhail—yet he would not endanger Drey. Not after this. Not ever.
Drey’s fingers were sticky with drying blood; for a moment when he touched them, Raif felt them cleave to his own. “Go, Raif,” Drey said. “I’ll watch over the clan.”