A Fortress of Grey Ice (Book 2)
Read A Fortress of Grey Ice (Book 2) Online
Authors: J.V. Jones
Table of Contents
THREE - In the Tomb of the Dhoone Princes
FOUR - The Beast Beneath the Ice
EIGHTEEN - The Tower on the Milk
NINETEEN - City on the Edge of an Abyss
TWENTY-ONE - The Nine Safe Steps
TWENTY-FOUR - A Surlord’s Progress
TWENTY-EIGHT - Dealing in the Milkhouse
TWENTY-NINE - The Robber Chief
THIRTY-THREE - A Walk on the Edge
THIRTY-FOUR - At the Sign of the Blind Crow
THIRTY-EIGHT - Raid on the Shanty
FORTY-SIX - A Fortress of Grey Ice
FORTY-EIGHT - The Stand At Floating Bridge
FORTY-NINE - The Gates To Hell
By J.V. Jones
The Book of Words
The Baker’s Boy
A Man Betrayed
Master and Fool
Sword of Shadows
A Cavern of Black Ice
A Fortress of Grey Ice
The Barbed Coil
A Fortress of Grey Ice
J V JONES
Hachette Digital
Published by Hachette Digital 2010
Copyright © J.V. Jones 2002
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All characters and events in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission in writing of the publisher,
nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover
other than that in which it is published and without a similar
condition, including this condition, being imposed on the
subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the
British Library.
eISBN : 978 0 7481 2097 0
This ebook produced by JOUVE, FRANCE
Hachette Digital
An imprint of
Little, Brown Book Group
100 Victoria Embankment
London EC4Y 0DY
An Hachette Livre UK Company
For Russ
SWORD OF SHADOWS:
The Story So Far
Raif Sevrance of Clan Blackhail was ravenborn, chosen to wear the raven lore by Blackhail’s clan guide. One morning, while he and his older brother Drey were away from the clan’s winter camp, shooting ice hares, their father Tem and their Chief Dagro were slain by agents of the surlord Penthero Iss. Dagro’s son Mace Blackhail was also present, but survived and went on to claim the chiefship of Clan Blackhail. From the very beginning, Raif questioned Mace’s story of how he escaped the raiders, accusing the new chief of having foreknowledge of the attack. A few weeks later, during a savage ambush on the Bluddroad where Mace ordered the slaying of innocent women and children, Raif realized he had no choice but to leave his clan. Mace had turned Clan Blackhail into something Raif no longer recognized.
When Angus Lok, Raif’s uncle and a member of the mysterious and secretive Phage, offered to take Raif with him on a journey to Spire Vanis, Raif accepted with a heavy heart. On the way they visited Duff’s Stovehouse, where Raif admitted being present on the Bluddroad the day women and children from Clan Bludd were murdered in cold blood. A fight broke out between Blackhail and Bludd, and Raif slew three Bluddsmen defending the actions of his clan. Yet no one ever thanked him for it. By speaking out in his clan’s defence, Raif had not only confirmed the details of the massacre but also admitted to being part of it. There was no going back for him now.
When Raif and Angus arrived at the little-used southern gate of Spire Vanis, they spotted a girl being chased down by red cloaks. For reasons Angus Lok refused to divulge, he immediately set about saving the girl. Raif saw no choice but to aid his uncle, and when the gate was dropped, trapping Angus inside the city, Raif shot his uncle’s attackers through the grille.
Raif heart-killed four men that day, his arrows expertly sighted on their hearts. Ever since the morning his father died, Raif had realized he had a talent for shooting game. And now, following the events at Duff’s and at Spire Vanis’s southern gate, he learned that same talent extended to the shooting of men. For Raif it was as much a burden as it was a gift, this ability to kill so surely, and he became increasingly uncertain how to live with it.
The girl he and Angus had saved was Ash March, a foundling fostered by the surlord Penthero Iss. Ash had run away from Mask Fortress, fearing that her foster-father wanted to use her in ways she barely understood. Some kind of power was awakening within her - a darkness that demanded release - and she had begun to suspect that this was the only reason Iss had fostered her. He never called her daughter without using the word
almost
first.
Angus, Raif and Ash headed north toward Ille Glaive, pursued by the surlord’s men. By the time they arrived at the city, Ash’s health had begun to deteriorate. The darkness inside her had grown more powerful, causing her to lapse into unconsciousness. Heritas Cant, a toll collector in Ille Glaive and Angus Lok’s contact in the Phage, explained the nature of Ash’s illness. She was being overtaken by forces of evil that had been sealed away for a thousand years. Ash March was the Reach, born to release the Unmade from their dark, hellish prison known as the Blind. Heritas Cant warded Ash against the darkness, but warned that he could only do so much and that she must not overreach herself. The dread beasts of the Blind and the Endlords that ruled them craved freedom, and Ash March was their sole means to secure it. Ash must release her power or die, and the only way she could do this, without causing a break in the Blindwall, was to find the Cavern of Black Ice and release her power there.
Sobered, Ash, Raif and Angus travelled east to Angus Lok’s farm, where Ash met Angus’s wife Darra and their three daughters. Darra Lok could not hide her disquiet at seeing Ash, and Ash was left wondering why her presence upset Angus’s wife so deeply.
On the journey north from Angus’s farm, the small party of three was captured by Cluff Drybannock, the Dog Lord’s righthand man. The Dog Lord was chief of Clan Bludd, and it was his grandchildren and daughters-in-law who had been slain by Blackhail forces on the Bluddroad. The Dog Lord had seven sons and loved none of them, but he loved his grandchildren with all his heart. Upon learning that Raif Sevrance was present that day on the Bluddroad, the Dog Lord had become obsessed with capturing Raif - someone must pay for the Dog Lord’s losses. Raif was taken to the Ganmiddich Tower and tortured. When he came within a hair’s breadth of losing his life, Death refused to take him.
Kill an army for me, Raif Sevrance
she had whispered,
any less and I just might call you back
.
The Dog Lord had sought to make himself Lord of the Clans. With Penthero Iss’s aid he had taken the Dhoonehouse, and had then gone on to annex Ganmiddich and Withy. He was a man who had always prided himself in his jaw, and the methods he’d employed for capturing the Dhoonehouse had begun to worry him. There was no jaw in taking a roundhouse by underhand dealings and foul magic, and he had come to regret his actions. When Ash March fell into his hands, he saw a way of ending his association with Penthero Iss by sending the girl back to her foster-father: payment in full for Iss’s aid with the taking of the Dhoonehouse. So the Dog Lord released the girl into the custody of two of Penthero Iss’s men; Marafice Eye, Protector General of Spire Vanis, and Sarga Veys, magic-user.
By this time the wards set by Heritas Cant had grown thin, and when Marafice Eye and his men attempted to rape Ash March in the Bitter Hills, Ash lost control and lashed out with her power. Too late she realized her mistake and tried to pull the power back. But the damage had already been done; a hairline crack had opened in the Blindwall.
As a weary and frightened Ash March headed west from the Bitter Hills, the magic-user Sarga Veys killed the man who he believed to be his only fellow survivor. Veys had glimpsed the darkness called forth by Ash, and immediately recognized it was his destiny to serve it. Leaving his old life behind, Sarga Veys went in search of a dark and glorious future.
Back at the Ganmiddich Tower, Raif awaited his execution at the hands of the Dog Lord. The night before he was due to die, Ganmiddich was attacked by Blackhail. The Dog Lord and his forces were forced to flee north to the Dhoonehouse, taking the prisoner Angus Lok with them. Raif was saved by his brother Drey. When Raif had taken his yearman’s oath at Blackhail, it was Drey who had acted as Raif’s second; Drey who kept Raif’s swearstone safe until that day. Both brothers knew that Raif could no longer return to his clan - Raif Sevrance had been branded an oathbreaker and a traitor - and Drey let his brother go, wounding himself in the process so that it looked as if Raif had overpowered him. It was a hard parting for the sons of Tem Sevrance: both knew they would never see each other again.