A Fortress of Grey Ice (Book 2) (25 page)

All fell silent after that. The red blades fell back. The man with pale eyes reined in his mount, his face thoughtful, a gloved hand stroking his chin.

Crope dropped to his knees by the downed stallion. Its rider was pinned beneath the beast, his scalp torn open and showing bone. The man was struggling for breath, and a froth of bile and blood was bubbling from his mouth. Crope only had eyes for the horse. The creature was jerking horribly, its hoofs clattering against the rocks, its eyes rolled back in its head. Crope felt shame pierce him.
Fool! Look what you have done! Told you to look, not touch.
Shoulders sinking along with his rage, Crope reached over to where the red blade’s sword had fallen upon the ground. He did not like swords, and never used them, but he knew what to do to kill a horse. Gently, he comforted the creature, whispering soft words that only animals could understand.
Sorry, sorry, sorry,
he murmured as he opened the stallion’s throat.

The first arrow pierced him high in the shoulder, and the pain and surprise of it winded him. He fell forward into the horse’s blood. More arrows hit. One entered the meat of his upper arm, another grazed the tendons of his neck, and a third pierced the flank of muscle beneath his ribs, puncturing his kidney with its tip: All shot from behind, at the order of the pale-eyed man.

A day later when Crope awoke to find himself in a gully halfway down the mountain, the red blades long gone along with the mule bearing his lord, he realized it was the stallion’s blood that had saved him. He was drenched in it from head to foot, and it did not take a clever man to see that the red blades had mistaken it for his own. They thought they had mortally wounded him, and had simply rolled his body down the mountain to be rid of it. They did not know that Crope had the ancient blood of giants in his veins, and it would take more than four arrows to kill him.

Abruptly, Crope started down the road to the town. He would not think of what came later—not here, out in the open, with the selfsame mountains so close. All that mattered for now was following those mountains west, to the slopes where his lord had been taken and the place where the red blades lived.

The road was well traveled by carts and cattle, and a season’s worth of cart oil and dung had been trampled into the snow. The sheep grazing by the wayside scattered as Crope approached, and he saw that many were ready to lamb. This small sign of approaching springtime warmed him, and he picked up his pace and began to sing one of the old mining songs:

“O Digger John was a bad seed and he carried a big bad ax,

O Digger John was a bad seed and he kept all his grudge
in sacks,

One day he came upon a seam, made his eyes gleam

And he hit it with a whack. Yes, he hit it with a whack.”

By the time Crope got to the third verse where he couldn’t remember all the words, just the bit about Digger John’s toe falling off, he’d arrived at the town’s outer wall. Many of the towns and larger villages that he’d passed along the way had sections of earthwork and masonry defending them. This wall was mostly mounded dirt, with a trench behind it filled with dirty water that had hardened to brown ice. Crope was relieved to see there was no gate, for he had a fear of gatekeepers and their suspicions and clever words. As he stood inspecting the earthwork, an old man wheeling a handcart passed him by. Crope immediately looked away, for he knew how easy it was for lone men to fear him, and he had no wish to cause a stir.

The old man was dressed in the bright clothes of a tinker, with a red woolen coat held together by a great deal of showy lacing, and patched green-and-yellow hose. Crope was surprised when the man didn’t alter his course as he approached. More surprised when the man addressed him.

“You. Yes, you busy pretending not to see me.” The tinker waited until Crope met his gaze, and then motioned to the town with a finger gloved in sparrow skin with the feathers still attached. “I wouldn’t go there if I were you. Sweet Mother, I would not! They’re an ill bunch, these goatherds, and they don’t take kindly to outsiders. Think they’d welcome a bit of trade, stuck out here in the hinterlands with only goats and ground-chuck for company. The women are still dressing in stiff corsets, for heaven’s sake! But would they look at my nice lace collars—all the rage in the Vor? No, they would not, thank you very much. ’Fraid of looking like whores, they said. Whores, I ask you—with
this
stitching?” The old man pulled something white and frilly from beneath the tarp on his cart and thrust it toward Crope’s face. “See the openwork. Finest to be had in the North.”

Crope politely inspected the lace thing. It seemed a bit flimsy, but he didn’t say so since he wasn’t quite sure what it was for.

The old man took Crope’s silence for agreement. “You’re a man with an eye, I see. Wouldn’t care for a pair yourself? Gift for your lady mother and your . . . er . . . lady.”

Crope shook his head.

“A fellow trader, I perceive. How about the pair for the price of one?”

Feeling a little overwhelmed, Crope continued to shake his head.

“A more wily negotiator I have never met! Very well, out of respect for your obvious discernment I’ll give three for the price of one. Just five silver pieces. There! The deal’s done.” The little man held out his open palm, twitching his fingers for payment.

Crope began to feel the first stirrings of panic. Somehow it seemed as if he’d agreed to this without speaking a word. He felt hot blood rush to his neck, and he swung his head back and forth, looking for escape.

The old man’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you be looking to run out on a lawful agreement. You owe me five silver pieces, and I’ll take you to a magistrate if you don’t pay up this instant.”

The word
magistrate
struck more fear into Crope than the sight of a dozen drawn blades. Magistrates meant jail and chains, and cells with iron doors. It meant being locked up and never let out. In full panic now, he put his hands upon the tinker’s handcart and turned it over. Ribbons and lace goods and all manner of twinkly things went tumbling into the snow. The wheel axle snapped and a wheel went bouncing down the slope toward the ditch. Crope felt his chest squeeze tight.
Look what you’ve done! Told you not to touch.
The old man was gabbling on, pointing at the cart and hopping up and down in rage. Crope looked around wildly. He had to get away, but he didn’t know what he feared more: an open road where bad men could ride him down and hurt him, or a town full of strangers who could ’prison him.

His mind was made up for him when a pig farmer and his boy appeared on the road driving six winter-thinned sows before them. The way back was blocked. The tinker would call to the pig farmer for help, and the pig farmer would be glad to, and a cry would go up and more men would come and circle him and beat him with sticks. Crope knew how these things went. Seventeen years in the mines wasn’t long enough to forget.

Crushing wood beads and painted brass trinkets beneath his feet, he fled toward the town. Behind him he heard the tinker shout, “Stop! Come back here!” But Crope didn’t stop—he ran with his head low and his shoulders hunched forward as if he were about to break down a door.

People stared at him as he entered the shadows of the streets. A goodwife dragged her two children into the nearest doorway to avoid his path. A handsome youth in a pointed hat shouted out to no one in particular, “I’ll be damned! Is it man or bear or both?” A scrawny white dog with a black mark over his eye came racing from a dunghill, yipping and wagging its tail like a mad thing as it chased after Crope’s heels. Crope felt his face redden with shame and exertion. Everyone was looking and laughing. He had to get off the main thoroughfare and find somewhere dark where he could catch his breath and think.

Turning corners at random, kicking up clods of muddy snow and skidding on patches of ice, he wove his way in toward the oldest part of town. The buildings here were low and in ill repair, their cross-timbers greasy with rot, the iron ore in their stonework bleeding rust. An old woman on a street corner was boiling horse hooves in a pot. The caustic stench brought tears to Crope’s eyes, and its after-whiff of meatiness made him feel both hungry and queasy at once.

Panting, he slowed his pace to a walk and spat out a wad of streaky black phlegm. Digger juice. Bitterbean said it was the mine’s way of striking back: you entered the mine, the mine entered you. Realizing that the scrawny dog was still following him, Crope turned and told it to shoo. The dog sat expectantly, thumping its tail against the cobbles and cocking its pointy ears.

“I said
go
.” Crope raced at the dog, raising his hands and stamping his feet.

The dog skipped back, yipped in excitement, then launched an attack on Crope’s diamond boots. Crope pushed the creature away, but just as quickly it came back, dancing and pouncing, delighted with this new game. Crope frowned. His back and neck were sticky with sweat, and he suddenly wished for the comfort of a closed room and a hot bath. Deep down in the underlevel of the tin mines, below the shaft the tin men called Devil’s Throat, there were caverns filled with steaming hot water. Once you got used to the bad-egg smell, you could soak in the pools until your fingertips wrinkled and your back muscles relaxed like jelly. Crope knew better than to wish himself there—life in the tin mines was dark and crippling and the life of a digger was worth less than an ax—but there had been good things along with the bad. Food. Songs. Fellowship. Now there was nothing—just running and hiding and fear.

Spying a tar-stained door with the sign of the rooster hung above it, Crope turned his back on the dog and made his way across the road. The rooster door was set in a squat structure that bore the marks of recent fire upon it. The stonework was blistered with soot, and great cracks in its mortar had opened up where the heat of flames had touched upon it. Timbers framing the door were charred and crumbling, and a stang of green wood had been hammered into place to prevent collapse. As he approached, Crope felt the old wariness grow within him. The sign of the rooster marked an alehouse where men came to trade. He needed to trade. Badly. He had no food or coinage, and a chicken tarp instead of a cloak. Yet trading meant dealing with men, and Crope could recall few times in his life when men had treated him kindly. They either feared or despised him. Often both.

Letting out a slow breath, he shrank himself, curving his back and slumping his shoulders and bending his legs at the knee. He lost perhaps half a foot that way, but it was enough to give him courage to push open the door.

The alehouse was a one-room tavern reeking of goat tallow. Gobs of fat in the lanterns hissed and sputtered, giving off musty green smoke. Tables and stools hewn from unmilled timber were crowded around a copper cook stove. Old men in goat fleeces and pieced skins turned to look at Crope as he made his way toward the front. A big man in a leather apron shouted, “No dogs!” and it took Crope a moment to realize that the white dog had followed him indoors. Crope didn’t have the courage to explain that the dog wasn’t his, so he simply turned around, picked up the dog and deposited the creature outside. By the time he shut the door everyone’s attention was upon him, and it took all his willpower not to turn and run. One of the old goatmen made a warding sign as he passed, and the man with the leather apron folded his great meaty arms and spread his weight evenly between his legs as if bracing himself for a fight. Eye signals passed between him and a young bravo standing at the ale counter.

“What’s your business, stranger?” The man in the leather apron, the tavern-keep, looked Crope up and down, his gaze lingering on the bird lime that spotted Crope’s cloak, and the raised white scars on his neck. “If it’s trouble you’re after I’ll see you get it, and if it’s ale and warmth I’ll weigh your money first.”

Crope felt the blood rise in his face. He didn’t like being the object of so much attention, and he had a fear of speaking in case he tied himself up in knots. As he thought what to do, he noticed the bravo at the counter casually reaching for his knife.

“Trade,” Crope said softly. “Come to trade.”

Again, glances passed between the tavern-keep and the bravo. “Come back here, then,” said the older man. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Crope was glad to get away from the goatmen and the heat of the stove. He was sweating and the ceiling was so low he had to bend his knees further to pass under it. The young bravo moved alongside him as he approached the counter, pulling too close for comfort. Crope edged away, only to find the man with the leather apron on the other side of him.

“Right,” said the tavern-keep. “Show us your goods.”

Crope touched the hem of his tunic, checking for the one thing he had to trade. The smell of meat and gravy simmering on the stove filled his mouth with saliva, and he swallowed several times. The bravo saw this and followed Crope’s gaze to the black pot on the stove.

“Reckon he’s hungry, Sham. Reckon he’s willing to trade for a bowl of meat and a hunk of bread.”

The one named Sham refolded his arms with vigor. “He’s getting nothing from my stove until I see the measure of his goods.”

The bravo began picking dirt from his nails with the tip of his fancy quillioned knife. Dressed in felted wool and finely napped suede, he shrugged without making a sound. “I don’t know about that, Sham. I’d bring him a bowl. A man’s better able to bargain on a full stomach.”

The two men stared at each other for a moment, and then Sham gave way and went to fill a bowl with stew. The bravo watched Crope watching the food. “Come a long way, have you?”

Crope shook his head. He knew enough not to give this man any information about himself.

“Seems you’ve taken a good few whippings in your time.” The bravo’s eyes were knowing. Abruptly, he sheathed the knife. “I don’t think this would be much use against a fellow like you. Reckon you can take care of yourself.”