A Fortress of Grey Ice (Book 2) (45 page)

They rode at a canter into the darkness. There was an instant when Ash thought she heard something, a low howl that seemed to carry through the ice, but the combined noise of twelve hooves drumming against frozen earth soon drowned it out.

Night came swiftly, bringing a depth of darkness so great Ash could no longer see the head of her horse. It was strange, riding in the gloom, and she found it difficult to relinquish control to the gelding. Underfoot, the ground became rougher as ice gave way to permafrost. It had been cold before, but it had been a passive coldness, the kind that layers of clothing and willpower could fight. Now it went beyond that. It hurt to breathe, and when the air was inside your lungs you could feel it moving toward your heart.

Ash would never know how much time passed before the Naysayer finally signaled a halt. At some point she had fallen into a trancelike state, driven into herself by the cold and the darkness like an animal sleeping out the winter. The gelding halted of its own accord, and Ash felt strong arms lift her from the saddle. She looked up to see Mal Naysayer’s hard and beautiful face close to her own. His scale armor was shimmering softly, casting an eerie light under his jaw.

As he set her down, her legs buckled, and he signaled his
hass
to bring a blanket. “Drink this,” he said, after she’d been wrapped in soft rugs and laid on the ground.

Ash took the small silver flask from him, and then didn’t have the strength to pull the cork. Her muscles were tight and close to cramping, and her mind floated lazily from thought to thought. The next thing she knew, the Naysayer was kneeling before her, forcing the neck of the flask between her teeth. Liquid as warm as her own body filled her mouth. It tasted sweet and metallic, like honey ground with metal filings, and it immediately cleared her head.

“
Manshae
,” the Naysayer explained. “You would call it ghostmeal. It will help replenish your strength.” With that, he recorked the flask and left her to see to the camp.

Ash wiped a hand across her mouth; the ghostmeal had a bitter aftertaste. She looked around, and it took her a moment to realize that although it was still dark she could now see. They were in a shallow depression surrounded by low-lying rock walls and dragon pines. Living trees in the Want? She dropped a hand to the ground to touch the dry, scaly grass that lay beneath her. She couldn’t quite believe it was there.

“It is an ice oasis.”

Ark Veinsplitter laid a rug next to her and sat. “There are many such places in the Want if you know where to look for them, places where the frost and darkness are held back.”

By what?
she wanted to ask but didn’t. She realized it was warmer here, as well as lighter, and she stretched her legs out in front of her and took a deep gulp of air. “Will we be able to get back?”

He nodded. “The Naysayer marked the path.”

She watched Mal brushing down her horse on the far side of the hollow. “There’ll be no fire tonight.”

“No.”

“They’ve found us, haven’t they?”

Ark looked at her for a long time without speaking. Finally he asked, “What did you see?”

Four words and Ash felt her understanding of the world change. Here it was, the reason these men had made her Sull.
What did you see?
How could she have been so stupid not to realize why they wanted her? They hadn’t hid it. They had told her she was needed and must fight. She just hadn’t understood what her role would be. She still didn’t . . . but she was learning.

What did you see?

Ark Veinsplitter was very still as he waited for her reply. His hands were bare, and she could see the tracework of letting scars around his fingernails.

“I didn’t
see
anything,” she said. “I
heard
something—a howl. It never came again.” She watched him relax visibly, and wondered if he knew he’d given himself away.

Perhaps he did, for he rose abruptly and told her to get some sleep—there were only a few hours left before dawn.

Ash smoothed one of the rugs into a sleeping mat and rolled a fox pelt into a pillow to support her head. She felt strange—weary, but abnormally alert. Her mind was racing with what she’d learned.
They believe I can sense them, the shadow beasts, see them before they do. Is that what a Reach is, a finder of shadows?
The thought unsettled her, and she tossed and turned, looking for answers that didn’t come. Time passed, and she drifted into an uneasy sleep.

Animal calls disturbed her dreams. Something howled to the south, and after the beat of a few seconds something else answered. Ash opened her eyes. Her skin was cold and tingling, and she could still hear the last traces of the answering howl ringing in her ears. Turning her head, she searched for the figure of Ark Veinsplitter. He was there, as always, crouching at the edge of the camp, facing out. His sword was sheathed. He was standing guard, but not on alert. If the calls had been real he had not heard them.

Telling herself it was just a dream, that they were safe here in the Want, Ash settled back in her blankets and tried to force herself to sleep. It didn’t work. Her heart was racing and the slightest noise unsettled her. When one of the horses whiffled she stiffened. Snorting softly at her own fright, she told herself she was a fool . . . but still she couldn’t sleep.

Through the dark night she lay awake, listening for
maeraiths
.

The hunt was on.

TWENTY-TWO

Treason

R
aina held out the chunk of rock salt for the cow to lick on. The creature lipped at her palm in its eagerness, tickling her and slobbering her fingers with saliva. After checking to make sure that only she and Anwyn Bird were in the cattle shed she laughed out loud. Cows had no manners.

“Don’t you go upsetting my beauties, Raina Blackhail,” Anwyn warned. “There’s little enough butter in their milk as it is.”

Raina quieted herself and regarded Anwyn. The clan matron was looking old. The thick rope of hair pinned in a circle around her scalp was completely gray. When had the gold gone out of it? Raina could still remember her first sight of Anwyn Bird, that summer when she’d arrived at the Hailhouse from Dregg.

All the clanwives had come out onto the greatcourt to inspect her. Raina’s uncle had arranged the fosterage, her second in under three years, and although he was a genial and well-meaning man he had a weakness for red malt. And when he was drunk he was prone to boast. He must have gotten drunk the day he visited Blackhail to purchase her fosterage, for later that evening he’d told a chamber full of clansmen that his niece was not only beautiful, but more graceful than Weeping Moira herself and as smart as Hoggie Dhoone. Raina still flushed at the thought of it. Naturally, when she’d arrived the clanwives were inclined to dislike her. Thirteen, she was, and already in possession of her full height and a woman’s fullness. The fact that she
wasn’t
as graceful as Weeping Moira became quickly apparent when she dismounted her little gray pony and slipped in the mud. But still. Her uncle’s words had done their damage and Lally Horn, the woman who’d accepted a milk cow and its calf in payment for Raina’s keep, turned around and refused to take her. The Dregg girl was a temptress, she said, who’d woo suitors away from her daughters. Lally Horn had been deceived! And though she might very well return the cow, she’d keep the calf for her trouble.

That was when Anwyn had stepped in.

Only Raina hadn’t known her name then. She saw a stout-built woman with aggressively plain features and a curtain of golden hair falling thick and heavy past her waist. Anwyn had been about to braid it when she’d heard the commotion on the court. The clan matron had quickly taken charge of the situation, telling Raina she could stay in the kitchen with her, and informing Lally Horn that she was off to feed the wee visitor, and when she returned she’d expect to see a cow
and
a calf on the greatcourt, or so help her gods she’d break Lally’s nose and lock Laida Moon in a wet cell so the healer couldn’t set it for a week.

The strategy worked. Lally was known to be proud of her short, perfect nose, and Anwyn Bird was a genius with threats.

Raina dropped the rock salt into a pouch in her apron. “Remember Lally Horn?” she said to Anwyn, suddenly needing to talk about the past.

Anwyn was in the process of greasing a sick cow’s shrunken teats, yet something in Raina’s voice caused her to halt her doctoring and look up. She studied Raina’s face for a moment. “Aye. It’s a shame. No one in the clan could set soap quite like her. Used to grind strawberry blossoms in that little pestle of hers and add the oils to the ashes. All the maids would beg for a wedge whenever they went courting. Made them smell like summer fruit.”

Raina nodded, feeling small and mean. Trust Anwyn to remember the good over the bad. Lally had been dead these nine years, taken in childbirth at an age when most women had long withdrawn from their husband’s beds. Yet her husband had wanted a son, and Lally had been so desperate to give him one she’d risked her life . . . and given him another daughter instead.

So many deaths. When will it end?
Crossing over to Anwyn’s milk stool, Raina laid a kiss on the clan matron’s head, right in the middle of the gray.

“While you’re handing out kisses, Raina Blackhail, how about saving one for me?”

Raina looked up to see Angus Lok standing in the entrance to the tunnelway, the deep black passage that ran from the cattle sheds down to the fold. She had not heard him come. The ranger was dressed in layered buckskins the color of wheat. Water stains ringed the hem and cuffs of his coat, and his soft riding boots were spattered with mud. Sliding back his otter-fur-trimmed hood, he bowed to her as if she were a great city lady, and then bowed again to Anwyn.

“Mistress Bird. I see you’re expecting me. Got your hands all nice and greasy to salve my chin.” The ranger ran a hand along his jaw. “Well, get moving, woman. Wind’s near chapped it to the bone.”

Anwyn frowned with force. “The only thing about you that needs curing, Angus Lok, is your tongue. Anything that stricken needs pulling out.”

Angus laughed heartily, surprising Anwyn by leaping over to her and catching her up in a huge bear hug. The clan matron protested, throwing her hands wide to avoid smearing the ranger with grease, all the while shuffling backward with her feet.

Angus winked at the sick cow before releasing Anwyn. “Sorry, Daisy. I tried, but I couldna keep her off you a minute longer.”

“Her name’s not Daisy,” Anwyn said, awkwardly brushing hair from her face with her forearm. “It’s Birchwood. And I’ll thank you to leave us both in peace.”

Angus stepped back in mock obedience, but not before slipping a small, slim package beneath Anwyn’s belt. Anwyn ignored it and settled herself down on the stool to finish her doctoring.

The ranger turned to Raina. “Will you walk with me a while?” he asked.

Raina lifted her eyebrows in mild surprise, but nodded her agreement. As she stepped toward the shed’s double doors, he spoke to halt her. “It’s a mite cold on the greatcourt for a thin-blood like me. What say we take the low road instead?”

It was midday and unseasonably mild out, but she didn’t contradict him, and let herself be led across the cattle shed to the tunnelway. The cows bellowed as she passed them, sensing the retreat of the salt. The giant stone trough that ran the length of all seven cattle sheds and tapped into the Leak south of the roundhouse was brimming with icy water. Raina spied the speckly froth of frogspawn floating upon it, and thought,
I must tell Effie; we’re rearing frogs in the cattle shed!
And then remembered Effie was no longer here.

The tunnelway was dark and unpleasant-smelling. It had been dug to evacuate livestock from the vulnerable timber-roofed outbuildings to the safety of the underground fold in the event of sudden attack. Some ancient clan chief or other had commissioned it. Obviously a man who cared more about cows than the people who tended them, Raina thought hotly, for the incline was sharp and she stumbled several times. Angus offered her his arm, but she refused it. She couldn’t afford to be seen holding a man who wasn’t her husband.
Little mice with weasels’ tails.

Shivering, she put a hand on the wall to steady herself. When had she begun to let Mace Blackhail rule her life?

The air soured as they descended. Thawing mud oozed through cracks in the masonry, and entire sections of tunnel wall had buckled inward from the pressure of moving earth. Black-shelled beetles battled in the rubble, their mandibles clicking as they fought over the putrefied remains of a drowned mouse. Raina increased her pace. She hated the dark, rotting underspaces of the roundhouse. They had stood empty and unrepaired for decades, waiting for war.

The Blackhail fold was the largest standing hall in the clanholds, capable of holding five thousand head of livestock in times of siege. Giant bloodwood stangs with girths so wide it would take three men to circle them rose from floor to ceiling like a forest of charred trees. The ceiling was deeply groined and barrel vaulted, cantilevered in part by the foundation wall that braced the perimeter, and by a huge central stone shaft. The entire weight of the roundhouse rested upon the walls and stangs of the fold, and every craftsman who had ever hammered a nail in the clanholds held nothing but awe for the men who had raised it.

It had been several weeks since Raina had last been down here, and she was shocked to see that it had become a campground for tied clansmen and their meager stocks. Makeshift tents were pitched against the stangs, and rickety cattle corrals of wicker and woven bark held lone calves and ribby sows. Dung fires smoked heavily, giving off the sickly-sweet odor of partially digested grass. The air was so thick with soot it made Raina’s throat itch to breathe it, and her first instinct was to rush to the nearest shutters and throw them open. But there were no windows this far belowground, and little ventilation to be had. What were these people doing here? Surely there was space enough above?