A Cavern of Black Ice (58 page)

"What has happened here in this
chamber need go no further. You heard something and acted from your
heart; I cannot fault you for that. I respect your challenge to fight
me on the court, and hope that if the time ever comes when I'm in
want of a clansman's justice, you will stand where you are right now
and make that same challenge again."

Drey continued looking at Mace long
after he had finished speaking. Mace's expression did not change, but
he brought himself up to his full height and sent a hand out to trail
along the wall where the Clansword was mounted on wooden pegs. His
eyes were all darkness now; there was nothing of wolf yellow in them.

After what seemed like hours, Drey
turned to face Effie. Kneeling on one knee, he took both her hands in
his. His face was pale, and she could see the uncertainty in his
eyes. "Do you think you may have been confused by what you saw,
little one? Did you actually see Mace strike Raina in a proper way,
like I would strike a man in a fight?"

Effie's chest was heavy with love and
sadness. She had brought this mess upon him, and he had done what was
right and proper and absolutely
good
. Even now he would
fight. Even now, on just her say. The thought was almost too much to
bear. Either way she harmed him. Lie, and she became a conspirator
with Mace Blackhail, leading Drey away from what was right and true.
Hold to the truth, and he would end up dead or gone… like Da
and Raif.

That could not happen. Effie knew it in
the deepest bit of her in-sides, yet it didn't stop her from hating
herself as she opened her mouth to lie. "I'm not sure anymore,
Drey. Not sure. I thought… but then what Mace said—

"Hush, little one. Hush."
Drey hugged her to him, wrapping his big arms about her like a cloak.
She shook with relief and a dreadful kind of shame. It was as if she
had betrayed him.

"I am glad in my heart this matter
is settled," Mace Blackhail said, moving out from behind the
Chiefs Cairn and offering his hand to Urey. "It is behind us
now, and we shall not speak of it again."

Drey released his hold on Effie and
stood. He stepped toward Mace, and the two clasped forearms without
exchanging another word. Their gazes held, and Effie could almost
feel Mace Blackhail's will working upon Drey, like when Brog Widdie
took white-hot metal from his oven and pulled it into the shape
he needed. Mace slapped Drey on the shoulder as they moved apart.
"Get yourself to Laida Moon. Have her take a look at whatever
injury you're nursing beneath that breastpiece. I need you well. I
heard a rumor that the Dog Lord is set to march on Bannen, and we
ride south tomorrow to steal his thunder."

Mace Blackhail ushered Drey to the
door. Effie followed after. As Drey turned his attention to the first
of the stairs, Effie felt Mace Blackhail's finger slide across her
throat. "What did I say would happen if you went telling tales?"
His voice was softer than the sound of Drey's boots against the
stone.

Dancing on Ice

Skinned hands clawed her. Faces burned
by something darker and more terrible than flames pushed against her,
open mouthed and pleading. Seared tissue cracked, revealing pale pink
flesh beneath. Proud flesh: raised and stippled and full of
lifeblood. The first sign of healing.

Reach, reach. We must have it…
we need it… give us what we need… you must… we
will make you… we know ways to harm you… we have waited
too long. Reach!

Red eyes glowed with malice. Lips
spread, revealing night smiles. She turned, but there were more at
her back. She crumbled their substance in her fists, breaking them
down into ash and fire scraps, but for every limb she broke, another
dozen rose to haunt her. Glancing into the distance, through the
charred and greasy timbers of their arms and legs, she saw the wall
of black ice. The ice cave. Suddenly it no longer seemed like a—

"Wake up! Ash! Wake!"

Hands of flesh and blood pulled at her,
tugging her back through many layers of sleep that she felt like
a diver emerging from water.

"Wake! Please wake."

She opened her eyes. Daylight flooded
in like salt water, harsh, stinging, and unwelcome. It had been pitch
dark in her dream, she remembered. She always dreamed of night.

"Angus. She's awake." Hands
touched her forehead and cheek, warm hands, rough and gentle, not
like her foster father's hands at all. A face appeared before her.
Raif, she thought, pleased at her ability to find names.

"It's me. Raif. You're safe. Angus
is here. We're three days north of Spire Vanis, in the spruce woods
east of the Spill."

It took Ash much time to decipher what
he said. She looked into his eyes: What color were they? An inky
blue? A shade between midnight and black? After a moment she asked
the only question that mattered. "How long?"

"All of last night and most of the
morning."

Feeling she might be sick, Ash tugged
herself free of his hold and twisted her head toward the ground.
Half
a day! How long will it be before no one can wake me
? Aware of
Raif's eyes upon her, she straightened her spine. She decided she
would not be sick in front of him. After a moment she felt well
enough to sit. The action made her hurt in new ways. The third finger
on her left hand felt big and sore, tucked away in its splint. Her
shoulder
ached
, and her mouth tasted of saddle leather and
horses.

"Here. Drink this."

Ash took the offered waterskin and let
some of the icy water run over her face. Raif watched her as she
opened her mouth to drink. He knew about the voices. She didn't know
how it was possible, but he knew.

"I felt you… go last night,
just before we made camp. We tried to wake you, but you were far
away. Angus thought it better to let you sleep."

"He bound my mouth?"

Raif nodded. "And your hands."
They both looked away.

Ash scanned the surrounding territory.
Camp had been made on a hillside above a wooded valley. Great columns
of black spruce, weighed down by ton upon ton of new snow, rose up
like a city around them. To the south the blue giants that were the
Southern Ranges floated above the horizon, shimmering with ice.
Overhead the sky was thick with snow clouds, and it was impossible to
tell where the sun lay. Ash shivered. She had no memory of coming
here.

As she turned back to face Raif, she
heard hounds howling and barking in the distance. Following the sound
with her eyes, she looked down across the valley and into the deepest
depths of the spruces, whose needles shone black as night.

"I think we'd better be on our
way." Angus strode into her line of vision, his big red-stubbled
face as calm as if he had heard sparrows singing, not hounds. "Ash."
He held out a gloved hand for her to take. Ash grasped it, and he
pulled her off the ground as effortlessly as if she were made of
twigs. "Raif. Saddle the horses. I'll see to the remains of the
camp."

"What should I do?" Ash
forced a calmness into her voice that she did not feel. She didn't
like appearing weak before Angus.

"Fill the skins with snow."
Angus fished inside his buckskin coat and took out a package wrapped
in linen. "Take this and eat every scrap of it, even the fat
around the eggs. I know you don't feel much like it, but you must
force yourself. You haven't eaten in over a day."

Unable to think of a reply, Ash nodded.
In a strange way Angus' vigilance reminded her of Penthero Iss; they
both wanted to feed and watch over her.

The past three days had been a new kind
of nightmare for Ash. Her life had changed absolutely and forever the
moment she had stepped into the shadow of Vaingate. Marafice Eye had
conjured himself up from a pile of beggar's rags. Two charcoal
burners attending a brazier had peeled red blades from their sides
like strips of skin. An old drunk lying in the snow had shaken off
his years and infirmities like a leper touched by the gods, and one
guard standing alone in the gate tower had suddenly turned into
three. Ash had seen it as a kind of magic, the sort used by street
corner magicians, all misdirection, mirrors, and smoke. She had
continued running for the gate anyway. To be that near and not cross
to the other side was unthinkable, a failure of the worst kind.

After that, madness took her. She
remembered only fear and death. When it was over and the man who
called himself Angus had asked her to travel with him and his kinsman
to Ille Glaive, all that had mattered to Ash was getting through the
gate. That was why, in the end, she had agreed to go with them: They
were heading her way.

She had not counted on what had
happened next. Somehow, as she'd sunk to her knees in the hard snow
outside of Vaingate, she had lost herself to the voices. They hadn't
even allowed her a moment alone with her mother's memory…
simply stolen her mind clean away. Raif had pulled her back. He had
touched her arm, and as he'd done so knowledge had passed between
them. Ash shook her head. It was more than that, almost as if
something inside her had reached out toward him—an invisible
tentacle probing and binding—yet the idea of that was so
distressing, she shied away from it. They were connected now, that
she knew. And it was
her
doing, not his.

Ash frowned as she scooped snow into
the horn nozzle of the water-skin. The cry of the hounds was louder
now, more insistent. Almost against her will, her gloved hand rose up
to the part of her arm Raif had touched.

"Ash. To the bay."

Hauling the waterskins over her back,
she obeyed Angus and crossed to where Raif held the horses. Raif did
not speak as he took the skins from her. He was not like Angus; he
never made conversation for the sake of passing time.

Mounting the horse wasn't easy for Ash.
The quick movement made her head spin, bringing back flashes of the
dream. Surely there had been something… some revelation,
something she had to remember? As quickly as she thought of it, the
idea flitted away.

As soon as she was settled behind the
saddle, Angus came striding over—not running, exactly, but
moving more quickly than was his wont. His copper eyes kept flicking
to the valley below. Following his gaze, Ash saw a blur of movement
gliding across the packed snow. Unconsciously she squeezed the bay
with her thighs. The sept had caught up with them at last.

The Sull tunnel had given them a
quarter day's start. Angus had kept them traveling through the night
and on into the next day. His knowledge of the roads and ways helped,
and the nearer they drew to Ille Glaive, the greater his knowledge
became. He could read snow and ice like other men read books. He knew
when snow lay over ice, not solid ground, where drifts were deepest,
and where pond ice was thinnest and liable to crack. He could spot an
animal trail lying beneath two days of snowfall and could tell when a
hard frost was coming just by sniffing the wind.

He always seemed to know when it was
time to move on. Ash had sat behind on the bay and felt as his
shoulders stiffened for no reason that she could hear or see. Always
at such times he'd kick the bay into a canter or send Raif to high
ground to check the trail.

Angus knew lots of things for a man who
claimed to be a humble ranger. Ash was sure he knew who she was. He
never asked what she had done to warrant being chased and tormented
by Marafice Eye. Nor did he show any curiosity about her second name,
her position in the city, or her life before she had met him. It
wasn't politeness that halted his tongue, rather a desire that
nothing be said until they reached Ille Glaive. Ash went along with
this because it suited her. The longer she could put off telling
either of these two men anything about herself, the better.

Angus Lok was no fool. It might suit
him to play one now and then, but that wasn't who he was.

"Northwest through the trees,
Raif. Then hard along the stream." Angus gave the bay its head,
and they took off after Raif at full gallop.

Ash held on tightly as the bay charged
through the spruces. Behind her she could hear the high, excited
braying of the hounds. A horn blared, brash and triumphant, growing
louder and louder as seconds passed. The hair on Ash's neck prickled.
Was Marafice Eye one of the seven?

"Hounds are a quarter league ahead
of the sept," Angus said, perhaps speaking to calm her. "And
likely they've been traveling through the night."

Ash struggled for his meaning. "So
their horses will be tired?"

"Aye. Unless they've been given
false strength."

"Like the ghostmeal?"

"As close as damnation would have
it." Angus kicked the bay up a bank. White breath pumped from
the gelding's nostrils in thick bursts. Raif had already gained the
stream and was now waiting for them to catch up. "Damn the lad,"
hissed Angus under his breath. "He gets that from his
brother—infernal waiting."

Ash watched as Raif turned the gray, a
strange tightness pulling at her chest. She hadn't known Raif had a
brother, hadn't thought of him as having any family other than Angus.
For some reason she had thought he was an orphan… like her.

Raif reached over Moose's dock and slid
his bow from its soft leather case. With practiced movements he
strung and braced the bow, rolling the twine between his fingers as
he tied a series of knots. His face was gray with shadows, his eyes
focused on the road below.
Can he see the sept from where he's
sitting
? Ash wondered. The thought turned her cold.

She had seen what he could do with a
bow. That day at Vaingate, while Marafice Eye and the others had
watched his arrows, Ash had watched his face. Even through the
grating she had seen the hunter's glint in his eyes, recognized death
as a presence behind them. Even now, days later, the memory chilled
her like cold breath upon her spine.