A Fortress of Grey Ice (Book 2) (81 page)

“Men,” he said quietly, knowing there was no need to raise his voice. “Prepare yourselves. We ride to war within the hour.”

He turned and left them, walking to the broken tower alone. None dared follow him for a while.

Bram couldn’t seem to move. He hardly knew what he felt. Sometimes he didn’t know if he would ever make a Dhoonesman.

“Are you the boy?”

Looking up, Bram saw the Castlemilk guide watching him from across the pit. Two large patches of mud stained his cloak where he had knelt on the ground. Seeing Bram’s puzzlement, he spoke again. “I said, are you the boy, Bram Cormac? The one who’s coming to us?”

Bram felt his face tingle with shock. How could he have forgotten? Robbie had sold him to Castlemilk. Stupid.
Stupid.
Why had he thought that riding to the Old Round and meeting with Skinner Dhoone would change things?
Because I felt like a Dhoonesman that day.

“You’re a quiet one, Wrayan said as much,” the guide said, eyeing Bram carefully. He was a small man, but powerfully built, with dense black hair that stood upright from his skull. “Thought I might be able to teach you some things. Thought I might find a place for you at my hearth.”

“You have an apprentice.”

The guide lifted a thick black eyebrow. “So you do have a tongue. That’s good to know.”

Bram colored.

“And adequate circulation.” The guide started back in the direction of the Milkhouse. “When your brother wins back Dhoone come and see me. The future might not be as dire as you think.”

Bram watched him go. It was hard not to think about what he said.

The river shore was clearing now, as men headed off to collect their horses and supplies. The ground around the pit had sunk and was steaming slightly. The smell of cooked turf rose from it. Bram glanced up at the sun. Time was passing, and there were things to do.

Activity around the broken tower was intense, and as Bram approached he could see Robbie in the center of it, war-dressed and mounted. An ax and a longsword were crossholstered across his back, making an X. When he noticed Bram he called out for him to hurry and saddle his horse. Old Mother was at Robbie’s left, sitting astride her mean white mule. Someone had brought her an antlered helm which she wore with a self-satisfied air. Once Bram had saddled and mounted his gelding, she trotted forward to take a look at him.

“Brambles need thorns,” she said firmly, after inspecting him at some length. “Else the birds’ll pick off the berries afore they’re ripe.”

Bram just looked at her. One of them was mad, he was pretty sure of that.

“Riders! From the west!” came a call, instantly galvanising the war party. Relieved at having an excuse to ignore Old Mother, Bram turned his horse west, along with eight hundred other men. Two mounted figures were riding at speed from the direction of the Milkhouse and the Milkroad that lay beyond. Bram recognized the giant red warhorse of Duglas Oger. The axman and a small crew had been absent from the broken tower for twenty days. Bram had assumed he was raiding; Duglas excelled at that.

“Make way!” cried the second rider, another Dhoone axman, as the two approached the tower at full gallop. “Urgent message for the king!”

Bram glanced at his brother. Robbie’s expression remained unchanged. He kicked his honey stallion forward a few paces so he was free of the press of men.

“Rab!” called Duglas Oger, as he brought his horse to a hard halt. “I brought you a wee gift.” His tone was light, but his breath was labored and the neck of tunic was black with sweat. His horse was so badly lathered its coat was scummed in rings around its withers.

“Duglas,” Robbie said in greeting, and then, to the second man: “Gill.”

Now he had stopped, Duglas Oger took a moment to absorb the sight of hundreds of men assembled on the hard standing of the broken tower. “Got here in time to claim my place, then,” he said, his chest pumping.

Robbie waited a beat before replying. “What have you for me, Duglas?”

Something in Duglas Oger’s big flushed face fell, but he recovered himself quickly. A coarse brown sack hung from his saddle horn, and he thrust his hand down to the bottom of it. “Something to keep you warm at night—a Bluddsman’s head.”

He pulled out something small and waxy, with sunken eyes and white lips, and shockingly glossy hair. With a grin, Duglas threw it toward Robbie. Robbie caught it in both hands, and turned it to face him.

“Who is it?”

Duglas and his companion shared a glance. “Messenger. Found him one day north of Dhoone. Sent to bring Cluff Drybannock’s forces back from the Dhoonewall.”

Robbie glanced swiftly at Duglas. “How do you know this?”

Duglas made a shrugging gesture, causing the head of his great war-ax to rise above his shoulder. “Who used to skin all your kills, Rab?” he asked gently.

Bram shivered. They had tortured the Bluddsman.

Robbie relaxed a fraction, turning the head’s face away from him and resting it against the head of his horse. “So the Dog Lord is getting worried.”

“Better than that.” Again, Duglas shared a glance with his companion. “His men have deserted him, and headed south.”

A murmur of disbelief rippled through the war party. “How so?” Robbie asked. “Skinner couldn’t have mounted an attack so soon.”

“Oh, it’s not Skinner who’s drawing men away from the Dhoonehouse. It’s the armies of Spire Vanis.”

Robbie looked to Douglas’s companion. “Gill?”

The man nodded. “He’s right. Spire armies are heading for the border, and the Bluddsmen are riding south, first to Withy and then on to the Wolf to meet them.”

Robbie tilted back his head and laughed. “The Bludd forces have gone to Withy.
Withy!
Now we know for certain the Stone Gods are with us.”

Mangus Eel started to laugh, and soon Guy Morloch and others joined in.

“I pity Skinner when he turns up there looking for an easy fight,” Diddie Daw said. “He’ll be cursing us all to his grave.”

Diddie’s words seemed to sober Robbie. “Let’s not forget he commands Dhoonesmen.”

Men were quick to nod and the laughing stopped.
Send word
, Bram thought, but didn’t speak it.
If you want to save Dhoonesmen’s lives, send a message to Skinner, and admit that the deal you offered him was a ruse designed to make him attack Withy.
A strike upon Withy would force the Dog Lord to send an army to defend it, leaving the Bluddhouse vulnerable to an attack from Robbie Dun Dhoone. That was the plan, and it looked as if Skinner had taken the bait. His chief’s pride would not allow for the possibility that Robbie might win a roundhouse for his own, especially one with the boast
We are the clan who makes kings
. Now there would be a massacre at Withy if Skinner attacked.

Robbie knew that. All the fine words he’d spoken to Mauger Loy that night in the broken tower were hollow, Bram realized. It would take nothing to send a boy east with a message, but Robbie chose to do nothing.

“Duglas,” he said, throwing the head back at the axman. “Get yourself clean and kitted. And find a place for the head.”

As Duglas and Gill trotted toward the tower, Robbie stood in his stirrups and addressed the war party. “Dhoonesmen. Castlemen. Today we ride north to Dhoone. Home for some of us, and for others a place to find glory. We are one now, joined in purpose, and the Stone Gods have blessed us with good fortune.
We are Dhoone, Clan Kings and clan warriors alike. War is our mother. Steel is our father. And peace is but a thorn in our side.”

Hearing the Dhoone boast, men started to rap the butts of their spears against the earth. One man started up the chant, “Dun Dhoone! Dun Dhoone! Dun Dhoone!” and others quickly joined him, and soon the noise was deafening.

Bram sat in his saddle and listened to the roar. One of the Castlemilk warlords looked to Robbie, and then ordered his troops to turn out. Hundreds of men began to move toward the Milkroad on his say. Robbie waited in the center for the Castlemen to clear the area east of the broken tower, allowing the warlord the honor of leading out the army.

When he was ready Robbie drew Mabb Cormac’s sword and cried, “North to Dhoone!”

Bram watched him, and when the time came he kicked his horse into a trot. He was no longer sure what he’d be fighting for, but that didn’t change the fact that he must fight.

FORTY-FOUR

To Catch a Fish

F
ish, Effie decided, were stupid. Which was just as well, really, as she wasn’t that clever herself and it wouldn’t have taken much to better her. A pig could have done it easily. Pigs were smart. Jebb Onnacre had once taught her a song about a pig. A pig and a twig. When she’d told it to Letty Shank, Letty had gone and repeated it to everyone—and it had been Effie who’d got the beating for it. She was still mad about that.

Even so. It
had
been a good song.

Suddenly disheartened and not a bit sure why, Effie rocked her bottom back onto the bank and took her hands from the pool. They were a strange color, like ham. They were a bit numb, too. The water was cold. There were still some fish floating in the pool, but she decided three was enough. She could always come back for more.

Rubbing her hands against her cloak, Effie stood. The noise from the waterfall was deafening, and its spray spattered her face. All sorts of interesting rocks lay around, battered into round shapes by the force of the fall. It had been a long while since she’d had time to consider rocks, and she was a bit rusty. Granite over there, even though it was red and looked like sandstone.

Or was it trap rock? The fact that she didn’t know upset her. Effie Sevrance wasn’t good for much but she’d always known her rocks.

Noticing her hands were still tingling a bit, Effie crossed her arms high and thrust them into her armpits. The spray wasn’t helping, making her feel goose-pimply all over, but now she’d found this place she didn’t want to leave it. It was a little rocky draw, like an inlet, set deep into the cliffs and back from the river. A stream overhead dropped in a sheer fall, crashing into the pool before running down through the rocks to the Wolf. It was sheltered on all sides, and that seemed good enough reason to stay. Up there, on the headland, nowhere was sheltered. When someone attacked there was no place to hide.

The harlequins had led her here. After . . . the
thing
happened, she had clung to the cliff for hours, not daring to move. The raiders had taken a long time with the wagon, and it had been dark before they’d left. Even after she’d heard the wagon creaking into motion she’d waited. Just because the raiders hadn’t shown any caution didn’t mean Effie Sevrance needn’t. Da always said that ability to wait was what set the best hunters apart from the rest. Never think of it as
waiting
, he’d told her. Think of it as
learning
.

So Effie learned in the darkness. No sound came for the longest while after the raiders had ridden off, and then much later the howl of a wolf scenting blood had reached her. The wolf’s howl told Effie all she needed to know: no live men around. Wolves were particular about that.

The climb up was the worst part. Effie’s legs were all shaky and she couldn’t feel one of her feet. When she made it to the top of the cliff she had to grab the hem of her dress and wring it out like washing. Letty Shank once told her that moss grew on anything left damp overnight, and Effie definitely didn’t want that.

It was funny how your brain was scared of things that it shouldn’t really be scared of at all, and then not afraid of others that it should fear a lot. The bodies were in pieces. A wolf was trotting away in the direction of the trees with a man’s hand in its jaw. Effie saw this and wasn’t afraid. It was the wagon that bothered her, the fact it had gone. There was no longer any place to be inside.

The raiders had hacked off the wagon’s canvas and the ribbing, and big hoops of wood lay on the ground like dragon bones. Other things lay there too: baskets filled with ore, empty chicken crates, a smashed lamp, the string of arrows Clewis Reed had hung from the ribbing to dry. Bits of body were littered amongst them. Effie swallowed. She’d watched Da butcher kills for as long as she could remember—she wouldn’t allow herself to be squeamish now.

Thinking of Da helped. Da was a hunter. Da would take what he needed and move away from this place.
Blood draws predators
, he’d always said.
Both kinds: Man and beast.
So she had run to the wagon site, loaded one of the baskets with whatever she could find that might prove useful, and then run back to the cliffs where she felt safe. The bodies she wouldn’t think about. Clewis Reed and Druss Ganlow had ceased to exist. Clewis was too big a man to be reduced to such small parts.

The basket had a leather strap attached so Effie could carry it slung across her back. That was important during the climb down the cliffs. She chose a different place to make the descent, a little upriver where it looked more . . . lumpy. The cliff wasn’t as sheer, and there were places for a girl to rest. She found a small space between two big rocks, curled up with the wagon canvas around her and slept.

The next morning she had known she wouldn’t climb up to the headland again. It was better here, between the river and the cliffs. More like inside. She hadn’t found much food during her forage of the wagon site—Clewis usually shot fresh game for them each day—but she scavenged some grain and a few other things. The barley meant for the horses nearly broke her teeth until she figured out you had to soak it. It was pretty tasteless too, but she was now in possession of Clewis Reed’s small but effective spice collection, and she’d found an interesting red powder that made everything taste better. It caused heart-burn of the tongue later, but Da said everything good came at a price.

Later that day she’d set off upriver along the cliffside. It was much like mountaineering, Effie supposed. Or caving. The rocks were slick and there wasn’t always an obvious path, but if you stopped for a bit and waited—
learned
—you could usually see a way to carry on. After a while trees started invading her territory, dry old water oaks growing right out of the cliff. Their roots were slowly pulverizing the stone, and other plants had taken advantage of the gray, powdery scree they had created. Bushy things mostly, and some spectacularly thorny-looking weeds. It made things harder, but it was still better than the alternative: up there, with no place to hide.