A Fortress of Grey Ice (Book 2) (54 page)

Raif tucked his head low and kept to the rear. Thick clouds blanketed the sky, and Raif could feel the air pressing down on him. South across the Rift the clanholds floated in a sea of blue mist.

The leather flask was passed from hand to hand as they followed the path along the edge. The Maimed Men had lost all fear of the drop, and took pride in walking along the brink. One man, a big southerner with a bald head, struck up a dirge for them to march by. Raif couldn’t catch the sense of it, but at the end of every chorus the entire raid party echoed the words,
Gods take my eyes before I go to the Rift.

As the song continued Raif became aware of something, a quiet pulsing in his temples like the beginning of a headache. Ahead a lean-to had been rigged to a rocky outcropping and Raif saw a man leading out ponies: hill garons, with stout legs and short tails.

“There’s no picking ponies for the new man,” Stillborn said, falling in with Raif as they approached the lean-to. “You’ll get what the others don’t want.”

Raif counted the men in the raid party. Fifteen, including himself. He said, “Why stable the mounts here?”

Stillborn tapped his nose knowingly. “Because this is where we cross the Rift.”

A quarter-hour of activity followed as men chose mounts and hefted saddles from the lean-to. The stableman had a clubfoot and was slow about his business. He gave Raif an agitated mare with a scarred flank, and a saddle that was too small. As Raif buckled the pony’s belly strap, he saw an olive-skinned outlander detach himself from the raid party and approach the edge. Wind lifted the man’s black hair and billowed his wool cloak. He was lean and long-limbed and appeared whole. Others noticed the outlander’s movements and fell silent. One man touched the space below his hip where his portion of powdered guidestone had once hung. Clan.

The pulse in Raif’s temples deepened. The earth fell away at the outlander’s feet, leaving nothing but gray sky. Six hundred paces in the distance the southern face of the Rift towered like the wall of a giant fortress. Steel flashed as the outlander drew his knife. His lips were moving, chanting, but the words belonged to no tongue Raif had ever heard. Something creaked. The air at the outlander’s feet rippled. All the Maimed Men were quiet now, still as stones.

The outlander raised the knifepoint to his eye. His voice rose as he spoke a command, and the smell of blood metals, of iron and copper and sodium, puffed from his mouth like smoke. The updrafts died. Time hung. Something vented deep within the Rift, like the sighing of a child. And then, with the tip of the knife touching the center of his eye, the outlander stepped into the Rift.

And did not fall.

Air thickened at his feet, spooling out in a line across the Rift, and then a substance that was not air or mist or daylight parted, and a bridge came into view.

Raif blinked. How could he have not seen it before? The bridge was a rickety construction of tarred rope and wooden lats, suspended from iron posts sunk deep into the cliff wall. It creaked in the breeze. The outlander turned to face the raid party, and Raif realized that his pupil was so enlarged you could see what lay behind it. The man swayed. Stillborn moved swiftly onto the bridge to steady him. “Make way, lads,” he said as he guided the outlander back. “Our brother needs rest.”

The outlander raised his gaze to Raif as he passed him. Blood slid across the white of his eye.

“He will not come with us?” Raif asked the cragsman, as Stillborn led the outlander into the lean-to.

The cragsman shook his head. “He’d be naught but a burden. He’ll wait, though, if he knows what’s good for him. Uncover the bridge when we return.”

Raif heard the distaste in the cragsman’s voice. Another clansman. He said, “How long has this bridge been here?”

The cragsman spat. His saliva was streaky with mead. “We don’t keep no fancy histories in the Rift.”

Stillborn called the men into file. As they were forming up, he thrust a length of brown wool into Raif’s hand. “For the pony,” he said, responding to Raif’s puzzlement. “No horse will take the bridge unless it’s blinkered.”

Raif watched the other Maimed Men fashioning makeshift blinkers from pieces of leather and felt. Following their lead, he bunched and tucked the length of wool around the mare’s cheek straps until she was allowed only a limited field of view. The mare fought him as he led her forward, her stout little legs locking at the knees, and he had to slap her hard on the rump to get her going.

In single file, the Maimed Men led their ponies across the Rift. Later that night, Raif would think of the dizzying height, the black drop beneath him, and the awful swaying of the bridge—he would think of it and his heart would knock in his chest. For now he managed to stay calm, as much for the pony’s sake as his own, and put one foot in front of the other until he was done. His legs shook as he stepped onto the hard rock of the clanholds.

Stillborn grinned at him and punched him cheerfully in the back. “I’ll win coin on you tonight. Addie had you down as a jumper.”

Addie was the name of the cragsman, Raif recalled. “Men jump from there?”

Stillborn nodded merrily. Now that they had completed the crossing, the Maimed Men were pleased with themselves and showing it. One man took out his cock and pissed into the Rift. “Aye. Mostly green boys like you. Takes them in the middle. They start looking down, and the next thing you know they’re hearing the Rift Music . . . and it’s all downhill after that. And never was there a more considerable way downhill than jumping into the Rift.”

The Maimed Men laughed as they mounted their ponies. Raif made himself as comfortable as it was possible to be on a saddle that was too small, and looked around. The badlands were narrow here, the flat plains warping gently into the Copper Hills. Heather clung to the rocks, and whitebark pines growing low to the earth provided nurseries for ironweed and mistletoe. Glint lakes and muskegs shone silver in the morning light, telling of a recent thaw. It was a different world than on the north side. Alive. Changing. Raif felt as if he’d emerged from a tomb.

As they rode south for the hills, Stillborn explained that they were heading to a village of free clansmen, lately settled in the woods northeast of the Lost Clan. By rights it was Dhoone territory, but Dhoone was no longer around to defend her turf. Settlements of free clansmen often sprang up in times of war. A settlement could grow quickly into a village, attract more people, and in time might declare itself a clan. Clan Harkness had begun that way, and Otler, and the tiny Dhoone-sworn Clan Croog. Raif remembered Tem telling him that it was a natural cycle of the clanholds. “
Clans rise and fall. Some fail, some are lost and some are cursed. New ones must be born to take their place.
” Clan Innis had failed, and Morrow had been lost, and everyone knew Gray was cursed. Perhaps one day this settlement would grow to take Morrow’s place.

But today I go to rob it.
Raif pushed the thought down. Inigar Stoop had cut his heart from the Hailstone: Raif Sevrance was no longer clan.

They rode east of the Dhoone hills, entering instead the highlands of Morrow. Smoke had been spotted coming from the old fort that defended the Dhoonewall, and pitched battles with armed clansmen were not the Maimed Men’s way. At midday they stopped in the hills to rest and water the horses. Stillborn joined Raif by the tiny stream that cascaded down from the hilltop.

“Gods! This water is cold,” he declared, scooping up two handfuls and splashing it over his face. “Tastes good, though. Clean, like nothing in the Rift.” He glanced around, checking that they were out of earshot of other men, and said, “Stay close to me when we hit the village. First time out’s always hard—especially for a clansman. Just don’t do anything stupid, and don’t run scared. See the blackbeard over there, the one with the pretty cloak?”

Raif nodded. He’d noticed the man earlier.

“He’s Linden Moodie, Traggis’s spy. You can’t so much as take a leak without him knowing. Now, as far as raids go this’ll be a dull one. I’m running the show, so there’ll be no unusual punishment, if you get my drift. We go in. Seize the grain stores and livestock. And ride out. Everyone here’s ridden with me before. They know I won’t waste time breaking into strong-chests and chasing down women in fields. It’s food we need, not trouble. And I aim to get the first and avoid the other. Is that clear?”

Raif nodded again. He could feel the quails’ eggs resisting digestion in his stomach. Searching for a safe place to send his thoughts, he asked, “Don’t your arms get cold, wearing nothing but the bullhorns?”

Stillborn raised a hairy forearm to the sky, letting light gleam along the wickedly curved horn, and laughed. “Nay, lad. If your mam’s intent on setting you on a rock in the dead of winter, you learn early on how to make your own heat.” The Maimed Man stood. “Now, let’s get moving and head east.”

The Copper Hills were losing their snow. The ground was softening, and in the deepest valleys, below translucent crusts of ice, bogs were forming. Uprooted saplings and newly churned-up rocks littered the slopes. The hill ponies made short work of the terrain, and the cragsman Addie Gunn knew the ways. Within half a day they were on the southern slopes, descending into the farthest reaches of the Lost Clan. The tree cover deepened as they passed into the foothills, and day gave way to night.

Raif’s breath whitened in plumes. Addie Gunn slowed the party as they approached another of the little streams that veined the hills. “We follow this south,” he whispered to Stillborn. “Let the noise of the water mask our progress.”

Without a single command spoken the Maimed Men drew their weapons. Raif slid from his mount, and led the pony forward. As he yanked his new sword from its sheath he was aware of someone watching him. Linden Moodie’s gaze was like a finger on his spine. Traggis Mole’s spy had a full black beard that almost hid the garrote scar that circled his throat. His rich, plum-colored cloak swished against his body armor as he drew his broadblade.

Somewhere close by a lamb bleated. Stillborn extended his arm, slowing the raid party, and looked to Addie Gunn.

A cragsman’s business was sheep. “There’ll be a dog,” Addie warned.

Stillborn nodded. He turned to Raif. “Go with Addie and shoot it. Leave your pony here.”

Raif felt Linden Moodie’s gaze upon him as he slid the Sull bow free of the pony’s saddle strap. Addie Gunn grabbed his arm, guiding him away from the raid party. “You do naught but silence the dog. I’ll take care of the sheep.”

Raif pulled an arrow from his makeshift quiver. It was dark amidst the pines, the rising moon barely silvering their trunks. Addie moved swiftly along a path only he could see. Dry needles that crunched beneath Raif’s feet barely whispered beneath the cragsman’s. When a second lamb cry sounded, Addie signaled a slowdown. Directly ahead the established pines gave way to scruffy brush of black-rotted saplings and berry canes. Something in the shadows moved. Raif halted and drew his bow.

“Ewe,” Addie hissed. “Cover me while I hog-tie her.”

Raif held his draw.

Addie navigated through the brush, a little man in a big crested helm. He must have spoke some sort of sheep talk, for the ewe did not shy from him as he approached. She was heavy with lamb and burdened with a shaggy winter coat. Addie cooed, and then in a flash he was upon her, felling her with a body blow and pinning her to the ground as he wound rope around her legs. And then two things happened at once.

A dog streaked from the brush toward Addie, its hackles raised in spikes and its lips pulled back to its gums. Yet even as Raif tracked it, a twig snapped to his left and a man called, “Drop the bow.”

Raif froze. The dog reached Addie and sank its teeth into his leg. The ewe bucked furiously, squealing in panic. Addie released his hold on her, letting the rope spool through his fist. He snatched off his crested helm and slammed it into the dog. The dog yelped and sprang back, and then immediately pounced forward for more. The ewe was free of Addie now, but its back legs were hobbled and it thrashed through the berry canes in panic.

Raif saw this and felt nothing. He couldn’t see the stranger in the shadows, hadn’t even turned his head toward him, but already he’d marked the man’s heart. Fear jolted Raif’s chest . . . but he didn’t think it was his own.
Herdsmen carry bows. They need them to shoot wolves.
Chances were the stranger had an arrowhead trained upon Raif. Chances were that arrow would be loosed the instant Raif made a move. Raif knew he’d be lucky to get in a single shot.

Man or dog?

“Drop the bow!”

Raif dropped along with his bow, rolling onto his side so that the bow fell parallel to his body and the ground. His weight came down on his bracing hand, and he struggled to hold the entire length of the six-foot bow free of the earth. He managed an awkward twisting half-draw. And chose his heart.

The arrow loosed with a noisy twang, crossing paths with the arrow released by the herdsman. The herdsman’s arrow whistled over Raif’s head and stabbed the earth behind him.

Raif’s arrow shot through the brush . . . and entered the sheep’s heart.

The ewe stiffened for an instant, blood jetting from the entry wound between its ribs, and then collapsed into the canes. The dog hesitated for that same instant, giving Addie long enough to drive his crested helm deep into its snout. The herdsman let out a terrible cry and rushed toward the ewe.

Raif dug his heel into the ground and spun his body around to face him. He could barely manage a half-draw this time because his trapped arm was shaking so badly. Yet, even so, the man’s heart was his. Raif felt its galloping beat, felt it catch in terror as the herdsman realized his mistake. Even as the man halted and drew his bow, Raif let his arrow fly.

It was a poor shot, but it still floored its target, passing through the upper inch of the herdsman’s shoulder, gouging out a flap of muscle as it continued its flight to a point far beyond the clearing. Grunting, the herdsman fell.

Raif let the bow drop from his grip and rested his head against the earth. All of him was shaking now. His body felt fevered, cold with sweat. He spat the taste of metal from his mouth and then braced himself to stand.