A Cavern of Black Ice (105 page)

It was enough to scatter the pack. One
by one they turned and ran, leaving their leader to the cold embrace
of death. None looked back.

Shivering, Raif turned. His strength
was gone. He could not lift his feet free of the snow and had to
force his way through it to return to Ash. Wolf blood drying on his
face tightened like a mask as he approached her.

She was still, perfectly still. Her
hood was twisted back behind her neck. Dark liquid rolled from her
nose, ears, and mouth. Streams of it. And her head now rested in a
pool of red ice.

Madness came swiftly to Raif. Thought
shedded from him like old skin. Sense and understanding drained away
as quickly as water down a slope, and all that was left was Ash, the
darkness, and the faces of nine gods.

She could not die.

He would not let her.

With hands long past feeling, he
plucked Drey's tine from his belt. The elk horn was as smooth as
teeth, cold as the night itself. The silver cap popped softly as he
flicked it free with his thumb. A thin stream of powder blew free
with the wind, the color of ashes and stone. Turning the tine on its
side, Raif walked a circle in the snow.

Ganolith, Hammada, lone, Loss,
Uthred, Oban, Larannyde, Malweg, Behathmus
, Raif so named the
Stone Gods. Powdered guidestone trailed behind him like a plume of
dark smoke, scattering a line of charcoal upon the ice. The night
deepened and hollowed like a pit, and Raif felt himself falling,
falling, falling…

Circle completed, he stepped inside it.
And howled like the wolf he had just slain.

Far Riders and Old
Men

Mai Naysayer and Ark Veinsplitter were
riding in silence through a valley of smooth snow when they heard the
call of the gods. The two warriors had known each other for so long
that they had little need for talk. Ark could tell what the Naysayer
was thinking from the slightest shrinking of his pale ice eyes. A
moment before the cry, Ark had considered calling a halt, but Mai's
eyes had warned him off. They were overlate as it was.

A dead raven had called them north.
Meeda Longwalker, heart-born daughter of the Sull and mother of He
Who Leads, had excavated the frozen carcass from the snow. By her
reckoning it had been there eleven days… which made Mai
Naysayer and Ark Veinsplitter eleven days out of time. Normally such
considerations were nothing to Far Riders—they were Sull, and
all men waited upon them—but a summons from the Listener was
different. It carried the compulsion of blood and gods shared. Ice
Trappers were Old Blood, like the Sull.

Ark Veinsplitter barely had time to
thrust his hands into the ashes of the Heart Fire before the summons
had come. Blood from his horse was still wet upon his letting knife,
as He Who Leads had pointed his opal-tipped arrow north. "The
Listener calls us north to speak of war and darkness. Staunch the
wounds of your horses and ride forth. You speak in my voice and act
in my image, and the sons and daughters of the Sull will fast from
dawn to moonrise to mark the sacrifices you must make. May you find a
bright moon to guide you."

Mai Naysayer and Ark Veinsplitter had
drunk their horses' blood and left. Neither had kin to see them off,
yet even so when they halted that first night on high ground above
the Heart Fires, they found freshly fletched arrows in their cases of
wolverine and bone, and new-roasted caribou tongues in the packs that
rode their horses' rumps. Hungry as they were, they honored the fast
and did not eat until the blind eye of the moon rose high above the
trees.

They were Sull. The blood of their
horses was enough.

Winter was too deeply set to head north
and ride through the Want. The Want was a wasteland of frozen ground.
Its pocked and broken earth bore the scars of ancient magic and
ancient battles. And even the Sull's ancestral tellings of its
terrain were sparsely worded in parts. The Want
was
Sull
land. They had won and claimed it at the cost of a whole generation
of warrior sons and daughters, yet still it remained an unknowable
place. Things older than the Sull had lived there in the Time Before.

Instead the Far Riders had headed west
through the clanholds, weaving a path through the territories of
twelve separate clans, seen by few save old cragsmen, drovers, and
clanswomen tending their traps. The Far Riders skirted the margins,
traveling in the mists created by open waters, in the troughs left by
dry streams, in the shadows raised by tree lines, and over ice,
frozen marshes, and wetlands that no clan horse could dance. The
clanholds had once been Sullholds, and the memories of the land still
burned with cold fire in their blood.

The pass they had taken west through
the Ranges was known to none save the Sull. The path slipped beneath
the rock in places, and both Ark and Mai had to unmount. The tunnel
walls had been chiseled smooth by Sull hands, and ravens and the moon
in all its phases were drawn there in silver and midnight blue so
dark it looked almost black. The Far Riders gave thanks to the
stonecutters who had formed the tunnel and paid a toll of hair and
blood.

That was in the final hour of daylight
last night. This morning they had awakened from their cold camp on
the west face of the mountain and made good pace to the Storm Margin
below. The thick snows that were born in the Wrecking Sea and held
within the margin by mountains that would allow none but the highest
clouds to pass did little to slow them down. The blue and the gray
were bred for white weather and their dams had birthed them upon ice.
Even with a day of hard travel behind them, the two stallions and the
packhorse showed no sign of tiring, and their heads were erect and
alert.

Both stallions responded to the cold
howl that seemed to crack the very substance of time. Ark's gray
shook its head and fought the bit. Mai's blue lowered its ears so
they touched the back of its skull and snorted a great cloud of air.
Ark spoke a word to calm his stallion. All about, snow swirled in
whirlwind forms, rising and flickering like white flames. The wind
murmured softly through the lynx fur at Ark's ears and throat, and
for the first time since journey's start the Far Rider felt fear.

He turned to face Mai. The Naysayer was
a large man, made huge by the bulk of his furs. His face was hardened
by white-weather travel and white-weather fights. He could use more
weapons than any other living man, and his eyes were the color of
ice. He had needed no word to calm his horse.

You
speak in my voice and act in my
image
… Ark Veinsplitter counted those words through his
head like prayer beads as he decided what to say to his
hass
.
The howl of a creature who was not a wolf had broken their journey,
and every scar on his body where blood had been let ached with the
knowledge of God.

The Naysayer waited, his pale eyes
blinking only when snowflakes touched them. He could be patient, this
man whose anger when stirred was enough to stampede caribou herds and
send entire villages inside to lock their doors.

Ark breathed deeply, then spoke. "What
think you, Mai Naysayer? Should we continue our journey as if we have
not heard the cry that halted us, and ride north sure in the
knowledge that what we do is right in the eyes of moon and God?"

Mai Naysayer made a move that caused
his lynx furs to ripple, a move that anyone else but Ark Veinsplitter
might easily have mistaken for a shrug. He said just one word: "Nay."

It was enough to turn the two men west,
and change the course of fate.

*** Spynie Orrl, the ancient chief
of Clan Orrl, faced the Dog Lord over the chief's table at Dhoone. A
storm pushed clouds and snow against the Dhoonehouse's blue sandstone
walls but inside the chiefs chamber all was still. The dogs were
chained to their rat hooks by the hearth, but harsh words from Vaylo
Bludd moments earlier had forestalled the normal hostilities they
showed to uninvited guests.

The Dog Lord poured malt in silence,
giving the amber-colored liquid the respect it was due. Two wood
cups, plainly turned with neither handles nor embellishment, were
filled to the exact same mark. Pushing the first in the Orrl chiefs
direction, Vaylo said, "What brings a Blackhail-sworn chief to
Dhoone this night?"

Spynie Orrl made no response, save to
retrieve his cup and drink. He was an old man, the oldest chief in
the clanholds, and his body was all knots and bone. A few white hairs
clung to his scalp, but apart from that he was bald in the way
newborns were bald: eyebrowless, pink, and shiny. His eyes were dark
and shrunken, but they were still as sharp as picks. Placing his
wooden cup on the table, he nodded toward it. "Good malt. I've
tasted Bludd liquor before now, and no offense to your makers and
distillers, but this stuff must belong to the Dhoone."

"So you think ill of our Bludd's
own brew?"

"Ill's not the word. Let's just
say I wouldn't feed it to my sheep."

Vaylo Bludd snorted with laughter,
slapping his hand on the table and stamping his booted feet. At the
hearth, his dogs tugged nervously on their leashes. They had not
heard their master laugh in months, and the sound disturbed them
deeply. Vaylo reached for Spynie's cup. "Well, coming from an
Orrlsman, I'll consider both myself and my clan reprimanded. Here.
Let's drink to brewers with nimble fingers and distillers with
surgeon's hands."

Spynie Orrl was more than happy to
drink to that.

When the second cup had been drunk and
an agreeable silence had settled between the two chiefs, Vaylo
decided to try his hand again. He had been too arrogant the first
time; he saw that now. This man before him might be a chief from a
lesser clan, but he had lorded that clan for fifty years, and for
that alone he demanded respect. "I hear there's trouble between
you and Scarpe."

The Orrl chief nodded absently, the
gooseflesh on his neck continuing to wobble after the movement
stopped. "Aye. And trouble with Blackhail as well."

The Dog Lord knew this, but he also
knew it was better to let a man tell his own story in his own words.
So he nodded and said nothing and let the Orrl chief speak.

"It's Mace Blackhail. The Hail
Wolf, they call him now. Any other man or woman in that clan would
have been a better choice to lead it. His foster father was a good
man. I say that because I knew and respected him, and named a
grandson in his honor. But Mace Blackhail shares neither blood nor
mettle with the man who fostered him from Scarpe. Mace is a
Scarpeman. Yelma Scarpe is his mother's cousin. He can't help but
favor her claims. When she came to him asking for his help against
us, he should have done what Dagro always did. Told the sharp-toothed
bitch he never so much as pissed between his war-sworn clans."
Spynie Orrl wagged his ancient head. "Of course, Dagro would
have used words sweeter than those. But then sweet words didn't save
him in the end."

He looked at the Dog Lord sharply, and
Vaylo got the distinct feeling that the old chief had long since
guessed that Clan Bludd wasn't responsible for Dagro Blackhail's
death. Vaylo was too much of an old dog himself to allow his face to
betray him, but his dogs picked up on the change in his scent and
growled accordingly at Spynie Orrl.

The Orrl chief tipped his head in their
direction. "Nice dogs. When you're done with them send them to
me. I've got some sheep I'd like to scare hairless. Not to mention a
few of my wife's kin." Before Vaylo had chance to react, Spynie
leaned across the table and said, "Mace Blackhail has as good as
declared war on our clan. Twelve Scarpemen were slain on our border,
and it suited Yelma Scarpe to point her finger our way. She's always
wanted that borderland. My hunters take down a hundred head of elk
there each season. It's good ranging land, and Yelma Scarpe went
running to Mace Blackhail to get it. You know how Scarpes are: She
didn't want to fight. There's more muscles in their tongues than
their guts.
We'll pardon you for the killing of our men if you
relinquish the land they died on
." Spynie Orrl's breath
exploded from his mouth. "And Mace Blackhail thought this fair!
Take the land
, he said, quick as if it were his Stone
God-given right to grant it.
I'll send a score of hammermen to
keep the peace
."

Vaylo frowned. No Bludd, Dhoone, or
Blackhail chief had any business intervening in conflicts between
their war-sworn clans.

Spynie Orrl continued, his head shaking
softly as he spoke. "I had no choice but to defend my borders
against Scarpe- and Hailsmen.

Orrl against Blackhail, I never thought
to see it in my lifetime. Before they rode north, I warned my axmen
to slay only those men showing the colors and badges of Scarpe. But
even then I knew I was giving an order that could not be obeyed. You
cannot order men to cherry-pick their foe." He sighed heavily.
"Two Hailsmen were slain along with a score of Scarpemen. All
men of mine who venture outside the Orrlhold now risk death. I've
lost two border patrols, and a party I sent east to treat with the
Crab chief." There was a pause. "And I'm waiting on the
return of my firstborn grandson and the five men who traveled west
with him for the hunt."

The Dog Lord stood and turned his face
toward his dogs. He knew all about grandchildren and their loss. When
he spoke he kept his voice hard. "Yet you torched the
Scarpehouse."

"Aye. And I'd torch it again if I
could. We are Orrl, we hunt our enemies and our game alike."

The Orrl boast. Vaylo had never thought
much of it until now. Bending joints that creaked like old wood,
Vaylo reached down to handle the dogs he had left. The wolf dog
forced its large streamlined head into his hand, demanding to be
scratched and tussled first. The burns on its ear and scalp were dry
now, but the healed flesh was hard and raised, and fur would never
grow there again. Not for the first time, Vaylo found himself
thinking back to that last night in Ganmiddich. If the dogs had not
been shackled and housed, they would have provided fair warning of
the Blackhail attack. As it was, Vaylo had barely had time to
assemble his men and raise an attack on Blackhail lines. Strom Carvo
was dead, his skull smashed by a Blackhail hammer. Molo Bean was
dead, his arms hacked off at the elbows, his face burned black by the
flames that had rained from the sky. Others were gone. Good men, who
all took pieces of the Dog Lord's heart to the Stone Halls beyond.
Two of his dogs were burned beyond recognition. One made it as far as
Withy before Vaylo broke its neck.