A Cavern of Black Ice (107 page)

He put out his good hand for her to
take, but Effie ignored it and took his frostbitten one instead.
Effie Sevrance was not squeamish. The two stubs, with their shiny
pink flesh and smooth, nailless tips, were things of wonder to her.
Bitty, first embarrassed and then pleased with her interest,
demonstrated his range of movements as he led her downstairs. "See,"
he said, pausing a third of the way down to waggle his fingers in the
light of a burning lunt. "I can still hold a halfsword and draw
a full bow."

Effie nodded gravely: She was clan; she
knew that no matter how casual his voice sounded, nothing mattered
more.

Bitty was one of a dozen yearmen and
sworn clansmen who made it their business to watch over Drey
Sevrance's little sister while Drey was away from home. Effie knew
what they were up to and guessed that Drey asked everyone he rode
with to keep an eye on her when he was gone. Oh, they thought they
were being as clever as grown men could be, always arranging to bump
into her late at night when it was long past her bedtime, or checking
in on her when they thought she was asleep, or sometimes even
sleeping right outside her door and claiming drunkenness had made
them pass out then and there.

The proud part of Effie knew she should
resent it; she was nearly grown-up now, a full eight years of age,
and certainly didn't need any old clansman watching over her. But
ever since she'd lost her lore, only the sight of men such as Bitty,
Corbie Meese, Rory Gleet, and Bullhammer could make her feel safe
inside.

She was blind without her lore.
Blind
.

No one had seen it or knew where it
was. Anwyn Bird had ordered some of the older children to search the
roundhouse from wet cell to dovecote; Raina Blackhail had addressed
the clan and commanded the person who had taken it to drop it outside
her door, no questions asked. Even Inigar Stoop had fallen down on
his hands and knees and raked through the ash, rock dust, and gravel
that had accumulated on the guidehouse floor. Losing one's lore was
bad luck of the worst kind. Effie knew it. Inigar knew it, and that's
why when the guide found nothing the first time he searched, he went
back and searched again.

Trouble was, she hadn't known how much
she relied upon the little ear-shaped chunk of granite until it was
gone. Always when she was worried or afraid, she reached up and
touched her lore. It didn't always show her things—not proper
things, not things that she could make sense of—but it always
made her
feel
something. In the past, when Drey was late
home from scouting or raids, all she had to do was take her lore in
her fist and
think
of him. As long as it didn't push, it
meant he was safe. Bad things only happened with her knowledge…
like Da, like Raina, like Cutty Moss. Now bad things could happen and
she would know nothing at all.

Three loud thuds broke Effie's
thoughts. "Open up! Open up! Clansmen wounded!" The call of
returning war parties.

Effie looked at Bitty, and before she
knew it the blond-haired year-man had grabbed her by the waist and
swung her over his back. For the first time in her life Effie saw the
ceiling above the staircase close up. Green-and-black mildew grew
there, in the fuzzy bits between stones. "Drey and the
Ganmiddich eleven are back!" Bitty cried as he raced up the
stairs, Effie bouncing like an animal hide on his shoulders. "They're
back! They're back!"

Effie wasn't sure what she felt about
heights, but at that moment she supposed she wouldn't have minded if
the entire Shank family had stood shoulder upon shoulder and balanced
her right on top. Drey was back.
Drey
.

The hue and cry at the door roused the
roundhouse, and all those clansfolk who had waited with Effie most of
the night but given up and gone to bed before her suddenly came
rushing into the hall. Effie hardly spared a thought for the river of
clansmen descending from the Great Hearth, their leather-and-metal
armor jouncing loose against their chests, or the miraculous
appearance of Anwyn Bird, who was suddenly
there
at the top
of the stairs, a tray of fried bread in her hands and a barrel of
hearth-warmed ale at her feet.

Effie's mind was on the door. Bitty had
set her down on two feet and then appointed her the most important
task of unraveling the cords of rope that bound the bar securely in
its iron cradle. Effie's heart swelled with pride as she worked. She
was helping a yearman open the door. Even when Orwin Shank, Bitty's
father, came to help with the pullstone, Bitty made space for Effie's
hand upon it, and together the three of them dragged the quarter-ton
weight of sandstone on its greased tracks across the floor.

Then the bar was raised and the door
swung open, revealing its waxed and metal-studded exterior face to
the hall, and there, standing in the doorway like dark gods, bodies
steaming, iron armor blue with frost, mud-stained faces set into grim
lines, were the first of the Ganmiddich eleven. They were the men who
had held the Ganmiddich roundhouse while Mace Blackhail had ridden to
treat with the Crab chief at Croser. Now the Crab was war-sworn to
Blackhail and newly returned to his roundhouse and Drey and the
eleven were back.

Like everyone in the clan, Effie had
heard the story of how Raif had been taken at the tower, only to
escape that same night by wounding Drey so deeply with Drey's own
sword that the bleeding persisted for two days. Effie didn't waste a
single moment believing it. She didn't need her lore to tell her that
Raif would never raise a hand against Drey.
Ever
.

Corbie Meese was the first through the
door. Effie called to him, "Where's Drey?" but her voice
was small and Corbie's eyes were on his wife, Sarolyn, who was heavy
with child and paler than either Anwyn or Raina liked, and the great
dent-headed hammerman pushed past Effie without once glancing down.
Mull Shank came next, and Effie meant to ask her question to him, but
Orwin Shank stepped right in front of her, sweeping his eldest son in
a hug so brutal, it almost looked as if they were fighting.

Effie stepped outside into the cold.
She spied Cleg Trotter, son of crofter Faille Trotter, and headed
toward him, clearing her throat. Bodies smelling of horses, leather,
and frost drove against her, sweeping her sideways and then back. She
lost sight of Cleg Trotter, and when she saw him again his father's
arm was around his shoulder, and the two great bear-size men were
talking head-to-head. There was no room for an eight-year-old girl to
come between them.

All around, clansmen and clanswomen
were pouring onto the court. A light snow was falling, and apart from
the wedge of orange light spilling from the doorway, it was as dark
as a winter night could be. Sounds of laughter and private
whisperings filled Effie's ears, promises of lovemaking, special
potions for easing chilblains, and favorite foods steaming on the
hearth. To either side of her, bodies came together violently, mud
and ice from boots and cloak tails dropping in heavy clods to the
earth. Horses shook their heads and snorted streams of white mist
into the air. Clansmen came from the stables to tend them, and soon
it was impossible to tell the Ganmiddich eleven from any of the
dozens of clansmen who had invaded the court.

"Drey?" Effie asked time and
time again. "Drey?" No one heard, or if they did hear, they
soon forgot when a loved one of their own came into sight.

Effie walked farther away from the
roundhouse. Ahead she spied a lone clansmen tending a horse. He was
tall enough for Drey… it was so very difficult to tell in the
dark. Shivering, she made her way toward him. By the time she got
close enough to see his face, she knew it wasn't Drey. He was dressed
in the gray leathers and moose felt of Bannen, and his braids were
tied close to his head. Shivering, Effie changed course. He wasn't
even a Hailsman. He wouldn't even know who Drey was.

Cold stole slowly over Effie's body,
rising up from her feet like tidewater. Crossing her hands over her
rib cage, she looked out over the graze. Her heart moved in her
chest. There. On the slope, a shadow within the shadows, a man-size
shape standing watch.
Drey
.

She ran. Icy air roared against her
cheeks as she scrambled over ground frozen to the hardness of stone.
Her breath came in shallow bursts, her chest too tight to breathe
deeply. The figure waited. It
waited
. It had to be Drey.

When she reached the bottom of the
slope, the figure shuddered. Suddenly she saw he was dressed in
white. She stopped. "Drey?" Even to her own ears her voice
sounded weak and uncertain. In response, the wind carried the smell
of resin to her nostrils, and with a cold shock she realized her
mistake. The figure wasn't a man at all. It was a snow ghost, a pine
sapling completely encased within fallen snow.

Should have known
, she told
herself harshly.
Any fool knows the difference between a snow
ghost and a grown man
.

The snow ghost swayed and creaked with
the wind, its middle branches beckoning obscenely. Effie felt tiny
pinches of fear tighten the skin around her face. Quickly she turned
away… and saw how far she had come.

The roundhouse was a monstrous black
dome against a charcoal sky. The square of orange light that marked
the door was no bigger than a speck in Effie's sights. As she stood
and watched, it slimmed to a hairline, then disappeared completely.
Shut. Effie's heartbeat increased. Purposely she kept her gaze on the
roundhouse, her eyes searching for the stable block and more light.
Only the stable doors faced
toward
the roundhouse, not away
from it, and all she saw was a pale corona of light glowing around
the stable door.

Effie started toward it. She tried not
to look at the dark curves of the roundhouse or the land that spread
out in all directions around it. But it was hard. There were no walls
to block the view. Shadows surrounded her, not small shadows, not
people shadows, but shadows of slopes and hills and great black
bodies of trees. And it was cold, so cold.

"
Ah
!" Effie sucked
in breath as something whipped across her cheek. She jumped out of
its way, her eyes searching the darkness for monsters. In her mind
she conjured up gray worms as big as men, with teeth like glass
spikes and limbs made of the same wet substance as eyes. What she saw
was a thin birch branch extending from the snow, a flag of red felt
flying from its tip. It was one of Longhead's graze posts; once the
snow reached a certain depth it was his only way of knowing where the
graze ended and the court began.

Shaken, Effie quickened her pace.

She barely heard the first footsteps.
The thin film of light that marked the stable was growing dimmer, and
all of Effie's attention was upon it. They couldn't close the stable
doors, too.
Not yet
. Panic swirled like thick fog in her
head. Could she make it before they locked the doors if she ran? What
if she fell in the snow? What if there were
things
lying
beneath the snow, tree root things that curled around her ankles and
trapped her? Her heart was beating so fast that it was many seconds
before she realized that the soft crunching noise she kept hearing in
between her footsteps wasn't the sound of her own rushing blood.

Slowly the realization dawned on her.
Someone was walking behind her. All the exposed skin on Effie's face
cooled. It wasn't Drey. He wouldn't do anything to scare her. No. It
was a monster, or a cowlman, or Mace Blackhail come to…

Crunch, crunch, crunch
. The
footsteps quickened. Effie looked ahead at the roundhouse, but now
the stable light had gone out and she had nowhere to head for. With a
little cry, she broke into a run.

Crunch, crunch, crunch
. The
footsteps were right at her back. Effie intagined a monster dressed
in cowlman's robes, with tree roots for fingers and Mace Blackhail's
yellow eyes. Faster, she ran.
Faster
.

Snow was everywhere: in her hair, in
her dress, in her boots. The monster's breath was hot on her scalp,
his footsteps close enough to be her own. Effie was dizzy with fear,
no longer paying any attention to where she ran. She heard the
footsteps change rhythm, and then a hand jerked viciously at her
hair. White pain exploded in Effie's scalp. Night turned to day and
then back again as she felt herself being dragged down into the snow.
Suddenly she didn't know which way was up or down. Her head hurt so.

"… teach you, little bitch.
Run crying to the roundhouse…"

It took Effie a moment to realize that
the monster was talking…
in a normal clansman's voice
.
She twisted around and came face-to-face with Cutty Moss. No monster,
just a clansman with one blue and one hazel eye.

"'Bitch."

Effie tried pulling away from him, but
he had wound a thick coil of her hair once around his wrist and held
the length tightly in his hand. Feeling her resistance, he jerked her
back. The pain made white dots of daytime dance before her eyes.

"Not got your little witch's stone
this time, eh?" Cutty Moss tapped his throat. Effie's vision was
fuzzy, but she saw enough to realize that the twine suspended there
was the exact same reverse-twist cord she had spun to hold her lore.
Cutty laughed softly, his mouth splitting into two red strips.
"Didn't see that one coming, did yer?"

Effie didn't move. Cutty's lips were
wet with spittle, his eyes two greasy stones that glittered on his
face. The ties that held his braids had come undone, and his hair
blew unchecked around his face in filthy kinks. Calmly he took out a
knife. "Reckon a cowlman's going to get you. Right here in the
snow." He jabbed the snow with its tip.