A Cavern of Black Ice (25 page)

Cowlmen
. All thoughts of Mace
Blackhail slid from Raif's mind. He now understood what had made
Corbie and Bailie so nervous when he had first approached the court.
Cowlmen were the nearest thing in the clanholds to assassins. Named
after the long, hooded cloaks they wore, which were said to switch
colors along with the seasons, they traveled into enemy territory,
took up positions near game tracks and trapping runs, and lay low for
days on end, biding their time until someone came along whom they
could kill. The casualties they caused were few in relation to
raiding and ambush parties—lone hunters usually or, if they
were lucky, small hunt parties—but that wasn't the point. They
created fear. When cowlmen were thought to be loose within a
clanhold, no one could leave the roundhouse and be sure of returning
home. A cowlman could shoot a woman out tending her traps without
once showing his face. They could be anywhere: high in the canopy of
a purple blue hemlock, hiding in the fecal-like sludge of a moss bog,
or crouching behind the red spine of a sandstone ridge. In winter, it
was said some cowlmen even buried themselves in snow, lying for hours
with their weapons crossed over their chests, ready to bring cold
death.

"Well, Mace Blackhail's gonna have
to find my blunts and roast 'em, for the lad's coming wi' me."
Bailie the Red's gaze was almost wistful as he studied the kills on
Moose's back. "You know how valuable a good marksman is to an
ambush party, Corbie. Heart kills like these will drop the Bluddsmen
where they stand." Then to Raif: "Set here, lad, while I
fetch Inigar Stoop." Without waiting for any response, Bailie
made his way back to the roundhouse.

Raif watched him go. He didn't know if
he wanted to ride with the ambush party or not. Moose would have to
be left behind; the gelding had been hard ridden these past three
days and needed sleep. Drey clearly didn't want him to go. Raif could
see his brother now, astride the black, edging closer so he could
keep track on what was happening between the two senior clansmen and
his younger brother. Then there were the things that niggled away in
the back of Raifs mind, things about Mace Blackhail. It wasn't usual
for the head of an armed party to split from his men on the final leg
of the journey. And from one short visit to a stovehouse, Mace
Blackhail had learned an
awful
lot, enough to spread fear
throughout the clanhold and send an ambush party east to beset Bludd.

It didn't fit.

Raif glanced at Corbie Meese, wondering
if he should speak such things out loud. The hammerman had been quick
to pledge his arms to Mace Blackhail, yet what had happened last
night in the Great Hearth had not sat well with anyone, and both
Corbie and Bailie seemed less inclined to keep Mace Blackhail's
good opinion than they were yesterday. Still, it would all be
forgotten once Mace and Raina were wed. Raif pushed back his hood,
suddenly feeling hot and trapped beneath it. He didn't like to think
of Raina Blackhail with Mace. It was another thing that didn't fit.

"Here! Gather round now!"
Bailie the Red's fierce booming voice broke the silence of the court
as the bowman stepped from the roundhouse, dragging the little
white-haired guide behind him. "Raif Sevrance is about to take
First Oath."

A murmur passed through the ambush
party. Bald-headed Toady Walker muttered, "He's gone and done it
now." Behind his back, Raif heard Drey swear softly, not quite
to himself.

Inigar Stoop did not look pleased. He
was dressed in a pigskin coat, dyed black as was clan way. Disks of
slate, sliced so thin they looked like scales, were attached to the
collar and hem. The cuffs had been singed at the Great Hearth to mark
the onset of war. Judging from the flatness of the clan guide's hair
and the number of untied lacings on his coat, Bailie the Red had just
pulled him from his bed. Pieces of slate snapped as he moved.

"Let's get this over and done,"
he said, frowning at the dawn sky. "Though I warn you now, 'tis
not a fitting time and place."

Almost without thinking, Raif reached
up to touch his raven lore. The black horn felt as cold and smooth as
a pebble plucked from ice. He wasn't sure if he wanted to do this
now, before three dozen clansmen, yet even as he let the lore drop
against his chest, Inigar Stoop was taking a swearstone from the
cloth pouch he wore at his waist. Warming the stone in his fist,
Inigar named the Stone Gods. His voice was thin and wavering, and the
gods' names had a sharpness to them that Raif had never noticed
before. Ground mist receded. Light from the rising sun reflected off
the downsides of clouds, washing the courtyard with a pale silver
light. The wind had long since died, and the sound of Inigar's voice
carried well beyond the court.

When all nine gods had been named,
Inigar uncurled his fist and held out his hand. His black eyes never
once left Raif as he waited for the stone to be claimed. Even though
his raven lore was outside his coat, resting against oiled hide and
waxed wool, Raif felt it was
inside
his skin. A strong
desire to flee came upon him, to knock the swear-stone from Inigar's
hand, drive it deep into the snow with the heel of his boot, and run
off across the frozen headlands, never to return. Things were moving
too fast.

"Take the stone, Raif Sevrance."
Inigar Stoop's eyes were as dark as volcanic glass. "Take it and
put it in your mouth." Raif did not move,
could
not
move. The guide raised his arm a fraction, made a jabbing motion with
his hand. "
Take it
."

Over the guide's shoulder, Bailie the
Red nodded vigorously at Raif. He had pulled an arrow from his case
and held it in his fist, point facing down. Corbie Meese had freed
his hammer from his strap and had it weighed across his chest. A
glance to the side showed that the entire ambush party had drawn
weapons, sliding them from horn couchings and leather cradles and
scabbards lined with wool. All here had taken First Oath. Drawing
weapons was a sign of respect.

Raif's mouth ran dry. Inigar Stoop's
old brown face, with its beaklike nose and hollow cheeks, hardened. A
thin breeze gusting across the court set his slate medallions
tinkling.

"Take it"

Raif raised his hand toward the
swearstone. As his shadow fell upon Inigar's open palm, a raven
cawed. A bird, dark and oily as a piece of meat blackened on the
fire, swooped down into the court. Descending on a cold current, it
rolled its body, diving and shrieking, until a column of warm air
gave it lift. Flapping its knife wings just once, it came to rest on
the weathercock high atop the stable roof.

The raven watched with yellow eyes as
Raif's hand closed around the swearstone. Small flecks of white metal
dotting the stone's surface caught and reflected light as Raif
brought it to his lips. Under his tongue it went, tasting of chalk
and earth and sweat. Tiny bits of grit broke from it, filtering to
the bottom of his mouth.

Inigar Stoop glanced once at the raven,
then spoke. "Do you pledge yourself to the clan, Raif Sevrance,
son of Tern? Your skills, your weapons, your blood and bones? Do you
pledge to stay with us, amongst us, for one year and a day? Will you
fight to defend us and stop at nothing to save us and give your last
breath to the Heart of the Clan? Will you follow our chief and watch
over our children and give yourself wholly for four seasons?"

Raif nodded.

Kaaw!
'And do you do this
freely, of your own will? And are you free of all other oaths, ties,
and bonds?"

Kaaw!
The swearstone was like
lead in Raifs mouth. Minerals bled from it, tainting his saliva with
a foul metal taste. It
isn't right
, he wanted to cry.
Can't
you feel it
? Yet to do such a thing seemed like madness of the
worst kind. He'd already gained a name for making trouble—even
his own brother had said so. Stop First Oath now and he might as well
run south to the taiga and never come back; he would never be able to
show his face at the roundhouse again. No. He had to take this oath.
For as long as he could remember he had lived his life
expecting
to take it. Now Inigar Stoop stood before him, the cuffs of his pig
coat burned black for war, his breath rising in a blue line from his
lips, waiting on the sign that would seal it.

Raif steeled himself. He nodded for a
second time.

Kaaaaa! Kaaaaa!

Inigar Stoop jerked back as the raven
screamed, bending at the waist as if he'd taken a blow to the gut.
His eyes closed briefly, and when he opened them again Raif saw
immediately that knowledge lay within them, like the core of blue ice
that slept through summer deep beneath the badlands' crust. Quickly
Raif looked away. Inigar knew. He
knew
.

"You have taken First Oath, Raif
Sevrance," the guide said, the words falling like stones from
his mouth. "Break it and you make yourself a traitor to this
clan."

Raif could not meet his eyes. No one
moved or spoke. The wind picked up, and the raven flung itself from
the weathercock and onto its mercy, wings unfurling like pirate's
sails, black so they could sail through enemy waters by night.

Kaaw! Kaaw! Kaaw! Traitor
!
Raif heard.
Traitor! Traitor!

He shuddered. His lore lay like a dead
weight against his chest, pressing so heavily he could barely
breathe. Unbidden, a vision of the little blond-haired luntman Wennil
Drook came to him: Dagro Blackhail and liver-spotted Gat Murdock
pushing the bloodwood staves through the pink hairless skin on
Wennil's back. Later, when it was all over and done and Wennil's
corpse lay blue and frozen on the barren earth of the
fellfields, Inigar Stoop had taken a chisel to the guidestone and cut
his heart from the clan.

"Who will stand second to this
yearman?" Inigar said, turning to face the ambush party. "Who
will vouch for him and guide him and stand at his side for a year and
a day? Who amongst you will come before me and take a beggar's share
in his oath?"

Shor Gormalin
. Raif fought for
a breath and held it. On the return journey from Gnash, the
fair-haired swordsman had hinted that he would be willing to stand
second to Raif's oath. Shor was not here, though. Raif didn't know
where he was, couldn't even be sure if he had returned from his
outing last night. And even if he
had
returned and was
sitting in the kitchen drinking hearth-warmed beer and crunching on
bacon, he would hardly be in a mood to bother with the yearing of
some untested youth. The business with Raina Blackhail had gone hard
on him.

Inigar Stoop waited for someone to
speak. His beaklike nose cast a long shadow across his cheek. Raif
thought he would be well pleased if no one stepped forward to back
the oath. The raven circled over the court, silent except for the
faint whistle of air through its pinion feathers. Corbie Meese and
Bailie the Red exchanged glances. Raif saw Bailie the Red thinking
hard, mitted hands smoothing the fletchings of the arrow he held in
his fist. Raif could almost guess what he was thinking:
The lad
is a bowman, like me
…

"I will stand second to his oath."
Drey. Drey kicking Orwin Shank's black stallion forward and trotting
through the snow to stand at Raif's side. Drey saying, "I know I
am only a yearman myself, but I have sworn two such oaths of my own
and will soon swear a third, and I count myself a steady man who
takes no responsibility lightly. If the full clansmen will permit it,
I would back my brother's word."

A ripple of relief passed through the
ambush party. For a moment it had looked as if no one were willing to
step forward. Inigar Stoop did not look pleased, but it was out of
his hands now. It was up to the clansmen with greatest due respect to
say whether or not Drey, a mere yearman himself, could stand second
to his brother's oath. Raif glanced at Drey. His brother made a small
shrugging motion. Tern's elkskin coat fitted him well, made him look
older than his eighteen years.

Corbie Meese cleared his throat.
Slapping his iron hammerhead into his palm, he said, "You're a
good clansman, Drey Sevrance.

There's none here who would say
otherwise. The past few weeks have been hard on all of us, yet you
have kept your head and done your duty and proven yourself to be an
asset to this clan. I for one can see no reason why you can't back
your brother's oath. You have the heart for it and the steadiness of
purpose, and if you are willing to stand before this party and
swear that you will watch your charge well and closely, then that's
good enough for me."

Bailie the Red and others nodded. The
raven circled, slow and lazy as a dragonfly in summer.

Inigar Stoop's face showed no emotion.
"Will you do as Corbie asks, Drey Sevrance?"

Drey slid down from his horse. His
brown eyes sought Raif. "I swear.

Raif felt a tightness come to his
throat. Drey had not wanted him along on this trip, had warned him
only last night about the damage he was doing to himself and their
family, yet here he was, standing before three dozen clansmen,
speaking on his brother's behalf. Shame burned Raif's cheeks. He
wished he could take back what had been said between them last night
in the hall. Words couldn't be unsaid, though. Raif knew that.

"So be it." Inigar Stoop
sounded as if he were proclaiming a sick man dead. He turned to face
Raif. "Your oath has been spoken, Raif Sevrance. You are a
yearman now in the eyes of clan and gods. Let neither party down."
The wind switched as Inigar spoke, blowing hard against his face. He
should have said more—Raif had been present at enough yearings
to know that the guide was supposed to pass blessing and offer words
of guidance to the sworn man—but Inigar just pressed his lips
together and turned to face the wind full on.