A Cavern of Black Ice (46 page)

Will struggled with the truth for only
a moment, yet when he turned to face the Bluddsmen he was no longer
the same man. "Hold your steel until we are outside," he
said, his voice hard and weary in one. "I will not confound one
wrong with another. Bron." He looked at his son. "Your
yearman's oath to Dhoone still stands. This is not your fight."

Bron shook his head. "Tonight I am
a Hailsman," he said.

A look of pure pain crossed Will's
face. By the time he spoke it was gone. "Come, then, son. Let us
fight for our clan."

Father and son moved toward the door.

Raif stepped forward, following them.

Hearing the scrape of his chair and the
slap of his footsteps on stone, Will Hawk turned and held up his
hand. "Nay, Raif Sevrance. Take your seat. I would rather a
Bluddsman cut out my heart than a traitor fight at my side."

Will held his position for one moment
and then walked outside. The Bluddsmen followed. Bron followed.
Someone shut the door.

Like a ghost, Raif continued walking.
Slowly. Unstoppable.

Angus came and fought him, big meaty
arms clamping around his chest, knees jabbing at his shins. Duff slid
a bar across the door, then came to Angus' aid. Raif fought back.
Hands pushed, feet kicked, chests blocked his way. They slowed but
could not stop him. He took great hurt and gave great hurt, yet it
all seemed as unreal as any dream. All that mattered was the door.
Not once did he doubt that he would reach it. Like game, he had set
its oak and iron heart in his sights. It was his, and he would take
it. If Angus and Duff had known that, if he could only have
explained, they would have let him go. But they didn't, so he fought
them, and all three took harm.

Sometimes he caught glimpses of himself
in other men's eyes. A Dhoonesman held his hand to his tine, as if he
were seeing something unspeakable like a Stone God come down for
vengeance. The Scarpe-men looked afraid.

Hot blood ran down Raif's nose to his
mouth. Yellow fluid slid across his eye. His fists were like
machines, up and down they went, smashing flesh, as his feet claimed
ground beneath him. Filled with the same inevitable force as an arrow
in flight, he had no choice but to move toward the door.

Then, suddenly, Angus spoke a word. He
wiped blood from his face and shook his head, and then he and Duff
fell away. Raif barely registered their withdrawal. It was nothing to
him. He would have reached the door without it. His hands came up and
dealt with the bar, and a moment later he stood facing the snow and
the night. Cold breezes worked his skin as he took in the last
seconds of the fight. One Bludds-man was down. Bron was down. The
remaining Bluddsmen delivered long thrusts with their swords,
impaling the flopping, powerless form of Will Hawk. Only their blades
kept him standing.

Raif lost himself after that. Afterward
he would remember things, or perhaps what little Angus Lok told him
became
memory, but when he stepped through the threshold and
into the snow he became something else.

Swords don't ring when you draw them,
yet to Raif it seemed as if his did. His mouth was dry, utterly dry.
His raven lore burned like white-hot steel against his skin.
Watcher
of the Dead
.

That was his last thought before his
mind spiraled downward to a place where all that mattered were the
Bluddsmen's beating hearts.

Sarga Veys

Penthero Iss stood high in the cool
marble blackness of the Bight and watched as Sarga Veys entered Mask
Fortress. Not for Veys the soldiers' sparseness of stable gate or the
common squalor of north gate. No. Veys took the east gate, whose fine
marble columns and wrought-iron gratings were usually reserved for
lords, ladies, and those of high office, not second-rate envoys who
had knowledge of the old skills. Iss exhaled softly into the shadows.
Sarga Veys was an interesting piece of flesh.

As he crossed the quad, Veys kept
turning his head toward the Splinter. After a moment he stopped, spun
his heels, and spent a full minute contemplating the ice-bound tower.
Iss didn't like that. He didn't like that at all. A small drawing
out
of himself, like a long sniff or a wet finger thrust into the air to
test wind speed, served to assure him that Veys was studying the
Splinter purely with his two own eyes, not probing it with sorcery as
he feared.

Withdrawing back into himself, he
became aware of the taste of metal in his mouth and a drop of urine
sliding down his thigh. It was disgusting to feel the wetness there.
He despised his weaknesses. Working the tainted saliva into a wad for
spitting, he looked once more upon the white-robed form of Sarga
Veys. Sarga Veys was looking directly at him.

Unsettled, Iss took a step back.
I
am in shadow
, he told himself,
and five stories above him.
How then does he know I am here
? The drawing! Sarga Veys had
sensed the drawing. Iss' face darkened. The power he had drawn to
test for sorcery was so slight, a little moth on the wing, it should
not have been detectable. Yet there was Sarga Veys, smiling now,
raising his arm in greeting. Iss turned and exited the room. Veys
would know now, with utter certainty, that something was housed
within the Splinter that his Surlord wished him not to see.

Descending the ice-cold stairs of the
Bight, Iss prepared himself to meet with Sarga Veys. Although the sun
had newly risen above Mount Slain, the day was already little to the
Surlord's liking. Only an hour earlier, beneath the darkly sloping
ceiling of the Hall of Trials, the Lady of the Eastern Granges and
her besworded son the Whitehog had challenged his right to apportion
land along the city's northern reach.

"My grandfather's brother owned
hunting rights to the Northern Granges," Lisereth Hews, Lady of
the Eastern Granges, had said, her voice rapidly becoming shrewish.
"And I claim them here and now for my son." It was a
ridiculously trumped-up claim, of course, but Lisereth Hews was a
dangerous woman. The white and the gold of the Hews suited her just
as well as it suited any man. She
would
cause trouble over
this. Four of the past ten surlords had come from House Hews, and the
good lady was scheming to place her son as the fifth. The matter of
the Northern Granges, newly come into dispute owing to the death of
its lord, Allock Mure, had provided her with a convenient excuse to
show her teeth.

Iss bared his own teeth. Lisereth Hews
was a fool if she thought she could take him on. He would not sit and
grow old and wait for the assassins to come. The great old houses of
Hews, Crieff, Stornoway, Gryphon, Pengaron, and Mar would find
battles aplenty soon enough.

Once within his private chamber, Iss
took time to change his clothes. The urine stain on his robe was a
tiny thing, but Sarga Veys had quick eyes and a quick mind, and Iss
would not allow him the satisfaction of putting two and two together
and realizing that his Surlord was not as powerful as he seemed.
Sarga Veys was a skilled and subtle magic user, and that meant he was
dangerous as well as useful.

Iss dressed without haste, content to
let Caydis Zerbina fasten the dozen pearl buttons on each cuff and
lace the ties on his silk coat so that they formed an elaborate
herringbone design across his chest. He was indifferent to clothes
but knew well enough their many uses and always made a point of
dressing in expensive silks, heavily weighted and exquisitely cut.

When he was satisfied that he had kept
Sarga Veys waiting long enough, he indicated that the Halfman should
be let in the room. Caydis moved to the door without making a sound.

"My lord." Sarga Veys entered
the chamber and then bowed, awaiting his Surlord's pleasure.

Iss studied the curve of Veys' neck,
the texture and pigment of the skin. Even though Veys had just
returned from a journey lasting several weeks, no dirt from the road
clung to him. He must have stopped in the city and bathed before
presenting himself at the fortress. Not liking the cool detachment
such an act betokened, Iss made a note to have Veys followed while he
stayed in the city. He already knew much about the Halfman, but it
never hurt to know more.

"Sarga Veys. I trust I find you in
good health?" Veys opened his mouth to reply, but Iss blocked
him. "I failed to notice the sept as you returned. I trust the
brothers-in-the-watch came to no harm?"

"They asked if they could ride on
ahead of me when we came within sight of the city. I saw no reason to
refuse their wish."

He lied. No member of the Rive Watch
would ever ask anything of Sarga Veys. More likely they had abandoned
him as soon as they'd judged it safe. Iss nodded. "I see."

Suspecting his lie had been detected,
Sarga Veys straightened his shoulders. "Next time I ride on your
behalf, my lord, I would prefer to handpick the sept myself."

"As you wish." Iss didn't
care either way. Let Veys try to handpick a sept. It would be
interesting to see just how far he'd get before Marafice Eye stepped
in to have his say. "Have you any further demands before we
begin? Perhaps a new horse, or a new title, or a new set of robes
with gold trim?"

Sarga Veys' violet eyes darkened. His
throat muscles worked, and for a moment Iss didn't know if he meant
to draw sorcery or to speak. Veys hardly seemed to know himself.
After a moment he calmed himself, swallowing whatever sorcery or
wordage had massed upon his tongue. "I apologize, my lord. I am
tired and ill worn. I do not much care for the cold open lands of the
North."

Iss was immediately conciliatory. "Of
course, my friend. Of course." He touched Veys' arm. "Come.
Sit. Wine. We must have wine. And food. Caydis. Bring us what you
know is good. Make it hot. Yes, by all means see to the fire first.
How right of you to think of our visitor's well-being as well as his
belly." It was interesting to watch the effect the little show
of pandering had on Sarga Veys. He liked being courted. That was one
of his weaknesses, his belief that he was entitled to better than
what he got.

When Caydis left the room, closing the
door as softly as only he could, Iss turned to Veys and said, "So.
All has gone to plan in the clanholds?"

Veys' smooth skin glistened like linen
dipped in oil as he said,

"They're fighting like dogs in a
pit."

Iss nodded. He did not speak for a
moment, wanting to settle the knowledge in his mind and claim it for
his own. Absently he ran a hand over his mouth. "So Mace
Blackhail acted upon the information you gave him?"

"Immediately. It was a massacre.
Thirty women and children slain in cold blood—most of them kin
to the great Dog Lord himself. Now Bludd is at Blackhail's throat,
Dhoone
and
Blackhail are at Bludd's throat, and all the
clans in between are scrambling to take sides." Veys smoothed
the perfectly white sleeves of his robe. "The Dog Lord will find
thorns growing on the Dhooneseat soon enough."

"Perhaps." Iss had a higher
opinion of Vaylo Bludd than Sarga Veys did. Sarga Veys saw only the
crudeness, the spitting and swearing and dogs. Iss saw the ruthless
determination of a man who had lorded Clan Bludd for thirty-five
years and was loved as a king by his sworn men. Besides, Sarga Veys
was missing the point. The Dog Lord was just one chief among many.
Clan Croser, Clan Bannen, Clan Otler, Clan Scarpe, Clan Ganmiddich,
and all the rest had to be brought into the war. It wasn't enough
that Blackhail, Bludd, and Dhoone fight; all their war-sworn clans
must, too. When the time came to send a host north for battle, it
would be the promise of easy land and easy wealth that stirred the
grangelords and their armies. The fat border clans would be first
taken. The cold giants of the Far North, with their massive stone
roundhouses, steel forges, and ice-bred warriors, would come later…
once they'd fought themselves bloody over years.

Iss ran a pale hand over his face.
Could he do this? Did he have a choice? The world was changing, and
the Sull would ride out from their Heart Fires soon enough. If ever
there was a chance to seize greatness and power, this was it. If
Spire Vanis didn't move to claim a continent, then Trance Vor,
Morning Star, and Ille Glaive would. An empire
would
be
created. And he, Penthero Iss, son of an onion farmer from Trance Vor
and kinsman to Lord of the Sundered Granges, would not stand by and
watch as others took what should be his.

"I picked up one or two other
intelligences whilst I was in the North," Veys said, his voice
slicing through Iss' thoughts like cheesewire. "I think you may
find them interesting."

It was an effort to bring his mind back
to the subject at hand. "Go on."

"Our old friend Angus Lok is on
the move again. Heading north to the clanholds, last I heard."

This was news. Angus Lok had been to
ground for six months. None of Iss' spies had been able to locate
him.
He and his family live within a few days' ride of Ille
Glaive
, was all they could ever tell him. "If Angus Lok is
on the move, then so is the Phage."

Sarga Veys met eyes with his Surlord.
"I wonder why."

I
bet you do
, thought Iss. Not
for the first time he contemplated ridding himself of Veys. The
Halfman was too clever, too sharp. He had already betrayed one
taskmaster. How much easier would a second betrayal be? "Seems
you were one of them once, you tell
me
what the Phage are up
to."

Veys shrugged. "With the Phage…
who can know for sure? They keep themselves as close as bats on a
cave wall. In the whole of Spire Vanis there are probably only five
people who have ever heard of them, and two of them are sitting in
this room." Veys moved forward in his seat, and Iss knew to
expect a second revelation. "Of course, there
was
that
raven Stovemaster Gloon brought down."