A Fortress of Grey Ice (Book 2) (17 page)

Bram kept his face still.
Show no disappointment; Robbie has burdens enough.
Nodding, he turned to leave.

“Oh, and Bram.” Robbie drew him back, turning his brilliant blue-gray gaze upon him. “Muffle your gelding’s bridle. You ride with me tonight.”

As Bram turned out a stone lodged in Oath’s hoof horn, he tried to control his excitement. It was dark now, and half a moon had risen above the trees. All about him Dhoonesmen were strapping on plate and adjusting ax harnesses: making grim preparation for war. They looked fierce, his fellow clansmen, big men with pale faces and yellow braids. Bram only had to look at his hands to know he wasn’t one of them. Dark and small, like the rest of him, his hands hadn’t been made for wielding an ax. Still, he was good with horses and other living things, and people had told him he could ride well enough.

And he was known to have good eyes.

Even now in the half-light, he could see what others could not. Old Mother had walked from the camp for privacy’s sake and was relieving herself behind a bush. Bram saw her eye-whites glinting. He saw also that the clearing Robbie had chosen for a campsite had been used countless times before, and had once even been built on. Despite the snow cover, his eyes detected a ridge of earth that ran too straight and narrow to be natural: the foundation for something lay beneath. And then there were the trees themselves: limbs hacked off at man height for firewood, a hoof print stamped low on a white oak, a series of marks splitting the papery bark of a gray birch, indicating where some would-be archer had once practiced shots.

Sometimes Bram wished he could see less. To see was to think. He couldn’t look at something without asking questions about it. Right now his brother was sitting in the darkness of his tent, thinking the shadows concealed him as effectively as any tent flap. They didn’t, at least not from Bram’s eyes. Robbie was speaking with the woman warrior Thora Lamb, laughing softly, judging from the tilt of his head, and resting his hand upon her thigh. Quickly, Bram looked away.

Moments later Robbie emerged from the tent, and began to walk a circuit of the camp. Men waited for him. Bram watched them form small groups, their eyes following Robbie as they weighed their weapons in their grips. Robbie spoke with every man, naming them, clasping fists, listening to advice from the battle-seasoned warriors, and offering words of comfort to the green untested boys. The mood in the camp changed as Robbie walked amongst them, became charged and vital and grave. Bram could see it on the faces of the men.

Robbie Dhoone gave them a cause.

“So, Bram,” Robbie said when he reached him. “Are you ready for your first raid?”

Bram nodded. How could he expect Robbie to remember that this wasn’t his first raid, that he’d ridden on one two months back, when Duglas Oger struck a caravan of Ille Glaive merchants on the Lake Road, winning the very horse that Guy Morloch sat this night? Bram’s hand rose to his face. He’d earned his first warrior’s mark that night, though in truth he had done little except untether the horses and scare a little girl who’d taken refuge in one of the trunks.

Eager to thank his brother for including him in the raid party, Bram cleared his throat to speak.

Robbie Dhoone had already moved on.

Bram stood and waited a little while, then went to tend his horse.

As he fastened strips of felt to his gelding’s bit, he watched as Robbie and his close companions held a war parley outside the tent. Bram didn’t know what action his brother planned to take this night. He thought at first it would be a simple raid; striking farms for livestock or travelers for goods. But there was too much risk here for that. They were in the heart of the Bluddhold—dangerous territory that no Dhoonesman could claim to know. It seemed madness to draw so close to the enemy, yet no one had openly questioned Robbie’s judgment, and the morning they’d ridden forth from the Milkhouse there had been a hundred more willing to come. Visibly moved, Robbie had shaken his head at them. “It’s a small thing I ride to do and I must risk the fewest possible men.”

Bram wondered about those words now. It was surely no coincidence that a week earlier Skinner Dhoone had forced the clan guide to declare Robbie and his companions traitors to the clan. Everyone in Castlemilk had been expecting Robbie to make a countermove, perhaps raid the Old Round outside of Gnash where Skinner and his followers were quartered. Yet Robbie had been strangely restrained on the subject, saying only, “First I must win back Dhoone’s heart.”

“Here, boy. Dull your face.” Old Mother’s rough voice cut into Bram’s thoughts. The stout, big-breasted matron stood in front of him, thrusting a pouch of lampblack into his hand. “Be sure to work some into the draft horses’ whites.”

Bram did as he was bidden, smudging the dark powder along the white noses and skirts of the four workhorses. Old Mother watched for a moment, satisfying herself that boy and horses were now invisible by moonlight, then moved to the next man. She had a curious hold over the Dhoone warriors, Bram noticed. She never strategized or offered opinions on battle—though she had ridden on more campaigns than most Dhoonesmen—but she was a powerful mascot to all. She had been the first of the clan elders to declare herself for Robbie and his cause. Bram thought she smelled strange, but he kept that opinion to himself.

“Bram!”

Spinning round, Bram saw Jess Blain heading toward him. Jess was Bram’s age, though he was taller and stronger and fairer, and the considerable number of battles in which he’d fought showed themselves on the long tattoo spiraling across his left cheek.

“There’s to be a split. I’m heading east with Iago Sake.” Jess drew his sword and made imaginary strikes through the air. “We’re setting light to the sacred wood where Thrago HalfBludd and all those other barbarian chiefs are earthed. Robbie reckons they guard it day and night. Imagine that! It’s hardly a proper tomb or anything, just a load of old trees.”

Bram thought Jess made too light of the sacred wood. Any ground where chiefs were laid was hallowed. You could hardly blame a clan for having nothing to match the splendor of the Tomb of the Dhoone Princes. Few did. Still, Bram’s mind was already working on something else. “How far from the wood does the Bluddhouse lie?”

Jess shrugged. “A league or so.”

So they’ll see the flames. Robbie means them to see the flames
. “How many in your party?”

“A full score and more. We’re to be quick about it. The Nail says we ride in, kill the guards, douse the trees with naphtha, torch them, then ride out.”

That explained the many barrels of fuel oil they’d brought. Bram was quiet for a moment, thinking. “Who rides with you?”

Jess named the sworn warriors in a nonchalant voice, pretending to be more interested in practicing his downstroke. “The Nail, of course. Ranald Vey, Diddie Daw, Mangus Eel, Guy Morloch . . .”

Bram listened as Jess listed the twenty-four best horsemen in the raid party. When Jess had finished he asked casually, “Which way will you make your retreat?”

Jess waved his sword to the east. “We’re to head east and north until we come to the Hell’s Road, and then turn west for Milk.”

It’s a distraction
, Bram thought with certainty.
Robbie doesn’t care about the sacred wood. The Nail’s party is meant to draw attention away from . . . what? Surely not the Bluddhouse? No.
They didn’t have the manpower to take it. Even with the Dog Lord housed at Dhoone, the Bludd Gate was well defended. Quarro Bludd, Vaylo’s eldest son, was said to be a hard and terrible warrior who meant to keep the Bluddhouse for his own.

“Jess, what’s Robbie’s party to do?”

The golden-haired boy looked at Bram with barely concealed superiority. With an elegant gesture borrowed from Robbie Dhoone, he recouched his watered steel. “Oh, Robbie’s only told his trusted companions what he plans to do. And
we’re
all sworn to secrecy.” With that, Jess Blain swung his yellow braids behind him and headed off to find his horse.

Bram watched him go.
Robbie chose me to be in his party
, he told himself.
Me, not Jess.

Around him the camp was being dismantled in preparation for the raid. Robbie’s tent had been leveled and stowed, feed-bags removed from the horses, and all the remaining supplies gathered in a pile to be bound once more upon the draft mares’ backs. Bram thought he’d better start work on it. Moalish Flock, the horsemaster, was already looking for him. Taking the first of the four draft mares by the reins, Bram walked into the center of the camp and began loading.

The horsemaster approached him and spat. “Nay. Don’t go loading any of those drafts up, Robbie’s orders. What’s left here has to fit on the pack mule.”

Bram glanced at the two mules standing by the makeshift horse post; the fat white one was Old Mother’s mount, the little angry one had been brought here tethered to the horsemaster’s reins. With four big workhorses in the party, Bram had assumed it was merely a spare. Puzzled, he packed the animal with as many of the supplies as the creature could possibly bear. When the mule could take no more—letting its displeasure be known by braying and throwing kicks—Bram decided to slip away and prepare himself for the raid.

He owned no ax, nor had he been trained to wield one, so his only weapons were the sword Robbie had called his own before their father’s death, and the alien-looking twin-bladed katar he had earned for his part in the Ille Glaive raid. The sword had been oiled and honed countless times during the journey, yet Bram couldn’t help but inspect the blade one last time. His stomach churned as he tested the edge. Robbie was right in a way; this
was
his first proper raid. At Ille Glaive he had just been carried along by the other clansmen, drawing his weapon yet not using it. Tonight would be different, tonight he would act like a man.

Excited, and determined to ignore the twisting in his gut, Bram went to take his place in Robbie’s crew.

Robbie was already mounted and giving orders. “Flock, take Old Mother and the pack mule and lead them west. Find that old paved path we crossed at noon and wait there. I’ll send Bram for you when we’re done.” Moalish Flock, who seldom had a good word to say to anyone and was known for finding fault with the most flawless plans, nodded obediently and went on his way. Robbie had that effect on men. He made you want to do your best.

He should be chief
, Bram thought with pride.

“Duglas, you’re with me. I want that wickedly sharp ax of yours as close to my neck as humanly comfortable, though I’d take it for a blessing if you managed to stay downwind. That raw onion you had for breakfast is just as deadly as any blade.”

Everyone laughed. Duglas Oger grinned, showing large broken teeth and gums as pink as a baby’s. “Anything you say, Rab.”

Robbie bowed his head toward the big axman before sending his gaze over the entire raid party. “Men. Dhoonesmen, Castlemen, Wellmen, brothers to me this night. We ride not for blood or killing, but for simple justice. The Dhoonehouse is ours, and tonight we begin winning it back.”

“Aye!”
breathed the party, stirred by Robbie’s words yet aware of the need to stay quiet this close to the Bluddhouse.

When the men had quieted to his liking, Robbie nodded and went on. “We’re small in number yet, and we’ll need more men and more sway before we’re ready to claim Dhoone. But make no mistake, we
will
take it. We, the companions. Not Skinner and his band of old men. Never forget that we’ve got what Skinner hasn’t—”

“Blood of the Dhoone Kings!” cried the fierce little swordsman Diddie Daw. “That Skinner’s only got chief’s blood pumping through him—and that runs thin as piss. Our Robbie’s got kings in his veins!”

“Aye,” cried another. “Blood of kings!”

Robbie let the men go on, his eyes hard and glittering, his hand resting princelike upon the hilt of his sword. After a time he said, “Enough. We must first win a war before we speak of kings.”

Bram sighed with relief. He didn’t like talk of kings.

“Tonight we
begin
the war. Here. Now. On Bludd-cursed soil we make our first strike.” Robbie’s hand rose from his sword to his neck, where his measure of powdered guidestone lay suspended in a copper horn on a copper chain. Eyes closed, chest rising and falling, he brought the horn to his lips and kissed it. “Stone Gods be with us!”

“Gods be with us!” came the reply from sixty men.

With that the raid party split into two groups, drawing up their horses into ranks, fitting their great helms and their hourglass gauntlets, closing their visors and spreading their capes. Bram had only a pot helm and boiled-leather gloves, but he hardly cared.
Tonight we begin the war
, Robbie had said. Excitement and fear burned in him like a fever, and when Robbie drew his weapon, so did he.

With shining eyes he watched Iago Sake’s party ride east. Robbie spoke solemn words of farewell to the deathly pale axman known as the Nail. He called Iago his “brother in all things save blood”, and Bram thought he saw the sparkle of tears in the Nail’s hard, colorless eyes as he rode forth.

Quiet descended on the forty remaining men. Minutes passed as they waited, giving Iago Sake the lead he needed. All eyes were upon Robbie. The would-be chief sat high on his thistle-barded stallion, his blue wool cloak trimmed with fisher fur spreading gently in the barest breeze. Bram couldn’t help himself, and he worked his way up through the line to be next to his brother.

Robbie spotted him as he reached Oath’s withers. Bram saw his brother’s forearm rise in welcome, watched as the gaze of those famed Dhoone-blue eyes took him in. And then Robbie hissed, “Sheathe that sword, you fool. You’re not here to fight. Get down the line and handle the drafts.”

Bram had no memory of riding back down the line. It seemed as if he was suddenly there, by the horsepost, receiving the driving reins for the four fully harnessed draft mares from Moalish Flock. “Let them run ahead o’ your gelding, and keep ’em on a close rein. Ropes are on Milly’s back when you need ’em.”