A Fortress of Grey Ice (Book 2) (37 page)

The swordsman nodded brusquely, and Raif felt an ungentle hand upon his arm. He was not given the chance to speak a word to Stillborn before he was led away.

EIGHTEEN

The Tower on the Milk

T
he five Dhoone warriors entered the old riverhouse under heavy guard. Iago Sake’s face was white in the starlight, his dread half-moon ax drawn and ready. He and Diddie Munn escorted the five warriors through the strange roofless arcade that formed the entrance to the broken tower at Castlemilk.

Bram was surprised to see the five men still armed, and wondered why his brother Robbie had not given the order for their weapons to be ransomed. Water steel flashed at their backs and thighs, making river-like ripples upon the blued surfaces of their breast and back plates. The tattoos on their faces showed them to be veterans of many campaigns. One of their number, whom Bram recognized as the master axman Mauger Loy, had whorls of ink so densely sewn across his cheeks that you could not see the true color of his skin. Even his eyelids were blue. All five had the fair hair of the Dhoones, and Bram realized that he was one of only a handful in the room with dark eyes and dark hair.

“Couch your ax, Iago,” came Robbie Dhoone’s voice from the tower’s vast circular chamber. “These men are our brothers. They’ll offer no fight.”

Iago Sake, the deathly pale axman known as the Nail, nodded but did not speak. He and Mauger had been companions of the ax before the slaying of the old Dhoone chief, yet all the years spent training and campaigning meant nothing to Iago when compared to his loyalty to Robbie Dhoone. Iago thrust the three-foot ax under his gear belt rather than couch it against his back as ordered. Bram knew other men might mistake Iago’s lack of obedience as defiance, but Bram knew it was done out of love and protectiveness for Robbie. If weapons were drawn, Iago Sake would get to his first.

The five Skinner Dhoone-sworn warriors could not hide their interest as they stepped into the principal chamber of the broken tower. It had once risen thirty storeys above the Milk, legend said, higher even than the tower on the Ganmiddich Inch. But the living was harder here in the northern clanholds—storms could rage for weeks and frosts had been known to last for half a year—and the tower had long since fallen. All that was left were a few lower storeys, and all but the ground one were broken. Even that let in moonlight and rain, and if Bram looked up he could see great cracks and absences of stone. If he looked down he could see a pool of water as large as a fish pond that had formed in a pocket of sunken flooring. The water had been frozen when they’d first occupied the tower ten days back, but it was thawing now under the sufferance of torchlight and man heat. Once or twice Bram had seen things flitting beneath the glaze of ice, and had wondered briefly how fish had made their way in here.

Few had answers to questions concerning the tower, not even the Castlemen who had lived with its closeness all their lives. The Milkhouse was barely a league to the west, its rounded walls and domed roof constructed for the most part from stone quarried from the tower. When the first clan settlers had come upon the ruins north of the river, they had named the pale, pearlescent blocks they were built from milkstone. Centuries later, when the first roundhouse was raised in the shadow of the tower, the clan chief had forsaken his old name and called himself Castlemilk instead.

The Milk River still ran white each spring, when rushing water and thawing ice ate away at the remaining deposits of milkstone that lay in a series of open quarries upstream. Bram had once heard said that the quarries were now overrun by forest and pokebrush and near impossible for anyone but cragsmen to find.

Even now, after months of living in Castlemilk where milkstone was plentiful and many structures were built from it, Bram still found the pale rock beautiful. It glowed like teeth in firelight.

The five warriors crossed the round chamber to where Robbie was sitting at the head of a camp table. Robbie was uncloaked and unarmored, dressed in a fine wool shirt and linen vest, his moleskin pants tucked into high leather boots, and a heavy belt of beaten copper plates circling his waist. His hair had been recently washed and braided, and wet strands still clung to his neck. Another man might look disarrayed in such a state, but Robbie Dun Dhoone looked like a king.

He watched the five men gravely, his hands resting on the leather-bound armrests of his chair. “Mauger. Berold. Harris. Jordie. Roy,” he named and greeted them, clearly surprising them by this feat of memory. “Come. Sit. It’s a hard ride from Gnash, and the river banks are thick with mud. Have your horses been fed and watered?”

Mauger and his companions exchanged glances. They were not men easy with such courtesy. “Aye,” Mauger said gruffly after a moment. “ ’Tis well done. A stableman took our mounts.”

Robbie made a small gesture with his hand. “Good. Now warm yourselves by the brazier. Bram, bring bread and ale. And be sure to tell Old Mother who has come. She would not thank us if these men came and left and she’d missed the chance to greet them.”

“Old Mother is here?” Mauger asked, turning his head to look for her.

“Yes. Out by the river. She gave us her blessing three months back when she came to join our cause.”

“We thought her dead.” Mauger was clearly perplexed. “She went missing with that sorry mule of hers, and Skinner said she’d rode out to the ruinwoods to die.”

Robbie raised an eyebrow, but said nothing, leaving the five warriors to name Skinner Dhoone a liar for themselves. Bram loaded nutbread and a flagon of black ale onto a wood platter, and carried it to the camp table. A cloth map of the clanholds was spread across the length of the table, and Robbie nodded impatiently when Bram hesitated to set a tray upon it. As Bram poured ale into drinking horns, the five warriors sat reluctantly.

“So you are no longer quartered at the Milkhouse,” Mauger said to Robbie, glancing around the tower chamber. “A pity, as it’s a fine fortress.”

“We grew too big for it.” Robbie took the first horn of ale for himself. “Wrayan asked me to stay, but a man would be a fool to overburden his host.”

Mauger grunted his agreement. He was a big man, with all his strength in his shoulders, and a stubble of white-blond hair poking through the blue skin on his neck. Bram saw him take note of the men gathered around the cook fires sanding their armor, fixing pieces of tack, or turning out damp clothing to dry. More men squatted by the doorless entryway, playing knuckle-bones and taking bets, and still others formed small groups around the chamber, speaking softly amongst themselves. Bram took pride in their numbers. Not a day had gone by since the raid on Bludd when a man or small company hadn’t presented themselves to Robbie for service. His fame was growing, and the name Skinner Dhoone had coined for him was known throughout the clans. The Thorn King.

“Count if your master bids it, Mauger,” Robbie said lightly, stretching his legs. “But don’t expect an accurate tally, as you’re seeing less than half of us here tonight.”

It was a lie, but it was well done. Bram marveled at the calmness of his brother’s face.
Strange that I never realized before how good Robbie is at deceit.

Mauger colored hotly.

The man named Berold spoke to cover his companion’s discomfort. “We bear messages from Skinner. Would you hear us now, or would you prefer to parley in private?”

It was a challenge and Robbie rose to it. “I hide nothing from my companions. Speak up, man, so others can hear.”

Berold glanced at Mauger. “It was agreed my brother would speak for all.”

Bram looked anew at Mauger and Berold, and saw what he had failed to earlier: the same features occupied both faces.
My brother
, Berold had said. The words pricked something in Bram, but he did not know what or why.

Mauger held his horn out to be refilled before speaking. “First. Skinner demands that you no longer name him uncle. He has looked into your bloodline and found you to be no cousin to a chief. You are nephew to him by neither blood nor marriage, and any claims you stake are false.”

Whilst Mauger was speaking, men around the chamber turned to listen. Many bristled at this insult to their chief. The big axman Duglas Oger bared a mouthful of broken teeth, and came to stand at Robbie’s back. Even in the company of other axmen, Duglas had no rivals for strength or bulk, and his presence at the camp table caused the five visitors to exchange wary glances. Duglas Oger saw this and casually reached behind his back for his ax.

Robbie gentled him with a hand to his arm as he addressed himself to Mauger. “I take no umbrage. I know the words you speak are not your own. I can’t say I’m surprised by Skinner. It pleased him to call me nephew when it suited him, now it pleases him not to. A nice trick. A pity he’s never tried it on his wife.”

Laughter rippled around the chamber. Duglas Oger chortled; it sounded as if someone were trying to strangle him. The visitors were less easy with this jest at their chief’s expense, and all but one of them kept their faces guarded. Young, whiteeyebrowed Jordie Sarson couldn’t quite manage to keep the grin from his lips.

Robbie’s won him
, Bram knew with certainty. So far his brother had done everything right: disarming the visitors with courtesy, impressing them with his cool-headedness, and now refusing to take insult where it was most definitely intended. Bram felt a wave of pride rising, and with it the familiar sinking sensation in his chest.
How can I feel so proud of him, and yet not want him to succeed?
It was disloyalty of the worst kind, and Bram knew it shamed him. With an effort of will he set his mind away from it and concentrated instead upon the simple task of keeping the visitors’ horns topped with ale.

“Is there more?” Robbie asked.

Mauger shifted uneasily. “Aye. Concerning the kingship.” He downed more ale to give himself courage. “Skinner says your dam was a whore, and if every man who’s seen the inside of her cunt claimed kingship from it then a good half of the clanholds should be crowned.”

Robbie’s blue-gray eyes turned cold. “No,” he said quietly to Duglas Oger who was in the process of raising his ax. Across the room Iago Sake stalked the visitors, his deathly pale skin and winter furs rendering him almost invisible against the milkstone walls. Robbie stood. “No,” he repeated again, this time to all the men in chamber. “Don’t send our brothers back to Gnash thinking we don’t know a lie when we hear one. All here knew and honored my mother Margret. Everything fair and golden lay within her, and she went to her death with the grace of the Dhoone Queens. The words of a scared man cannot change that. Skinner Dhoone is growing desperate, and he sinks to new depths. Does he think me a dog to fight at his command? Insult my lady mother and I’ll froth at the muzzle and strike out without a plan?” Robbie shook his head. “Don’t mistake me, Dhoonesmen. I won’t forget this insult, but I won’t drag one extra sword into this fight. This is between me and Skinner, and it’ll be settled between two men, no more.”

Many in the crowd nodded. Iago Sake rested his ax. Robbie was right. Only a son could defend his mother’s honor, no matter how keenly that son’s companions felt the insult. Bram found he could look no one in the eye. None had looked at him since the visitors had entered, and he did not want to invite their scrutiny now.

Margret Cormac nee Dhoone was not his mother. The golden hair and blue eyes she possessed went solely to her first and only son, along with a well-documented claim to the Thistle Blood. Even before the old Dhoone chief was slain by Bluddsmen, Robbie had forsaken his father’s name and started calling himself Dhoone instead. Bram could still remember hearing the name Robbie Dhoone for the first time, and thinking how much grander it sounded than Rab Cormac. He had been six. “
Can I call myself Dhoone, too, Rab?
” he had asked on the weapons court as Robbie cleaned pig blood from his sword with a fist of hay. “
No, Bram
,” Robbie had said, squinting down the length of his swordblade to check for trueness. “
We share the same father, but not the same dam. My mother was a great lady with ancestors stretching back to Weeping Moira. Your mother’s just a rabbit trapper from Gnash.
”

Bram rested his hand on the camp table for a moment. He told himself Robbie had meant no insult, that his words were just the thoughtlessness of a sixteen-year-old boy. Yet Bram was fifteen himself now, and he knew he wouldn’t have spoken the same words in Robbie’s place.

Mauger was speaking, but it took a moment for Bram to understand him. “Skinner’s tired of the wait,” said the seasoned warrior. “He calls for a meeting with swords, to settle the matter of the chiefship once and for all.”

The call to swords stirred the men. They had taken part in little but raids since the attack on Bludd, and they were hungry for battle. It mattered little that Skinner Dhoone’s forces outnumbered them, for success at Bludd had made them bold, and their faith in Robbie’s leadership was unshakable. Bram saw and understood all—and he also saw the glint of calculation that passed across his brother’s face.

Still standing, Robbie made a gesture to quiet the men. “Brothers. Companions,” he said quietly. “I’ll not meet Skinner Dhoone on a field of his choosing. He may be willing to set Dhoonesmen against Dhoonesmen, but I am not. Who here tonight can cast eyes upon our visitors and not know them for our clansmen? Kill them and we kill ourselves. Every Dhoonesman dead is one less man to fight against Bludd. Tell me, whose blood is better served on our blades? Dhoone’s or Bludd’s?”

Silence settled on the tower chamber like a spell. Light from the torches hissed and dimmed as the first mists of evening stole through cracks in the tower. The Milk lay less than thirty feet to the south, and river ice could be heard fracturing as air cooled above the surface. Inside the chamber all Dhoonesmen had grown grave. Duglas Oger raised the copper horn containing his measure of powdered guidestone to his lips. Others followed. Iago Sake bowed his head, and began speaking the names of the Stone Gods. Robbie joined him, and by the time the third god was named the entire room was chanting them in prayer.
. . . Ione, Loss, Uthred, Oban, Larannyde, Malweg, Behathmus.