A Fortress of Grey Ice (Book 2) (38 page)

The words brought tears to men’s eyes, for Robbie had somehow reminded them that Dhoone was the beloved second son of the gods.

The visiting clansmen chanted along with Robbie’s men, and Bram wondered how many would return to Skinner at Gnash. Jordie Sarson would not, for his gaze seldom left Robbie and there was a light of devotion within it. The bald and big-knuckled spearman Roy Cox, known as Spineback, also looked as if he might succumb to mutiny, for there was a troubled look on his thin, bony face and his gaze traveled around the tower chamber as if assessing it as a potential home.

Mauger and Berold also looked troubled, but Bram did not think they would entertain the thought of switching sides. Loyalty and honor ran too deep within them, and just as they were cautious of Robbie’s courtesy, they were cautious of his well-spoken words as well.

Mauger broke the silence by asking, “Have you any message to send to my chief?”

Robbie reached behind his neck to handle his braids. Bram doubted he was unaware of the figure he cut, the length of muscle in his arm and shoulders, the fine long fingers, unbitten by any ax. “I have no message for Skinner. Any man who would set clansman against clansman is not worthy of my respect. I would speak only to those who follow him. And I would tell them this: All are welcome here as brothers. What has been done and said in the past is forgotten. Join me, and we’ll return in force to our clanhold and reclaim Dhoone.”

Mauger nodded brusquely and quickly, as if wary of the effect of Robbie’s words on his four companions. “A fine speech, but I’ll not do your campaigning for you, Rab Cormac. If you have no message for our chief, then you have none for us.” He turned to his companions. “Come, men. We need to cross the Milk afore moonset.” Mauger bowed his head in farewell to Robbie and Duglas Oger, and then crossed the chamber. Berold and the three others followed him, but not before Robbie had made eye contact with Jordie Sarson and Roy Cox.

Only when those two men had turned away from him did Robbie allow the anger to show on his face. He had ill-liked being called Rab Cormac. Bram had once witnessed him beating Jesiah Shamble bloody when the simple-minded luntman had forgotten Robbie’s new name and called him by the old one instead. No one had dared name Robbie a Cormac since, and no one but Duglas Oger ever called him Rab. Yet it was clear from Mauger’s remark that they were calling him both at Gnash.

Bram Cormac slipped out of the tower unnoticed. He had no wish to witness his brother’s anger over the name their father had given them.

The mist had risen to man-height on the riverbank, and there was a deep chill to it that penetrated every layer of Bram’s clothing and then lay wetly against his skin. Hunching his shoulders, he made his way toward the mossy bank where Old Mother kept a tent and fire. She would not sleep or take meals in the broken tower, and would only enter it at Robbie’s command.

The smell of woodsmoke guided him through the mist. The land east of the Milkhouse was wild and heavily forested, and Guy Morloch said that if a man built a hunt lodge among the trees and left it unattended for a year he’d never be able to find it again. The forest would destroy it. Castlemilk’s farmland and grazes were to the north and west, leaving the land that bordered Bludd-sworn Frees free to create a thick and impenetrable barrier to keep enemies at bay. Even here, only a league west of the Milkhouse, the forest claimed every space it could, and willows and bog oak sent bare limbs out across the river as if they could claim the very water itself.

Old Mother was sitting on a tree stump by a green-log fire, warming sotted oats in an iron pot helm and chewing on a stalk of rue. Her only greeting was, “Does Robbie call me?”

Bram wondered if she knew his name. Her teeth were yellow from the rue, and she smelled unpleasant, like river water trapped too long in a hole. “Robbie said to let you know that Mauger and others from Gnash are here. He thought you might want to greet them before they leave. They’re out by the horse tent. I’ll take you to them if you want.” Bram didn’t truly believe the offer, made in courtesy, still held, but Robbie had not gainsaid it so he decided it was worth the risk.

“Mauger was a colicky baby,” Old Mother said, rising stiffly. “Bald as a vulture that first year and screaming up a storm every night.”

Bram couldn’t think of anything to say to that so he nodded. Old Mother was strange, but he had come to understand that she knew things that others did not. Mostly it was tales about how grown clansmen were when they’d been babes and the scrapes they’d got into as boys, but sometimes she said things that made you think. The day that Robbie had proposed moving from the Milkhouse to the broken tower, she’d been dead set against it, and had flatly refused to sleep there. “Sull stones, Sull bones,” she had murmured, shaking her large, fleshy head. “The smell of it will draw them like flies.”

Bram found he didn’t like to think about who
they
were, but there was something in the words that excited him. Every clansman knew that the land between the Bitter Hills and the Copper Hills had once belonged to the Sull, but no one spoke of it. It was a mystery. If the Sull were the fierce and death-stalking warriors everyone held them to be, then how had the settling clansmen managed to best them? Bram frowned. Withy and Wellhouse kept the histories: one day he’d travel to both roundhouses and discover the answer for himself.

Holding his arm out for Old Mother to take he guided her back along the bank. For no discernible reason the mist had begun to fail, and Bram found he could see through the retreating wisps. Ahead, the Sull tower sat strange and unlovely upon the riverbank like a broken tooth. At its highest point only four storeys remained, at its lowest less than one.

Out of the corner of his eye Bram spotted the five visiting Dhoonesmen grouped in a circle around their horses, engaged in last-minute preparations for the ford across the river. The horses were irritable, and would not stand easy while their riders greased their flanks against the cold water. The warriors should have stayed overnight and rested them, but Bram knew Mauger was eager to get away. He had seen and heard for himself how seductive Robbie Dhoone could be, and he feared to test the loyalty of his men.

Mauger was tightening his mount’s girth when he saw Bram and Old Mother approach. His smile was genuine upon recognizing the old woman, but there were signs of weariness around his eyes. “So it’s true, Old Mother. You have left us . . . and now we must fight alone.” He bent to lay a kiss on her forehead, and then seemed to force himself to speak lightly. “In truth, I’m glad that you and that ugly mule of yours are still alive.”

Old Mother accepted the kiss as her due, with her arms folded over the great barrel that was her chest and her mouth pressed into a line. She showed so little emotion that Bram wondered why she had come. Then she said, “He’ll use Skinner. He canna help it, it’s just the way he is.”

Mauger’s gaze flicked to his companions, checking that he and Old Mother could not be overheard. “How will he use him?”

It was telling that no one mentioned Robbie by name.

Old Mother wagged her head. “Ride on his back, that’s how. Have Skinner for a workhorse, and himself for its master. He always was a canny child, quick to get others to do his bidding. Year of the long drought he had Duglas and his crew dam the Fly. Stayed away all day practicing with his ax, then came and took the credit when it was done.”

Mauger frowned. He did not look comfortable with Old Mother’s ramblings. “If you cannot say anything clearer, Old Mother, then best speak naught at all.” He thrust a foot into a stirrup and hefted his bulk over his stallion’s back. His companions did likewise, and began trotting close to hear what Old Mother had to say.

“Be careful you and Skinner don’t fight his fights for him, Mauger Loy. Else I’ll be laying heather on your cairn afore we’re done.”

Bram bowed his head. He wished he had not brought her, for she had picked the worst possible moment to lay a doom upon Mauger—when his brother and three companions could hear.

Mauger breathed hard, his bronzed and ax-dented breast-plate rising along with his chest. With a short rein he turned his horse. “Brother. Men. West to Gnash!” Kicking spurs into horsemeat, he forced a starting gallop from his stallion and led his party west along the Milk.

Bram watched him disappear into the swirling, unsettled mist.
Brother
, he had said again, and for the second time that evening Bram felt something inside him freeze at the word.
Brother
. And then, quite suddenly, he understood. It had been over a year since Robbie had said that word to him.

Bram blinked. At his side he was aware of Old Mother watching him, her arms still folded across her chest. An anger that surprised him made him say, “You didn’t have to do that to Mauger. He’s a good man.”

“So you’d have him go unwarned?” asked Old Mother placidly, not rising to his anger.

She had answered him with his own argument, but Bram was unwilling to let go of his anger. He didn’t want to think why. “Why did you have to come to us? Why not stay with Skinner at Gnash?”

“You know the answer to that, lad,” she replied, unperturbed. Something in her voice made Bram turn to look at her. Her face was bland and old-womanly, but her eyes were the purest Dhoone blue he had ever seen, with the violet ring around the irises that revealed a high concentration of Thistle Blood. Only direct descendants of kings had those eyes.

“I’ve never known Robbie not to win,” she said.

NINETEEN

City on the Edge of an Abyss

R
aif awoke to the sensation of cold water dripping upon his face. He opened his eyes, and it took a moment for him to understand that a man was standing above him, slowly wringing drops of water from a damp and twisted rag. The man smiled pleasantly, displaying little demon teeth in a brown and fleshy face. Yustaffa.

“Morning, Archer Boy,” he said gaily, wringing more drops from the rag. “You failed the test, you know. If you were a prince good and true you’d wake after the first drop.” With an elaborate sigh, he twisted the rag with all his might, sending a torrent of freezing water over Raif’s face. “Let’s hope you do better with the second test of the day.”

Raif sat up, furiously shaking his head. The cliff cave was dark and freezing, and the portion that opened to the sky showed a world still black as night. “It’s not dawn yet. Go away.”

Yustaffa shuddered theatrically. “Orders! And from a master archer, no less. I quake in fear, I really do.”

“I’m a bowman, not an archer.” Raif didn’t know why he said this, but the fat man was beginning to annoy him. Raif’s shirt was soaking, and he was cold and tired, and his bandaged finger was throbbing. The missing tip and knuckle still felt as if they were there, and the sight of the digit’s shortness, the vacant air where flesh and bone should be, made him feel like he might be sick. With an effort he forced his mind elsewhere. Stretching his legs, he began working the stiffness from his limbs.

“Well,
bowman
,” Yustaffa said pointedly, looking for somewhere to sit. “Perhaps you’d like to tell me something about yourself, since we find ourselves with a few minutes alone.” Unable to find anywhere that was not naked rock, the fat man settled on shrugging off his beaver-fur collar, rolling it into a ball and sitting cross-legged upon it. A tiny sniff of discomfort let Raif know what he thought of his surroundings.

Raif wondered why he had come. Recalling his exchanges with Stillborn, he said, “I’ll trade you for information.”

Yustaffa raised an eyebrow. “My, you learn fast, for a clansman. And here was I thinking you’d be willing to trade for food.” The fat man pulled a soft package from his black beaver coat and laid it on the floor by his feet. With exaggerated delicacy he unfolded it with his fingertips, revealing squares of fresh-baked bannock, oatcakes wrapped in bacon, a wedge of crumbly white cheese, three heads of butter-braised leeks, and a tiny stoppered pot known in the clanholds as a tonicker because it held just enough malt to revive a man’s spirits without rendering him drunk.

“Clan food. Coarse, but strangely appealing.” Yustaffa bit the head off a leek. “Now, where were we? Yes, information. How about we start with your name and clan?”

Raif tried not to look at the food. He wouldn’t allow Yustaffa the satisfaction of knowing how much he wanted it. “You know my clan. And my name’s no secret—it’s Raif.”

Yustaffa nodded as he poured a measure of malt into the hollow stopper. “Orrlsman, yes. Yet you haven’t that look about you.” He downed the malt and then looked Raif directly in the eye. “As long as you shoot like one I suppose it doesn’t really matter either way.”

Raif forced himself to return the fat man’s gaze steadily. “I do.”

Yustaffa bowed his head in acknowledgment of Raif’s confidence. He seemed pleased, and raised the remaining dram of malt in toast. “To Raif. May I share in the excitement of your life, but never the danger.” Again, the fat man did his trick of throwing the malt down his throat and then snapping his gaze back to Raif. “You know in my country the word
raif
means stranger?”

A drop of cold water slid down Raif’s spine. He willed himself not to react, but Yustaffa was quick and saw something in Raif’s face that made him smile.

Cheek fat pushed against Yustaffa’s eyes. “I see you haven’t heard of the legend of
Azziah riin Raif
, the Stranger from the South who spent his life searching for heaven only to find the Gates to Hell instead? A sad tale with a sad end, but then most tales from my country are like that. We’re a strange race, we Mangali—we’d rather weep than laugh.”

Raif dropped his gaze to the food; he found he could look at it now without desire. For seventeen years he had owned his name, and somewhere in the back of his mind he had always known it wasn’t clan: no one but himself was called it. Still . . .
Stranger from the South
. It made no sense, and Raif cautioned himself to be wary of what the fat man said. Maimed Men did not make good friends.