A Fortress of Grey Ice (Book 2)

by J. V. Jones

  Effie could only blink at him. She had never known her grandfather and knew next to nothing about him. The River Wars were nearly fifty years in the past; most of the men who’d fought in them were dead.

  “Shann was lamed as he held the center. A Dhoone lance unhorsed him, and his foot became caught in his mount’s trappings as he fell. The beast panicked and trampled his free leg. I don’t believe Shann felt the ankle break, though we all heard the cracking of the bone. The battle frenzy was upon him, and he fought his way back onto the stallion and held that line until sundown. It took three of us to pull him from his horse. His foot and ankle were swollen like water bladders, and we had to saw off his boot. His toes were as black as plums, and the bone had shattered into so many pieces that the surgeon had to keep the wound poulticed for nine days. Every night Corrie Moon would remove the poultice, and there, embedded in the moss, would be a dozen tiny slivers of bone.”

  Effie hardly dared to move, less she distract the Orrlsman from his tale. She had never heard tell of her grandfather being a hero—Da never bragged about his kin. Da hardly talked at all. And then there were the interesting details of the wound. She wondered what Laida Moon’s father had spread on the moss to draw out the bone fragments. Mad Binny said honey would draw out splinters, and purified meat jelly seasoned heavily with salt. If Effie closed her eyes she could almost see the splinters oozing out.

  “Well, pour me some more ale, lass. In Orrl, we knew to keep our bards’ throats oiled.”

  Shamed by her lack of manners, Effie hastened to do his bidding.

  Clewis Reed drank deep a second time, yet the strong brew did not relax him, and his back remained stiff as he spoke. “Shann was carried home after nine days, and though I never saw him again I heard tell of him from time to time. He learned to walk with a stick, and by all accounts could ride well enough to be useful in the training of hammermen. He took up wood-working, fathered a son, and died a few years later in his sleep. Not a bad life. He never took to the field again, yet that hardly mattered after Shaking Bridge.

  “Blackhail and Orrl won victory over Dhoone that day, and you’ll not find a man in the clanholds who won’t give Shann Sevrance his due. Without him Dhoone would have routed us. They were so close to the bridge they could see the splinters on the rail. Yet Shann fought them like a man possessed, I know because I watched him with my own two eyes. It was cold that day, yet the air around him rippled. It was like watching a man underwater. The distortion, as if you were seeing everything he did a moment after he did it.”

  The Orrlsman halted in his telling to look at Effie full on. His eyes had the washed-out color of a man in his sixties, yet his gaze had a force that pinned you. A marksman’s gaze. “Your grandfather turned berserker that day at Shaking Bridge. He fought like a Stone God, unseating Dhoonesmen, smashing the weapons from their hands. All you had to do to make a kill was fight in his wake, for the men he matched hammers with were left dazed and bleeding. I was fourteen, a self-anointed swordsman for the day. I’d seen so little of battle until then that I thought that what Shann did . . . what he became was normal. Time has taught me otherwise.”

  Effie had to look away. For no good reason she felt guilty, as if Clewis Reed had caught her in a deception. To distract herself she studied his hands. Thick bowman’s calluses had misshapen all the fingers of his drawing hand, and his knuckles were blotched with liver spots.

  “Shann’s sister was with him, that morning in the tent. Breeda, a plain lass, but devoted to her brother. We were waiting outside for him. We were a small company, all Orrlsmen—none of us had made white-winter warrior yet and we were divvied up at the Hail Lord’s pleasure. When Shann and Breeda came out, Breeda kissed him full on the lips and wished him well. I’ve remembered that kiss for over forty years, yet to this day I hardly know why.”

  Effie shifted uncomfortably. Outside, the rain had turned heavy, and it drummed against the canvas roof. The tent flap hadn’t been secured, and the curled edges of the canvas began to funnel water into the bed of the wagon. Effie turned up the wick on the safe-lamp—Druss wouldn’t be pleased about that at all—and heard herself ask, “What was Breeda’s lore?”

  Clewis leant forward to adjust the tent flap, so he wasn’t looking at her as he said, “I can’t say as I remember. As far as I know, all you Sevrances are bears.”

  How do grown-ups do it? she wondered. Lie so badly and get away with it? He had led her this far, hinting at things she could hardly imagine, and now he was leaving her stranded. Well, she wouldn’t let him. Grabbing hold of her lore, she held it out toward him. “Did she wear a stone like this?”

  The Orrlsman breathed deeply, and after a time nodded. “Aye, she may have done.”

  Effie let the stone drop against her breastbone. She had won an admission from him, but she regretted her tactics. She could see from the faint drawing-in of his long dignified face that she had overstepped herself. Here was a subject to be fished for not hunted. He stood.

  “I’ll be off to check on the ponies.”

  She dropped her head in something like a nod, and then listened as he left. Confused guilt made her quick to snuff the lamp.

  “Effie Sevrance.”

  She looked up, and there was Clewis Reed again at the tent flap, peering in, returned after less than a minute. His expression was somber and resigned.

  “There’s one last thing you should know about your grandfather. Shann took to the field that day a young man, his warrior’s oath new-spoken, his shoulders so thick with muscle that his plate had to be held on with horse straps. By first light next morning he was someone else. His muscles were gone. Burned up. His skin rested loose on his face and neck, and his fingers were curled like an old man’s. He’d aged twenty years. I’ve never seen the like before. It was as if the battle at Shaking Bridge had consumed him.”

  Sorcery. There it was, the unspoken word between them. Effie understood his reticence now. Clansmen could not—would not—talk of such things out loud. Clewis was telling her in his roundabout way that Shann Sevrance had traded his youth for skill in battle. Only telling wasn’t the right word for it. Warning was a better one. Questions jumped into her throat, but she closed her lips to stop them coming out. Clewis Reed would not be hunted. Instead, she busied herself with the lamp, scraping hot soot from the vents with her thumbnail, and waited.

  She felt the Orrlsman hesitate, heard him clear his throat. “The old stories, they need passing on. Time may come when we need them, and how will we survive if we’ve forgotten how to fight?”

  He left her then, carefully sealing the tent flap behind him, shutting out the rain and the light.

  Effie pushed the lamp away, and set her bottom on the warm spot it had created. Her thumbnail was black and gummy, and for a brief moment she wished she was back at the roundhouse so she could go running to Letty Shank and Florrie Horn and tell them her thumb was gangrenous and would soon be falling off. The thought of their screams made her smile for a bit, but it wasn’t enough to make her forget about Clewis Reed.

  Why tell me? That was the question she wanted to ask him.

  Her hand found her lore and weighed it. Hauling stones, that’s what it felt like to wear it. Both she and Breeda Sevrance had hauled stones. It should have made her feel better to learn she wasn’t the only one to bear the stone lore, but it didn’t. Breeda had been strange—that was something else Clewis Reed had managed to convey without actually coming out and saying it—and that meant she, Effie Sevrance, was strange as well. She didn’t want to be strange. She wanted to be like Letty Shank and Florrie Horn, pretty and careless and afraid of normal things like mice and gangrenous fingers.

  That made her snort and come to her senses. She didn’t really want to be afraid of gangrenous fingers. It was just . . . the weight of everything, that was all. Longhead once said that the trouble with carrying stones was they never got any lighter, just heavier and heavier the longer you carried one. He should know—he’d spent forty yea
rs hauling stones around the roundhouse for repairs. Today Effie knew what he meant. Her lore had just got heavier. Somehow the weight of Clewis Reed’s story was now resting upon it.

  Well, she wasn’t going to think about it. Standing, she began to tidy the bed of the wagon. Her chicken crate and sleeping pallet were shoved noisily to the side, and the lamp was set to cool on its bale hook. She slid the slate into place between the lidded baskets, and then began sopping up the puddle of rainwater that had collected below the tent flap. As she leant out of the wagon to wring the rag, Druss Ganlow called to her.

  “Girl. You best not have spilled more ale.”

  He was standing by the back wheel, kicking a brake block into place. Rain had plastered his hair to his scalp, collapsing his normal baby fluff and revealing all the bald bits in between. His ale belly shuddered as he drove the cedar wedge into the mud. “I’ll tell you now, if you’ve wet one of those baskets I’ll see you tanned for it.”

  “It’s nothing. Just a few drops of rainwater, that’s all.”

  Druss huffed at her. “You best get your arse down here. We’re setting to stay the night and I need to check the lode.”

  Effie grabbed her cloak. She’d come to realize that Druss Ganlow was one of those men who looked soft on the outside but was all hard stuff within. And he lied. He’d lied to Raina about the trip to Dregg, and to Drey about Black Hole. As she passed him on the wagon step some contrary bit of wickedness made her ask, “Did Raina pay you to take me to Dregg?”

  He drew back his hand to show he was ready to smack her. “Let’s get this straight, girl. I took no coin for you. It was a widow’s favor, set between my ma and Raina. You should be grateful you got out of that roundhouse alive, not stirring up the piss in the pot. And I’ll tell you another thing. Once we get to Dregg: First word of this dogleg leaks to Raina, and I’ll haul you back to the Hailhold so fast Stanner Hawk won’t have time to fire the forge.”

  Effie frowned as Druss pushed past her to enter the wagon. “So we are going to get there, then?”

  She heard him growl as she ran away. Fear was a strange thing, she’d noticed. Your head could only hold so much of it at once, and there just wasn’t enough room left to be afraid of Druss’s threats.

  The rain had begun to ease, but she still had to pull up her hood to keep from getting soaked. Clewis Reed was nowhere to be seen, so Effie checked the driver’s seat to see if he’d taken his bow. The long, waxed-leather bow-sleeve lay as limp as a shed snakeskin on the boards. So he’d gone hunting, then. In the rain. Which was a bit strange, really, as everyone knew you couldn’t bag any game in a downpour. Still. I suppose he could shoot the ducks. Somehow she didn’t think he would, though. Harlequins were berserkers, he’d said so. They’d only carry on swimming if they were shot.

  Not wanting to move far from the wagon, Effie went to see the ponies. The hitch was still in place, though the traces had been loosened to allow the pair to feed, and both animals were busy cropping the new green oats. They lifted their heads in interest when she approached, and let her scratch behind their ears and try to guess their names. Bacon and Eggs. Hammer and Nail.

  Just as she decided upon Killer and Outlaw, Clewis Reed came running from the trees. The tall Orrlsman was holding his six-foot longbow aloft like a spear, and moving without a sound. He spotted Effie straightaway, and put a hand to his lips to silence her.

  “Tighten the traces,” he ordered, as he neared the wagon. He was breathing hard, and his hand went briefly to his heart. Sliding an arrow from his bow case he turned to face the trees. “Where’s Druss?”

  “Inside the wagon,” Effie whispered, stretching over Killer’s haunch to tighten his waist cinch. Clewis Reed had to be an old man—he’d fought in the River Wars—yet he didn’t move like one. And he didn’t panic, either. Not taking his gaze from the trees, the Orrlsman issued a high-pitched whistle, managing to sound just like a grouse marking its territory. Druss emerged from the wagon immediately. His face was red with exertion, but his eyes were sharp with comprehension, and he’d drawn his city-made longknife. His gaze followed Clewis’s to the trees, but there was nothing to be seen except rain-weighted boughs of hemlock, too heavy to move in the wind.

  When he turned back to the wagon and saw Effie, his expression hardened. “You. Inside,” he hissed, kicking the brake block clear of the wheel.

  Feeling the final buckle snap into place beneath her fingers, Effie moved clear of the ponies. Druss was already mounting the driver’s seat, the reins pulled taut in his fist. “What did you see?” he asked Clewis.

  The Orrlsman held his position at the rear of the wagon, his green-antler bow part-drawn, an iron-headed arrow trained upon the trees. “City men. Trappers like as not, caught in the clanholds by the thaw. Had some fine horses, though, for skin men. Swords, too.”

  Druss clicked the ponies to alertness and began guiding them through the delicate half-turn needed to steer clear of the riverbank. Effie got the feeling that both men had gone through this before. There was urgency without alarm; a mutual understanding that one man’s job was to move the wagon—the other’s to protect it.

  As she raced to catch up with the back of the wagon, she heard Druss ask, “How many?”

  “Five. Quarter-league downstream.”

  “Have they spotted us?”

  “Only the gods know that.”

  Effie leapt onto the step just as the wagon turned along the path. Clewis was sidestepping with his bow, losing distance to the wagon as he covered its retreat. Wagging his head at Effie, he encouraged her to move inside the canvas, leaving the step clear for him. She would have liked to stay put, but knew better than to ignore a clansman, and pushed forward into the dim interior. The wagon was picking up speed, and the load creaked and shifted, but Effie was more interested in watching Clewis Reed mount the step. He had to run to match the wagon’s pace, but even then he didn’t relax his part-draw until the moment before he jumped. Swiftly, with his back turned to Effie, he fastened a guide rope around his waist, anchoring his torso to the wagon. Within seconds he had his bow back at part-draw, and his gaze trained once more on the receding tree line.

  Effie observed him through the canvas flap. His fine silvery hair was floating on the breeze, revealing the flesh at the back of his neck. Engorged veins had turned the skin gray. He must have sensed her attention for he turned toward her briefly and said, “Sit down, girl. Nothing to see but an old man with a bent stick.”

  Reluctantly she moved back. The wagon was traveling over a rocky path, and the wooden ribs began to sway wildly from side to side. The lamp clattered noisily against the bale hook, and the chicken crate she normally sat on kept sliding backward and forward like something not battened down on a boat. It made her feel a bit sick. Crouching in the corner, she tried to settle the rolling in her belly.

  Minutes passed and there was still no sign of pursuit. Effie thought it strange that clansmen in their own territory had reason to fear city men, but then she knew little about the border clans. Perhaps Bannen was more dangerous than Blackhail.

  Suddenly, she heard Druss Whoa! the ponies, and the entire wagon lurched massively to the left. Effie was thrown forward as the ponies pulled to a halt. Leather whined, then snapped. One of the lidded baskets broke free from its mooring and fell with a heavy thud by Effie’s head.

  “Are you in one piece back there?” came Clewis Reed’s voice through the canvas.

  Effie groaned an affirmation. She was lying face down on the bed of the wagon and her left ear was on fire.

  “Standing water on the road,” he said. “Nothing more. We’ll be taking a turn for the trees now anyway. I’d say we’ve seen the last of the trappers.” He shouted ahead to Druss, and the wagon jerked into motion once more.

  Effie raised a hand to her ear and winced. The basket had clipped her as it fell, and her earlobe felt strange and swollen. As she lifted her head from the floor she noticed a flickering yellow light on the canvas. Blinking slow
ly, she tried to work out its source. It was beautiful, warm as sunshine. Magical in its brilliance. Perhaps she’d been knocked out and this was a dream. Only ears didn’t throb in dreams, she was pretty sure of that. Turning her head slowly she checked to see if the canvas flap was gaping, letting in light.

  That was when she saw it. The lidded basket had burst open, and five rods of metal had slid out.

  Gold.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  A Surlord’s Progress

  “We can reach the clanholds in twenty-four days, weather permitting. A good scout can Whalve that.”

  “Not at this time of year, with the floods.” Penthero Iss halted in his progress of Spire Vanis’s northern wall to look Marafice Eye in the face. The Protector General of Spire Vanis was clothed in the red leather cloak of his office, with the great lead killhound broach at his throat, and his black iron birdhelm crooked in his left arm. His one small eye was squinting against the whiteness of the morning mist and the strange disembodied rays of sunlight that shot through it like enemy fire. Marafice Eye ill liked being contradicted, but they were alone here, upon the limestone, and the Knife was learning to school his responses. Any man who sought to be Surlord had to choose his battles carefully.

  Iss watched him drop his shoulders with an effort. “The darkcloaks I sent out at Atonement should be back any day now. I’ll have better intelligence then.”

  The word “I” sounded a warning to Iss. It was a tug on the reins of power. Marafice Eye was demonstrating the range of his influence, now grown diverse enough to command companies of notoriously volatile darkcloaks and gather intelligence from sources far beyond the city. But not far enough. With the minutest stretching of his lips, Iss turned smartly on his heels and continued his progress, leaving the Knife no choice but to follow him. Later he will see just how much farther a surlord must reach.

  The Almsgate progress had begun before dawn. From high atop the northern wall it was possible to look out upon the vast tent city erected to accommodate Spire Vanis’s ever-growing army. A ragged patchwork of hide and canvas tents spread wide and unlovely across the Vale of Spires below, turning furrowed fields to lakes of mud and crushing the first new grasses of spring. The stench of horse manure, unwashed bodies and woodsmoke rose like marsh gas from the encampment, and there was at least one grangelord in the progress who held a scented pomander to his nose to void the stink. The progress had been requested by Marafice Eye so he might show his surlord the full breadth of the army he was massing. It had been intended as a small affair—ranking generals, masters-of-arms, and a select few grangelords who were not wholly unsympathetic to the Knife—but word had spread, as word was wont to do, and half the grangelords in the city had turned up.