A Fortress of Grey Ice (Book 2)

by J. V. Jones

  Suddenly Stillborn exploded into motion, kicking the quintain from him with all his might. The suspension chain creaked as the armored dummy swung away, halted for the briefest instant, and then came barreling back. Instead of sidestepping the dummy’s swing, Stillborn spread his weight and stepped forward to meet it. Wrapping the haft of the sword in an overlapping two-handed grip, he raised its point to the dummy’s gut and ran the quintain through. The dummy’s forward momentum brought it right up the sword’s blade to the cross-hilt, and its spikes squealed against the tempered steel as it came to a grinding halt. Stillborn didn’t blink. In one easy movement he slid the blade free, barely causing the quintain to stir. Globs of dark, wet sand oozed from entrance and exit holes.

  Turning to Raif, Stillborn executed a self-satisfied bow. “Ugly and fast. Introducing a man’s intestines to his spine is the best way invented to win a fight.”

  Raif ran his thumb over the chewed-up tip of his borrowed sword. “Not the heart?”

  Stillborn gave him a quick look. “No. Path to the heart’s guarded by the ribs and the heaviest armor. The belly’s vulnerable. There’s skin—” he punched his gut, making it ripple “—and fat and precious little else. Few men have the money or patience for full plate. Most would rather bend at the waist. Oh, they cover their bellies with hard leather and ring mail and enough hinged pieces to tile a roof. But that’s nothing to a longsword. One good thrust below the ribs and you’re done.” Stillborn smiled lovingly at the Forsworn sword and then sheathed it.

  Shadows were deepening in the cliff cave with the approach of night. The sunset had turned bloody and the granite walls sparkled with flecks of red garnet. The chamber was long and low, its ceiling mined to a height uncomfortably low to most men. Only the fight circle and the cave’s entrance were vaulted. Outside, in the vast space where the continent split, the wind piped and wailed. Stillborn called it Rift Music, and had lit a fire against it, like a woodsman warding against wolves. He tended the fire now, feeding goat chips and closed fir cones to the flames. The fuel hissed and cracked, competing with the wind.

  Stillborn settled down against the cave wall, took a piece of brown bun from his pack and began eating it. In between crushing nuts with his teeth, he said, “It’s time we took you raiding. Traggis has his nose set on you. Watches you like a flea in his curlies, and unless you’re doing something useful he’ll set you a bastard’s task instead. You’re new here, and so far you’ve done naught but split a hog’s heart in two—and cause a brother’s death. Some are saying you’re bad luck. And bad luck best go to the Rift.”

  Raif ran a hand through his hair. He had no argument to counter Stillborn’s words, so instead he said, “Take me raiding, then.”

  Stillborn nodded as if Raif had spoken wisely. Pushing the last of the brown bun in his mouth, he asked, “Have you a head for heights?”

  Raif thought about crossing the Ranges, about the heart-stopping altitude of Trappers’ Pass. “I manage,” he said.

  “Good.” Stillborn stood. The seam of flesh that ran down the center of his face was black with shadows and grizzled hair. “I’ll see you at dawn on the Rim. Best if you stay here tonight. There’s not much fuel for the fire—so burn sparingly. And if it’s food you’re wanting you’ll have to fend for yourself. Just be sure to keep your distance from the Mole.”

  Raif watched him collect his pack and climb the rough-hewn steps to the cave entrance. Just before he disappeared from sight, he waved a hand toward the quintain. “And a few extra rounds with Yelma wouldn’t hurt.”

  Raif raised his damaged sword in salute. He had been with the Maimed Men for nine days now, yet he wasn’t any closer to understanding them. Mostly Stillborn kept him in the background, making him sleep in the lower tiers of the city and spend his days in the caved-in eastern quarter, out of sight and out of mind of Traggis Mole. So far Stillborn had kept him busy caring for his equipment: sanding armor, oiling steel, repairing tack. Sometimes he shared his food. Sometimes not. Always they would spend the sunset hours training. Raif’s deficiencies with a sword made Stillborn nervous.

  Idly, Raif crossed over to the quintain and set it swinging. The missing portion of his finger was aching tonight, and he grimaced as his hands closed around the haft of the sword. If he tired himself out perhaps he would sleep.

  The cave darkened as he fought the quintain. Strike followed strike, and after a time he found his rhythm and it became easy to thrust his sword between the spikes. There was a numbness to the combat he welcomed. The quintain had no heart. It made things simple. Purer. This is how other men fight. Encouraged, Raif began a new barrage of sword thrusts, tracking the quintain as it swung around the fight circle. He discovered that Stillborn was right. There was a lot to be said for stepping into your opponent’s strike. It turned fear into action, met aggression with aggression. It was not what Shor Gormalin had taught . . . but then, Shor Gormalin had never been a Maimed Man.

  Time passed and the Rift Music rose from the divide. Cold winds skirled around the cave but Raif barely felt them. Within her triple coat of armor, Yelma sagged. She was losing sand from a dozen holes and her ring mail looked as if it had been chewed by dogs. Raif abandoned her tattered belly, and began work on her throat. Tomorrow he would have to stitch and restuff her, but for now it felt good to imagine the spot where the great red arteries rose toward her brain. Imagine and destroy them.

  Just as he was finishing her off, a high-pitched cough echoed from the cave entrance. Raif slackened his pace, sticking out his sword to slow Yelma.

  “Don’t stop on my account, Twelve Kill,” came Yustaffa’s piping voice. “I can’t speak for anyone else, but personally I never pass up the chance to watch a man beat a bag of sand.”

  Raif halted, and stilled Yelma. His breaths were coming hard. Sweat plinked from the tip of his nose.

  “What? No welcome. And here I came all this way to invite you to a little supper. I’ve quails’ eggs, you know. But I see you have no appetite for them. Well, never let it be said that Yustaffa the Dancer stays where he’s not wanted. Two’s company and all that. You and the dummy make a lovely couple, by the way.”

  Raif heard silk rustle and the pad of soft-shoed feet. He took a breath. “Wait.” The feet ceased padding. “I’ll come with you.”

  Yustaffa resumed climbing the stair. “Well, hurry up, then. I’m passing fond of quails’ eggs and I can’t guarantee there’ll be any left unless you’re there when I divvy them up.”

  Raif grabbed his Orrl cloak from the ledge and followed Yustaffa from the cave.

  The night air stung his skin. It was black in the Rift after sundown, the stars shedding the barest memory of light. Smoke drifted in gray patches, forming shadow terraces that lay above the real ones like ghosts. The Rift was quiet now, the wind strangely becalmed, the stench of underworld metals rising in its place.

  Yustaffa held a mica lamp on a stick for illumination and moved swiftly through the city, climbing stairs with ease and hoisting his considerable weight one-handed up rope ladders. Raif struggled to keep up.

  Maimed Men were gathering in small groups, cooking and drinking around bonfires, fortifying themselves for the night’s business. Many fell silent and stared as he passed, and he could feel the accusations in their eyes. He wanted to shout at them I did not kill Tanjo Ten Arrow, but somehow it didn’t feel like the truth. Less than ten days in a foreign city and already they knew what he was.

  When they reached the western edge of the highest terrace, Yustaffa slipped into a gap in the rock wall. The stench of sulfur assaulted Raif’s senses as he followed the fat man through. Steam curled forward to meet him, and it took some time to adjust to the dimness and the haze. A stone grotto cratered with hot springs and lit by green-burning lanterns lay before him. The rock floor was wildly uneven, creating ridges and crevices and stone chimneys that rose like ancient, deformed oaks to the roof. Men and women languished naked in small pools, their deformities and missing limbs cloaked by
the water and the steam. No one spoke. Water gurgled and sloshed. After the cold dryness of the Rift, Raif found it difficult to breathe.

  “This way.” Yustaffa beckoned him to a plank gangway that led over the rock floor and between the pools.

  As they moved deeper into the cavern, the pools became fewer and more secluded as the rock floor warped to create half-walls and hollows and closed-off rooms. Yustaffa left the gangway and ducked beneath a low arch. “Here we are. My own private little steam bath. Strip off and take a dip. You’ve been hanging around with Stillborn far too long—picking up his habits and his fleas.”

  Raif glanced around the small chamber. A narrow ledge circling the pool was the only place to stand. Steam rising from the water made him drowsy, and for a brief instant he was reminded of the Listener’s ground, of the oolak he’d drunk there.

  Yustaffa shed his furs and silks and slipped naked into the bubbling water. Raif followed him, throwing his clothes against the wall, and sucking in his breath as the scalding liquid enveloped him. Almost immediately, all the aches and stings of sword fighting floated away. He found a ledge beneath the water and sat on it, tilting back his head against the rock.

  “Good, eh?” prompted Yustaffa, seeming pleased.

  Raif nodded. “Good.”

  Yustaffa reached out a fat, scalded arm and slid a package from his furs. “The quails’ eggs. I think we’ll have them cooked.” One by one he lowered the small, speckled eggs into the water, resting them deep below the surface.

  Raif plunged his head underwater, emerged, and then slicked back his wet hair. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so good. Now, he could sleep. Right here, buoyed by the water. Sleep and not dream of Tanjo Ten Arrow . . . or the bodies of the Forsworn. Stretching out his arms, he closed his eyes and let the hot water ease him.

  He must have drifted off for a moment, for when he opened his eyes again he saw Yustaffa was watching him. Steam had sprung the Maimed Man’s hair into tight curls.

  Yustaffa stirred the water. “I never finished telling you about Azziah riin Raif, the Stranger from the South, did I?” He looked at Raif for a moment, not waiting for a reply or expecting one, and then continued, turning the quails’ eggs as he spoke.

  “Azziah riin Raif came to the Mangali in the year of the Burning Tree. The gods had not sent rain for many seasons, and the frogs had dug themselves into the mud at the bottom of the dry lake. Scorpions tormented us, for they alone can live on dust. We were hungry when he came, yet the women took him in, for he was fair to them, tall and pale, with god-touched eyes. His feet were blistered and his back bore the mark of the whip. We told him he was a fool to come here for there was nothing but death and scorpions waiting in the sand. And he said, The scorpion’s kiss cannot kill me for my soul is already dead.

  “We Mangali know of such things, and the women wept for his soul. I search, he said. And we knew he searched for heaven and the loved ones he’d lost in a faraway war.

  “We gave him our best guide. Mehembo, He With Little Teeth. Mehembo was wise and knew all the best places where heaven might be. He took the stranger into the baking heat of the Glass Desert, into the darkness of the Cave of Bats, and up the sheer face of Goat Mountain. Years passed and Mehembo died of heat sickness, and still heaven wasn’t found.

  “That was when the stranger began to turn. He demanded another guide from us, a girl, Illalo. She of the Fair Voice. And when she failed to find heaven after one year, he wrapped his fingers around her neck and cried, Lead me there, Illalo, for I send you on your way. Illalo died by his hand and found heaven, but he could no longer follow where she led.

  “He left us after that. Years passed and in time his story returned to us. He’d headed north, across the Soft Lands and the mountains, farther than any man had ever trod. A siren called to him, they said, promising him the afterlife he’d earned. Eventually he came to a land that was as empty as the sky. Great gaps had opened up in the earth, and he knew he was close to the world’s end. The day finally came when he spied a lone mountain in the waste, and although he was weary beyond knowing he climbed it. Above him he saw a shining gate. All day he climbed toward it, his heart breaking with joy. He reached the gate at sunset, and he could hardly bear to look upon it, so golden it was in the failing light.

  “He put his hand upon the gate as the sun sank beneath the earth. I die and am glad, he said, as the gate began to swing. And in that moment the last rays of sunlight died and the gate grew blacker than the blackest night. He screamed but it was too late, and the Gates of Hell opened and sucked him in.”

  Raif shivered, rippling the water.

  Yustaffa smiled, showing little demon teeth. “As I said, a sad tale. They say it marked the beginning of the War of Blood and Shadows, but we Mangali don’t know about that. Quails’ eggs?”

  Raif woke before dawn, his hair stiff with mineral salts, his mouth gluey with the taste of eggs. The hot water from the springs had loosened the bandage he kept around his halved finger and he was forced to look at the livid stump as he rewound the cloth. After he and Yustaffa had eaten last night, Yustaffa had lent him the lamp to find his way back through the city. He had been so exhausted he’d fallen asleep in the fight circle, with Yelma floating above him like a bubble. The quintain creaked on her chain, moving with the wind, as he sat upright.

  He had not dreamed; that seemed like something to be thankful for. He stood and went in search of his pack.

  Tanjo Ten Arrow’s bow was wrapped in cloth beside Raif’s belongings. Stillborn had lent him a knife and a sword, but somehow they weren’t enough. They left him vulnerable. He needed the certainty of a bow.

  Raif splashed his face with water, scrubbed his teeth with sand, and braced the Sull recurve. The old man who had brought him arrows for the contest had let him keep them, and Raif rigged a makeshift bow case and quiver for his back. By the time he was done, the weak light of dawn filled the cave. A low mist washed over the rock floor, and he stirred it as he left.

  Outside all was quiet. A young boy with a stump where his left hand should have been was quietly moving from cave mouth to cave mouth, raiding the burnt-out fires for usable fuel. When he spied Raif he flattened his body against the Rift Wall and made the sign of the evil eye. Frowning, Raif continued the climb toward the Rim.

  The raid party was already assembling on the easternmost ledge of the city when he topped the stair. A ragged band of men, unmounted and in motley armor, stood stamping their feet against the cold. Raif recognized few of them. The rangy spearman in Glaive plate was one of Yustaffa’s cronies, and the little cragsman in the horsehair-crested helm got drunk with Stillborn every night. Neither man acknowledged him as he approached.

  “Raif. Over here, boy.” Stillborn stepped away from a huddle of men to beckon him over. “I brought you a sword to replace the one you damaged. Nice and quick, she is. Took the spleen from a Hailsman once.”

  Raif felt blood drain from his face. How could he have lived here ten days and avoided the fact these men killed clan? A moment must have passed while he controlled himself, for when his vision cleared he saw that all in the raid party were watching him. He stepped forward and took the sword from Stillborn’s hand. It was a single-edged footsword, hollow-bladed and light. Stillborn’s hazel eyes tracked him as he made the expected practice blows, cutting air to test the blade. Only when Raif had praised its quickness did the hazel eyes turn elsewhere.

  “Here. Swallow this.”

  Raif spun around to see the little cragsman holding out a leather flask. He took a mouthful and tasted the sweet black treacle of Rift-brewed mead. As he wiped his mouth clean, Stillborn gave the call to march out.

  The Rim ended abruptly in a tumble of collapsed rock, and Raif didn’t spot the path threading east through the rubble until the first man in the party stepped upon it. The way was treacherous, littered with slabs that rocked underfoot and mounds of loosely piled stone. A broken arch led to a ramp and soon they were climbing to t
he very edge of the abyss. Fragrant smoke drifted from the way ahead, and as the path turned sharply an old hag squatting by a fire came into view. Stillborn tossed her a carved trinket as he passed, and bade her pray for them. The hag cackled, revealing a mouth with no tongue, and threw the trinket on the fire.

  Raif tucked his head low and kept to the rear. Thick clouds blanketed the sky, and Raif could feel the air pressing down on him. South across the Rift the clanholds floated in a sea of blue mist.

  The leather flask was passed from hand to hand as they followed the path along the edge. The Maimed Men had lost all fear of the drop, and took pride in walking along the brink. One man, a big southerner with a bald head, struck up a dirge for them to march by. Raif couldn’t catch the sense of it, but at the end of every chorus the entire raid party echoed the words, Gods take my eyes before I go to the Rift.

  As the song continued Raif became aware of something, a quiet pulsing in his temples like the beginning of a headache. Ahead a lean-to had been rigged to a rocky outcropping and Raif saw a man leading out ponies: hill garons, with stout legs and short tails.

  “There’s no picking ponies for the new man,” Stillborn said, falling in with Raif as they approached the lean-to. “You’ll get what the others don’t want.”

  Raif counted the men in the raid party. Fifteen, including himself. He said, “Why stable the mounts here?”

  Stillborn tapped his nose knowingly. “Because this is where we cross the Rift.”

  A quarter-hour of activity followed as men chose mounts and hefted saddles from the lean-to. The stableman had a clubfoot and was slow about his business. He gave Raif an agitated mare with a scarred flank, and a saddle that was too small. As Raif buckled the pony’s belly strap, he saw an olive-skinned outlander detach himself from the raid party and approach the edge. Wind lifted the man’s black hair and billowed his wool cloak. He was lean and long-limbed and appeared whole. Others noticed the outlander’s movements and fell silent. One man touched the space below his hip where his portion of powdered guidestone had once hung. Clan.