by J. V. Jones
Slowly, the desire to hunt grew in him. It had been half a year since he’d last tracked game by night, and he found himself searching out targets. Things besides foxes lived here; small creatures with rapidly beating hearts. Mice. Voles. Nothing worth loosing an arrow for, yet he tracked them anyway. Something inside him needed to.
“Unless you plan on flinging that arrow at Linden Moodie, I’d slip it back in your pack.” It was Stillborn, riding abreast of him, and it took Raif a moment to understand what he meant.
There was an arrow in his fist, but Raif had no recollection of drawing it from his pack. Feeling foolish, he shoved it back in the bow case mounted on his saddle horn.
“Dark night,” Stillborn said. “Moodie’s taking us pretty close to the edge.”
Raif hadn’t noticed. He’d been looking north at the flat stretch of tundra, not south at the rim. Following Stillborn’s gaze he saw that the goat path had wound back toward the canyon, and they were descending once again. Addie called a slowdown when they hit the first patch of loose stone.
“Shall we?” Stillborn asked Raif, and they both dismounted.
Ahead, Moodie and the cragsman were exchanging words. Addie wanted to raise camp—the going was becoming too dangerous for night travel—but Moodie wouldn’t hear of it. Raif didn’t agree with Moodie’s urgency, but he understood it. Behind Moodie’s impatience lay fear of Traggis Mole.
In the end it was decided to continue at a slower pace on foot. Raif and Stillborn kept to the rear, walking side by side. Stillborn produced a silver flask from the tanned elkskin slung over his shoulder and took a swig. “You best be careful when we reach the mine,” he said. “You’re a Maimed Man now.”
So even Stillborn was giving him warnings. Raif found he had nothing to say to him, and they fell into silence.
Gradually the path began to wind down from the headland, and within an hour they were back against the canyon wall with the black drop below them. Loose rocks littered the way, and Raif spent much of his time watching his footing. He could feel the canyon’s updrafts on the underside of his chin, and fear kept him alert.
Most of the party had cleared the scree bank when the rocks began to slide. Raif felt a puff of air on his cheek and heard the deep thunder-rumble of grinding earth. The rocks mounded against the canyon wall jerked forward violently, and Raif found himself scrambling for footing amid rolling scree. Directly ahead, the packhorses bucked in terror. They were tethered in line and if one of them went over the drop, it would drag the others along with it.
Raif fought furiously against the momentum of the sliding rocks. A stone struck his spine with the force of a punch, knocking the wind from his lungs. Something pounded his knee, and suddenly he was struggling to stay upright. The pony’s halter reeled through his fingers, leaving him clutching air.
A thud sounded from behind as Stillborn was knocked from his feet. Raif thrust out his free hand toward him, but found nothing. Then the force of the slide yanked him down and around and suddenly Stillborn’s fingers poked hard against the center of Raif’s palm. Raif closed his fist, catching them.
Immediately Raif felt his entire body jerk forward as Stillborn went over the edge. Hot pain sent his vision flashing red and white as his arm wrenched against its socket. The slide was slowing, but the weight of Stillborn’s body sent Raif hurtling toward the edge. Desperate, he thrust his heels down into the scree, searching for a foothold. He kicked and kicked. And then his right toe felt a lip of rock that didn’t move.
As his arm was sucked over the edge, he dug his heel into the depression in the bedrock. He came to a wrenching halt. His jaw was clamped so tightly he could feel the pressure on the roots of his teeth. His arm was shaking violently, and the muscles in his side and shoulder were popped out and close to tearing. Below him he could just make out the top of Stillborn’s head. Swinging in the black.
“Help me up,” Stillborn cried.
Raif felt drunk on pain. He had only a few more seconds of this before they both went over. Unclenching his jaw took real effort. “Stillborn. I want my arrow back.”
A disbelieving croak came from below.
Raif’s right leg—the one that braced both their weights—began to tremble. Absurdly, he found himself filled with a madman’s calm. “The arrow—Divining Rod. Do you yield it?”
“I yield,” Stillborn screamed. “Now get me out of here.”
It was all pain and no calm after that. Linden Moodie and Addie Gunn scrambled over the unstable scree to help hoist Stillborn back onto the ledge. Raif was shaking uncontrollably by the time they finally hauled him to safety. Moodie left Raif where he’d fallen, and that seemed fine to Raif. The clouds had thinned and he could see the moon. When Stillborn had been helped across the scree Moodie came back for him.
He offered Raif his hand. “Come on, lad. You’d better get up.” His voice was gruff, but there was something in it that had not been there before. A kind of grudging respect. “You held onto that big bastard for dear life. It’s a wonder you didn’t split in two.”
“It feels like I have.” Raif tried for dignity as he came to his legs, but his knees were having none of it and he swayed like a drunken man. Moodie clamped his arm around him, and together they walked across the scree.
A makeshift camp had been raised on the ledge. Torches had been lit and a fire was burning, with meat hung above it. They had no tents; the Maimed Men simply formed a circle of bedrolls around the fire each night. The seal on a keg of mead had been broken, and the Maimed Men cheered and raised their drinking horns as Raif stumbled toward the camp.
Stillborn had already told the tale of the negotiation for the arrow, and somehow that raised Raif’s reputation with the Maimed Men. He had saved Stillborn—and struck a bargain to boot! A Rift Brother couldn’t hope for a better outcome. They welcomed him into the fire circle and thrust a horn filled with thick black mead into his hands. Dignity failed Raif again when he tried to drink it, and half of the fermented honey ended up running down the front of his tunic. His hands were shaking badly, and he couldn’t taste anything but rock dust.
He sat on a pile of horse blankets and concentrated on not passing out. Yustaffa had produced a stringboard from somewhere and was plucking at chords as he experimented with the opening lines of a new song. “The canyon was black and the night was chill, and when the rocks began to slide so did Twelve Kill.”
Raif didn’t think it sounded too bad at all—which was a sure sign he was no longer sane. Blinking, he held the horn on his lap. Addie came and slapped him on his shoulder, told him that even a cragsman could have done no better when it came to riding the rock slide. Others came and said things and went away. Time passed and the celebration went on, and the Maimed Men got roaring drunk.
Most of them. At some point Raif became aware that the outlander Thomas Argola had slid into place next to him. Things had quieted down by then, and men were dozing or eating, or gaming in small groups. Occasionally someone would propose a toast to Raif or Stillborn, and the Maimed Men would rouse themselves to grunt their support. The outlander waited until everyone’s attention had strayed from Raif before speaking.
“You know why the rocks slid?” he asked. Raif tentatively tested his neck muscles by a shake of the head. “They’re coming out. The Taken. Already some of the strongest have forced themselves through the cracks. Pressure is building . . . and something must give. Soon. The Endlords will send out one of their servants. Shatan Maer, the most powerful creature that ever lived. The Shatan alone have the strength to blast a hole in the Blindwall. And one stirs this night, I can feel it.”
Raif floated above his fear. He said, “Are you one of them? The Phage?”
“I have had dealings with them.”
It was not a direct answer, but Raif let it pass. He was still floating. “When will this happen?”
“I do not know.”
“And you don’t know where, either?”
“No. The place where the earth�
��s crust is thinnest.”
Raif heard himself make a sound like a hard laugh. “Why tell me, then?”
The outlander shifted his position so that he was looking straight at Raif. His left eye was full of blood. “Because you’re the one who can halt it.”
“Though a stronghold may fall and darkness ride through the gate/He will forsake.”
The outlander shook his head, puzzled at what Raif had said. For some reason this pleased Raif. It meant the Phage didn’t know everything. Clan had its sources too.
“So you can offer me no help,” he said, hearing the heat in his voice and realizing he was no longer floating. The outlander had brought him to ground.
A moment passed. Someone threw a pile of bird bones on the fire, and the outlander watched the black smoke rise. “Remember the bridge, how it is revealed?” Raif nodded, and the outlander continued speaking in his softly accented voice. “The bridge itself is crude? Yes. Most people who see it for the first time are disappointed. They make the mistake of assuming the secret lies in the bridge itself. It does not. It lies in the strip of space that connects the clanholds to the Rift. Build anything there and it will lapse into unseeing. That is the nature of the Old Ones’ power. Things constructed by their mages live on.
“The Want and the Rift are littered with their ruins. Some we can see, and some are concealed. When you search for the place where the Shatan Maer will emerge you must look hard, and then look again.”
Raif was suddenly weary. The muscles in his back and shoulder were aching, and it seemed as if the outlander had told him nothing useful at all, just laid another weight upon him. Sorcerers and holy men had a way of doing that to him, he’d noticed.
Massaging his shoulder, he said, “Why tell me about the Old Ones now? It’s the breach that needs finding, not some long-forgotten ruin.”
All around the camp men were making preparations to sleep. Torches were snuffed, ale dregs emptied from horns, and blankets bunched into pillows. Yustaffa began plucking a lullaby from his strings.
The outlander stood to leave. “The Old Ones were not that different from you and I. They knew terror. We send bodies to the Rift, seeking to block it. They built a city there, hoping to do the same. Look to their ruins to guide you to the place they most feared.”
Raif watched him cross the camp, and then laid down on his blanket and slept.
THIRTY-FOUR
At the Sign of the Blind Crow
Crope was hungry and his feet were sore. He’d tried to sell his boots for coin, but the shrill, big-breasted bidwife he’d approached had just pointed at his feet and laughed at him. “I’d have more chance selling milk to a dairymaid than selling boots the size of those.” Her sharp gaze had moved a fraction to the left. “But I’ll give you two coppers for the dog. I can have it sold to a pie house within the hour.”
Town Dog made into pie! It didn’t bear thinking about, and it very nearly made Crope never want to eat pie again. That was three days back, though, and right about now the prospect of any kind of pie made his mouth water so violently he had to swallow.
Trouble was, there was no foraging to be done in a city. You couldn’t steal from any of the street vendors, because the magistrate might catch and ’prison you. Any place where there were scraps to be had was violently defended by men and women who had declared that particular cranny their territory and were prepared to kill for it. Even Town Dog was having trouble with the cats. They were mean here. Skinny as squirrels and not a bit afraid of dogs.
Shuddering with feeling, Crope pulled the chicken cloak over his head and continued his circuit of Mask Fortress. A light drizzle had started, and he worried about his boots shrinking. It was difficult to set his mind to studying the fortress for a while, but he concentrated hard and by the time he’d passed the second gate he’d forgotten everything else.
The light surrounding the fortress was queer and silvery; there was rain but also sun. You could see a lot of details that weren’t normally revealed. For the first time Crope spied a guard station set three storeys above the gate. Last time he’d looked he’d just seen a stone grille and had assumed it was some kind of vent. But now, with the late afternoon sun striking the gate tower just so, he could see flashes of movement behind the grille. That meant that although the gate was secured and patrolled by red cloaks at ground level, someone above was on lookout.
It wasn’t good news. Days were passing and he still hadn’t found a way in.
Mask Fortress was zealously guarded. Every wagon was checked—some of them stripped down to the bare beds—every load of soft goods was spiked with spears, every barrel was tapped to confirm fullness, and every unknown applicant at the gate was subjected to vigorous examination. The lord who ruled here lived in fear.
Crope rested his weight on his birch staff for a moment. He had not imagined his journey to his lord could be so easily halted. He had carefully considered running through the gate when the portcullis was raised to admit wagons. The gate was patrolled by units of four men, one of whom stayed permanently in the guard station to control the movement of the portcullis. That meant three men would likely chase him. Three men with spears and swords. It was worrying and there were risks, but he reckoned he had a fair chance of making it past them. The trouble would come when the alarm was raised. And now, seeing that the gate was watched by a second station, that alarm would come earlier than he’d thought.
Slowly, methodically, Crope ran the movements through his head one more time . . . but nothing new occurred to him. He needed to gain entry without attracting the attention of the guards. Bitterbean would have said it was time for stealth.
Frowning, he headed west toward the pointy tower where his lord was being held. Rainwater sluicing from the fortress walls made the grease shine on the streets. Town Dog halted to drink from a puddle, and Crope paused until she was done. The streets grew quieter as they headed away from the gate. They passed a deserted courtyard ornamented with oversize statues of knights. Pigeons flocked under the knight’s stone skirts, sheltering from the rain. Town Dog was up for chasing them, but Crope called her to heel.
Something was happening to his chest. The closer he drew to the pointy tower, the harder his ribcage squeezed. He had come here every day since entering the city, trying to make contact with his lord.
The tower was pale, and so high that the upper storeys disappeared into the rainclouds. Its stonework smoked like frozen meat, as if it were high above the snowline on the mountain, not here at its base. Crope rubbed his palm on his buckskin pants before touching it. As his fingers neared the icy limestone he felt the tower’s pull, an attracting force like a magnet. The smoothly polished stone sucked the heat from his skin, and his instinct was to snatch back his hand, but he pressed harder instead, his fingertips slowly whitening. The cold he could live with, but not the silence.
Time passed, and the sun sank below the city walls and a gray dusk set in. Crope’s fingers grew numb, and he pushed harder and harder, trying to force his way in.
Nothing.
Then, just as he pulled his fingertips away, there was a faint stirring, a reaching-out.
. . . Come to me . . .
The words sounded within Crope’s bones, and they were no longer a command. They were a plea. His lord’s voice was powerless, nearly gone. Chicken-headed fool. Are you going to let him die? Crope slammed his fist into the tower. Limestone fractured with a puff of dust, and Town Dog hunkered down in fright.
Crope stepped back. There was blood on his knuckles and his fingers were beginning to swell. He needed to think. Think. Force would do no good here. He was strong but he could not bring down a tower. This was no way to save his lord. Then how? He was not Bitterbean with his clever tricks or Scurvy Pine with his way of making men do as he wished. He was giant man, good for breaking walls and mending pumps.
And severing chains. You be ready when I give the word. Crope blinked as something occurred to him. Perhaps there was someone in the city who
could lend a hand. A plan forming in his head, Crope turned his back on the tower.
Soon, he promised his lord silently. Soon.
It was full dark by the time he left the wide roads and dressed stone of the Fortress Quarter. Night came quickly to Spire Vanis, bringing with it a shock of cold that caused the rain to thicken into sleet. Crope passed men and women huddled warmly in thick woolens and furs. Some had purchased roasted chestnuts or fat, grill-split sausages from the street vendors, but Crope tried not to think about that. Brazier men had set up their grill irons on every street corner, and the glow of hot coals and the aroma of sizzling fat drew circles of people around them. Business was being conducted. Crope saw silver coins flash from one man’s hand to another’s, and then smallgoods returned in exchange. On one busy street a troop of mummers had set up a makeshift stage, and were performing a masque that involved saying the word “bottom” a lot. Swalhabi was not amongst them. Swalhabi would never deign to perform in a street. Crope felt sympathy with the mummers dressed as girls. It was a cold night to be wearing so little.
He was putting it off, he knew, tarrying to watch the mummers, and he scolded himself for his cowardice. What was his fear, compared to the misery of his lord? Nothing, that was what it was, and he set his jaw forward and moved on.
Trouble was, Crope didn’t know exactly what he was looking for. Not just any alehouse or inn would do. He needed to find one that looked right, but he was hard pressed to say what that meant. Certainly not the place across from the mummers’ stage, for some of the people entering wore silky furs the color of honey and toast and he knew such things only came with wealth. No. He needed a lesser place, somewhere where the patrons didn’t stand outside supping clear ale from pewter tankards while young boys bearing torches warmed them.
