A Fortress of Grey Ice (Book 2)

by J. V. Jones

  Now he had stopped, Duglas Oger took a moment to absorb the sight of hundreds of men assembled on the hard standing of the broken tower. “Got here in time to claim my place, then,” he said, his chest pumping.

  Robbie waited a beat before replying. “What have you for me, Duglas?”

  Something in Duglas Oger’s big flushed face fell, but he recovered himself quickly. A coarse brown sack hung from his saddle horn, and he thrust his hand down to the bottom of it. “Something to keep you warm at night—a Bluddsman’s head.”

  He pulled out something small and waxy, with sunken eyes and white lips, and shockingly glossy hair. With a grin, Duglas threw it toward Robbie. Robbie caught it in both hands, and turned it to face him.

  “Who is it?”

  Duglas and his companion shared a glance. “Messenger. Found him one day north of Dhoone. Sent to bring Cluff Drybannock’s forces back from the Dhoonewall.”

  Robbie glanced swiftly at Duglas. “How do you know this?”

  Duglas made a shrugging gesture, causing the head of his great war-ax to rise above his shoulder. “Who used to skin all your kills, Rab?” he asked gently.

  Bram shivered. They had tortured the Bluddsman.

  Robbie relaxed a fraction, turning the head’s face away from him and resting it against the head of his horse. “So the Dog Lord is getting worried.”

  “Better than that.” Again, Duglas shared a glance with his companion. “His men have deserted him, and headed south.”

  A murmur of disbelief rippled through the war party. “How so?” Robbie asked. “Skinner couldn’t have mounted an attack so soon.”

  “Oh, it’s not Skinner who’s drawing men away from the Dhoonehouse. It’s the armies of Spire Vanis.”

  Robbie looked to Douglas’s companion. “Gill?”

  The man nodded. “He’s right. Spire armies are heading for the border, and the Bluddsmen are riding south, first to Withy and then on to the Wolf to meet them.”

  Robbie tilted back his head and laughed. “The Bludd forces have gone to Withy. Withy! Now we know for certain the Stone Gods are with us.”

  Mangus Eel started to laugh, and soon Guy Morloch and others joined in.

  “I pity Skinner when he turns up there looking for an easy fight,” Diddie Daw said. “He’ll be cursing us all to his grave.”

  Diddie’s words seemed to sober Robbie. “Let’s not forget he commands Dhoonesmen.”

  Men were quick to nod and the laughing stopped. Send word, Bram thought, but didn’t speak it. If you want to save Dhoonesmen’s lives, send a message to Skinner, and admit that the deal you offered him was a ruse designed to make him attack Withy. A strike upon Withy would force the Dog Lord to send an army to defend it, leaving the Bluddhouse vulnerable to an attack from Robbie Dun Dhoone. That was the plan, and it looked as if Skinner had taken the bait. His chief’s pride would not allow for the possibility that Robbie might win a roundhouse for his own, especially one with the boast We are the clan who makes kings. Now there would be a massacre at Withy if Skinner attacked.

  Robbie knew that. All the fine words he’d spoken to Mauger Loy that night in the broken tower were hollow, Bram realized. It would take nothing to send a boy east with a message, but Robbie chose to do nothing.

  “Duglas,” he said, throwing the head back at the axman. “Get yourself clean and kitted. And find a place for the head.”

  As Duglas and Gill trotted toward the tower, Robbie stood in his stirrups and addressed the war party. “Dhoonesmen. Castlemen. Today we ride north to Dhoone. Home for some of us, and for others a place to find glory. We are one now, joined in purpose, and the Stone Gods have blessed us with good fortune. We are Dhoone, Clan Kings and clan warriors alike. War is our mother. Steel is our father. And peace is but a thorn in our side.”

  Hearing the Dhoone boast, men started to rap the butts of their spears against the earth. One man started up the chant, “Dun Dhoone! Dun Dhoone! Dun Dhoone!” and others quickly joined him, and soon the noise was deafening.

  Bram sat in his saddle and listened to the roar. One of the Castlemilk warlords looked to Robbie, and then ordered his troops to turn out. Hundreds of men began to move toward the Milkroad on his say. Robbie waited in the center for the Castlemen to clear the area east of the broken tower, allowing the warlord the honor of leading out the army.

  When he was ready Robbie drew Mabb Cormac’s sword and cried, “North to Dhoone!”

  Bram watched him, and when the time came he kicked his horse into a trot. He was no longer sure what he’d be fighting for, but that didn’t change the fact that he must fight.

  FORTY-FOUR

  To Catch a Fish

  Fish, Effie decided, were stupid. Which was just as well, really, as she wasn’t that clever herself and it wouldn’t have taken much to better her. A pig could have done it easily. Pigs were smart. Jebb Onnacre had once taught her a song about a pig. A pig and a twig. When she’d told it to Letty Shank, Letty had gone and repeated it to everyone—and it had been Effie who’d got the beating for it. She was still mad about that.

  Even so. It had been a good song.

  Suddenly disheartened and not a bit sure why, Effie rocked her bottom back onto the bank and took her hands from the pool. They were a strange color, like ham. They were a bit numb, too. The water was cold. There were still some fish floating in the pool, but she decided three was enough. She could always come back for more.

  Rubbing her hands against her cloak, Effie stood. The noise from the waterfall was deafening, and its spray spattered her face. All sorts of interesting rocks lay around, battered into round shapes by the force of the fall. It had been a long while since she’d had time to consider rocks, and she was a bit rusty. Granite over there, even though it was red and looked like sandstone.

  Or was it trap rock? The fact that she didn’t know upset her. Effie Sevrance wasn’t good for much but she’d always known her rocks.

  Noticing her hands were still tingling a bit, Effie crossed her arms high and thrust them into her armpits. The spray wasn’t helping, making her feel goose-pimply all over, but now she’d found this place she didn’t want to leave it. It was a little rocky draw, like an inlet, set deep into the cliffs and back from the river. A stream overhead dropped in a sheer fall, crashing into the pool before running down through the rocks to the Wolf. It was sheltered on all sides, and that seemed good enough reason to stay. Up there, on the headland, nowhere was sheltered. When someone attacked there was no place to hide.

  The harlequins had led her here. After . . . the thing happened, she had clung to the cliff for hours, not daring to move. The raiders had taken a long time with the wagon, and it had been dark before they’d left. Even after she’d heard the wagon creaking into motion she’d waited. Just because the raiders hadn’t shown any caution didn’t mean Effie Sevrance needn’t. Da always said that ability to wait was what set the best hunters apart from the rest. Never think of it as waiting, he’d told her. Think of it as learning.

  So Effie learned in the darkness. No sound came for the longest while after the raiders had ridden off, and then much later the howl of a wolf scenting blood had reached her. The wolf’s howl told Effie all she needed to know: no live men around. Wolves were particular about that.

  The climb up was the worst part. Effie’s legs were all shaky and she couldn’t feel one of her feet. When she made it to the top of the cliff she had to grab the hem of her dress and wring it out like washing. Letty Shank once told her that moss grew on anything left damp overnight, and Effie definitely didn’t want that.

  It was funny how your brain was scared of things that it shouldn’t really be scared of at all, and then not afraid of others that it should fear a lot. The bodies were in pieces. A wolf was trotting away in the direction of the trees with a man’s hand in its jaw. Effie saw this and wasn’t afraid. It was the wagon that bothered her, the fact it had gone. There was no longer any place to be inside.

  The raiders had hacked off
the wagon’s canvas and the ribbing, and big hoops of wood lay on the ground like dragon bones. Other things lay there too: baskets filled with ore, empty chicken crates, a smashed lamp, the string of arrows Clewis Reed had hung from the ribbing to dry. Bits of body were littered amongst them. Effie swallowed. She’d watched Da butcher kills for as long as she could remember—she wouldn’t allow herself to be squeamish now.

  Thinking of Da helped. Da was a hunter. Da would take what he needed and move away from this place. Blood draws predators, he’d always said. Both kinds: Man and beast. So she had run to the wagon site, loaded one of the baskets with whatever she could find that might prove useful, and then run back to the cliffs where she felt safe. The bodies she wouldn’t think about. Clewis Reed and Druss Ganlow had ceased to exist. Clewis was too big a man to be reduced to such small parts.

  The basket had a leather strap attached so Effie could carry it slung across her back. That was important during the climb down the cliffs. She chose a different place to make the descent, a little upriver where it looked more . . . lumpy. The cliff wasn’t as sheer, and there were places for a girl to rest. She found a small space between two big rocks, curled up with the wagon canvas around her and slept.

  The next morning she had known she wouldn’t climb up to the headland again. It was better here, between the river and the cliffs. More like inside. She hadn’t found much food during her forage of the wagon site—Clewis usually shot fresh game for them each day—but she scavenged some grain and a few other things. The barley meant for the horses nearly broke her teeth until she figured out you had to soak it. It was pretty tasteless too, but she was now in possession of Clewis Reed’s small but effective spice collection, and she’d found an interesting red powder that made everything taste better. It caused heart-burn of the tongue later, but Da said everything good came at a price.

  Later that day she’d set off upriver along the cliffside. It was much like mountaineering, Effie supposed. Or caving. The rocks were slick and there wasn’t always an obvious path, but if you stopped for a bit and waited—learned—you could usually see a way to carry on. After a while trees started invading her territory, dry old water oaks growing right out of the cliff. Their roots were slowly pulverizing the stone, and other plants had taken advantage of the gray, powdery scree they had created. Bushy things mostly, and some spectacularly thorny-looking weeds. It made things harder, but it was still better than the alternative: up there, with no place to hide.

  A day had passed and then another, and Effie hadn’t got very far at all. The barley was running low, and she was contemplating living on spice alone. At some point the trees had begun to choke the way ahead, and now all she could see in front of her were tree canopies and swirling river water. The Wolf had widened and it was suddenly difficult to perceive it as a whole. Below her a rocky shore curved inward and then was lost in a dense coppice of bushes. It was midday so she stopped to eat the last of the barley. Some of it was sprouting where the damp from the river had wetted it; you didn’t have to soak those bits for as long.

  Effie watched the river as she ate. Its level had dropped in the past few days, and its water was clearer and more settled.

  Great currents moved across it, creating crosshatched ripples and powerful tows. Close to its middle, water was turning in a huge spiral; Effie couldn’t understand why. She could wait and learn, though, and she sat and studied the kingfishers who dove down through its cold surface and emerged with wriggling fish; the treader flies who skimmed over the slack water at the shore; and the pair of fat-tailed beavers who were constructing a dam across a small channel separated from the main body of the river by a wall of rocks.

  Then she spied the harlequins, a mated pair. They had emerged from beneath the coppice, swimming on a channel that passed beneath the ash bushes. Effie looked hard at the coppice. She hadn’t even noticed the water running there.

  The harlequins swam the rapids for a bit, the big handsome male performing all sorts of cross-current hopping to impress his mate. The dun hen followed him effortlessly, her tail feathers moving like a tiller. When she’d had enough of her mate’s posturing she made her way across the eddies and swam under the channel cloaked by bushes. Effie waited but they didn’t come out. After a time she looked at the sky. Perhaps an hour or more had passed. It was time to follow the ducks.

  The way down was treacherous, and the thorny-weeds tore holes in her skirt. By the time she’d reached the coppice she just knew bruises were forming. Crawling through the shallow channel under the bushes was positively, absolutely the worst thing ever. Every part of her got soaked—and not a caught-in-the-rain sort of soaked either. No. A genuine fallen-in-the-river sort of soaked. Her teeth were chattering like a whole lot of crickets when she finally pushed her way through to the other side.

  The first thing she heard was the territorial honking of the male harlequin, and then she became aware of the crashing of water. Quite suddenly she realized the noise had been there all along, running alongside the roar of the river. She had entered a kind of draw in the cliffs, a little pocket screened from the river by bushes and rock walls. A waterfall streamed from the cliffs above, and the force of its drop had hollowed out a plunge pool in the rocks. The harlequins had made their nest there, beneath a birch brush.

  It was the perfect place to hide. Straightaway she had stripped down to her small linens and laid her clothes over the rocks to dry. The ducks watched her warily, the male charging her if she drew too close to the nest. Must have eggs, she thought.

  The idea of eggs made her mouth water—the red spice would taste most delicious on raw duck eggs—but her gaze had already been drawn to a second, if slightly less appealing, food source.

  Fish. They came over the waterfall, dropping right along with the water, and landing so hard when they hit the pool that they were temporarily stunned. Watching them was as good as watching a puppet show at the Dhoone Fair. The noise they made when the slapped into the standing water was like . . . like the sound of a wet fish. Effie didn’t know the names of many fish, but she reckoned these were mostly shiners. Their scales were quite glinty, and they were silver and pink. When she got one and crushed it with a rock, its insides were full of bones. She tried a piece raw. Tried another, this time with the application of a great deal of the red spice. Her eyes watered as she swallowed. It was definitely time to build a fire.

  The woody bushes provided good burning timber, but between the waterfall and the river everything was a bit wet. She broke off the most likely-looking branches, using her foot to stamp them free, and hauled them to the driest place she could find. Even here, on a flattish rock in the middle of the clearing, the drift from the waterfall still sprinkled them. Effie frowned as big wet blobs fell on her tinder pile. There was exactly nothing she could do about that.

  Kindling, that was what she needed. Turning a critical gaze around the inlet she searched for something dry and crackly. Raif could start a fire with almost anything, that was what Da always said. Pity he wasn’t here now. Him and Drey.

  No. No. No, Effie warned herself. Absolutely no feeling sorry for yourself. Sevrances had never been cowards or complainers.

  Warmed a little by her anger, she ran over the rocks and around the pool for no good reason at all. Letty Shank and Florrie Horn would be scandalized. Running around in her smallclothes! Did she think she was a child, not a maid of nearly nine?

  Her running scared the ducks and sent them fleeing from the nest to the safety of the water. Effie slowed to a halt and watched them. Good time to steal eggs, said a little voice inside her. No. They were berserkers; it wouldn’t be right. At least not until she got really sick of fish.

  Still. Something beneath the birch bush drew her eye, and she crossed over and knelt beside it. The nest was perched on a platform of pebbles that kept it high and dry above the river water. It was protected from the waterfall by the canopy of the bush. Seven pale green eggs lay in a thick matting of straw, down, twigs and moss. K
indling. Effie reached in, carefully nudged the eggs to one side, and then tore off a big chunk of the nest.

  She giggled on the way back. It was probably the first time ever in the history of nest-raiding that someone had taken the nest, not the eggs. As she stuffed the kindling around the firewood, the male harlequin returned to the bush to investigate. Effie tried not to move too much as he poked nervously around the nest. She’d caused him enough anxiety for one day.

  The fire was not nearly so easy to light as she’d imagined. She had taken possession of Clewis Reed’s flint and its iron striker, and it made good sparks, but catching them on the kindling was difficult. They were fickle things, and sometimes the wind helped and sometimes it didn’t. It took at least three hundred goes to start the kindling burning, and it had grown dark by then and the knuckles on her striking hand were bleeding.

  Once the flames had gotten started on the wood, Effie went to fetch her clothes and basket. Her skirt and cloak were still pretty damp, and she tried to work out a way to dry them. The whole fire business had left her exhausted, and she couldn’t think of anything cleverer than putting on her dress and using herself as a drying rack. It was a horrible thing, to pull on something wet, and it started her teeth chattering all over again. Steeling herself, she settled down to cook fish.

  Ten days had passed since then. Every morning Effie awoke and thought, Perhaps I might get going today. But she didn’t. Here, in the inlet, she was safe and protected. Cliff walls surrounded her on three sides. The space was small and contained, about the size of the guidehouse, only rocky and a lot wetter. There were fish and water, and the fire didn’t go out every day. True, her clothes were never entirely dry, and sometimes she felt a bit lonely at night, but it had to be better than being in the wide-open spaces of the headland. Just thinking of them made her shiver.

  No. She’d stay here for a while longer. Her lore would warn her of any danger, and there hadn’t been a peep out of it in days.