A Sword from Red Ice (Book 3)

by J. V. Jones

  She knew then that the news was bad. His voice was soft and shocked. A fleck of spittle lay on his bottom lip. Crossing over to him, Raina held out her hand. Orwin Shank had lost three sons. Bitty, Chad, and Jorry. Please Gods may he lose no more. The aging hatchetman did not register Raina’s hand on his arm. He was shaking and his flesh felt cool. The big silver belt buckle he always wore polished and gleaming was stamped with fingerprints.

  Quickly, Raina noted who was here. Corbie Meese, ancient and one-armed Gat Murdock, Brog Widdie, the master smith who had once been a Dhoonesman, Ullic Scarpe, brother to Uriah and nephew to the Scarpe chief, Wracker Fox, also Scarpe, and Stannig Beade. Other men hovered in small groups around them, hands swinging in loose fists, gazes darting between Corbie Meese, Raina and Stannig Beade.

  The clan guide was dressed in sparrow skins and black leathers and he wore a thick silver torc at his throat. The pig hides were gone. He spoke her name and it did not sound like a greeting.

  She ignored him. “What has happened?” she asked Corbie Meese.

  The big hammerman with the dent in his head glanced once at the guide before speaking. “The Spire army took Ganmiddich. Then they themselves were routed by Bludd. Between the two attacks every Hailsman at the Crab Gate was lost.”

  No. Cold prickles passed up her legs to her womb and stomach. Mull Shank. The Lowdraw. Rory Cleet. Bullhammer? Had Bullhammer been there? Dozens more.

  Drey Sevrance.

  Raina Blackhail held herself very still. She was no longer touching Orwin Shank. All were watching her. She could feel the blood behind her eyes. “Where is Mace?”

  “He camps on Bannen Field with the two thousand and plans to retake what has been lost.”

  She told herself she was not disappointed that her husband was still alive. “And the Crabmen?”

  “No survivors. The Crab chief is dead.”

  Crab Ganmiddich gone. “Who is the new chief?”

  Stannig Beade sucked in air with a small hiss. As if driven to scorn by such trivial questions he told her, “The new chief is also named Crab.”

  She had a choice then for she could have fired back Do not tell me what I already know. Who was this man before he declared himself chief and took the name Crab? Instead she thought of the dead clansmen, and gave them her silence and respect.

  The silence passed from her, breathed out with her breath like Longhead’s drowsy smoke, and passed from man to man to man. Within seconds everyone on the greatcourt fell quiet and the silence passed through the greatdoor and into the house. People milling in the entrance hall stilled. Stannig Beade watched this happen, his eyes cold and flat.

  He is my enemy, Raina understood then. And in some ways he was worse than Mace. At least her husband did not covet the power she held in Blackhail’s house. Mace was warrior and chief—let his wife take care of matters of home and hearth. Stannig Beade was different. He could not rule men in fields of battle. His power existed only in the confines of clan walls, and that put he and Raina at odds.

  She saw all this in the silence, and then let it drain away. It would snow again, she decided, glancing at the clouds. Let it snow.

  Drey Sevrance dead. He had brought her Dagro’s last token, the brown-bear pelt Dagro had been skinning when he died. “Lady,” Drey had said, standing at the door of her private chambers, “I have finished it for you.” In all the days of horror that followed, that act of chivalry had stayed with her. In the long dark night after the Oldwood she had clutched the bearskin to her breast and belly, lost. If she had not had the skin for comfort she might have passed beyond lost, to the place where insensibility and insanity waited to trap your mind. Since then Drey had brought her small tokens every time he returned to the roundhouse, little things he’d won or bartered; a pebble of amber fine enough to be drilled for a pendant, a pair of mink skins that could be cut for gloves, an embroidered noseband for Mercy. Drey Sevrance had handed these gifts to her without words or ceremony, and she had understood that to him she represented something worth returning to in clan.

  Raina inhaled deeply, drawing back the silence she had spun. “Orwin,” she said. “Come into the house.”

  With a light touch she guided him round. His swollen, arthritic fingers grasped her dress sleeve, pinching the skin beneath, but she did not think he was aware of it. Nor did she mind the pain. Corbie Meese stepped from the group, meaning to follow them, but Stannig Beade halted him with a question.

  “What of the women and children of Ganmiddich?”

  Raina felt the words like stones flung against her back. Here is the question you should have asked, chief’s wife. Shame on you for not inquiring about the innocents.

  Corbie replied that most of the women and children had been transferred to either Bannen or Croser. Few had been at the Crab Gate on the day of the attacks.

  Raina listened until she moved beyond earshot. Orwin’s fingers continued pinching her arm as she led him into the roundhouse. Anwyn Bird was there, waiting at the foot of the stairs, and Raina found herself so happy to see her plain yet pleasing face that idiotic tears sprang to her eyes.

  “Hush now,” Anwyn said to both Orwin and Raina as she approached. And though neither of them was making a sound they understood what the clan matron meant. I will care for you.

  The three of them climbed the broad stone steps to the greathearth and passed beneath the granite doorway. Sworn clansmen stood to attention as they entered the great circular space of the warriors’ hall. “Put more logs on the fire,” Anwyn commanded, and three men sprang into action to do her bidding. One of them was a Scarpe, Raina noticed. A young man whose hair had that greenish tint to it that meant Scarpe’s black dyes were fading.

  Anwyn pointed and nodded with force, and things were done. Blankets were brought, her twenty-year malt rushed up from the stillroom, Jebb Onnacre, Orwin’s son-in-law, sent for. Men who had no relation by friendship or kin to Orwin Shank were dismissed. Soon the room was warm and peopled only with Hailsmen and Hailswomen. The vast, vaulted space with its stone benches arranged in concentric circles and its horse-size central hearth had probably never known so few to stand within its walls. Berta Shank, Orwin’s only surviving daughter, sat next to her father and Anwyn wrapped a single blanket around both of them. Orwin was numb. He had not said a word since he’d spoken Raina’s name on the greatcourt. When Anwyn handed him a dram of malt he took it from her but did not drink. Raina sat next to Jebb. Her arm was smarting and she knew she would have an ugly bruise by morning.

  “Here,” Anwyn said, passing her a wooden thumb cup filled with malt. “Drink.”

  Raina did, throwing the golden liquid to the back of her throat in a motion that would normally have the clan matron up in arms. You did not gulp a twenty-year malt. You sipped and savored. Raina enjoyed the burn as the hard liquor slid down to her gut.

  Drey Sevrance dead.

  She watched the fire. All in the room were quiet now, their movements subdued. One of the double doors opened and Corbie Meese stepped in. Quickly assessing the mood, he found himself a seat, not close to but within sight of Orwin Shank, and settled down for a long stay. Gat Murdock came next, and although Raina had never felt much affection for the crotchety old swordsman, she could not fault him this day. Silently and without fuss he chose a seat near the back. Others came, Hailsmen and Hailswomen, and over the course of the next hour those who had at first been exiled from the greathearth were allowed back.

  Raina felt moved by a strong and invisible force. Goodness, she decided later. Everyone watched the fire. Anwyn moved between the benches like a nurse bringing blankets and water and malt. No one wept, though many had taken losses. It was understood that Orwin Shank’s loss was the greatest and respect was paid by minding his expression and his silence. Even the bairns who were allowed in later upheld the quiet of the hearth.

  How long they sat and mourned as a clan was hard to say. The fire was kept stoked and there were no windows in the greathearth to let in light. When
Raina felt someone sit next to her on the opposite side of the bench from Jebb Onnacre, she glanced around, prepared to give a silent nod of greeting. She expected the mourning to continue into night and to be present until its end.

  Sitting next to her was Jani Gaylo. “The guide wants to see you,” she whispered. “He awaits you in the chief’s chamber.”

  The parts of herself that had been buoyed by the dignity shown by her fellow clansmen sank and Raina stared at the girl coolly. She stood. Motioning to Anwyn that she was fine and nothing was amiss, Raina Blackhail took leave of the greathearth. Jani Gaylo, dressed in pretty orange and blue plaid, followed her from the room.

  “Do not,” Raina warned the moment the door was closed behind them, “make the mistake of accompanying me to the chief’s chamber.”

  The girl actually took a step back. “Yes, lady,” she mumbled, as Raina turned and left her standing at the top of the stairs.

  The wall torches had been lit and the greatdoor was closed. All was quiet in the entrance hall and the few Scarpe warriors who were standing in groups, drinking ale, averted their gazes in something approaching respect as she passed. They must have lost men, too, she realized. It made her wonder where Blackhail’s and Scarpe’s armies stood this night. Did they intend to retake the Crab Gate? Were they bivouacked in one of the spruce forests northeast of Ganmiddich, hunkered down in three-foot snow?

  The narrow steps leading to the chief’s chamber had been freshly swept of cobwebs and dust, and Longhead or one of his crew had actually installed a wooden handrail along the tricky part where the steps buckled forward. Raina abstained from using it. She had not been here in several months and did not want to be here now.

  The door was ajar and she did not knock, simply pushed it back and entered the chamber. Stannig Beade sat behind the big chunk of granite known as the Chief’s Cairn, studying a chart. A mat covered with blankets lay close to the far wall, and Raina realized with a shock that he was now sleeping here.

  Beade rolled up the scroll as she moved forward, but her eyes were quicker than his hands and she saw it was a map of Blackhail and its bordering clans.

  “Welcome,” he said, pushing aside the scroll.

  He must have trained for the hammer in his youth, Raina decided, for his shoulders were powerful and two big muscles sloped down from his neck. The tattoos across his eyelids had healed, but whoever had punctured them had done a hasty job and the pigment-filled holes looked like bird tracks.

  “You know why I have summoned you?”

  She could not begin to guess. “What do you want?”

  He stood and crossed over to the sole lamp in the small oval chamber and rolled back the wick. Light decreased. “Your behavior in this clan does not befit a chief’s wife. People have noted your forwardness and brought it to my attention. Raina Blackhail overreaches herself, they say. She makes decisions she has no right to make. I have tried to let it pass. If you had attended me at noon as I requested I would simply have reminded you of your place. But after the scandal you created on the greatcourt I must take action. I am guide, and my responsibility is to the well-being of this clan. As Blackhail’s armies are away I have arranged for those newly housed in the widows’ wall to move into quarters vacated by sworn clansmen. This will leave the widows’ hearth free once more for the widows. After you leave my chamber you will move your belongings there, and from this night forth restrict your activities to caring for the bereaved and the sick.”

  “How dare you.”

  Stannig Beade responded to the ice in her voice by moving closer. “Never interrupt a warriors’ private parley again.”

  “You are no warrior.”

  The blow was so hard and shocking Raina stumbled backward. She lost a second of consciousness, and found herself crumpled by the door.

  Stannig Beade was standing over her, breathing hard. He drew back his hand to strike her again, but the sound of footsteps bounding down the stairway halted him in his tracks.

  The high, girlish voice of Jani Gaylo called out, “Did Her High-and-mightyness come? I gave her your message but you know what a bitch she is.”

  “Get up,” Stannig Beade hissed at Raina. And then to Jani Gaylo, who had just rounded the corner, “Raina is overcome with grief, help her to her feet.”

  The girl’s red eyebrows went up and her cheeks turned pink. She stood for a moment, taking in the scene of the chief’s wife on the floor with her skirts and braid in disarray, and then dashed forward to help. “Lady, I—”

  “Hush,” Raina told her, looking into Stannig Beade’s cold glittering eyes. “I can help myself.”

  They watched as she rose to her feet. Shaking and with the imprint of Beade’s open hand flaring on the side of her face, Raina fled.

  THIRTY

  Three Men and a Pig

  The river was named the Mouseweed and it flowed between gorges and through brush-choked valleys in the Bitter Hills and Stone Hills. Herons fished in its shallows and moose picked paths along its gravel banks as they came to eat tender water weeds and drink. Bears patrolled the shores, and cracked open the overnight ice on beaver ponds in search of sluggish fish.

  Yesterday Effie and Chedd had played a game of dams, which meant that whenever you saw a beaver dam you cried, “Damn!” It had been extraordinarily satisfying at first, the cussing without seeming to, but there were just so many dams along the river that within a matter of hours the game had gotten old, and Chedd had started repeating the word so quickly it made a noise like buzzing flies. Damndamndamndamndamn. She had poked him in the back to make him stop, which of course just made him do it more. Then she had to think of another game to distract him, but nothing quite matched the—if she did say so herself—sheer brilliance of dams, and the only thing she could come up with was bear: naked. Chedd had sniggered at this, and she wished straightaway she could take it back. Naked was not a word you used around eleven-year-old boys. She hadn’t known it then. But she did now.

  “Otter,” Chedd Limehouse said now, swiveling his fat neck toward her. “Naked!”

  Effie glared at him. There was no otter. This was the second day she’d had to put up with him naming nonexistent animals and declaring them naked. As they were paddling through a narrow stretch of the Mouseweed in broad daylight, Effie had some hope that Waker would silence him, but the Grayman appeared distracted. His large bulbous eyes were fixed on the way ahead.

  They were making good time, Effie observed. The channel was deep here and the current logy. Good paddling conditions, she thought, taking some pleasure in the knowledge and vocabulary she had picked up from traveling with Waker Stone and his fiercely odd father, who might, or might not, be named Darrow.

  They let her paddle now, and she was surprised by how hard it was and how much she needed to rest after even the briefest series of strokes. The pain in the back of her shoulders and forearms would strike quickly and once it was there it nagged continually. Waker told her she would grow into it as long as she paddled every day. Effie had taken him at his word, and had fallen into the rhythm of brief paddles followed by long rests. Three days now and the pain just got worse.

  At least she didn’t fake-paddle like Chedd, who could be seen even now rotating his paddle as it entered the water so that it sliced more than it pushed. Waker’s father must have known what Chedd was up to. Manning the back of the boat he could keep an eye on all three of them—Waker, Chedd and herself—yet he never did anything to correct Chedd’s idle ways, and Chedd had the good sense never to look around and catch his eye. Effie decided she must have less good sense, for sometimes she couldn’t seem to stop herself and spun around in her seat to look at the tiny old man. Every time without fail he was ready for her, triumphantly, malignly, staring back.

  The night she had been saved from drowning by Waker, the old man had told her his name. Or at least she dreamt he had. The name was hiding in her memory like a flea in a crease, and she told herself that if she just waited long enough it would spring righ
t out. Darrow didn’t ring any bells, she knew that much. Chedd had come up with that one, and now she came to think on it he might simply have overhead Waker telling his father, “Da, row.”

  “Naked,” Chedd said for no good reason. “As a bear.”

  Effie watched his shoulders chuffing up and down with delight. It was enough to put you off boys for life.

  More paddling was called for, and she took the wooden paddle from her lap and plunged it deep into the brown water. She might have splashed Chedd on the first stroke, but not on the ones following. Paddling was too serious a business.

  It was a calm but cold day and the sky was uniformly white. The Mouseweed was passing through a series of gorges and high-cut banks, and thin, silvery falls emptied into the river at every bend. The cliffs were red sandstone, mined with hollows and crevices, and grown over with chokeberries, black birch and vines. They had left the main artery of the Wolf three days back, following a long camp whilst Effie recuperated from the near-drowning, and without a doubt they’d passed beyond the Dhoonelands and into territory protected by Bludd.

  As far as Effie could tell they were heading southeast. The Bitter Hills were a slowly lowering barrier to the south. Stony and jagged, their chutes packed with new snow and their skirts dark with hemlocks, they cast long shadows on the river as they dumped snowmelt into its depths. The most easterly section of Bitter Hills was called the Stone Hills by city men, and Effie had to admit it was a pretty decent name. When she was resting between paddles she imagined the city on the far side. Morning Star. Having no experience of cities whatsoever, she fancied it as a grand collection of roundhouses with many outbuildings and several towers. The people would wear linen and silk, not wool and skins, and their voices would be high and fluting.