by J. V. Jones
Mace Blackhail’s thin-cheeked face was pale. He no longer leaned casually against a stang, and for once the Wolf was at a loss for words. After watching him for a minute or so, Raif decided it was time to go. He had been right from the start: Nothing he could do would make one whit of difference to anyone or anybody. Mace Blackhail had it all in hand.
Even as he strode across the room and Drey moved to open the great metal-girded door, Mace Blackhail cleared his throat to speak. Raif passed from the room and didn’t hear what he said, but a few seconds later the voices of three or four dozen clansmen filtered down along the stairs. Raif wasn’t surprised when the word they spoke was Aye.
Down Raif went, following a path cleared by Raina Blackhail and Shor Gormalin before him. Crofters and their families were silent as he passed. Those who had children with them held them close, and Raif could only guess what had been showing on Shor Gormalin’s face to make them so afraid.
Raif made good time as he traced his steps back to the stables. His chest was tight and his heart was beating fast, and something sour burned in his throat. He needed to get away. He wouldn’t sleep tonight; the memory of Raina Blackhail’s face wouldn’t let him. What had Mace Blackhail done to her?
The raven lore lay like ice against his chest as he picked up his pack and bow from the horse stall where he’d left them. Orwin Shank’s horse whickered softly as he saddled it, then sniffed his hands for treats. Raif found a couple of frost-split apples in his pack and fed them to the gelding. It was a good horse, with sturdy legs and a broad back. Orwin said its name was Moose on account of it being surefooted on snow and ice.
Raif led his borrowed horse onto the clay court, strung his borrowed horn and sinew bow, and strapped it to his back. A pale moon rode low in the sky. The wind was rising and from the north; it tasted of the badlands. Iced-over puddles crunched beneath his boots. As he mounted the gelding, he noticed a second horse’s tracks freshly stamped on the court. Shor Gormalin, he thought, kicking the gelding into a trot.
The land directly surrounding the roundhouse was set aside for grazing sheep and cattle and was kept free of all game by Longhead and his crew. If a man wanted to hunt he had to ride northwest to the Wedge or south to the hemlock woods beyond the ridge. The Oldwood was closer, but that was set aside for trapping, not hunting. And trapping was for women, not men.
Raif rode south. Moose was not a swift horse, but he gave a steady ride. Moonlight reflecting off the snow made it easy to find a path, and horse and rider made good time. As soon as he was free of the valley and onto the wooded slopes, ridges, and grassy draws of the southern taiga, Raif began to search for game. Frozen ponds with surface ice broken, tufts of hair snagged on ground birch, hemlock girdled by wild boars and goats, and fresh tracks stamped in the snow were signs he looked for. He didn’t much care what he brought down. He just needed to turn his mind from the roundhouse and the people in it.
A hawk owl soared overhead, a mouse or vole twitching in its claws. Raif watched as the bird flew down into the cavity of a broken top snag. At the base of the lightning-blasted tree, two eyes glowed golden for a instant and then winked out, leaving darkness. Fox. One hand reining Moose, another reaching for the bow at his back, Raif held his gaze on the fox space. The bowstring was cold and stiff, but he didn’t have time to run a finger over it and warm the wax. He could no longer see the fox, but he knew it was there, withdrawing slowly into the tangle of gorse and dogwood beyond. Like most clansmen, Raif kept his arrows in a buckskin case at his side to cut down on the sort of motion that sent game running, and he slid an arrow from his pack and nocked it against the plate all with a single movement. The bow ticked as he drew it.
Raif called the fox to him. The space separating them condensed, and almost immediately he felt the heat of the creature’s blood against his cheek. He tasted its fear. Everything sloughed away, leaving only him, the fox, and the still line that lay between them. The raven lore itched against his skin. This was what he wanted. Here at least he had some control.
Releasing the string was little more than an afterthought. Although he could no longer see the fox, he had its heart in his sights, and when his fingers lifted and the arrow streaked forward, Raif knew without a shadow of a doubt that the shot would find its mark.
The fox fell with barely a sound. A few leaves rustled, fox weight thudded onto hard snow. Raif peered into the killing ground beyond the base of the old snag. He wanted more.
Heart racing, he slid down from Moose, bow in hand. Even as he took his first step upon the ice-crusted snow, his breath crystallizing in the freezing air, he became aware of another creature hiding far on the other side of the bluff, fast against a year-old hemlock. As he raised his bow and sighted it, Raif couldn’t say if he had seen the animal’s eyes, caught a glimpse of its cowering form, or simply heard it move. It didn’t matter. He sensed it, that was all he knew.
The flight feathers on the arrow kissed his cheek as he called the creature to him. It was a weasel, tick infested and thick jointed with age. Its heart beat too fast in its chest. Raif’s hand was steady on the belly of his bow as he released the string. By the time the twine came back, Raif was already looking for something new to kill. His lore hummed against his chest, and his bow sang in his hand. The night was alive, his senses were sharp, and every pair of eyes shining in the darkness had Mace Blackhail’s name upon them.
ELEVEN
Oaths and Dreams
Watcher of the Dead was out tonight. The Listener knew because his dreams told him it was so. The Watcher was a long way away, how far the Listener did not know. Dreams could tell a man with no ears only so much.
“Sadaluk! Sadaluk! You must wake and come inside. An ice storm is on the way, Nolo says so.”
The Listener was not happy at being wakened. Although his dreams had gone, he was still listening to the echoes they left behind. He opened one eye and then the other. Bala, Sila’s unwed sister, stood before him. She was dressed in fitted sealskin pants and an otter coat. Her hood was framed with muskox underfur, warm and golden as the setting sun. Very rare. Bala always dressed nicely. Young men lined up from the smoking rack to the dog posts for the privilege of gifting her with skins.
“Sadaluk. Nolo says you must join us in our house. You have sat with your door open for so long that your own house is too cold for waiting out a storm.” Bala looked over the Listener’s shoulder as she spoke, peeking into his ground beyond.
Sadaluk knew what she was after. “Have you brought me a hot drink?” he asked, knowing well enough she had not, as her hands were empty. “Bear soup? Boil-off from the auks Sila caught and fermented?”
Bala looked down. “No, Sadaluk. I am sorry. I did not think.”
Sadaluk made a tsking sound. “Your sister, Sila, would not have forgotten. Whenever she comes she brings me soup.”
“Yes, Sadaluk.”
Bala looked so pretty looking down that the Listener was inclined toward forgiveness. She didn’t have Sila’s plump, pot-shaped lips, but her nose was the flattest in the tribe. A man could run his hand from cheek to cheek and hardly feel the bump in between. And Bala’s hands were small as a baby’s, made for slipping down a man’s pants without him ever having to unlace a strap. The Listener sighed. The man who wedded Bala would be fortunate indeed.
“Please, Sadaluk,” Bala said, tugging on his coat. “The storm will be here before we have chance to seal the doors.”
The Listener knew storms better than he knew dreams, and although one was indeed on its way, it would not arrive before dawn. “I shall not move from my seat,” he said. “My dreams call me back. Now run along and return home, and be sure to tell Nolo that you did not think to bring me soup.”
“Yes, Sadaluk.” Again, Bala glanced over his shoulder into his ground. She bit her lip. “Sadaluk. Nolo also asked me if you could return his wound pin to him. The seal carcass must be frozen by now.”
The Listener tsked. The black scars where his ears had once bee
n ached with the kind of hollow pain that only lost ears could. Nolo’s wound pin was very old. It had been made by the Old Blood far to the east and was beautiful beyond imagining. Nolo was very proud of it, so much so that he was torn between his desire to use it for what it was made for—fastening seal wounds closed so blood didn’t drain from carcasses before they were brought home—and keeping it purely for show. Those times when he did use it, he was always anxious to have it back.
The Listener stood. Bones cracked as he moved, and the necklace of owl beaks he wore at his throat tinkled like breaking ice. His boots needed tending, and want of blubber and saliva made them stiff. They cracked and flaked like tree bark when he moved. His ground was lit and heated by two soapstone lamps, yet as the door had been open for several hours, it was as cold outside as within. Frost crystals glistened on the caribou skin-covered walls and floor.
The young seal Nolo had brought this morning as tribute for the good luck he had received while hunting was indeed frozen, and its sleek cat face had lost its oily sheen. The wound pin was fastened just above its hind flipper, its purpose now made obsolete by flesh that had frozen fast. With hands that had not stretched flat for twenty years and were so black and scarred by chilblains and hard wear that they seemed more like wood than flesh, the Listener uhooked the pin. Made of no animal bone he could identify, diamond hard and diamond smooth, it belonged to an older time and place. The Listener sighed as he handed it over to Bala. It would be a fine talisman to hold in his hand when he listened to his dreams.
“Now go back to Nolo,” he said. “Tell him I will come and knock on his door just before the ice storm hits, and no sooner.”
Bala opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. She nodded. Her small hands slipped the wound pin into a fold in her otter coat. Pulling her hood close around her face against the rising wind, she cut across the cleared space to Nolo and Sila’s house.
The Listener returned to his seat. Snow swirled like murky water before him, but it wasn’t cold, not really. Winter had only just begun. The bear coat was enough to keep his body warm, and the thick guard hairs at his collar allowed no drafts. His head, he chose to leave uncovered. The Ice God had eaten his ears thirty years ago. If he’d had a fancy for his nose and cheeks, he would have taken them by now.
Fishing in his pike pouch, the Listener searched for his talismans: the narwhal tusk, the silver knife, and the driftwood. Sea, earth, and that which grew to the sky. Now. Where was I? Sadaluk shuffled the talismans in his lap, trying to recapture the images of his last dream. The two kidney-size scars on either side of his head burned beneath their bear tallow plugs. Briefly he thought back to Nolo’s wound pin. He would have dearly liked to hold it in his hands. The Old Blood knew much about dreams . . . and even more about Watcher of the Dead.
Show me the one who will bear Loss, the Listener asked for the second time that night. The one named Watcher of the Dead.
Time passed. The talismans grew warm in his hands. Then suddenly, abruptly, the ground slipped from beneath his feet and he fell into his dreams. Lootavek had once said dreams were a tunnel to pass through; to Sadaluk they were a pit. Always he felt as if he had been swallowed and was falling down a great bear’s throat. Voices spoke to him as he descended, so he did what he had been taught: He listened.
The dream place was dark, and there were things within it that knew and did not fear him, and unless he listened carefully, he might lose his way. Lootavek had lost his way only once, yet it had been enough to lure him out of his house and onto the sea ice, to the soft dripping edges where white floe and black water met. It was enough to make him take a step onto the colorless grease ice beyond.
The Listener closed his fist around the narwhal tusk. All those who listened to their dreams were eventually led to their deaths. Each time he listened, Sadaluk asked himself, Will this time be my last?
As the meat of his thumb pushed against the smooth ivory of the tusk, the Listener saw Watcher of the Dead. He was hunting as before, ranging over a land fat with game, Death running like a hound at his heels. Yet even as the Listener looked on, Death departed. There was someone else close by whom she must attend to this night.
Moose’s rump was awash with blood. A pair of foxes, a weasel, a marmot, a side of jackrabbits, three minks, and a snagcat bounced up and down across the gelding’s back. Moose’s heat kept the carcasses warm. Raif scratched his horse’s neck. Moose had worked hard tonight, trotting down slopes thick with new snow and over ponds hard with ice, never once whickering when game was in sight, always holding steady for those long vital seconds when a bow was drawn above him.
“Orwin named you well,” Raif said as he walked the horse over the graze toward the roundhouse. “I swear one morning I’ll come to the stables and find two antlers sprouting behind your ears.”
Moose turned his head toward Raif and let out a long disgusted grunt.
Raif grinned. He liked his borrowed horse a lot. Riding him, hunting from his back and at his side had helped the night pass quickly. And that was all Raif had wanted. It was difficult to sleep these days. More and more he needed to wear himself out before he dropped onto his bench or bedroll for the night. Sometimes it was better not to sleep at all. His dreams were never good. Tem was often in them, thrashing in his hide tent, beating against some invisible enemy, calling out to Raif to help him. Tem’s skin was burned black, and his fingers had been chewed on by wolves. Raif shivered. Glancing up through the bank of frost smoke, he set his gaze on the predawn sky. This was one of those nights when it was better to hunt than sleep.
Few lights could be seen within the roundhouse. Most windows were either barred by stone or wood or both. Many clansfolk believed that Vaylo Bludd would arrive any day now and attempt to take the Hailhold in the same manner he had taken Dhoone. Raif wasn’t sure about that. From what he’d seen and heard at Gnash, it looked as if the Dog Lord would have his work cut out for him just holding on to Dhoone. Dhoone was a huge clanhold, with more than a dozen war-sworn clans upon its borders. A good half of the Dhoonesmen had escaped to Clan Gnash and Clan Castlemilk, and they were madder than stags in rut. Raif couldn’t see how even the Dog Lord could lay siege to one roundhouse while trying to secure another.
Frowning, Raif patted Moose’s neck. Frozen mud cracked beneath his boots as he walked. No more snow had fallen during the night, but the temperature had dropped to the point where Raif had been forced to slather his cheeks and nose with grease. Every few minutes he had to brush ice crystals from his fox hood, where his breath had glaciated in the fur.
As he stepped onto the clay court, he spied movement to the side of the roundhouse. Pulling on Moose’s reins, he altered his path and made toward the figures spilling from the door that faced the stables. Noises cut through the mist: the crunch of boiled elkskins on snow, the rattle of arrows in a bowcase, and the squeak of new leather, straining as it took its first weight. Someone yawned. Raif caught a glimpse of Corbie Meese’s misshapen head, then Ballic the Red’s great barrel-shaped chest. Clansmen, about three dozen in all, heading from the roundhouse to the stables.
Tugging Moose forward, Raif broke into a run. Even before he reached the half-light of the open door, Ballic the Red had his bow drawn and sighted. Dropping the reins, Raif raised both arms into the air. “Ballic. It’s me. Raif Sevrance. Don’t shoot.”
“Stone balls, lad!” roared Ballic, lowering his bow. “What were you thinking? Running up like that! I came within a rat’s tail of shooting the teeth right out of your jaw.” The bowman wasn’t smiling, and his words had a hard bite. “Where’ve you been?”
Raif patted Moose’s flank. Dried, partially frozen blood had stained the gelding’s back crimson. The carcasses strung across its rump hung limp like bags of feed. “Been out to the southern taiga. Hunting.”
As he spoke, more men continued to pour from the roundhouse. All were dressed for hard riding, wearing oilskins and thick furs over steel. Weapons and supplies formed jagged lumps on back
s and shoulders and around waists. Pouches containing neat’s-foot oil, powdered guidestone, spare bowstrings, and dried meat hung on dog hooks from their belts. Raif saw Drey bringing up the rear. He was wearing Tem’s wax-stewed greatcoat.
“Did you see anything while you were out there, lad?” Corbie said, his light brown eyes flickering toward the land far south of the roundhouse.
Raif shook his head. He didn’t like the look on Corbie’s face. “What’s happening? Where are you going?”
Corbie Meese and Ballic the Red exchanged glances. Corbie made a rolling motion with his arm, indicating that the other clansmen move on ahead of him. “We’re riding east past Dhoone, to the Bluddroad. Mace has had word that a party of forty hammermen and spearmen will be making the journey from Bludd to Dhoone three days’ hence, and we’re planning to set an ambush and take them.”
Raif looked along the lines of men. He could see no sign of Mace Blackhail. “How does Mace know this?”
Corbie Meese ran a gloved hand over the hammer dent on his bare head. “He came by the information at Gloon’s Stovehouse. Two nights back, just before we returned to the clanhold, he split from the rest of us. Said he wanted to check what travelers and other such folk had heard about the Dhoone raid.”
“Just as well that he did,” Ballic the Red said, cutting in, “else we’d have nothing but fresh air to go on.”
“Aye,” Corbie agreed. “Turns out that more than a few patrons at Gloon’s were loose-spoken, and Mace heard tell that the Dog Lord means to make the Dhoonehouse his chief hold. Everything—arms, furnishings, animals, even women and bairns—has to be moved from the Bluddhouse to Dhoone. The Dog Lord means to leave his eldest son, Quarro, to watch over the Bluddhold in his stead.”
Raif nodded. It made sense. The Dhoone roundhouse was the strongest keep in all the clanholds, with walls sixteen feet thick and a roof made of ironstone. So how had he managed to take it? Against his will the memory of the badlands raid came back to him . . . the stench of hot smelted metal in the air.
