by J. V. Jones
Stretching his hard old hands upon the door frame, he prepared to go inside. It was high time that another message was sent. The Old Blood had to be told that the dance of shadows had begun. They must send Far Riders to him and make bid upon the future and stand upon the sea ice and see the Gods Lights for themselves.
Pulling a strip of birch bark from a peg near his door, Sadaluk took one last look at the sky. Red, he saw, a world flickering red.
Iron chains rattled. Metal groaned. Feet thudded over compacted snow. “Drink. Drink.”
Raif instinctively shied away from the cold, stinging fumes that rose from a nozzle thrust toward his face. He did not want to drink.
Fingers, neither clean nor fragrant, thrust themselves into his mouth, forcing his jaw apart. Liquid was poured. A moment passed while the open cavity of his mouth was filled, and then the liquid streamed down his throat. Raif gasped and spluttered and raised his head. Spitting, he cleared his mouth of the foulness.
Angus frowned at him. “You must drink your fill, lad. I know it tastes like lamp fuel, but I swear it will do you good.”
Raif glanced around. The sun had sunk behind the mountain, and the sky was dark and silvery, transforming itself into night. He was lying in soft snow by the gate. The grating had been raised, and six bodies lay in the plowed field of blood, mud, and slush on the other side. His hand rose to feel for his raven lore. The horn was as smooth as a pulled tooth, hotter than his skin. He drank more of the liquid. Already he felt his body working, tingling, as if it had been whipped with dry birches. His mind sharpened. Suddenly he realized that Angus was wounded; blood was gouting from a hole in his buckskins. Raif began to rise.
Angus put a hand on his shoulder and forced him back down. “Easy, lad. Give the ghostmeal chance to work.”
“Ghostmeal?”
“Medicine to you.” Angus looked over his shoulder, wincing as muscles in his chest were stretched. “Come. Please. We will not hurt you.”
It took Raif a moment to realize his uncle was speaking to someone else. The girl. Edging around, he saw she was standing by the far gatepost, watching them. Ragged bits of her dress blew in the wind, and her pale hair sparkled with ice. Dried blood formed a black line around her jaw. She did not speak.
Angus stood heavily and at great cost, pressing a hand to his chest. “You must come with us, with Raif. They will be back soon. You are not safe here anymore.”
“Who are you? Why did you help me?”
Raif was surprised by the calmness of the girl’s voice. Her gray eyes were cool, and there was an air of confidence about her that he had not expected from a beggar girl.
Angus’ gaze flickered to the city behind her back. “I am Angus Lok of Ille Glaive, and this is my kinsman Raif Sevrance. We helped you because you were in need. We would help you again if you will allow us. You need food and clothing and protection. Come with us and we will take you to a safe place.”
“Where?”
Raif almost smiled. The girl wasn’t about to be fobbed off with one of Angus Lok’s typically vague replies.
Strangely, Angus smiled too. His entire body strained toward the girl as he said, “We head for Ille Glaive.”
The girl nodded slowly. She looked at Raif. Shouts and horse thunder sounded within the city. Her face stiffened as she listened.
“Please,” Angus murmured. “I swear on all that is precious to me I will not harm you.”
Raif had never heard his uncle speak so quietly before. It disturbed him. Why had Angus risked his life to save this thin scrap of a girl?
“Will we leave through Vaingate?” The girl’s calm demeanor was wearing thin as the thud and clatter of armed men grew louder. Her shoulders twitched as a voice bellowed, “To the gate!”
“You and Raif will. I’ll drop the gate behind you so it looks as if you’re still within the city with me. Then I’ll lead the Rive Watch on a fair chase and meet you on the east road past midnight.”
“No. You can’t stay in the city alone.” Raif struggled to his feet, battling pain and nausea with clenched fists. “I’m coming with you.”
“No. You must stay with the girl. A party outside the city gates is too easily found. Someone needs to draw the Rive Watch away.” All the hearty redness drained from Angus’ face as he spoke, and suddenly he looked like a stranger to Raif. “You must go now. As your uncle I command it.” Without waiting for a reply, he turned and walked toward the gate. Raif thought he would touch the girl as he passed, for his hand jerked awkwardly toward her, yet he didn’t. Turning, he headed for the gate tower instead.
Pulleys creaked a moment later as the brake was kicked free of the crankshaft, and then the gate descended with a crash. Spikes rattled in their sockets like bones in a jar, and plates of ice that had quickened over the limestone arch above the gate fractured and fell, revealing a carving of a great winged beast. The girl began to walk toward Raif. Her eyes were bright and hard, and they stirred a memory within him . . . He tried but could not place it. Shrugging, he slipped the flask containing the last of the ghostmeal into his coat. He felt light-headed and full of false strength. What in all the gods’ names is that stuff?
Angus emerged from the gatehouse seconds later. The blood-stain on his buckskin coat had spread, and the great mass of his body pitched unevenly from step to step. “Ride, do not walk,” he said to Raif. “The ghostmeal only gives so much; you’ll feel worse for having drunk it come dark. Head southeast. In about an hour you’ll cross a game trail above a stand of hemlock. Follow it. It should keep you out of sight of the wall. When you come to Wrathgate head east. I’ll find you along the road.”
Let me go in your place, Raif wanted to say. Yet he guessed his uncle’s argument even before he spoke it: Angus knew Spire Vanis; he did not. A clansman with no knowledge of the city couldn’t hope to evade the red blades. Looking into his uncle’s copper eyes, Raif knew he could do nothing but nod and say, “Until midnight.” Anything more would have cost Angus time.
The clatter of hoof irons grew louder. A series of orders were shouted, and the scrape of steel against leather told of weapons being drawn.
“Take care of the girl,” Angus warned. Before Raif had chance to answer, he was gone.
Raif turned away from the gate. Four dead men had his arrows in their hearts: It was not a sight he wanted to dwell on.
The girl was no longer at his side. She had stepped clear of the platform and was now walking through the grainy snow and loose rocks on the slope. Raif ran to fetch the horses. He caught up with the girl on the far side of the gate and forced her to step back against the wall. Night was rising in the east, sending shadows spilling over the snow like black oil. The limestone was cold against Raif’s back, smoother than any stone ought to be. As he pulled the horses to him, the ground shook as an armed force descended upon the gate. Breath ached in his throat as he listened to the red blades rein in their mounts. It would be so easy for someone to raise the gate.
For the longest moment all was quiet and still. Raif imagined the red blades standing in silence over the bodies, their gazes moving from heart to heart. Moose snuffled. Raif sent Orwin Shank’s horse a look to silence the dead. Booted feet crunched snow. The gate grille chimed softly, moved by either hands or wind. Make them turn, Raif thought. Gods, make them turn.
A call sounded from within the city, high like the howl of a wolf. Angus, Raif knew in an instant. A cry went up. Horse leather cracked like whips, and then the ground shook once more as the red blades charged from the gate. Hunting.
Raif took a breath. Anger toward the girl welled up inside him. She was the reason Angus was running through the city alone. He turned to face her . . . and saw that she was kneeling in the snow. Her chin was resting on her chest and her face was curiously still, the muscles relaxed as if she were sleeping. Raif pulled the horses forward. What was wrong with her? Was she half-witted?
The girl didn’t raise her head as he approached. For the first time he noticed how pale
she was, like a statue carved from ice. As he opened his mouth to speak, her arms began to rise, gliding up through the air like weightless, boneless things, reaching for something he could not see. Raif felt a pulse of fear beat close to his heart. Her eyes were closed.
He didn’t know what made him act. He just knew that something was wrong and he had to stop it, and he reached out with his blistered hand and grabbed the girl’s arm.
Reach for us, pretty mistressss. Break our chains of blood. So close now . . . so close. Reach.
Voices crowded Raif’s mind. Terrible, inhuman voices, insane with need, panting with the cold hiss of gases escaping from decaying flesh. A landscape of black ice opened before him, a wasteland of jagged peaks and gleaming edges and dark, dark, trenches. Raif’s lore flared hot against his chest. His first instinct was to pull away, sever whatever connection held him here: This was no place for him to be. Yet the girl’s presence held him. Her heart beat in a way he recognized immediately, and she stopped being a stranger and became known to him instead.
Suddenly his raven lore was white-hot steel. It burned through his skin, to the muscle that lay beneath. Raif gasped for breath. It felt as if the girl were entering him, boring through his chest along with his lore. She opened her eyes. Gray eyes. And he knew then that he had seen her before: The guidestone had shown her to him.
The memory was like cold water on his skin. Using all the false strength the ghostmeal had given him, he wrenched his hand from the girl’s arm. Air snapped as they parted. Droplets of Raif’s blood formed a red arc between them. The girl swayed, reached back in the snow to steady herself. Raif stumbled forward, bringing his blistered hand home to his chest; it felt as if it had been dipped into the substance of another world.
The girl moaned. Raif paid her no heed. Turning from her, he tugged his oilskin apart. His undamaged left hand fumbled with clothing, desperate to get at skin. The raven lore was unchanged, dark and cool: a bloodless piece of horn from a bird long dead. Even his skin seemed unaffected. There was redness and a shallow pressure mark, but no great open wound, no tortured purple flesh. Raif frowned. But he had felt it! He could feel it now, whatever it was, a burn, a presence, a taint. It was as if a red hot poker had been inserted beneath his skin.
Fear brought back his anger. He wheeled around to face the girl. “Get up. We must be gone.”
She looked at him with eyes that were impossible to read. With her right hand she cupped the portion of her arm he had touched. “How long?”
Raif did not understand the question. He made no answer.
“I said how long? How long was I kneeling here before you came”—she struggled for words—“and woke me?”
Woke? Raif thought it an odd word to use. He said, “Only minutes.”
The girl nodded.
After a moment, when she made no move to speak further or rise, Raif said, “We must leave now. The red blades will be back.”
She made a small gesture with her head toward the gate. “Will he be all right?”
He wanted to say no, tell her that Angus was in grave danger and it was all her fault, yet he found himself saying something else instead. “Angus is no fool. He can take care of himself. If there’s a safe way out of the city, he’ll find it.” The words were little enough, but he felt better for saying them. He almost believed they were true.
The girl’s face relaxed just a little. Brushing snow from her ruined skirt, she struggled to her feet. Raif moved forward to help her, then stopped himself at the last instant. He didn’t know if he wanted to touch her again.
“Please, could you leave me alone for a moment? I’ll come and join you by the horses as soon as I . . . I’m finished.”
Raif made a point of glancing to the gate. “Be quick.” Purposely he kept his back toward her as he walked the horses away. He was curious about her request—and he didn’t think she meant to relieve herself in the snow—but he wouldn’t question her or spy on what she did. He made himself busy fetching things from Angus’ saddlebag: blankets, a spare pair of gloves, a day-old roasted plover packed in a greased cloth, a cake of sheep’s blood and whey, a skin of snowmelt kept liquid by its nearness to Moose’s rump, a little jar of Angus’ beeswax. Things for the girl.
By the time everything was pulled out and ready, the burn in his chest had subsided to a mild ache. His hand throbbed, but that might have been blister. Shuddering slightly, he set his mind away from what he had seen and heard. That was the girl’s business, not his.
“I’m ready to go now.” She stepped alongside him.
He had not heard her coming. He covered his surprise by asking her if she could ride. When she nodded, he cupped both hands to take her foot and hefted her onto the bay’s back. Her boots were thick, and when the leather soles pressed against his palms he didn’t feel as if he were touching her at all. That seemed like something to be thankful for.
He passed her the blankets and the beeswax first. She accepted the jar of wax in a way that made Raif think that she was accustomed to having things handed to her. Her calmness broke when she took possession of the roasted plover, and she tore at the bird with gusto, eating skin, gnawing on bones, licking her fingers for grease.
Raif smiled as he mounted Moose. He liked her better now. “What’s your name?”
“Ash.”
“I’m Raif.”
“I know, the other man . . . Angus . . . said.”
Raif felt put in his place. He searched for something else to say, yet the only subjects that sprang to mind seemed too dangerous to speak of there and then.
“Raif. You must promise to wake me again if . . . if I fall asleep.” Gray eyes met his. Knowledge passed between them, and somehow she knew all that he had seen and heard. She touched her arm. “They call me,” she said. “The voices.”
Raif nodded. That much he understood. Knowing it wasn’t his right to question her, he passed her the whey cake and the waterskin. Their fingers touched over the creamy surface of the cake, but he felt nothing, only the thinness of her skin. “I’ll watch out for you,” he said.
Mount Slain’s peaks vanished into darkness as they rode, claimed by a moonless, starless sky. Flames from the city’s watch towers cast a halo of red light upon their backs and set their shadows flickering. No snow fell, yet the wind was white, shifting drifts from the high slopes to the low slopes in quick, brutal bursts.
The deer path was easy to find and follow. Raif had the feeling that Angus’ bay had traveled this way before, for the gelding anticipated every twist and hook in the trail. Raif was glad to let the horses lead the way. The fast, brittle strength that had filled him earlier was gone, drained away as completely as if it had never been there at all. Ghostmeal: It seemed important to remember that what it gave wasn’t real. Raif felt as if his body had been trampled by a cart. The only thing that kept him awake was the familiar torment of his stitches. That and his promise to the girl.
He glanced over at her. She sat hunched on the bay, her shape obscured by blankets, her head upright, her chin nodding with the movement of the horse. They had not spoken since earlier. The shadow of Spire Vanis was too great a presence between them. It was unthinkable to Raif to speak of small things to pass the time while Angus was trapped inside the city. The girl had her miseries and he had his, and there was companionship to be found in shared silence.
Raif watched her as they wound through the pines. It was impossible not to. She had bewitched Angus with a single look, and with just one touch she had . . . What? Raif turned his hand so that his blister showed, fat and purple like a tick gorging on his blood. What had happened between them as she’d knelt in the snow?
He would never forget the voices. They were inside his mind for life.
Drey. Longing for his brother suddenly overwhelmed him, making him feel weary beyond knowing. If Drey were here now, he would know what to do and say. He wouldn’t have let Angus go off alone. Raif’s lips formed a faint smile. And even if he had, Drey would have stood
outside the gate and waited until Angus returned. Drey always waited. Of all the traits a brother could have, that suddenly seemed the best one of all.
“Wrathgate.”
The girl’s voice drew Raif back. He looked at her, and she nodded toward the shimmering mass of darkness that was Spire Vanis at night. A ring of blue fire framed a portal three hundred feet below the deer path.
“They keep the oil lamps burning day and night. It’s the most heavily used gate.”
“Does the east road lead directly from it?”
“I’m not sure.”
Raif looked at the girl’s face, Ash’s face, he reminded himself. She lived in this city yet didn’t know its roads? Who was she? What sort of trouble was she in? Shrugging, he told himself it meant nothing to him. “We’ll head east a while, then start making our way down.”
The girl, as if embarrassed by her lack of knowledge, made no reply.
Raif turned his attention to breaking a path through the shifting snow and loose scree of Mount Slain’s northeastern skirt. In his anxiousness to find the east road and meet with Angus, he pushed on ahead of Ash.
The farther they traveled from the city walls, the darker the night became. Spire Vanis felt like an enemy at his back. He had not once stepped inside it, yet he had killed men there. Another four to add to his tally. Bitterness trickled through his mouth, stinging like pure alcohol, and he switched his mind away from what he had done and who he was. Getting to Angus was all that counted.
Lights appeared in the landscape below, scattered over the rolling darkness like grain waiting to take seed. Some moved. Carts, Raif realized with a small thrill. The lights were torches burning on the guardrails of carts. East road. After glancing over his shoulder to check that Ash was still keeping pace, he began weaving his way down to the moving lights.
