CHAPTER
20
Hailstone
“ROBBIE DUN DHOONE
has crowned himself a king.”
Raina walked through
the roundhouse, thinking about the latest news from the south.
Warriors had arrived an hour earlier. She had settled them in the
Great Hearth and and spoken with them at length, and now left them
in the company of Ballic the Red and the senior clansmen. Her face
burned at the thought of what Ballic might be telling the four
warriors at this very moment. Raina’s closed
the house to Scarpes. She’s turfed out every one of them, and
Yelma’s camped by the Oldwood, spoiling for a
fight.
Raina snorted. Either
she was going insane or it was somehow possible to feel worry, fear
and delight at exactly the same time.
Gods, but the
roundhouse was better without them. No more stinking cookfires and
foul witches’ brews. No more hard-faced children hissing “Bitch”
behind her back. No more pigs and chickens running wild in the
hallways. No more being watched and criticized and
accused.
If time could freeze
in this moment, as she walked through the peaceful and orderly
halls of Blackhail, passing Hailsmen and Hailswomen who greeted her
with respect, it would be a good kind of life. She wished she could
live it and not have to think of the future, and the terrible
things waiting there.
Dagro, my love, I miss your wisdom today. Reaching
the entrance hall, Raina took a turn toward the kitchens. She
needed to think what effect this latest news had on Blackhail. Dun
Dhoone was now a king. Bludd forces had been occupying the
Withyhouse and according to Glynn Sellwood, one of the warriors
newly arrived from Bannen Field, Dhoone had annihilated them. Two
of the Dog Lord’s sons—Thrago and Hanro—had been slaughtered. Glynn
had mentioned a third son, Gangaric, who had managed to flee south
with a small force. Raina crossed the kitchen, nodding absently at
Merritt Ganlow and the head cook. What could she learn from this?
Dun Dhoone was ruthless and ambitious. And he kept
winning.
Arriving at a small
flight of stairs, Raina unhooked a safe lamp from the wall and
headed to the underlevels of the Hailhouse. How would Mace react to
Dhoone’s victory? He would probably make a push for Ganmiddich, try
and gain the Crab Gate before Dhoone marched south. It was possible
that he might turn and head for home, but he’d lose standing with
his fellow warriors by doing so.
Hailsmen did not back
down from fights.
Raina moved quickly
through the narrow corridors belowground. The Hailhouse was aging.
The explosion in the guidehouse had opened huge cracks in the
foundation. First water came in, and now the earth itself was
forcing its way through. Black mud oozed from the walls. Raina
could see insect carapaces and bones in it. She tried to avoid
stepping in the sludge as she made her way to the foundation space
and the small, airless store room where she had hidden the last
fragment of the Hailstone.
It sung to her in her
dreams. It told her not to forget it existed and warned her that a
guidestone hidden from sight was an affront to the gods. As soon as
she entered the store room, she could feel it pull on her. How it
had remained hidden all these months was a mystery. Surely any
clansman or clanswoman walking above it would feel the steady
discharge of power?
Raina knelt. The room
was cool and dry, like a tomb. Setting down the lamp, she studied
the wedge-shape fragment of granite. Dust had not gathered on it.
It was an exterior corner piece and you could still see the chisel
marks. Raina reached out and ran a finger along the ridges.
Something deep beyond the stone, and older than the clanholds,
reached back. She wasn’t afraid or surprised . . . she was sad. The
Stone Gods and whatever power they laid claim to were retreating
from the world of men. They still occupied space, would continue to
occupy space, but that space was getting smaller as an Age turned.
She did not question how she knew this. It was guidestone. Touch it
and truth was revealed.
Withdrawing her hand
she waited as the knowledge worked on her mind. She had hoped that
Orwin would return soon with Blackhail’s new guide, some earnest
young boy or girl who had been trained by the fierce mind and
drill-sergeant tactics of Walvis Harding, clan guide at Dregg.
Orwin’s return was no longer a simple thing though. A man in a cart
loaded with food and grain would not be allowed to pass Yelma
Scarpe’s line. The Weasel chief had already intercepted shipments
from tied clansmen. Farmers bringing winter kale, storehouse roots
vegetables and dried grain, ewemen bringing the first new lambs of
the season and cattlemen bringing calves: the armed camp at the
Oldwood had blocked and seized them all.
It was a problem, and
one Raina knew she would have to deal with. She had caused this,
and if she had thought in advance about the implications of sending
Yelma and her Scarpers from the Hailhouse she would
have—should have—acted with some
diplomacy. Instead she had got angry and let herself react to
Yelma’s pinched and unlovely face. Now she had an unlovely mess on
her hands. A thousand angry and hungry Scarpes were on her
threshold. And short of declaring out-and-out war she could not
think how to be rid of them.
What was becoming
obvious with every passing day was the fact that Yelma was digging
in for the long haul. Trees were being felled, shanties were being
raised. Rumor had it that a fight-and-tourney circle had been
cleared. And why not? Why not claim the old briar meadow and ruined
farmhouse east of the Oldwood? Scarpes did not possess a
roundhouse: they might as well camp here instead of
there.
Raina rubbed the tip
of her finger. It was still tingly where it had touched the stone.
Camp here and Scarpes could feed their hungry, lazy selves by
seizing Blackhail-bound goods coming in from the east or south. So
far they had not killed any tied Hailsmen in the process of
relieving them of goods, but they had not treated them kindly. One
eweman had taken a spear through the side. Laida Moon was tending
him. She said he was lucky the blade missed his gut. Raina’s heart
ached to think of it: a man alone and outnumbered protecting his
sheep.
What had she created?
And how was she going to fix it? Yelma Scarpe was contending that
she, Raina Blackhail, was illegally occupying the Hailhouse.
According to Yelma, Mace Blackhail had asked the Scarpe chief to
look out for Blackhail while he was away, and by barring the door
to her and her Scarpemen, Raina was effectively usurping
Blackhail’s chiefship. So by staying close to the Hailhouse and
monitoring the situation, Yelma was simply acting in Mace
Blackhail’s interests.
Raina took a deep
breath. Yelma Scarpe was driving her to her wits’ end—literally.
She did not have the wit to deal with her. Raina supposed she
should be grateful that Yelma had so far refrained from
intercepting sworn warriors returning from Bannen Field. Such an
act would be an irreversible act of aggression. But Yelma was
slowly gathering power at the Oldwood and Raina wouldn’t put
anything past her. She had looked into the Weasel chief’s eyes and
seen the treachery there.
Yelma Scarpe wanted
Blackhail for herself.
Leaning forward,
Raina grabbed the last fragment of the Hailstone in both hands and
lifted it a foot above the ground. With a small downward movement
of her wrists, she drove it into the floor. A single piece broke
off and shot across the storeroom. Raina released her hands from
the Hailstone and stood. She could see the path the splinter had
taken. It had cleared a straight line in the dust. Bending at the
waist, she picked up the fragment. It was the size and shape of a
grain of wheat. She looked at it a moment, turned it to see all
sides, and then slid it under her tongue.
“I pledge to defend
Blackhail and stop at nothing to save us and give my last breath to
the Heart of Clan.”
The old words of
oathspeaking had power, even now, as the gods who heard them were
withdrawing from the clans. It was First Oath, spoken by young
warriors who were not yet deemed ready to commit themselves wholly
and for life to one clan. For one year and a
day, ended the oath.
Raina Blackhail of
Clan Blackhail stood in perfect stillness, thirty feet belowground,
within the roundhouse of her adopted clan and tasted the bitter
salts in the guidestone. She would never see the walled gardens and
painted halls of Dregg again, she knew that now. Her hope of
returning to her birth clan and living a peaceful and sunlit life
was dead.
Peace was not in her
future.
War was.
Raina opened her
mouth and spoke the words that would seal her fate. “I give myself
wholly to Blackhail for one lifetime and a day.”
The stillness did not
break, nothing on the surface of the world changed, so she couldn’t
understand why tears sprang in her eyes. After all that she had
been through, wasn’t this a very small thing? She loved Blackhail,
loved it with a fierce and possessive love. Now the clan she wanted
to possess, possessed her back.
Raina brought her
hand to her lips. This was where the oath’s second should step
forward and take possession of the swearstone. She had no second.
No one to keep the swearstone. No one to support her
oath.
I keep it alone.
Closing her eyes, she
swallowed. Muscles in her throat contracted, pushing it down. She
felt the swearstone pass down her esophagus and enter her stomach,
felt it sink against her gut wall and start burning a place for
itself in her body. Within a day it would seal itself off, her
flesh closing in around it: a piece of Blackhail and its failing
gods in the center of her being.
Somewhere Inigar
Stoop’s body was turning in its grave.
Raina’s smile was
shaky. Dagro, Anwyn, Inigar, Orwin away at Dregg: all the wise
people of Blackhail had gone. That left the unwise to
rule.
I’d better get started then. She scooped up the
lamp and exited the chamber. As she made her way up through the
underlevels she couldn’t understand why the swearstone made her
feel lighter, not heavier. Did it not increase her burdens? When
she passed a narrow, recessed flight of stairs leading up toward
the chief’s chamber, she began to understand what the gods had
given her in payment for her life.
A clear
conscience.
Any act, big or
small, hot-blooded and reckless or cold-blooded and ruthless, was
justified in defense of her clan. Ancient words now commanded her
to stop at nothing to protect
Blackhail. Stannig Beade’s slaughter fell within their mandate.
Just like Yelma Scarpe, Beade had been a threat to Blackhail,
sneaking power while its chief was away at Bannen
Field.
Some long-held
tightness in Raina’s chest—she did not know if it was guilt or
shame or fear of being caught—relaxed. Sworn warriors did not weep
over their kills or worry what others though of them. They slept
well and deeply at night.
Raina ran up the
stairs to the kitchen. Funny how you could have a burden and not
know it until it was suddenly and surprisingly
removed.
Merritt Ganlow was
overseeing the cleanup and removal of Scarpe debris from the
roundhouse. Today she had turned her considerable attention toward
the kitchens, where she was supervising a handful of pretty girls
as they scoured butcher blocks, fire irons, cauldrons and cook
pots. Raina considered most of it a waste of time. The girls could
be better used in the kaleyard planting greens or in the Wedge
setting traps. Merritt knew this and as Raina walked toward her,
the clanswoman folded her arms in expectation of a
fight.
“We’ll be doing the
entrance hall next.”
Raina looked at
Merritt’s clever face, with its green eyes and wrinkled skin, and
realized that the clanswoman was in some fundamental way
different from her now. Merritt’s
folded arms and bristling manner in no way engaged Raina. In the
past Raina knew she would have bristled right back in response and
a battle of wills would have ensued. Today, in the kitchen, with
the swearstone burning a hole in her core, she said only,
“Good.”
Merritt blinked. Her
eyes and ears registered a change in Raina, but she did not
understand what that change was. Raina saw worry in the older
woman’s eyes.
She had no time for
it, and bowed and left Merritt to her domain. She was so anxious to
be outside that she took the kitchen’s rear door. With its
bloodstained sawdust and chicken feathers, the kitchen court was
not a place she cared to be. A boy was collecting eggs from the
chicken coops. Raina bid him stop and find Chella Gloyal. As the
boy ran to do her bidding, Raina walked off the kitchen court and
turned toward the kaleyard.
She had not been in
the yard since Jani Gaylo’s death. The poor, silly misguided girl
had fallen under the spell of Stannig Beade and ended up dead in a
well shaft because of it. Raina’s gaze went to the well as soon as
she opened the wood gate. Beautifully cut and fitted rosestone
surrounded the wellhead, and two curved stone benches hugged it on
either side. They looked as little used as any tomb, and Raina
found no desire to approach them.
She was pleased to
see vegetable beds had been raised. Crossing to inspect them, she
searched for the first shoots of the season.
“Just as well there’s
nothing yet. The frost would only kill them.”
Raina looked up to
see Chella Gloyal standing next to her. She had not heard the
Croserwoman approach.
Surprise made Raina
sharp. “It’s too late for frosts.”
A single look, not
ungently given, reprimanded Raina for making the mistake of
applying the past to now. Chella looked healthy and alive. Color
was glowing in her cheeks and her lovely dark hair was loose.
“Glynn brought me a message from Grim,” she said, explaining her
high spirits and color and perhaps making an effort to change
Raina’s mood. “He, Corbie, Stellan and Drew are safely at Bannen.
But then, of course, you would know.”
Raina did know. Mace
had received delivery of the Blackhail treasure, and by at least
one account was ill pleased. He had expected more gold. Raina
wasted no thought on that. “Is Grim settling in for the long
siege?”
Chella Gloyal was
sharp. She knew, she just knew, what the question really meant.
“Oh, I would say so,” she replied, keeping that gray-green gaze of
hers on Raina. “I don’t expect him back anytime soon.”
So Chella thought
that Mace would stay put on Bannen Field. Raina was glad to hear
it. She was beginning to suspect that Chella had access to sources
of information that she, Raina Blackhail, did not. This morning,
while she was settling Glynn Sellwood and the other three clansmen
in the Great Hearth, Glynn had handed her a leather
satchel.
“I’m sorry, lady, to
trouble you with this task, but I normally give them to
Anwyn.”
The satchel contained
messages for people in the clan. Raina had never spared a thought
for who controlled delivery of messages in the roundhouse. If she’d
stopped to consider it she would have said that returning warriors
either delivered the messages themselves or set children, or
whoever was close and unemployed, to the task. She would have been
wrong. Sweet Anwyn Bird, always ready with beer and fried bread
whenever warriors walked in the door, was the one who took
possession of all messages entering the roundhouse. Raina reeled to
think about it. Had Anwyn opened and read messages sent to her by
Dagro, Mace, Shor Gormalin, Drey Sevrance? Were a clan’s worth of
secrets sharing Anwyn Bird’s grave?
Even without opening
the messages you could learn things. Emptying the contents of the
satchel, Raina had discovered three separate letters addressed to
Chella Gloyal. One of the messages had Croser’s pike seal upon it
and another had the thick parchment and fancy blue ink of something
sent from a mountain city. Chella Gloyal had a faraway friend, one
who had gone to the trouble of sending a message onto Bannen
Field.
Raina had passed the
messages to Jebb Onnachre for distribution. Next time perhaps she
would open then. Stop at nothing,
commanded the oath.
Now it was time to
see if Chella had learned anything else from either Grim or Croser
or her blue-inked city friend. “Glynn thinks Dun Dhoone will march
straight to Ganmiddich without first returning to
Dhoone.”
“It seems likely.
Robbie Dhoone is on winning streak, though things have fallen in his favor so far.”
“How
so?”
“When he took Dhoone
from the Dog Lord he only had to battle a force of forty men. Withy
was harder—they say its house is built like a sealed tomb—but
somehow he managed to locate and break a secret door.”
Glynn had mentioned
nothing about this. Raina began a circuit of the kaleyard. It was
only noon, she noticed. She’d felt as if she’d lived a year in half
a day.
“What do you think
will happen at Ganmiddich?”
Chella, who was
keeping abreast of her, shrugged. “Bludd will lose it for a
certainty. Pengo is a fool. It’s a wonder he’s held out for so
long. As for what happens when Blackhail meets Dhoone . . . who
knows? One thing’s for certain: When it’s over things will be
settled in the clanholds for a very long time.”
Raina shivered.
Suddenly she did not feel like walking and stopped. “Because of the
losses?”
“Because of the
losses,” Chella repeated.
The Hailstone burned
in Raina’s gut.
Stone Gods save us.
To Chella she said,
“Why did you fire on Yelma Scarpe?”
The Croserwoman had
either the sense or decency not to deny it. She had been the
marksman on the roof that day; Raina was certain of
it.
“When I heard the
Scarpe chief was arriving, I anticipated a problem.”
I bet you did. “Go on.”
“At Croser we know
the value of a well-placed bowman. I didn’t think there was much to
lose by slipping on the roof and keeping watch.”
“You shot at a
chief.”
“I aimed to
miss.”
“You took my
authority from me.”
“I did not. I backed
it up.”
“What is the truth of
you, Chella Gloyal? You come here and start pushing me—why?”
The Croserwoman took
a breath. She was vibrating at a high frequency, like a rung bell.
“You do not know how great you are. I see it. Others see it. There
is no one else like you, Raina Blackhail. Hundreds and hundreds of
clansmen and clanswomen would follow you with full hearts to their
deaths.”
Tears stung Raina’s
eyes as she looked at Chella’s strong and beautiful face. Could
what she said be true?
No. No.
I am coping, just trying to get from one day to the next
and not think about what happened in the Oldwood or fall apart when
I remember Dagro’s face. There’s no greatness here, just struggle.
Any woman in this clan could have done a better
job.
Chella’s eyes were
fierce, her chin high. “Why do you think it was so easy to clear
the Scarpes out of the Hailhouse after Yelma
withdrew?”
Raina was surprised
at the question. “Hailsmen and women were eager to have them
gone.”
Chella shook her
head. “No, Raina. They watched you on the greatcourt, standing up
for their clan and sending off an enemy chief, and it stirred them.
They were filled with pride for Blackhail and love for its chief’s
wife. They would have ridden into battle for you that
day.”
No.
“Blackhail loves you
that much.”
Stupid tears rolled
down Raina’s cheeks. This was not true. It could not
be.
“I’m doing what
everyone here wants to do: comfort you, help you. Follow
you.”
The cold wind of
treason dried tears on Raina’s cheeks. It did not cancel out
Chella’s words as much as weigh them down so they fell to earth.
Raina looked at Chella, saw that the young woman was now wearing
the silver-and-black of Blackhail at her waist and throat. Raina
thought she could almost trust her.
Chella waited. She
was very young and she thought the future was something to be
seized.
Raina knew you could
seize something and still have it slip away. The Hailstone, as if
in agreement, sent an ache through her gut.
Steadying herself,
Raina thought about the future, how it could unfold in many ways.
She made a decision.
“Teach me how to use
a bow.”