A Sword from Red Ice (Book 3) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  ONE - Want

  TWO - The Sundering

  THREE - South of the Dhoonehouse

  FOUR - Negotiation

  FIVE - The Racklands

  SIX - The Lamb Brothers

  SEVEN - Twenty Stone of Eye

  EIGHT - A Cart Pulled by Twelve Horses

  NINE - The Crab Gate

  TEN - Parley in the Thief’s House

  ELEVEN - A Raven’s Call

  TWELVE - Along the Wolf

  THIRTEEN - Stormglass

  FOURTEEN - The Copper Hills

  FIFTEEN - The Mist Rivers of the Want

  SIXTEEN - Crouching in the Underworld

  SEVENTEEN - The Clan That Walks Swords

  EIGHTEEN - The Birch Way

  NINETEEN - Hunting Prey

  TWENTY - Pike

  TWENTY-ONE - Alone and Armed in the Darkness

  TWENTY-TWO - The Menhir Fire

  TWENTY-THREE - Hard Truths at the Dhoonewall

  TWENTY-FOUR - The Weasel’s Den

  TWENTY-FIVE - Stormbringer

  TWENTY-SIX - The Outlanders

  TWENTY-SEVEN - A Castleman for a Year

  TWENTY-EIGHT - The Rift Awakens

  TWENTY-NINE - Chief in Absentia

  THIRTY - Three Men and a Pig

  THIRTY-ONE - A Journey Begins

  THIRTY-TWO - A Lock of Hair

  THIRTY-THREE - The Field of Graves and Swords

  THIRTY-FOUR - Yiselle No Knife

  THIRTY-FIVE - Mistakes

  THIRTY-SIX - A Bear Trap

  THIRTY-SEVEN - A Gift Horse

  THIRTY-EIGHT - A Pox Upon the Heart

  THIRTY-NINE - Spire Vanis

  FORTY - The Cursed Clan

  FORTY-ONE - Raina Blackhail

  FORTY-TWO - The Dark of the Moon

  FORTY-THREE - A Place of No Cloud

  FORTY-FOUR - Chosen by the Stone Gods

  FORTY-FIVE - The Red Ice

  FORTY-SIX - Aftermath

  EPILOGUE

  About the Author

  Teaser chapter

  A SWORD FROM RED ICE

  Unknown territory, that was what his life had become. Yet what choice did he have but to embrace it?

  Rising, he made swift decisions on what he would need. The dimness of the tent did not slow him, and he located clothes, boots and weapons, readied himself, and then stepped outside.

  A piercing frost had cracked down on the Want while he’d slept. No wind could live in such cold and the air was paralyzed. The cookfire in the center of the tent circle had shrunk to a dim, red glow. Frozen smoke accumulating around the base was slowly suffocating the last of the flames. The lamb brother on night watch was away from his post. Raif tracked his footsteps to the corral and spotted him calming the milk ewe.

  The animals knew.

  Raif crossed to the fire, closed his fist around the lamb brother’s bone-and-copper spear and tugged it from the earth. “Here,” he said, as the man approached him. “Take it.”

  BY J.V. JONES

  The Book of Words

  The Baker’s Boy

  A Man Betrayed

  Master and Fool

  Sword of Shadows

  A Cavern of Black Ice

  A Fortress of Grey Ice

  A Sword from Red Ice

  The Barbed Coil

  A Sword from Red Ice

  J V JONES

  Hachette Digital

  www.littlebrown.co.uk

  Published by Hachette Digital 2010

  Copyright © 2007 by J.V. Jones

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library.

  eISBN : 978 0 7481 2098 7

  This ebook produced by JOUVE, FRANCE

  Hachette Digital

  An imprint of

  Little, Brown Book Group

  100 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DY

  An Hachette Livre UK Company

  For dear Fergus

  for all his kindness

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks are due to Jim Frenkel and the good people at Tor for making this a better book.

  The Northern Territories

  SWORD OF SHADOWS:

  The Story So Far

  Raif Sevrance of Clan Blackhail was out shooting ice hares in the Badlands with his brother Drey when his father and chief were slain back at camp. Upon returning to their clanhold, Raif and Drey found that Mace Blackhail, the chief’s foster son, had declared himself head of the clan. Mace had been present at the camp that day, and blamed the murders on Vaylo Bludd, chief of a rival clan. A week later, when word arrived that Vaylo Bludd had sacked the Dhoonehouse, events seemed to bear out Mace’s story of Bludd aggression. Raif found himself isolated. He alone believed that Mace Blackhail was a liar and a chief-killer.

  War against Clan Bludd followed, as Hailsmen sought to avenge their chief’s death. When Mace received word that a caravan of Bluddsmen were on the road, heading west to occupy the Dhoonehouse, he ordered an attack. Raif rode with the ambush party, and was horrified to discover that the caravan contained women and children, not warriors. He refused to kill them. By disobeying an order on the field and deserting his fellow clansmen in battle, Raif made himself a traitor to his clan. Four days later, Raif left Blackhail in the company of his uncle Angus Lok. Raif’s oath to protect Blackhail had now been broken. There was no going back.

  The two men headed south. When they arrived at Duff’s stovehouse, they discovered that the story of the massacre of innocents on the Bluddroad had preceded them. When challenged by a group of Bludd warriors, Raif admitted to being present during the slaughter. He did not tell them that he took no part in the massacre—loyalty to his clan prevented him from defending himself at their expense. With this admission, Raif forever damned himself in the eyes of Bluddsmen. He was the only Hailsmen they knew for a certainty who was present during the slayings.

  Angus Lok and Raif made their way to Spire Vanis, the city at the foot of Mount Slain. Upon arrival, they rescued a young woman named Ash March who was being hunted down by the city’s Protector General, Marafice Eye. Angus had a strong reaction when he saw the girl and immediately put himself in danger to save her. Raif’s newly formed skills with the bow proved invaluable. He single-handedly rescued the girl by placing arrows through her pursuers’ hearts.

  Heart-killing, it was called: the surest and quickest way of ending another person’s life. Raif Sevrance was slowly coming to understand that he was master of it.

  Having escaped from the city, Raif, Ash and Angus turned north toward Ille Glaive. During the journey Raif learned that Ash was the Surlord of Spire Vanis’ adopted daughter. She had run away because she feared that her father intended to imprison her in the Inverted Spire, which lay beneath the tower known as the Splinter. Heritas Cant, a friend of Angus Lok’s, provided the reason for Ash’s father’s behavior. According to Cant, Ash was the fi
rst Reach to be born in a thousand years. She possessed the ability to unlock the Blind, the prison without a key that contained the destructive might of the Endlords. The Endlords’ purpose was to annihilate the world, and every thousand years they rode forth to claim more men for their armies. Cant informed Ash that she must discharge her Reach-power or die. The only place to do so safely was the Cavern of Black Ice; anywhere else and she would tear open the Blind and free the Endlords.

  Raif and Angus agreed to accompany Ash to the cavern in the far north. As soon as their small party reentered the clanholds they were captured by Bluddsmen. The Dog Lord, Vaylo Bludd, ordered Raif’s torture in the Ganmiddich tower. The Bludd chief had lost seventeen grandchildren during the slaying on the Bluddroad, and Raif Sevrance had to pay for those losses. After days of torture, Raif developed a fever and began to fail. Yet when Death came to take him she changed her mind. “Perhaps I won’t take you yet,” she told him. “You fight in my image and live in my shadow, and if I leave you where you are you’ll provide much fresh meat for my children. Kill an army for me, Raif Sevrance, any less and I just might call you back.” Raif feared the grim words would become his life.

  The night before he was due to be killed by Vaylo Bludd, Raif was rescued by a group of Hailish warriors led by his brother Drey. “We part here. For always,” Drey said as he let his younger brother, the traitor, slip away.

  Later that day Raif met up with Ash. While Raif was being tortured, Ash had been handed over to Marafice Eye, who planned on returning her to her foster father in Spire Vanis. Vaylo Bludd had a debt to repay. Penthero Iss, the Surlord of Spire Vanis, had aided Vaylo’s taking of the Dhoonehouse. Vaylo had come to regret Iss’s sorcerous help, and sought to end all relations with the surlord. Ash March was payment in full.

  Ash escaped Marafice’s custody after his men attempted to rape her. Drawing forth her Reach-power, she blasted Marafice’s party, killing everyone except Marafice himself and the Surlord’s special spy, Sarga Veys.

  Ash’s and Raif’s journey to the Cavern of Black Ice proved arduous. Ash’s health quickly deteriorated. After crossing the mountains, she collapsed in the snow. Unable to help her, Raif drew a guide circle and called out to the Stone Gods. Two Sull Far Riders, Mal Naysayer and Ark Veinsplitter, heard this call, and rode to Ash’s aid. Upon seeing her, they suspected that Ash was the Reach. They also suspected that Raif was Mor Drakka, Watcher of the Dead—the one predicted to destroy the Sull. Not surprisingly the Far Riders were cool with Raif as they tended Ash. After a few days, the Far Riders led Ash and Raif onto a frozen riverbed and pointed the way to the Cavern of Black Ice.

  The cavern lay beneath the river. Ash discharged her power, but it was already too late. By blasting Marafice Eye’s men in the Bitter Hills, she had caused a tear in the Blindwall. Back in her home city of Spire Vanis, a nameless sorcerer who had been enslaved by her foster father was already working to open the break. “Push and we will give you your name,” the Endlords promised him. Bound by chains, broken and tortured, the sorcerer accepted the deal. “Baralis,” the Endlords named the sorcerer as he broke open the wall.

  As this was happening, the clanwars were spinning out of control. Blackhail waged war on Bludd in revenge for the killing of the Hail chief; Bludd fought Blackhail for the slaying of its women and children; and Dhoone, dispossessed of its roundhouse by Bludd, fought to regain its territory. The clanhold of Ganmiddich, which was traditionally war-sworn to Dhoone, was overtaken first by Bludd and then Blackhail. Mace Blackhail, now chief of Blackhail, forced an oath of loyalty from the Ganmiddich chief and then garrisoned Hailsmen in the Ganmiddich roundhouse to insure it was upheld.

  Meanwhile, infighting amongst Dhoonesmen over the chiefship came to a head. Skinner Dhoone was the deceased chief’s brother and first choice for the now-vacant chiefship, but the brash up-and-comer Robbie Dun Dhoone fancied the title for himself. The two factions split the clan down the middle. The deadlock ended when Robbie tricked Skinner into attacking Withy, the clan who made kings. Skinner’s forces and Skinner himself were cut down by Bludd, freeing Robbie to take the chiefship of Dhoone. When infighting amongst Vaylo Bludd and his seven ungrateful sons resulted in the Dhoonehouse being held by a skeleton force, Robbie seized his chance and retook the Dhoonehold. The small occupying force of Bluddsmen were slain, and only Vaylo, his lady Nan, his two remaining grandchildren and a guardsman escaped.

  Robbie wasted no time naming himself chief and king. His half-brother, Bram Cormac, was left to pay the price for this victory. For in order to secure sufficient numbers to retake Dhoone, Robbie had sold his brother to Castlemilk.

  Back at Blackhail, the slain chief’s widow, Raina Blackhail, struggled to come to terms with her new life. Like Raif, Raina suspected that Mace, her foster son, was responsible for her husband’s murder. At first she had not supported Mace’s campaign for chiefship, but Mace put a stop to her opposition by raping her. Silver-tongued, he claimed the union was consensual: a momentary weakness between two grieving adults. Aware that most people in the clan believed his story, Raina chose to keep her silence. Her place in the clan was at stake; tell the truth and she would be branded a liar. Clannish honor demanded that she and Mace marry, so Raina wed her foster son and became chief’s wife again.

  From this position, she watched the decline of her clan. Mace had been born at Clan Scarpe, and it wasn’t long before his old loyalties started to show. When the Scarpehouse was burned down by a neighboring clan, Mace opened the doors of the Hailhouse to Scarpe. Scarpemen in their hundreds poured into Blackhail and set about consuming its resources. When Augus Lok, newly freed from captivity by the Dog Lord, visited Raina, he planted the seed of dissent. “I will be chief,” Raina found herself saying after he had left. Her husband was a chief-killer who had ordered the slaying of innocent women and children on the Bluddroad, and plunged his clan into needless war. Surely she could be a better chief than that? The two people she informed of her intentions—the senior warrior Orwin Shank and the clan matron Anwyn Bird—agreed with her, and Raina set about looking for opportunities to claim power.

  After departing Blackhail, Angus Lok returned to his home east of Ille Glaive. Upon arrival he found his worst nightmare had come to life: his house was empty and burned down. His three daughters and his wife were gone. Dead. Angus was a ranger, a member of the secret society known as the Phage. His work involved opposing the rise of the Endlords, and he blamed himself for leading evil to his door.

  Leaving the Cavern of Black Ice, Ash and Raif headed north into Ice Trapper territory. Once there, they met up with Mal Naysayer and Ark Veinsplitter. Raif was drugged, and awakened to find Ash and the Far Riders gone. Sadaluk, Listener of the Ice Trappers, informed Raif that Ash had chosen to leave, and could not be followed. Raif reluctantly accepted this and decided to head east. Sadaluk gave him two parting gifts: a sword salvaged from the corpse of a Forsworn knight and a single arrow. “Grow wide shoulders, Clansman,” Sadaluk told him. “You will need them for all of your burdens.”

  With a heavy heart, Raif departed. He had decided to join the Maimed Men, an outlaw clan who lived on the great cliffs above the Rift. During his journey he learned firsthand what the Endlords and their Unmade could do to men. In an ancient fastness on the edge of the Great Want, he found the smoking, disintegrating corpses of four Forsworn knights. They had been attacked by the Unmade—who were now escaping from the Blind—and as the knight’s bodies smoked to nothing the Endlords claimed their souls. One knight remained alive but mortally wounded, and Raif learned that the only way to stop the man’s body from becoming unmade was to kill him, thereby depriving the Endlords of his death. It was a chilling lesson, and Raif found himself embracing the name the Listener had given him, Watcher of the Dead.

  No man who was whole could join the Maimed Men, and upon arrival at the Rift, the tip of Raif’s finger was taken by a man named Stillborn. Traggis Mole, the leader of the Maimed Men, was suspicious of Raif’s claims to be a
crack bowman, and ordered a test of arrows. Raif won the test, claimed a prize of a rare Sull longbow and earned the name Twelve Kill. His opponent was killed and thrown into the Rift.

  Meanwhile, Ash had become Sull. In a deep mountain cavern east of Ice Trapper territory, the Far Riders drained her human blood to make way for Sull blood. Ash learned the Sull were an ancient race whose numbers and influence were in decline. At one time they had occupied the entire Northern Territories; now they had been reduced to a region of land in the east. The Sull believed it was their destiny to fight the Endlords and the Unmade, and by becoming Sull Ash agreed to take on this fight. As they made their way south to the Heart of the Sull, they were pursued by the Unmade. Just north of the River Flow, they were attacked by unmade pack wolves. Ark was killed and Mal continued fighting as Ash floated to safety on an unhitched bridge. “Daughter” had been Ark’s last word to her. The endearment almost broke Ash’s heart.

  Penthero Iss, the Surlord of Spire Vanis and Ash’s foster father, had been planning to use Ash’s Reach-power to seize control of the clanholds. With his daughter gone, he decided to send an army to attack the clanholds and chose Marafice Eye as its leader. While the army marched north, bent on attacking rich and vulnerable Ganmiddich, the surlord was left unguarded and vulnerable in Spire Vanis. Rival grangelords sharpened their knives. Yet it was not a rival for the surlordship that brought down Iss: it was Crope, the faithful servant of the sorcerer who was enslaved beneath the Splinter. Crope and his lord had been separated seventeen years earlier when Iss had captured Baralis. Crope himself had been seized by slavers and sent to work in the mines. It took him seventeen years to escape. As soon as he was free he traveled across a continent to save his lord. Crope had giant’s blood in his veins and he brought down the Splinter, killed the surlord, and carried Baralis to safety.