A Fortress of Grey Ice (Book 2) by J.V. Jones Page B

Dagro Blackhail’s Chief ’s Malt, and Shor Gormalin’s Gutbreaker with its crossed swords burned into the wood. So many dead men’s brews. Then she saw it, in the darkest corner, its leather flask hairy with cobwebs, its wood stopper near forced-out with age: Tem Sevrance’s Special Brew. Da must have distilled it himself.
    It was late: the roundhouse had grown quiet and Effie knew she’d better hurry, yet she couldn’t seem to stop herself from reaching for Da’s flask. It smelled like him: leathery and horsy. And when she pulled the stopper out she nearly laughed. This would do the job. It surely couldn’t kill anyone, not after this long, and Da had been a hammerman himself. He’d help her with blackening his companions’ teeth.
    Something behind Effie’s eyes began to hurt, and she recorked the flask with a hard thump and began the short climb from the well.
    It was an odd night in the roundhouse, dark and still with only half the torches lit in preparation for the Feast of Breaking. It had seemed like a good idea to gather the ingredients for the iron juice tonight, for few liked to travel the halls on the night the Stone Gods walked the earth. Now, though, as she wound her way through the roundhouse’s crumbling lower reaches, she began to feel little prickles of unease. Her lore felt cool against her skin.
    The small granite stone was suspended around her neck once more, heavy as a new-laid egg. Inigar Stoop had found it, clutched in a severed hand. It had been the clan guide’s job to gather the remains of Cutty and Nelly Moss. Back bent double against the wind, wicker basket in hand, he had pried their frozen flesh from the snow. Effie had heard it whispered that nothing whole remained, that the dogs had eaten Nelly’s eyes and tongue and torn out Cutty’s spleen. She supposed she was lucky no dog had swallowed her lore. Inigar would not let her wear it at first. Instead he had taken the lore to the guidehouse where he’d spoken words of power over it, and then laid it atop the guidestone where it could draw strength and be renewed.
    It felt different now. Older. Harder. Inigar said lores changed and grew with their wearers; so did that mean she was older and harder too?
    Nearing the oil-blackened stair that spiraled up to the clan forge, Effie slowed her pace. Normally she liked this part of the roundhouse, with its low ceilings and narrow ways. It was darker than normal, but she didn’t mind that. No Sevrance had ever been afraid of the dark. Still. There was something else . . . something watchful and waiting. And her lore didn’t move, didn’t push, but something inside it shifted as if a drop of liquid mercury had flash-hardened in its core. She stopped. Listened. Almost she heard something, but it was probably just a fancy. You couldn’t hear the sound of a man holding his breath.
    Go back, Effie , said a little voice inside her. Run to your room and lock the door.
    No. She was on a mission for Bullhammer and Grim Shank. And she wouldn’t bolt like a rabbit every time she was afraid. Besides, things were different now she was armed. Bitty Shank had given her a knife. A maiden’s helper, he called it. “As nice a piece of flint as you’ll find strapped to a goodwife’s thigh.” He taught her how to use it, too. It wasn’t like stabbing someone with a sword. A flint knife’s strength was in its blade, not its tip, and unless you fancied the tip breaking off as soon as you hit bone it was wiser to slash than stab. Effie had practiced slashing moldy and worm-holed sheepskins in the tannery, reducing the thick, useless rams’ hides to strips. The knife’s edge had been knapped to a sharpness beyond steel, so thin in parts that light shone through the stone. It was spoils, Bitty said, seized from a group of Ille Glaive trappers caught setting wires on Ganmiddich soil.
    Effie touched her waist, feeling for the smooth horn sheath that held her knife. She loved Bitty Shank. He and his