A Fortress of Grey Ice by J. V. Jones

Author:J. V. Jones
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 0765345498
Publisher: Tor Fantasy
Published: 2009-01-05T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Hauling Stones

Effie had a feeling Druss wasn’t taking her to Dregg. Back at Blackhail he’d promised Raina and Drey he’d have her in the clanhold within a week. Well seventeen days had gone by since then, and Effie was pretty sure that if Druss Ganlow wanted to reach Dregg he should have turned east by now.

Rising upright, she hooked a hand through one of the bale rings to steady herself against the wagon’s motion, and peeked out through the canvas flap at the farthest southern reaches of the clanholds.

It was all very confusing.

Rain was falling in slushy spits, and the wet-dog odor of snowmelt rose from the earth like steam. The land rose all around in forested ridges. Ancient stands of hemlock and stone pines grew tall and lush on the southern exposures, and there—far behind them now—rose the strange purplish canopies of Scarpe’s poison pines. Somewhere far ahead, water was rushing and crashing through rocks. The Wolf River, Effie guessed, newly swollen with the first of the spring thaw.

She sealed the flap and sat down on an empty chicken crate. So. They were south of Scarpe and just north of the Wolf. Certainly nowhere near Dregg. Frowning, Effie Sevrance settled down to think.

The journey hadn’t been nearly as bad as she’d expected. It was the covered wagon, of course. It was dark and cozy, and whoever had oiled the canvas last for weatherproofing had used beeswax instead of elk lard and it made the interior of the wagon smell like Longhead’s carpentry workshop. And that made it smell like the roundhouse. Sometimes when she woke she forgot where she was, and she thought to herself, I’ll beg some bone ends from Anwyn and head over to the dog cotes. Then her eyes opened and she found herself looking up at the wooden ribs of the wagon. Remembering was the worst. Even if she were back at the roundhouse and Anwyn were to give her bone ends, Old Scratch couldn’t eat them. A burned and dead dog was bone ends.

A queer, unhappy laugh jerked her shoulders. Enough, she told herself sternly. Time to eat.

Food had been good and plentiful since leaving home. Druss Ganlow was fond of saying he couldn’t cook a sausage on a stick, but the Orrl marksman Clewis Reed was wondrously good with herbs and spices, rubbing the plucked skin of pheasants with yellow mustard and cracked peppercorns, and stuffing the neck cavity with leeks. Clewis Reed was nearly as good as Raif with his bow, so there was always fresh rabbit and fowl. Reaching down to the wagon floor, Effie sorted through her cloth bag. Finding a cold pheasant wing from last night’s supper and the last of the honeyed hazelnuts, she settled down for her morning meal.

Druss and Clewis had eaten already. Men did that, she concluded, ate as soon as their eyes were open. They needed their strength to shave.

If she pushed the empty chicken crate to the front wall of the wagon

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