"Jones, J V - Sword Of Shadows 02 - A Fortress Of Gray Ice V2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jones J. V)

Something deep inside his spine, the nerve that Tern said was the first thing of a man’s to grow within the womb, sent him a warning of pure fear.
The darkness was not upon the ice, it was within it.
Instinctively, his hand rose to his waist. Only the tine containing his measure of powdered guidestone wasn’t there. He experienced a moment of panic as he slapped his hip, searching for the hardness of elk horn, before remembering he had used his last portion on Ash. It had summoned the Sull for her.
Oh gods.
Raif bit off his mitts and spat them away. Holding his hands to his face, he blew warm air upon them. He was aware of the Listener standing above him, perfectly still now, his breaths coming slow and silent. Raif put his hands upon the ice. He felt the coldness leap toward his fingers, questing for fluids to freeze. Quick ice fastened to his skin, but he pushed against it, dragging his palms across the clearing, turning opaque ice transparent.
He saw the teeth first. A dark mouth gaped wide beneath the surface, lips pulled back to reveal a jaw of broken teeth. Raif recoiled. Something lay dead and frozen beneath him, something that could not be named a man.
Slowly, he returned his hands to the ice. He was shaking now, and there was little heat in him, yet he had no choice but to carry on. He would not let the Listener see his fear.
An eye socket was revealed next, the skin black and mummified, the eyeball long exploded with the pressure of the ice. Evil was frozen in the densely layered muscles of the face. The shadowy mass of the creature’s body was buried deep beneath the surface, its shoulders and chest receding into grotesquely twisted shapes. Raif told himself the distortions were due to ripples in the ice; he almost believed it until the Listener spoke.
“Thaal Sithuk,” the Listener said, his voice soft with hunter’s awe. “From the War of Shadows. Xaluku of the Nine Fingers killed it with a spear thrust to the heart.”
Raif struggled to find his voice. Beneath his fingers, the last portion of darkness waited to be revealed beneath a crust of white snow. “How long has it been here?”
“Five thousand years.”
Raif closed his eyes. The time seemed too vast to comprehend.
The Listener waited until Raif’s gaze returned to him before saying, “There are many things more terrible hidden beneath the ice.”
I don’t want to know, Raif thought. I just want to find Ash.
“Men and kings, and weapons they forged and cities they built and beasts they slew in the darkness. Ages have passed and most think only the legends remain . . . yet most never look beyond the surface of the ice. All things that die fall upon the earth. The musk ox is eaten by the wolf, the shored whale is plucked apart by gulls, the warrior is found and burned or thrust deep within a tomb. Yet sometimes the ice finds them before the hands of scavengers or men. Sometimes the ice claims them and bears their bodies away.”
Raif pushed his hands across the snow, clearing the last of the crust. He didn’t want to hear this. His fingers ached, and patches of skin around his knuckles had started to yellow with frostbite. He wanted clan, and Drey and Effie . . . and Ash. Yet even as he wanted them, he polished the ice before him so he could see what lay beneath.
A hand, with thick black talons that ended in razor points, reached out toward the light, its fist packed with ice. It was so close to the surface Raif could see the fine dark hairs that ran along the skin. Suddenly cold, he said, “Why are you showing me this?”
The Listener jabbed the point of his staff into the snow. “Because telling the truth is seldom enough. A man must see it with his own eyes. The shadows are rising, and beasts and taken men will walk this earth once more. Now is no time to be chasing after things you cannot have. The girl has gone. The Sull have taken her, and what the Sull take they never give back. She’s theirs now. Let her be. Save your strength for the battles you can win. The Long Night has come, and those who thrive in darkness must step forward to fight.” Raif felt his face stiffen at the Listener’s words. He wanted to deny them, but the little tribesman thrust out a hand to stay his reply. “Yes, Clansman. I know who you are. I have seen the raven riding on your back. I have heard the sound of footsteps at your heels. Death follows you. She named you. Watcher of the Dead. Yes, you are cursed. But you are young and whole, and I am old and have no ears and can find little sympathy for you. We cannot choose our skills. A boy with a gift for nets and lines must fish. A man with a hunter’s eye must hunt. If you’re born to the darkness, claim it. Find yourself a weapon and fight.”
Raif pushed himself upright. He was stirred, but didn’t want to be. This was not his world, this place of shadows and darkness and beasts held in ice. He had no weapon, no training. How could you banish shadows except with light? Kicking the mound of snow at his feet, he scattered dry crystals across the clear and gleaming ice. “Why me?”
“Why not?” The Listener’s expression was hard. “Be glad of the gifts you have been given. They will be needed, and there are many things worse in life than being needed.”
Tired of the Listener’s scoldings, Raif forced the subject further. “Why can I heart-kill, old man? Do your gods whisper the answer to that?”
A dangerous smile stretched skin on the Listener’s face. “Men stronger and wiser than you have tried to force me to speak when I would not. None succeeded. I speak only at my own choosing. And I choose to tell you this: Yours is a double-edged gift. You can bring death, but you can also bring peace.”
Raif shook his head, frustrated. He would get nowhere with this.
And what did any of it matter with Ash gone? Where was she now? Had they harmed her? Was she waiting for him to come?
He said simply, “Where are they taking her?”
The Listener watched him closely before answering. “They will carry her east to the Heart of the Sull.”
“Then I’ll go east.”
“Men have died searching for the Heart of the Sull. The ways are long and twisting, and there are forests where every tree looks the same. Some say time itself is woven into the paths, but the Ice Trappers know little of that. We know the legends, some of them. And I can tell you that although Bluddsmen have been known to cross the borders of the Sull Racklands no clansman has ever entered the Heart.”
“Then I’ll be the first.”
The Listener seemed almost to smile. “You are young, and your arrogance becomes you, so I won’t tell you all the reasons why you are wrong. Know this. I have walked this land for a hundred years, from Wrecking Sea to Endsea, from the Ice Horn to the Lake of Lost Men, and not once in that time have I found the Sull ways. They ride for the mountains—I know because I have watched them, even followed them in my youth—but as soon as they pass into the foothills they cease to be. Now, your eyes may be good, but mine were better, and I never discovered where they went.”
Raif bowed his head. He couldn’t argue with the Listener’s words; he knew all about Sull ways. He wouldn’t be here if the two Far Riders hadn’t deigned to leave a trail. Still. He could make his own way east. Softly, almost to himself, he said, “I will find her.”
“What makes you think she wants to be found?”
Raif glanced up at the hard ice-tanned face of the Listener. What he saw made him wary. “She was taken against her will. Drugged, snatched away in the night, forced to ride east to gods know where. Of course she wants to be found.”
The Listener tapped snow from the tip of his staff. “Oolak is bitter and stringy, and stinks like dead fish. Only men are fool enough to drink it.”
Again, Raif felt a stab of wariness. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Your friend was not drugged. She only took one sip of the oolak. She went of her own free will.”
“No.”
“They did not force her. She is the One with Reaching Arms. She knew she had to go.”
Raif shook his head savagely. She wouldn’t leave him without saying a word, not after all they’d been through. Not after the Cavern of Black Ice. He said coldly, “You lie, old man.”
The Listener nodded. “Often, about many things. The kind of truths I know destroy men. Mothers do not want to know that the child they carry will be born dead, or that their sons will die before they do, and their husbands will be maimed during the hunt. You cannot be a Listener without knowing how to lie.” As he spoke, the old man reached into the soft inner furs that lay beneath his sealskins and pulled something out. “But to you I speak the truth.”
Opening his fist, the Listener let something small and dark fall upon the ice. “She asked me to return this.”
Raif stared at the object by his feet. Black and hooked, as long as a child’s finger, with a hole bored through the bridge for threading string. Raven lore. Here it is, Raif Sevrance. One day you may be glad of it. No matter how hard he tried to lose it, it always came back.
It changed everything, and both he and the Listener knew it.
“No.”
Quite suddenly he remembered the single tear in Ash’s eye. She had known then that she was leaving him. Calmly, because there was nothing else to do, Raif bent and picked up his lore. It felt thin and brittle, like something he could crush in his fist. Instead he pulled a tie from the Orrl cloak around his shoulders and fastened the lore to his throat. It was his and he would wear it . . . and he would not think of what Ash had done.
“She made her choice,” the Listener said. “Now it’s time you made yours.”
Raif found himself looking at the ice, at the dark and monstrous shape rippling beneath him. Guard yourself, she had said, her last words. How could he do that when the things that cut the deepest couldn’t be fought? After a moment he crossed to the crater wall and began to pull himself up. His choice was made.

CHAPTER FIVE
Into the Fire