The sound of breaking ice heralded Iron Claw’s arrival as he clambered over the surrounding wall, moving to Wise Bear’s side, nostrils flaring at the scent of flesh. The eyeless man stiffened at the sound of the bear’s approach but his voice remained free of fear. “You cannot threaten me, little man. Your beast holds no horrors for me. Ask my brother, he killed me once before and yet here I am. As I am elsewhere. I have waited here these long years for you to come. Pity my cats proved unequal to the task, but I am patient and I suspect you still have far to go.”
“So you wait,” Wise Bear said, moving forward in a rush, his hand flashing out to clamp onto the eyeless man’s bald scalp. “Wait longer.”
The eyeless man’s mouth gaped, foul air rushing forth as he voiced a soundless scream, jerking spasmodically on his bone chair. He tried to claw at Wise Bear’s arm but his fingers lacked any strength, fluttering like feathers over his sleeve as he convulsed.
Finally the shaman released him, stepping back as the eyeless man sagged, his face a mask of confusion and pain. “What did you do?” he asked in a faint rasp, his hands flailing at his own chest and face, the nails leaving shallow scars on his flesh.
“You wait,” Wise Bear said again, turning his back. “Then you die. Forever.”
“This is . . .” The thing tried to rise from the bone chair, reaching out to Wise Bear as he began to walk away. “This is impossible.”
Wise Bear didn’t turn, striding towards the crack in the ice wall with Iron Claw lumbering along behind.
“Brother!” It slid from the bone chair, reaching out to Vaelin as it crawled towards him, imploring. “Brother! Make him free me!”
Vaelin watched the thing crawl, seeing how little strength remained in its limbs, a twisted collection of skin and bone destined to perish when night brought a deadly chill. He gave no reply, turning to follow Wise Bear.
“You loved Barkus!” the thing called, voice cracking. “I
Vaelin kept walking.
“I have knowledge! I know the Ally’s design.”
Vaelin stopped.
“I know . . .” The thing’s voice faltered as he dragged air into ruined lungs. “I know what he wants.”
“So do I,” Vaelin said, glancing over his shoulder, seeing a dying man flailing amidst rotting flesh. “He wants to make an end. And we will.”
• • •
“Did you kill all of it?”
Wise Bear gave a regretful smile and shook his head. They had encamped in the shadow of the great rock amidst the shelter offered by the jagged ice, the Lonak raising their shelters at an even greater remove than usual, disconcerted by the five war-cats that sat around the shaman in unnerving silence. Vaelin turned to watch as Cara cautiously held a morsel of seal meat out to one of the cats, the beast ignoring her until Wise Bear glanced in its direction whereupon it snapped the treat from her fingers in a lightning bob of its head.
“Only part,” he said turning back and extending his hand, splaying the stubby fingers. “Take one, can still use,” he went on, miming the amputation of his thumb and making a fist. “But weaker now.”
“If we find other parts of it,” Vaelin said, “can you do the same to them?”
Wise Bear nodded. “If we find.”
Vaelin looked at the looming rock spike wondering if the Witch’s Bastard still somehow clung to life.
CHAPTER NINE
Tower Lord Al Bera’s health had improved greatly since the liberation of Varinshold, his skin notably less pale and his hands free of any tremors. However, he still had difficulty standing for long periods and Lyrna had been quick to usher him into a chair. She had summoned him to her father’s old rooms adjoining the council chamber. Once richly adorned with various treasures it was now, of course, stripped of all but a few paintings and tapestries, former possessions of the late Lord Darnel no doubt looted from murdered nobility. She had been scrupulous in cataloguing every item found in the palace, distributing the list so that their true owners could reclaim them, but no more than a handful of beggared lords and merchants had so far come forward.
“I recall my father naming you the Smuggler’s Scourge, my lord,” she told Al Bera. “A hard-won title, no doubt.”
Al Bera gave a stiff nod. She had noted before his discomfort in her presence, a wariness presumably born of the low station from which he had been raised. “The smuggling gangs were greater in number in my youth, Highness,” he replied. “I was a captain in the Realm Guard before King Janus ordered me to take charge of his excisemen, a slovenly lot, given to graft and drunkenness. Forging them into an effective arm of the Crown took time, and more than a little blood.”
“And yet you did it, breaking the strangle-hold the smugglers had on the southern shore and doubling the port revenue in the process.”
