"Do we still ride tomorrow?" she asked no one in particular.

A dozen replied, "Aye, lady."

Sunlight from the door blinded her. "And my husband, does he still ride at the head?"

Bailie the Red placed a steadying hand on her elbow. She had not realized she had begun to sway. "Mace will ride with the first thousand as planned," he told her in his rough burr. "The second force will be led by Grim Shank."

Bailic smells like beeswax, she thought inanely. Probably uses it to waterproof his bow. She stepped outside. For a moment she couldn't see anything, so great was the contrast between the dark, smoky entrance hall and the harsh sunlight of midday. Man-shapes coalesced from the brightness. The blocklike form of the war cart came into view. Seen this close it was bigger than she had imagined, a stovehouse on twelve wheels. The teamster was releasing the lathered and shaking horses from their yokes.

"Who'll be in charge of defending the Hailhouse while they're gone?" she asked the nearest warrior.

"Chief gave Orwin the honor."

She did not recognize the young Hailsman's voice, and did not turn to look at him. Her thoughts were like beads, connected only by the slenderest thread. So far so good. Orwin Shank was the best, most logical choice. He would not interfere with her plans.

When she was ready, she turned her gaze to her husband. Mace Blackhail was standing by the wagon's front axle, speaking with two men. One was the Scarpeman Mansal Stygo, who was never far from Mace's heels. Mansal had killed the Orrl chief with a hammer blow so hard it had driven Spynie's head into his chest cavity. A month later Mace had invited Mansal and his crew to overwinter in the Hailhouse. The second man had his back to Raina. He had the shoulder breadth of a hammerman, but something in his posture warned her there was more to know. His ful-length cloak was narrow across the back and oddly formal. The fur collar was a deep, luxurious brown; she couldn't decide what animal it came from. By contrast the cloak's hem was in poor shape, tattered and black with mud. When the stranger noticed Mace's attention shift away from him, he turned to see who the Hail Wolf was regarding.

Raina Blackhail stared right back.The flesh on the stranger's cheeks had been scarified and tattooed to create the illusion of depth. Sunlight disappeared into carefully manipulated pits in the skin. He was a Scarpe, she saw that now, for black leather traces were woven into his shoulder-length braids and his fur collar was the fancy weasel known as mink. He appraised her, there was no other word for it, looked her up and down and decided what she was worth.

Mace spoke a word and the three of them moved toward her. Three Scarpes. One plan. Raina kept her shoulders straight as the pieces came together in her head. The wagon. The cloak hem. Mace's face.

"Raina." Mace's voice was tightly controlled. Beneath the hardened leather carapace of his riding armor, his lungs were portioning air. "I don't think you've met Stannig Beade, clan guide of Scarpe and counsel to its chief. He's brought us a gift from his clan."

Dear Gods. No. Wind knifed across the greatcourt. Hammer chains rustled, dry snow snaked over the stones. Everything that was Blackhail was being blown away, and she had been a fool to imagine that she could be the one to stop it. Raina glanced at the wagon. The sawn ends of the poison pines were oozing sap. Poor Anwyn. She had not seen this coming. But the gods had. That's why they left.

Unable to find her voice, Raina nodded at the stranger with the darkly watchful face.

"Raina." He did not bow; she had not expected him to. Nor had he offered her the courtesy of "lady."

"Stannig has split the Scarpestone," Mace said, raising his voice so all gathered on the greatcourt could hear. "Today he brings us our half. Blackhail is no longer a clan without guide or guidestone. For a thousand years we've shared warriors and oaths with our brother clan, now we share their stone."

Silence followed. The wind blew. And then Mace Blackhail spoke again. "Stannig will stay in our house until the Stone Gods return.

NINE The Crab Gate

The Ganmiddich roundhouse commanded a bend in the Wolf where the river changed course from west to south. Built from the same green traprock that formed the cliffs and banks of the river, it sat on high ground above a crescent-shaped gravel beach. The great dome of the roundhouse dwarfed the east and north wards, which had been added at a later date. The primary entrance to the dome was through a pair often-feet-high double doors known as the Crab Gate. Carved from seasoned oak and armored with plates of fossil stone, the Crab Gate was held to be one of the great wonders of the clanholds. How the fossils had been fixed to the wood, where they came from, and what creatures they revealed were sources of wonder and myth. Marafice had once seen them up close for himself and they had given him a chill. Segmented eyes, pronged claws, winged fish, cloven tails, serrated fangs, scaled birds, basilisk spines, kraken heads: all displayed in deep relief in bone yellow limestone.

It made for a good show, but not necessarily good defense. Marafice knew the gates were heavy and resistant to flames, but he suspected the fossil stone would crack if barraged with missiles, and double gates, by their very nature, were weaker than single ones. If he remembered correctly, there were two big couplets on the interior of each door that were large enough to accommodate the girth of a hundred-year oak. So a single tree trunk barred the entrance to Ganmiddich. Marafice saw it most nights in his dreams.

Now, though, looking north upriver toward the bend, flanked by an army of eleven thousand hideclads, mercenaries and brothers-in-the-watch, he looked upon the Crab Gate's pale exterior a quarter-league in the distance and felt some measure of fear. He did not believe in the God of priests and knights, of temples and prayer books and a thousand fussy rules, but he did believe in something. Exactly what was hard to quantify, but if pressed he'd call it power. He spoke to that power now. Guard me. Guard my men.

Snow fell as the army of Spire Vanis advanced at slow march. The wind was from the east and it channeled along the river and through the bluffs. The Wolf ran shallow here, boulders and gravel banks slowing the flow. Birches and willows choked the water margin, and evidence of recent high water could be seen in uprooted trees, undercut banks and newly exposed stone. The frost that begun in the early hours of the morning had claimed shallow pools and slow meanders, coating them with opaque crusts of ice.

Close to midday now, the temperature was barely warmer. Marafice felt his plate armor sucking away his body heat and did not much like the thought of donning the birdhelm. Like many in the lines he was putting it off until they were within fire range.

Shifting in the saddle, Marafice looked back over the ranks. The rear guard, led by the improbably named Lord of the Glacier Granges, had cleared the bend and was forming ranks. Hideclads, Marafice thought with some heat, a man could be blinded looking at so much steel. Which damn-fool surlord had been responsible for repealing the Hide Laws, that's what he wanted to know. The Hide Laws had prohibited private armies from wearing chain mail and metal plate unless directly under the command of the surlord. The law had given the hideclads their name. For hundreds of years the armies maintained by the grangelords to defend their granges were allowed to armor themselves only in hardened hide. It had been, as far as Marafice Eye was concerned, a very fine law, and one which he wouldn't think twice about reinstating. Nothing wrong with a surlord having the best army. Nothing wrong at all.