The burned flesh was the price of killing a Reach. The hair on her head alone had to be worth five hundred Unmade deaths.
Do not come here in the flesh. The creatures themselves had warned her. She was rakhar dan, Reachflesh, and they loved and feared her above all things. Ark Veinsplitter had predicted that Sull would come after her. Now she understood why. Her flesh destroyed maer dan. It was the other side of the double-edged sword. She brought them into the world by creating a breach in the Blindwall. She could send them back.
They had never attacked her directly. Not the unmade wolves on the bridge, nor the carrion feeder in the woods. Why had she not realized that until now? Perhaps their swords of voided steel could harm her, but she no longer believed their flesh could.
Was she worth more dead then alive? How many Unmade could her blood, teeth, hair, and nails destroy? She did not know the answer. Ark Veinsplitter and Mal Naysayer could have slain her, yet they had chosen to protect her instead. Daughter, Ark had called her. It was not the word of a man who wanted her dead.
Ash crossed toward the stairs. Hands and feet probing the darkness, she searched for edges, walls, the risers of steps. A leathery shuffling sound came from above; the bats were taking flight. They did not touch her as they flew up the stairs, though she felt the air they displaced riffle against her naked body. Their silent calls pricked the membranes in her ears.
As she reached the top step, she became aware of a slight increase in light. She was on the ground floor of the fortress now and her eyes could make out the dim and blocky forms of walls. No moon may have risen but the stars provided a thin blue veil of light. When she looked up she could see streaks of cloud and constellations, and the strange, leaflike forms of the bats.
Her nipples hardened in the raw air and every hair on her body rose upright. The snow beneath her feet did not seem cold and she walked easily upon it, barely making a sound. She was moving along a corridor framed by tall walls. When the side of her foot hit a fallen stone, she crouched and pried the square piece of rock out of the snow. Her thoughts were oddly calm and disconnected. He will try to slay me. He is probably watching as I walk along this corridor. All the advantages are his.
Yet she was a Reach and she was just beginning to understand that was something to be feared. She, Ash March, was something to be feared.
Could she call them forth, the creatures of the Blind? What could she do that would make the Sull fear her?
Weighing the rock in her fist, she stepped into the open space of Fort Defeat's inner ward. Nothing moved in the blue-black darkness. No wind penetrated the double walls. No mist snaked across the ground. The snow glowed dully as it froze. Ash cut toward the gate that led to the outer ward. Nothing within her wanted to stand still.
The gate was a black hole in the wall. As she passed through it her gaze searched for the place where Lan had made camp. He had cleared the snow earlier and the patch of dark ground caught her eye. The horses were gone. The packs were gone. Lan Fallstar was nowhere to be seen.
Her body was growing cold now. Water in her hair was stiffening to Ice, and she could feel the gooseflesh tightening her skin. Slowly she walked toward thdjteircle of cleared ground. Something was happening m her stomach; muscles were contracting and relaxing in strange ways. Her left arm began to feel light, as if it were still in water. The right one was weighed down by the rock. Two men stepped from the shadows to meet her. Metal slithered against leather as they drew longswords. They were silhouettes in the darkness. She could not see their faces or details of their weapons and dress. Two men. Two swords. This was a ceremonial slaying.
Neither warrior was Lan Fallstar; she knew it for a certainty. He had summoned others to do what he would not do himself. Had he invoked them that first night? Or the other morning when he returned to camp with the coati?
No matter, Ash said to herself, feeling her left hand begin to float from her body. I will destroy them all
They stepped to meet her: pack shadows armed with two-handed swords. Starlight ran along the edges of their blades. Breath fogged. Ash felt a muscle high in her right arm spasm as it fought the weight of the rock.
Grayness merged with darkness, and as she moved forward she crossed into Glor Rhakis. No-Man's-Land.
All was the same. The swordsmen came toward her, stepping apart as they prepared to take her from both sides. The stars burned blue. The fortress still stood. It was the edges that were different, the margins, the shadows, the cracks in the walls. They became charged with the energy of another world.
The ancient and evil presence was here, sliding along the deeply black shadows cast by Fort Defeat's double walls. Turning the huge millwheel of its awareness toward her, it murmured an instruction.
Reach.
Ash dropped the rock. Swords came for her. Weightless, her right hand drifted up. A breach existed in the Blindwall, but it had never been big enough. They had always wanted more.
Aid me, she commanded them.
As her right hand drew parallel with her left she heard a word spoken in a dread and terrible voice.
"Daughter."
Mal Naysayer, Son of the Sull and chosen Far Rider, rode through the fortress's main gate. His six-foot longsword with the raven pommel was drawn and in motion. Galloping forward, he swung it in a great arc and severed the first man's head. Hot blood sprayed across Ash's belly and breasts. The head came bouncing toward her and hit her shin. The eyes were blinking.
The Naysayer spun his huge blue stallion and kicked it into motion. His teeth were bared and his eyes burned colder than ice. Dropping the reins, he wrapped both hands around the grip of his sword as he charged. The second man hesitated, torn between standing his ground and defending himself, and running. The hesitation cost him more than his head. Mal Naysayer's fearful blade ripped trough the muscle and organs in his stomach, cleaving his body in two. The pieces thudded dully as they fell into the snow.
Ash heard a noise beyond the wall; the drum of hooves on stone. Lan was riding away. The Naysayer heard it too, for his head tilted for a moment as he listened.
There was never any question that Mal would go after him. She had a sense that it would not be the last either of them saw of Lan Fallstar. For now, though, the coward could wait. The Naysayer slid from his horse and unhooked his wolverine greatcloak. He was breathing hard and she thought she saw tears sparkling in his eyes. His sword was streaked with blood and stomach chyme and he laid it on the ground before he approached.
"Daughter," he said, his voice rough as he slipped the cloak around her naked and bloody body. "I have come."
Ash fell against him. She was shivering intensely, and her arms were burning with pain. The world of shadows had gone now, dissolved like salt in water. What had happened just then, she wondered. Had she reached?
Mal Naysayer picked her up with great gentleness and carried her through the gate.
FORTY-THREE A Place of No Cloud
The night after they left the trappers' camp the sky cleared and the temperature began to drop. The thaw had reversed while Raif and Addie slept, and when they woke in the morning oozing snow had been frozen into glasslike mounds. Addie took one look at the sky and deemed it a "nosebleeder." All clouds had gone and there were none on the horizon. Suddenly the north had turned to ice.
"Pray the clouds don't come back," Addie said, warming his hands around a steaming cup of tea. "If warm air hits this freezing ground we'll be in for the devil of a storm."