The monolith steamed. So vast it pulled motes of dust from the air as surely as the moon pulled waves onto the shore, it stood black and still and wounded. Deep fissures dissected it like forks of frozen lightning. Pores once brimming with shale oil were now filled with lenses of ice. The narrow cane-and-timber ladder that Inigar used to access the carving face was white with hoarfrost Only yesterday he had stood on those rungs and chiseled out a heart for a fallen clansman. A young woman in this very house awaited delivery of the fist-sized chunk of granite. Widows without bones needed stone.
So much work to do in times of war, so many calls upon the stone. I best get to it then. Stop fussing over a late-season cold snap and get down to the business of mens souls.
As Inigar stood to fetch himself water, he caught sight of the northern face of the monolith. A crack as wide as his forearm and as tall as two men had opened up overnight. Dear Gods, help us. Could he have done more? Mace Blackhail was a strong leader, a fine warrior; and a fiercely ambitious chief. The Stone Gods demanded jaw, and Mace Blackhail had so much of it he could barely keep his teeth from springing apart. Jaw had landed him the chiefdom and driven him into war. Under Mace's leadership, Blackhail had seized control of Dhoone-spoke Ganmiddich and was now challenging old boundaries in the east. Mace had rallied Blackhail warriors and reclaimed the Hailish badge. He'd fired up the sworn clans with talk of glory, making weary and jaded allies eager to fight at his side Bannen had been Hail-sworn for a thousand years but it had ever been a weak alliance. The clan that called itself "the Ironheads" did not follow others lightly. Somehow Mace had managed to do what other Blackhail chiefs could not gain the respect of that proud and grudging clan. Now there was talk of Bannen and Blackhail riding out to meet swords with Dhoone.
Thanks to Mace, Blackhail warriors stationed across the clanholds this very night were filled with the passion and terror of war—and was that not what the Stone Gods loved best?
A thin film of ice had formed over the water jug and Inigar punched it with his finger and drank. The bald-eagle foot resting against the apple of his throat bobbed up and down as he swallowed.
Jaw was a tricky thing. It was courage in all its forms from bravery to recklessness. It was seizing the moment and acting without hesitation, and being brazenly sure you were right. Mostly it was sheer bloody-minded audacity: pulling off something no one else thought could be done.
It was not cunning or deceit. Inigar closed his fist around his eagle lore and weighed it. A bald eagle saw much and so did he. Mace Blacklrail was not a perfect man, Inigar had known that all along. Yet a chief had been slain and a new one needed anointing, and Mace Blackhail had been the first to stake a claim. That was jaw and it counted for something. Now Inigar wondered if it counted for enough. Half a year later questions about the raid remained unanswered. Mace had returned from the Badlands, claiming he had barely escaped the hell-forged swords of Clan Bludd, yet Raif Scvrance had also.been at the campground feat day and swore he saw no evidence of Bludd.
And then there was Raina, Mace's stepmother and wife. Inigar claimed little knowledge of women-they did not fight and so mattered little to him-but he had been struck by the changes in Raina Blackhail. She hid them, as was fitting for a chiefs wife, yet eagle lores could not hide from their own kind and Inigar observed things that others did not. She hated her husband, and shrank back whenever he touched her. It was a little thing, easily covered by other movements, yet Inigar had made a note of it He'd seen such behavior before: in women who had been raped or beaten.
Imagining he had heard a sound, Inigar set down the water jug and listened. Nothing. Where was the dawn? Where was the kitchen boy with fresh bread and ewe's milk still warm from the teat? Aware he was becoming agitated and feeling the soreness shift strangely in his chest, Inigar tried to calm himself. The wolf had not cried out again. He was just hearing echoes in his head. Eagles had never been known for the ears.
The air was growing unstable. Flames began leaping free of the fire, and mist ceased rising from the monolith and began to cumulate around the base. The crack in its northern face suddenly looked to Inigar like a newly opened vein. Something vital was pumping out.
"What happened on the Eve of Breaking?" Inigar cried, suddenly needing to hear the sound of his own voice. "Did Mace order the killing of the girl?"
Had it been enough, that order to murder Effie Sevrance? Or had the guidestone been keeping tally all along and judged it one misdeed too far? Inigar had heard the whispers: Mace had killed the swordsman Shor Gormalin, ordered the slaughter of innocent children on the Bluddroad, and amgged the murder of the Orrl chief Spynie Orrl.
There was that noise again. Inigar's head whipped around as he tried to hear. For a moment he thought he detected something, almost knew what it was, but then it was gone. Cold made his eyes slow to focus, and it took him a moment to realize that he could no longer see the Hailstone clearly. Mist folded in on itself, twisting and swirling, mushrooming outward in quiet lobes before being sucked back by the monolith.
Inigar pushed his fist against his rib cage. Thirty years he'd attended the stone, and not one day missed in all that time. He knew the lay of the stone; knew that its northern face was the hardest, and that its southeastern foot was deeply veined with silver and did not take well to the grindstone. He knew where the greatest concentrations of quartz could be found, and the best places to tap for sacred oil. He knew its cavities, its lines of cleavage, its rusts and lichens and flaws. History was carved on its many faces like text in a book. The iron ring on its northwestern corner where the kingslayer Ayan Blackhail had been chained whilst awaiting judgment still stood, immovable now and swollen with rust. A series of blunted steps cut into the east face told of the time when the monolith had stood ten feet taller and had lain on the greatcourt, exposed to rain and frost. Clanwives had once climbed those steps and watched as their husbands returned from the War of Sheep. Every chief since Stanner Blackhail had left his mark upon the stone. Black Harald and Ewan the Bold, Morel rag., Gregor, Duncan, Albor and his son also named Albor, Theobad, Allister and more. The line of marks was long and uncannily telling. Black Harald had chosen crossed swords as his mark, but at some point during his chiefdom he must have ordered the clan guide to take up his chisel and change it The points and hilts of the swords could still be seen, but the blades had been hewn away, replaced by a thickly carved dram cup: the sign of parley. Mordrags mark was a deeply bored hole, fitting for the man who called himself the Mole chief; Ewan's was a half-closed fist, poised to crush the Bloody Blue Thistle of Dhoone; and Albor the Second had chosen a horseshoe, just like his da.
Dagro's mark was unfinished, the stag and swords he'd chosen mere tracelines in the stone.
Inigars gaze lapsed upon the circling mist as his thoughts fell inward. I know this stone like the back of my handy but do I know this clan?
Should he have looked further after Dagro's death? One event, two differing stories: had he dismissed Raif Sevrance's account too soon? The boy had called Mace a liar, said that Dagro had fallen by the rendering pit, not by the tent poles as Mace insisted. Even Raifs brother Drey, who was a staunch supporter of Mace, had agreed with his younger brother's version of events. Yet Raif Sevrance was just a boy, barely seventeen and without an oath. His father had been slain at the same time as Dagro, and he was simmering with rage and grief. The murderers had escaped, unchallenged and unpursued, and Inigar knew what kind of feelings that stirred in a man. Someone had to be made to suffer. Inigar had assumed that Raifs anger toward Mace was simple misdirection. A raw boy looking for someone to blame. Had he been wrong? Ahoooooooooo.