Free Watcher of the Dead by J. V. Jones

The Story So Far
    WHEN HE WAS seventeen, Raif Sevrance of
Clan Blackhail developed the ability to heart-kill game. One morning
while he was hunting in the Badlands with his brother Drey, his
father and chief were slain back at camp. When he and his brother
returned to Blackhail they found that Mace Blackhail, the chief’s
foster son, had declared himself head of the clan. Mace blamed the
murders on Vaylo Bludd, chief of a rival clan. When Bludd sacked the
Dhoonehouse of rival clan Dhoone a week later, Mace’s story of
Bludd aggression gained credibility. Raif found himself isolated. He
alone believed that Mace Blackhail was a liar and a chief-killer.
    War against clan Bludd followed, as
Hailsmen sought to avenge their chief’s death. When Mace
received word that a caravan of Bluddsmen were on the road, heading
west to occupy the Dhoonehouse, he ordered an attack. Raif rode with
the ambush party. When he discovered the caravan contained women and
children, not warriors, he refused to participate in the slaughter.
For disobeying an order on the field and deserting his fellow
clansmen in battle, Raif was branded a traitor to his clan. Four days
later, Raif left Blackhail in the company of his uncle Angus Lok. His
oath to protect Blackhail was now broken, even while he had sought to
act with faith and loyalty.
    The two men headed south. Upon arrival
at Duff’s stovehouse, they learned news of the massacre on the
Bluddroad had preceded them. When challenged by a group of Bludd
warriors, Raif admitted to being present during the slaughter. He
told no one that he took no part in the massacre; loyalty to his clan
prevented him from defending himself at their expense. With this
admission, however, Raif forever damned himself in the eyes of
Bluddsmen. He was the only Hailsmen they knew for a certainty who was
present during the slaughter.
    When Angus and Raif arrived at the city
Spire Vanis they rescued a young woman named Ash March who was being
hunted down by the city’s Protector General, Marafice Eye.
Angus had a strong reaction when he saw the girl and immediately put
himself in danger to save her. Raif’s skill with a bow proved
invaluable. He single-handedly rescued the girl by shooting arrows
through her pursuers’ hearts.
    As Raif, Ash and Angus headed north to
the city of Ille Glaive, Raif learned that Ash was the foster
daughter of the Surlord of Spire Vanis. She had run away when she
learned that her foster father intended to imprison her in the city’s
citadel, the Inverted Spire. Heritas Cant, a friend of Angus Lok’s,
provided the explanation for the Surlord’s behavior. Cant told
Ash she was the first Reach to be born in a thousand years. She alone
possessed the ability to unlock the Blind, the prison without a key
that contained the destructive might of the immortal Endlords. Cant
warned Ash she must discharge her Reach-power or die.
    Raif and Angus agreed to accompany Ash
to the Cavern of Black Ice, the one place where she could discharge
her power without tearing a hole in the Blindwall that holds back the
Endlords. As soon as their small party reentered the clanholds they
were captured by Bluddsmen. The Bludd chief had lost seventeen
grandchildren on the Bluddroad, and he was determined to make Raif
Sevrance pay for those losses. After days of torture, Raif developed
a fever and began to fail. Yet when Death came to take him she
changed her mind. “Perhaps I won’t take you yet,â€

PROLOGUE
    White Bear
    EVEN THOUGH THE temperature had not
risen above freezing in nine months, the bear carcass was not frozen.
When Sadaluk, the Listener of the Ice Trappers, poked it with the
narwhal tusk he used as a walking stick, the flesh rippled beneath
the coarse white pelt. It was a full-grown male, past its prime, with
battle scars denting its snout and a ragged strip of cartilage in
place of its left ear. Dead for at least thirty days, Sadaluk
decided,