A Sword From Red Ice (33 page)

Raif inhaled the smoke; funny how it no longer
burned. "What if you are unsure of your purpose?"

"You ask yourself. You ask others."
Tallal indicated the Want with a slight movement of his wrist. "You
search."

"Until last night I believed I could help
you. It seemed as if our purposes were close." Raif stopped,
fearing he had said too much.

Yet Tallal simply nodded. "The Book of Trials
speaks of the raven. It tells us that when we see one we should
follow it, for ravens feed on opened carcasses. They find the dead."

Raif could think of no reply.

"The lamb brothers believe you need a new
sword." Tallal's dark eyes glinted. "Last night it was
noted that the wrall was brought down with a bow. Our elder brother
thinks perhaps this is not good. He believes some things are too
powerful to be killed in such a manner. He says there are creatures
so far removed from the world of flesh that no blade forged by man
can kill them." Tallal frowned. "Our elder brother worries
about such things."

A stray draft set the smudge lamps jittering,
suddenly brightening, then darkening the tent. Smoke funneled around
the walls, its scent strengthening as if something within it had
reacted to the wind. Raif felt his mind circling with the smoke.
Tallal was leading him somewhere as surely as if he had attached
guide lines to Raif's belt. Almost against his will, Raif's hand
sought out the weapon holstered at his waist. Did you really think
this would be the sword that makes you? The Listener's words, spoken
all those months ago in his hut by the sea, suddenly seemed
dangerous. Like a curse.

Tallal continued; Raif knew he would. "It is
written that thirty hundred years ago our people nearly died. A
drought was visited upon the Sands and no man felt rain upon his back
for thirteen years. When the rains came they brought no relief for
the sky had grown too dark and the rain was full of ash. In the
charcoal years that followed it was sung that wralls walked the sand
and claimed us. We were simple people, without weapons to best them,
and we had grown weak. When the Outlanders came and offered us the
chance to meet the wralls in battle as their allies, ten thousand of
our people marched north with the Outlander horde. They were never
seen again.

"After the charcoal years ended the barren
years began. We do not know much about those times for there was no
one to sing the histories. Gradually my people revived. Daughters
were born. Water holes were replenished. Dates and lambs grew and we
were fed. Finally one was born to us who was named Meesa, Needs To
Know. The buffalo women tried to claim Meesa for they knew she was
strong and would save many living souls, but she denied them and went
in search of the ten thousand missing men. Meesa left the Sands as a
girl and returned bent and gray. Some say a hundred years had passed
while she searched. The lamb brothers ran out to meet her. 'Tell us
what you know,' they pleaded. And Meesa told them and the lamb
brothers sang her knowledge into the histories, and many generations
later those histories were written down."

Tallal paused, took a nut from the tray and ate
it. He was confident now, Raif saw, sure that the end of his story
was being anticipated. It was. Even though he knew he was being
manipulated, Raif still needed to hear it.

"Meesa traveled north during those hundred
years and talked with many people in many lands. Piece by piece she
learned what had become of the men. The Outlanders had driven them
far north, promising that tomorrow the battle would be met, yet when
the next day came there was no sign of the enemy horde and the
Outlanders lied again. Wralls took many on the long journey, claiming
the morah, stealing from God. My people feared to return to the Sands
without fulfilling their promise of ending the plague of wralls. They
believed that by staying away there would be more food and water for
those who were left behind.

"Finally they arrived at the Valley of Cold
Mists. 'Here,' the Outlanders said, 'is where their armies will
rise.' My people had heard those words many times before and did not
believe them. My people made a mistake. The wralls rose that night in
vast hordes. Their armies spread across the horizon like the sea. My
people were caught unawares in their sleep. As quickly as they took
up their bows and spears they were ridden down, run through with
blades as dark as the night. The histories tell of many dread beasts
that could not be killed by men. Even the Outlanders with their
forged steel could not match the wrall kings. My people were
slaughtered. The Outlanders were decimated, down to their last
thousand when the raven lord rode through. The raven lord was not one
of us and our histories do not record his name or his people. We know
he wielded a sword that was as black as well water, and that he used
it to slay a wrall king.

"After the battle ended the raven lord was
dead. He had driven back the wrall hordes but his body was broken,
ravaged by many cuts. The few Outlanders who still lived walked to
high ground and slept, and in the morning when they awoke they found
the valley below had been flooded and frozen. A lake of red ice now
lay in place of the battlefield, and every man and every beast who
had died there was now frozen beneath the ice."

Raif shivered. As Tallal had been speaking, a
gusting wind had set the leather pouches rocking overhead. They
rocked now, out of time with each other, swinging like pendulums back
and forth. I need to think, but Tallal didn't plan on giving him
time.

"When the lamb brothers heard this tale from
Meesa they began to keen. Thousands of our souls lost, taken by the
wralls and impossible to reclaim. Meesa told them to quiet their
grieving for the souls had not been claimed by the Dark Lord. The
souls were frozen with their bodies and as long as the lamb brothers
found them while the ice still held we could claim them and set them
free."

Tallal looked at Raif, looked into the substance
beyond his eyes. "Last night, Raif Sevrance, you showed us what
we must do when we find those bodies: we must destroy them as soon as
they are released from the ice. It is not a lesson that pleases us,
for our most sacred law prohibits the desecration of the dead: God
asks that when we come to Him we be whole."

Raif bowed his head. He could not look anymore at
the sorrows revealed in the lamb brother's eyes. "How do you
know the ice is still frozen?"

"We hope."

More sorrow there. Remembering the patterns on the
prayer mats, the raven pecking at the ice, Raif said, "You
search for this place, the Valley of Cold Mists." It was not a
question. Understanding was coming. The lamb brothers' purpose was
not the same as his own, but there was a point where they
intersected. The Red Ice. That was why Tallal had led with the sword.
It had seemed to come out of nowhere, the lamb brother's concern for
his blade. Now Raif saw it for what it was, a carrot to lead him to
the other side. Tallal sought to recruit him to the search.

Stirred but cautious, Raif said, "All was
frozen, good and bad?" Tallal nodded.

"What happens if the ice melts? Would the
Unmade . . . the wralls . . . come back to life?"

"I do not know."

It was not a reassuring answer. Raif moved on.
"You are sure the sword is there?"

"Yes, frozen on the raven lord's chest. It is
said that it was once wielded by Sull kings."

Raif licked dry lips. "What made the valley
flood?"

Tallal shook his head.

"And you do not know where it is?"

The lamb brother glanced at the tent flap, at the
thin sliver of light coming through. "We believe it lies in the
north of this continent. East, west, center: we are unsure."

"You hope for help," Raif said, thoughts
still forming, "yet you do not want me in your party."

"Ten is an unlucky number."

"With the mule it would have been eleven."
Raif was surprised at the heat in his voice. "Why will you not
have me?"

Tallal's nostrils flared as he took a deep breath.
Absently, he reached up and steadied one of the leather sacks that
was still swinging. "You may not much like the answer."

Raif had not imagined he would. "Tell me."

"Two of our party are dead. You killed
neither but you drew their deaths as honey draws the sand flies."
Tallal stood and lifted a small glazed jug from the floor of the
tent. Walking the circle of smudge lamps, he poured a drop of oil in
each one. "If you journey with our party we fear more deaths.
The lamb brothers do not judge you, for we are taught all creatures
born of God have a purpose, but the path you walk is dark. The raven
must feed."

One by one the smudge lamps sizzled, releasing the
crushed-grass odor of wormwood. Raif wondered if it was mildly
poisonous, like the drink. Even though he had guessed what Tallal
might say, it was not easy to hear it. When people learned what he
was and what he could do would they always push him away? What of the
Maimed Men—would they be any different?

"If I were to find the place you seek, how
would you know? You and your brothers might be anywhere. How would I
find you?"

Tallal set down the jug and crossed over to the
painted chest. Kneeling, he said, "Let us find you." He
pushed open the lid of the chest and searched for something inside.
Raif noticed three more black dots at the back of his neck. "Here,"
Tallal said, flinging something toward Raif.

Raif snatched it from the air. It was a leather
pouch similar to those overhead, with something flat and jagged in
it.

Tallal smiled, delighted. "If my mother were
here she should be grateful for your quickness." Seeing Raif's
confusion, he shooed his hand at the pouch. "Open. It is a
gift."

The leather was old, darkened by many oilings. A
length of undyed wool formed the drawstring. Raif pulled it back, and
discovered a piece of glass.

"From me."

The glass was the size and length of a fingerbone.
One end was blunt while the other narrowed to a delicately curved
point. Raif rolled it between his fingertips, watching light tumble
within it. He wasn't sure, but it seemed as if the light and
reflections moved a fraction slower than the glass itself.

"Stormglass," Tallal said, his smile
softer now. "Just a little broken piece found by my
great-great-grandfather—on my mother's side."

Raif closed his fist around the glass. "Thank
you."

"When my brothers and I were young we would
turn our mother's hair gray by tossing it to each other across the
date yard. We were bad sons. After the beatings we were better."
The memory stopped Tallal for a moment, his brown eyes looking
inward. Shaking himself, he said, "Even a piece this small is
good luck. Kings and rich men may crave unbroken rods and whole
branches, but as long as you have a tip you have the nagi. The
essence. When stormglass is formed it mirrors the lightning that
created it. Sometimes it branches as it shoots through the sand. When
that happens there can be several tips—the point where the
lightning's power comes to rest. This is one such piece."

Raif did not know what to say. Tallal's pleasure
in giving him the piece seemed genuine, but a gift this precious
usually came with a price.

"It is said that if you carry a piece of
stormglass you will never be alone in a storm." Tallal voiced
the words lightly, but Raif knew they were not light. Here it was:
the cost. "Keep it close to your skin when lightning strikes and
the lamb brothers will find you."

Tallal held Raif's gaze. Pride and something
almost opposite to pride existed in the muscle tensions of Tallal's
face. He was waiting, Raif realized, upon an answer.

A wisp of wormwood smoke floated across Raif's
knuckles as he glanced down at his fist. Perhaps the smoke was not
poisonous as much as numbing. Perhaps it prevented deep thought. He
opened his fist and slid the stormglass into its pouch. "I give
no promises," he warned, tying the pouch to his gear belt. But
he did, he knew he did.

The lamb brother carefully controlled his face.
Crossing back toward the cushions, he said, "Let me tell you
what you must do to leave the Want."

The Copper Hills

Vaylo Bludd did not want to admit that his knees
were sore and he needed to rest. In the past fifteen days he'd had
enough walking to last a lifetime, and his heart, his knees and all
seventeen of his teeth ached persistently with every step. Gods, what
had he come to? A warrior without a horse. A chief without a clan.
What was next? he wondered. A Bluddsman without kneecaps or teeth?

"Vaylo. We should halt for a minute. The
bairns need to pee." The Dog Lord looked long and hard at his
lady, Nan Culldayis. It was an hour past noon and they were on their
third hill of the day and this one was the steepest yet. It was
pretty enough, the blackstone pines giving way to winter heather and
wild oats that had been tidily cropped by rogue sheep, but the climb
was tiring and monotonous and the wind that was blowing south from
the Rift cut you like a blade. Vaylo tucked his long gray braids
under his coat collar as he said, "No, Nan. We carry on."

He left her looking at the back of his head. The
Dog Lord was nobody's fool and he knew what his lady was about. She
thought to provide him with an excuse to stop and rest, and he wasn't
having any of it. Bairns need to pee indeed! Those bairns had peed
their way north across the entire length of the Dhoonehold. Another
couple of hours wouldn't hurt.

Indignation oiled Vaylo's knee joints and he
worked the hill hard, stabbing its thin rocky soil as he climbed.
This was Copper Hill country and the slopes were pitted with old
mine shafts and vent holes. As far as Vaylo knew there was only one
copper mine still open—and that was far to the east, sunk deep
beneath Stinking Hill. Copper hadn't been seriously mined on the
Dhoonehold for five hundred years, and only cragsmen and raiders
walked these hills now. You could still see the copper though; a
certain greenish tint to the soil made everything that grew here look
healthier than it really was. Many of the little rills and creeks
that drained the hills sparkled with red ore. Copper had made Dhoone
rich at one time, and paid for the construction of the finest
roundhouse in the north. Dhoone copper had once been carted overland
all the way to the Far South, and strange kings and warlords had
forged mighty weapons from it and sent back all manner of treasure in
payment. Copper's glory days had long passed though, and it had been
fifteen hundred years since a copper weapon had bettered a steel one
on the field. Still, copper had its uses even now. Vaylo had heard
that in the Mountain Cities people liked to eat off it, and he knew
clan maids like to wear it in their ears and around their wrists.
Copper was stretched into wire and hammered into pipes, fired with
tin to make bronze and zinc to make brass. At the time Vaylo had
taken possession of the Dhoonehouse, the mine at Stinking Hill was
still producing a hundred tons of raw ore a year. He had shut it down
of course, then thought better of it and ordered it reopened. Gods
only knew what was happening there now. One thing was certain: After
all the looting and cattle raiding carried out by Bluddsmen over the
past six months, Robbie Dun Dhoone would need all the hard cash he
could get.