A Sword From Red Ice (35 page)

"Nan," he said, holding out his arm for
her to come to him. "Did I ever tell you about the day your da
taught me his special move?"

Aware that he was shutting down all talk about the
future, Nan nodded knowingly and let him put his arm around her. "The
Culldozer?"

"Aye. The one where he'd let his hammer lie
flat against his horse's belly just so and then present his left
flank to the enemy so they couldn't tell he was armed. Then once he
got close enough, he'd swing about and uppercut them in the jaw."

Nan shook her head in bafflement. "I suppose
it saved the pulltooth some work."

Vaylo grinned. Pasha ran up to them and wriggled
under her granda's free arm, and he got to tell his two best girls
about the day he dropped his newly minted warhammer on Nolan
Culldayis' left foot whilst attempting the special move.

The wind wailed as they walked, blowing in their
faces and scaling their skin. Silvery spikes of heather undulated in
waves like the surface of a lake. Ahead the Copper Hills grew taller
and more desolate, and Vaylo could see sunken holes in their faces
where ancient and unsealed mine shafts lay. Ockish Bull had told him
once that the deepest hole ever dug by a clansman could be found in
these hills. "Harlin Dhoone ordered its excavation. Had an old
mineshaft reopened, climbed down to the deepest level, and pointed to
the ground. 'Dig there,' he commanded his men, 'and do not rest your
spades for one year.'" Vaylo recalled asking Ockish what the
hole was for; had Harlin reason to believe that a new lode of copper
lay beneath? Ockish had shaken his large bland head. "Copper,
no. Harlin dug it as a warning to his enemies. Cross me and you'll
end up down there."

Vaylo frowned. With Ockish Bull you could never
quite be sure what was and wasn't true. He could spin tales with the
best of them, and possessed a facial expression so inscrutable that
it never helped to look at him while he spoke. Vaylo smiled to
himself, remembering. Gods, he missed him. "Granda. Over there.
Look."

Vaylo followed the line of his grandson's arm,
squinting to make out detail in the distance. "What is it, boy?"
he barked, unable to see anything in the valley except heather and
shrunken pines, and feeling the first stirrings of fear.

"Mounted men, Granda. Dozens of them."

Dear Gods, no. "Get down," he hissed.
"Now!"

"Granda," came Pasha's voice, cool as
cream. "They're Bludd. I can see the red banns."

Cluff Drybannock. Vaylo had dropped to his
knees—he was the only one who had done so—and Hammie came
forward to offer him a hand. Preferring to stand on his own, Vaylo
slapped him away. "What do you see?" he asked.

Hammie frowned in concentration as he scanned the
valley. "Bairns are right," he Sid eventually. "There's
over a hundred clansmen down there. It's definitely Bludd, I can see
their cloaks. They're heading right for us."

"It's Drybone!" Aaron said excitedly.
The boy began jumping up and down and waving both hands over his
head. "We're here! We're here!"

Vaylo and Hammie exchanged a glance. Hammie
shrugged. Vaylo pressed his knuckles against his heart; some
tightness there. "Warriors do not jump up and down when they
greet each other." He gave his grandson a long, reprimanding
stare. Dropping his arms, the boy fell silent. "Good. Chin up.
You too, Pasha. One on each side of me."

As the bairns fell in line, Vaylo looked ahead. He
could see the horsemen now, see the rich blackness of sable cloaks
and the oily sheen of well-groomed horses. Most of the men had spears
couched upright on saddle horns and all had longswords holstered so
high on their backs that the crossguards and handguards were visible
above their shoulders. They had moved into the formation known as
"rule of all," where a single line curved inward forming a
reverse C shape so that the farther a man stood from the center the
more forward he was. It was a little-used formation and Vaylo
wondered what, if anything, it meant.

Cluff Drybannock rode at the center of the line.
He was bareheaded and his waist-length braids streamed behind him as
he closed distance across the valley floor. Opal rings bound his
hair, and as he drew closer Vaylo saw other signs of the Sull: a
quarter-moon painted on the shaved portion of his skull, owl feathers
sewn on the collar of his cloak, hands gloved in darkly iridescent
moonsnake.

Vaylo did not move from his place on the hill. He
had formed a line of his own with him at the center, a bairn on each
side, Nan at one end and Hammie at the other. Nan and Hammie had
taken their cue from what Vaylo had said to the bairns, and stood,
chins high, as they waited. Vaylo wondered if they felt the same
apprehension as he did, wondered if they also strained to make out
the expression on Cluff Drybannock's red-clay face.

Spying a streak of black and gray at Dry's right
stirrup, Vaylo understood what had brought these men out. The wolf
dog trotted at Dry's heels, tail up and in motion, its yellow eyes
alert. It had raced ahead to the Dhoonewall and returned with the
mounted might of Bludd.

Vaylo swallowed. Several outcomes occurred to him,
and he found some comfort in the fact that there wasn't one in which
the bairns came to harm. He could see Cluff Drybannock's startling
blue eyes now; all the Sull Vaylo had ever met had eyes that looked
as if a light shone through them. What does he see when he looks at
me? Vaylo wondered. An old man? A failed chief? An encumbrance? A
rival?

As the wings of the C hit the hill and began to
climb, Vaylo recognized many men: Mogo Salt, Midge Pool, Big Borro,
Odwin Two Bear. He looked all of them straight in the eye. They
looked right back, he was glad of that, but their faces were hard to
read. In a matter of seconds the formation closed around him and he
found himself facing Cluff Drybannock. Expertly, the longswordsman
reined in his horse. The line halted. For a moment the wolf dog was
the only thing that moved as it trotted across the thirty paces that
separated Drybone from its master. Vaylo paid it no heed. His gaze
was fixed on Cluff Drybannock.

The two men stared at each other, the chief's
bastard and Sull bastard. Overhead a V of geese passed north, their
calls dull and labored as they fought the wind. Soon they would cross
the Rift, Vaylo realized, and wondered what they would see when they
looked straight down into the abyss.

Cluff Drybannock did not blink or speak. Raising
his left fist, he issued a prearranged command, and one hundred and
sixty men—Vaylo knew this because he had counted them—stood
in their stirrups and dismounted. Drybone did the same, and perhaps
of all the people gathered here this day only Vaylo could tell that
Dry forced his movements to slowness to match time with the other
men. When a perfect half-circle had been formed a second command was
issued, again with the raising of a fist.

As one a hundred and sixty men raised their arms
and gripped the handles of the swords. As one they drew them. The
snick of metal shaving leather rang out as a single sound. All
waited. The wind died. At Vaylo's side, the wolf dog howled,
confused.

Then Cluff Drybannock, the greatest longswordsman
in the North, exploded into motion. Drawing a form in the air with
the point of his sword, he leapt forward, his movements so swift his
cloak crackled like lightning. He spoke a word and it was no word
that Vaylo knew, and then, halting, he raised his longsword to his
chest, took it in both hands . . . and sent it plunging into the
earth.

That was the signal for the other hundred and
sixty men to come forward and lay down their swords before their
chief. Kneeling, they laid their weapons, point-out toward him,
forming a semicircle of steel around Vaylo Bludd.

The Dog Lord stood and accepted them. Dry's sword
vibrated right in front of him, its blade a foot deep in the stony
soil. Dry himself was breathing hard, yet his face was still. "Son,"
Vaylo said to him.

"Father," Cluff Drybannock replied,
using that word to address his chief for the first time in his
twenty-nine-year life. "We have waited long days for you to
come."

The Mist Rivers of the Want

No man or woman can ever hope to navigate Mhaja
Xaal, the Land of Unsettled Sands. Once he or she has accepted that
as truth it is possible to find a way through. Sun and stars must be
ignored. Instinct set aside. That which is considered by most to be
wrong and foolish must be embraced. A man or woman wishing for
passage must be like the kit fox, scarab beetle, and rattlesnake:
they must travel solely at night.

"Only in darkness can we find our way
through. What the light shows cannot be trusted and is therefore
without value. We must learn to honor that which we touch, not see.
Know that, and you have the secret of leaving Mhaja Xaal.

"On the darkest nights when there is no moon
to light the way the mist rivers flow. The mist rises in the
darkness, filling arroyos and canyons. To leave Mhaja Xaal you must
find an arroyo large enough to stand in and walk against the current.
All the mist rivers in the Land of Unsettled Sands flow inward toward
its heart. Why this is so, the lamb brothers do not know. What lies
at the heart of Mhaja Xaal is not a mystery we cultivate. We do know
that it is not enough to judge the course of the mist rivers from
their banks. What you see will deceive you. The surface currents may
run contrary to that which lies beneath. To leave you must stand in
the current and feel the pressure of the mist against your skin.
Touch alone will lead you out."

Tallal's words ran through Raif's head as he
walked. The lamb brother had spoken them earlier that day in his
tent. It was evening now, crisply cold with a red sky fading to
black. Raif had taken his leave of the lamb brothers an hour earlier
and by now he could no longer look back and see the lights of their
tents. This was it then. He was once more adrift in the Want.

He could not say that he liked it. It wasn't easy
not to think about Bear. The hill pony had died, and if he had been a
better, wiser person it would not have happened. He should never have
taken her with him, that was his first and greatest mistake. When you
go to the Want you go alone. It didn't matter to Raif that the lamb
brothers came here in numbers. Let them do what they choose to do.
He, Raif Sevrance, would never bring another living thing into this
place.

Strange, but it was beautiful tonight. The remains
of the sunset glowed on the horizon and the great open flatland
spread wide in all directions. The pumice dunes had been replaced by
baked rock and it looked to Raif as if he were walking on a dry
inland sea. On impulse he bent down and scraped the pale, scaled rock
with his thumb. When he brought it to his lips he tasted salt.

As he stood he noticed his shadow was fading. A
band of hot white stars had emerged in the sky opposite the sunset,
and Raif spun a full circle as he scanned for the moon. No moon. Not
yet.

"Where is the nearest place to join the mist
river?" Raid had asked Tallal, half a day ago at the camp. The
lamb brother had begun shaking his head even before all the words
were out.

"My memory is good and if you walk with me to
the fire I can point out the direction from which the lamb brothers
came. Your memory, however, is bad."

Raif had grinned wryly. Only five minutes earlier
Tallal had told him directions could not be trusted. "I'm still
learning."

"My people have a saying: There are two ways
to learn. Listening is the easiest." Tallal smiled. "Come,
let us find you some supplies."

They had been generous, and Raif had found himself
touched. The fine, soft blanket he had slept with since the first
night had been waiting for him, neatly folded, by the fire. Fresh
sheep's curd, butter, honey, dried dates, almonds, unleavened
panbread, preserved apricots, lentils and a packet of herbs for tea
had also been set close to the fire. Raif had never asked how long
the lamb brothers had been away from home—it had seemed an
indelicate question—but he had imagined it was well over a
year. By now supplies brought from their homeland must be sparse, yet
they had given their food freely. With grace. For some reason Raif
found himself thinking about the Hailsman Shor Gormalin. Shor had
been the best longswordsman in the clan, a scholar of clan history,
and a friend to Tern and Dagro. Shor had taught Raif about grace.
Looking at the neatly laid pile of supplies, given without fuss or
show, Raif imagined that Shor Gormalin would approve. "Grace is
a powerful force," Shor had said one morning on the practice
court as they were wrist-to-wrist on deadlocked hilts. "It lifts
men."

That was how Raif felt receiving the gifts of the
lamb brothers: lifted. During the brief time he had stayed with them
he had forgotten one important thing. These men had saved his life.
Gods knew how they had found him. Passed out on a ridge in the middle
of the Want, lips black, tongue swollen, sword bloodied to the hilt,
Bear slain beside him: it could not have been an appealing sight. Yet
four men had judged him worth saving.

"Farli." Raif spoke the slain lamb
brother's name out loud. The sound was small in such a big place,
instantly sucked away by space and darkness. The question was there
in the back of his mind, waiting to be asked. Could I have saved him?
Raif knew he had been slow in his responses, slow in finding his
target and letting the arrow fly. If he had ran across the dune with
Farli and fought with him side by side would it have been different?
Probably, yes.

Grow wide shoulders, Clansman. You'll need them
for all of your burdens. Sadaluk's words blew through Raif's head as
the weight of that "yes" settled on his shoulders.

For no good reason, he changed his course. He'd
been heading into the sunset and veered off at a tangent, picking a
distant boulder as his destination. The light was nearly gone now and
the temperature was dropping fast. The big double-chambered waterskin
given to him by the lamb brothers bounced against his back. Its
heaviness was reassuring. There was no guarantee he would find the
mist river tonight or any other night, and even if he did there was
still the question of how long it would take to leave the Want once
the river had been found. "It will take as long as it must,"
Tallal had said before they parted. "And where it leads is
something that cannot be known. Out, that must be enough."