A Sword From Red Ice (60 page)

Raif closed his eyes and took a breath. It was the
same as the Forsworn knight in the redoubt; the dark, silky substance
leaking from his wounds. Half liquid, half smoke.

"Traggis Mole is being taken. The wound is
too deep. He is strong and fights it, but his flesh is cankered with
a substance beyond evil and to cut it out would kill him."

The outlander rose from the pile of cushions.
"You'd better show me what you've got."

Raif stepped back. His heel struck one of the
metal bowls, producing a note that vibrated through the cave.

Argola regarded him with some impatience. "It's
why you came here, is it not? Something in the Want injured you?"

Again, Raif felt himself irritated by the
outlander's assumptions. The fact that they were correct only made it
worse. He had nothing to lose now—certainly not privacy as this
meeting so far had been a demonstration in how little Thomas Argola
valued discretion. With a snap, Raif unhooked the Orrl cloak. Yanking
his undershirt and sealskin up around his neck he showed his back to
the outlander. "It's low on the left shoulder."

Argola approached him. He looked and said nothing.

The pull from the flue lifted hairs on Raif's
skin. After a while he could stand the silence no logger. "What
is there?"

"Three puncture wounds. All are scarred over
and dry. The middle one looks to be the worst of them. May I touch
it?"

No. Out loud, Raif said, "Go ahead."

Two things happened then. First he felt a bite of
pain where Argola's finger touched him, and second he saw that the
cloth screen with the dragons and pears had been pulled partway back
and Argola's sister was standing behind it, watching him.

Raif tugged down his shirt. He could feel his
color rising and wanted nothing that moment except to be gone. The
outlander shooed his sister with a flick of his wrist. He did not
seem much concerned.

"They were not made with voided steel,"
he said to Raif, a question in his voice.

Glancing at the screen, Raif saw that Mallia
Argola had disappeared. He wondered if she was just beyond the
screen. Listening. Coming here had been a mistake. He started toward
the door.

Argola moved with him. "Stop," he said,
his voice flat yet somehow compelling. "If you will not speak
hear me out."

Raif halted by the door; the farthest point from
the dragon-and-pear screen. Argola understood him and edged close,
and for the first time it occurred to Raif that the outlander
appeared whole. No obvious abnormalities or cuttings marked his
flesh. What was his place here? Maimed Men would not tolerate an
undamaged man or woman in their realm. The outlander did not hunt and
was not well liked. Raif supposed he had his uses. He had tricks; the
revealing of the suspension bridge across the Rift, the raising of
mist during a raid.

The speck of blood in Thomas Argola's eyes floated
toward his iris as he said quietly, "Underlying the middle wound
there is some discoloring and a small pocket of inflammation. I
thought it would be soft, but when I touched it I found it hard. I'm
assuming something raked you with its claws—it's what it looks
like—and I'm also assuming that the creature who did it was
unmade." A pause while Raif nodded. "I believe you were
lucky and unlucky. Lucky that it was maer dan, shadowflesh, not
voided steel that punctured you. Unlucky in that a small piece of
claw broke off in your flesh."

"Cut it out," Raif said.

Thomas Argola was already shaking his head. "It's
embedded in the muscle. Cut it out and you will loose function in
your arm and shoulder. It must be drawn, not cut."

Raif did not understand why the outlander was
playing games with him. "Then draw it out."

"That skill is beyond me."

More games. "You tend Traggis Mole."

"And I can do nothing for him. He dies."

Raif punched the meat of his hand against the
door. Left shoulder. Left arm. Two hundred pounds of pull in a fully
drawn longbow and the left shoulder and arm must brace against it.
"Why do you manipulate me?"

"You know why."

Raif's gaze met the outlander's. At least he did
not bother to lie. "Who are you?"

"Thomas Bireon Argola, from a city you've
never heard of called Hanatta. I lay small claim to the old skills
and have some experience as a healer. I came north three years ago
with my sister, for reasons that are not yours to know. And I do not
lie about the drawing of the maer dan. It is an art practiced by
races older than mine and the Sull."

"Are you whole?"

"Do not make me show you all the ways that I
am not." Raif's anger collapsed. Suddenly he felt tired and out
of his depth. His shoulder seemed to ache more now than it did before
Argola's pronouncement, and he remembered that he had hurt his ankle.
And now it hurt.

Argola looked tired too, the corners of his mouth
were turned down, the lips pale. Raif wondered if his thoughts were
similar to his own: It would be good to have some peace.

"Can I live with the maer dan inside me?"

"You do," Argola said, almost gently.
Then, in a stronger voice, "It is situated in the muscle above
the back of your heart. If it moves inward there is no bone to stop
it." Oh gods.

"The closest Sull settlement is due east of
here, in the great taiga where the Deadwoods meet the Sway."

Here it was, the manipulation. Raif felt it in the
hollow center of his bones. It was a funny thing, manipulation; even
when you knew someone was doing it and they admitted to doing it, it
could still work. It is a hard journey north, he had said last time.
Now east. "Have you heard of the Lake of Red Ice?"

"I have."

"Do you know where it is?"

"All I know I have said."

Raif looked at the blood in Argola's right eye and
imagined how it had got there. "Look for me," he commanded.

The outlander's face registered surprise, and
then—Raif would remember for the rest of his life—satisfaction.

"If you are to watch you must be prepared
when they come." Raif thought about all these words revealed.
Argola knew about the sword. Knew also about the name he had taken
for his own. Mor Drakka. Watcher of the Dead. How did he learn these
things? What did he know that Raif did not?

Thomas Argola's small, sharp-featured face gave
nothing away. His plain brown robes reminded Raif of what the monks
in the Mountain Cities wore to demonstrate they had no interest in
worldly things.

"Did they tell you the name of the sword?"

It was as if the outlander had a stick and kept
poking him harder and harder to see what he might do. Raif's back was
against the door; he could not be driven any farther. "No they
did not."

Argola received the warning, seemed pleased by it.
Again there was that lip stretch of satisfaction. "The sword
that lies beneath the Red Ice is named Loss."

Loss.

"There are some things in the Blind that will
not fall by any other blade."

It was too much. Raif punched back the door bolt
and let himself out. He did not look back or close the door.

Sunlight streamed against his face and he could
barely make sense of it. Bouncing off the snow on the ground, it came
at him from every direction. Bright, razoring light. It should have
dispelled the dark seizures in his brain, yet it just seemed to feed
them.

Loss.

He headed toward the upper ledge. A knotted rope
hung from the ledge he had jumped and he yanked himself up it. He had
left behind his gloves and cloak in the outlander's cave, and the
cold and the rope burns added to the strange energy of pain and
twitching thoughts he had become.

I will not slit your throat. I will defend the
Rift Brothers. I will become lord of the Rift. Every time he spoke
these days he seemed to take on another oath.

He had given none to Argola, though. Yet he had
allowed the man to push him. Releasing his hands from the rope, Raif
landed on the rimrock. Snow crunched as he flattened it. Had he
allowed Stillborn to push him too?

Deciding no good would come of knowing, he
switched his mind away from all of it. Argola's motives. The puncture
wound. The sword. It was just past midday and the sun was at its
highest point above the clanholds. Raif walked to the edge of the
broad table of rock and sucked in the sight of his homeland. Seven
hundred paces, that was the distance that separated the clanholds
from the Rift in this place. A man could cross it in a matter of
minutes—east of here there was a hidden bridge. Yet there might
as well be a wall as tall as the sky. Raif Sevrance could never go
back.

He stood and let the sun warm him and the snow
cool him. And when he was ready he looked down into the Rift.

For the first time ever, Raif was aware of beating
hearts deep within its depths.

A Castleman for a Year

Dalhousie Selco, the swordmaster at Castlemilk,
kept an hourglass slung around his neck on a chain and used it as a
torture device. If you as much as glanced at it he'd grab the chain
and twist it, turning the hourglass from vertical to horizontal.
Stopping time. Only when he was satisfied that you and the other
young men he was training had been suitably punished did he twist the
chain back and let time run.

Bram was learning fast: Best not even to look at
the swordmaster, let alone his glass. That path led to double
trouble. Trouble from Dalhousie now. Trouble from the other boys
later. You made him give us an extra fifteen minutes—in the
snow.

It was true enough. They were training on the
smallest of the three swordcourts at the rear of the roundhouse, and
when they'd trudged out before noon and Dalhousie had directed them
to the only court that had not been cleared of snow they all thought
he'd made a mistake. No one had dared say so. Though Enoch had
whispered to Bram, "Either Housie's off his nut or he's going to
make us shovel snow." Whispering was a grave error in the
swordmaster's presence. If he heard you he would whack your shoulder
with his wooden scabbard. Luckily for Enoch there was snow: five
pairs of feet crunching through it on their way to the swordcourt had
provided sufficient noise to camouflage his offense.

Even when it had become obvious that Dalhousie had
not made a mistake and did indeed intend to put them through their
forms while making them stand in two feet of snow, the full extent of
his evil plan had yet to be revealed. Bram had trained with Jackdaw
Thundy, the old swordmaster at Dhoone, and he knew that any
swordmaster worth his salt was tough and demanding. He hadn't known
they were capable of torture.

"Castlemen," Dalhousie had shouted when
they were all assembled on the court. "Pull off your left boots
and let's get moving."

Bram Cormac, Enoch Odkin, Trotty Pickering and
Shamie Weese, known as Beesweese, had looked at each other,
round-eyed and blinking.

"Now!" roared Dalhousie.

At first Bram had been glad he had his socks
on—tube-shaped sheaths of rabbit skin rendered bald by constant
use—but after five minutes of plunging his foot in and out of
the snow the material had become wet and icy and he ended up pulling
it off. At least the bare skin could dry off a bit between dunkings.
Dalhousie had set them in pairs—Bram against Enoch, Trotty
against Beesweese—and made them stand opposite each other while
they took turns executing and defending forms.

"Swan's neck! Bluddsmen's farewell! Hammer
cut! Harking's needle!" Dalhousie Selco marched from one end of
the court to the other, shouting out the forms. Every so often he
would explode into motion, and his chosen victim would have to defend
himself against a series of attack forms while screaming out their
names. Occasionally Dalhousie would throw in a new form, and Gods
help you if you mistook it for something else.

"If you don't know it cover you body and step
back!"

It left Bram's ears ringing. Dalhousie had the
loudest voice he had ever heard.

"Cormac. What's the difference between a
swordsman and a man with a sword?"

Bram had been moving through a series of high
blocks, defending against Enoch's head blows, while trying to keep
his bare foot out of the snow. He was still not accustomed to being
called Cormac and it took him a moment to realize that Dalhousie was
addressing him. The rule on the swordcourt was that you never broke
away from an engagement to answer questions. You shouted out as you
fought. Training," screamed Bram.

"No," Dalhousie bellowed. "Experience.
A man knows nothing until he's been in a genuine blood-spurting,
puke-making, knuckle-bursting sword brawl. You can train every day
between here and damnation and you'll still be a fool with a sword.
You have to get out there and fight, see a man's eyes and know he's
scared shitless, and realize he's seeing the exact same thing staring
back." With that Dalhousie launched himself at Bram.

Sword high from countering head blows, Bram was
forced into an awkward lower-body block. Elbow up and extended, wrist
pivoting inward, he lost control of his sword the instant the first
blow hit. Metal screeched as Dalhousie used Bram's sinking blade as a
fulcrum to turn his sword point into the center of Bram's gut. As
Bram felt the hard jab of blunted steel against his navel, a second
blow cut him on the side of the neck. Enoch Odkin.

"Good work," Dalhousie told the lanky
Castleboy. He had nothing to say to Bram.

Enoch gave Bram a little shrug when the
swordmaster's back was turned. He was older than Bram, probably
sixteen or seventeen, with blue-black hair and thick downy eyebrows
that met in the middle. He'd rolled his left pant leg up to the knee,
revealing stupendously hairy legs and the kind of scars that
stableboys got from being kicked by unfamiliar horses. His foot was
bright pink with cold.