A Sword From Red Ice (71 page)

He took it with a deeply formal bow, and for a
moment she was reminded of the time when Ark Veinsplitter and Mal
Naysayer had greeted her outside the Ice Trapper village. They had
lain facedown in the snow, prostrating themselves before the Reach.
Uneasy, she awaited the Far Rider's response.

Lan Fallstar touched the knot of hair to his lips.
"A toll must be paid on such a gift." The words seemed
genuine, and Ash found herself relieved. Carefully he wound the hair
around itself and tucked it into his weapon pouch. She was surprised
when he unsheathed his letting knife; she had thought the words a
gallantry.

The knife was plain but beautifully made, as all
Sull letting knives were. Handle and blade were formed from a single
bar of alloy. The blade had been case-hardened with carbon and was
darker than the handle. It had a single edge, and inky green and blue
rings shimmered beneath its surface. Lan used the same arm that he
had burned the first night they met, making a cut an inch below the
black and crusted scar. Blood welled in a short line, and the Far
Rider pumped his fist until the redness rolled down his arm and
dripped into the snow. This was the first time she had watched him
let blood, and Ash wondered why he hadn't done the same that night by
the Flow. Why burn himself so badly that even now, over ten days
later, the skin still split open and wept watery blood? Did the birch
way require that high a toll?

Ash lifted her great lynx-fur cloak from the
lakeshore and shook it free of snow. The temperature was dropping and
her wet bits were getting cold. She could not watch Lan's bare arm
anymore; the sight of it was too confusing. Just visualizing his hand
between her legs made her skin flush with heat. She had never
imagined that a single finger sliding against wet skin could bring
such pleasure. Every night as they made camp she felt filled with
reckless need. Part of her knew that it wasn't a wise thing to do,
that she did not know Lan Fallstar and was not even sure that she
trusted him, but her body ignored her doubts. She became intensely
self-aware whenever he drew close to her to perform small tasks like
help her mount or dismount her horse, or offer a hand as she jumped
over logs and streams. Her body teased, in anticipation of the
slightest and most casual touch. She found herself disappointed if
the imagined contact did not come, and fired up and dissatisfied if
it did. Lan had to be aware of her heightened and confused state,
yet he treated her coolly, and did not acknowledge in any way what
they might have done the night before. Was he ashamed of their
lovemaking? Should she be? It was all incredibly bewildering. And
just when she thought she at least understood that he meant to keep
their travels by day separate from their nights in the wolfskin tent,
he went and asked her for a lock of hair. In daylight, with still an
hour or two to go before sunset.

Ash frowned with force, pushing her lips against
her teeth and driving her eyebrows together. On impulse she decided
to leave the Far Rider there with the horses and take a walk around
the lake. As she walked she became aware of a pleasant soreness
between her legs. She frowned harder.

Raft of transparent ice floated across the lake's
surface in no discernible pattern. Some spun slowly, turning on their
axes like wheels, while others sailed right by. One triangular-shaped
raft floated blithely in the opposite direction. On the other side of
the lake she could see a great blue heron holding itself very still,
and somewhere deep within the woods a hawk owl was screeching. The
trees surrounding the shoreline looked as if they'd been thinned, for
the spruces and cedars were well spaced and animal paths and thin
rills of snowmelt led between them. Ash didn't think she had ever
been in a more unearthly place. The spruces were so big they looked
as if they belonged in a different, larger world. Did they mean she
was close to the Heart of the Sull?

They had left the birch way two days after Lan had
taken her virginity. It was snowing and the forest was very quiet.
The fine black stallion, who always walked unleashed beside its
master, had suddenly broken into a canter and raced ahead. Lan made
no move to stop or chase it and after a moment Ash felt the gelding
tug at its lead reins.

"Let him go," the Far Rider said to her.
So she had.

The gelding's tail and ears went up in excitement
and it bolted through the trees after the stallion. Ash watched the
horse disappear and then said, "Will you tell me what you and
the horses know and I do not?" She had meant to pitch the
comment lightly, but she could hear the hurt in her voice.

Lan replied, "Horses are always first to know
when the birch way ends."

Mollified, Ash had fallen into silence. After a
while she thought she heard the sound of running water. A few minutes
later she picked out the shishing of evergreens moving on the breeze.
Ahead she could see nothing but birches and whirling snow. Glancing
at Lan Fallstar's remote and golden face, she wished he would speak
to her; explain how the horses knew the forest was changing, confide
that he too was relieved the birches were coming to an end, dare her
to a race to see who could escape first. Something. Instead he just
faced forward, gaze ahead, and kept up the same pace he had
maintained all day.

When she couldn't take it anymore she had burst
into a run. She could see the hoofprints of both horses filling up
with new snow and she followed them exactly, planting her heels into
the holes. She thought that Lan might follow her and for a while was
disappointed when she didn't hear the sound of his footfalls. The
breathless and crazy joy of running soon took over, though, and it
began to seem like a much better idea simply to run away. And not
come back. The birches ended with such abruptness you could have
snapped a chalk line on them. Stands of blue spruce faced off against
the birches like an armed camp. A no-man's-land of gray weeds,
perhaps fifteen feet across, separated the two colonies of trees.
Despite the unsavory look of the weeds both horses were tugging them
from the snow. Ash's gelding was so excited it didn't actually
swallow any, just let the stalks hang from its mouth as it trotted
about looking for more. Even the snooty stallion was in high spirits,
coming over to head-butt Ash before galloping down the strip of
no-man's-land as if it were a racecourse.

Ash grinned, delighted. She was out of breath and
so hot in her lynx cloak she thought she might faint. Shucking it
off, she ran into the middle of the no-man's-land and collapsed into
the snow. Her heat quickly melted the new snow and she could feel the
back of her dress getting wet. She intended to get up but then the
gelding wandered over and began lipping her face and the whole thing
was so funny and . . . good . . . that she just lay there, kicked up
her feet and laughed.

Footsteps crunched in the snow and then Lan
Fallstar appeared in her line of view. He was carrying her cloak.
"Take it," he said, thrusting it toward her. "We must
go."

That had been four days ago. Traveling had been
harder since then—the birch way was flat and had no hills,
rocks, fallen logs or water to circumvent—but Ash had liked it
a whole lot better. She loathed birches—and all trees that
looked like them. She couldn't think of any offhand but birches
couldn't be the only trees that grew as straight and slender as bars.

It had been good to see the purple, blue and
silver of the pines. On the first day out she'd been driven giddy by
their resinous scents. If she had been with Ark Veinsplitter and Mal
Naysayer she doubted whether she could have stopped talking. There
were so many questions to ask, so many unusual things to comment on.
Why were the trees so big? What made the strange sideways tracks in
the snow? Why were there halos around the sun and moon? What were
those ruins in the distance?

As they'd ridden east, the sounds of snowmelt
running and dripping had chimed through the forest. Day owls growled,
and sometimes Ash would hear the low moans of big snow cats. So far
they had not crossed paths with any other Sull, but Ash had seen
signs of them: horse tracks, blazes, clearings, blood-streaked snow.
When she spotted these things she felt a tightening in her gut. Here
was where Sull lived and hunted. Yesterday she had seen a line of
blue smoke on the southern horizon and she thought they might head
toward it, but Lan had altered their course northeast.

Ash wished she had paid more attention to her
foster father's maps. She had only the most shadowy ideas about how
the Racklands were laid out. Rumor had it that no outsiders knew the
location of the Heart Fires, but her foster father's maps had
contained some details of coastlines, rivers and watchtowers. The
deepwater gulf of the Innerway, where the Easterly Flow and the Great
Shadow River emptied into the Night Sea, might not be far away, but
she could not be sure. Once she and Lan had emerged from the birch
way she imagined they would head south, if only for the reason that
on her foster father's onionskin maps the legend Here be where Sull
are most fierce was always writ across the stretch of land that
bordered the Stonefields of Trance Vor. The Stonefields were a long
way south of the Flow; she knew that much.

Spying something ahead in the water, Ash worked
her way closer to the shore. As she hiked along the bank, thin panes
of ice underlain by gravel cracked beneath her boots. The air
temperature was dropping and the lake had begun to steam. A few
flakes of snow drifted in the air as she leaned over the water and
looked within its depths. The ledge was deeply undercut here and some
stray current had dragged piles of animal bones into the bowl-like
depression. Skulls, mandibles, rib cages, pelvic girdles, scapulas
and chunks of spine formed a boneyard beneath the water. Every one of
them was a bright, livid green. Ash blinked. One of the skulls looked
human.

Cutting away from the shore, she headed back to
Lan Fallstar and the horses. The sense that she was no longer in
territory claimed by Man created strange tensions in her chest. She
had a feeling that if she were to look at anything closely
here—animal tracks, snow, fallen logs—secrets would be
revealed. This land was old. Its trees were old, and its lakes could
turn bones green. Again she noticed the sideways tracks in the snow,
odd disjointed curves that headed from the lake to the trees.

"What are those tracks over there?" she
asked Lan Fallstar with some force as she returned. It was stupid to
be here and not be able to ask basic questions.

The Far Rider had been sitting on the folded tent
skins carrying out maintenance work on his arrows. He slid them into
his hard-sided horn case as she approached. Although he could not see
the tracks she meant, he said, "Moonsnakes feed here. They move
in ways that minimize contact with the snow."

His reply took the wind from her. She had been
spoiling for a fight, she realized, yet hardly knew why. Fine snow
had begun to fall and she hugged her cloak to her chest and asked in
a softer voice, "How big are they?"

"The females grow to thirty feet." The
Far Rider stood. "On full moons they form covens to hunt and
feed."

She was surprised by how easily Lan answered her
questions. This was not normal, but she would use it. "And the
lake? Why are the bones green?"

He shrugged. "This Sull does not know."

"How far are we from the Heart Fires?"

Muscles in the Far Rider's jaw contracted and the
golden skin tightened across his cheeks. With a sharp tug he pulled
up the tent canvas. "We ride on. The Heart Fires will burn until
we come."

Ash looked at the flattened rectangle of snow left
behind by the canvas. She did not move as Lan packed the stallion and
slung his glassy longbow across his shoulder.

"It is unsafe to travel this land alone,"
he said, mounting. "You will not find other defenses as passive
as the birch way."

He never used her name. Not even when he slid his
man sex into her at night and accepted her tongue into his mouth. He
had done her no harm and had guided her safely through the birch way,
but she did not know what to make of him. He changed moods too
quickly. Only an hour ago he asked for a lock of her hair. Now he was
either scaring or threatening her—she couldn't tell which.

"All Far Riders must return to the Heart
Fires."

And there it was again, another change. His voice
was stiff, but she realized he had spoken to soften his earlier
words. She wished it wasn't so confusing. How could he give her so
much pleasure at night yet be so cold to her during the day?

She let the falling snow swirl and sparkle between
them. After a while she decided she had nothing further to say to
him, and went to mount her horse.

It was growing late and the gray sky was slowly
darkening to blue. The snow captured and held the light, glowing on
the forest floor and along the spruce and cedar boughs. The stallion
took the lead at canter and the gelding had to stretch itself to keep
up. Lan Fallstar rode effortlessly, his back relaxed, his fingers
light upon the reins. As he moved in the saddle, the longsword and
bow slung crosswise across his back slapped together, beating time.

Ash was glad to be riding. Bending low against the
gelding's neck, she savored the warmth of horseflesh against her
chest as she raced after the Far Rider. Her lynx fur flared out over
the horse's rump and her hair streamed behind her, heavy with melted
snow.

She became aware of movement so gradually that it
barely registered at first. In her mind it was something black and
distant between the trees. As the snow began to ease it occurred to
her that the blackness was on a path to intercept with her own. A
muscle below her pit loosened. Shortening the reins, she sent her
hill awareness toward the thing that was closing in from the south.