A Sword From Red Ice (79 page)

It didn't take Addie long to find the trappers'
path, and they followed it south and a little west through the trees.
A cube of spat chewing curd, an apple core, and a ragged piece of
leather fringe were duly noted by the cragsman along the way. After
holding the trail for the better part of an hour they knew they were
getting close. The smell of woodsmoke was so strong you could taste
it in your mouth, and the chunk of logs being split with an ax rang
through the woods.

Addie wanted to continue down the path, but Raif
stopped him. "Let's approach the camp from the back."

"Ain't neighborly," Addie said, by way
of agreement.

The trappers' camp consisted of a large A-frame
tent overhung with moose felts, two large wooden stretching frames
for big game, a log pile and chopping block, a firepit hung with cook
irons and a smoking rack, two cross sections of tree trunk that
looked like they were used as seats, various cache bags strung from
the nearest cedar and a butchering circle where the snow was trampled
with blood. The man who was quartering logs with a small hand ax was
tall and rangy. His skin was the color of red clay.

"Trenchlander," Addie murmured. "Poor
cousins of the Sull." They were crouching amidst a small copse
of cedar saplings about ninety feet behind the camp. Raif watched the
axman carefully, reassuring himself that the man's rhythm hadn't
changed and that his focus remained on his work. Raif wondered about
the location of horses and pack animals, but then decided the A-frame
was large enough to hold livestock.

"Bear pelts fetch a tidy sum in Hell's Town,"
Addie whispered, "and they sell the gall bladders to traders
from the south."

Raif nodded, barely listening. He was fairly sure
now that the axman was unaware of their presence. That was good. It
meant he lacked the exquisite senses of purebred Sull. "He's
probably not alone," Raif said quietly. "Aye. Maybe his
friends're off walking the trap rounds. Shall we?" Raif felt a
sudden twinge in his shoulder, but ignored it. "Lead the way."

To disguise the fact they had sneaked up on the
Trenchlanders' camp, they made their way partway to the front and
then created a great deal of noise stomping through the remaining
trees and snow. Addie began talking in a loud voice, telling some
story about the time he'd got drunk in a stovehouse and singed off
most of his hair. Abruptly, he halted the tale midway and hailed,
"Friend! Good day to you!"

The axman had stopped chopping but he still held
his ax. He had sunken cheeks and there was slack skin around his jaw.
Frostbite had rotted the tips of both his ears. Like Ilya
Spinebreaker before him, he inspected Raif's cloak and bow. Addie put
up his hands, elbowing Raif along the way to do the same. Raif
briefly showed the man his bare palms. "Trade," Addie
proclaimed loudly, rubbing his thumbs and fingers together. "Fair
exchange of goods."

Finally the man reacted. Thumping the flat of the
ax in his free hand, he said, "Tree. Over there." He waited
for them to locate it with their gazes. "Tall man. Stick sword.
Then talk trade."

His accent was heavy and his command of Common
incomplete, but Raif understood him well enough. Leaving Addie's side
Raif crossed over to the tree and drew Traggis Mole's longknife. With
a light jab he embedded the point in the bark. At eye level. Turning
on his heel he locked gazes with the Trenchlander. "Done,"
Addie declared.

The Trenchlander did not allow them the fellowship
of the tent and indicated they sit by the fire on sawn-off logs.
Addie was offended by this lack of hospitality, but Raif preferred
it. This way he could keep an eye on his blade. As the Trenchlander
unhooked the pot suspended above the flames, Raif heard the sound of
braying coming from inside the A-frame. Possibly a donkey or a mule.
Once the lidded pot was at the Trenchlander's feet, he deftly tossed
three iron thumb cups into the fire. After a few seconds he fished
them out one by one with his notched stick. When he poured broth into
them it sizzled and spat, shooting out the aroma of meat and peppery
herbs. The Trenchlander looked from Addie to Raif as the cup cooled.

Realizing he was expecting some courtesy from
them, Raif said, "We are grateful for the hospitality of your
hearth."

It was sufficient. The Trenchlander nodded, placed
the cups inside larger, leather cups and handed them to Addie and
Raif. As was custom in such encounters, the guests drank first.
Whatever it was—broth, tea, ale—it was good and spicy.
Addie drank his quickly and then studied the dregs.

"Trade," the Trenchlander said.

A moment passed where Raif realized he possessed
nothing he would give in trade. The Orrl cloak. The Sull bow. The
stormglass. Traggis Mole's longknife. A man would have to kill him to
get their hands on any one of them. Addie however seemed prepared for
this and slid out one of his spare hareskin socks from his gear belt.
A single swinging motion was sufficient to produce the clink of
coins.

The Trenchlander waited. He was dressed in cut
deerhide that had been sewn together with crude black stitches and an
overtunic of black curly-haired sheepskin that was so stiff it hung
from his shoulders like a piece of steamed wood. He was not young,
and he had several broken veins in his eyes, and his facial hair was
showing gray. The Sull blood showed through in the deep cavities
beneath his cheekbones and the faint metallic sheen to his red skin.

"Foxglove," Addie said, speaking very
precisely. "Lily of the valley. Motherwort. Broom."

He was asking for heart medicines, Raif realized.
Before tea herbs. The clanholds had lost a good man when they cast
out Addie Gunn. The Trenchlander immediately nodded at the words
foxglove and broom but the other two did not move him. He tapped his
chest, indicating that he knew the herbs' uses, and said,
"Flylessi." A nod toward the trees suggested that this
might be the name of his trapping companion.

Addie nodded right back. The two were getting
along like a house on fire. Raising his cup-within-a-cup, the
cragsman said, "Did a fine job with the brewing."

For a wonder the Trenchlander smiled. He had big
teeth that showed yellow around the roots. He spoke the name of some
herbs in Sull and a few minutes of engaged conversation followed
where the two men sorted out their Common equivalents. Raif picked
out the words wintergreen and chicory as he looked around the camp.
Something had been skinned recently in the butcher's circle and
clumps of fat with the bristles still attached lay amidst the red
snow. A piece of steel as thin as a cheesewire was resting atop a
nearby stump. A flensing knife, and Raif thought it might have a
design of quarter-moons burned into its haft.

Growing up at Blackhail he'd had no contact with
Trenchlanders; Blackhail lay far to the west of the Sull Racklands
and the two peoples rarely met or traded. Since then he'd learned
little. He knew that many Trenchlanders made their livings from the
woods—trapping, hunting, logging—but beyond that he had
only vague ideas about who they were. They lived in Sull territories
and possessed portions of Sull blood, but the pure Sull seemed to
tolerate, more than welcome, them.

Feeling some pain in his shoulder, Raif stood. As
long as he didn't walk toward the tree holding Traggis Mole's
longknife, the Trenchlander shouldn't object to him stretching his
muscles around the camp. Best to avoid the flensing knife too. It
didn't leave much ground, but he could take a look at the woodpile
and inspect the big skins stretched on the racks. Behind him, he
heard the conversation waiver as the Trenchlander's concentration
shifted toward the stranger walking between his possessions. Addie's
voice soon piped up with a question guaranteed to distract him. "What
have your traps been yielding?"

Talk resumed, Raif crossed to the stretching
nicks. A large silver-backed grizzly pelt with the head still
attached was pegged across the frame. Eyes and brain had been picked
out of the skull cavity, but Raif saw that pink flesh still moldered
in the nostrils. Swear to me you will fetch the sword that can stop
them. Swear you will bring it back and protect my people. Swear it.

Raif shivered. At the last moment Traggis Mole's
wooden nose had been gone. A hole in his face sucked in air.

Turning, he asked the Trenchlander, "Have you
heard of the Red Ice?"

The two men were enjoying a second drink of broth
and they both rested their cups and looked up at him. Addie frowned
as if to say, So much for subtlety, lad. The Trenchlander was quiet,
his eyes taking on the glazed look of a man who was thinking.
Calculating.

A noise from the south of the camp distracted
everyone, the crunch of tree bark being driven into snow. Raif
glanced toward it, and saw an old man walking a white horse toward
the camp. A beautiful, thickly-maned Sull horse.

And then the world went black.

A Gift Horse

Dalhousie Selco inspected Bram's sword, squinting
at the watered steel blade as if it was a document he was
deciphering. He switched the bide over like a man turning a page.
"Took some damage here. See?" Dalhousie glanced up at Bram.
"Nicely fixed though. Looks like Brog Widdie's work—must
have been afore he fell head-over-heels for some Hailsgirl and left
Dhoone." Bram had never heard of Brog Widdie, and Dalhousie saw
this in his face. "Used to be a smith at Dhoone in your da's
time. Youngest master in the clanholds, known for his work with
watered steel. Course Blackhail doesn't have any such fancy stuff.
Word is that Widdie spends his days making pots."

Flicking the midway point in the blade with his
index finger, Dalhousie made the steel ring. "It's a bonnie
weapon, no doubt about it. Maybe in a year I'll let you use it."
With that, the swordmaster at Castlemilk sheathed the blade in the
empty wooden scabbard at his waist.

Bram stared at the scabbard, his mouth slightly
open. Dalhousie raised his eyebrows, urging him to spit out any
objections so they could both get on to other business. The
swordmaster was dressed in a short cloak of glazed nut-brown leather
and a pair of heavy-duty wool pants bloused into black boots. The
hourglass hanging from its chain around his neck was still. Time had
ended.

They were standing in the Churn Hall which was the
primary second-floor chamber in the Milkhouse. The fifteen-foot
ceilings were hung with ironwork: cranes, cages, hoists, meat hooks
and trammels. Emergency supplies such as hay, sacks of grain,
quartered logs, barrels of oil and ale and cured sides of ox were
suspended high in the vaults for safekeeping. Wooden pickets, loosely
held together with leather straps, were piled against two of the four
walls. Enoch Odkin said they would be used as makeshift cattle pens
if the Milkhouse was ever attacked and cattle had to be brought
inside. Crates, rolls of felt, a huge net crowded with caltrops that
looked like iron starfish, shelves packed with boxes and scrolls, and
an entire fully-assembled ballista lay against the chamber's other
walls. The large central space was clear, and used for weapons
practice, banquets, warrior parleys and other gatherings. The
milkstone floor had been overlaid with packed river sand, and four
giant fox-head windows set deep into the hall's external wall let in
bleak northern light.

Dalhousie had trained Bram hard for an hour before
ordering him to go fetch his personal sword. Up until now Bram had
fought with a workmanlike iron chopper that the swordmaster had
assigned to him on the first day. When Bram returned to the Churn
Hall with Mabb's watered steel sword he had been expecting to use it.
Not have it commandeered by Dalhousie Selco.

"What you waiting for, Cormac? We're done
here. Tomorrow at dawn on the court."

It was a dismissal. Bram looked at the hare's head
pommel of Mabb's sword, now sticking out from Dalhousie's hard-sided
scabbard. It had cost him a lot to own that sword. And though he
hadn't much wanted it when it had been given to him as a parting gift
from his brother Robbie, he couldn't very well give it up without a
fight. "That's mine."

"Aye," agreed Dalhousie, kneeling as he
wrapped his own sword in a sleeve of felt. "I never said it
wasn't."

There seemed to be something in these words that
Bram couldn't understand. For a man stealing a weapon in broad
daylight Dalhousie looked remarkably bullish. "Go," he
said.

Bram considered his options. None seemed good. He
was sweating fiercely from the training session, and he'd been bashed
so many times around the head that he wasn't certain he was capable
of rational thought. He did know that you didn't pick a fight with a
swordmaster unless you were pretty sure you could beat him. And then
there was Millard Flag to consider. The head dairyman was awaiting
his presence in the dairy, and after yesterday's bawling-out Bram
didn't think it would be a good idea to be late.

As he turned to leave, Dalhousie said to him,
"You're getting better on your feet, but you need to work on
blocking. Fifty bull rings by tomorrow."

Bram nodded. A bull ring was a training sequence
where you moved through a full circle while swinging your sword on
its blade axis. Fifty would take some time.

Pol Burmish was entering the Churn Hall as Bram
left. The tattooed and gray-haired warrior had drawn his sword in
anticipation of a fight. He and Dalhousie often sparred together,
keeping one another on their toes, and it was custom for a small
crowd to gather and watch as they went through their paces. "Day
to you, Cormac," Pol said, as he passed.

Bram nodded an acknowledgment and headed
downstairs. Cormac. He was getting used to the name now and it no
longer caught him off guard. Bram Cormac, son of Mabb: that was how
he was known here. Pretty much everyone in the roundhouse was aware
he was Robbie Dun Dhoone's brother, but apart from a few clan maids
who teased him about it and Nathaniel Shayrac, the guide's assistant,
who seemed to think it gave Bram an unfair advantage, no one ever
mentioned it. Mabb Cormac was known and respected as a fine
swordsman, and it was he who people named when commenting on Bram's
kin. It felt strange but also good. At Dhoone he had been constantly
measured against Robbie; his skin judged too dark, his shoulders too
narrow, his height insufficient. Every time he had been introduced to
someone as Robbie's brother he had seen disappointment in their eyes.
At Castlemilk he was just another yearman, expected to work long
hours, stay out of trouble, and keep up with his weapons training.