A Sword From Red Ice (5 page)

It should serve you well enough until you find a
better one.

Strange how he hadn't given the words much thought
until now. This sword had once been the weapon of a Forsworn knight,
its blade forged from the purest steel, its edge honed by a master
swordsmith. To most clansmen it would be a prize to be treasured;
oiled lovingly every tenday, drawn with silent pride for the
inspection of honored guests, passed through the generations from
father to son. Yet the Listener had hinted that for Raif there would
be more.

Abruptly Raif resheathed the sword. It was time to
move on.

Today was a good day in the Want. A sun rose,
traveling at a constant speed and arc, and banks of low-lying clouds
moved in the same direction as prevailing winds. Well, almost. Raif
shrugged as he hiked along a limestone bluff. He'd take small
discrepancies over big ones any day.

The bluff was rocky and hard going, riven with
cracks and undermined with softer, lighter chalkstone that was
crumbling to dust. Gray weeds poked through holes in the rock. They
may have been alive; it was hard to tell. In the distance Raif could
see a range of low-lying mountains, spinebacks, laid out in a course
that fishtailed into the bluff. Realizing he was in for a steady
climb, he reached for the water-skin.

Straightaway he knew it was a mistake. His mouth
and stomach were anticipating water, his throat muscles were
contracting in readiness to swallow, yet he could not take a drink.
The waterskin was as good as empty. Nothing could be spared.
Swallowing the saliva that had pooled under his tongue, he tucked the
waterskin back into its place behind Bear's saddle. When his stomach
sent out a single cramp of protest, he ignored it. He had to think.

Why am I going this way? Any other heading would
lead him off the bluff and away from the mountains. No climb
involved. So why accelerate his thirst? Why not simply head downhill
and take the easy route? Chances were the Want would shift on him
anyway. A day from now those mountains could have melted into the
mist.

Raif squinted at the sun, thinking. It was a
winter sun, pale and crisply outlined against the sky. When he looked
away its afterimage burned in front of his eyes. As it cleared he
became aware that his breath was purling white. The temperature was
dropping. The Want had two degrees of coldness: bitter and glacially
raw. Since leaving the fortress Raif had counted himself lucky to
have encountered only the first. Bitter he could live with. Bitter
was the normal state of things for the clanholds in midwinter. It
gave you chilblains and sometimes frostbite in your ears and toes.
As long as you were bundled up and well fed you could live through
it.

Raw was something else. Raw killed. It froze your
breath the instant it left your mouth, coating every hair on your
face with frost; it numbed the most thickly wrapped hands and feet
and then when it had numbed them it turned them into ice; and it
altered the working of your mind, made you think it was hot when it
was deadly cold, that you just needed to rest awhile and everything
would be all right.

Raif shivered. He decided to stay on course, but
could not say why. At his side, Bear blew air at force through her
nostrils, forming two white clouds. The little pony had been bred to
live at high elevations in the far north. Her coat was thick and wiry
and her leg hair formed shaggy skirts around her hoofs. She would
probably fare better than him, but he wasn't taking any chances. He
unrolled her blanket and threw it across her back. As he fastened the
toggles beneath her belly he contemplated for the first time having
to kill her. He would place his sword here, well below her rib cage,
and thrust up through her first and second stomachs to her heart. It
was the swiftest death he could give, the instant cessation of blood
pumping from her heart to her brain.

Heart-kill, it was called. All hunters aspired to
it: that perfectly placed, perfectly powered, blow that would stop
all animals in their tracks.

Oh gods. Why am I even thinking of this?
Straightening up, Raif slapped Bear's rump, encouraging her to walk
on.

For a while after that he did not think, simply
walked. They fell into a rhythm, Bear matching him exactly in speed
and rate of climb. Occasionally she would nudge him. Sometimes he
nudged her back. As he walked he savored the pleasure of working his
body hard and forcing his lungs to expand against his chest wall. It
could last only so long. They had no water, and he had no choice but
to consider his responsibility to Bear. She was his animal. He owed
her food, water, shelter and safety. In the event of injury or
sickness he owed her a swift death. Tern, his father, would have
stood for no less. "You have an animal, Raif—I don't care
whether it's a dog or a horse or a one-legged flying squirrel—it
gets fed before you get fed, watered before you drink, and if it's
sick you take care of it." Even then as a boy of eight he had
understood all that his father had meant by "taking care of it."

Raif held himself back a moment, let Bear walk
ahead of him on the trail. He wished it were that simple. Wished that
he hadn't felt a small thrill of anticipation as he contemplated
running his sword through the hill pony's heart.

Kill an army for me, Raif Sevrance, Death had
commanded him. Any less and I just might call you back.

Ice cracked down as they headed Want-west along
the bluff. Clouds disappeared, abandoning a sky that had grown
perfectly blue. The landscape clarified. Rocks, mountains, even the
distant horizon became sharper and more easy to read. The wind had
died some time back and the air was diamond-clear. Raif could see for
leagues in every direction, and spun round to take it all in. He saw
a vast dead volcano rise from the valley floor, saw boulders as big
as roundhouses strewn across a dry lake bed, spied thousands of gray
stumps rising from the headland, a forest of petrified trees, and
spotted a deep flaw in the landscape where a vast shield of rock had
been pushed up by underground forces. None of it was familiar. And
there was no telltale glint of water.

Raif licked his lips and winced in pain. He
wondered if they'd turned black. It had to be midday by now and he
hadn't had a drink since dawn. The day before he had allowed himself
only a cup of water. Time was running out on him. He knew some of the
dangers of dehydration from his time spent on longhunts. There was
little freshwater to be had in the badlands of Blackhail. The
majority of standing pools and lakes were brackish, thick with
minerals percolated from the bedrock. Running water was little
better, mostly sulfur springs, salt licks and leachfields. A man had
to be sure where his next drink was coming from. Dehydration could
make your eyesight deteriorate and your muscles cramp, and just like
the cold it could play tricks with your mind and have you seeing
things that weren't there. Raif smiled grimly. One way or other he
would likely be insane by the end of the day.

Giving in to his thirst, he held the limp
waterskin above his head and squeezed a few drops into his mouth. His
tongue felt big and clumsy, barely able to register the wetness of
the water. Bear, noticing the waterskin was in use, trotted over and
butted his chest. He shook the skin. So little liquid was left that
it didn't make a sound. Raif glanced at his sword.

Not yet.

Prying open Bear's jaw, he thrust the waterskin
spout deep into her mouth and then collapsed the skin with force,
ejecting the last of the water. He was taking no chances: Bear was a
sloppy drinker.

His spirits lifted after that. Bear's wounded
expression made him laugh. The sun was shining. He could even see
where he was going—no small mercy in the Want. The bluff
gradually broadened into headland and they began to make good time.
Directly ahead the mountain ridge loomed closer and Raif could now
see that its lower slopes were mounded gravel. He tried not to let
that bother him. Experience had taught him that climbing loose stone
banks was hard work. Still, it would keep them warm.

And make them sweat. Raif blinked, and noticed for
the first time that his eyes felt no relief. He was out of tears.

What are we going to do?

Three days back they'd passed a narrow canyon that
had contained ice. The frozen liquid had been the color of sheep
urine, and he just couldn't bring himself to pick it. Water hadn't
seemed like much of a problem then. One thing the Want never seemed
short of was ice. Now he would give anything to return to that canyon
. . . but in the Want there was no going back.

Raif scratched Bear's ear. There was nothing to do
but carry on.

As the day wore on the cold deepened. Hoarfrost
glittered on every rock face and loose stone. Raif's fingers began to
ache and the tip of his nose grew raw from constant rubbing—ice
formed every time he took a breath. Bear's muzzle had to be removed.
Metal was a lightning rod for frostbite and could not be left resting
against skin. The hill pony seemed grateful enough to be free of the
bit, but Raif could tell she was growing listless. Instead of walking
abreast of him, she had fallen behind, and she was becoming less
particular about her footing. Twice now she had stumbled when a front
hoof had come down on loose scree.

It wasn't long before their pace began to slow.
Raif lagged, allowing Bear to catch up with him. He leaned into her
and she leaned into him, and they bumped against each other with each
step. The corners of Bear's mouth were in a bad way—the edges
crusted with little red sores—and her tongue had started to
swell. Raif's throat was swollen. When he swallowed, saliva no longer
filled his mouth. His teeth were so dry they felt like stones. The
worst thing was the drifting. He caught himself doing it from time to
time, allowing his thoughts to float away, light as air. He thought
of his little sister, Effie, of her shy smiles and serious gaze. He
and Drey had taught her to read, though neither of them had been
scholars so they probably hadn't done a very good job. She'd probably
overcome it. Effie Sevrance was smarter than both of them combined.
How old would she be now? She had been eight when he left the
roundhouse. It upset him when he couldn't decide whether she was
still eight or had turned nine.

And then there was Drey. There was always Drey. An
image of his older brother came to Raif immediately, the one that
never went away, the one of Drey on the greatcourt that winter
morning, stepping forward when no one else would. I will stand
second to his oath. The words burned Raif even now. He had broken
that oath and shamed his clan. Yet the worst was that he'd let down
Drey. Drey . . .

Raif's thoughts drifted into a dark place.
Falling, he thought of the men he had killed: some named and many
nameless. Bluddsmen, city men, the lone Forsworn knight in a redoubt
filled with death. Thirst followed him down, gnawing, gnawing, like a
rat at the back of his throat. His lips had shriveled to husks and
when he smiled at something playing in the darkness they cracked and
bled. Pain brought him back. Blinking like a man shaken suddenly
awake, Raif looked around. The Want had shifted. Something subtle had
changed, a rotation of perspective or a shortening of distance: he
could not decide which. The mountain ridge that they'd been heading
toward all day was now upon them, looming dark and rugged and barren.
Part of Raif had been hoping to find glaciers in the high valleys but
from here he could tell that he'd badly misjudged the ridge's
elevation. What he'd imagined were mountains were little more than
spine-backed hills.

Without warning the wound in his right shoulder
sent out a bolt of white-hot pain. Knee joints turning to jelly, he
instantly dropped to the ground. The headland's limestone had given
way to softer chalkstone and Raif fell into a bed of pulverized
chalk. Massaging his shoulder he hacked up freezing dust.

Bear came over, anxiously prodding him with her
head. The little hill pony had a frothy scum around her lips, and her
tongue was now too big for her mouth. It lolled to the side, black
and bloated. Raif thought about his sword.

If not now. Soon.

Flinging his left arm around her neck, he allowed
her to pull him to his feet. A queer tingle of pain shot along his
shoulder as he dusted chalk from his cloak. It was losing its
capacity to worry him. He needed water. Bear needed water and
shelter—her exposed tongue would be frozen meat within an hour.
Worry about anything other than those two things was becoming beyond
him. Ignoring the pain, he moved forward.

The point where the headland joined with the ridge
was a quicksand of chalk and gravel. Walking on the chalk was
similar to walking on dry, powdery snow. With every step Bear sank up
to her hocks, sometimes further. Initially the heavier gravel was
suspended across the chalk like lily pads over water, and both Raif
and Bear learned caution. The gravel might hold, suspended beneath
the surface by more gravel, or it could sink so fast it created
suction. Every step was an ordeal. Every couple of steps one of them
had to halt to pull out sunken feet or hooves.

When his right eyeball started to sting, Raif
realized he was beginning to sweat. Baked dry by the sun and
stiffened by the frost, his cornea seized up the moment salty fluid
from his temple slid into his eye socket. His hands and face were now
numb, so when he ran a fist across his forehead and his glove came
back wet it was a shock.

He was losing too much water. Swallowing hard, he
forced himself to stop and think. Ahead, the gravel bank darkened as
the charcoal granite of the spineback hills began to peek through.
Farther along an entire ridge emerged, rising from the sea of stones
and broadening into a rock mass that fused with the first hill.
There, Raif decided. We'll go as far as the junction. The high
vantage point would enable them to see what lay ahead.