A Sword From Red Ice (75 page)

"If they are Bluddsmen we cannot stop."

It was Addie's turn to be surprised. The cragsman
thought a while, frowning so hard he dislodged ice from his eyebrows.
He had to want to know the reason behind Raif's caution. "It'll
be tricky," he conceded eventually. "I read animal tracks
not woodsmoke. One man's fire smells like the next to me. By the time
we get close enough to see who it is it might be too late."

Raif nodded, grateful for not being questioned. He
could not explain to Addie what had happened on the Bluddroad and how
he was damned in both Blackhail and Bludd for it. Damned in Blackhail
for deserting his clan on the field. Damned in Bludd for slaughtering
the Dog Lord's grandchildren. "If it is clansmen do not use my
name."

More ice was lost from Addie's eyebrows. "It
might be easier to nip north." Raif grinned maniacally. "Let's
go get some tea." Deer had been on the path recently—there
was scat above the snow—and as they made their way east Raif
distracted himself by hunting for game. Once he detected movement on
the Rift floor itself, a young buck grazing on saxifrage, but decided
not to shoot. The time needed to butcher an animal that large was too
great. Besides he no longer had the stomach for the blood. He'd just
smelled the smoke. Let them not be clansmen.

The tents were north of the Rift. There were two
of them, raised in tandem, back-to-back. The tent hides were white
auroch skins, the color of snow. Raif recognized their form, the
point of stiffened fabric on the roof line and the heavy skirting to
prevent drafts. Be careful what you wish for, he chided himself.
These were not clannish tents. These tents belonged to the Sull.

The camp was situated on a ledge overhanging the
ravine, and Raif realized the tent poles must have been driven into
rock. Brush had been cleared at the rear for a distance of twenty
feet. A horse corral raised from green moose bones contained at least
one horse; Raif could see its beautiful sculpted head sticking out
from above the wind-breaker. As he and Addie drew closer something
shrieked in the sky high above them. A glossy gray gyrfalcon circled
them once, beat its wings, and then descended toward the tents. Two
leather thongs hung with silver disks swung from its legs. Jesses.

"I warned you that by the time we got here it
would be too late," Addie remarked. Raif could hear the edge of
fear in his voice.

As they hiked on the ledge, one of the tent flaps
opened and a man dressed in lynx fur stepped out. For an instant Raif
thought it might be the Far Rider Ark Veinsplitter, and his heart
leapt. Ash. Here. But then the man's head came up revealing different
bone structure and facial features, and Raif felt foolish for having
allowed himself that hope.

The Sull warrior walked to the center of the ledge
and waited. He was tall and lean with long limbs and a long neck. His
cheekbones were cut like diamonds and his skin was the color of
mercury. He did not draw his sword. He didn't need to. The massive
two feet handle rising above his light shoulder was warning enough.
He watched Raif with cool gray eyes, barely sparing a glance for the
cragsman.

When he was close enough to see the bloodletting
season the man's neck, Raif spoke, "Tharo a'zabo,"
Greetings, my friend.

Addie Gunn's mouth fell open. The Sull warrior
blinked eyelids so narrow they might have belonged to a wolf.

"Thaw, xanani" he replied. Greetings,
stranger.

The two stared at each other. Dimly Raif was aware
of the shabbiness of his clothes and weapons; the wax on his nose and
ears, the foot of limp fabric at the end of his sword sheath, the
rawhide strips holding back his hair. Yet the warrior's gaze barely
registered them. He looked at only three things: the Orrl cloak, the
Sull bow and Raif's eyes.

"Haxi'ma" he said finally.

Hearing the word Raif felt longing. Clansman.
Maybe in another life he would be so again.

He shook his head. "Nij" he said,
reaching the limit of his Sull. "We are Rift Brothers."

The switch into Common made the Sull warrior
easier, as if it somehow lessened the threat, and he relaxed his
weight, allowing his heels to make full contact with the rock.

"I'm Addie Gunn," Addie said, stepping
abreast of Raif. "And this is my friend Deerhunter. I wish you
well this day and hope we may do some trade."

How much does the cragsman know? Raif wondered.

Enough not to use any of Raif Sevrance's many
names. Addie waited, chin up, toe tapping, eyebrows like frozen
brambles.

The Sull warrior's mouth twitched once, and then
he executed a bow with perfect animal grace. "I am Ilya
Spinebreaker, and I welcome you to the camp of Yiselle No Knife.
Come, let us take shelter. A quarter-moon rises this night." He
did not wait on a response, simply turned and headed across the ledge
to the farthest tent.

Raif and Addie exchanged a glance. "I'll bet
they'll have some fine tea herbs," the cragsman said.

Three horses in the corral, Raif corrected himself
as he followed the Sull warrior and Addie at a slower pace. A set of
fresh tracks led northeast, the snow around the edges crumbly, not
smooth like the other older tracks. One away then. A firewell had
been built at the center of the ledge and sharpened staves thrust
between the rocks held a bear carcass, skinned and drained of blood.
Raif shivered, wished he and Addie had gone north.

The heat of the tent was dizzying and Raif
immediately felt the blood rush to his head. His instinct was to
strip off his cloak and sealskins and throw cold water over his face
and neck, but this was not the place for that. Here he would have to
burn.

Yiselle No Knife rose from her position of
sitting, cross-legged on a prayer mat woven from indigo silk. She was
slender and tall, with long hands and a narrow waist. Her skin was so
pale it looked almost blue. Night-black hair was pulled back from her
face, revealing the flawless features of a head carved in stone. She
could have been sixty years old or less than thirty, so little did
the smooth blue surface give away. The gyrfalcon that had inspected
them earlier sat on suede gauntlet at her wrist. Its claws had not
been blunted and formed a row of six knives on the glove. The bird
watched Raif with cold black eyes ringed in yellow skin. Its breast
feathers were lightly spotted and were plumped out in warning. The
Spinebreaker told Yiselle No Knife their names, and she spoke them
back with bites of her teeth. Raif responded to the name "Deerhunter"
and bowed.

She regarded him with a glimmer of disbelief. Her
dress was formed from the skin of newborn calves that had been
whitened with lead. The fabric was so fine he could see the
individual outline of each breast. "Break bread with me,"
she invited, indicating with her free hand they should sit.

Raif and Addie sat on silk mats. Beneath them was
bare rock. To one side, a silver brazier containing rock fuel so pure
it burned without smoke gave off light and heat. To the other side
lay a thin silk mattress and a shoulder-high perch for the bird. The
tent was full with four people. Raif could smell Yiselle No Knife's
scent, the faint alien pungency of Sull.

No one spoke while she sat the bird and retrieved
a small lacquered box from the shadowy apron of the tent. The
Spinebreaker stood in front of the tent flap, in a position almost
exactly behind Raif, meaning to make him feel watched. Yiselle
pulled off her gauntlet revealing a right hand subtly different than
her left one. The fingernails sat higher and the fingers were leaner
and slightly webbed. Raif wondered if this was the reason behind her
name.

Kneeing opposite him and Addie she placed the box
on the ground, opened it, and took out a tablet of moistureless
bread. Placing the tablet in her left palm, she used her strange lean
right hand to break it into pieces. She offered it first to Addie,
then to Raif, then to the Sull warrior. "May the moon that
brings harvest never fail," she said, and placed a crumb beneath
her tongue.

Raif tried to swallow. The bread wouldn't go down
and he had to let it sit at the back of his throat until it softened.
Yiselle No Knife offered no water. Rising, she threw the remaining
crumbs on the fire. They crackled like iron filings.

"What brings you east?" she asked Addie.

"Hunting," he said.

"It is not good. Perhaps you should turn
back."

The heat of the fire peeled sweat from Raif s
skin. Behind him he could hear the Spinebreaker's sword harness
creaking.

"Lady," Addie said, "you seemed to
have little trouble finding that fine bear draining above your
campfire."

The gyrfalcon shrieked, sidling from one end of
its perch to the other. Yiselle No Knife closed the lid on the box.
"Your friend is injured," she told Addie. "The further
you go the further you will have to return alone."

The bread set like cement in Raif's throat. At his
side, Addie brushed a drop of moisture from the tip of his nose to
give himself time to think. Raif wondered if it was icemelt from his
eyebrows or sweat. "I'm keeping an eye on my friend. You need
not trouble yourself on his behalf."

"Do you know how to start a stopped heart?"

Addie stood. "Lady, a sheepman can always
recognize a wolf, I thank you for the bread, but I'll hear no more.
Raif." The moment he spoke the word Raif he sucked back air.
Yiselle No Knife's eyes glittered. Her gaze jumped to Raif.

"Come on, lad," Addie said hurriedly.
Raif stood. The gyrfalcon made a queer chuffing sound.

Yiselle looked straight at Raif, her gaze piercing
the shimmers that rose from the amethyst flames, and mouthed the
words Mor Drakka. His Sull name.

"Escort them to the borders of our camp,"
she told the Spinebreaker. "They will never find Mish'al Nij."

It was a relief to get out of the heat. The icy
cold snapped Raif back to life, and he could not recall speaking a
word in the tent. Ilya Spinebreaker marched them north, not east,
across the ledge, and into the forest of crags and dwarfed spruce.
The Sull warrior did not speak. When he reached whatever limit he
found satisfactory he stopped walking. In a single breathtaking
motion he drew his sword. Six feet of meteor steel sliced ice
crystals forming in the air. The sound produced [missing].

The cragsman's hand hovered above the place where
he once kept his portion of powdered guidestone. "Aye. Aye,"
he said softly. Rousing himself to heartiness, he said, "Well
you certainly won't get any help from her ladyship back there. She'd
more than likely poke it all the way through."

Raif made himself smile. The tea had gone cold and
the metal was now pulling heat from his hands through the gloves. He
set it down. "The Sull do not love me. They call me Mor Drakka,
Watcher of the Dead. It is told in their histories that one day a man
bearing that name will bring about their extinction. They fear that
man is me. Before I joined the Maimed Men I traveled the Storm Margin
with . . . a friend. She was injured and two Sull Far Riders stepped
in to save her life. They treated her well, helped her, but they
could barely tolerate me. We parted from them, and then met up again
later in Ice Trapper Territory. Someone drugged me. When I awoke in
the morning my friend was gone. The Sull had taken her."

He let out a long breath. For months he had kept
the story of what had happened to Ash to himself and to speak it was
a kind of release. Guard yourself, she had warned as the drugs pulled
him under. Why had she not said more?

On the opposite side of the fire, Addie Gunn
nodded slowly and continuously in understanding. "No love lost
between you and the Sull." A pinecone jumped from the fire and
the cragsman rolled it back with the toe of his boot. Hot flames
ignited it instantly. "But they need you, don't they? What you
did with that beast on the ledge, the heart-kill, that's what they
would have done. Only you do it different. Better."

A cragsman watches his sheep, Raif realized. No
small thing must pass him by. Unsure how to reply, Raif just looked
at Addie.

Addie looked back. He was still nodding. "They
won't help you find what you're looking for."

"Not willingly. I search for a sword once
wielded by their kings." This made Addie stop nodding. "Gods,
lad. You're walking a tricky path."

"You walk it with me."

The cragsman snorted. Air left his nostrils,
froze, and then sizzled into mist when it hit the flames. "Where
is this place we're heading?"

We, Raif was glad in his heart to hear it. "It's
named the Lake of Red Ice and I do not know where it is save that it
lies somewhere to the east."

"That would explain why we were duck-marched
north."

"Yes it would."

Both men grinned.

"She knew you by your name?" Addie
asked, a question beneath the question.

"I made the mistake of telling the Far Riders
my name. They also learned I was a clansman, from Blackhail."
Raif tried not to think of the look in Yiselle No Knife's eyes as she
had named him Mor Drakka. "Word must have spread." Reading
the worry on the cragsman's face, he added, "She was close to
guessing, Addie. She knew my name wasn't Deerhunter, knew I was clan
and heading east."

Addie frowned. "Deerhunter. That was one
god-awful name."

Raif laughed and after a moment Addie joined in,
and they laughed so hard their bellies ached, rocking back and forth
by the fire.

Soon after, huddled in blankets, greased rags over
their faces, they slept. Raif roused himself once in the night to
feed the fire. The sky was ablaze with stars. When he next awoke they
were gone, and gray clouds were heading out from the north. It was
past dawn. A lone raven was kawing at the top of the ridge.

Addie prepared a breakfast of cold meat and boiled
water. "Where to?" he asked as they ate.