A Sword from Red Ice

NINETEEN Hunting Prey

Raif reached the city on the edge of the abyss just as the sleet started. Smoke from the cave fires blew in his face. He could not say the familiar scent of burning sedge and willow canes made him glad to be back. He had a strong desire to set down his kit, rest, and not enter, but it was already too late for that.

"Twelve Kill on the ledge!" came the cry from a watcher on the high wind-carved cliff above him. Raif acknowledged the man with an open hand, yet did not look up. Already he could hear the call being relayed across the ledgerock, echoing from cave to cave and ledge to ledge, moving up cane ladders and rock-cut stairs, along tunnels and stone galleries before finally plunging down into the Rift.

"Kill. Kill. Kill" Raif heard. His name reduced to a single word.

The children came out first. Skinny and clothed in fine silks and brocades gone to rags, they kept their distance and stared at him with big eyes as if they ha|jreason to be afraid. One older boy bounced a stone in his cupped fist, his tight little mouth twitching. Raif looked him in the eyes, looked long, and the boy caught the stone, closed his fist, and dropped his hand against his side.

The Maimed Men and their women came out next and they were not a lovely sight. Dressed in dyed leather shirts and tunics, animal skins with the heads still attached, armored cloaks, spiked helms, rat-fur hoods, scaled breastplates, steel gauntlets, burned dresses, boned bodices, goat fleece collars and kilts and all manner of straps, belts, packs and chains, they did their name proud. Every one of them was lacking; a missing eye or arm, a clubfoot, a deformed spine, a cleft Palate, a claw hand, a wine-stained face, absent flesh, extra flesh. Things not present at birth and others taken away later. Raif became aware of his own missing flesh — the tip of his little finger, cut off at the knuckle-and wondered if he would ever lose enough of himself to feel at home here. He had a brief hut intensely strong desire to run, turn and flee back to the eanyonlands and Badlands-places were the land was the only thing that was wasted. The cragsman Addle Gunn's words came back to him. "None of us are whole" He had not been speaking about flesh.

Raif walked steadily through the growing crowd, matching gazes only when he had to, when freed with the choice of meeting a challenge or backing down. Beneath the ledge of green rimrock, the Rift was trembling. The vast fissure in the earth was as dark and wet as a fresh wound and it gave off the same metallic odor. Last time he was here he remembered watching birds in flight below him, kitty hawks and swallows and turkey vultures. Today the Rift was full of nothing. It was the deepest hole in the earth and no man alive had ever returned from it. Its bottom could not be seen or known. On the clearest day with the sun directly overhead there was a point beyond which the eye could not see. Raif Sevrance had looked down on such a day, his gaze tracking the cracked and uneven cliffwall, past layers of ironstone, sandstone, limestone, hermit shale, granite, green marble, pyritc slate and schist, past the dark recesses of undercut caves, steam vents, and well heads before finally coming to rest at the point where the darkness rolled and swirled like hot tar finding its level. Raif found it hard to watch and soon looked away. It struck him that it was a moat defending a fastness: a layer that could not be penetrated without sanction.

His shoulders jerked in a single, deep shiver. His clothes were wet and he was sick of traveling. For the past two days he had done nothing but walk. Within the hard shell of his leather boots his feet were wrapped in rags and dried grass. His left ankle was still badly swollen, and a blister on the heel oozed watery blood into the makeshift padding. He knew better than to show this, not here in the city of Maimed Men, and walked without limp or stiffness, keeping his back straight and his hand close to hilt of his bent sword.

Light was beginning to rail as he approached the center of the rim-rock, A firepiie had been stacked and primed, and the crowd began to gather around it. Raif sported the dark and unfriendly fece of Linden Moodie, the Rift brother who had led the mid on Black Hole. The gar-rote scar circling his neck was partially covered by a silver and black wool mantle. Raif met Moodie a gaze, confirming to himself that he was not mistaken. Linden Moodie had deliberately worn his spoils from the raid on Blackhail's silver mine. I dare you, his brown eyes challenged, to show a reaction to the colors of your once and deserted clan.

Raif did not know what expression was showing on his face, only that it did not change when raced with Moodie. He breathed deeply and allowed only surface thoughts to work upon his brain. He had not expected much coming here. No surprises so far.

"Raif! Over here!"

Tracking the sound of his name, Raif spied the big, powerful form of Stillborn wending his way through a group of Maimed Women. The Rift brother was dressed in a sleeveless buckskin tunic trimmed with rabbit fur. His bare forearms were wrapped in matching bullhorns. Breaking free from the crowd, he brought Raif to a halt by standing in front of him and enveloping him in a giant, smothering bear hug.

"I told the Mole you killed that Hailsman on your way out 'cause he challenged you for the gold," Stillborn murmured insistently in Raif's ear while he gripped him. "And that you told me you were off to take care of a spot of personal business and that you'd be back within a month."

The two men separated, but Stillborn caught Raif's forearms in his fists and held Raif at arm's length while he inspected him. The Maimed Man's hazel eyes were knowing. The puckered flesh that ran along his face and down his neck quivered with strong emotion. "Know two things before this dance starts," he said, his voice low and husky. "One: I am glad you are back. And two: I am your man."

Raif breathed and did not think. Later, he told himself. Aware that Stillborn was waiting upon a response, he forced himself to nod. "Its good to see you, Still" he said, knowing it was true only as he spoke.

It was little but Stillborn nodded, satisfied. He was a man well-used to little. Releasing his hold on Raif's arms he said, "I see you bent my sword"

Raif laughed. Of course, ownership of the Forsworn sword had always been a fluid concept between them. When Raif had first met the Maimed Man in the canyonlands, Stillborn had simply taken the sword as his own. Weeks later, on that dark day in Black Hole, Raif had taken it back. "I'd be grateful if you could lend me another one until I can get it straightened."

Even before he'd finished the sentence, Stillborn said, "Done"

"Azziah rin Raif! Well coddle my ravens' eggs and serve them with vinegar. Who'd thought we'd see your fine, handsome face again this side of damnation."

Yustaffa. The fat man with the swordbreaker danced lightly around the firepile, his breast and belly rolls jiggling beneath a fantastical outfit of yellow silk spotted with tufts of horsehair and belted, priestlike, with golden rope. He was carrying something in his chubby fist that he took care to hold level.

Raif did not greet him, but this only caused Yustaffa further delight.

"Lost a little weight, I see," he said, approaching. With a theatrical narrowing of his eyes he reversed himself. "No. I am mistaken. You've gained a little something upon the shoulders." For a moment the eyes were shrewd, and then the veil of spite returned. "What, no kiss? And here was I thinking you'd have missed me."

Some in the crowd tittered. One low-breasted hag shouted, "Ask him where he's been."

Yustaffa threw his free hand in the air and issued a big, showy shrug. "The people have spoken, and who am I to ignore then?" And then for Raif s ears alone, "Such a pathetic little bunch, don't you think?"

Raif reached behind his back and released his pack. Swinging it forward, he let it come to rest in front of his feet. He did not know what to say to Yustaffa, and felt something close to dizziness attempting to track the fat man's words.

Sleet falling on Yustaffa's yellow tunic created dimples in the fabric. He waited, eyebrows raised, in a pantomime of expectation, before swinging suddenly about and launching the item he'd been holding in his fist at the base of the firepile. A small explosive thuc sounded and hot white flames rolled out across the wood. The crowd aahed in appreciation.

Yustaffa executed a trim bow and then looked Raif straight in the eye. "Now we're all cozy around the fire you really should tell us where you've been."

Raif gazed out on the faces of the Maimed Men. About four hundred had gathered around the firepile, and they were armeil with a motley of weapons; rusted iron spears, beheading cleavers, hooked pikes, scimitars, wooden staffs, clannish hammers, broadswords, list poles, knuckleguards, knives. Most of the women and every boy old enough to walk had daggers or other hilt weapons at their waists. They lived in fear, Raif realized, and he could not fault them for it. It was a hard life on the edge of the abyss. Nothing but tough grass and weed trees would grow here. Children had to be maimed by their parents, else risk strangers taking issue with their wholeness. Whatever was needed was stolen from the clanholds. … or one another. The cragsman Addie Gunn had once tried to keep sheep on the upper rim, but they were snatched one by one for meat. Stillborn had once called the Maimed Men desperate, and warned Raif that desperate men didn't make good friends.

Raif saw that desperation in them now. They were lean and scaly and hollow-cheeked and he knew he had made a mistake by not stopping to hunt in the canyonlands and bring meat. He had come empty-handed. Just one more mouth to feed.

"There you go." Raif opened his hand and accepted a felt-sheathed sword from Stillborn. He must have run down to his cave to fetch it. "It's not pretty but it should do you for a while." With a quick salute he slid away.

As he clipped the sword to his gear belt, Raif searched the faces of the Maimed Men for Traggis Mole. The leader of the Maimed Men was nowhere to be seen, but at the back of the crowd, his face almost hidden by rising flames and black smoke, stood the outlander, Thomas Argola. He did not blink as Raif regarded him, jusaheld his small, olive-skinned face level for inspection. Argola had been the one who had pushed Raif into the Want after the raid on Black Hole. Why? Raif wondered. Why had he readied a horse and supplies? What had he known, or guessed?

"Come now, Twelvester. Didn't your mother ever tell you it's churlish to keep people waiting?"

Yustaffa's piping voice broke through Raif thoughts. As the fat man finished speaking a stone hit the small of Raif's back. Snapping around, Raif pounced toward the crowd. People shied away from him. One woman, a tired-looking mother with a baby at her teat, cried out in fright. Raif felt muscles in his jaw pumping as he fought the itch to draw his new sword.

Yustaffa tutted with mock disapproval, deeply gratified by Raif's reaction. "Shame on you, my fellow Rift Brothers. You know the procedure. Story first. Stones later." He smiled winningly at Raif. "Don't worry, I'm just saying that to keep them quiet."|

The flames were fierce now, leaping and crackling, firing off sparks.

Darkness was rising, and it didn't take much to imagine it was originating in the Rift. On the edge of the rimrock Raifflspied one of the windlasses that were used to lower bodies into the abyss. He swallowed, wished again he had thought to bring meat.

Glancing once at Thomas Argola, he said, "I journeyed into the Great Want and was lost for many days. I nearly died, but a group of men called the lamb brothers found me, healed my wounds, and set me on my way."

Several things happened as he spoke. When he named the lamb brothers both Thomas Argola's and Yustaffa's faces registered a beat of surprise. The outlander concealed his surprise better, but Raif detected a momentary loosening of his jaw. Most of the crowd listened in silence, drawing in breath when Raif had named the Great Want, yet even before he'd finished wonder had been replaced by suspicion.

"No one gets out of the Want," shrieked the low-breasted hag who'd spoken earlier.

"Aye," agreed many in the crowd.

Someone else called out, "What was you doing there anyway? Only madmen go the Want."

"Never heard of no lamb brothers," pitched in a shaggy bear of a man near the front.

Yustaffa sucked in his cheeks with relish. "Such suspicion. Makes you wonder how they sleep at night."

"I've heard of the lamb brothers."

All turned to look at the tiny cragsman Addie Gunn who was making his way across the rimrock. Addie had once been a Wellman, and you could still see the clan in him. He wore a pouch around his waist, but it contained salt, not guidestone. The habit of carrying powder was a hard one to break. "The lamb brothers live in the sand deserts of the Far South and they survive on ewe milk and lamb meat and dress themselves in wool and fleeces."

Addie was fierce about matters pertaining to sheep and no one in the crowd doubted his word. As a cragsman at Wellhouse he had maintained his own herd. Raising a quick hand in greeting to Raif, he addressed himself directly to Yustaffa. "You come from the glass desert due north of the sands. Tell me you haven't heard of them too."

As he watched Addie Gunn standing in the firelight, arms folded across his chest, daring Yustaffa to lie to the crowd, a muscle close to Raifs heart contracted. He had forgotten the goodness here. For once Yustaffa was lost for words. Coiling the end of his belt rope around his fat middle finger, he hmmed and aahed and tutted. Finally, he let the rope go. "Well now that you mention it," he said sulkily, "I do have a recollection about them. Course it doesn't prove that they were in the Want or that Twelve Kill actually met them."

Men started to jeer. He'd lost the crowd and he knew it.

Addie shook his head slowly, frowning at Yustaffa and the Maimed Men. "The lamb brothers live on the dunes. League upon league of nothing but sand. Every hill looks like the next, and by the time you've topped one your footprints have been blown clean away and you can't even be sure which way you came. I ask you: How much more difficult could the Want be than that?" The cragsman's gaze darted from man to man, defying anyone to disagree with him. None did. Addie Gunn was well respected here. His know-how brought in goats and sheep. "Good," he said with a fatherly nod. "That's sorted then. Now as for the fact of what the lad was doing there in the first place I say this: Sometimes a man's business is his own. He didna harm any Rift Brothers, and before he left I watched with my own two eyes as he fought long and hard in the raid. You don't have to take my word for it. There's Linden Moodie and Stillborn and others who'll tell you just the same. Now granted the lad's made a mistake not bringing supper for the pot, but I for one will go out with him tomorrow. And between his fancy Sull bow and my own two sheep eyes I have an inkling we'll bring something back. He's useful, don't forget that. Twelve Kill by nature as well as name."

The crowd nodded. Most were quiet. A group of older children broke away from the fire to kick around a leather ball. Stillborn chose that moment to return to the space before the fire. He was carrying a small burlap sack on his back and he shrugged it forward, letting it drop onto the rimrock.

"Trail meat," he said with some wistfulness, still looking at the sack. "Cured it myself last autumn. Spiced it real good too. If there's babbies around with milk teeth it'll knock 'em clean out" Unable to actually come out with the words Trail meat all round he walked away from the sack.

The Maimed Women pushed forward first. One woman, a blond-haired maid with a cleanly excised left ear, shoved Yustaffa in the backside to get to her share of meat. The fat man spun around and smacked her face and she smacked him right back. Raif, Stillborn and Addie Gun moved to the side. Glancing over his shoulder, Raif looked to the place where he'd last seen Thomas Argola. The outlander was gone.

"Addie," Raif said. "Thanks. You saved my head."

The cragsman smacked his lips. "C'mon now, lad. It was nothing"

Raif nodded solemnly. "Nothing."

Addie seemed pleased by this. "You'd better get some sleep. Wei have to be up and out afore dawn. Well have to cover a lot of ground. Bad time of year to go looking for game."

"Worse time to come back with nothing." Stillborn also seemed pleased. "Guess I might come with you. Someone'll have to wheel back the cart."

Addie looked at Stillborn as if he was exactly the kind of person you didn't want on a stealth hunt. Which was probably true, "If you're not at the east rim an hour afore sunup I'm not waiting" was all the cragsman said in reply.

"Where's Traggis Mole?" Raif asked, instantly killing the easy camaraderie between them.

Stillborn's large deformed face, with its seam of flesh and black bristles running from the temple down to the neck, sobered. "He's about all right, though I've seen him less of late. He'll have been told you're here, but you know the Mole. Chooses his own time."

Raif nodded. It was probably a mistake to feel relief at that statement, but he couldn't help himself. Right now he wanted to pull his aching feet from his boots, and sleep.

Perhaps seeing this, Stillborn said, "Cmon, lad. Let's get you set for the night. You'd best stay with me. Addie. You didn't do half a bad job up there. I never knew you had the gift of the gab."

"Nor did I," Addie replied lightly before slipping away.

Stillborn picked up Raif s pack as if it weighed exactly nothing. Silently, he led Raif down the series of rope ladders and stairs that led to his cliff cave. Raif was grateful not to be probed or forced to think. He was dead tired and had stood so long in the sleet that his hands and face were tingling.

The Rift music started as they arrived on the lower terrace. Grass lamps had been lit and the city was aglow with orange lights. The Rift music made the flames flicker. Bass murmurs, low whistles and door-hinge creaks rose from the hole in the earth, punctuated by long silences and sudden rock tremors. Raif could no longer see the Rift, and was glad.

Stillborn's cave was accessed by a narrow ledge that was separated from the rimrock by a drop of three feet. The Maimed Man jumped down, careless of the hell that lay below him. Raif couldn't manage such recklessness just then. He moved with care, favoring his right foot, fearful of the drop and of his own ability to manage the simple maneuver. Stillborn went ahead to light lamps.

"Raif," he said a few minutes later as Raif stood in the mouth of the cave. "Sleep. There's blankets and a bowl of water for your feet. I'll be out on the ledge, scratching up a bit of a fire. I'll see you in the morning." Moving briskly, the Maimed Man passed Raif and left him to the dim quiet of the cliff cave.

Raif sat on the pile of blankets and pulled off his boots. Not looking too carefully, he sank his feet into the shallow bowl of cool water. Bite of rags that had stuck to the blisters slowly soaked free.

You are safe tonight. Stillborn had said in his own way. I will stand watch while you deep.

It was a gift, and Raif took it. Making a rough bed from the blankets, he closed his eyes and slept.

When he awoke the next morning it was still dark. Mist washing in through the mouth of the cave had coated every surface with a film of moisture. A single grass lamp burned on the rock floor by Raif's bed, its damp wick giving off as much smoke as light. Raif felt stiff but good. Rested and hungry. He could smell fatty meat charring and stood to investigate. His left ankle took weight with only a mild spasm of protest, though if anything it looked worse than it had in three days. The bruising had turned black and purple and for some reason his big toe had started to swell. He ignored it. It was a skill he was getting better at.

Stillborn was out on the ledge, hunched around a tiny little fire, a red blanket pulled tight across his shoulders, browning a length of cured sausage on a stick. He was shivering and talking to himself, saying the words, "Bloody, bloody, bloody. Sod it, sod it, sod it," in a weary voice that might have been intended to keep him awake. He wasn't aware of Raif standing at the mouth of the cave.

The sky had cleared and the stars were out over the clanholds, and Raif realized it was the first time he had seen stars that could be relied upon in over a month. The nights he'd spent in the canyonlands had been overcast. Starlight lit the domes of the Copper Hills and the sea of mist surrounding them. The Lost Clan was out there, and Dhoone. Quietly, Raif turned and stepped back into the cave.

This time he made more noise, banging the bronze bowl that contained the water and rifling through his pack for the items he meant to give Stillborn.

'You up, lazy-days?" came Stillbom's grumpy voice. "Come out here and watch the fire while I take a quick kip before we leave."

Raif understood the language here. Watch the fire meant simply watch. Crossing to the ledge he greeted Stillborn,

"What's this?" demanded the Maimed Man, staring suspiciously at the small packs and pouches that were squashed against Raif's chest.

Raif sat, letting the packages spill forward onto the rimrock. "Cheese, honey, dates, almonds, butter, dried apricots, lentils. Not the sheep's curd and the tea herbs, though. They're for Addie."

"Give him the lentils too," Stillborn said magnanimously, reaching for the largest pack. "Little orange buggers make me fart."

They had a good breakfast of sausage dipped in honey and nuts dipped in melted sheep's butter. The minute he stopped eating Stillborn fell asleep. His chin dropped against his chest, his massive shoulders slumped, his mouth fell open, and he began to snore vigorously and, oddly enough, in tune.

Raif drank water and watched the fire. The mist was receding and the flames brightened as he poked air between the sticks. The Rift was silent now. A slight shimmering of the darkness at eye level told him that it was venting heat. Time passed and after a while Raif reached inside his tunic and pulled out the pouch containing the stormglass.

It was beautiful to look at in the starlight. Light reflected and refracted, twinkled into existence. Moved. Its rounded sides felt good in his hand, like a talisman, and as he held it the glass warmed.

I give no promises. Raif mouthed the words he'd said to Tallal. Disturbed by their hollowness he said them again out loud.

"I give no promises."

"What? Where?" Stillborn said blearily, his head snapping up from his chest. A line of drool rolled down his chin as he look accusingly at Raif. "A man can't sleep nowhere nohow in this place." Standing abruptly, he said, "Fuck it. We'd better get going."

They got their gear together and killed the fire and the lamp. As they climbed up through the city, air rising from the Rift cooled the exposed skin on Raif's neck and face. Maimed Men walked and climbed through the thinning mist, heads hooded against the damp, torches swinging before them on long poles. Stillborn greeted some with curt nods. Others he ignored. He was wearing a tunic sewn from pieced wolverine skins edged with black leather, and a flat-paneled bearskin kilt. His arms and lower legs were bare, though they looked as if they'd been rubbed with lard for warmth. He carried no hunting bow but had brought a single, case-hardened throwing spear, five feet long and tapered at both ends. He used the spear as a walking stick, tapping the rimrock as he walked.

Raif was wearing the Orrl cloak and he noticed that some men did not see him until he was right upon them, so perfectly did the cloak match the mist. The Sull bow was strung crosswise against his back and his arrowcase, containing the scant half-dozen arrows he had left, rode high on his right shoulder. The borrowed sword swung from his waist. He had not drawn it yet, so could claim no firsthand knowledge of the blade, but judging from the ring pommel and iron crossguards, it was probably a basic cut-and-thruster.

As they made their way east the sky began to lighten and the smell of grass and willow smoke grew stronger. Children emerged, rumpled and sleepy-eyed, from lean-tos built against the cave mouths. Some caves had been closed off by cane screens or animal hides. Others were open to the night. Custom demanded that you did not peer into those spaces as you passed them. Maimed Men expected privacy in their caves.

Addie Gunn was waiting on the easternmost point of the city, a jagged granite promontory that extended fifty feet over the Rift. He was alone, cloaked and hooded in plain brown wool and leaning upon an oak staff. His lips pressed to a thin line when he saw them and he declared without greeting, "You are late."

Stillborn said, "And a fine morning to you, Addie Gunn" Addie ignored this and said to Raif, "You're looking better, lad." "Looked like hell last night," Stillborn said, clapping Raif hard on the back. "A night's sleep prettied him up quite considerably." The cragsman nodded, thoughtful. "We'd best head off." Stillborn bowed, somewhat creakily, at the waist "Lead the way." The sun floated beneath the horizon as they headed north from the rim, turning the sky red and then pink. Breezes snapped at groundlevel but there was no real wind. Raif had never traveled east or north of the Rift and was interested in the paths Addie chose. The cragsman led them across a rocky headland strewn with boulders and overgrown with spiny yellow grasses, juniper and holly. Small, dun-colored birds flew out from beneath bushes as they passed. Raif spotted hares in molt, ground squirrels, rats, mice and voles. As always it was difficult for him to tell if he actually saw the animals, or simply felt their beating hearts. He'd pass a loose pile of rocks and know that a vole was hiding within the shadows, quivering.

"Does anyone set traps?" he asked Addie as they made their way along a brush-choked draw.

Addie shook his head. Now that the sun had risen he had drawn back his hood, revealing his closely shaved scalp and big ears. "A few do. Mostly it's not considered worth it. Land's like dry bone."

Raif wanted to disagree, but didn't. A reluctance to reveal how different he was to other men stopped him. Instead, he made a mental note about traps. Hungry men and women would be glad of squirrel, vole and hare.

The morning wore on. The sun shone with cool brilliance in a blue cloudless sky. After leading them north for an hour or so Addie turned east and they were now descending into a trough-shaped valley carved by some long-retreated glacier. Huge erratic boulders and heaps of gravel peeked out through the thick ground cover of willow, fireweed and black sedge. A series of small green ponds arranged like beads on a thread ran along the center of the valley floor.

"Goats have gone to high ground for the kidding," Addie said, poking bushes with his stick as he searched for prints and scat. "Might see deer if the luck's with us. Elk'll have gone west. Coons and pines: they'll be here, all right. Trick is spotting 'em. Bears, now …" He shook his head. "Better chance of cats."

Raif listened to the cragsman's litany, interested and alert They were at the head of the valley on a steep downslope where he could see for leagues due east The oily smell of sedge filled his nostrils and icy breezes lifted his hair from his scalp. Creatures were alive down there, moving beneath the willow, and he, Raif Sevrance, would hunt them. Life was simple and clear, and once Addie Gunn had finished speaking, Raif braced his bow and set off alone for the valley floor.

Glancing down at the Orrl cloak he saw the glazed leather now reflected the gray-green colors of the sedge. Briefly he wondered if the cloak also masked his man-scent, for he had noticed that as long as he moved quietly he was nearly impossible to detect. His first kill was a three-foot garter snake just emerging from her winter sleep. She was sliding between two ground junipers when he speared her with his new sword. Deciding to leave her whole with the gut intact, he slipped the snake between the waxed folds of his makeshift gamepouch. As he wiped his swordblade clean with a fist of fireweed, he was already scanning his next kill.

A raccoon, her belly swollen with soon-to-be-born kits, had denned in a shallow depression beneath a loose pile of rocks. Raif sent an arrow straight into her heart. It beat and then stopped. The unborn kits continued living for a while and then, one by one, their tiny, perfectly formed hearts ceased pumping. Raif sawed through the arrowshaft, unwilling to pull it and risk the head coming loose. Left inside it would hold the carcass intact After that he decided to form a game pile, and chose an exposed spot on top of one of the boulders. That way if vultures or other opportunists spied the carrion, either Addie or Stillborn could cover it. Might even bag a fat bird for the pot.

Raif pushed off again, searching. It wasn't a good time of day for deer but he had a feeling that the water and the lush growth surrounding it might bring them out, so he made his way deeper into the valley. An hour passed, and then another. The sun moved overhead and flies began buzzing around the gamepouch. When Raif became aware of a large heart close by, watchful and beating with strong, easy strokes, he thought at first it was a brown bear. Then knowledge came to him and he was surprised he could have imagined it was anything other than a cat. Raif moved at the same time the cat did, bringing the bow to vertical as he drew back the string. The cat sprang away, leaping into the deep cover of willows and rocks. It was a full-grown male, heavy as two grown men with a pale silver coat free of markings. Raif loosed his first arrow and watched as it sped wide. He could sense the creature's heart but in the time it took for the arrow to leave the riser and cross the distance between Raif and the cat, the cat was already gone. His second arrow grazed the snagcat's rump. And then, just as Raif brought a third arrow to the plate, something sped past his face. He heard a whoosh followed by a thud of impact and knew instantly that the snag cat had faltered. Keeping his hands firm on bow and bowstring, he aimed the arrow and loosed it.

The big cat stopped. Dead. Raifs heart pounded and a familiar liquid pain rolled across his left shoulder—the first time he'd felt it in days.

"Is he down?" came Stillborn's call. The Maimed Man was standing high above Raif on a bank of stratified rock. Until the moment he had thrown the spear, Raif had been unaware of his presence. Raif was surprised by his own failings. Without Stillborn the cat would have got away. And he should have known Stillborn was there.

Stillborn jumped down onto the valley floor and walked toward the cat. The distance he had thrown the spear was impressive, a length no shorter than two hundred feet. "Saw you fire off a couple of arrows," he said. "Looked like you needed some help."

Raif nodded, attempting to conceal the confusion and irritation he felt.

Stillborn saw it anyway. "Best go look for your arrows, lad."

He did just that, leaving Stillborn to the kill. Two arrows had gone astray, and after searching for a quarter-hour in the brush Raif realized he wasn't going to find them. That had never really been the point.

Calmer, he returned to Stillborn and the cat. The Maimed Man had opened up the carcass, split the ribs and was in the process of removing the organ tree. The bloody, glistening flesh was steaming.

"Took your arrow out of the heart," he said in greeting as he cut through greenish back fat. "It's over there, on the rock."

Raif nodded, though Stillborn was not looking at him. "The liver's yours."

Slowing his knife, Stillborn said, "I'm glad to hear it. Come here and help me with the gut."

Together they cleaned and drained the carcass. The liver, the prize awarded to the hunter who brought down the kill, sat darkly on a bed of plucked fire weed, seeping blood. The sun, beginning its slow descent into the west, gave off something that felt like warmth. Addie Gunn reached them just as they decided to trophy-cut the snagcat's hide. The cragsman was dragging a yearling kid by its hind leg. He seemed happy enough to set his own butchering duties aside to advise on the best cuts to preserve the tail and legs.

It was hard work, and Addie built a spotfire so they could be be refreshed with tea. The little cragsman was delighted when Raif handed him the muslin pouch containing the lamb brothers' herbs.

"Treasure," he said, holding the pouch to his nose and inhaling deeply. "Smells like all the places a man could ever want to be."

Raif felt stupidly pleased. Sweat was dripping from his nose and dried blood reached all the way up to his elbows."There s sheep's curd too, but I left that back at that Rift."

"Now that will be interesting," Addie said, sprinkling a few of the precious herbs into the pot. "I used to make me own back… back in another life."

Raif and Stillborn nodded soberly. All three of them had once lived lives as clansmen. Addie had been tied to Wellhouse as a cragsman, Stillborn had been born dead into Scarpe before being revived by a midwife, and Raif had spoken an oath to Blackhail and broken it. They were quiet for a while after that, setting their backs against the rocks as they sipped on wormwood tea.

Finally, Raif set down his cup and asked the question he needed to ask. "What has happened in the Rift since I left?"

Addie and Stillborn exchanged a glance. Stillborn nodded almost imperceptibly at the cragsman. You take it

"Harmful times, Raif," Addie said, taking a stick and breaking up the fire. "Mole's getting nervous and it's making him quick with his knives. If you're not loyal to him you'll be paid a call in the night. Ten days back a half-dozen men were murdered in their beds. Throats slit from ear to ear, tongues sliced down the center. They call it the Vor king's kiss. Kill them and then split their tongues so even their corpses can't squeal. All six of the men bad been heard complaining about the Mole. You know the sort of thing: Where's the food? Why did the last raid fail? What's the Mole doing for us? Harmless stuff in harmless times. But times aren't harmless anymore, and it serves a man well to shut up and starve."

"Why's Traggis Mole afraid?" Raif asked.

Again, there was that look, passed between Addie and Stillborn.

The cragsman took a deep breath, set down his fire-poking stick. "Mole's worst nightmare's happening and he's powerless to stop it. Night after we returned from Black Hole something godless broke free from the Rift."

At Addie's words both Raif's and Stillborn's right arms twitched. The ghost of clan, that desire to reach down and touch your measure of powdered guidestone whenever you felt a beat of fear. Addie must have seen and recognized the impulse, but he continued speaking his rough, backcountry voice low as if he feared to be overheard.

"Something not whole walked on the rimrock. Those that saw it said it was like night made into a man, dark and rippling, like it shouldn't have weighed anything at all. But I myself saw the cracks that it made in the stone. Rift brothers tried to stop it—Linden Moodie hacked off an arm—but it couldn't be stopped. Took thirteen before it left. Women, bairns, men." Addie shuddered. "The bodies blackened like they were burned, then they were gone."

Raif thought of the lamb brother Farli, and the Forsworn knight in the redoubt. "Next time the bodies must be destroyed."

Addie Gunn studied Raif's face, understanding much from the little he had said. "Aye," he said softly, spinning the word into confirmation of his worst fear.

Next time.

"What did Traggis Mole do?"

"What could he do? Took a swipe at the thing with his longknife, received a cut to the ribs. Ordered everyone back to their beds. Was set to take care of the bodies … afore the bodies took care of themselves." With that Addie seemed to run out of strength.

Stillborn, noticing the slump in the cragsman's shoulders, took over. "Mole's been telling everyone that it won't come back. The Rift Brothers are scared out their wits. Those men the Mole killed? Sent to the Rift the next morning, as if somehow that could help. Throw enough bodies down there and you stop the evil getting out." Stillborn blew air from his lips. "People are starting to say that the Mole can't help them. Mole's saying right back, 'Step out of line and you're dead. He's made mistakes, and that's not like him. Two of the six men he killed were good hunters. Means less meat, more discontent. Who knows how long Addie and myself are safe? I used to think being a good hunter counted for something. Now. I'm thinking if the man-thing from the Rift doesna get me Traggis Mole will."

Raif nodded slowly. It was worse than he had thought. Whatever he had done at the Fortress of Grey Ice had been nothing more than shoring up a crack. Pressure was building. First the Unmade in the lamb brothers' camp. Now this. They're searching for weak points, he realized. They discovered one in the fortress but now that's sealed they're finding other ways out.

He lost himself in his thoughts for a while, remembering snatches of conversation from his past. Addie Gunn had told him the Rift was the greatest flaw in the earth. If it were to be ripped open life for the Maimed Men and the entire clanholds would be over. Hundreds of thousands of Unmade would ride out.

And the Endlords.

Just their name alone sent a knife of fear into Raifs heart.

Why me? Why was he the one who must fight them? The two things he had wanted from life were to be a decent clansman and a good brother to Effie and Drey. Now he would be neither. Now he was Mor Drakka, Watcher of the Dead. How had that happened? When? He didn't suppose the answer mattered much in the end. What choice did he have here? What man or woman, knowing the things he did, would walk away?

Raif Sevrance could not walk away. And perhaps, just perhaps, there was a glimmer of hope in that. Perhaps from a distance, in a most terrible and dread way, in a manner he could never have anticipated, he could still be that good clansman and brother. It was a hope. And it was his only one.

Coming back to the present was like emerging from icy water. He was cold and disoriented and it took him long moments to realize why Addie Gunn and Stillborn were watching him intently, waiting.

Raif glanced over at the bloody carcass of the snagcat and then said what he had to say.

"I will become Lord of the Rift."

And so it begins.