A Sword from Red Ice

THIRTY-ONE A Journey Begins

“Give me one more day," Thomas Argola, the outlander, had said. "Do not leave in the morning."

They had been standing in his cave, the only one with a hinged door in the entire city, and Raif kept his hand on the bolt to keep the door from closing. "No," he had replied. "I go tomorrow. Tell me what you've learned."

Raif thought about that conversation now as he and Addie Gunn headed due east along the rim of the Rift. They had been traveling for the better part of the day and the going was hard and rocky. Stony bluffs, mounds of boulders and steep and sudden drops had to be navigated with care. Ground snow was a problem, concealing cracks and loose stones, but at least it wasn't hard with ice. Weeds poked through the white. Mounds of black sedge concentrated the warmth of the sun, turning the surrounding snow into mush. The air was clear and smelled of stone, but Addie warned that come nightfall there'd be mist "Air's dry. Land's wet. Fog'll rise with the dark." There was not much the small, fair-haired cragsman did not know about the land, and Raif accepted his words without question. It did not mean they would stop though. When you've given a dead man your word you only stop to sleep.

Topping a cracked shelf of granite, Raif turned to see if Addie needed a hand up the slope. The cragsman was wearing his brown wool cloak and carrying his oak staff, and he waved Raif away as if he were a bothersome fly. "Been scuffing the crags since afore you were born, laddie. And most days I was toting sheep. Only time I'll need a hand from you is to stir the beans while I make the tea."

He was only half joking, Raif realized, and nodded somberly. "Sorry, Addie."

Addie Gunn grumbled something that sounded like "Glad we've got that sorted" before hiking solidly onto the ledge.

The granite was weak here, veined with softer limestone. The limestone that had been exposed to the surface had worn away, creating dimples in the surface that were now filled with snowmelt. The shelf jutted out over the Rift and both men paused to look south. Snow had melted at a faster rate in the clanholds and most of the hills were bare. Winter-rotted groundcover made the north-facing slopes look burned. Raif wondered what Addie was thinking as he stood there and minded his former homeland. Wellhouse was likely due south of here; the cragsman's old clan.

"Lambs'll need stabling this year," the cragsman murmured softly, to himself. Turning to Raif, he said, "C'mon, lad. If we can get on the headland afore dark it'll make for an easier start in the morning."

Raif let Addie Gunn lead the way.

They had departed the Rift at dawn, at the exact moment the sun had appeared in the east above the rim. Arrangements had been made the night before, many of them while Raif slept. The attack by the unmade beast had left him exhausted and unable to fully catch his breath, and he had slept through most of that night and a good portion of the next day. When he had awoken at noon he had told Stillborn what he meant to do. "I'll need supplies for the journey," Raif had told him. "Pull together what you can. I have to meet with the outlander."

Stillborn had been bewildered and hurt. "Supplies for both of us you mean?" he had asked. At some point that morning he had shaved his face, and the bristles that normally stuck out of his facial scars were neatly clipped. "I will be going with you."

Raif shook his head. "I need you here, leading the Maimed Men."

No argument carried weight against the stark fact that Traggis Mole was dead, and Stillborn knew it. "But they want you," he had said. "Not me. It was you who killed that beastie right in front of their eyes. You who laid the Mole to rest."

"I know what they want," Raif said. "Tell them they'll have to wait." He made his voice hard because he had to, because he would not be thwarted in this. As long as he had known Stillborn, the Maimed Man had complained about Traggis Mole's leadership, and lusted after taking his place. Now that place was vacant and it was time for Stillborn to step up and lead. He had a look on his face like he’d thought he'd been trapped, but Raif ignored it. Stillborn should count himself lucky he'd been trapped only once.

'There is no one else," Raif told him. 'The Maimed Men respect you. You're the best hunter, the best blade fighter. And it wasn't just me who brought down the Unmade. If you hadn't distracted it I could never have gotten close enough to place my sword,"

The two had stared at each other, the air between them charged with tension. Raif had not blinked. Nor had Stillborn.

"Very well," Stillborn had exploded, throwing himself back as if he'd been physically repelled. "If this is how it is then so be it. I will guard them while you are away. But I will tell every single one of them you'll be back."

Raif heard both the warning and the plea in Stillborn s voice. It touched him, but he did not show it. "Do as you must."

Stillborn waited to see if there would be more, and when there wasn't he dragged his hands across his hair and face. "Gods, Raif, We're living in hell. How are we going to survive?" "Kill everything through the heart."

Raif had left Stillborn then. He had the sense that if he'd stayed longer he would say things counter to his purpose. And his purpose was to depart. The next meeting with Thomas Argola in his doored cave had gone no easier.

Mallia Argola had let him in. Sunlight shone right onto her face, turning golden upon her skin, and for the first time Raif wondered what was missing. In what way was Mallia Argola not whole?

It was a question he had no time for. "Leave us," he told her. "Take a walk."

She had meant to withdraw into the cave, into the shadows beyond the dragon-and-pear screen where she could watch and listen in, but quickly realized this was something he would not permit. Her green-brown eyes had looked at him carefully, and he felt shame at the way he had behaved toward her in Stillborn s cave. If that shame showed on his fece she did not react to it, merely saying. "I will return after you are gone." As die passed him in the doorway, she lightly touched his arm.

It was confusing, that unexpected show of understanding and goodwill, and it took him if moment to refocus his mind.

That was when Argola had tried to shut the door. Raif balked him, shooting out his hand and barring the space around the doorframe. He had not meant to do so, but could not seem to stop himself. Thomas Argola was a man who worked best on the periphery of crowds and in the shadows of closed rooms. Raif Sevrance decided he would conduct this interrogation in the light.

'When did you tell Traggis Mole about the sword?" The outlander glanced nervously at the open door. Sunlight, which had made his sister's skin look spun from gold, made his own skin look yellow. "The night after we talked I went to see him. He… was our chief."

Raif heard the excitement in Argola's voice and was repulsed by it.

"You told him everything?"

"I believe I never said I would not."

Were you paid for it? Raif wondered, glancing at the worn treasures in the cave. The silk rugs and copper bowls. The screens. It was not a question that mattered, he realized. A man must use what skills he had to live.

Trying to recall all that had been said four days back in this cave, Raif said, "What did you tell him about me?"

Argola shrugged. "He already suspected much."

"That is no answer."

"Close the door."

"No."

The outlander took a sharp breath. Backing away, he found himself a place to stand where he was no longer exposed to direct sunlight. "I told the Mole you were the Rift Brothers' only hope. No one else can hope to stop the Unmade when they break through in numbers. No one. Look at what happened the other night. You were the only one who knew what to do, the only one who could stop it."

"Someone else could have put a blade through its heart."

"Really?" Argola blasted. "You could barely put it through yourself."

In the silence that followed, Raif leant against the back of the door. His shoulder was throbbing, and he felt scarcely able to cope with the hard truths spoken by the outlander. He had come here for information, and, if he was honest, the chance to use up some anger. It seemed to him that Thomas Argola deserved it. He had been the one who was pulling the strings. He had been the one who had framed Traggis Mole's second-to-last words.

"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 had sworn. A man was dying. The man who had saved his life.

The final words Traggis Mole had spoken were between a man and his gods, and Raif would never repeat them.

Now he wondered only one thing: Would Traggis Mole have sprung forward to stab the beast if Thomas Argola had not told him two nights earlier that Raif Twelve Kill was the Rift's only hope? Had Traggis Mole made the decision that RaiPs life was worth more than his own?

Raif glanced at the outlander. Thomas Argola had manipulated the Mole chief, just as he had manipulated Raif the night after Black Hole. What was the outlander's purpose? Did he realize his manipulations had brought death?

But Traggis Mole was dying anyway; those were words Raif needed to avoid hearing at all cost. If Thomas Argola ever said them he would kill him.

Suddenly weary, Raif said, "I leave at dawn. Tell me what you have learned about the Red Ice."

Argola had protested, asking for more time, but he of all people had to know that once you set a top spinning it was was out of your control. Raif guessed he had discovered something, for he had not forgotten Mallia's words. My brother sends a message: Come see him tonight.

In the end what Thomas Argola had been able to tell him was little. He was one of the few people in the Rift who could read and write, and had managed to collect many parchments that had been seized by Maimed Men on raids. They saw no value in them and traded them gladly, though it was known that all manuscripts containing maps were to to be surrendered to the Mole. Argola had discovered little from searching his own collection and wanted time to search the Mole's. The thought of the outlander rifling though Traggis Mole's possessions was distasteful to Raif and he hoped that Stillborn would not allow it.

"If you are determined to leave tomorrow then all I can advise is this," Argola had said at last. "It is written that the Lake of Red Ice exists at the border of four worlds and to break it you must stand in all four worlds at once."

Raif had been frustrated. The words sounded like nonsense, designed only to confuse. "You said east."

Argola's smile had been indulgent. "Yes, there is that."

Raif had turned and left him. He had not spoken any word of farewell Thomas Argola knew either less or more than he claimed, and Raif could not decide which was worse: To know more and not reveal it? Or fake what you didn't know?

Maimed Men hailed him as he returned to Stillborn's cave, and Raif had no choice but to ignore them. Acknowledge their calls of "Twelve Kill" and he risked undercutting Stillborn's position. Raif Sevrance was not yet ready to declare himself Lord of the Rift. That thankless job went to Stillborn, and Raif knew that the best way to support Stillborn was to remove himself from the Maimed Men's attention. And not run the risk of anyone naming him "Chief."

Briefly, he had looked for Mallia as he climbed to the higher ledge, but Argola's sister was nowhere to be seen.

Once he had arrived back at Stillborn's cave he'd eaten the small meal of smoked meat and panbread that had been left for him, built up the fire at the cave mouth, and then lay on Stillborn's mattress and slept. He dreamed there was a black worm living in his shoulder, gnawing its way through his flesh.

The next morning he was awakened by Stillborn in the dark hours before dawn. "Addie's waiting outside," he had said, handing him a cup of water.

It took Raif a while to understand this statement. He swallowed a mouthful of water. "No."

Stillborn was ready for this. "You tell him then. He's been camped there for the past five hours. Won't listen to a thing I say. Doubt if he'll listen to you."

The Maimed Man was a bad schemer, Raif reckoned, for all the time he was speaking, Stillborn had not once looked him in the eye. It made a refreshing change from Argola.

"It's nothing to do with me," Stillborn continued, compelled to fill the silence. "Just told him when you were leaving. Didn't put no ideas in his head."

Raif rose and went out onto the ledge. He noticed Yelma now had two iron pots for breasts.

"You cannot come with me," he had said to Addie before the cragsman had chance to speak. "You are old and you will slow me down."

Addie Gunn had been sitting on a camp chair with his back to the fire and the cave mouth, and did not bother to turn at Raif's approach. "Fancy a journey east," he said, looking straight out across the darkness of the Rift. "Got a hankering to see trees—real ones not piss-thin bushes. I imagine I'll set off soon. 'Magine when I do no one will try and stop me, it being a free world and all and a man being free to travel where he pleases."

Raif breathed softly and deeply. It occurred to him that all you had to do to know a man's resolve was look at the back of his neck. "Addie I do not know where I go. How can I allow someone to accompany me when I don't know the dangers or how long I will be gone? Traggis Mole took a fatal blow to save my life. His death weighs on me. Do not put me in a position where yours might too."

The cragsman continued staring ahead. Time passed. The fire crackled and spat as a willow knot filled with pitch went up in flames. Eventually Addie Gunn stood and turned to face Raif. "I hear you, lad," he said, "but do you ever wonder if some might feel the same about you? Your death would not be a weight this Rift Brother is willing to bear."

Raif had bowed his head, defeated and heartsore. He had needed this and didn't even realize it: someone to stand second to his oath. "We travel light and take no animals." Addie nodded wisely. "I imagined we would." It was hard to believe that conversation had taken place less than twelve hours ago. Already it seemed to belong in the past, in the city they'd left behind. Look west now and you could not see it Not even the smoke from the grass fires.

With Addie leading the way they made better time. He had a goat's instinct for the ways between the crags. Raif was content to follow, glad to have no responsibility for a while beyond the placement of his feet. The sky grew bluer as they moved to higher ground and subtle changes took place in the air. Below them the Rift was a trough filled with shadows, narrower here than in the city of Maimed Men.

The discussion as to whether or not to take the hidden bridge across to the clanholds had been a short one. Raif had not been for it, and the cragsman had acceded to his choice. "It means a couple of days on the journey," he had told Raif, so there was no misunderstanding. "The path to the north is rocky and we'll have to put our backs into it. After the third of fourth day it should begin to level off."

To Raif it was a price worth paying. He had a strong preference for not walking on land claimed by clan.

Addie wasn't much for conversation so they climbed in silence. Sometimes the cragsman would whistle a few notes of one of the old lambing songs, and other times he would pluck dried grass heads from the snow and chew on them. He kept an even, unhurried pace, and did not look around to check on Raif. Every so often he would halt to check the depth of a snowdrift with his stick.

Evcn though the light was failing they made good progress, and they topped the tiered and fractured cliff face just as the mist began to rise. Rail shivered as the sweat beneath his sealskins coded against his skin. For the last quarter they had been moving northeast lo the Rift and when they paused at the cliff top he tamed around and saw that the crack in the earth had filled with cloud

"Happens quick," Addie said, fallowing his gaae. "We wont be able to continue much longer."

Raif took the lead from him. He did not want to stop. While his mind was occupied with walking he did not hi to think about the look in Traggis Mole's eyes as he died.

Swear it.

As the hour wore on the shadows disappeared, driven away by the mist, Islands of cloud rose from the Rift and drifted slowly in circles. The rocks underfoot slickened and the surface of the snow mounds turned to grease ice. Rait had to bend his head to see his feet, and after a while he could not see them at all. Sunset had taken place some time back, but the light remained strangely, quivenngly while. Behind him he could hear the steady pad of Addie's thinly soled boots. The cragsman was not whistling anymore.

"Lad." Addie's voice pierced the mist like an arrow." I'm done here."

The words carried an authority that Rail had not expected. They did not mean I. They meant We. Rait put up no argument, and tracked Addie's footfalls through the mist. The cragsman had in rrand somc-where he meant to go.

He and Stillborn had probably hunted these clife, Raif realized, stalking mule deer and wild goats. Addie slipped between a crack in the rock and tots a pocket in the cliff walL It was not a cam, for the clouds floated freely overhead, but it offered some protection against the mist. Addie set about making a camp. It was darker here than out in the open, but still not as dark as it should have been. Raif wondered if the moon had risen.

He made a circuit of the small clearing, hiking up slabs of granite and leaping beween boulders.When he came across a dried-up sage bush wedged into a depression in the rock, he hauled it up for kindling. It had surprising tenacious roots.

Traveling light meant there were no tents, only sleep mats and blankets. Each man carried his own water and supplies and although they would not stray from the path to hunt they would keep an eye lively for game. Addic kept his supplies strapped to his torso in a series of tanned leather pouches that helped distribute the weight. This meant he took some unpacking, and Raif found himself smiling as he watched the cragsman struggle with an underarm pack.

Raif did not offer to help, but he did set about making a fire. One thing he had learned from his short time raiding and hunting with Addie was that the cragsman was fanatical about his tea. The sage flared quickly and smelled like winter festivals and stuffed game birds. Raif placed a smooth rock into the center of the flames and went in search of willow. He had to squeeze through the gap in the cliff to find it, and by the time he had returned Addie had already boiled water for the tea.

"When you're short on fuel it's always best to use water from the canteen instead of snowmelt," he said, noting Rail's surprise. "If it's been wedged in your armpit all day it'll be nice and warm."

Raif had no reply for that, and fed his willow sticks to the fire.

"Tea?" Addie asked when the herbs had steeped.

Raif surprised himself by saying, "Yes"

Huddling close to the flames they drank their tea from tin bowls.. Addie had laid strips of smoked meat upon the stone to warm and now dropped two wrinkly apples in the pot containing the dregs of the tea. It was good to sit there and draw in the smells and heat from the fire, good also to be physically exhausted.

And away from the hell of the Rift.

"I smoke it with the fat on," Addie said after a while. "It doesna keep as long but it's juicier."

Raif agreed. He'd been on many longhunts in his time and knew the quiet rhythms of camp talk. After they'd eaten the meat, he asked, "Is there a moon up there?"

Addie glanced up at the banks of mist. "Aye."

Slewed in the tea, the apples had plumped up and had to be cooled before eating. Raif mashed his in his bowl with a spoon. It tasted fawt I and honey-sweet. Earlier he had intended to ask the cragsman some questions, but now he decided to hold his peace. From where he sat he could neither see nor perceive the Rift, and it seemed no small blessing to spend a night free from the burdens he carried and the oaths he had spoken. When Addie stood and said," I'm off to sleep," it sounded like a good idea. Not bothering to find a flat stretch of rock to lie upon, Raif tugged the blankets from his bedroll and made his bed near the fire.

He slept lightly. On the way back from gathering willow he had jammed some branches into the gap in the rock, and his ears listened for the sounds of rustling. None came. Addie snored. The mist began to fail, and the moon shone through gaps in the haze before setting. Nagging pain in Raif s shoulder made it difficult to sleep on his back, and he rolled onto his side. Sound, dreamless sleep followed.

When he awoke at dawn Addie was already up. The cragsman had two strengths of tea; the morning variety was darker and thicker. Today it tasted of apples. "Boiled it down from last night," Addie said, frowning into the pot. "Has its good and bad points."

Raif took a cup and slipped through the crack and out onto the cliff. The rising sun shone silver through the filmy remains of the mist. Ahead the clanholds were washed in gray light, their hills and valleys and forests rendered in shades of gray. A hundred feet below, a pair of swallows were in flight. Raif drank his tea. Thinking of it as medicine helped. After he stretched out his shoulder and relieved himself he returned to the camp.

Addie had killed the fire and packed. He was sitting on a saddle of rock, working a lump of goat fat into the belly of his bow. Thickly carved from a single plank of yew, the cragsman's weapon fell a good foot short of a true longbow. "Are you set?" he asked, folding the remains of the fat into a small sheet of waxed hide.

Raif gathered his blankets and waterskin. "Yes."

They ate their breakfast as they made their way east Addie had stuffed strips of smoked meat with goat cheese and they held them in their fists like rolls. The cragsmen took the lead, setting the same unhurried pace as the night before. Raif was frustrated at first but after a while he came to understand that Addie was pacing the journey so they would need fewer rests. About an hour after they broke camp they were swooped by a pair of birds, little dun-colored creatures that dive-bombed their heads. Addie declared, "Eggs," and waved Raif ahead while he searched the base of the cliff wall for nests.

Raif struck a path that led him closer to the edge of the Rift. The split in the earth was perhaps four hundred feet across here, nearly half the distance it was in the city. If he looked straight down, he could see tiers of rock like giant steps below him. Rotting snow was sending needle-thin waterfalls trickling into the abyss. Watching them Raif wondered how deep the Rift really was. What happened to that water? "Look at these beauties," Addie said, coming to join him on the edge. He was carrying a nest woven from willow and pine needles. It was not much bigger than his fist. Five speckled brown eggs lay in the center. "Take one."

Raif tilted his head up and cracked the egg into his mouth. It was creamy and thick, newly laid. When he was done he threw the shell into the abyss. "How deep is it, Addie?" he asked.

The Cragsman had taken one of the eggs himself, and was now packing the remaining three in his chest pouch, carefully spacing them between lumps of cheese. "I canna say, lad. In its own way it's a mystery as big as the Great Want." He glanced at Raif. "At least a few of the souls who enter the Want come back." "No man's ever tried to climb down and see?" Addie snorted. "Show me a rope long enough to lower a man into hell. You fall. And keep falling. Simple as that."

Raif thought of Traggis Mole's body and shivered. Today at noon the Maimed Men would lower it into the Rift. Stillborn would be the one who touched the fane to the rope. The Robber Chiefs body would rock, suspended above the abyss, until the flames burned through the rope fibers and it plummeted into the depths.

I will not slit your throat, Raif had told him. Instead he had put a blade through his heart.

Raif glanced down at his sealskin scabbard, where he now kept Traggis Moles two-footlongknife. Stillborn had attempted to lend him another sword—a pretty hand-and-a-halfer with a double guard—but Raif had declined. The Forsworn blade had failed on him, and now he would not trust another sword.

Until…

Raif set the thought aside. The Mole's knife was wickedly double-edged and made from dense Vorish steel. It would do.

"Snow's coming again," Addie declared, looking east. "I can smell it." He fell silent, and Raif imagined him worrying about the lambs that would be born in the snowfall. "Best get off," he said after a while.

"Addie." Raif stopped the cragsman from returning to the trail.

Nodding toward the Rift, he asked, "How long before it closes?"

The cragsman looked at him with some surprise showing in his gray eyes. "It never closes, not wholly. North of Bludd it narrows so that men can cross it, but it's always there, a black crack running through the forests between here and the Night Sea."

Raif reached for his lore. Holding the hard piece of raven in his fist He continued east with Addie Gunn.