A Sword from Red Ice

THIRTY-SEVEN A Gift Horse

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was something Bram had not expected, this everyday acceptance. After he had spoken First Oath on the banks of the Milk, Wrayan Castlemilk had stood with her skirt hem floating in the water and said to him, "Now you are a Castleman for a year" Bram was only now beginning to realize the power of those words.

Reaching the ground floor, Bram decided not to risk the temptation of the kitchens and headed out the main door instead. Yesterday Millard Flagg had caught him pouring fresh milk into a vat that hadn't been submerged for sufficient time in the boiler. The punishment for this gross violation of dairy law had consisted of something the head dairyman liked to call "pat watch," which involved a lot more forking than watching, and left a man smelling so bad that afterward he had to roll in the snow. Besides, there was usually food inthe dairy. Cheese, curds, yogurt: you could scrounge something milky most days.

It had snowed a couple of inches in the night and Enoch Odkin and Beesweese were on shovel duty, clearing the front court of snow. Enoch waved to him, and Bram considering asking the yearman about Dalhousie's strange behavior with the sword, but decided he didn't! have time.

Hunching up his shoulders against the cold, he rushed down the Milkhouse steps. Directly ahead, the bargeman was pulling a man and his horse across the river. The horse's dark brown coat was so glossy it looked varnished. Its owner, who was standing talking to the bargeman as he cranked the rope, was dressed in a long wheat-colored saddle coat that was belted at the waist. He was holding something dark in his hand; it might have been a pair of gloves or day-pack. As Bram watched, the stranger's gaze turned toward him. It seemed a deliberate thing, as if the man had known Bram was there yet had delayed looking at him until he was good and ready. His eyes were yellow-green.

Bram turned away. A sharp breeze was channeling east along the Milk and it made him shiver. The dairy was situated to the rear of the roundhouse so he broke into a run to keep warm. It was two hours before noon and the sun was as small and pale as a chip of bone.

Last night's snow squeaked under his feet as he neared the first dairyshed. The hard standing would need to be shoveled so the cows who were due to calf could be walked, and Bram thought he might just as well get to it. Popping his head around the door, he called out a greeting. It was between milking times and the dairymaids were standing about eating fancies topped with dried cherries, and supping on watery mead they brewed themselves. They all swore they never drank milk.

"Bramee," they cried in chorus, teasing. There were five of them, dressed in stiff white aprons over blue dresses, and dainty caps that were worn in defiance of Millard Flag. The head dairyman would have preferred something bigger. "Bramee."

Every morning without fail this greeting accomplished two things: made the girls giggle uncontrollably at their own wit, and caused Bram's face to turn red. He couldn't work out why, after nearly a month, this continued to happen.

As soon as he'd unhooked the snow shovel from its peg behind the door, he went back outside. This morning's training session with Dalhousie had concentrated on the techniques necessary to block blows aimed at the head and chest, and Bram's ribs had taken a beating. He thought he might have blocked one in ten. Dalhousie was fast and he had countless subtle ways of varying an attack. They looked the same, but when they hit you each one felt different. Bram had given up worrying about bruises and now dealt with them the same way as Enoch Odkin, Beesweese and Trotty Pickering did: covered them in pig's lard and boasted about them. It seemed to work.

The new snow was fluffy and only a quarter-foot deep, and it didn't pain his ribs much to shift it. As he was finishing off, Millard Flag came out and informed him he was needed for heavy lifting in the milk room. "Boiler and count to ten a dozen times," he said wagging a finger.

That was the number of second-that you had to count off before you could remove the chums and steel pails from the hot-water bath and reuse them. Yesterday Bram had stopped count at eighty-four.

The milk room was large and noisy. Worktables lined the space, and both sets of double doors—front and back—were kept open throughout the day. Two dairymaids were skimming the cream from the new pails and a third was pouring milk through a wire strainer. Millard Flag and his apprentice, Little Coll, were tilting one of the big cheese vats to pour off the brine. Bram was told to carry various items—two sealed churns, some trays of newly blocked butter wrapped in cloths, and a stack of cheese in tin molds—down to the cold room which lay directly beneath the milk room. After that he was to head outside and feed the boiler fire.

Bram was on his third run down the ancient stone steps when Millard called his name. Hands full with a tray of butter, Bram called out he would be up in a minute. The cold room was dark and low-ceilinged, with crumbly stone walls and a limewashed floor. It smelled like fat and raw earth. None of the dairymaids liked to come here, and they usually sent for Bram or Little Coll if they needed something brought aboveground.

As he slid the tray into one of the deep recesses in the walls, Bram heard a footfall on the stairs.

"I see you are working hard," Wrayan Castlemilk said descending the final steps and entering the chill shadows of the cold room. Fine silver chains at her throat and wrists gleamed as she moved around the chamber. "I don't believe I have been down since I was a girl. I imagined it bigger and more … frightful. My brother once told me they slaughtered cows here. He bolted that door on me one evening. Didn't come back. The old dairyman Windle Hench found me here the next morning. Apparently I was sitting right where you stand now, calmly eating a wedge of cheese."

Bram could believe it. Wiping his hands on his pant legs, he said, "Lady."

This seemed to amuse her. Her dress was made from smooth blue wool and she wore a simple matching cloak. A pair of gloves were tucked into her bodice, and her brown leather boots had little piles of snow on the toes. Bram seemed to remember Mabb telling him once that the better the boot the longer the snow took to melt. "A messenger arrived from Dhoone last night," she said, apparently in no hurry to head back up the steps. "Robbie sends his greetings."

Muscles in Bram's chest did strange things. "He knows I am here?" He heard the hope in his voice and was surprised by it. He hadn't known it was there.

"Oh yes," Wrayan said, looking at him very carefully. "I made sure he knew you had arrived safely and taken First Oath."

Bram understood that she had declared him out of bounds to his brother. Robbie Bmi Dhoone could stake no claim on Bram Cormac for one year. It was hard not to imagine Robbie's face when he received the news. He must have felffi moment's misgiving. They were brothers. They'd shared breakfast, blankets, head colds, punishments, adventures, secrets, cloaks, boots. It had to mean something. Bram was sure it had to mean something. "Did he send any message?"

"No."The Milk chiefs voice was level. After she had delivered this answer she did Bram the kindness of walking over to the right wall and inspecting the rows of churns that stood there.

He sent his greetings, Bram reminded himself. Surely that is a good message in itself? He took a breath, trying to force out the tightness in his chest.

"Someone sent you a message, though," Wrayan said, glan||ng at Bram over her shoulder. "Apparently Guy Morloch wants his horse back."

Bram hung his head. What could he possibly say to that?

"I told him to go to hell. Formally seized the horse for Castlemilk— I am chief, I do things like that-and now I gift the stallion, without condition, to you." She smiled, and it was such a lovely and unexpected thing it warmed the room. "I believe it's got some godawful name, like Gilderhand or Girdlegloom. Guy Morloch always was a stuck-up little shit"

"Gaberil," Bram said.

They both laughed. Because Wrayan Castlemilk was chief and knew it, she took the lid off one of the vats and poked the setting cheese. lf anyone in the dairy had done that they'd be on pat watch for a week.

"So," she said, wiping her finger on one of the cheesecloths, "I believe our swordmaster has taken your sword."

Bram could barely keep up with her. "Yes, lady."

"It's quite a choice you have coming up." Seeing his confusion she explained, "At Castlemilk when a swordmaster takes your sword it means he's claiming you as an apprentice. Dalhousie believes you're quick enough to be a first-rate swordsman."

This was so surprising, Bram had to go over the chief's words one by one in his head. He felt as if he were a piece of cooling metal that she kept plunging into hot and cold water to temper. Dalhousie wanted him as an apprentice? He'd received only two pieces of praise from the swordmaster in all the weeks he'd trained under him—and one of them was today. You're getting better on your feet.

"Of course," Wrayan said, preparing to leave, "training to become a master swordsman is a task that will take up the better part of each day. Just as a guide's training would." Another plunge into hot water. The Milk chiefs gaze assessed him shrewdly. "So you must choose which one you will be."

Waving a hand in farewell, Wrayan Castlemilk took the stairs and left.

Bram felt as if he'd lived an entire life in the scant minutes she had been here. He had to stand for a while just to let it all sink in. Bram Cormac now possessed a very fine and slightly needy stallion. Dalhousie wanted him as an apprentice.

And his older brother knew he had taken the Castlemilk oath. Robbie knew yet had sent no message of goodwill. He is busy. Bram told himself harshly. He has an entire clanhold to secure. Suddenly needing to get outside into the light, Bram righted the lid on the cheese vat-Wrayan Castlemilk had not-replaced it — and then headed up the steps. Guide or master swordsman. He knew he was lucky to have such a choice. Yet he didn't feel lucky, just confused. Was it ungrateful to want something more?

The dairymaids were now busy with the churning and the steady thump and slop of the plungers competed with the sound of Millard Flag and Little Coll stacking vats against the far wall. The head dairyman looked up at Bram as he emerged from the cold room, a question on his small wrinkled face. Bram ignored it. He had to get out of the noise. He knew he was due to feed the boiler, which lay just outside the milk room so the heat from the fire wouldn't spoil the churning, but he passed it right by.

The dairy court was quiet except for a half dozen cows that had been walked onto the newly cleared ground and tossed a bale of hay. The dairymaid watching over them was keeping herself warm by hugging a hot stone wrapped in a blanket to her chest. She regarded Bram with some interest as he passed. Only minutes earlier the chief had visited the milk room and now here was Bram Connac coming out. That would give the dairymaids something to talk about at second milking.

Bram checked on the sun. It wouldn't be long now before midday. Drouse Ogmore would expect him at the guidehouse at noon and there was no telling how long the guide would keep him—usually till well after dark. Ogmore was currently teaching him how to sift and grade the rock dust that shed from the stone during chiseling. An elaborate succession of hoop-shaped sieves was employed, and once the dust had been separated into particles of similar size, the larger pieces had to be sorted by hand. Stone chips, pieces of chalk, pyrite nuggets, fossils and pellets of hardened shale oil: all had to be separated and judged. It was the judging that was the difficult thing, the developing of an eye for pieces that were extraordinary and needed to be set aside for special use. Bram erred on the side of caution, and had been saving a lot of grit. Trouble was, if you stared at any piece of stone for long enough it began to look like it was special. There were always shadings and sparkly bits and veins.

The fine powder that made it to the bottom of the sieving process was easy to deal with. It was packed in small purses and sent out to the hi mum to use in the fields. The next level might be employed in the roundhouse-a small percentage of the sand overlaying the Churn Hall floor was gutdestone — and it was custom to sprinkle a portion on all hearths that were newly lit. The level up from that was where the grit lay and it was here that things began to get tricky. Tiny pieces of guidestone, no bigger than pumpkin seeds, had to be sorted by hand Ogmore could do it in a single movement, passing a flat palm over the chips as they lay atop the wire mesh. The action would turn the pieces over and it was this turning, this revelation of a second side, that was enough for Ogmore to pick out anything worthwhile. "The important pieces flash like diamonds," he had said to Bram more than once. "When your eye is trained you will spot them straightaway."

Bram figured his eye needed more training. The day before yesterday he had picked out every shiny piece from the third layer—it had taken him more than two hours—only to have Ogmore come along and dump it all back in the sieve. "No. No. No," he had cried. "All stones that shine are not precious and not all precious stones shine." Bram had been deeply confused.

Ogmore had picked a chip from the sieve. "This," he had said, holding it between his index finger and thumb so Bram could take a look at it, "is what we look for. See how its lines of cleavage fall counter to its veins?" Bram nodded. It was tiny thing but if you squinted hard you could just make out where the chip had split off from the guidestone on a plain counter to its weak points. Like a piece of meat cut across the grain. "That's where the gods lie. There. They are not bound by the laws of nature. I chip one way, using the lines of cleavage to aid my work, and the gods are content for me to do so and remain passive within the stone. Every so often though they push against the natural order—that is how gods work. This push is what we look for in the stone chips. It gives us evidence the gods are nimble. And reminds us we suffer their tolerance. If they chose to they could sunder the entire stone—look at the Hailstone, blasted to nothing. That is why we must monitor what is shed from the stone. Vigilance is the first and greatest responsibility of all clan guides, and vigilance begins with sifting through the dust."

It had been a lot to take in. It was interesting, but it wasn't enough. Bram wanted to learn about things larger than dust. Where did the Stone Gods come from? Had they existed as long as the Sull gods? What would happen if the Sull decided they wanted the clanholds back? Would the two sets of gods go to war?

There was no fooling Ogmore; he knew when you weren't paying attention. "Go,"he had said coldly after Bram had made a series of mistakes. "Perhaps tomorrow you will learn more."

Now, approaching the guidehouse, Bram wasn't sure he had the mind-set necessary to spend the rest of the day sorting tiny pieces of stone. It all seemed very small.

He kept thinking about Robbie, knowing he shouldn't, yet going ahead and doing it anyway. It was like having a sore tooth that you couldn't stop prodding. Why hadn't Robbie sent a message? Did he no longer consider Bram kin?

"Bram Cormac."

Startled Bram looked up. He had been walking through the unclearffll snow just west of the guidehouse and had not thought anyone was in sight.

The man with the yellow-green eyes who had taken the ferry crossing earlier stepped out from the shadows of the guidehouse's northern wall. He was older than he looked from a distance, but age rested differently on him than other men. His face had hardened rather than slackened. Bone had grown in to replace fat, and decades of exposure to ice and sunlight had pulled the skin tight across the bridge of his nose and jaw. As he walked toward Bram his floor-length saddle coat left draglines in the snow.

"I am Hew Mallin," he said speaking in the kind of voice that was rarely ignored. "I am a ranger. And friend to Angus Lok."

Bram had a strong memory of Angus Lok's visit to the Dhoonehouse. Yet he would not expect a stranger to know that… unless Angus Lok himself had told this man of their meeting.

"Walk with me," Hew Mallin said, assuming many things.

The ranger struck a path northwest toward the woods. Bram saw that he was still carrying the item he'd held during the river crossing. It was a square of black bearskin. A flattened hat.

The guidehouse door-within-a-door was closed and Bram looked at it for a long moment before following the ranger into the cover of the trees.

The woods to the north of the Milkhouse were a dense, snarled cage of choke vines, oaks, elms, hemlocks, basswoods and blackstone pines. Roots, vine runners and thornbushes lurked beneath the snow like traps, ready to trip and stab. Bram thought about stopping for a moment to tuck his pants into his boots but Hew Mallin was walking with purpose and within seconds he would be out of sight. The ranger did not look back to check on Bram's progress.

He had to be armed, Bram reckoned, but any weapons he possessed were concealed beneath his coat. Had he presented himself to Wrayan Castlemilk or the head warrior Harald Mawl? Bram guessed that if the ranger had wanted to arrive in secret he would have come in from the north and not taken the river crossing. How long had he been waiting behind the guidehouse? Brain's thoughts raced ahead of him, and he found himself remembering Jackdaw Thundys words. Hawk and spider that was how the swordmaster had described the ranger Angus Lok.

Reaching a clearing where hardwood saplings were fighting for territory with tiny, perfectly formed pines, Hew Mallin slowed and then stopped. "In Alban's day they used to hold the old ghostwatches here," he said, using the bearskin hat to brush snow from a felled log. "Twice a year, on the longest and shortest days. They'd build a twenty-foot pyramid of timber and light it as the sun set. It's purpose was to ward off ghosts and other evil things. You might say it worked for the ghost-watch hasn't been held since Wrayan took her brother's place, and the ghosts are only now coming back."

Hew Mallin sat on the log. His face was deeply ice-tanned, yet his lips were pale. His brown and graying hair had been needle-braided and pulled back in a warrior's knot. It was the kind of work that took an expert braider an entire day to achieve, yet once done it rendered any sort of care unnecessary for six months.

"What of the forest?" Bram asked, the first words he had spoken. "With a fire that big it could have gone up in flames."

"That is the crux," Mallin replied coolly, fixing Bram with his yellow eyes. "If one is serious about fighting ghosts there is always a cost."

Bram felt the world spinning on him. He had thought it spun ear-lier, in the cold room, but looking back now he realized that was just the first tug necessary to set a jammed wheel in motion. The Castlemilk guidestone had shown him this man: the bearskin hat, the fork in the path.

"You have been marked, Bram Cormac son of Mabb. The rangers have observed you for five years. We have minded you on the practice court and in the scribes' hall at Dhoone. We have asked others about matters concerning you and received answers that satisfied. Your part in Skinner Dhoone's downfall has been noted. Your actions the night VayloBludd was located on a hillside east of Dhoone are known to us. We see much that others do not, and we watch for others like us." A small, weighted pause, "And that watching has brought me to you."

Bram swallowed. Who had told this man about the meeting with Vaylo Bludd? Guy Morloch? Jordie Sarson? The Dog Lord? And how did Mallin know that Bram had visited Skinner Dhoone all those months ago at the Old Round outside of Gnash? Did he know that Bram had looked into Skinner's Dhoone-blue eyes that day and lied? A glance at the ranger's hard, angular face gave Bram his answer. Yes, Hew Mallp knew. He knew and judged it satisfactory.

The strange tightness that had seized Bram's chest in the cold room gripped him again. What was happening here? Why did he feel under threat?

"We are the Brotherhood of the Long Watch, the Phage, and we have stood guard against the Endlords for four thousand years. We watch in this land and many other lands, in the cities and in the clan-holds, in the deserts and on the seas. Dark armies are massing and we stand ready at the gate. We are few against many, and while others on this continent fight wars, seize strongholds, kill, breed, sleep, we walk in the shadows and patrol against the darkness and the men and women who harbor it." Hew Mallin shifted his position, revealing a lean sword housed in an intricately etched steel scabbard. "Our ways are subtle and the tasks we undertake are seldom pleasant. We know truth but do not always speak it. Enemies forestall us and we must act to wipe them out. We do not serve one man or one people, and our home is on the horse paths, animal tracks, dirt roads and riverways. As darkness moves so must we.

"We are the Phage and we know the names of the creatures in the Blind and are afraid. The world lies on the brink, and the first question I bring you, Bram Cormac, is this: How long can it stay there unsupported?"

Snapping his gaze away from Bram, the ranger began to walk the rough circle of the clearing.

Bram looked at the sky. He was about an hour late for Drouse Ogmore. Every day since the guide had asked him to consider becoming his apprentice Bram had gone to the guidehouse thinking, Today will be the day Ogmore asks for my decision. So far that day had not come. Now Dalhousie Selco wanted to make a master swordsman from him—and for a son of a swordsman that meant something. Bram had lost count of the times he had been told he was too small to wield the hammer, the ax and the big two-handed longswords that were favored by Dhoonesmen. Here at Castlemilk they preferred a smaller, fighting sword. And Dalhousie believed that given time Bram could wield such a weapon with skill.

Already it was a wealth of choices. He had come here with nothing and now owned a horse. At Dhoone he possessed no worth save his kinship to Robbie. Now he had two trades to choose from, two ways to gain merit in this clan.

Bram listened to the sound of the trees moving, the hemlocks shushing and the old oaks creaking like swinging doors. Leaves had budded on the elms too early and the frost was rotting them off.

Not thinking any answer was required from him, Bram kept his silence. It seemed as if the world had sharpened. He could see the light in the snow as well as upon it, see the blues and greens that waited there like memories of water. The shadows were darker and more menacing, biding behind trees like coiled springs. When he saw his footprints had exposed earth as well as pine needles, he graded the stones. Nothing shiny or unusual. Nothing that went against the grain.

When Hew Mallin's circuit turned him back toward Bram, he spoke. "You have guessed what the second question is but I will ask it anyway. Formalities serve their purpose." The ranger halted three feet from Bram and pinned him with a gaze so sharp Bram felt it cut like a wire through his head. "I, Hew Mallin of the Brotherhood of the Long Watch, ask you, Bram Cormac son of Mabb, to leave the clan-holds with me this night and beginning training as a ranger for the Phage."

J cannot. Yet he was stirred beyond all sense. Hew Mallin was shaking. So was Bram. "Do you teach the histories?"

"Knowledge is power."

It was a yes. Bram swallowed. "I have spoken an oath to Castlemilk."

"Break it.. The gods are dead, and what remains is here to destroy, not judge us."

But the stones. Ogmore said the gods' presence could be read in the stones. Close to panic now, Bram thought about Ogmore waiting in the guidehouse, of Dalhousie training in the Chum Hall with Mabb's sword, of Wrayan Castlemilk standing in the water and saying, Now you are a Castleman for a year.

"My sword?"

"Swords kill. As long as a blade is sharp one will do as well as another."

Bram breathed in great gouts of air. The snow was dazzhng him it was so full of light. He should not have come, that was his mistake. Should have walked right past Hew Mallin and taken the door-within-the-door.

Wrayan Castlemilk knew, Bram realized quite suddenly. She had only come to deliver Robbie's greetings and gift him with Guy Morloch's horse after the ranger had made the crossing.

But Dalhousie had not known. Nor had Drouse Ogmore.

And what of Robbie?

Did he send any message?

No.

A muscle pulled deep within Bram's chest. Hawk and spider, knowledge and sword: here was everything he wanted … and more. Meeting Hew Mallin's yellow-green gaze he gave the ranger his answer and broke First Oath.

By nightfall Bram Cormac had started a new life.