A Sword From Red Ice (29 page)

"Go no further," he murmured, dropping
his gaze to the lamb brother on the dunes. The man was about twenty
paces from the disturbed dust. Both hands were on his spear and he
was moving forward slowly, stabbing air. Raif scanned the space
directly in front of him. Nothing. As he panned wider, muscles in his
draw arm started to quake as the twine began to slice into the joint
of his index finger. Bailie the Red had once told him that holding a
longbow at full draw was the equivalent of lifting a grown man
one-handed. "Release quickly," the master bowman had
advised. "Every second you wait power and accuracy are lost."

At the edge of his vision something moved. A
section of air rippled and for an instant a shape was revealed.
Behind the lamb brothel's back, dust smoked from the dune.

"Watch out!" Raif screamed, angling his
bow. As the lamb brother spun around, the dunes exploded. Dust
sprayed up in a footstep pattern heading straight toward the lamb
brother. Pumice glittered in the air, making it difficult to see.
Raif glimpsed something dark and not quite human. As soon as he had
it in his sights it was gone. The lamb brother's robes began to flap
as air rushed against him. Bracing himself he distributed his weight
evenly between his legs, stabilizing the spear at his waist.

A high metallic screech sounded, and then
everything was obscured by whirling dust. Raif fought down panic. He
couldn't see. Part of him wanted to run away, save himself while he
still had time. Noises spat from the dust cloud like sparks.
Something grunted. A wailing gasp was followed by the weird harmony
of metal meeting metal on a sweet spot. Blades clashed. Raif spied
the shadowy outline of a head between curling lanes of dust. Dropping
his sights, he searched for a heart.

An invisible line spooled from the center of his
eye, slipping effortlessly through the swirling pumice. Straightaway
it found a heart. Hot and red, it hammered in imperfect time. Raif
recognized it and switched his gaze. The lamb brother. Both
combatants were moving frantically, their torsos jerking back and
forth. Raif felt the sickening suction of an unmade heart, but as he
tried to lock it in his sights, the lamb brother stepped across his
line of view.

Move, he mouthed, experiencing something close to
shock as utter cold was replaced with heat.

Suddenly the hot heart faltered. A thin cry
sounded, and for a moment all fell quiet. Raif knew he could not
afford to think about what it meant. Pushing his awareness forward,
he locked on to the second heart. It was like plunging into icy black
water. He could not see or breathe; just feel the coldness seize his
chest. His first instinct was to get out—this was not a living
organ and he had no place here—but the suction he'd felt
earlier pulled him in.

A river of darkness flowed through the heart's
malformed chambers, its slow, muscular current animating the meat and
teeth and membranes of the Unmade. Raif's own heart fell in time so
quickly it was as if it had been waiting all along to match the
rhythm of the dead. The moment loosened. He thought of Drey and
Effie, and could not imagine a time when loving them wouldn't hurt.
Follow the current and it would no longer matter. He wouldn't have to
feel or think.

Ma-dum. Ma-dum. Ma-dum. The current tugged him
under. Downriver all was shadow, a darkly welcoming place. Raif's
middle and index fingers twitched, easing his grip on the arrow. All
he had to do was let go.

"Will you come back?" Stillborn's
question, spoken all those weeks ago at Black Hole, broke the rhythm.

Raif blinked. He was bone-cold, almost frozen in
place. The unmade heart contracted strongly, powering the surrounding
flesh. Raif smelled the raw blackness of the void . . . and
remembered what he had to do.

Closing his eyes he released the string. The twine
whipped forward and lashed his wrist. Concussion from the recoil
passed through his left arm and into his shoulder. Pain jabbed at the
scarred flesh. It barely registered. The arrow had entered heartmeat.
The creature from the Blind buckled and collapsed. Hitting the dunes,
it raised a coffin-shaped cloud of dust. Raif thought he heard a
noise, a sort of sucking crackle, as its heart collapsed.

In the quiet seconds that followed Raif stood and
breathed and did not think. Coppery saliva collected in the bottom of
his mouth. Behind him he was aware of movement as the remaining lamb
brothers crossed the dunes. Directly ahead, the dust began to settle
and two fallen bodies emerged. Scrubbing a hand over his face to
brush off ice crystals that had accumulated on his eyelashes and
facial hair, Raif made his way toward them. Deep within, he fought
the impulse to name the Stone Gods. He would not claim the comforts
of clan.

The first body was part sunk into the pumice. The
lamb brother had fallen on his stomach and a small wet slit in his
sable robe was his only visible injury. It was an exit wound; he'd
been gored through the gut. Raif dropped to his knees and gently
turned him. The body was already growing stiff. Dark vapor curled
from the wet and ragged hole that had been torn in his lower abdomen.
The impact of the fall had dislodged his headpiece and Raif got his
first look at the lamb brother's face. His youth came as a shock.

"Leave him," Tallal ordered,
approaching. "It is forbidden for jinna to touch our dead."

Raif bowed his head, not understanding fully what
the lamb brother meant, but hearing enough in his voice to realize he
was upset. With an effort, Raif rose to his feet. He was exhausted,
and the pain in his left shoulder was rapidly draining what little
strength he had left. He did not want to look at the second body, but
didn't know what else to do. All three lamb brothers were on the dune
now, silent men wrapped from head to foot in dark wool robes. They
did not want him here, he could tell that from the way they moved to
separate him from the body. Perhaps they blamed him for their
brother's death. Perhaps they were right.

The creature from the Blind had fallen on its
knees, and by some strange alignment of its spine both still knelt
upright. As Raif drew near he detected, the same raw, alien odor he'd
smelled earlier. The creature was naked and its head and part of its
chest were covered in fine scales. It was not quite human. Oversized
blood vessels running along is arms and legs fed bulbous humps of
loosely slung muscle. A bone spur on one side of its jaw protruded
through its skin. Raif shuddered and moved away.

The creature's weapon had landed a small distance
from its body and he walked over to inspect it. The thick,
night-black sword was burning a hole in the dune. It had already sunk
two feet. The walls of the hole gleamed softly as pumice was
transformed into glass. Voided steel.

Raif glanced at the lamb brothers; two were
kneeling by the body while the third was prayer-walking at the base
of the dune. Raif crossed over to Tallal. The lamb brother was
rewinding the cloth around his slain brother's face.

Not knowing how to soften what he was about to
say, Raif coughed to get Tallal's attention. "We must burn the
body. Quickly."

Tallal's long, slender hands ceased moving. "Leave
us," he replied without looking up. "Return to the camp
while we prepare Farli for the journey."

Farli. Tallal had slipped and spoken his brother's
name. Raif repeated it to himself, committing it to memory. You did
not forget a man you had fought alongside. When he spoke, his voice
was hard. "Your brother has been killed by voided steel. The
metal does not belong in this world. If you leave your brother's body
intact it will be consumed by dawn, claimed by the same evil that
created that thing over there. He will become one of them, and once
that happens I cannot say how long he'll be damned."

All three lamb brothers looked at him. The elder
brother who was prayer-walking stopped midstep.

Raif pressed on. "I have seen it with my own
eye. Forsworn knights, slain by the same make of weapon. Their bodies
were stripped. Despoiled." He halted, remembering the Forsworn
redoubt, the black stains the four bodies had left on the floor. "We
must destroy the body. Now."

Tallal shook his head. "We do not burn our
dead."

"If you do not burn him I will."

Raif did not know whether it was the words or the
threat behind them that got through to Tallal. The lamb brother
looked first at the elder and then at the brother who was kneeling on
the other side of the body. Both men nodded almost imperceptibly,
letting it be known they acceded to whatever decision Tallal made.

Tallal closed his eyes, took a breath, and then
opened them. In the seconds that it took he had aged. "We must
cleanse him first."

"Be quick," Raif warned, before heading
back to the camp. The mist began to rise as he traced the lamb
brothers' footsteps to the tents. Darkness held. The animals were
quiet as he approached, the cookfire dead and smoking. Raif slipped
inside his tent. Sitting on the mattress he pulled the wool blankets
around him. He just wanted to get warm. After a while, he rose,
fearful of falling asleep.

His hands felt big and dull as he poured himself a
cup of water. Clumsily, he spilled liquid down his cloak. Exhaustion
was making him shake. Although he did not much want to he forced
himself to go outside and search for oil. Aware that the lamb
brothers kept most supplies in the corral, he headed toward the
animals. The milk ewe bleated as he stepped over the hide barrier and
entered her tiny domain. She was a fine-looking animal, with bright
eyes and a curly coat. Her udder was swollen with milk. To comfort
her Raif unhooked her honey log from the ceiling and placed it within
her reach. The mules poked their heads over the partition wall and
watched as he searched for oil.

Once he'd found a brick of sheep's butter and a
carafe of lamp oil, he nodded farewell to the animals and left. A
sharp breeze pushed him forward. The great dome of stars was paling,
and the mist was on the move. Raif spent most of the journey looking
at his feet. He did not want to get lost. As he studied the
footprints leading to and from the dunes he realized that one of the
lamb brothers must have made his way back to the camp and then
returned to the bodies. The thought that someone had been at the camp
at the same time he was there bothered him. Why had they not made
themselves known?

When he reached the dune he saw that all three men
were standing over the body of their slain brother, heads bowed, face
cloths moving as they prayed. Something had been done to the body. An
L-shaped incision had been made to open the chest, but Raif was only
allowed a fleeting glimpse. As Tallal stepped forward to bar his
approach, a second brother hastily covered the corpse.

Feeling unwelcome, Raif indicated the things he
had brought. "I'll prime the fire."

"No." Tallal faced him and said no more.

Raif said, "I would help you." Even
beneath the gravecloth, he could see the corpse was smoking.

"You have slain the wrall. That is enough."

Raif was surprised to hear the world wrall from
Tallal. It was the same one used by Heritas Cant all those months ago
in Ille Glaive. He would have liked to ask to what the lamb brother
knew of them but the time wasn't right. Placing the carafe and butter
on the ground, he said, "It must be done now."

"As you wish." It was a dismissal, and
Tallal stood and waited until Raif realized that fact.

It was a long walk back to the camp. As he
approached the tent circle Raif smelled burning oil and felt some
measure of relief.

Knowing he would not sleep, he set about
rebuilding the fire. The discipline of peeling sticks, packing
kindling and stacking logs helped clear his mind. "It's no small
thing to build a fire," Da always said, and Raif decided he was
right. When the flames grew fierce enough to sustain themselves, he
sat back on his cloak and watched. The heat felt good. It burned, and
that was fine.

Dawn came. The mist drained, and clouds began
crossing the sky. The lamb brothers did not return. Raif rose,
deciding he would milk the ewe. She was bleating plaintively now, in
need of release.

Tomorrow he would leave this place. He barely
wanted to admit it, but some small childlike part of himself had
hoped that he might find a home with the lamb brothers. They searched
for the lost soul of the dead; he watched the dead. It had seemed . .
. fitting. Right. Only it wasn't, and he'd been a fool to imagine
otherwise. He did not blame them. How could he? They had healed and
sheltered him. They deserved his thanks and respect.

Who he was, what he did, had shocked them. They
dealt in spirits. He dealt in flesh.

Raif caught the raven lore in his fist and turned
it. The hooked piece of bird ivory felt as rough as if it had been
scoured by the dunes.

Will you come back?

Strange as it was, the Maimed Men had accepted
him. Stillborn, Addie Gunn, even the Robber Chief himself, Traggis
Mole: None cared about his past. They had used him, but perhaps he
was made to be used. And they needed him. The Rift was the deepest
canyon in the North. Its greatest flaw. Maimed Men would be the first
to die if it were breached. After tonight he understood that what had
happened in the Fortress of Grey Ice had slowed, but not changed,
things. The Unmade were still pushing through. Someone had to push
the other way.

Letting the lore drop against his chest, Raif went
to milk the ewe.

Yes, I'm coming back.

Along the Wolf

Effie Sevrance sneezed. It was a big thick one
with lots of snot. In the old days she would have been mortified;
there'd be Letty Shank and Florrie Horn squirming and crying
"Eeeew!," Raina shaking her head and saying, "Really,
Effie, get a cloth," and Da warning, "Wipe that on your
sleeve and I'll tan your backside. I didn't trade two unopened fawn
carcasses for that dress to be spoiled within a year." Da never
tanned her backside, not once. She knew he didn't mean it. He knew
that she knew. It was the thing that came after that hurt. "What
would your mother think?" Effie reckoned those five words held
more power than an entire armory of swords. They were like a spell:
speak them and he who hears them will change.