A Sword from Red Ice

by Julia V Jones

  The dead, though, they had to be named. She could not call herself chief's wife if she did not catalogue the dead.

  Bessie Flapp. Gone. The shock of the explosion had stopped her heart. The new luntman, Mornie Dabb, had been lighting torches in the tunnelway. His body was found three days later, blown all the way to the kaleyard. Mog Willey, Effie's childhood friend. He'd been on his way to the guidehouse to deliver Inigar's morning milk. His body was found in two pieces. Joshua Honeycut and Wilbur Peamouth, two stablehands like Jebb, only they were up and about that morning, preparing breakfast and scouring the workbenches for Jon Crickle, the stablemaster. Also dead. Craw Bannering's head had been severed. Vernon Murdock, brother to Gat, hung on for four days before succumbing to his injuries. And it was a mercy the little milkmaid, Elsa Doe, had just lived out the day.

  Inigar's body had not been found, and Raina had an instinct that even when work crews cleared the rubble heap that had once been the guidehouse it would still be missing. Oh, he had died along with the Hailstone, she did not doubt it. But it would be just like Inigar to confound people in death. He had never been an easy man to get along with, and he was not going to be an easy corpse to find.

  Stop it, Raina chided herself. What am I doing, making light of the dead? Shamed, she continued to name the ones lost. It was a long list: thirty-nine clansmen and women as of this morning. Not counting the tied clansmen, those who farmed and worked their trades in the Hailhold but did not live in the roundhouse year-round and had not spoken oaths to defend it. Many of the tied clansmen who had died had been camped against the great fold's eastern wall. Part of the floor above had collapsed upon them. Poor souls. They had come to the roundhouse seeking protection during the war.

  And then there were the Scarpemen. Raina's mouth tightened as she made her way toward the stable door. She was not going to count those. They had no business being here, had sworn oaths to a foreign clan. What was Mace thinking, to invite close to a thousand warriors and their families to stay indefinitely in the Hailhouse? True enough, Scarpe's own roundhouse had been destroyed by fire, but let them build a new one—and stay within the Scarpehold while they did it.

  Scarpe losses during the Sundering had been high. Many had taken to camping in the old grain store that lay hard against the eastern wall. The bell-shaped structure had been letting in rainwater for years, and the mortar was black and rotted. When the guidestone exploded, the walls and ceiling had caved in. Children had died; and perhaps if she looked deep enough inside herself she could find some sympathy for them.

  But today she wasn't going to try. Nodding her farewell to the new stablemaster, Cyril Blunt, she left the old dairy shed that was being used as a temporary stable. The cold of outside shocked her. Strange unseasonable winds were blowing stormclouds west. A wet snow had begun to fall and already the pines around the greatcourt were dusted white. People had begun to whisper that when the guidestone had exploded it had blasted away spring along with the roundhouse's eastern wall. Normally Raina had no patience with such superstitious nonsense. But it had been unseasonably cold this past week, and if the gods could split a guidestone into a million separate pieces then they could surely rob a clanhold of its spring.

  Raina Btackhail, take ahold of yourself. There are already enough doomsayers in this roundhouse. We don't need one more.

  Breaking into a run, she followed Jebb's draglines toward the hole in the eastern wall. The sound of work crews hammering and sawing assaulted her ears. Nothing was more frightening to a clansman than a breach in his roundhouse wall and the rebuild went on day and night After sunset, huge oil-burning torches were lit and the night crews took over. The night crews wore pot helms with candies fixed above their visors with blob of wax. If was a strange thing to see. Strange and good. Every able-bodied Hailsman and Hailwife in the roundhouse-either with an oath or without-worked toward the reconstruction in some way. Longhead, who for as long as Raina could remember had been head keep of the Hailhold, had come into his own. The man was a wonder. Even with an inch of flesh missing from his left leg.

  He came toward her now, hobbling with the aid of a bent stick Never a man to waste words on greeting he got straight to the point. "Raina, I need to know when I can start clearing the guidehouse. We can't seal the wall till it's done,"

  Raina took a breath to steady herself, then another to give herself more time. Dagro, her first husband, had taught her many things Think before you speak was one of them. Seven days had passed since the Sundering. Seven days where the remains of the gtisdehouse had been left untouched. Raina could view the rubble from where she stood: a two-story heap of dust and jagged rock punctured by hunks of broken wall. Even though she'd seen it over a dozen times before, the still had to stop herself from reaching toward her measure of powdered guidestone for comfort. The Hailstone was dead.

  As she looked on, the wind picked up, sending snow skirling and blowing plumes of dark gray powder from the rubble. Once men had treasured that powder; carried it into battle, borne it across continents, dipped it beneath their tongues as they spoke oaths, rubbed it on the bellies of their newborns, and sprinkled it over the closed eyes of their dead. It had been used as sparingly as gold. Now it was blowing in the wind.

  Yet Longhead was right Something had to be done about it But what? And who was left to decide?

  Raina studied Longhead's face carefully. He was a man who had grown into hit name, developing in his later years a high forehead and a long chin. Never married and seldom courted, he spent most of his time working alone and in silence Raina wasn't even sure it Longhead was his first name or last, or some nickname he'd picked up along the| way. She wasn't sure about much to do with the head keep, she realized. Including where his allegiances lay.

  Looking into his bloodshot eyes she wondered if she detected some disapproval of her husband, Mace Blackhail. Above all else Longhead was a man who liked to get things done, and Mace's failure to reach a decision about the remains of the guidestone was preventing Longhead from completing the most important task in the clanhold: rebuilding the eastern wall. Part of Raina couldn't even blame Mace. He was clan chief, not clan guide. He guarded men's bodies, not their souls.

  Inigar Stoop was dead, and he had neither trained nor picked a successor. So who was left to save them?

  It was a question that kept Raina awake at night, sweating and turning in her bed. The gods had abandoned Blackhail, and there was no clan guide to call them back.

  Had Inigar realized the depth of his failure as the first splinters from the guidestone punctured his heart? Raina thought it likely that he had, and she felt some measure of pity for him. He had been a difficult man and she had not liked him, but during the last few years of their acquaintance she had found him worthy of respect.

  Aware that Longhead was still awaiting her response, Raina made a decision. Gesturing toward the remains of the guidehouse, she said, "I will speak with my husband in due course."

  She could tell from the slight shrinking of his pupils that this answer did not satisfy him. She had chosen caution and spoken as a good wife, and she could see now he had expected more from her. He must have watched her this past week, she realized. Seen how she had taken charge of caring for the wounded, setting up a surgery in the dim and yeasty-smelling warmth of the oasthouse, and arranging to have potions, wound dressings and medicinal herbs brought in from every farmhouse within ten leagues. She had been the one to decide that the stables should be housed in the old dairy shed and that the horses be buried in the Wedge. When Anwyn had asked where the dispossessed Scarpemen should be housed, Raina had not deferred the decision to her husband; she was making arrangements for their shelter even now. The same with the relocation of the hayloft and a dozen other things. She had made all decisions herself.

  The question of what to do about the remains of the guidestone was different She had no expertise here. No one did. And although she recognized Longhead's query as an opportunity to claim power she did not want to gai
n it at the clan's expense. There were matters here too important for that. The future would be set by the stone. Whatever became of its remains would be remembered by every man, woman and child in this clan. History would record it, rival clans would judge it, and scholars and holymen would mull over its significance for a thousand years. Nothing less than the pride and future of Blackhail was at stake.

  So no. She would not decide the Hailstone's fate single-handed, and if that disappointed Longhead then so be it. 'Talk to me tomorrow" Raina said to him, taking her leave. "I'll know more then." Stepping smartly around a cord of logs, she left him staring at the back of her head.

  She felt a little breathless as she entered the smoky dimness of the roundhouse. It took some getting used to, this business of wielding power.

  Two skunks and a handful of raccoons had been spotted in the roundhouse this past week, and Raina noticed the scent of animal musk as she made her way through the ruined east hall. It was cold too, and air switched back and forth as the wind moved through the wall. Oh, they had tarped and timbered it, but the outside still got in.

  How could it not? Seven days ago the Hailstone had exploded and blown open the entire roundhouse. According to Hatty Hare, who had been up early, intending to ride out from the roundhouse to set traps, a giant fireball had rolled through the guide corridor and out along the stables. Hatty had been knocked off her feet. When she was found, three hours later, she was buried beneath a foot of dust and char. Bailie the Red, who'd been riding back from Duff's stovehouse when it happened, told a story of seeing a flash of silver lightning split the northern sky. Raina herself had seen the great mushroom cloud of dust rising from the guidehouse, heard the whirr and snap of timbers as chunks of stone flooring collapsed. The hole punched in the eastern wall wasn't that big really—about fifteen feet by twenty—yet the wall was three-feet-thick sandstone and the floor underneath had been unable to cope with the weight.

  The roundhouse was still finding its level. Just last night part of the ceiling in the chief's chamber had collapsed. Water was coming in from somewhere-Longhead pronounced it likely to be a broken well system—and the lower chambers were knee-deep in sludge.

  worked harder than Anwyn Bird, no one was up earlier or went to bed later, or did as much good for the clan. Gods help you, though if you even suggested that she might need a helping hand. Raina had taken so many scoldings over the matter that she now left Anwyn to herself Well, almost. Anwyn Bird was her dearest, oldest friend and she could not stand by and watch her work herself to the bone.

  Merritt wrinkled her nose as Jebb dragged away the carcass. "We've taken a vote," she said to Raina, wasting no time. "The widows have decided to give up their hearth—but only for use by Hailsmen, mind. We won't have no Scarpes near the wall."

  And so it continues. Raina took a deep breath, orienting herself to deal with this newly delivered problem. Dagro had once told her that in cities they had halls of learning where men could study ancient histories, languages, astronomy, mathematics and other wondrous things. He said it could take a decade to master a discipline. Raina had thought it rather long at the time. Right now she'd like to go there, and take all ten years to learn to be a chief.

  I will be chief. Two months ago she had spoken those words out loud in the gameroom, and even though only two people in the clan had heard them—Anwyn Bird and Orwin Shank—it did not lessen their meaning. She had spoken treason against her husband and chief, and when she thought of it now her skin flushed with fear. Yet she could not and would not take it back.

  Mace Blackhail was Dagro's foster son, brought from Scarpe as an eleven-year-old boy. Dagro's first wife, Norala, had been barren and a chief was always anxious to have sons. Yelma Scarpe, the Weasel chief, had sent him one. Raina had never liked him. She saw flaws in her new foster son that her husband had been blind to. Mace was secretive, he arranged for others to take the blame for his misdemeanors, and he had never given up being a Scarpe. Dagro saw it differently. To him Mace could do no wrong. Mace was the best young swordsman, the most promising strategist and a faithful son. That blindness had killed Dagro in the end. Mace Blackhail had planned the murder of his father and chief. Even now Raina did not know what happened that day in the Badlands, but two things were certain. Mace had ridden home from the slaughter and lied about the outcome, and one about that day in the Oldwood and everything she had worked for might come undone.

  Making an effort, Raina said, "When I spoke with Biddie about using the widows' hearth to house clansmen I recall no talk of barring Scarpes."

  "Well you wouldn't, Raina," Merritt replied, cool as milk, "as it was my idea to bar them."

  Of course it was. Raina had known Merritt Ganlow for twenty years. Her husband, Meth, had shared a tent with Dagro on that last fateful longhunt, and the two men had been friends since childhood. Merritt had a sharp mind to go with her green eyes, and a prickly way about her. She had taken to widowhood with both zeal and resentment, and had made no secret of the fact that she disapproved of Raina's hasty marriage to Mace.

  "You have a habit of putting me in a difficult position, Merritt Ganlow," Raina said to her.

  "You have a habit of being in a difficult position, Raina Blackhail. All I do is point it out."

  She was right, of course. The damage to the roundhouse meant that both Hailish familiesBnd Scarpe ones needed new places to stay. The widows' hearth was, in Raina's opinion, the finest hall in the entire building. Housed at the pinnacle of the great dome, it had half a dozen windows that let in light. Someone had painted the walls with yellow distemper and someone else had thought to lay wooden boards across the floor. It was a pretty chamber, airy and full of sunlight. Unlike any other room in this dour, lamp-lit place.

  Take a hold of yourself, Raina warned herself. It was too late to do anything about where she lived now. The Blackhail roundhouse had been built for defense, not beauty, and she had known that from the moment she first spied its hard, drum-shaped walls all those years ago when riding across the Wedge on the journey from Dregg. What she needed to concentrate on now was space. Families had taken to setting down their bedrolls in corridors and storage areas, and lighting cook-fires and oil lamps wherever they pleased.

  Raina glanced around the great half-moon of the entrance hall. A scrawny boy was chasing an even scrawnier chicken up the stairs, two Scarpewives dressed in black tunics and black leather aprons were fussing around a vat full of potash and lye, a handful of tied Hailsmen had claimed the space under the stair as a gaming room and were lounging in a circle, downing flat ale and throwing dice On either side of the greatdoor burlap sacks stuffed with bedclothes, pots and pans and other household items had been stacked ten feet high against the wall.

  It would not do. Merritt and her sisterhood of widows knew that too and when Raina had approached them about giving up their hearth they had expressed willingness to do so. Only now, two days later Merritt Ganlow had tied some strings to the deal.

  "You like the thought of Scarpes in the widows' hearth as much as I do," Merritt said, her voice creeping higher. "The widows' wall used to mean something in this clan. You needed a bracelet of scarred flesh to stand there." Yanking up the sleeve of her work dress, Merritt thrust out her left wrist toward Raina. The widows' weals were plain to see. Ugly purple scars that would not be allowed to heal for a year. Every woman who lost a husband in Blackhail cut herself, scoring a circle around each wrist with a ritual knife known as a grieveblade. Raina had always thought it a barbaric practice, hailing back to the Time of the First Clans, yet when Dagro had died she had begun to understand it. The pain of cutting her flesh had been nothing—nothing—compared with losing Dagro. Strangely, it had helped. When the blood pumped from her veins and rolled around her wrists she had felt some measure of relief.

  To Merritt she said, "You cannot blame Scarpe widows for not practicing the same rituals as we do. Their pain is still the same."

  Merritt was contemptuous. "They tattoo the weals—dainty littl
e lines inked in red. And they heal within a week. Then what? They're like bitches in heat. Run off and remarry so fast it's as if they never gave a damn for their first husbands all along. And I tell you another thing"

  "Hold your tongue," Raina hissed. She was shaking, frightened by how close she had come to slapping Merritt Ganlow. He raped me! she wanted to scream. That's why I remarried so fast Mace Blackhail took me by force and told everyone I agreed to it They believed him. And if I hadn't married him I would have forsaken my reputation and my place in this clan.

  Merritt glanced around nervously. Too late she realized her raised voice had drawn unwanted attention her way. The men under the stairs had halted their gaming and were looking with some interest at the head widow and the chiefs wife. The two Scarpewives pale women with dyed-black hair and lips stained red with mercury, stared at Merritt and Raina with unconcealed dislike.

  "Open up! Warriors returning."

  Three hard, deep raps against the greatdoor followed the shouted command, and all attention shifted from Raina and Merritt to the half ton of force-hardened rootwood that barred the Hailhold's primary entrance. Straightaway, things started happening. Mull Shank appeared out of nowhere and together he and one of the young Tanner boys began lifting the iron bars from their cradles. The cry "Warriors returning!" was relayed through the entrance hall and up the stairs toward the greathearth. Anwyn Bird, who had the ears of a deer and the uncanny ability to know exactly when her strong beer was needed, emerged from the kitchen cellar, hoisting a two-gallon keg on her shoulder.