A Sword from Red Ice

by Julia V Jones

"Is that a wooden bowl on your head?"

  "Aye, sir." Weadie knocked on the crown, producing a hollow rap. "I drilled the holes meself and me sister made the straps."

  ''You should have come to me. I would have seen you got something better."

  Weadie shook his head. "Wouldn't want it. After thirty years in the watch I'm done wearing the bird skulls. Call me reckless, but I'd rather take my chances with a flying ax than ride around with nine pounds of metal on my head."

  Marafice believed him. He also believed that Will Weadie, like many men retired from the watch, was sorely in need of funds. annual pension of ten silver coins barely stretched to a hot dinner every night They needed plunder, and Marafice was going to make sure they got it. First spoils were theirs, by order of the Surlord, Penthero Iss. Marafice had insisted upon it, but he was no fool and they were a long way from Spire Vanis and the Surlord's words were no longer law.

  The wangling had already begun. Farms, mills, cottage, smiths and stovehouses had been plundered on the journey. Only Marafice they had raided a mining camp upriver. It was the only time Marafice could recall attending a raid where the fighting was worse after than during it. He'd been glad of his reputation then. Both the hideclads and mercenaries feared him in equal measure, and just the word that he was riding in to break up the feuding was enough to excite a spontaneous laying down of arms.

  God only knew how the spoils had been divvied, but judging from the zealousness of the guards posted outside Rive Company's supply tent, his brothers-in-the-watch hadn't fared too badly.

  To Weadie he said, "Put some metal under there. Nowl"

  Weadie jumped at the force of his voice. "Aye, sir"

  Marafice turned away as the aging armsman ran toward the red fire in search of an iron pot or anything else that would do the job. Damn fool. Didn't he know they'd be shot from above with longbows? Those clannish arrowheads hit like axes.

  "Jon," he said to the commander of Rive Company. "We split the men, fifty-fifty. Have them form shield walls on either side of Hog Company. Hews is taking the center."

  The word conveyed all that Jon Burden did not like about this plan. They'd discussed most of it last night, but only today as he'd looked into Garric Hews' face and seen all the arrogance and challenge there had Marafice decided firm. Rive Company would flank Whitehog Company like a pair of armed guards. Marafice trusted Garric Hews about as much as he trusted a whore with open sores.

  "I am better than you. I am harder and more cunning, and one day when you hear the hiss of wind in your chest it will be me sliding out the knife"

  That was what Garric Hews had said earlier with his cool, superior smile. They were rivals for the lordship of Spire Vanis, and this—this godforsaken wasteland ruled by animal-skinned clansmen—was where they would fight it out. Penthero Iss had named his successor, and Garric Hews did not like the sound of Marafice Eye, Surlord, one bit. What Iss had done was unprecedented, and not likely to stick once he was dead and gone, but that wasn't the point. Marafice had publicly declared himself for surlord. Anyone who fancied that position for himself would have to deal with seven feet, twenty stone of Eye.

  "I still say we keep our men together," Jon Burden said. "Take the left flank. Stay out of the river"

  Marafice shook his head once, hard. They were riding between rows of open-fronted rawhide tents, their horses' hoofs sinking deep into the mud. Camp priests had been busy before dawn, spreading the sacred ash. The strange tingly odor of burned nightshade was released with every step. "If the gate falls the Whitehog could cut us off. A dozen horsemen placed just right, and he could hold us back while Hog Company rides through. This way we'll be on him. Garric Hews will be seeing so much red he'll think his head's split open."

  Jon Burden grunted. He was a stocky, powerfully built man with thick blond hair and a full beard that was showing gray. The killhound brooch that fastened his battle cloak boasted two mosquito-size rubies for eyes. Those rubies denoted twenty years service as a captain of the watch. In his time Jon Burden had expelled the Forsworn from the city, quelled the hunger riots during the bitter winter following Penthero Iss' ascension to Surlord, led the force that rode against Hound's Mire at Choke Creek, crushed the Nine-Day Rebellion led by the Lord of the Mercury Granges, and foiled numerous assassination attempts on Iss. Jon Burden knew what it took to win. He had argued to take the center, and Marafice had nearly let him have it, but a conversation he'd had with Penthero Iss ten weeks ago in Spire Vanis had stopped him.

  "How do I lead this army of misfits?" Maraffee had demanded of Iss, his voice echoing across the marble-entombed space of the Blackvault. "The grangelords, the darkcloaks, the watch?"

  "You have been Lord Protector of Spire Vanis for eighteen years," Iss had replied, cool as well water. "You already know how to lead. Now you must learn how to use."

  Marafice shivered as he remembered his surlord's words. Iss' brand of cold cagalation was foreign to him, but of all the men he knew Penthel Iss had risen the farthest and stayed put the longest. That meant something to the Knife. Iss was the son of an onion farmer from Trance Vor; it served a butcher's son well to listen and learn.

  So he would use Garric Hews and Whitehog Company by giving them the honor of taking the center during the assault. The greatest danger lay in the center-it was the spearhead of the attack, open to the worst Ganmiddich could fire at them-and Marafice's first instinct had been similar to Jon Burden's: We will take this peril as our own. Yet when he had asked himself Would Iss have done this? he had paused and changed his course.

  The simple fact was that Whitehog had superior training and weaponry. Marafice knew it. Hews knew it. Doubtless Jon Burden knew it too but his pride got in the way. Whitehog Company had been training in battle formation for years. They were tight. Their captains had decades of experience patrolling the southern border against the Glaive, and their leader was sharp and aggressive. Rive Company were fine men, but a good third were over forty-and a high portion of that number hadn't seen active service in years. Much though he would have liked to cherry-pick the best seven hundred from the watch Marafice had taken only those who had volunteered. The result was a motley band of seasoned fighters, thrill-seekers, zealots, old men dreaming of recapturing their glory days and scroungers in need of cash. It wasn't an ideal force by any reckoning, but Marafice took some pride in the fact that none were here against their will.

  Besides, it was in his interest to keep Spire Vanis secure in his absence. Deplete the watch too badly and he put the Surlord's security at risk. An assassination while he was here, a thousand leagues and twenty-one days' hard travel from the city, was the last thing Marafice wanted. If anything ever happened to the Surlord he needed to be close to claim his prize.

  "Lead an army for me, Knife," Iss had murmured all those months ago in the Blackvault, "and in return I will name you as my successor."

  Marafice blew air from his mouth. While he'd stood here thinking, mud had turned to chalk on his horse's hooves.

  "Jon," he said brusquely. "I will hear no more arguments. Split the men. We ride within the quarter."

  He waited until Jon Burden met his gaze and nodded, and then kicked his horse toward Mud Camp, where the mercenary companies were forming ranks. This business of surlording won no friends. Even though Jon Burden had no love for Garric Hews and Whitehog Company, he could not be told the second reason Marafice had let them take the center. Hews would be leading his men. He had ridden at the head of the line on every raid and sortie Hog Company had undertaken since leaving Spire Vanis. Today that placed him at the center of the center—bull's-eye by Marafice's reckoning.

  The Knife would not deceive himself. It would suit him well if Garric Hews was picked off by a sharp-eyed clannish bowman. No duels or backstabbing need be done. No risk of open grangewars between the Eastern Granges and the High Granges, no repercussions, ill feelings, or mistakes.

  Marafice Eye shrugged shoulders the size of full-grown sheep. A

  ma
n could always hope.

  Mud Camp was situated at the north of the encampment hard against the treeline. Two creeks, which the mercenaries had named the Ooze and the Pisser, ran like open drains through the ranks of tents. Within the camp the mercenaries had formed clans The pro-fessional companies had chosen the most defensible ground backing onto thick stands of stone pine. Upstream of the other mercenaries they had the fresher water and higher ground. Their cover consisted of giant sheets of waxed canvas hung over birch poles. Sourwoods, uprooted for use as windbreakers, had been lashed into lines in place of walls. Marafice admired the design. It was trim and economical, and had the advantage of leaving the mercenary companies light on their feet. They didn't haul a dozen cartloads of tent supplies from camp to camp like the grangelords. They carried everything they needed on eight packhorses.

  Marafice's gaze became less admiring as he scanned the lower tiers of Mud Camp. Professional mercenary companies were one thing. Freelancers were another entirely. Motley bands of ill-equipped foot soldiers were milling around the cook fire, sucking on sparrow bones, oiling spear heads with filthy rags, fastening on buckled and peeling body armor, scratching their flea bites, swilling from tin flasks filled with crude grain alcohol, and spitting with feeling into thee dirt. Chicken farmers, street vendors, tallow makegstablehands, fish pick-lers, lime boys, pot boys, bath boys, outlaws, thieves: they were all here and nervous as hens around the smell of fox. Their contracts promised one silver piece a tenday and a "just and equitable portion of all common spoils won during the campaign." Which meant they would probably get nothing at all.

  Marafice felt some sympathy for them, but his disgust at their unpre-paredness and the state of their camp was stronger. What sort of men let their animals stand in a lagoon of their own filth?

  He was not pleasant as he gave his final orders.

  Steffan Grimes. captain of the largest professional outfit and acting commander of the entire mercenary contingent, rode forward to dis-cuss the last-minute changes. Born from scratch-farming stock on the brush flats east of Hound's Mire, Grimes had propelled himself far for a man who was still a good five years under thirty When the Knife looked into Grimes' blunt, ice-tanned face he saw himself Younger. Coarser. Still intimidated by the highland-mighty grangelords.

  "They have arseholes just the same as you and I," he had said to Grimes at the start of the campaign, "the only difference is with all the duck livers, lark tongues, and raw oysters they eat, they use theirs a lot more."

  It had been exactly what he wished someone had said to him at that age, yet Grimes had not been ready to hear it. He was still unsure of himself around Garric Hews and his high-stepping brethren. When a grangelord barked an order, Steffan Grimes' first instinct was to obey. It was a problem. Grangelords came in all varieties, from shrewd, to middling, to full-blown raving idiocy, yet each and every one of them believed he had a God-given right to lead men.

  That was where Andrew Perish came in. Marafice clasped Grimes' forearm and wished him "Profit on the battlefield," and then turned to meet his former master-at-arms.

  Andrew Perish had removed himself from the bustle of the camp and was standing on the cliff edge, gazing south at the hazy purple mounds of the Bitter Hills. Smoke rising from a fist-size iron crucible at his feet warned mortals to leave him well alone. Andrew Perish was speaking with God.

  The master-at-arms of the Rive Watch was sixty-one years old, yet he had the spread-legged, straight-backed stance of a man half his age. His hair was soldier-short and perfectly white. A shiny rash on his jaw and neck told of his habit of shaving twice a day. That same unbending self-discipline made him rise in the darkness of predawn every morning to prepare his kit, wash his small linens, cook his breakfast and tamp his own fire. He was a forty-year veteran of the Rive Watch, a man of fierce faith, and once long ago in a separate lifetime he'd been the second son of the Lord of the Wild Spire Granges.

  In Marafice Eye's opinion he was the most valuable man in the camp.

  The Knife waited for the communion to be done. He was little used to waiting and it made him grumpy. Watchful eyes marked the deference and judged it. That made him even grumpier. After a time he dismounted. Pain shot along his damaged foot as his weight hit the ground. He ignored it.

  "It will snow and it will be bloody," Perish said at last, stamping his heel on the crucible and driving it deep into the mud, "but His work will be done."

  Andrew Perish turned to face his commander-in-chief. Cataracts were beginning to whiten his brown eyes, yet it only made his gaze seem sharper It had the force of a fist punching through a wall. "Every clansman we kill will be a prayer: See how we love thee Sweet God " Marafice made his face like stone. True belief disturbed him. His experiences during the Expulsions had taught him to be wary of men who had the fuel of God burning in their eyes. You couldn't always control them. There had to be close to a thousand here today who had come for no other reason than to slay heretics. They were good men, hardworking, ordinarily loyal, yet you could not predict what would happen if their God fuel was ignited. The Knife had a strong memory of sitting his horse and looking on as his fellow brothers-in-the-watch hacked off the hands and feet of Forsworn knights. He had not fore-stalled that unnecessary cruelty, but it did not mean he had liked it.

  He was all business as he spoke with Perish. "Inform Hews he'll be taking the center. We're splitting Rive—we'll flank him. I'll be leading the east flank. Burden will head the west."

  Andrew Perish bit this off and chewed on it. As battle plans went it wasn't the brightest, but Perish wasn't the sort to quibble over details. He was the liaison, the bridge between the grangelords and their armies and the great unlanded rest of them. Perish could talk to the most foulmouthed, foul-smelling swine herder, in Mud Camp and then turn around and parley with a pride of perfumed grangelords reposing in their silk tents. All respected him. He had foot soldier's muck on his boots and the blood of lords in his veins.

  The Knife knew he could command the grangelords without Perish's help, but this way it was easier. Smoother. Tempers were held in check on both sides. The grangelords didn't have to receive orders directly from a butcher's son, and everyone else was spared the aggravation of dealing with the grangelords firsthand.

  "Watch him." Perish's voice was iron hard. Between them there was no need to name names. "Once the battle is met he will abide by his own rules."

  Marafice glanced east toward the river bend that concealed the green traprock walls of Ganmiddich. The first snow had begun to fall sleek and heavy flakes that entered the water like diving birds. "I have my own rule in this battle,"he said. "Dog eat Hog."

  EIGHT A Cart Pulled by Twelve Horses

  "Raina. What d'you make of that?"

  Raina Blackhail followed Anwyn Bird's gaze south across the Blackhail clanhold. They were standing on the ancient bowman's gallery that jutted from the roundhouses southern wall. Longhead said no one had been up here in decades, and Raina could see why. The gallery had been built on to the exterior dome by the War chief, Ewan Blackhail. Ewan's son had slain the last of the Dhoone kings, and Ewan had feared retaliation. Amongst his many hastily built defenses was a ringwall that circled the roundhouse at a distance of two hundred feet, a six-story watchtower built atop Peck's Hill in the eastern pinewall, and a series of booby-trapped wells and earthworks that ran along the Dhoone-Blackhail border and that, as far as Raina knew, had killed a whole lot of sheep. Five hundred years later and few of Ewan's creations were still standing. Judging from the cracked stonework and faint rocking motion of the ledge this one didn't have long to go.

  Still. It was good to be here. The strange eastern wind was blowing, snapping the blackstone pines in the graze and pushing around the last of the snow. A red-tailed hawk was riding the thermals, scanning for weasels and other small prey through the bare branches of Oldwood. The sky was clear, and a cold and a brilliant sun was shining. Standing high atop the roundhouse you could see for leagues.

 
And no one but the person standing next to you could hear you speak. Raina glanced at her old friend, the clan matron Anwyn Bird. Anwyn was getting old. Her ice-tanned face was deeply lined, and her eyes had extra water in them. Not for the first time Raina found herself wondering why Anwyn drove herself so hard. She had never married, had no family that Raina was aware of, yet she had more strength of purpose than anyone in the entire clan. When she wasn't baking bread for two thousand, she was butchering winter kills in the gameroom milking ewes in the dairy, gutting eels in the kitchen yard, plucking geese on the poultry shed, distilling hard liquor in the stillroom, or fletching arrows in her workshop. Clan was her life. Comparing Anwyn s dedication with her own, Raina found herself wanting. Yet it was she, Raina Blackhail, who had spoken up in the gameroom.

  I will be chief.

  "Over there," Anwyn said, nodding her chin southwest. "At the tree-line."

  Raina looked again and this time she saw something emerging from the black-green mass of the southern pines. A team of twelve horses was hauling a war earthward the roundhouse. The cart was built from whole glazed logs that shone red in the sun, and its weight was so great that it needed six wheel axles to support it. Black smoke gouted from a chimney built into the center of the roof. A pair of archers, crossbows loaded, prowled the roof's flat timbers, and a dozen heavily armed outriders formed a shield wall around the cart and team.

  "Can you see their colors?"

  Raina shook her head. "Dark, is all I can make out."

  They watched in silence as the great, smoking behemoth lurched and rolled along the uneven surface of the graze road. Raina wondered if Anwyn was feeling the same level of unease as she was. Ever since the clanwars started all roads into the clanhold had been heavily patrolled. Redoubts had been built at key bends and crossings. Nothing could get this close to the roundhouse without sanction. So who had sanctioned this? And why hadn't she and Anwyn been informed?