A Sword from Red Ice

by Julia V Jones

  "Nan," he said, holding out his arm for her to come to him. "Did I ever tell you about the day your da taught me his special move?"

  Aware that he was shutting down all talk about the future, Nan nodded knowingly and let him put his arm around her. "The Culldozer?"

  "Aye. The one where he'd let his hammer lie flat against his horse's belly just so and then present his left flank to the enemy so they couldn't tell he was armed. Then once he got close enough, he'd swing about and uppercut them in the jaw."

  Nan shook her head in bafflement. "I suppose it saved the pulltooth some work."

  Vaylo grinned. Pasha ran up to Bern and wriggled under her granda's free arm, and he got to tell his two best girls about the day he dropped his newly minted warhammer on Nolan Culldayis' left foot whilst attempting the special move.

  The wind wailed as they walked, blowing in their faces and scaling their skin. Silvery spikes of heather undulated in waves like the surface of a lake. Ahead the Copper Hills grew taller and more desolate, and Vaylo could see sunken holes in their faces where ancient and unsealed mine shafts lay. Ockish Bull had told him once that the deepest hole ever dug by a clansman could be found in these hills. "Harlin Dhoone ordered its excavation. Had an old mineshaft reopened, climbed down to the deepest level, and pointed to the ground. 'Dig there, he commanded his men, 'and do not rest your spades for one year. " Vaylo recalled asking Ockish what the hole was for; had Harlin reason to believe that a new lode of copper lay beneath? Ockish had shaken his large bland head. "Copper, no. Harlin dug it as a warning to his enemies. Cross me and you'll end up down there."

  Vaylo frowned. With Ockish Bull you could never quite be sure what was and wasn't true. He could spin tales with the best of them, and possessed a facial expression so inscrutable that it never helped to look at him while he spoke. Vaylo smiled to himself, remembering. Gods, he missed him. "Granda. Over there. Look."

  Vaylo followed the line of his grandson's arm, squinting to make out detail in the distance. "What is it, boy?" he barked, unable to see anything in the valley except heather and shrunken pines, and feeling the first stirrings of fear.

  "Mounted men, Granda. Dozens of them."

  Dear Gods, no. "Get down," he hissed. "Now!"

  "Granda," came Pasha's voice, cool as cream. "They're Bludd. I can see the red banns."

  Cluff Drybannock. Vaylo had dropped to his knees—he was the only one who had done so—and Hammie came forward to offer him a hand. Preferring to stand on his own, Vaylo slapped him away. "What do you see?" he asked.

  Hammie frowned in concentration as he scanned the valley. "Bairns are right," he Sid eventually. "There's over a hundred clansmen down there. It's definitely Bludd, I can see their cloaks. They're heading right for us."

  "It's Drybone!" Aaron said excitedly. The boy began jumping up and down and waving both hands over his head. "We're here! We're here!"

  Vaylo and Hammie exchanged a glance. Hammie shrugged. Vaylo pressed his knuckles against his heart; some tightness there. "Warriors do not jump up and down when they greet each other." He gave his grandson a long, reprimanding stare. Dropping his arms, the boy fell silent. "Good. Chin up. You too, Pasha. One on each side of me."

  As the bairns fell in line, Vaylo looked ahead. He could see the horsemen now, see the rich blackness of sable cloaks and the oily sheen of well-groomed horses. Most of the men had spears couched upright on saddle horns and all had longswords holstered so high on their backs that the crossguards and handguards were visible above their shoulders. They had moved into the formation known as "rule of all," where a single line curved inward forming a reverse C shape so that the farther a man stood from the center the more forward he was. It was a little-used formation and Vaylo wondered what, if anything, it meant.

  Cluff Drybannock rode at the center of the line. He was bareheaded and his waist-length braids streamed behind him as he closed distance across the valley floor. Opal rings bound his hair, and as he drew closer Vaylo saw other signs of the Sull: a quarter-moon painted on the shaved portion of his skull, owl feathers sewn on the collar of his cloak, hands gloved in darkly iridescent moonsnake.

  Vaylo did not move from his place on the hill. He had formed a line of his own with him at the center, a bairn on each side, Nan at one end and Hammie at the other. Nan and Hammie had taken their cue from what Vaylo had said to the bairns, and stood, chins high, as they waited. Vaylo wondered if they felt the same apprehension as he did, wondered if they also strained to make out the expression on Cluff Drybannock's red-clay face.

  Spying a streak of black and gray at Dry's right stirrup, Vaylo understood what had brought these men out. The wolf dog trotted at Dry's heels, tail up and in motion, its yellow eyes alert. It had raced ahead to the Dhoonewall and returned with the mounted might of Bludd.

  Vaylo swallowed. Several outcomes occurred to him, and he found some comfort in the fact that there wasn't one in which the bairns came to harm. He could see Cluff Drybannock's startling blue eyes now; all the Sull Vaylo had ever met had eyes that looked as if a light shone through them. What does he see when he looks at me? Vaylo wondered. An old man? A failed chief? An encumbrance? A rival?

  As the wings of the C hit the hill and began to climb, Vaylo recognized many men: Mogo Salt, Midge Pool, Big Borro, Odwin Two Bear. He looked all of them straight in the eye. They looked right back, he was glad of that, but their faces were hard to read. In a matter of seconds the formation closed around him and he found himself facing Cluff Drybannock. Expertly, the longswordsman reined in his horse. The line halted. For a moment the wolf dog was the only thing that moved as it trotted across the thirty paces that separated Drybone from its master. Vaylo paid it no heed. His gaze was fixed on Cluff Drybannock.

  The two men stared at each other, the chief's bastard and Sull bastard. Overhead a V of geese passed north, their calls dull and labored as they fought the wind. Soon they would cross the Rift, Vaylo realized, and wondered what they would see when they looked straight down into the abyss.

  Cluff Drybannock did not blink or speak. Raising his left fist, he issued a prearranged command, and one hundred and sixty men— Vaylo knew this because he had counted them—stood in their stirrups and dismounted. Drybone did the same, and perhaps of all the people gathered here this day only Vaylo could tell that Dry forced his movements to slowness to match time with the other men. When a perfect half-circle had been formed a second command was issued, again with the raising of a fist.

  As one a hundred and sixty men raised their arms and gripped the handles of the swords. As one they drew them. The snick of metal shaving leather rang out as a single sound. All waited. The wind died. At Vaylo's side, the wolf dog howled, confused.

  Then Cluff Drybannock, the greatest longswordsman in the North, exploded into motion. Drawing a form in the air with the point of his sword, he leapt forward, his movements so swift his cloak crackled like lightning. He spoke a word and it was no word that Vaylo knew, and then, halting, he raised his longsword to his chest, took it in both hands… and sent it plunging into the earth.

  That was the signal for the other hundred and sixty men to come forward and lay down their swords before their chief. Kneeling, they laid their weapons, point-out toward him, forming a semicircle of steel around Vaylo Bludd.

  The Dog Lord stood and accepted them. Dry's sword vibrated right in front of him, its blade a foot deep in the stony soil. Dry himself was breathing hard, yet his face was still. "Son," Vaylo said to him.

  "Father," Cluff Drybannock replied, using that word to address his chief for the first time in his twenty-nine-year life. "We have waited long days for you to come.

  FIFTEEN The Mist Rivers of the Want

  No man or woman can ever hope to navigate Mhaja Xaal, the Land of Unsettled Sands. Once he or she has accepted that as truth it is possible to find a way through. Sun and stars must be ignored. Instinct set aside. That which is considered by most to be wrong and foolish must be embraced. A man or woman wishing for
passage must be like the kit fox, scarab beetle, and rattlesnake: they must travel solely at night.

  "Only in darkness can we find our way through. What the light shows cannot be trusted and is therefore without value. We must learn to honor that which we touch, not see. Know that, and you have the secret of leaving Mhaja Xaal.

  "On the darkest nights when there is no moon to light the way the mist rivers flow. The mist rises in the darkness, filling arroyos and canyons. To leave Mhaja Xaal you must find an arroyo large enough to stand in and walk against the current. All the mist rivers in the Land of Unsettled Sands flow inward toward its heart. Why this is so, the lamb brothers do not know. What lies at the heart of Mhaja Xaal is not a mystery we cultivate. We do know that it is not enough to judge the course of the mist rivers from their banks. What you see will deceive you. The surface currents may run contrary to that which lies beneath. To leave you must stand in the current and feel the pressure of the mist against your skin. Touch alone will lead you out."

  Tallal's words ran through Raif's head as he walked. The lamb brother had spoken them earlier that day in his tent. It was evening now, crisply cold with a red sky fading to black. Raif had taken his leave of the lamb brothers an hour earlier and by now he could no longer look back and see the lights of their tents. This was it then. He was once more adrift in the Want.

  He could not say that he liked it. It wasn't easy not to think about Bear. The hill pony had died, and if he had been a better, wiser person it would not have happened. He should never have taken her with him, that was his first and greatest mistake. When you go to the Want you go alone. It didn't matter to Raif that the lamb brothers came here in numbers. Let them do what they choose to do. He, Raif Sevrance, would never bring another living thing into this place.

  Strange, but it was beautiful tonight. The remains of the sunset glowed on the horizon and the great open flatland spread wide in all directions. The pumice dunes had been replaced by baked rock and it looked to Raif as if he were walking on a dry inland sea. On impulse he bent down and scraped the pale, scaled rock with his thumb. When he brought it to his lips he tasted salt.

  As he stood he noticed his shadow was fading. A band of hot white stars had emerged in the sky opposite the sunset, and Raif spun a full circle as he scanned for the moon. No moon. Not yet.

  "Where is the nearest place to join the mist river?" Raid had asked Tallal, half a day ago at the camp. The lamb brother had begun shaking his head even before all the words were out.

  "My memory is good and if you walk with me to the fire I can point out the direction from which the lamb brothers came. Your memory, however, is bad."

  Raif had grinned wryly. Only five minutes earlier Tallal had told him directions could not be trusted. "I'm still learning."

  "My people have a saying: There are two ways to learn. Listening is the easiest." Tallal smiled. "Come, let us find you some supplies."

  They had been generous, and Raif had found himself touched. The fine, soft blanket he had slept with since the first night had been wait-ing for him, neatly folded, by the fire. Fresh sheep's curd, butter, honey, dried dates, almonds, unleavened panbread, preserved apricots, lentils and a packet of herbs for tea had also been set close to the fire. Raif had never asked how long the lamb brothers had been away from home—it had seemed an indelicate question—but he had imagined it was well over a year. By now supplies brought from their homeland must be sparse, yet they had given their food freely. With grace. For some reason Raif found himself thinking about the Hailsman Shor Gormalin. Shor had been the best longswordsman. in the clan, a scholar of clan history, and a friend to Tern and Dagro. Shor had taught Raif about grace. Looking at the neatly laid pile of supplies, given without fuss or show, Raif imagined that Shor Gormalin would approve. "Grace is a powerful force," Shor had saiqpme morning on the practice court as they were wrist-to-wrist on deadlocked hilts. "It lifts men."

  That was how Raif felt receiving the gifts of the lamb brothers: lifted. During the brief time he had stayed with them he had forgotten one important thing. These men had saved his life. Gods knew how they had found him. Passed out on a ridge in the middle of the Want, lips black, tongue swollen, sword bloodied to the hilt, Bear slain beside him: it could not have been an appealing sight. Yet four men had judged him worth saving.

  "Farli." Raif spoke the slain lamb brother's name out loud. The sound was small in such a big place, instantly sucked away by space and darkness. The question was there in the back of his mind, waiting to be asked. Could I have saved him? Raif knew he had been slow in his responses, slow in finding his target and letting the arrow fly. If he had ran across the dune with Farli and fought with him side by side would it have been different? Probably, yes.

  Grow wide shoulders, Clansman. You'll need them for all of your burdens. Sadaluk's words blew through Raif's head as the weight of that «yes» settled on his shoulders.

  For no good reason, he changed his course. He'd been heading into the sunset and veered off at a tangent, picking a distant boulder as his destination. The light was nearly gone now and the temperature was dropping fast. The big double-chambered waterskin given to him by the lamb brothers bounced against his back. Its heaviness was reassuring. There was no guarantee he would find the mist river tonight or any other night, and even if he did there was still the question of how long it would take to leave the Want once the river had been found. "It will take as long as it must," Tallal had said before they parted. And where it leads is something that cannot be known. Out, that must be enough."

  Raif glanced at the sky; still no moon, but the stars were teeming. The seabed was lit by a dome of silver light, and he could clearly see the salt scale that covered every rock and piece of debris underfoot. It stopped hoarfrost from forming.

  As he neared the boulder his perception of its shape changed; one side was rounded yet he saw now that the opposite side was curiously straight. Closer still he realized that the front of the boulder was projecting forward, the curve and straight line meeting at a point. It was a boat, he understood quite suddenly, fallen on its side and sunk partially into the seabed. A small fishing boat or rowboat with a simple hull that had once consisted of steamed planks. It was quartz now, petrified by ash and mud into flaky iron-colored plates. Raif knelt and ran his hand across the crumbling ridge that had once been its keel. Chips of quartz broke off and fell to the seabed without a sound. Inside, the seats and most of the gunwales had collapsed and lay like blocks of cut stone in the bottom of the boat.

  Abruptly, Raif stood. It would be spring in the Hailhold now. The oaks would be budding in the Oldwood, the sword ferns uncurling above the snow, the first bluebells would be peeping up around the basswoods, and the air would be vibrating with the sound of bird calls: geese, ducks, pheasants, ptarmigan, chickadees, cardinals, horned owls. Life—not stony, desiccated deadness—and he wanted some of it for himself.

  He walked for several hours, holding the setting that he'd picked with the aid of the boat. The seabed rolled out before him, flat and unchanging, a landscape of dry ghosts. As the night grew darker his vision was reduced to the shadowy pendulums of his feet. If the moon rose it did so behind the thick tide of clouds that had washed across the far edge of the sky. Raif scanned for ravines as he walked, but as long as he remained on the seabed he wasn't hopeful. Few cracks split the earth here. The entire seabed was one vast depression, easily deeper than most canyons. When he stopped to drink he knew that he wouldn't find the mist river that night. An almost imperceptible lightening of the sky in the left quarter told of the inevitability of dawn.

  Deciding he would walk until morning he continued on course. As the light grew his spirits fell: every increase in brightness revealed more seabed. Nothing else. When the sun finally pushed free of the horizon, it was tempting to carry on walking—put in some distance while he could. For a while he sprinted, aware as he did so that he was making a lot of noise. Each footfall echoed like the chunk of a chopped log.

&nb
sp; Finally out of breath, he halted. Hot-faced and sweating, he put a hand on each knee as he waited for the hammering in his heart to subside. Peering through the gap between his legs he saw the path he had taken outlined with clouds of salt dust: one for each step. The sky was a piercing blue and the sun rode pale and low, like the moon. Looking ahead he realized that the long run had got him nowhere. All he could see was the flat chalk-colored plain of the seabed. Not even a boulder in sight.

  "Only in darkness can we find a way through." Recalling Tallal's words, Raif sat. No point looking for cover or a suitable place to camp. Although he didn't much feel like it, he pulled out his bedroll and set about making preparations for sleep. He had no fuel for a fire and wondered if that was good or bad. Clan had no rules to govern sleeping by day. Deciding he probably wouldn't sleep anyway, he lay down and covered himself with the lamb brothers' blanket.

  Aware of his vulnerability, he rolled and circled, straining his neck to keep watch in all directions. Hours passed. The sun shone. Nothing moved. Of all the empty places in the Want this seemed the emptiest. Nothing even pretended to grow here. There were no mountains on the horizon, no ice lenses to refract the light, nothing except shimmering air and seabed. Raif stared at the shimmers. He was sure that he would not sleep.

  When he woke it was dusk and the final slice of sun was sinking beneath the horizon. Feeing vaguely stupid, he checked the seabed for changes. If the landscape had changed it was in subtle ways he could not discern. Kneeling, he stowed his supplies and ate a light meal of dried fruit, bread and nuts. The water tasted of the lamb brothers' spices and charred wood. After he'd taken his fill he cupped some in his hand and let it trickle over his face. Hoping it-was a luxury he would not come to regret, he broke camp and headed out.

  This night would be different, he could tell that straightaway.

  Warmer and darker, insulated by clouds swiftly moving across the sky from Want-north. Within an hour it was full dark and he could barely see his feet— Raif walked cautiously at first, gradually moving faster as the ground beneath him remained unchanged. Soon he was jogging in short steps, his waterskin, daypack and longbow thumping against his back. He had to get off the seabed. It was a good night for mist, but this was not a good place to find it. The salt would suck it right back. He ran faster. Hours passed and he covered leagues. Twice he stopped to drink and catch his breath. Both times he studied the sky. Clouds were consolidating into a mass in the Want-north and it was getting difficult to spot even the brightest stars. He hurried on. The visual world was shrinking. He couldn't even see his fists as he ran.