A Sword from Red Ice

He lost time. Standing on the hillside, thoughts stalled, he was aware only of the intense cold. Ice twinkled in his eyelashes when he blinked. Something—he couldn't say what—snapped him back. For an instant he wasn't glad; everything took too much effort here. It was easier to drift. Yet when he saw Bear he felt shamed. The little pony was standing where he had left her, shaking and making that little piping noise when she inhaled.

"Come on, girl" he coaxed, trudging toward her through shin-high gravel. "Not far now. We'll go down a bit and then around." He didn't know if they could make it that way, but it hardly seemed to matter anymore Doing was better than thinking in this place.

Night fell in layers. The sun hung on the farthest edge of the horizon and smoldered A dusk of long shadows made it difficult to see the way forward. Overhead the first of the big northern stars ignited in a sky turning deep-sea blue. Raif had taken to plowing the breath ice from his nose and chin and shoveling it into his mouth. The moisture it rendered wasn't sufficient to be called liquid, but the sensation of fizzy coolness on his tongue was deeply pleasing. When he tried, to perform the same service for Bear, she shied away from him. Blood was oozing from a cut on her back heel, and she'd started to carry her head and tail low. She wouldn't go much farther, he realized.

He owed her a decent end. As he peered through the darkness toward the turn of the hill his spirits sank. They'd barely made any progress since sunset, simply retraced their steps from the chute. Glancing from his sword to Bear, he made a decision. One hour. No more.

He was gentle with her as they took their final climb.

Starlight lit the hillside, making the rocks glow blue. Raif thought about how he'd first met Bear—she'd been a replacement for the horse he'd lost in canyon country west of the Rift—and how she had carried him to the Fortress of Grey Ice. She had kept him sane, he knew that now. After the raid on the silver mine at Black Hole he was nearly lost. Bitty's death had been too much to bear.

Raif girded himself for the memories. He would not fight them off or deny them: Bitty Shank, son of Orwin and sworn clansman of Blackhail, deserved better than that. He had not deserved to die at the hands of a fellow clansman.

Oathbreaker, Raif named himself, his lips moving. That morning on the greatcourt he had sworn to protect his clan … and he had not protected them.

He had killed them.

Raif sucked in air, welcoming the cold into cavities close to his heart. He was damned. And how should a damned man live his life?

A crunching sounding to his left brought him back. Swinging around, he saw that Bear had stumbled to her knees. Oh gods. He scrambled over to her, not caring where he placed his feet. Nightfall had sharpened the frost and walking through the gravel was like wading through sea ice. Bear was shivering intensely. Her eyes tracked him as he approached, and everything he saw in them told him he could not wait any longer.

"Little Bear," he said softy. "My best girl."

She was cool to the touch. Even now, she pushed her head toward his hand as he stroked her cheek. Kneeling, he moved his body alongside her, wanting to give her his heat. Her heart was beating out of time; he could feel it against his chest. Gently, he rubbed the ice from her nose. She was calm now; they both were.

"My best little Bear."

Raif kissed her eyes closed and drew his sword. No one in the Known World could deliver a death blow with such accuracy and force, and for the first time in his eighteen-year life Raif Sevrance was grateful for that fact.

It was a mercy for both of them.

Curling himself around her cooling body, he lay and rested for a while in the Want.

TWO The Sundering

Raina Blackhail ordered the halved pig's carcass to be hauled from the dairy shed to the wetroom. Two days it had lain there, exposed to the warm and fragrant air, and the flies must have done their job by now. Besides, the smell was making her sick.

Jebb Onnacre, one of the stablehands and a Shank by marriage, was quick to nod. "Aye, lady. Couple of days in the wetroom and you'll have some fine maggots to spare."

Raina showed a brief smile. It was the best she could manage this cold midmorning. She liked Jebb, he was a good man and he bore his injuries stoically, but the night the Hailstone exploded, destroying the guidehouse, stable block, and east wall of the roundhouse, it seemed the weight of those structures had fallen upon her shoulders. And she had been bearing it now for a week.

"I'll rig up a platform. Give it a little air along with the damp." Jebb had lifted the carcass onto a sheet of oiled tarp in preparation for dragging it through the hay. Raina could tell from his hopeful expression that he wanted to please her, that by offering to do more than was necessary he was showing his support.