A Sword from Red Ice

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."