A Sword from Red Ice

Realizing that he was hungry and late for his work in the guide-house, Bram glanced toward the kitchen. Breakfast had been fried apples and veined cheese, but that had been half a day ago. He could smell baking, and frying—Castlemilk's cook worked frequently with boiling oil—and decided not to resist. Limping at full speed, he made his way through the roundhouse and out the other side.

The kitchen was bustling. The benches were filled with women, children, seasoned warriors and old-timers taking their noonday meal The noise was close to deafening. Cook and his helpers were clanging pots and trivets, pitchforking sides of venison from vats of sizzling fat and stoking the ovens with giant pokers. Heat and steam and cooking smells combined to form a force that pushed through the air like wind. Bram hurried to the food tables, glad to see that no full-sworn warriors were waiting to be served. Men with lifetime oaths to their clans were always fed first. Pol waved a greeting from the back, and the head dairyman, little crotchety Millard Flag, shouted something about the skimming needing to be redone by the end of the day. Bram nodded an acknowledgment. There was no fooling Millard: do a hasty job and he knew it. Grabbing a fried pastie filled with lamb and onions, Bram tucked his head low and prayed to make it to the guidehouse without anyone stopping him to give orders.

The pastie was hot and juicy and it burned his tongue when he bit into it. Once he'd made his way through kitchen's east door and outside, he scooped a handful of snow from the ground and packed it into his mouth. His numbed toes were just beginning to come alive in his boot and they felt grossly swollen, like they could split the leather. His limp got worse and he had to slow down to manage the short climb up the embankment to the guidehouse.

Castlemilk's guidestone was housed in a separate building two hundred feet east of the roundhouse situated on a raised bank above the Milk. It was a large timber-framed structure that looked like a barn, and had the same double — size two-story doors as most barns. And a door within the door. A brick chimney had been built against the north-facing wall and Bram could see black smoke rising above the tarred wood roof. A single set of footsteps stamped lightly into the snow led from the roundhouse to the guidehouse. None led back. Finishing off the last of his pastie, Bram followed the footsteps like a path.

The door set within the door was closed but unlocked, and Bram lifted the polished pewter latch and entered. Dimness and smokiness enveloped him. It was like entering a building after a fire. The smell of charring seedpods and river weed was sharp and throat constricting, and Bram had to fight the impulse to cough. As his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he marked the red glows of smokefires placed at regular intervals around the perimeter of the room. This was the stone chamber, yet he could not yet see the stone.

"You are late." Drouse Ogmore, clan guide of Castlemilk, stepped from behind a wall of smoke. Dressed in unfinished pigskins with the hairs still attached and the worm rings and slaughter scars visible, he looked like a member of the wild clans. Short and powerfully built, with black hair and dark skin, he was holding a shovel as if he meant to harm someone with it.

'Take it," he said to Bram, thrusting it toward him. "Clear the area outside the door."

"The small door?"

Drouse Ogmore answered this question with a single, withering look.

Both big barn doors then. As Bram's hand closed around the handle of the shovel and began to move back, Drouse Ogmore pulled in the opposite direction. "The past two days you have been late. You will respect this stone. You will not be late again."

Bram nodded, and Ogmore released his grip on the shovel.

"Come and see me when you're done."

As he moved toward the door, Bram saw two green eyes watching him from the shadow of the guidestone. Nathaniel Shayrac, Drouse Ogmore's assistant, and the one who had made the footsteps in the snow, stepped forward and opened the door for Bram. And then shut it hard against his back.

Bram frowned at the snow. He felt bad about what Drouse Ogmore had said and wished he hadn't stopped at the kitchen for food. Ogmore had taken his oath and offered him occupation in the guide-house. "When your brother wins hack Dhoone come and see me. The future might not he as dire as you think." Those were the words Ogmore had said to him all those weeks ago on the Milkshore when had they laid Iago Sake to rest in the manner of the Old Clans. Ogmore had acted as guide for Dhoone that day, floating the oil and igniting it, incinerating Sake's corpse. Bram had not spared the meeting a thought while he was at Dhoone, but the Castlemilk guide had not forgotten him.

Eight days ago after Bram had spoken First Oath, Ogmore had invited him back to the guidehouse. "Come view the stone," he had said, "and I will prepare your yearman's portion."