A Sword from Red Ice

The pig trotted over the sandstone to investigate the boat. The man named Eggtooth followed. "That was before I had me a proper look at 'em." His eyes were pale, almost colorless, and they were now focused on Effie. He licked his lips. The pig began to squeal. Reaching the boat, it pushed its wet, pine-needle-encrusted snout against Chedd's arm. Chedd jerked away and the boat rolled. Waker's father made a quick adjustment. Steadying.

Eggtooth glanced at him. "Good day to you" Effie leant forward, thinking, Here it is: Waker's father's name, "old man."

Waker's father made no reply. The pig would not go near him, Effie observed.

"And what 'ave we here?" Eggtooth jabbed her chin with the butt of his spear, forcing her to raise her head. "A little scar I see. The stitcher did good work."

Effie resisted the urge to touch her cheek. She had forgotten the scar existed. No one had mentioned it to her since the day Laida Moon had winkled out the stitches. Cutty Moss's knife had cut deep, but Laida had told her she was lucky because the luntman had picked the one spot on her cheek where there was no muscle underlying the skin. When Laida had held up the glass and shown Effie her handiwork, Effie remembered thinking Is that all? She had expected something…grander.

Unsure what to do she looked at Eggtooth evenly. His nose was covered in broken veins and there was some kind of insect bite on the left nostril.

"Cool as milk," he commented, throwing the remark backward to his men. "Pretty hair. A man could make good coin just in the scalp- ing."

Effie frowned. Why was he trying to goad her? The pig, finished with examining Chedd, turned its flat pink face toward her. She wasn't about to have any of it and clapped her hands right in front of its snout. With a loud grunt, the pig closed its tiny black eyes and launched itself at her throat. Eggtooth snapped on the leash, lassoing the pig in midair. Ungodly squealing followed. Chedd plugged his fingers in his ears.

Under cover of the noise, Waker's father leaned forward a fraction in the boat and whispered in Effie's ear, "To get rid of scum, best play dumb."

Eggtooth twisted the leash so that the metal bit dug into the comers' of the pig's mouth. The creature's eye bulged and it began to wheeze pathetically. After a few seconds, Eggtooth released the slack.

"On your way to the Cursed Clan, eh?" he said, still addressing Effie. "Know what they do to young uns there?"

Effie nearly, but did not, say No.

"Feed 'em to the bog," Eggtooth said with a nasty laugh.

A strangled, airless sound came from Chedd's throat.

"Tie stones to their chests and sink 'em," Eggtooth said, switching fire from Effie to Chedd. "Pull 'em up a week later and eat what the fish didn't want."

Chedd fainted. One moment he was sitting upright, if a little forward on his seat, and the next he keeled right over, felling straight into the prow of the boat. Something cracked. The boat rocked wildly. Effie dug her heels into the deck to stop herself from sliding forward.

Eggtooth and his men roared with laughter. The one with the fish-scale cloak slapped his side. The pig sneered at Effie. Walter's father stretched his arm to work out a cramp. On the sandstone ledge fifteen feet away, Waker watched his father's arm. Effie felt her mouth begin to tingle.

"I told you these two were no good," Waker said, speaking over the laughter. "A fattie and a mute. You've had a gold piece for them— they're not worth any more."

Eggtooth tapped his forked spear against the rock. He seemed to be thinking. The pig had found a lump of duck crap and was licking it.

"She's no mute," Eggtooth declared finally, staring straight at Erne.

A long pause followed, and then Waker Stone said quietly, "Go ahead, look for yourself."

All the while Eggtooth had been tapping his spear, the strange tingly numbness had been growing in Effie's mouth. It felt like she was being pricked with dozens of needles, only there was no pain, just weird pricking. By the time that Chedd had pulled himself up from the prow and lumped himself down on the seat, the numbness had turned into thickness and now she no longer recognized the landscape of tumorous ridges that had become the insmes of her mouth.

Suspecting a trap, Eggtooth made a signal to his men. Lowering the points of their spears, they sheared fur from Waker's otter-skin coat. Eggtooth took a step forward and carefully brought the twin points of his spear to the roof of EfFie's jaw. "Open up," he told her.

Effie opened her mouth. Something darker and thicker than air smoked out.

Eggtooth leant toward her. Peered inside. Frowned. Everyone was quiet, even the pig. Eggtooth's own mouth fell open. "Sweet gods. She doesn't even have teeth, let alone a tongue." Shuddering with feeling, he withdrew the spear.

Erne closed her mouth. The thickness was wearing thin. Behind her, Waker's father's seat creaked.

"Get going, the lot of you!" ordered Eggtoothmth a mighty stamp of his spear. Sodding freaks."