A Sword from Red Ice

As they'd ridden east, the sounds of snowmelt running and dripping had chimed through the forest. Day owls growled, and sometimes Ash would hear the low moans of big snow cats. So far they had not crossed paths with any other Sull, but Ash had seen signs of them: horse tracks, blazes, clearings, blood-streaked snow. When she spotted these things she felt a tightening in her gut. Here was where Sull lived and hunted. Yesterday she had seen a line of blue smoke on the southern horizon and she thought they might head toward it, but Lan had altered their course northeast.

Ash wished she had paid more attention to her foster father's maps. She had only the most shadowy ideas about how the Racklands were laid out. Rumor had it that no outsiders knew the location of the Heart Fires, but her foster father's maps had contained some details of coastlines, rivers and watchtowers. The deepwater gulf of the Innerway, where the Easterly Flow and the Great Shadow River emptied into the Night Sea, might not be far away, but she could not be sure. Once she and Lan had emerged from the birch way she imagined they would head south, if only for the reason that on her foster father's onionskin maps the legend Here be where Sull are most fierce was always writ across the stretch of land that bordered the Stonefields of Trance Vor. The Stonefields were a long way south of the Flow; she knew that much.

Spying something ahead in the water, Ash worked her way closer to the shore. As she hiked along the bank, thin panes of ice underlain by gravel cracked beneath her boots. The air temperature was dropping and the lake had begun to steam. A few flakes of snow drifted in the air as she leaned over the water and looked within its depths. The ledge was deeply undercut here and some stray current had dragged piles of animalffiones into the bowl-like depression. Skulls, mandibles, rib cages, pelvic girdles, scapulas and chunks of spine formed a boneyard beneath the water. Every one of them was a bright, livid green. Ash blinked. One of the skulls looked human.

Cutting away from the shore, she headed back to Lan Fallstar and the horses. The sense that she was no longer in territory claimed by Man created strange tensions in her chest. She had a feeling that if she were to look at anything closely here—animal tracks, snow, fallen logs—secrets would be revealed. This land was old. Its trees were old, and its lakes could turn bones green. Again she noticed the sideways tracks in the snow, odd disjointed curves that headed from the lake to the trees.

"What are those tracks over there?" she asked Lan Fallstar with some force as she returned. It was stupid to be here and not be able to ask basic questions.

The Far Rider had been sitting on the folded tent skins carrying out maintenance work on his arrows. He slid them into his hard-sided horn case as she approached. Although he could not see the tracks she meant, he said, "Moonsnakes feed here. They move in ways that minimize contact with the snow"

His reply took wind from her. She had been spoiling for a fight, she realized, yet hardly knew why. Fine snow had begun to fall and she hugged her cloak to her chest and asked in a softer voice, "How big are they?"

"The females grow to thirty feet." The Far Rider stood. "On full moons they form covens to hunt and feed."

She was surprised by how easily Lan answered her questions. This was not normal, but she would use it. "And the lake? Why are the bones green?"

He shruggedjBThis Sull does not know."

"How far are we from the Heart Fires?"

Muscles in the Far Rider's jaw contracted and the golden skin tightened across his cheeks. With a sharp tug he pulled up the tent canvas. "We ride on. The Heart Fires will burn until we come."

Ash looked at the flattened rectangle of snow left behind by the canvas. She did not move as Lan packed the stallion and slung his glassy longbow across his shoulder.

"It is unsafe to travel this land alone," he said, mounting. "You will not find other defenses as passive as the birch way."

He never used her name. Not even when he slid his man sex into her at night and accepted her tongue into his mouth. He had done her no harm and had guided her safely through the birch way, but she did not know what to make of him. He changed moods too quickly. Only an hour ago he asked for a lock of her hair. Now he was either scaring or threatening her—she couldn't tell which.

"All Far Riders must return to the Heart Fires."

And there it was again, another change. His voice was stiff, but she realized he had spoken to soften his earlier words. She wished it wasn't so confusing. How could he give her so much pleasure at night yet be so cold to her during the day?

She let the falling snow swirl and sparkle between them. After a while decided she had nothing further to say to him, and went to mount her horse.