A Sword from Red Ice

The swords were as ClufF Drybannock said: fallen or falling. Vaylo counted eleven that were wholly upright, and perhaps twice that number that pierced the snow at odd angles. Dozens more must lay beyond sight. You could still make out the barrows, though, the stone mounds that had been raised around the bodies. Vaylo did not know if Dhoone preferred to cover their dead rather than bury them, or if it was a case of men fallen in winter with the earth too hard to be dug. The mounds gave him a chill more than the swords, for he had not been expecting them. Man-shaped but three times as big, they were swollen with new snow. Fox tracks led in toward the middle of the field and Vaylo followed them, his left hand resting on his horn of powdered guidestone. When he came to the first sword he halted. Drawing his newly-acquired sable cloak around his legs, he knelt in the snow. The sword's point was intact but the blade had been eaten by rust and its edge was gone. It had once been a greatsword, Vaylo reckoned, probably close to six feet long including hilt. Someone strong and able must have wielded it. Leaning forward he touched the cankered edge and was surprised to feel how firmly it was fixed in place. He had thought the lightest pressure might have tilted it, and now he wondered about the men who had formed these mounds and set these swords in place. Had they poured cement into the warrior's chest cavities and plunged the hilts between their ribs? What had they feared? What had happened here to raise these swords?

Slapping a hand on his knee, the Dog Lord rose to standing. Two ovals of snow shed from the fur of his cloak. On the periphery of his vision he saw the wolf dog ghosting along the edge of the mounds. When he heard footsteps approaching he turned.

Hammie Faa and white-haired Mogo Salt stepped forward to pay their respects to the dead. No one spoke. All were warriors here. Mogo was young to have the white hair and Vaylo wondered if he minded it. Not all Salt men had it—Cawdo's hair had been thick and brown— but it was a trait the family was known for.

"Come," Vaylo said to them after some minutes had passed. "Let us away to look at the Rift."

They mounted their horses and rode north until the land ceased rising. Vaylo enjoyed the high-sprung nature of his horse, was glad he had to fight it. He thought about the Dog Horse, his mount for nearly a decade, and wondered what had become of it after it had broken free from the burning stables at Dhoone. He had loved that horse, but doubted anyone else could, and he hoped it hadn't been slaughtered for meat No Dhoonesman would have been able to master it, that was for sure.

Forcing the stallion into a skidding halt, Vaylo squinted into the far distance. His old, hardened lenses were not what once they were and it took a moment for the Rift to come into focus. You couldn't see the hole itself, just the raised cliffs on the other side of it and the horizon-long shadow that told of something… missing.

"Its a sight," he said as Hammie and Mogo rode abreast of him, "But not one to warm a man's heart."

Hammie stood in his stirrups and whistled. He too was kitted with a new cloak and a borrowed horse. The cloak was maroon and trimmed with marten and intended for someone taller. The horse had big nostrils and a powerful neck.

"I was there six days back," Mogo said. "An entire roundhouse could tall in and you wouldn't be able to find it."

Silence followed as Hammie and the Dog Lord contemplated this fact.

"Where are the Maimed Men?" Hammie asked.

"East of here. Sometimes we see their smoke."

Hammie thought about this. "How do they get across for their raids?"

Mogo brought his white eyebrows together in a frown. "Da told me there was a bridge only no sworn clansman can see it"

Cawdo Salt was dead, killed several months back at Ganmiddich, so Vaylo did not speak up to contradict his wisdom. The Dog Lord did not believe in such things as bridges that could only be seen by select people. He believed in trickiness and subterfuge, and imagined they played some part in the Maimed Men's ability to cross into the clan- holds. "You know what I think?" he asked. Both Mogo and Hammie earnestly shook their heads. The Dog Lord put on his most serious chief's face. "Evn if I give you a five minute start I'll still beat you back to the fort."

Hammie, who knew how these things worked took off. Mogo Salt, sat there in the saddle and looked confused. "Go," Vaylo told him, not unkindly. 'It's a race;

The boy got the idea soon enough. As Vaylo listened to the drum of horse hoofs he finally felt free to breathe. To the west of hirn he spied the wolf dog, worrying a piece of fox. Turning the stallion, he looked south at the Copper Hills. He thought he could see the broken turret of the forts watchtower, but couldn't be sure.

What were Bluddsmen doing here? And why were they staying?