A Sword from Red Ice

Neither Addie nor Raif no longer had much idea of where they were. Most mornings they would align themselves with the rising sun, pick a point far in the distance—a stand of big trees, a ridge, a hummock, a frozen pond—and head toward it. If they reached it before dark they'd pick something else, correcting either north or south depending on how Addie felt about the going. This morning Addie had picked a knoll that stuck out above the forest canopy and glinted with blue-green lenses of ice. Now they slowed their pace while the cragsman chose a second target farther south.

Hiking onto a rock, Addie surveyed the land ahead. His brown wool cloak was deeply ringed with pine sap and his boots had been poked so many times by rocks and branches that the leather looked like it had been chewed on by dogs. Never one to waste much time, the cragsman made his decision, and then carefully lowered himself onto the floor of the slope. "Stream. This way" he said, striking a new path that took them down into the trees.

The cedar forests to the south formed a green lake on the valley floor, leaving the slopes and ridges free for other, scrappier trees. Spruce and white pines took the ground the cedars did not want, but even they stayed clear of the higher slopes. Forest fires and bog rot had killed successive generations of trees and there were many fallen logs and standing deadwoods. For the past day and a half Raif and Addie had walked above the northern treeline, following a goat path along the rocks, but now they entered woodland.

Light dimmed and the air grew colder. The snow underfoot was patchy, but you could hear the great weight of it in the trees. Boughs creaked and whirred as they strained to hold their loads. No decent wind in several days meant the trees had been given little relief. Some pines had bent in the middle, forming white humps that looked like bridges. Branches had failed and snapped. Entire trunks had split in two. Raif suggested they pick up their pace. Addie grumbled but agreed.

It was hard to know exactly where they lay in relation to Bludd. At some point in the east, Bludd forests melted into forests claimed and patrolled by the Sull. Bludd was a huge clanhold, and its northeastern reaches were wild and barely populated. Occasionally Raif and Addie saw smoke, but after the encounter with Yiselle No Knife and the Spinebreaker, neither had managed to work up sufficient desire to investigate. Raif assumed they were still above Bludd's borders, but couldn't be sure. Addie had an understandable fear of traveling too far north—the Want lay that way and you might simply blink and find yourself in the middle of it, unable to get out—and tended to steer them due east and southeast.

The Rift no longer existed as an unmissable marker that divided the continent into the clanholds and the lands of the barren north. The great fissure in the earth had narrowed to a canyon filled with debris, then a gulch choked with willow, then a simple gash in the rock. "It's still there," Addie had said, wagging his head at the ground when Raif asked, "but now you have to look for it. With all this snow we could be standing right upon it and wouldn't even know." Whenever Raif thought of Addie's words he couldn't help looking at his feet. He glanced down now as they made their way through a stand of hundred-year cedar. Nothing underfoot only pine needles and snow. "Whoa, laddie," Addie said, gripping his arm.

Raif looked at him, startled.

"Nearly lost your footing then" Above the face mask, Addie's gray eyes searched Raif's. "Probably hit a tree root."

A question lay behind the statement. Raif blinked. He felt as if he'd missed something. He'd been looking down at his feet and then then … Addie had spoken.

"Rest a minute," Addie said, clenching Raifs elbow like a vise. "Take a mouthful of water."

Considering Addie had him in an arm lock, Raif didn't have much choice. His chest felt strange. Tight Inside his boarskin glove all five fingers of his left hand were numb. When he held the water bladder above his head to drink, strange tingles passed along his arm to his shoulder.

Addie watched him. Raif knew what the cragsman was thinking. He tried to formulate a reply to the inevitable questions but couldn't think of anything reassuring that wouldn't be a lie.

Snow sifted down to the forest floor as they stood facing each other, silent. Last year's ferns poked through the ground cover like rusted iron bars. Finally Addie said, "Dead men don't fulfill oaths." Angry, he set off along the path on his own.