A Sword from Red Ice

Marafice cursed softly and with feeling. His foot was throbbing and the coldness in his eye socket seemed to freeze half his brain. The good half, the one he needed to make sense of what was happening in the city. Stornoway in Mask Fortress. It was a puzzle he could not solve.

As he made his way back to the camp he passed the granite fang the clansmen had been roped against. They formed a rough circle, one on each compass point. Their feet were bare and bleeding, though not badly. They would survive. Burden had a clean blade. The young one with the brown eyes marked Marafice in silence. He had a couple of fresh bruises on his face and a nasty gash across the bridge of his nose. Jon Burden and Tat Mackelroy had interrogated all four men some days back, and the brown-eyed one had fought back like a demon.

Marafice reminded himself to ask Burden what, if anything, he had discovered. For now, though, he wanted nothing but the peace of his tent. It seemed Greenslade had performed an unwitting service. The darkcloak had succeeded in tiring him out sufficiently to the point where he believed it was possible to sleep.

Small cookfires dotted the camp, and the smell of charring pork fat and onions wetted his mouth. He was pleased to see a large central bonfire had been built as a gathering point. A wrestling match was under way—a member of Rive Company against one of Steffan Grimes' professional mercenaries—and the cheering and booing was raucous. Marafice watched the match for a while—Rive was looking like dead meat—and then found himself a plate of food and retired to his tent.

He ate methodically to the darkness. He couldn't be bothered lighting a lamg^ Before he slept it occurred to him that the day he'd spent fighting at the Crab Gate had not left him as mentally exhausted as he felt right now. How had Iss managed it, all the intrigue and uncertainty?

An hour before dawn he awoke and gave the order for camp to be struck. Tat Mackelroy helped him into full war armor, snapping latches, strapping buckles and shoving down great wads of linen padding. Marafice looked south toward Spire Vanis and spied the suggestion of light on the edge of mountains and sky. He had been moving toward this moment for years, decades even, yet he had never thought it would come in circumstances such as these. What did Iss used to say? "You cannot plan for the strangeness of being surlord" Much wisdom seemed to exist in those words.

Mist washed through the granite fangs as Jon Burden, Andrew Perish and Steffan Grimes formed up ranks. The spires towered above them, stone sentinels thousands of years older than the city the army went to claim. Men were quiet. Formally armed and armored, most needed mounting stools to bestride their horses. The foot soldiers— there were a hundred and fifty extra thanks to Yelma Scarpe—stamped their feet restlessly as the cavalry took its own good time to close ranks.

Marafice waited. He found himself not impatient. The stars were fading in a clear sky. Crows were calling in the fields, gathering in readiness to pick through the remains of the camp. When the carts were loaded and the ranks evenly formed, Marafice gave the order to the drummers to sound the slow march. As the booms of the kettledrums synchronized, he trotted his horse to the center of the front line.

"To Wrathgate," he bellowed. "South!"

An army of three thousand moved out on his order.

Progress was slow for the first hour. Marafice kept both hands on the reins and did not think. Keeping his head forward to avoid his neck piece chafing, he watched the sun rise. When they rejoined the road he caught his first glimpse of the city walls in the distance. A small shock of remembrance charged the sheet of muscle beneath his lungs. The Splinter had gone. The pale limestone tower that had risen six hundred feet above the earth no longer existed. He had been told that it had fallen, but Iss' death had seized his attention and he had not spared a thought for the city's tallest rower. Its absence was shocking, the unobstructed view of Mount Slain s northern face.

Every man in the party felt it. Andrew Perish, who was. riding two lines back, cried out the third piety. "God brings destruction so that we as men can restore His order to the world."

Marafice did not believe in God, but the ancient words pulled at him all die same. Restore order: that would not be a bad thing. Calling out to the drummers he commanded a quick march. They were on the road now; the mules and footsoldiers could keep pace.