A Sword from Red Ice

The villages they passed through were deserted, and all healthy animals were gone from the fields. When they reached the fork in the road that led east to Wrathgate Marafice took it without hesitation. He could see thЈ great iron edifice of Almsgate, flanked by its twin towers. Tat said the double portcullises were down and they looked like they'd taken a few bashes. A chunk of the gate roof had collapsed and there was a big bald patch without tiles. All was as Greenslade had said.

Marafice's heart began to pound as they neared the city's eastern gate. The kettledrums were booming, combining with the clatter of hooves and armor to create a wall of sound. Red and silver pennants flying from Spire Vanis' limestone walls ripped and darted in the mountSi winds. Men were patrolling the ramparts; you could see their heads and the top three feet of their spears. No one was at the gate. No merchants, farmers, tradesmen, scholars. No one. Everyone within the city and without must know that Marafice Eye had come home.

"Is it open?" he asked Tat, his voice wild.

Tat squinted. Wrathgate was built from granite blocks as big as horse stalls. It was a square and bulky gate, the least elegant of the city's four gates, and it was guarded by two four-sided towers and a stone hood. The gate itself was deeply overhung.

"Portcullis is down," Tat said quietly.

Marafice felt the state of his body change. Things that had been slack tightened, and others that had been tight loosened in unpleasant ways. "We keep going," he said, his voice suddenly calm.

When the front line drew within two hundred feet of the gate, the sound of horns blasted forth from the eastern wall. Hundreds of red cloaks stepped into view. Rive Watch. His men. As he looked on they drew their swords in salute. Red steel flashed in the sunlight. The cast-iron portcullis juddered into motion with a great rattling of chains-Clods of snow and turf fell from its spikes.

And there, waiting in the courtyard on the other side, was his father— in-law Roland Stornoway, dressed in fantastically gilded armor that was too big for his small and bony frame, and flanked by a double guard. Hideclads and red cloaks. Marafice had not realized until now that the old goat was still capable of sitting a horse. Seeing Stornoway's cold and rheumy eyes, Marafice suddenly understood several things.

Of course the old man would welcome him back. If he didn't the red cloaks would turn on him. Today, right at this moment, they would turn. Marafice Eye had been their leader for seventeen years, and hard fighting men like the red cloaks did not easily set aside such loyalties. Stornoway's plan would be to support his son-in-law until the poor soul died a sudden but natural-seeming death. Poison, if Marafice wasn't mistaken. Then Stornoway could simply step into place as Surlord and the red cloaks would stand by him.

With his scrawny neck and baldy head sticking out from the carapace of dress armor, Stornoway looked like a vulture. He was putting on a fine show, Marafice had to give him that. He had to be nervous. This was the tricky bit; waiting to see how his son-in-law and his son-in-law's army would react. Yet Stornoway didn't look nervous. Stornoway looked sour and bloody-minded. Marafice blew air through his lips in frustration. His brain wasn't large enough to cope with all this double-dealing.

Yet if he wanted to be lord of this city he didn't really have a choice. A show was called for. Stornoway had set the stage, betting heavily that his son-in-law would play his assigned part. Spire Vanis was watching and Marafice knew it would not serve his cause to look confused. He must be seen to be in control and armed with foreknowledge; pretend that he and the old goat had hatched this plan together. The Surlord and his father-in-law. Stornoway and his new son.

They both knew it. They both needed it. It was a perfectly executed deadlock.

Iss would have figured it out a lot sooner, Marafice reckoned, raising a fist in greeting to the man who almost certainly intended to kill him.

To keep himself calm he addressed Tat Mackelroy, making a necessary show of nonchalance. Reveal surprise and he also revealed weakness. "What did you learn from the hostages?" he asked, saying the first thing that sprang Into his head.

Tat, God love him, went right along with the game, squaring his shoulders and keeping eyes front as he said, "The young one, the ring— leader, is called Drey Sevrance. Wouldn't give me the name himself, but I beat it from one of the others."

"Good, good," Marafice replied, barely listening. His father-in-law was riding forth to meet him. Marafice had thought Stornoway to be greedy but harmless, and he wondered how he could have been so thoroughly wrong. The man was a cold anmcalculating opportunist.

"Welcome," Stornoway hailed as Marafice Eye rode through the gate, "Lord Commander, Surlord. And son."