A Sword from Red Ice

Neither warrior was Lan Fallstar; she knew it for a certainty. He had summoned others to do what he would not do himself. Had he invoked them that first night? Or the other morning when he returned to camp with the coati?

No matter, Ash said to herself, feeling her left hand begin to float from her body. I will destroy them all

They stepped to meet her: pack shadows armed with two-handed swords. Starlight ran along the edges of their blades. Breath fogged. Ash felt a muscle high in her right arm spasm as it fought the weight of the rock.

Grayness merged with darkness, and as she moved forward she crossed into Glor Rhakis. No-Man's-Land.

All was the same. The swordsmen came toward her, stepping apart as they prepared to take her from both sides. The stars burned blue. The fortress still stood. It was the edges that were different, the margins, the shadows, the cracks in the walls. They became charged with the energy of another world.

The ancient and evil presence was here, sliding along the deeply black shadows cast by Fort Defeat's double walls. Turning the huge millwheel of its awareness toward her, it murmured an instruction.

Reach.

Ash dropped the rock. Swords came for her. Weightless, her right hand drifted up. A breach existed in the Blindwall, but it had never been big enough. They had always wanted more.

Aid me, she commanded them.

As her right hand drew parallel with her left she heard a word spoken in a dread and terrible voice.

"Daughter."

Mal Naysayer, Son of the Sull and chosen Far Rider, rode through the fortress's main gate. His six-foot longsword with the raven pommel was drawn and in motion. Galloping forward, he swung it in a great arc and severed the first man's head. Hot blood sprayed across Ash's belly and breasts. The head came bouncing toward her and hit her shin. The eyes were blinking.

The Naysayer spun his huge blue stallion and kicked it into motion. His teeth were bared and his eyes burned colder than ice. Dropping the reins, he wrapped both hands around the grip of his sword as he charged. The second man hesitated, torn between standing his ground and defending himself, and running. The hesitation cost him more than his head. Mal Naysayer's fearful blade ripped trough the muscle and organs in his stomach, cleaving his body in two. The pieces thudded dully as they fell into the snow.

Ash heard a noise beyond the wall; the drum of hooves on stone. Lan was riding away. The Naysayer heard it too, for his head tilted for a moment as he listened.

There was never any question that Mal would go after him. She had a sense that it would not be the last either of them saw of Lan Fallstar. For now, though, the coward could wait. The Naysayer slid from his horse and unhooked his wolverine greatcloak. He was breathing hard and she thought she saw tears sparkling in his eyes. His sword was streaked with blood and stomach chyme and he laid it on the ground before he approached.

"Daughter," he said, his voice rough as he slipped the cloak around her naked and bloody body. "I have come."

Ash fell against him. She was shivering intensely, and her arms were burning with pain. The world of shadows had gone now, dissolved like salt in water. What had happened just then, she wondered. Had she reached?

Mal Naysayer picked her up with great gentleness and carried her through the gate.

FORTY-THREE A Place of No Cloud

The night after they left the trappers' camp the sky cleared and the temperature began to drop. The thaw had reversed while Raif and Addie slept, and when they woke in the morning oozing snow had been frozen into glasslike mounds. Addie took one look at the sky and deemed it a "nosebleeder." All clouds had gone and there were none on the horizon. Suddenly the north had turned to ice.

"Pray the clouds don't come back," Addie said, warming his hands around a steaming cup of tea. "If warm air hits this freezing ground we'll be in for the devil of a storm."

"It's spring," Raif replied, knowing his voice sounded strained yet forcing himself to speak anyway. It had not been easy for him to talk to Addie last night and this morning. "You'd think we'd be due some mild weather."

The cragsman frowned at him thoughtfully. "I'm not sure spring's going to come, lad. Not this year."

They were quiet after that. Sitting on opposite sides of the crackling and fragrant cedar fire, blankets pulled tight across their shoulders, they supped on hot, spicy tea.