A Sword from Red Ice

Bram and Jordie Sarson exchanged a glance. The young blond axman had had the sense to keep the visor on his thornhelm lowered, which meant that the Dog Lord perceived only one boy in the party, not two. Jordie was barely eighteen, but you could not tell that from his build. Executing the smallest possible shrug, he gave command of the situation to Bram. Jordie Sarson was over six feet tall, a sworn clans-man with a third of his face covered by the blue tattoos. He'd been trained to the ax by Jamie Toll, who everyone called the Tollman, and he shared the fisher lore with Robbie Dun Dhoone. Yet he was only two years older than Bram. And he didn't know what to do.

Guy Morloch was breathing hard. Bram could not make out his face in the darkness, but he could see that Guy was curled up in the mud, nursing his bleeding foot. A stream of rainwater running downhill was hitting the Castleman's back and then forking into two to flow around him. The rain itself was finally slacking, and a bitter cold was setting in. Bram shivered. Realizing his arm had been pulled down by the unfamiliar weight of his new sword, he made a clumsy adjustment. Glancing up at the Dog Lord, he saw the weakness had been noted.

"You know what we've got here, lad?" the Dog Lord asked in a leisurely droll. Softening a cube of chewing curd between his fingers, he answered his own question. "We've got what city men call an impasse. Way I see it, neither of us wants to budge. Now that could mean we stay here all night until one of us gets spooked or frozen and makes the sort of mistake that ends lives, or we could come to an agreement man-to-man." The Dog Lord looked Bram in the eye. "Which is it going to be?"

All the time while the Dog Lord had been speaking Bram had been concentrating on keeping his features still and his sword arm up. He had watched his brother often enough to to know that you had to keep your expression guarded during parley. Robbie Dun Dhoone rarely let his true feeling show. So what would Robbie do here? After he'd thought about it for a moment, Brain decided that Robbie would never have got himself into a situation like this in the first place. Which didn't help matters one bit. Bram took a deep breath and held it. He felt a bit light-headed, as if he might be sick. "I'll listen"

The Dog Lord nodded judiciously, as if Brarn had been very wise. Indicating Guy with the butt of the spear, he said, "The Milkman called you Bram. You know my name. I'd appreciate the rest of yours."0 Guy Morloch shouted, "Tell him nothing." Bram frowned. Although he knew it wasn't very charitable he wished Guy would just shut up. For a reason that he couldn't quite understand he wanted to say his name out loud. If he were to die here, on this muddy hillside in the middle of the southeastern Dhoonewilds, his remains torn apart by dogs, then he wanted the man before him to know exactly who he killed.

Holding his voice steady, Bram said, "I'm Bram Cormac, son Mabb."

The Dog Lord pushed the softened black curd into his mouth and chewed for a while before speaking. Raindrops beaded on his five-day stubble as the downpour finally ended. "I knew Mabb Cormac. Your father was a fine swordsman. I fought against him at Mare's Rock. Had two pretty blades, as I remember. Called them his Blue Angels, on account of their watered steel." Vaylo nodded toward Bram's "Would that be one of them?"

Bram could not reply. Looking down at the sword, he saw his his reflec-tion weirdly distorted in the folded steel. His face was pale and elongated and his lips had been warped to a bloody slash. Still the same brown hair and brown eyes, though. The silver metal would not change that. Abruptly, he looked away. The Dog Lord had to know by now that the boy he was talking to was brother to Robbie Dun Dhoone, yet he had made no mention of it. Bram found himself grate-ful for that, but he still did not trust himself to talk about the sword. Here, Brain, take it. Bear it across your back wlim you go.

The words were too new and too painful, and Bram spoke quickly to bury them. "The sword is my own business, Bludd chief. We have matters here that need settling. You are an enemy to this clan and a trespasser on this clanhold. Withdraw your dogs and release my man."

As the final word got out, Jordie Sarson drew a sharp breath. Guy Morloch made a noise that sounded as if he were choking on a fish bone. Even the wolf dog stopped snarling. Cocking its head and raising its tail, it looked expectantly toward its master. Vaylo Bludd nodded slowly, as if such a declaration was just what he had been waiting for. For one crazy moment Bram imagined he saw a spark of approval in the older man s eyes.