A Sword from Red Ice

Meanwhile, Effie Sevrance, Raif's eight-year-old sister, had been forced to leave her clan. Effie had been born to the stone lore and was able to tell when bad things were about to happen. She was present when Raina was raped by Mace, and Raina feared this knowledge made Kflfie vulnerable. Seeking to remove the girl from Mace's sights, Raina sent Effie to Clan Dregg. As she traveled south in the company of gold smugglers, Effie began to master her lifelong fear of being outside. When her wagon was attacked by Dhoonesmen she was able to hide until the danger passed. The smugglers were killed during the attack, and Effie was left to fend for herself. Finding a secluded clearing near the Wolf River, she settled down to catch fish and live alone for a while. However, she was soon spotted by a chance predator, who swooped in and kidnapped her.

The gold the smugglers had been transporting had come from a Blackhail mine, Black Hole. Traggis Mole, believing that Raifs loyalties still lay with his former clan, not the Maimed Men, ordered Raif to participate in a raid on the mine. The raid was a success. Quickly overcoming the miners' defenses, RaiPs party entered the mine and seized the stockpile of gold. As he climbed to the surface, Raif encountered his childhood friend Bitty Shank. Bitty was now a sworn Blackhail warrior, and he refused to let Raif leave with the gold. Raif had little choice but to fight and heart-kill his old friend.

Bereft and believing he was damned, Raif headed out alone into the uncharted territory of the Great Want. He had learned from the Maimed Man Thomas Argola that a long-deserted fortress lay hidden in the depths of the Want. By finding it he hoped to stop the formation of a second crack in the weakened Blindwall. The Great Want was filled with flaws, and a Shatan Maer, an unmade creature of terrible power, had found one such flaw and was pushing against it. The flaw lay beneath Kahl Barranon, the Fortress of Grey Ice. Using the arrow given to him by the Listener, Raif located the position of the fortress. Once there, he quickly found the flaw and waited for the Shatan Maer to emerge. The battle that followed was long and grim. The Shatan Maer possessed inhuman strength and quickness… but Raif Sevrance was Watcher of the Dead. He had deserted his clan and slain a fellow clansman. He was forever damned and had little to lose. And there was no other living man who could heart-kill as he could.

The Shatan Maer fell, the flaw in the Blindwall was sealed, and the North was freed from danger for a while …

PROLOGUE The Hail Wolf Returns

Inigar Stoop opened his eyes and blinked into the darkness of the guidehouse. The smoke fires had gone out while he slept, and it took him long moments to make sense of the unfamiliar shadows of deepest night. Something in his chest wasn't right. His heartbeat was the same as ever, but there was a vague soreness beneath his ribs, a sense that muscle had been working while he slept.

Indistinct forms loomed around him, their edges bleeding into the darkness like ink spilled on cloth. To calm himself Blackhail's clan guide named the forms in his head—the little stone font where he drew his water, the hog-backed coffer where he kept his ceremonial robes, the statue of lone that had been carved from a riven fragment of the guidestone by the great warrior-guide Harlec Sewell—but the ache in his chest persisted. Raising a hand to knead his rib cage, Inigar became aware of the great stillness he disturbed. The guide-house was as cold and quiet as a grave dug for a horse. The smell of damp earth had pushed through the sandstone walls, and Inigar could feel its coolness moving through his lungs. Fighting the desire to shiver, he swung his legs over the side of the pallet and rose to standing.

Something is wrong here.

Rock dust crunched beneath his bare feet as he crossed toward the fire pit. He had not swept here in many days, and debris from the guidestone lay thick on the flagstone floor. The time for spring tilling was fast approaching and every farmer in the clanhold would soon demand a measure of this dust to scatter in his fields along with the grain. Night soils to fertilize the earth; stone soils to hallow it. Nothing shed from the Hailstone was wasted. Sometimes Inigar thought he was as much butcher as shaman-dividing the carcass of the monolith, grinding down its bones.

But a carcass meant death, and this guidestone had to be alive.

The gods sired part of their souls here.

Inigar brought his hand to his forehead, pressed fingers deep into his pulse points and almost succeeded in halting his thoughts. Please Gods, do not withdraw from this clam.