A Sword from Red Ice

Long moments passed and then Lan nodded firmly. "It is so." Shifting his position he reached for the coupled scabbard at his waist. One fork of the sheath held his sword and the other held a dagger. Lan drew the dagger. Ice mist curled across the rug as he held the dagger's blade in the flame. Ash smelled the metal heating. Oil on the blade blackened then disappeared as the edge began to glow. The flame burned hot and clean, fueled by a substance purer than oil. When the knife edge became a wavering red line Lan removed it from the heat. Speaking the Sull words "Gods, judge me" he pushed the blade tip across his forearm. Fluid sizzled. Skin opened but did not bleed, instantly cauterized by the heat. Pumping his hand into a fist, Lan waited out the pain.

Ash held herself still, tried not to breathe in the stench of cooked meat. Why had he paid such a high toll? Letting a few drops of blood was one thing, but this. He'd burned through skin and into fat and muscle. What came at such a cost? She could tell from the many old and silvery scars on his arm that he normally opened veins, so what made tonight different?

He was no longer here, either, on the south bank of the Flow. His eyes were vacant and there was a hollowness to his presence that Ash felt, but couldn't explain. One minute she had been sitting opposite a whole and living man and in the next something integral, like the weight of his awareness, was gone. Excised.

The final thought that struck her was that Lan Fallstar was a Far Rider of a different make from Mal Naysayer or Ark Veinsplitter. At first she had thought it was just his age that set him apart, but now she realized there was more. The fine carpet, the city men clothes. And neither Mal nor Ark had ever paid a toll in burned flesh. What she couldn't decide was how these differences affected Lan's status. Did they add up to less or more?

An eerie hiss, like the sound of air being sucked through a crack, puffed through Lan's lips. It was traveling inward. The Far Rider's chest bellowed out and his clenched fist sprang open, and he began felling forward. Straightaway he stopped himself, slapping down his palm on the rug. Blinking, he took in his surroundings, his seared arm, Ash.

"Break the bread. We must leave."

Ash wasn't sure what she had just witnessed, but her instincts warned her to be cautious. Things were moving fast. An hour earlier this man had been a stranger to her, and now he was not only commanding her but doing so with possessiveness in his voice.

"And if I chose not to?"

"This Sull believes that would be a mistake."

Ash couldn't decide whether his words were a threat. Not waiting on a response, Lan unwrapped the bread. Studded with tiny black horsemint seeds and baked hard for travel, the bread was placed on a small wooden board. Lan sprinkled it with water from his hip flask, placed a palm upon it, and then pressed down with his free hand, breaking the bread into crumbs. He waited and after some time had passed he said, "You wish me to take bread before you?"

Ash nodded. She did not know the Sull custom here, but she had remembered one from her foster father: Always let your enemy eat first.

Lan chose a piece of bread the size of an acorn and brought it to his mouth. Ash waited until she saw him swallow before doing the same The bread tasted bitter, the horsemint seeds like little drops of bitumen.

"Drink." He passed her his hip flask. Fluid was traveling to the bum site on his arm and his skin was becoming bloated. He watched her as she drank, his expression giving away nothing. When she was done, he stood and collected his things. As he rolled the carpet he said, "If you continue alone on your current route you will be lost. Your gelding is snow-, not iceborn, and he has not been bred to thai axtha, the path lores. That he has brought you this far is a testament to his intelligence and training. Do not make the mistake of believing he can take you further. Two days' walk from here lies the birch way. Every tree that grows there has been seeded from a single mother tree. What this means to you, Ash March, is that all look the same. Enter the birch way untrained and alone and you will fall into madness. All do. The birches are beautiful, but you will find no end to them. During the first day you will be hopeful. You will say to yourself; I must simply stay on my course! The second day you will become afraid and the rattle of the birches will begin to haunt you. On the third day your mind will begin to wander and you will catch yourself forgetting your purpose.

On the fourth day you will begin to love the birches, and take long rests to admire them. On the fifth day all is lost.

"No Sull has ever counted how many trees grow there. We do not concern ourselves with such things. But know this: The birch way is just the start. We are Sull and we are hunted, and we will not make it easy for our enemies to harm us."