A Sword from Red Ice

Ready, that was Marafice's first thought. Unlike most of his fellow grangelords, Garric Hews of House Hews, heir to the vast holdings of the Eastern Granges, was armed and armored. His chest piece was simply fashioned, with rolled edges around the neck and waist, and a reinforced plate above the heart. It had probably cost more than a house. Marafice knew subtle workmanship when he saw it. The enameling alone would have taken an armorer three months. Contrasting bands of white and silver ran along the turning edges and cloak pommels, and a coin-size decoration on the right shoulder had been jeweled and enameled in the shape of rampant boar. The Whitehog of House Hews.

Garric Hews returned Marafice's stare. His war helm was tucked under his arm, revealing a soldier's close cropped hair. He was nineteen. Yet it wasn't a normal nineteen. Being a grangelord bred arrogance. Being heir to the greatest house in Spire Vanis bred something more. Twenty-three surlords had called themselves Hews, and Garric Hews' desire to make himself the twenty-fourth could be read in the muscle mass beneath his face. The Knife had observed him on the practice court and in the barracks; he was a savage fighter and a cool-headed controller of men. A company of seven hundred hide-clads rode under him. They were the best-equipped men in the entire army; each and every one of them horsed, and chain-mailed, and armed with dagger, horse sword and pike. Hews trained them daily in formation, and Marafice had to admit he did a good job of it. He knew the value of well-trained men.

They both did. Shirting a muscle close to his mouth, Hews showed a cold smile to his rival Marafice received all the information delivered in the smile, and then turned his horse sharply and rode away. He would give the Whitehog nothing back.

The game trail ran southeast, following the river as it bow-curved upstream and Marafice took it through the camp. Jon Burden was crouching by the red fire, drinking breakfast. It was likely there was ale in his pewter tankard, but Marafice wasn't worried about that. The first captain of the newly formed Rive Company knew how to carry his drink. He and his second-in-command Tat Mackelroy, known as Mackerel, stood as Marafice rode toward them, but Marafice waved them down. He would parley with them later. Right now he needed to be alone.

The camp was spread over half a league, and it was already starting to smell. Horse shit, man sweat, woodsmoke, and lamb grease had combined to form a sharp-sweet scent that the Knife had come to associate with war. Here in the Rive section it was especially bad. For some bloody-minded reason known only to themselves, Rive Company had taken to burning horse turds as fuel. Rive Company had been formed three months earlier in Spire Vanis from volunteers and veterans of the city's Rive Watch. Through no coincidence whatsoever they numbered seven hundred. Marafice Eye hadn't been present when the decision to burn horse turds had been taken, but he guessed it had little to do with a shortage of fuel and more to do with camp politics.

Rive Company was directly upwind of the grangelords' encampment, and they gifted the grangelords with the smell. It was the way it had always been in Spire Vanis: that old, bitter rivalry between the grangelords and the watch. The grangelords held and sheriffed the land outside the city and the watch policed it within. Nothing, not one wormy apple or tin spoon, entered Spire Vanis without passing the inspection of the watch. And no one, not even Garric Hews or the High Examiner himself, could gain access to the Surlord without being escorted into his presence by the watch.