A Sword from Red Ice

Andrew Perish turned to face his commander-in-chief. Cataracts were beginning to whiten his brown eyes, yet it only made his gaze seem sharper It had the force of a fist punching through a wall. "Every clansman we kill will be a prayer: See how we love thee Sweet God " Marafice made his face like stone. True belief disturbed him. His experiences during the Expulsions had taught him to be wary of men who had the fuel of God burning in their eyes. You couldn't always control them. There had to be close to a thousand here today who had come for no other reason than to slay heretics. They were good men, hardworking, ordinarily loyal, yet you could not predict what would happen if their God fuel was ignited. The Knife had a strong memory of sitting his horse and looking on as his fellow brothers-in-the-watch hacked off the hands and feet of Forsworn knights. He had not fore-stalled that unnecessary cruelty, but it did not mean he had liked it.

He was all business as he spoke with Perish. "Inform Hews he'll be taking the center. We're splitting Rive—we'll flank him. I'll be leading the east flank. Burden will head the west."

Andrew Perish bit this off and chewed on it. As battle plans went it wasn't the brightest, but Perish wasn't the sort to quibble over details. He was the liaison, the bridge between the grangelords and their armies and the great unlanded rest of them. Perish could talk to the most foulmouthed, foul-smelling swine herder, in Mud Camp and then turn around and parley with a pride of perfumed grangelords reposing in their silk tents. All respected him. He had foot soldier's muck on his boots and the blood of lords in his veins.

The Knife knew he could command the grangelords without Perish's help, but this way it was easier. Smoother. Tempers were held in check on both sides. The grangelords didn't have to receive orders directly from a butcher's son, and everyone else was spared the aggravation of dealing with the grangelords firsthand.

"Watch him." Perish's voice was iron hard. Between them there was no need to name names. "Once the battle is met he will abide by his own rules."

Marafice glanced east toward the river bend that concealed the green traprock walls of Ganmiddich. The first snow had begun to fall sleek and heavy flakes that entered the water like diving birds. "I have my own rule in this battle,"he said. "Dog eat Hog."

EIGHT A Cart Pulled by Twelve Horses

"Raina. What d'you make of that?"

Raina Blackhail followed Anwyn Bird's gaze south across the Blackhail clanhold. They were standing on the ancient bowman's gallery that jutted from the roundhouses southern wall. Longhead said no one had been up here in decades, and Raina could see why. The gallery had been built on to the exterior dome by the War chief, Ewan Blackhail. Ewan's son had slain the last of the Dhoone kings, and Ewan had feared retaliation. Amongst his many hastily built defenses was a ringwall that circled the roundhouse at a distance of two hundred feet, a six-story watchtower built atop Peck's Hill in the eastern pinewall, and a series of booby-trapped wells and earthworks that ran along the Dhoone-Blackhail border and that, as far as Raina knew, had killed a whole lot of sheep. Five hundred years later and few of Ewan's creations were still standing. Judging from the cracked stonework and faint rocking motion of the ledge this one didn't have long to go.

Still. It was good to be here. The strange eastern wind was blowing, snapping the blackstone pines in the graze and pushing around the last of the snow. A red-tailed hawk was riding the thermals, scanning for weasels and other small prey through the bare branches of Oldwood. The sky was clear, and a cold and a brilliant sun was shining. Standing high atop the roundhouse you could see for leagues.

And no one but the person standing next to you could hear you speak. Raina glanced at her old friend, the clan matron Anwyn Bird. Anwyn was getting old. Her ice-tanned face was deeply lined, and her eyes had extra water in them. Not for the first time Raina found herself wondering why Anwyn drove herself so hard. She had never married, had no family that Raina was aware of, yet she had more strength of purpose than anyone in the entire clan. When she wasn't baking bread for two thousand, she was butchering winter kills in the gameroom milking ewes in the dairy, gutting eels in the kitchen yard, plucking geese on the poultry shed, distilling hard liquor in the stillroom, or fletching arrows in her workshop. Clan was her life. Comparing Anwyn s dedication with her own, Raina found herself wanting. Yet it was she, Raina Blackhail, who had spoken up in the gameroom.

I will be chief.

"Over there," Anwyn said, nodding her chin southwest. "At the tree-line."