A Sword from Red Ice

Closing his eyes he released the string. The twine whipped forward and lashed his wrist. Concussion from the recoil passed through his left arm and into his shoulder. Pain jabbed at the scarred flesh. It barely registered. The arrow had entered heartmeat. The creature from the Blind buckled and collapsed. Hitting the dunes, it raised a coffin-shaped cloud of dust Raif thought he heard a noise, a sort of sucking crackle, as its heart collapsed.

In the quiet seconds that followed Raif stood and breathed and did not think. Coppery saliva collected in the bottom of his mouth. Behind him he was aware of movement as the remaining lamb broth-ers crossed the dunes. Directly ahead, the dust began to settle and two fallen bodies emerged. Scrubbing a hand over his face to brush off ice crystals that had accumulated on his eyelashes and facial hair, Raif made his way toward them. Deep within, he fought the impulse to name the Stone Gods. He would not claim the comforts of clan.

The first body was part sunk into the pumice. The lamb brother had fallen on his stomach and a small wet slit in his sable robe was his only visible injury. It was an exit wound; he'd been gored through the gut Raif dropped to his knees and gently turned him. The body was already growing stiff. Dark vapor curled from the wet and ragged hole that had been torn in his lower abdomen. The impact of the fall had dislodged his headpiece and Raif got his first look at the lamb brother's face. His youth came as a shock.

"Leave him," Tallal ordered, approaching. "It is forbidden for jinna to touch our dead."

Raif bowed his head, not understanding fully what the lamb brother meant, but hearing enough in his voice to realize he was upset. With an effort, Raif rose to his feet. He was exhausted, and the pain in his left shoulder was rapidly draining what little strength he had left. He did not want to look at the second body, but didn't know what else to do. All three lamb brothers were on the dune now, silent men wrapped from head to foot in dark wool robes. They did not want him here, he could tell that from the way they moved to separate him from the body. Perhaps they blamed him for their brother's death. Perhaps they were right.

The creature from the Blind had fallen on its knees, and by some strange alignment of its spine its both still knelt upright. As Raif drew near he detected, the same raw, alien odor he'd smelted earlier. The creature was naked and its head and part of its chest were covered in fine scales. It was not quite human. Oversized blood vessels running along is arms and legs fed bulbous humps of loosely slung muscle. A bone spur on one side of its jaw protruded through its skin. Raif shud-dered and moved away.

The creature's weapon had landed a small distance from its body and he walked over to inspect it. The thick, night-black sword was burning a hole in the dune. It had already sunk two feet. The walls of the hole gleamed softly as pumice was transformed into glass. Voided steel.

Raif glanced at the lamb brothers; two were kneeling by the body while the third was prayer-walking at the base of the dune. Raif crossed over to Tallal. The lamb brother was rewinding the cloth around his slain brother's face.

Not knowing how to soften what he was about to say, Raif coughed to get Tallal's attention. "We must burn the body. Quickly."

Tallal's long, slender hands ceased moving. "Leave us," he replied without looking up. "Return to the camp while we prepare Farli for the journey."

Farli. Tallal had slipped and spoken his brother's name. Raif repeated it to himself, committing it to memory. You did not forget a man you had fought alongside. When he spoke, his voice was hard. "Your brother has been killed by voided steel. The metal does not belong in this world. If you leave your brother's body intact it will be consumed by dawn, claimed by the same evil that created that thing over there. He will become one of them, and once that happens I cannot say how long he'll be damned."

All three lamb brothers looked at him. The elder brother who was prayer-walking stopped midstep.

Raif pressed on. "I have seen it with my own eye. Forsworn knights, slain by the same make of weapon. Their bodies were stripped. Despoiled." He halted, remembering the Forsworn redoubt, the black stains the four bodies had left on the floor. "We must destroy the body. Now."

Tallal shook his head. "We do not burn our dead." "If you do not burn him I will."

Raif did not know whether it was the words or the threat behind them that got through to Tallal. The lamb brother looked first at the elder and then at the brother who was kneeling on the other side of the body. Both men nodded almost imperceptibly, letting it be known they acceded to whatever decision Tallal made.