A Sword From Red Ice (3 page)

Thanks to Mace, Blackhail warriors stationed
across the clanholds this very night were filled with the passion and
terror of war—and was that not what the Stone Gods loved best?

A thin film of ice had formed over the water jug
and Inigar punched it with his finger and drank. The bald-eagle foot
resting against the apple of his throat bobbed up and down as he
swallowed.

Jaw was a tricky thing. It was courage in all its
forms from bravery to recklessness. It was seizing the moment and
acting without hesitation, and being brazenly sure you were right.
Mostly it was sheer bloody-minded audacity: pulling off something no
one else thought could be done.

It was not cunning or deceit. Inigar closed his
fist around his eagle lore and weighed it. A bald eagle saw much and
so did he. Mace Blackhail was not a perfect man, Inigar had known
that all along. Yet a chief had been slain and a new one needed
anointing, and Mace Blackhail had been the first to stake a claim.
That was jaw and it counted for something. Now Inigar wondered if it
counted for enough. Half a year later questions about the raid
remained unanswered. Mace had returned from the Badlands, claiming he
had barely escaped the hell-forged swords of Clan Bludd, yet Raif
Sevrance had also been at the campground feat day and swore he saw no
evidence of Bludd.

And then there was Raina, Mace's stepmother and
wife. Inigar claimed little knowledge of women—they did not
fight and so mattered little to him—but he had been struck by
the changes in Raina Blackhail. She hid them, as was fitting for a
chief's wife, yet eagle lores could not hide from their own kind and
Inigar observed things that others did not. She hated her husband,
and shrank back whenever he touched her. It was a little thing,
easily covered by other movements, yet Inigar had made a note of it.
He'd seen such behavior before: in women who had been raped or
beaten.

Imagining he had heard a sound, Inigar set down
the water jug and listened. Nothing. Where was the dawn? Where was
the kitchen boy with fresh bread and ewe's milk still warm from the
teat? Aware he was becoming agitated and feeling the soreness shift
strangely in his chest, Inigar tried to calm himself. The wolf had
not cried out again. He was just hearing echoes in his head. Eagles
had never been known for the ears.

The air was growing unstable. Flames began leaping
free of the fire, and mist ceased rising from the monolith and began
to cumulate around the base. The crack in its northern face suddenly
looked to Inigar like a newly opened vein. Something vital was
pumping out.

"What happened on the Eve of Breaking?"
Inigar cried, suddenly needing to hear the sound of his own voice.
"Did Mace order the killing of the girl?"

Had it been enough, that order to murder Effie
Sevrance? Or had the guidestone been keeping tally all along and
judged it one misdeed too far? Inigar had heard the whispers: Mace
had killed the swordsman Shor Gormalin, ordered the slaughter of
innocent children on the Bluddroad, and arranged the murder of the
Orrl chief Spynie Orrl.

There was that noise again. Inigar's head whipped
around as he tried to hear. For a moment he thought he detected
something, almost knew what it was, but then it was gone. Cold made
his eyes slow to focus, and it took him a moment to realize that he
could no longer see the Hailstone clearly. Mist folded in on itself,
twisting and swirling, mushrooming outward in quiet lobes before
being sucked back by the monolith.

Inigar pushed his fist against his rib cage.
Thirty years he'd attended the stone, and not one day missed in all
that time. He knew the lay of the stone; knew that its northern face
was the hardest, and that its southeastern foot was deeply veined
with silver and did not take well to the grindstone. He knew where
the greatest concentrations of quartz could be found, and the best
places to tap for sacred oil. He knew its cavities, its lines of
cleavage, its rusts and lichens and flaws. History was carved on its
many faces like text in a book. The iron ring on its northwestern
corner where the kingslayer Ayan Blackhail had been chained whilst
awaiting judgment still stood, immovable now and swollen with rust. A
series of blunted steps cut into the east face told of the time when
the monolith had stood ten feet taller and had lain on the
greatcourt, exposed to rain and frost. Clanwives had once climbed
those steps and watched as their husbands returned from the War of
Sheep. Every chief since Stanner Blackhail had left his mark upon the
stone. Black Harald and Ewan the Bold, Mordrag, Gregor, Duncan, Albor
and his son also named Albor, Theobad, Allister and more. The line of
marks was long and uncannily telling. Black Harald had chosen crossed
swords as his mark, but at some point during his chiefdom he must
have ordered the clan guide to take up his chisel and change it. The
points and hilts of the swords could still be seen, but the blades
had been hewn away, replaced by a thickly carved dram cup: the sign
of parley. Mordrag's mark was a deeply bored hole, fitting for the
man who called himself the Mole chief; Ewan's was a half-closed fist,
poised to crush the Bloody Blue Thistle of Dhoone; and Albor the
Second had chosen a horseshoe, just like his da.

Dagro's mark was unfinished, the stag and swords
he'd chosen mere tracelines in the stone.

Inigar's gaze lapsed upon the circling mist as his
thoughts fell inward. I know this stone like the back of my hands but
do I know this clan?

Should he have looked further after Dagro's death?
One event, two differing stories: had he dismissed Raif Sevrance's
account too soon? The boy had called Mace a liar, said that Dagro had
fallen by the rendering pit, not by the tent poles as Mace insisted.
Even Raif's brother Drey, who was a staunch supporter of Mace, had
agreed with his younger brother's version of events. Yet Raif
Sevrance was just a boy, barely seventeen and without an oath. His
father had been slain at the same time as Dagro, and he was simmering
with rage and grief. The murderers had escaped, unchallenged and
unpursued, and Inigar knew what kind of feelings that stirred in a
man. Someone had to be made to suffer. Inigar had assumed that Raif's
anger toward Mace was simple misdirection. A raw boy looking for
someone to blame. Had he been wrong? Ahoooooooooo.

The wolf. So close now the horses would be
stirring in the stalls and the chickens pecking at the wire in the
coop. Inigar knew how they felt: uneasy, restive, trapped.

Sucking in icy air, he listened for a response.
Every summer since the Hundred Year Cull, bands of Hailsmen rode out
along the far borders to hunt pack wolves that ranged too close to
the hold. The slain animals were skinned, not butchered. For while no
Hailsman ate wolfmeat, many enjoyed the pleasure of walking on
wolf-pelt rugs. In recent times the cull had grown sparse as packs
moved north and west, out of range of Hailish steel. Pack wolves were
cautious. They had pups and yearlings to protect, and their
collective wisdom gave them an advantage over solitary beasts.

The animal that howled this night was not part of
such a pack though, for nothing but deathly silence returned its
call. A lone wolf.

Fear and understanding slowly began to coalesce in
Inigar's thoughts. Something terrible was about to happen. Here, in
the exact and sacred center of clan. The Hail Wolf had returned home.

Inigar stood perfectly straight and still and
decided what he would do. Mist from the guidestone glided across his
face yet he did not shrink back or blink. Quite suddenly his greatest
mistake was clear to him. It had not been misjudging Mace Blackhail
or taking an oath from Raif Sevrance that he knew from the very
beginning the boy was doomed to break. No. Grave though those errors
were they did not match his failure to train an apprentice guide.

He had wanted Effie Sevrance so badly he'd refused
to consider anyone else. She was so powerful, that was the thing, the
augers that preceded her birth so potent. And she had been born to
the stone. No one in any clan at any time Inigar could remember had
been born to the guidestone. Yet that was the girl's lore, and he had
coveted its power for his office and himself. Possessiveness had made
him blind. Other candidates had been worthy—Jebb Onnacre, Nitty
Hart, Will Sperling—yet he had rejected them out of hand. Now
who would guide Blackhail when he was gone? A sound, pitched so low
it was almost beyond hearing, pulsed through the guidestone like an
earth tremor. This time Inigar heard it clearly, instantly
recognizing the source. The Hailstone. The vast chunk of black
granite and blackened silver that had been cut from the great stone
fields of Trance Vor seven centuries earlier and floated a thousand
miles upstream along the Flow was returning the call of the Hail
Wolf.

Ice mist switched violently, sending waves
rippling out from the stone. Inigar could smell it now: cold and
vast, like the sky on a clear winter night. It was the smell of gods.
A part of his brain, made just for this moment, came to life solely
to recognize the scent. Tears sprang to his eyes. Here was everything
he had ever wanted: to exist in the presence of gods. To regard them
and be regarded. To know and to be known.

Aioooooooooooooo . . .

At his last moment what should a man do? Inigar
thought of all he had been and all he had hoped to be . . . but he
would not dwell on his failings. The time for that was done. He
thought of clan; of the Shanks and Sevrances, the Blackhails,
Murdocks, Ganlows and Lyes. Imperfect men and women, but the sum of
the whole was good. He thought of Embeth Hare, the girl who would
have wed him if he'd asked. "Inny," she had said to him on
that perfect summer day as they lay out on the hay piles, soaking in
the sun. "If you decide to become Beardy's apprentice you must
never forget two things. It's not enough that we fear the gods. We
must love them also." When he had asked her what the second
thing was, she had pulled up her skirt and made love to him. His
first and only time.

Embeth had always been smarter than him. Wind
whipped against his face as ice mist started to rotate around the
guidestone. Faster and faster it moved, round and round, blasting
tools and smoking embers from its path. The gods were leaving
Blackhail. And what sort of gods would it make them if they left
quietly without a sound?

No longer able to stand in the hurricane, Inigar
dropped to his knees. The air was full of debris now; strips of
leather, shammies, ashes, woodchips, and dust. The oak workbench he'd
sat at every day slid across the room, legs squealing. A powerful
blast of air sent it smashing against the wall. Inigar felt little
shards of oak pierce his shoulder. A moment later something punctured
his hip. Looking down he saw his chisel poking from the pad of muscle
at the top of his thigh. He took its handle in his fist and yanked it
out.

An eye was forming above the center of the
guidestone. It was beautiful and terrible, a calmness in the storm
of spinning clouds. A noise bass and so full of power set the walls
and floor vibrating, boomed out of the stone. Inigar's eyes and nose
began to bleed. His pigskin cloak was snatched from his back and
sucked into the tow. He was beyond feeling pain now, and barely
registered the missiles slamming against his side. He was the guide
of Clan Blackhail and he had his chisel in his hand, and witnessing
the gods' power was not a bad way to die.

Suddenly everything stopped. Litter dropped from
the air, thudding and tinkling. Mist sank away like water down a
drain. The guidestone stood still and silent, as old as the earth
itself. Wonder and sadness filled Inigar's heart. Who would guide
Blackhail when he was gone?

And then the Hailstone exploded into a million
bits of shrapnel and the clan guide knew no more.

The man who had lost his soul approached the
house. Timbers framing the doorway were black and shiny. Creosote
deposited during the burning gave them the oily iridescence of
ravens' wings. The door that had once been suspended between them had
fallen on the front stoop. Its metal hinge pins had popped out of
their casings like cooked sausage meat. Charred panels in the door
crumbled as the man's weight came down on them. In a different life
he had stained and waxed the panels, proofing them against the brutal
winter storms that hit from the north.

Protecting this house from harm.

The man rocked backward, bringing force to bear on
the heel of his left boot, crushing the brittle wood, stretching the
moment before he entered the house.

The man understood the pull of such places. Death
and ruin dwelt here, and a person could come and view it and be glad
it was not his family, his house, his life. The curious and
opportunistic. Young boys on dares; thieves in search of locked
boxes, silverware, metal for scrapping; officials gathering
information along with a fine story to tell their wives over supper.

When he was ready he stepped into the remains of
his hallway. Fire had burned intensely here. The interior walls had
been limestone-and-horsehair plaster skimmed onto wood lath. His
mistake had been to paint them. Oil in the paint had accelerated the
burn, working against the natural retardant of the lime. The smoke
produced would have been black and toxic. It would have burned holes
in a child's lungs.

The man did not pause. He could no longer trust
himself that far. Walking through the center of the house he passed
the stairs and the black skeleton of the stair rail. Snow had found
its way in through the partially collapsed roof and open windows, and
lay in thin drifts against the risers of each of the nine steps. The
man knew snow; knew that what he looked at was dry with age, the
granules loosely packed and rolled into pellets by the wind.
Footsteps stamped into the drifts had no interest for him. Men had
come later, after the house had cooled.