A Sword from Red Ice (Book 3)

by J. V. Jones

  “She’s no mute,” Eggtooth declared finally, staring straight at Effie.

  A long pause followed, and then Waker Stone said quietly, “Go ahead, look for yourself.”

  All the while Eggtooth had been tapping his spear, the strange tingly numbness had been growing in Effie’s mouth. It felt like she was being pricked with dozens of needles, only there was no pain, just weird pricking. By the time that Chedd had pulled himself up from the prow and lumped himself down on the seat, the numbness had turned into thickness and now she no longer recognized the landscape of tumorous ridges that had become the insides of her mouth.

  Suspecting a trap, Eggtooth made a signal to his men. Lowering the points of their spears, they sheared fur from Waker’s otter-skin coat. Eggtooth took a step forward and carefully brought the twin points of his spear to the roof of Effie’s jaw. “Open up,” he told her.

  Effie opened her mouth. Something darker and thicker than air smoked out.

  Eggtooth leant toward her. Peered inside. Frowned. Everyone was quiet, even the pig. Eggtooth’s own mouth fell open. “Sweet gods. She doesn’t even have teeth, let alone a tongue.” Shuddering with feeling, he withdrew the spear.

  Effie closed her mouth. The thickness was wearing thin. Behind her, Waker’s father’s seat creaked.

  “Get going, the lot of you!” ordered Eggtooth with a mighty stamp of his spear. “Sodding freaks.”

  Waker wasted no time in jumping into the boat and pushing off. Not bothering to recoil the mooring rope, he left it trailing behind in the water. Instinctively Effie knew that she had to steer more than paddle, and she plunged her oar deep into the starboard side, guiding the boat away from shore. Directly ahead of her, Chedd paddled with real force. Directly behind her, Waker Stone’s father hung on grimly to the gunwales, exhausted.

  Chedd and Waker quickly fell into a strong rhythm, and the three men and the pig were soon left behind on the northern shore. When the boat finally rounded the riverbend and they passed beyond sight, Chedd turned to Effie. A square welt on his forehead marked the place where he’d hit the deck.

  “Pirates without boats,” he said with satisfaction and relief.

  Effie decided that now wasn’t a good time to remind him what Eggtooth had said about Clan Gray.

  Floating east on the Mouseweed, she tried very hard to feel saved.

  THIRTY-ONE

  A Journey Begins

  “Give me one more day,” Thomas Argola, the outlander, had said. “Do not leave in the morning.”

  They had been standing in his cave, the only one with a hinged door in the entire city, and Raif kept his hand on the bolt to keep the door from closing. “No,” he had replied. “I go tomorrow. Tell me what you’ve learned.”

  Raif thought about that conversation now as he and Addie Gunn headed due east along the rim of the Rift. They had been traveling for the better part of the day and the going was hard and rocky. Stony bluffs, mounds of boulders and steep and sudden drops had to be navigated with care. Ground snow was a problem, concealing cracks and loose stones, but at least it wasn’t hard with ice. Weeds poked through the white. Mounds of black sedge concentrated the warmth of the sun, turning the surrounding snow into mush. The air was clear and smelled of stone, but Addie warned that come night-fall there’d be mist. “Air’s dry. Land’s wet. Fog’ll rise with the dark.” There was not much the small, fair-haired cragsman did not know about the land, and Raif accepted his words without question. It did not mean they would stop though. When you’ve given a dead man your word you only stop to sleep.

  Topping a cracked shelf of granite, Raif turned to see if Addie needed a hand up the slope. The cragsman was wearing his brown wool cloak and carrying his oak staff, and he waved Raif away as if he were a bothersome fly. “Been scuffing the crags since afore you were born, laddie. And most days I was toting sheep. Only time I’ll need a hand from you is to stir the beans while I make the tea.”

  He was only half joking, Raif realized, and nodded somberly. “Sorry, Addie.”

  Addie Gunn grumbled something that sounded like “Glad we’ve got that sorted” before hiking solidly onto the ledge.

  The granite was weak here, veined with softer limestone. The limestone that had been exposed to the surface had worn away, creating dimples in the surface that were now filled with snowmelt. The shelf jutted out over the Rift and both men paused to look south. Snow had melted at a faster rate in the clanholds and most of the hills were bare. Winter-rotted groundcover made the north-facing slopes look burned. Raif wondered what Addie was thinking as he stood there and minded his former homeland. Wellhouse was likely due south of here; the cragsman’s old clan.

  “Lambs’ll need stabling this year,” the cragsman murmured softly, to himself. Turning to Raif, he said, “C’mon, lad. If we can get on the headland afore dark it’ll make for an easier start in the morning.”

  Raif let Addie Gunn lead the way.

  They had departed the Rift at dawn, at the exact moment the sun had appeared in the east above the rim. Arrangements had been made the night before, many of them while Raif slept. The attack by the unmade beast had left him exhausted and unable to fully catch his breath, and he had slept through most of that night and a good portion of the next day. When he had awoken at noon he had told Stillborn what he meant to do. “I’ll need supplies for the journey,” Raif had told him. “Pull together what you can. I have to meet with the outlander.”

  Stillborn had been bewildered and hurt. “Supplies for both of us you mean?” he had asked. At some point that morning he had shaved his face, and the bristles that normally stuck out of his facial scars were neatly clipped. “I will be going with you.”

  Raif shook his head. “I need you here, leading the Maimed Men.”

  No argument carried weight against the stark fact that Traggis Mole was dead, and Stillborn knew it. “But they want you,” he had said. “Not me. It was you who killed that beastie right in front of their eyes. You who laid the Mole to rest.”

  “I know what they want,” Raif said. “Tell them they’ll have to wait.” He made his voice hard because he had to, because he would not be thwarted in this. As long as he had known Stillborn, the Maimed Man had complained about Traggis Mole’s leadership, and lusted after taking his place. Now that place was vacant and it was time for Stillborn to step up and lead. He had a look on his face like he’d thought he’d been trapped, but Raif ignored it. Stillborn should count himself lucky he’d been trapped only once.

  “There is no one else,” Raif told him. “The Maimed Men respect you. You’re the best hunter, the best blade fighter. And it wasn’t just me who brought down the Unmade. If you hadn’t distracted it I could never have gotten close enough to place my sword.”

  The two had stared at each other, the air between them charged with tension. Raif had not blinked. Nor had Stillborn.

  “Very well,” Stillborn had exploded, throwing himself back as if he’d been physically repelled. “If this is how it is then so be it. I will guard them while you are away. But I will tell every single one of them you’ll be back.”

  Raif heard both the warning and the plea in Stillborn’s voice. It touched him, but he did not show it. “Do as you must.”

  Stillborn waited to see if there would be more, and when there wasn’t he dragged his hands across his hair and face. “Gods, Raif. We’re living in hell. How are we going to survive?”

  “Kill everything through the heart.”

  Raif had left Stillborn then. He had the sense that if he’d stayed longer he would say things counter to his purpose. And his purpose was to depart. The next meeting with Thomas Argola in his doored cave had gone no easier.

  Mallia Argola had let him in. Sunlight shone right onto her face, turning golden upon her skin, and for the first time Raif wondered what was missing. In what way was Mallia Argola not whole?

  It was a question he had no time for. “Leave us,” he told her. “Take a walk.”

  She had meant
to withdraw into the cave, into the shadows beyond the dragon-and-pear screen where she could watch and listen in, but quickly realized this was something he would not permit. Her green-brown eyes had looked at him carefully, and he felt shame at the way he had behaved toward her in Stillborn’s cave. If that shame showed on his face she did not react to it, merely saying, “I will return after you are gone.” As she passed him in the doorway, she lightly touched his arm.

  It was confusing, that unexpected show of understanding and goodwill, and it took him a moment to refocus his mind.

  That was when Argola had tried to shut the door. Raif balked him, shooting out his hand and barring the space around the doorframe. He had not meant to do so, but could not seem to stop himself. Thomas Argola was a man who worked best on the periphery of crowds and in the shadows of closed rooms. Raif Sevrance decided he would conduct this interrogation in the light.

  “When did you tell Traggis Mole about the sword?”

  The outlander glanced nervously at the open door. Sunlight, which had made his sister’s skin look spun from gold, made his own skin look yellow. “The night after we talked I went to see him. He . . . was our chief.”

  Raif heard the excitement in Argola’s voice and was repulsed by it. “You told him everything?”

  “I believe I never said I would not.”

  Were you paid for it? Raif wondered, glancing at the worn treasures in the cave. The silk rugs and copper bowls. The screens. It was not a question that mattered, he realized. A man must use what skills he had to live.

  Trying to recall all that had been said four days back in this cave, Raif said, “What did you tell him about me?”

  Argola shrugged. “He already suspected much.”

  “That is no answer.”

  “Close the door.”

  “No.”

  The outlander took a sharp breath. Backing away, he found himself a place to stand where he was no longer exposed to direct sunlight. “I told the Mole you were the Rift Brothers’ only hope. No one else can hope to stop the Unmade when they break through in numbers. No one. Look at what happened the other night. You were the only one who knew what to do, the only one who could stop it.”

  “Someone else could have put a blade through its heart.”

  “Really?” Argola blasted. “You could barely put it through yourself.”

  In the silence that followed, Raif leant against the back of the door. His shoulder was throbbing, and he felt scarcely able to cope with the hard truths spoken by the outlander. He had come here for information, and, if he was honest, the chance to use up some anger. It seemed to him that Thomas Argola deserved it. He had been the one who was pulling the strings. He had been the one who had framed Traggis Mole’s second-to-last words.

  “Swear to me you will fetch the sword that can stop them. Swear you will bring it back and protect my people. Swear it.”

  Raif had sworn. A man was dying. The man who had saved his life.

  The final words Traggis Mole had spoken were between a man and his gods, and Raif would never repeat them.

  Now he wondered only one thing: would Traggis Mole have sprung forward to stab the beast if Thomas Argola had not told him two nights earlier that Raif Twelve Kill was the Rift’s only hope? Had Traggis Mole made the decision that Raif’s life was worth more than his own?

  Raif glanced at the outlander. Thomas Argola had manipulated the Mole chief, just as he had manipulated Raif the night after Black Hole. What was the outlander’s purpose? Did he realize his manipulations had brought death?

  But Traggis Mole was dying anyway; those were words Raif needed to avoid hearing at all cost. If Thomas Argola ever said them he would kill him.

  Suddenly weary, Raif said, “I leave at dawn. Tell me what you have learned about the Red Ice.”

  Argola had protested, asking for more time, but he of all people had to know that once you set a top spinning it was was out of your control. Raif guessed he had discovered something, for he had not forgotten Mallia’s words. My brother sends a message: Come see him tonight.

  In the end what Thomas Argola had been able to tell him was little. He was one of the few people in the Rift who could read and write, and had managed to collect many parchments that had been seized by Maimed Men on raids. They saw no value in them and traded them gladly, though it was known that all manuscripts containing maps were to to be surrendered to the Mole. Argola had discovered little from searching his own collection and wanted time to search the Mole’s. The thought of the outlander rifling though Traggis Mole’s possessions was distasteful to Raif and he hoped that Stillborn would not allow it.

  “If you are determined to leave tomorrow then all I can advise is this,” Argola had said at last. “It is written that the Lake of Red Ice exists at the border of four worlds and to break it you must stand in all four worlds at once.”

  Raif had been frustrated. The words sounded like nonsense, designed only to confuse. “You said east.”

  Argola’s smile had been indulgent. “Yes, there is that.” Raif had turned and left him. He had not spoken any word of farewell. Thomas Argola knew either less or more than he claimed, and Raif could not decide which was worse: to know more and not reveal it? Or fake what you didn’t know?

  Maimed Men hailed him as he returned to Stillborn’s cave, and Raif had no choice but to ignore them. Acknowledge their calls of “Twelve Kill” and he risked undercutting Stillborn’s position. Raif Sevrance was not yet ready to declare himself Lord of the Rift. That thankless job went to Stillborn, and Raif knew that the best way to support Stillborn was to remove himself from the Maimed Men’s attention. And not run the risk of anyone naming him “Chief.”

  Briefly, he had looked for Mallia as he climbed to the higher ledge, but Argola’s sister was nowhere to be seen.

  Once he had arrived back at Stillborn’s cave he’d eaten the small meal of smoked meat and panbread that had been left for him, built up the fire at the cave mouth, and then lay on Stillborn’s mattress and slept. He dreamed there was a black worm living in his shoulder, gnawing its way through his flesh.

  The next morning he was awakened by Stillborn in the dark hours before dawn. “Addie’s waiting outside,” he had said, handing him a cup of water.

  It took Raif a while to understand this statement. He swallowed a mouthful of water. “No.”

  Stillborn was ready for this. “You tell him then. He’s been camped there for the past five hours. Won’t listen to a thing I say. Doubt if he’ll listen to you.”

  The Maimed Man was a bad schemer, Raif reckoned, for all the time he was speaking, Stillborn had not once looked him in the eye. It made a refreshing change from Argola.

  “It’s nothing to do with me,” Stillborn continued, compelled to fill the silence. “Just told him when you were leaving. Didn’t put no ideas in his head.”

  Raif rose and went out onto the ledge. He noticed Yelma now had two iron pots for breasts.

  “You cannot come with me,” he had said to Addie before the cragsman had chance to speak. “You are old and you will slow me down.”

  Addie Gunn had been sitting on a camp chair with his back to the fire and the cave mouth, and did not bother to turn at Raif’s approach. “Fancy a journey east,” he said, looking straight out across the darkness of the Rift. “Got a hankering to see trees—real ones not piss-thin bushes. I imagine I’ll set off soon. ’Magine when I do no one will try and stop me, it being a free world and all and a man being free to travel where he pleases.”

  Raif breathed softly and deeply. It occurred to him that all you had to do to know a man’s resolve was look at the back of his neck. “Addie, I do not know where I go. How can I allow someone to accompany me when I don’t know the dangers or how long I will be gone? Traggis Mole took a fatal blow to save my life. His death weighs on me. Do not put me in a position where yours might too.”

  The cragsman continued staring ahead. Time passed. The fire crackled and spat as a willow knot filled wit
h pitch went up in flames. Eventually Addie Gunn stood and turned to face Raif. “I hear you, lad,” he said, “but do you ever wonder if some might feel the same about you? Your death would not be a weight this Rift Brother is willing to bear.”

  Raif had bowed his head, defeated and heartsore. He had needed this and didn’t even realize it: someone to stand second to his oath.

  “We travel light and take no animals.”

  Addie nodded wisely. “I imagined we would.”

  It was hard to believe that conversation had taken place less than twelve hours ago. Already it seemed to belong in the past, in the city they’d left behind. Look west now and you could not see it. Not even the smoke from the grass fires.

  With Addie leading the way they made better time. He had a goat’s instinct for the ways between the crags. Raif was content to follow, glad to have no responsibility for a while beyond the placement of his feet. The sky grew bluer as they moved to higher ground and subtle changes took place in the air. Below them the Rift was a trough filled with shadows, narrower here than in the city of Maimed Men.

  The discussion as to whether or not to take the hidden bridge across to the clanholds had been a short one. Raif had not been for it, and the cragsman had acceded to his choice. “It means a couple of days on the journey,” he had told Raif, so there was no misunderstanding. “The path to the north is rocky and we’ll have to put our backs into it. After the third or fourth day it should begin to level off.”

  To Raif it was a price worth paying. He had a strong preference for not walking on land claimed by clan.

  Addie wasn’t much for conversation so they climbed in silence. Sometimes the cragsman would whistle a few notes of one of the old lambing songs, and other times he would pluck dried grass heads from the snow and chew on them. He kept an even, unhurried pace, and did not look around to check on Raif. Every so often he would halt to check the depth of a snow-drift with his stick.

  Even though the light was failing they made good progress, and they topped the tiered and fractured cliff face just as the mist began to rise. Raif shivered as the sweat beneath his sealskins cooled against his skin. For the last quarter they had been moving northeast to the Rift and when they paused at the cliff top he turned around and saw that the crack in the earth had filled with cloud.