Twelve Kill Twelve Kill. Twelve Kill. A thousand pieces of metal and rock tolled his name.

The being was screeching. The end of its tail was gone, loped off by a sharp blade. Its eyes burned cold with hate.

Raif and Stillborn performed the dance. Each knew the other's mind without having to meet glances. When he was ready Stillborn rushed the creature from behind and stuck his sword deep into its tail stump. An unearthly scream split the night. Raif's eardrums crackled. The being snapped around like a whip. Raif rushed in, his gaze searching, searching, as his body flew through air. He landed like a demon on the being's back, and guided the ugly, borrowed, good-for-nothing-but-bashing sword into the puncture hole created by the Forsworn blade. Hide and muscle had already been penetrated. The borrowed sword was solid. All he had to do was ram it through the heart.

The blade slid into muscle. Raif thrust deeper, driving his fist through the hole in the creature's hide. The creature jerked. Raif twisted the blade with all his might, coring its heart like an apple. The breath was sucked from his lungs as the vacuum produced by the collapsing heart created the opposite of a shock wave. Raif pulled his fist free from the hide. It was coated with oily blackness. Leaving the sword in place, he sprang back and ran.

The being failed, Raif didn't think any other word could quite describe it. One moment it was upright, vital and craving, and the next it sank to the rimrock. Gone.

Bloody snowflakes thrown up by its fall seesawed through the air as Raif made his way to Stillborn. The big Maimed Man rushed forward and caught him in a massive hug. Raif let himself be supported. His ears were ringing. Pain rolled across his shoulder in waves. Stupidly, his teeth were chattering. The creature's, dead body twitched and hissed, diminishing.

At last there was silence. The alarm petered out and then stopped. Maimed Men seemed little relieved. None approached the being's carcass, but people started gathering around something small and ragged lying on the rimrock. A body? Whispers and urgent calls sounded through the crowd. "He saved your life," Stillborn said in Raif's ear.

Raif stepped away from him. He needed space to breathe "Who?"

"The Mole."

Raif steadied himself for a moment and then glanced toward the body. The ragged black shape looked too slight to be a man. Oh gods.

Stillborn wiped the sweat from his temples through his hair. "As soon as you fell backwards the creature was on you. There was nothing anyone could do. I came forward… " He shook his head. "Wasn't fast enough."

"But Traggis Mole was."

"Aye. Came out of nowhere, like lightning. It was a fine sight. Took off the creature's tail with his knife, shifted its attention from you to himself. It was as if he had no mind for his own safety. You couldn't get that close to the creature and not get…" Stillborn shuddered. "Torn."

Raif left him and made his way toward the body. He could smell the blood as he moved through the crowd. It was possible that some of it was his own. People opened a space for him and he moved into it. He was shaking intensely, but he no longer felt any pain.

Traggis Mole lay in a drift of snow close to the cliff wall. He was not yet dead. What was left of his body was wet and twitching; Raif could not look at it. Wisps of dark shagpw fed upon the exposed organs. The Robber Chiefs face was untouched. His eyes were open and watching Raif.

Raif knelt. He understood much that was dread and good. The truth of Traggis Mole was there to see, and Raif wondered why he hadn't recognized it sooner. He and Traggis Mole were alike. The Maimed Men were all the Mole had. They were his clan, and keeping them safe from harm had been his life. Something close to pure love touched Raif then, and he knew the things this man would ask for were owed.

The moon rose over the Rift, spilling silver light upon the dying man and the man who would kill him. Traggis Mole spoke the few words that mattered. Raif Sevrance spoke another oath.|

Quietly and without ceremony, using Traggis Mole's own longknife, Raif Sevrance stopped the Robber Chiefs heart.

TWENTY-NINE Chief in Absentia

Stannig Beade had begun holding meeting in the chief's chamber. The guide of Scarpe and now Blackhail had let it be known that because there was as yet no guidehouse he needed a place to rest and contemplate, one befitting his rank in the clan. Raina tried not to let it bother her, though in truth she knew that Blackhail s carpenters could have had a building up and framed within a week. Granted the walls would take another week, and when it was done it would be made of that decidedly second rate material—as far as clansmen were concerned—wood. But a building was a building, and if Stannig Beade had truly wanted to be alone in a place befitting a guide he could have had a guidehouse erected within twenty days. Raina had once heard something about Castlemilk having a wooden guidehouse, but wasn't quite sure of her facts. Else she might have confronted him with them.

Beade had requested that she attend him in the chiefs chamber at noon. He had sent this message by way of one of those siHy clan maids who had the habit of attaching themselves to powerful men. "The guide commands me to tell you," Jani Gaylo had begun. Raina had stood there, amazed. Since when did a guide command a clanswoman to deliver his messages? Inigar Stoop had had the use of a boy who brought him supper. If he wanted to speak to anyone he left his guidehouse and found them.

Once she had delivered her message, the red-haired Jani Gaylo had dashed off in the direction of the chiefs chamber, anxious to tell Stannig Beade the deed was done. Raina had half a mind to stop her, to tell the girl she would be better employed in the kaleyard digging carrots and onions, or out in the woods setting traps. Blackhail needed food not meetings. The Scarpes were like rats, gnawing away at Blackhail's supplies. When they first came they had brought tributes—piglets with runny eyes, damp sacks of grain, sheep that walked in circles, barrels of wormy fruit—yet even these imperfect goods had dried up. Hundreds of Scarpes had been here for months. They ate food, drank ale, burned lamp oil and timber. What did they bring for their keep? Anwyn was beside herself toiling to feed them. And more arrived each day. Just this morning, when Raina crossed to the makeshift stables to brush down Mercy, she'd spied another of their poison-pine carts rolling in.

Knowing that if she thought about it any more she'd drive herself into the kind of state where she'd be likely to challenge the first Scarpe who crossed her path, Raina calmed herself. She had been working in the grain drum, helping the tied clanswomen turn the grain. It was hard, dusty work, standing knee-deep in millet as you shoveled it from one. Place to another like snow. Some of the women had fastened linen strips across their noses and mouths to prevent the fine millet dust from settling in their lungs. Raina realized she should have done the same, for her throat felt itchy, and when she sneezed into her hand little specks of kernel sprayed against her skin. Turning grain wasn't a job she was used to, but after Stannig Beade's message had arrived this morning she'd needed to do something to work off her indignation.

It hadn't quite succeeded, though she had enjoyed the company of hardworking farm women. None of them, including herself, had mentioned the high grain mark that circled the wall twelve feet above their heads. A spoken reminder of Blackhail's hardship would have spoiled the easy camaraderie.

Raina left the women to their cheese and ale. Now that the dust had settled they reclined on the grain like queens. Waving farewells as she exited the perfect circle of the grain drum, they called her by the name "Chief's," short for "chiefs wife." Raina felt both pleased and worried by it. The word was uncomfortably close to chief.