He and Stillborn had probably hunted these clife, Raif realized, stalking mule deer and wild goats. Addie slipped between a crack in the rock and tots a pocket in the cliff walL It was not a cam, for the clouds floated freely overhead, but it offered some protection against the mist. Addie set about making a camp. It was darker here than out in the open, but still not as dark as it should have been. Raif wondered if the moon had risen.

He made a circuit of the small clearing, hiking up slabs of granite and leaping beween boulders.When he came across a dried-up sage bush wedged into a depression in the rock, he hauled it up for kindling. It had surprising tenacious roots.

Traveling light meant there were no tents, only sleep mats and blankets. Each man carried his own water and supplies and although they would not stray from the path to hunt they would keep an eye lively for game. Addic kept his supplies strapped to his torso in a series of tanned leather pouches that helped distribute the weight. This meant he took some unpacking, and Raif found himself smiling as he watched the cragsman struggle with an underarm pack.

Raif did not offer to help, but he did set about making a fire. One thing he had learned from his short time raiding and hunting with Addie was that the cragsman was fanatical about his tea. The sage flared quickly and smelled like winter festivals and stuffed game birds. Raif placed a smooth rock into the center of the flames and went in search of willow. He had to squeeze through the gap in the cliff to find it, and by the time he had returned Addie had already boiled water for the tea.

"When you're short on fuel it's always best to use water from the canteen instead of snowmelt," he said, noting Rail's surprise. "If it's been wedged in your armpit all day it'll be nice and warm."

Raif had no reply for that, and fed his willow sticks to the fire.

"Tea?" Addie asked when the herbs had steeped.

Raif surprised himself by saying, "Yes"

Huddling close to the flames they drank their tea from tin bowls.. Addie had laid strips of smoked meat upon the stone to warm and now dropped two wrinkly apples in the pot containing the dregs of the tea. It was good to sit there and draw in the smells and heat from the fire, good also to be physically exhausted.

And away from the hell of the Rift.

"I smoke it with the fat on," Addie said after a while. "It doesna keep as long but it's juicier."

Raif agreed. He'd been on many longhunts in his time and knew the quiet rhythms of camp talk. After they'd eaten the meat, he asked, "Is there a moon up there?"

Addie glanced up at the banks of mist. "Aye."

Slewed in the tea, the apples had plumped up and had to be cooled before eating. Raif mashed his in his bowl with a spoon. It tasted fawt I and honey-sweet. Earlier he had intended to ask the cragsman some questions, but now he decided to hold his peace. From where he sat he could neither see nor perceive the Rift, and it seemed no small blessing to spend a night free from the burdens he carried and the oaths he had spoken. When Addie stood and said," I'm off to sleep," it sounded like a good idea. Not bothering to find a flat stretch of rock to lie upon, Raif tugged the blankets from his bedroll and made his bed near the fire.

He slept lightly. On the way back from gathering willow he had jammed some branches into the gap in the rock, and his ears listened for the sounds of rustling. None came. Addie snored. The mist began to fail, and the moon shone through gaps in the haze before setting. Nagging pain in Raif s shoulder made it difficult to sleep on his back, and he rolled onto his side. Sound, dreamless sleep followed.

When he awoke at dawn Addie was already up. The cragsman had two strengths of tea; the morning variety was darker and thicker. Today it tasted of apples. "Boiled it down from last night," Addie said, frowning into the pot. "Has its good and bad points."

Raif took a cup and slipped through the crack and out onto the cliff. The rising sun shone silver through the filmy remains of the mist. Ahead the clanholds were washed in gray light, their hills and valleys and forests rendered in shades of gray. A hundred feet below, a pair of swallows were in flight. Raif drank his tea. Thinking of it as medicine helped. After he stretched out his shoulder and relieved himself he returned to the camp.

Addie had killed the fire and packed. He was sitting on a saddle of rock, working a lump of goat fat into the belly of his bow. Thickly carved from a single plank of yew, the cragsman's weapon fell a good foot short of a true longbow. "Are you set?" he asked, folding the remains of the fat into a small sheet of waxed hide.

Raif gathered his blankets and waterskin. "Yes."

They ate their breakfast as they made their way east Addie had stuffed strips of smoked meat with goat cheese and they held them in their fists like rolls. The cragsmen took the lead, setting the same unhurried pace as the night before. Raif was frustrated at first but after a while he came to understand that Addie was pacing the journey so they would need fewer rests. About an hour after they broke camp they were swooped by a pair of birds, little dun-colored creatures that dive-bombed their heads. Addie declared, "Eggs," and waved Raif ahead while he searched the base of the cliff wall for nests.

Raif struck a path that led him closer to the edge of the Rift. The split in the earth was perhaps four hundred feet across here, nearly half the distance it was in the city. If he looked straight down, he could see tiers of rock like giant steps below him. Rotting snow was sending needle-thin waterfalls trickling into the abyss. Watching them Raif wondered how deep the Rift really was. What happened to that water? "Look at these beauties," Addie said, coming to join him on the edge. He was carrying a nest woven from willow and pine needles. It was not much bigger than his fist. Five speckled brown eggs lay in the center. "Take one."

Raif tilted his head up and cracked the egg into his mouth. It was creamy and thick, newly laid. When he was done he threw the shell into the abyss. "How deep is it, Addie?" he asked.

The Cragsman had taken one of the eggs himself, and was now packing the remaining three in his chest pouch, carefully spacing them between lumps of cheese. "I canna say, lad. In its own way it's a mystery as big as the Great Want." He glanced at Raif. "At least a few of the souls who enter the Want come back." "No man's ever tried to climb down and see?" Addie snorted. "Show me a rope long enough to lower a man into hell. You fall. And keep falling. Simple as that."

Raif thought of Traggis Mole's body and shivered. Today at noon the Maimed Men would lower it into the Rift. Stillborn would be the one who touched the fane to the rope. The Robber Chiefs body would rock, suspended above the abyss, until the flames burned through the rope fibers and it plummeted into the depths.

I will not slit your throat, Raif had told him. Instead he had put a blade through his heart.

Raif glanced down at his sealskin scabbard, where he now kept Traggis Moles two-footlongknife. Stillborn had attempted to lend him another sword—a pretty hand-and-a-halfer with a double guard—but Raif had declined. The Forsworn blade had failed on him, and now he would not trust another sword.

Until…

Raif set the thought aside. The Mole's knife was wickedly double-edged and made from dense Vorish steel. It would do.

"Snow's coming again," Addie declared, looking east. "I can smell it." He fell silent, and Raif imagined him worrying about the lambs that would be born in the snowfall. "Best get off," he said after a while.

"Addie." Raif stopped the cragsman from returning to the trail.

Nodding toward the Rift, he asked, "How long before it closes?"