Raif followed him along the deer path that wound between the rocks and shrunken pines. The snow underfoot wasn't deep, but it was all ice and it did not yield to the foot. The temperature had been dropping for the past two days—ever since the new snow—and even though it was midday the air was still several degrees below freezing. The Ice Trapper sealskins helped keep Raif warm. Earlier he'd slathered his ears, nose, and lips with bow wax, and imagined it made for an unlovely sight. Bow wax turned opaque when it cooled.
Overhead the sky was a deep sapphire blue. Lines of high serrated clouds moved from the north. Ice sparkled at groundlevel, coating pine cones and sedge leaves, and the bases of the limestone crags. They had been on the path at dawn and had not stopped except to swig from their water bladders and pee. This was the fourth day of traveling and Raif found he enjoyed the simple hardness of camp life. It was good to go to bed each night bone tired and aching, and satisfying to hike onto a high ledge and see how far you'd come in a day. The cold did not bother him much. Both he and Addie were from northern clans; they were used to the shock of spring frosts.
Addie was a fine traveling companion, able to build fires, skin hares, find running water, sniff out eggs, follow game tracks and cook. He had an eye for the simplest route. Natural stairs leading up cliff faces, dry creekbeds, fallen logs spanning gorges: the cragsman spied things that Raif would have missed. Every evening since they had left the city, Addie had located a sheltered place to camp, and every day he had found something worth bagging for the pot. Last night he had brought down a fat brown rabbit and today there had been more eggs. Raif was grateful for his presence. There wasn't much talking between them, but silence was different—better—when it was shared.
They had decided to continue east for another day and then gradually move north from the Rift. Addie said the Craglands appeared to ease to the north and they would need to do less climbing. He did not question Raif's destination, and that seemed no small blessing. In his former life Addie Gunn had kept a herd of sheep on the move in the highlands only staying in one place during spring lambing. He was a man who didn't need to know where he was going to spend the next night.
Raif did not give much though to the Red Ice. East, Thomas Argola had said. That was all, but it was also enough. It made things simple. They would head more or less east, switching directions as the land dictated, and see what they could find. If Tallal of the lamb brothers was right and a great battle had taken place in the Valley of Cold Mists then some evidence somewhere must exist.
Glancing north, Raif wondered where the lamb brothers were this day. Were they in the Want drifting east?
"Some smoke ahead." Addie's voice seemed to come from a great distance. A pause followed while the cragsman figured the ways. "We could turn north now. Rock's looking a mite splintery but if we we keep our feet lively we'll manage."
Raif could neither smell nor see smoke, but he did not doubt Addie's word. The cragsman slowed his pace as he waited for instruction. Breath ice caught in his eyebrows had frozen previously invisible hairs, rendering them white. "It would," he said, "be timely to do a spot of trade for some tea."
Surprised by this, Raif took a moment to sort his thoughts. He had assumed Addie would feel the same way he did, and want to avoid encounters with strangers. Yet how would they learn anything without speaking to people? Was Addie gently pushing him forward, forcing him to hold true to his oath? Raif puffed air through his lips. Maybe he just wanted tea.
"If they are Bluddsmen we cannot stop."
It was Addie's turn to be surprised. The cragsman thought a while, frowning so hard he dislodged ice from his eyebrows. He had to want to know the reason behind Raif's caution. "It'll be tricky," he conceded eventually. "I read animal tracks not woodsmoke. One man's fire smells like the next to me. By the time we get close enough to see who it is it might be too late."
Raif nodded, grateful for not being questioned. |He could not explain to Addie what had happened on the Bluddroad and how he was damned in both Blackhail and Bludd for it. Damned in Blackhail for deserting his clan on the field. Damned in Bludd for slaughtering the Dog Lord's grandchildren. "If it is clansmen do not use my name."
More ice was lost from Addie's eyebrows. "It might be easier to nip north." Raif grinned maniacally. "Let's go get some tea." Deer had been on the path recently—there was scat above the snow—and as they made their way east Raif distracted himself by hunting for game. Once he detected movement on the Rift floor itself, a young buck grazing on saxifrage, but decided not to shoot. The time needed to butcher an animal that large was too great. Besides he no longer had the stomach for the blood. He'd just smelled the smoke. Let them not be clansmen.
The tents were north of the Rift. There were two of them, raised in tandem, back-to-back. The tent hides were white auroch skins, the color of snow. Raif recognized their form, the point of stiffened fabric on the roof line and the heavy skirting to prevent drafts. Be careful what you wish for, he chided himself. These were not clannish tents. These tents belonged to the Sull.
The camp was situated on a ledge overhanging the ravine, and Raif realized the tent poles must have been driven into rock. Brush had been cleared at the rear for a distance of twenty feet. A horse corral raised from green moose bones contained at least one horse; Raif could see its beautiful sculpted head sticking out from above the wind-breaker. As he and Addie drew closer something shrieked in the sky high above them. A glossy gray gyrfalcon circled them once, beat its wings, and then descended toward the tents. Two leather thongs hung with silver disks swung from its legs. Jesses.
"I warned you that by the time we got here it would be too late," Addie remarked. Raif could hear the edge of fear in his voice.
As they hiked on the ledge, one of the tent flaps opened and a man dressed in lynx fur stepped out For an instant Raif thought it might be the Far Rider Ark Veinsplitter, and his heart leapt. Ash. Here. But then the man's head came up revealing different bone structure and facial features, and Raif felt foolish for having allowed himself that hope.
The Sull warrior walked to the center of the ledge and waited. He was tall and lean with long limbs and a long neck. His cheekbones were cut like diamonds and his skin was the color of mercury. He did not draw his sword. He didn't need to. The massive two feet handle rising above his light shoulder was warning enough. He watched Raif with cool gray eyes, barely sparing a glance For the cragsman.
When he was close enough to see the bloodletting season the man's neck, Raif spoke, "Tharo a'zabo, ' Greetings, my friend.
Addie Gunn's mouth fell open. The Sull warrior blinked eyelids so narrow they might have belonged to a wolf,
"Thaw, xanani" he replied. Greetings,stranger.
The two stared at each other. Dimly Raif was aware of the shabbi-ness of his clothes and weapons; the wax on his nose and ears, the foot of limp fabric at the end of his sword sheath, the rawhide strips holding back his hair. Yet the warrior's gaze barely registered them. He looked at only three things: the Orrl cloak, the Sull bow and Raif's eyes.
"Haxi'ma" he said finally.
Hearing the word Raif felt longing. Clansman. Maybe in another life he would be so again.
He shook his head. “Nij” he said, reaching the limit of his Sull. "We are Rift Brothers."
The switch into Common made the Sull warrior easier, as if it somehow lessened the threat, and he relaxed his weight, allowing his heels to make full contact with the rock.