Raif walked steadily through the growing crowd, matching gazes only when he had to, when freed with the choice of meeting a challenge or backing down. Beneath the ledge of green rimrock, the Rift was trembling. The vast fissure in the earth was as dark and wet as a fresh wound and it gave off the same metallic odor. Last time he was here he remembered watching birds in flight below him, kitty hawks and swallows and turkey vultures. Today the Rift was full of nothing. It was the deepest hole in the earth and no man alive had ever returned from it. Its bottom could not be seen or known. On the clearest day with the sun directly overhead there was a point beyond which the eye could not see. Raif Sevrance had looked down on such a day, his gaze tracking the cracked and uneven cliffwall, past layers of ironstone, sandstone, limestone, hermit shale, granite, green marble, pyritc slate and schist, past the dark recesses of undercut caves, steam vents, and well heads before finally coming to rest at the point where the darkness rolled and swirled like hot tar finding its level. Raif found it hard to watch and soon looked away. It struck him that it was a moat defending a fastness: a layer that could not be penetrated without sanction.

His shoulders jerked in a single, deep shiver. His clothes were wet and he was sick of traveling. For the past two days he had done nothing but walk. Within the hard shell of his leather boots his feet were wrapped in rags and dried grass. His left ankle was still badly swollen, and a blister on the heel oozed watery blood into the makeshift padding. He knew better than to show this, not here in the city of Maimed Men, and walked without limp or stiffness, keeping his back straight and his hand close to hilt of his bent sword.

Light was beginning to rail as he approached the center of the rim-rock, A firepiie had been stacked and primed, and the crowd began to gather around it. Raif sported the dark and unfriendly fece of Linden Moodie, the Rift brother who had led the mid on Black Hole. The gar-rote scar circling his neck was partially covered by a silver and black wool mantle. Raif met Moodie a gaze, confirming to himself that he was not mistaken. Linden Moodie had deliberately worn his spoils from the raid on Blackhail's silver mine. I dare you, his brown eyes challenged, to show a reaction to the colors of your once and deserted clan.

Raif did not know what expression was showing on his face, only that it did not change when raced with Moodie. He breathed deeply and allowed only surface thoughts to work upon his brain. He had not expected much coming here. No surprises so far.

"Raif! Over here!"

Tracking the sound of his name, Raif spied the big, powerful form of Stillborn wending his way through a group of Maimed Women. The Rift brother was dressed in a sleeveless buckskin tunic trimmed with rabbit fur. His bare forearms were wrapped in matching bullhorns. Breaking free from the crowd, he brought Raif to a halt by standing in front of him and enveloping him in a giant, smothering bear hug.

"I told the Mole you killed that Hailsman on your way out 'cause he challenged you for the gold," Stillborn murmured insistently in Raif's ear while he gripped him. "And that you told me you were off to take care of a spot of personal business and that you'd be back within a month."

The two men separated, but Stillborn caught Raif's forearms in his fists and held Raif at arm's length while he inspected him. The Maimed Man's hazel eyes were knowing. The puckered flesh that ran along his face and down his neck quivered with strong emotion. "Know two things before this dance starts," he said, his voice low and husky. "One: I am glad you are back. And two: I am your man."

Raif breathed and did not think. Later, he told himself. Aware that Stillborn was waiting upon a response, he forced himself to nod. "Its good to see you, Still" he said, knowing it was true only as he spoke.

It was little but Stillborn nodded, satisfied. He was a man well-used to little. Releasing his hold on Raif's arms he said, "I see you bent my sword"

Raif laughed. Of course, ownership of the Forsworn sword had always been a fluid concept between them. When Raif had first met the Maimed Man in the canyonlands, Stillborn had simply taken the sword as his own. Weeks later, on that dark day in Black Hole, Raif had taken it back. "I'd be grateful if you could lend me another one until I can get it straightened."

Even before he'd finished the sentence, Stillborn said, "Done"

"Azziah rin Raif! Well coddle my ravens' eggs and serve them with vinegar. Who'd thought we'd see your fine, handsome face again this side of damnation."

Yustaffa. The fat man with the swordbreaker danced lightly around the firepile, his breast and belly rolls jiggling beneath a fantastical outfit of yellow silk spotted with tufts of horsehair and belted, priestlike, with golden rope. He was carrying something in his chubby fist that he took care to hold level.

Raif did not greet him, but this only caused Yustaffa further delight.

"Lost a little weight, I see," he said, approaching. With a theatrical narrowing of his eyes he reversed himself. "No. I am mistaken. You've gained a little something upon the shoulders." For a moment the eyes were shrewd, and then the veil of spite returned. "What, no kiss? And here was I thinking you'd have missed me."

Some in the crowd tittered. One low-breasted hag shouted, "Ask him where he's been."

Yustaffa threw his free hand in the air and issued a big, showy shrug. "The people have spoken, and who am I to ignore then?" And then for Raif s ears alone, "Such a pathetic little bunch, don't you think?"

Raif reached behind his back and released his pack. Swinging it forward, he let it come to rest in front of his feet. He did not know what to say to Yustaffa, and felt something close to dizziness attempting to track the fat man's words.

Sleet falling on Yustaffa's yellow tunic created dimples in the fabric. He waited, eyebrows raised, in a pantomime of expectation, before swinging suddenly about and launching the item he'd been holding in his fist at the base of the firepile. A small explosive thuc sounded and hot white flames rolled out across the wood. The crowd aahed in appreciation.

Yustaffa executed a trim bow and then looked Raif straight in the eye. "Now we're all cozy around the fire you really should tell us where you've been."

Raif gazed out on the faces of the Maimed Men. About four hundred had gathered around the firepile, and they were armeil with a motley of weapons; rusted iron spears, beheading cleavers, hooked pikes, scimitars, wooden staffs, clannish hammers, broadswords, list poles, knuckleguards, knives. Most of the women and every boy old enough to walk had daggers or other hilt weapons at their waists. They lived in fear, Raif realized, and he could not fault them for it. It was a hard life on the edge of the abyss. Nothing but tough grass and weed trees would grow here. Children had to be maimed by their parents, else risk strangers taking issue with their wholeness. Whatever was needed was stolen from the clanholds. … or one another. The cragsman Addie Gunn had once tried to keep sheep on the upper rim, but they were snatched one by one for meat. Stillborn had once called the Maimed Men desperate, and warned Raif that desperate men didn't make good friends.

Raif saw that desperation in them now. They were lean and scaly and hollow-cheeked and he knew he had made a mistake by not stopping to hunt in the canyonlands and bring meat. He had come empty-handed. Just one more mouth to feed.

"There you go." Raif opened his hand and accepted a felt-sheathed sword from Stillborn. He must have run down to his cave to fetch it. "It's not pretty but it should do you for a while." With a quick salute he slid away.

As he clipped the sword to his gear belt, Raif searched the faces of the Maimed Men for Traggis Mole. The leader of the Maimed Men was nowhere to be seen, but at the back of the crowd, his face almost hidden by rising flames and black smoke, stood the outlander, Thomas Argola. He did not blink as Raif regarded him, jusaheld his small, olive-skinned face level for inspection. Argola had been the one who had pushed Raif into the Want after the raid on Black Hole. Why? Raif wondered. Why had he readied a horse and supplies? What had he known, or guessed?