The heat of the tent was dizzying and Raif immediately felt the blood rush to his head. His instinct was to strip off his cloak and sealskins and throw cold water over his face and neck, but this was not the place for that. Here he would have to burn.
Yiselle No Knife rose from her position of sitting, cross-legged on a prayer mat woven from indigo silk. She was slender and tall, with long hands and a narrow waist. Her skin was so pale it looked almost blue. Night-black hair was pulled back from her face, revealing the flawless features of a head carved in stone. She could have been sixty years old or less than thirty, so little did the smooth blue surface give away. The gyrfalcon that had inspected them earlier sat on suede gauntlet at her wrist. Its claws had not been blunted and formed a row of six knives on the glove. The bird watched Raif with cold black eyes ringed in yellow skin. Its breast feathers were lightly spotted and were plumped out in warning. The Spinebreaker told Yiselle No Knife their names, and she spoke them back with bites of her teeth. Raif responded to the name «Deerhunter» and bowed.
She regarded him with a glimmer of disbelief. Her dress was formed from the skin of newborn calves that had been whitened with lead. The fabric was so fine he could see the individual outline of each breast. "Break bread with me" she invited, indicating with her free hand they should sit.
Raif and Addie sat on silk mats. Beneath them was bare rock. To one side, a silver brazier containing rock fuel so pure it burned without smoke gave off light and heat. To the other side lay a thin silk mattress and a shoulder-high perch for the bird. The tent was full with four people. Raif could smell Yiselle No Knife's scent, the faint alien pungency of Sull.
No one spoke while she sat the bird and retrieved a small lacquered box from the shadowy apron of the tent. The Spinebreaker stood in front of the tent flap, in a position almost exactly behind Raif, meaning to make him feel watched. Yiselle pulled off her gauntlet revealing a right hand subtly different than her left one. The fingernails sat higher and the fingers were leaner and slightly webbed Raif wondered if this was the reason behind her name.
Kneeing opposite htm and Addic she placed the box on the ground, opened it, and took out a tablet of moistureless bread. Placing the table in her left palm, she used her strange lean right hand to break it into pieces. She offered it first to Addie, then to Raif, then to the Sull warrior. "May the moon that brings harvest never fail," she said, and placed a crumb beneath her tongue.
Raif tried to swallow. The bread wouldn't go down and he had to let it sit at the back of his throat until it softened. Yiselle No Knife offered no water. Rising, she threw the remaining crumbs on the fire. They crackled like iron filings.
"What brings you east?" she asked Addie.
"Hunting," he said.
"It is not good. Perhaps you should turn back."
The heat of the fire peeled sweat from Raif s skin. Behind him he could hear the Spinebreaker's sword harness creaking.
"Lady," Addie said, "you seemed to have little trouble finding that fine bear draining above your campfire."
The gyrfalcon shrieked, sidling from one end of its perch to the other. Yiselle No Knife closed the lid on the box. "Your friend is injured," she told Addie. "The further you go the further you will have to return alone."
The bread set like cement in Raifs throat. At his side, Addie brushed a drop of moisture from the tip of his nose to give himself time to think. Raif wondered if it was icemelt from his eyebrows or sweat. "I'm keeping an eye on my friend. You need not trouble your self on his behalf."
"Do you know how to start a stopped heart?"
Addie stood. "Lady, a sheepman can always recognize a wolf, I thank you for the bread, but I'll hear no more. Raif." The moment he spoke the word Raif he sucked back air. Yiselle No Knife's eyes glit tered. Her gaze jumped to Raif.
"Come on, lad," Addie said hurriedly. Raif stood. The gyrfalcon made a queer chuffing sound.
Yiselle looked straight at Raif, her gaze piercing the shimmers that rose from the amethyst flames, and mouthed the words Mor Drakka. His Sull name.
"Escort them to the borders of our camp," she told the Spinebreaker. "They will never find Mish'al Nij."
It was a relief to get out of the heat. The icy cold snapped Raif back to life, and he could not recall speaking a word in the tent. Ilya Spinebreaker marched them north, not east, across the ledge, and into the forest of crags and dwarfed spruce. The Sull warrior did not speak. When he reached whatever limit he found satisfactory he stopped walking. In a single breathtaking motion he drew his sword. Six feet of meteor steel sliced ice crystals forming in the air. The sound produced The cragsman's hand hovered above the place where he once kept his portion of powdered guidestone. "Aye. Aye," he said softly. Rousing himself to heartiness, he said, "Well you certainly won't get any help from her ladyship back there. She'd more than likely poke it all the way through."
Raif made himself smile. The tea had gone cold and the metal was now pulling heat from his hands through the gloves. He set it down. "The Sull do not love me. They call me Mor Drakka, Watcher of the Dead. It is told in their histories that one day a man bearing that name will bring about their extinction. They fear that man is me. Before I joined the Maimed Men I traveled the Storm Margin with…a friend. She was injured and two Sull Far Riders stepped in to save her life. They treated her well, helped her, but they could barely tolerate me. We parted from them, and then met up again later in Ice Trapper Territory. Someone drugged me. When I awoke in the morning my friend was gone. The Sull had taken her." I
He let out a long breath. For months he had kept the story of what had happened to Ash to himself and to speak it was a kind of release. Guard yourself, she had warned as the drugs pulled him under. Why had she not said more?
On the opposite side of the fire, Addie Gunn nodded slowly and continuously in understanding. "No love lost between you and the Sull." A pinecone jumped from the fire and the cragsman rolled it back with the toe of his boot. Hot flames ignited it instantly. "But they need you, don't they? What you did with that beast on the ledge, the heart-kill, that's what they would have done. Only you do it different. Better."
A cragsman watches his sheep, Raif realized. No small thing must pass him by. Unsure how to reply, Raif just looked at Addie.
Addie looked back. He was still nodding. "They won't help you find what you're looking for."
"Not willingly. I search for a sword once wielded by their kings," This made Addie stop nodding. "Gods, lad. You're walking a tricky path."
"You walk it with me."
The cragsman snorted. Air left his nostrils, froze, and then sizzled into mist when it hit the flames. "Where is this place we're heading."
We, Raif was glad in his heart to hear it. "It's named the Lake of Red Ice and I do not know where if is save that it lies somewhere to the east."
"That would explain why we were duck-marched north."
"Yes it would"
Both men grinned.
"She knew you by your name?" Addie asked, a question beneath the question.
"I made the mistake of telling the Far Riders my name. They also learned I was a clansman, from Blackhail." Raif tried not to think of the look in Yiselle No Knife's eyes as she had named him Mor Drakka. "Word must have spread." Reading the worry on the cragsman's face, he added, "She was close to guessing, Addie. She knew my name wasn't Deerhunter, knew I was clan and heading east."
Addie frowned. "Deerhunter. That was one god-awful name."