Raif licked dry lips. "What made the valley flood?"
Tallal shook his head.
"And you do not know where it is?"
The lamb brother glanced at the tent flap, at the thin sliver of light coming through. "We believe it lies in the north of this continent. East, west, center: we are unsure."
"You hope for help," Raif said, thoughts still forming, "yet you do not want me in your party."
Ten is an unlucky number."
"With the mule it would have been eleven." Raif was surprised at the heat in his voice. "Why will you not have me?"
Tallal's nostrils flared as he took a deep breath. Absently, he reached up and steadied one of the leather sacks that was still swinging. "You may not much like the answer."
Raif had not imagined he would. "Tell me."
"Two of our party are dead. You killed neither but you drew their deaths as honey draws the sand flies." Tallal stood and lifted a small glazed jug from the floor of the tent. Walking the circle of smudge lamps, he poured a drop of oil in each one. "If you journey with our party we fear more deaths. The lamb brothers do not judge you, for we are taught all creatures born of God have a purpose, but the path you walk is dark. The raven must feed."
One by one the smudge lamps sizzled, releasing the crushed-grass odor of wormwood. Raif wondered if it was mildly poisonous, like the drink. Even though he had guessed what Tallal might say, it was not easy to hear it. When people learned what he was and what he could do would they always push him away? What of the Maimed Men-would they be any different?
"If I were to find the place you seek, how would you know? You and your brothers might be anywhere. How would I find you?"
Tallal set down the jug and crossed over to the painted chest. Kneeling, he said, "Let us find you." He pushed open the lid of the chest and searched for something inside. Raif noticed three more black dots at the baclk of his neck. "Here," Tallal said, flinging something toward Raif.
Raif snatched it from the air. It was a leather pouch similar to those overhead, with something flat and jagged in it.
Tallal smiled, delighted. "If my mother were here she should be grateful for your quickness." Seeing Raif's confusion, he shooed his hand at the pouch. "Open. It is a gift."
The leather was old, darkened by many oilings. A length of undyed wool formed the drawstring. Raif pulled it back, and discovered a piece of glass.
"From me."
The glass was the size and length of a fingerbone. One end was blunt while the other narrowed to a delicately curved point. Raif rolled it between his fingertips, watching light tumble within it. He wasn't sure, but it seemed as if the light and reflections moved a fraction slower than the glass itself.
"Stormglass," Tallal said, his smile softer now. "Just a little broken piece found by my great-great-grandfather—on my mother's side."
Raif closed his fist around the glass. "Thank you."
"When my brothers and I were young we would turn our mother's hair gray by tossing it to each other across the date yard. We were bad sons. After the beatings we were better." The memory stopped Tallal for a moment, his brown eyes looking inward. Shaking himself, he said, "Even a piece this small is good luck. Kings and rich men may crave unbroken rods and whole branches, but as long as you have a tip you have the nagi. The essence. When stormglass is formed it mirrors the lightning that created it. Sometimes it branches as it shoots through the sand. When that happens there can be several tips-the point where the lightning's power comes to rest. This is one such piece."
Raif did not know what to say. Tallal's pleasure in giving him the piece seemed genuine, but a gift this precious usually came with a price.
"It is said that if you carry a piece of stormglass you will never be alone in a storm." Tallal voiced the words lightly, but Raif knew they were not light. Here it was: the cost. "Keep it close to your skin when lightning strikes and the lamb brothers will find you."
Tallal held Raifs gaze. Pride and something almost opposite to pride existed in the muscle tensions of Tallal's face. He was waiting, Raif realized, upon an answer.
A wisp of wormwood smoke floated across Raif's knuckles as he glanced down at his fist. Perhaps the smoke was not poisonous as much as numbing. Perhaps it prevented deep thought. He opened his fist and slid the stormglass into its pouch. "I give no promises," he warned, tying the pouch to his gear belt. But he did, he knew he did.
The lamb brother carefully controlled his face. Crossing back toward the cushions, he said, "Let me tell you what you must do to leave the Want."
FOURTEEN The Copper Hills
Vaylo Bludd did not want to admit that his knees were sore and he needed to rest. In the past fifteen days he'd had enough walking to last a lifetime, and his heart, his knees and all seventeen of his teeth ached persistently with every step. Gods, what had he come to? A warrior without a horse. A chief without a clan. What was next? he wondered. A Bluddsman without kneecaps or teeth?
"Vaylo. We should halt for a minute. The bairns need to pee." The Dog Lord looked long and hard at his lady, Nan Culldayis. It was an hour past noon and they were on their third hill of the day and this one was the steepest yet. It was pretty enough, the blackstone pines giving way to winter heather and wild oats that had been tidily cropped by rogue sheep, but the climb was tiring and monotonous and the wind that was blowing south from the Rift cut you like a blade. Vaylo tucked his long gray braids under his coat collar as he said, "No, Nan. We carry on."
He left her looking at the back of his head. The Dog Lord was nobody's fool and he knew what his lady was about. She thought to provide him with an excuse to stop and rest, and he wasn't having any of it. Bairns need to pee indeed! Those bairns had peed their way north across the entire length of the Dhoonehold. Another couple of hours wouldn't hurt.
Indignation oiled Vaylo's knee joints and he worked the hill hard, stabbing its thin rocky soil as he climbed. This was Copper Hill country and the slopes were pitted with old mine shafts and vent holes. As far as Vaylo knew there was only one copper mine still open—and that was far to the east, sunk deep beneath Stinking Hill. Copper hadn't been seriously mined on the Dhoonehold for five hundred years, and only cragsmen and raiders walked these hills now. You could still see the copper though; a certain greenish tint to the soil made everything that grew here look healthier than it really was. Many of the little rills and creeks that drained the hills sparkled with red ore. Copper had made Dhoone rich at one time, and paid for the construction of the finest roundhouse in the north. Dhoone copper had once been carted overland all the way to the Far South, and strange kings and warlords had forged mighty weapons from it and sent back all manner of treasure in payment. Copper's glory days had long passed though, and it had been fifteen hundred years since a copper weapon had bettered a steel one on the field. Still, copper had its uses even now. Vaylo had heard that in the Mountain Cities people liked to eat off it, and he knew clan maids like to wear it in their ears and around their wrists. Copper was stretched into wire and hammered into pipes, fired with tin to make bronze and zinc to make brass. At the time Vaylo had taken possession of the Dhoonehouse, the mine at Stinking Hill was still producing a hundred tons of raw ore a year. He had shut it down of course, then thought better of it and ordered it reopened. Gods only knew what was happening there now. One thing was certain: After all the looting and cattle raiding carried out by Bluddsmen over the past six months, Robbie Dun Dhoone would need all the hard cash he could get.
That was a thought that never failed to make Vaylo smile. Robbie Dun Dhoone might have won back his roundhouse, but Bluddsmen had stripped it down to the bare walls. Vaylo had no idea where the loot had gone—he hadn't taken anything for himself except a half-dozen kegs of fine Dhoonish malt—and he found he didn't care. Gone was enough. Gone would slow the Thorn King down.