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?
"Come now, Twelvester. Didn't your mother ever tell you it's churlish to keep people waiting?"
Yustaffa's piping voice broke through Raif thoughts. As the fat man finished speaking a stone hit the small of Raif's back. Snapping around, Raif pounced toward the crowd. People shied away from him. One woman, a tired-looking mother with a baby at her teat, cried out in fright. Raif felt muscles in his jaw pumping as he fought the itch to draw his new sword.
Yustaffa tutted with mock disapproval, deeply gratified by Raif's reaction. "Shame on you, my fellow Rift Brothers. You know the procedure. Story first. Stones later." He smiled winningly at Raif. "Don't worry, I'm just saying that to keep them quiet."|
The flames were fierce now, leaping and crackling, firing off sparks.
Darkness was rising, and it didn't take much to imagine it was originating in the Rift. On the edge of the rimrock Raifflspied one of the windlasses that were used to lower bodies into the abyss. He swallowed, wished again he had thought to bring meat.
Glancing once at Thomas Argola, he said, "I journeyed into the Great Want and was lost for many days. I nearly died, but a group of men called the lamb brothers found me, healed my wounds, and set me on my way."
Several things happened as he spoke. When he named the lamb brothers both Thomas Argola's and Yustaffa's faces registered a beat of surprise. The outlander concealed his surprise better, but Raif detected a momentary loosening of his jaw. Most of the crowd listened in silence, drawing in breath when Raif had named the Great Want, yet even before he'd finished wonder had been replaced by suspicion.
"No one gets out of the Want," shrieked the low-breasted hag who'd spoken earlier.
"Aye," agreed many in the crowd.
Someone else called out, "What was you doing there anyway? Only madmen go the Want."
"Never heard of no lamb brothers," pitched in a shaggy bear of a man near the front.
Yustaffa sucked in his cheeks with relish. "Such suspicion. Makes you wonder how they sleep at night."
"I've heard of the lamb brothers."
All turned to look at the tiny cragsman Addie Gunn who was making his way across the rimrock. Addie had once been a Wellman, and you could still see the clan in him. He wore a pouch around his waist, but it contained salt, not guidestone. The habit of carrying powder was a hard one to break. "The lamb brothers live in the sand deserts of the Far South and they survive on ewe milk and lamb meat and dress themselves in wool and fleeces."
Addie was fierce about matters pertaining to sheep and no one in the crowd doubted his word. As a cragsman at Wellhouse he had maintained his own herd. Raising a quick hand in greeting to Raif, he addressed himself directly to Yustaffa. "You come from the glass desert due north of the sands. Tell me you haven't heard of them too."
As he watched Addie Gunn standing in the firelight, arms folded across his chest, daring Yustaffa to lie to the crowd, a muscle close to Raifs heart contracted. He had forgotten the goodness here. For once Yustaffa was lost for words. Coiling the end of his belt rope around his fat middle finger, he hmmed and aahed and tutted. Finally, he let the rope go. "Well now that you mention it," he said sulkily, "I do have a recollection about them. Course it doesn't prove that they were in the Want or that Twelve Kill actually met them."