A Sword from Red Ice

It was a good night for it. No clouds marred the sky and the stars were scattered in immense and sparkling waves. A faint and shifting band of green to the north might have been the Gods' Lights; Stannig Beade would be happy as a crow about that It was hard not to be bitter. All the fine preparations; the sea of silver plate, the clanfolk in their rarely used finery, the wild call of the pigs blood. Stannig Beade had done an excellent job. Perhaps he believed the gods would come. Perhaps I should try believing that myself.

Smoothing down her hair, Raina headed over to the small crowd that had gathered around Anwyn Bird and Jebb Onnacre. The clan matron was handing out the booze: a half-dram of her five-year malt to anyone who fancied it. She was dressed rather curiously in many layers—a dress, a bodice, an overtunic and an elbow-length cape-all sparkly and richly embroidered and bearing no resemblance to each other. Two peacock feathers were stuck like pins in her hair. Acknowledging Raina with a flat nod, she said, "I believe you shut down my kitchen."

Raina's instinct was to apologize but she she stopped herself and there was an awkward silence as the two women faced each other over the upturned barrel containing the half-drams.

"You look like a queen," Jebb Onnacre said shyly to Raina, breaking the silence.

"She does" Anwyn agreed, her light blue eyes still intent upon Raina. "So we must forgive her for acting like one."

Poor Jebb. His two favorite women in the world were regarding each other coolly and he didn't know what to do about it. He made a hmm-ming noise, opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it, and then reached for a half-dram and downed it.

Raina and Anwyn laughed at exactly the same time. 'Thank you for the bath and the pretty stuff," Raina said to her.

"Good luck," Anwyn replied.

It would do. Raina left them and mingled with the growing crowd. People seemed to know not to greet her and offered instead brief bows of respect. It was getting cold now, the air dry and crisp. The green lights in the northern sky tantalized: Now you see us, now you don't.

Suddenly there was a soft popping sound and a ball of white light shot straight up into the air.

"Blackhail!" screamed Stannig Beade. "Attend the stone!"

Everyone fell silent, and began moving like a cinched thread toward the center of the greatcourt. Raina hurried around them, anxious to take up her position.

Stannig Beade's helpers kept the area twenty feet around the stone clear of people. They were Scarpes, Raina noticed, but wisely wore no tokens of their clan. When they spotted her, they let her pass.

Stannig Beade had made Brog Widdie silver-plate a second, smaller platform that had been dragged into position before the Scarpestone. Stannig Beade stood upon this metal dais, flanked by iron torches that hissed as they burned gas. The clan guide noted Raina's presence but did not greet her. He glared at the crowd, a big man once trained to the hammer, with bloody eyes and twitching neck muscles.

"Blackhail!" he cried out when all were still. "Tonight we are gathered to present our new guidestone to the gods. It is not enough that it be delivered into the clanhold. The gods must be called to judge it."

His voice was grinding and terrible, filled with accusation as he prowled back and forth between the torches. "Look to yourselves, Blackhail, look into the center of your hearts and ask if you have cause for shame. The gods will come this night and they will know you. They will know this clan and every man, woman and child within it, and if they judge the sum of Blackhail unworthy they will reject its stone.

"Do not expect to fool them." He shot a brief, unreadable glance at Raina. "The gods come from stone and are stone hard. They will crush you down if you are false, smash the foundations of this clan." At the word clan, Stannig Beade's arm shot backward. Air rushed in toward the Scarpestone and the trench ringing its platform ignited in a sheet of flames.

Raina's ears roared. Heat beat against her cheeks. The crowd stepped back, fearful. One clan maid, Lansa Tanner by the look of her golden hair, fainted and had to be carried away.

The fire burned more fiercely than any fire Raina had ever seen. It dragged air from her lungs to feed itself and its flames shivered and leapt upward, alive. Stannig Beade's raised dais was only a few feet in front of the trench. Raina wondered how he stood the searing heat. He had become a dark profile againstethe light. A bear against the sun.

Screaming, he named the gods. "Ganolith, Hammada, lone, Loss, Uthred, Oban, Larannyde, Malweg, Behathmus. Hear me! See me! Come to this clan."