A Sword From Red Ice Read Free Page B

heat. The light in the guidehouse was increasing,
but instead of calming it unsettled him. The flames flickered wildly,
yet he could detect no draft. The shadows they created swung crazily
around the room. He took his time turning his gaze to the guidestone.
A wolf had howled in the Hailhold and he feared what he might see.
    The monolith steamed. So vast it pulled motes of
dust from the air as surely as the moon pulled waves onto the shore,
it stood black and still and wounded. Deep fissures dissected it like
forks of frozen lightning. Pores once brimming with shale oil were
now filled with lenses of ice. The narrow cane-and-timber ladder that
Inigar used to access the carving face was white with hoarfrost. Only
yesterday he had stood on those rungs and chiseled out a heart for a
fallen clansman. A young woman in this very house awaited delivery of
the fist-sized chunk of granite. Widows without bones needed stone.
    So much work to do in times of war, so many calls
upon the stone. I best get to it then. Stop fussing over a
late-season cold snap and get down to the business of men's souls.
    As Inigar stood to fetch himself water, he caught
sight of the northern face of the monolith. A crack as wide as his
forearm and as tall as two men had opened up overnight. Dear Gods,
help us. Could he have done more? Mace Blackhail was a strong leader,
a fine warrior; and a fiercely ambitious chief. The Stone Gods
demanded jaw, and Mace Blackhail had so much of it he could barely
keep his teeth from springing apart. Jaw had landed him the chiefdom
and driven him into war. Under Mace's leadership, Blackhail had
seized control of Dhoone-spoke Ganmiddich and was now challenging
old boundaries in the east. Mace had rallied Blackhail warriors and
reclaimed the Hailish badge. He'd fired up the sworn clans with talk
of glory, making weary and jaded allies eager to fight at his side.
Bannen had been Hail-sworn for a thousand years but it had ever been
a weak alliance. The clan that called itself "the Ironheads"
did not follow others lightly. Somehow Mace had managed to do what
other Blackhail chiefs could not—gain the respect of that proud
and grudging clan. Now there was talk of Bannen and Blackhail riding
out to meet swords with Dhoone.
    Thanks to Mace, Blackhail warriors stationed
across the clanholds this very night were filled with the passion and
terror of war—and was that not what the Stone Gods loved best?
    A thin film of ice had formed over the water jug
and Inigar punched it with his finger and drank. The bald-eagle foot
resting against the apple of his throat bobbed up and down as he
swallowed.
    Jaw was a tricky thing. It was courage in all its
forms from bravery to recklessness. It was seizing the moment and
acting without hesitation, and being brazenly sure you were right.
Mostly it was sheer bloody-minded audacity: pulling off something no
one else thought could be done.
    It was not cunning or deceit. Inigar closed his
fist around his eagle lore and weighed it. A bald eagle saw much and
so did he. Mace Blackhail was not a perfect man, Inigar had known
that all along. Yet a chief had been slain and a new one needed
anointing, and Mace Blackhail had been the first to stake a claim.
That was jaw and it counted for something. Now Inigar wondered if it
counted for enough. Half a year later questions about the raid
remained unanswered. Mace had returned from the Badlands, claiming he
had barely escaped the hell-forged swords of Clan Bludd, yet Raif
Sevrance had also been at the campground feat day and swore he saw no
evidence of Bludd.
    And then there was Raina, Mace's stepmother and
wife. Inigar claimed little knowledge of women—they did not
fight and so mattered little to him—but he had been struck by
the changes in Raina Blackhail. She hid them, as was fitting for a
chief's wife, yet eagle lores could not hide from their own kind and
Inigar observed things that others did not. She hated her husband,
and shrank