A Sword From Red Ice by J. V. Jones Read Free Book Online Page B

clansman.
    Oathbreaker, Raif named himself, his lips moving.
That morning on the greatcourt he had sworn to protect his clan . . .
and he had not protected them.
    He had killed them.
    Raif sucked in air, welcoming the cold into
cavities close to his heart. He was damned. And how should a damned
man live his life?
    A crunching sounding to his left brought him back.
Swinging around, he saw that Bear had stumbled to her knees. Oh gods.
He scrambled over to her, not caring where he placed his feet.
Nightfall had sharpened the frost and walking through the gravel was
like wading through sea ice. Bear was shivering intensely. Her eyes
tracked him as he approached, and everything he saw in them told him
he could not wait any longer.
    "Little Bear," he said softy. "My
best girl."
    She was cool to the touch. Even now, she pushed
her head toward his hand as he stroked her cheek. Kneeling, he moved
his body alongside her, wanting to give her his heat. Her heart was
beating out of time; he could feel it against his chest. Gently, he
rubbed the ice from her nose. She was calm now; they both were.
    "My best little Bear."
    Raif kissed her eyes closed and drew his sword. No
one in the Known World could deliver a death blow with such accuracy
and force, and for the first time in his eighteen-year life Raif
Sevrance was grateful for that fact.
    It was a mercy for both of them.
    Curling himself around her cooling body, he lay
and rested for a while in the Want.

TWO
    The Sundering
    Raina Blackhail ordered the halved pig's carcass
to be hauled from the dairy shed to the wetroom. Two days it had lain
there, exposed to the warm and fragrant air, and the flies must have
done their job by now. Besides, the smell was making her sick.
    Jebb Onnacre, one of the stablehands and a Shank
by marriage, was quick to nod. "Aye, lady. Couple of days in the
wetroom and you'll have some fine maggots to spare."
    Raina showed a brief smile. It was the best she
could manage this cold midmorning. She liked Jebb, he was a good man
and he bore his injuries stoically, but the night the Hailstone
exploded, destroying the guidehouse, stable block, and east wall of
the roundhouse, it seemed the weight of those structures had fallen
upon her shoulders. And she had been bearing it now for a week.
    "I'll rig up a platform. Give it a little air
along with the damp." Jebb had lifted the carcass onto a sheet
of oiled tarp in preparation for dragging it through the hay. Raina
could tell from his hopeful expression that he wanted to please her,
that by offering to do more than was necessary he was showing his
support.
    She was grateful for that. It gave her what she
needed for a genuine smile. "Thank you, Jebb. I'd forgotten the
maggots need good ventilation to grow."
    Jebb cinched the end of the tarp in his wrist.
"Aye, lady. Makes you wonder what else we've forgotten as a
clan." With that, he jerked the carcass into motion and began
dragging it toward the door.
    Raina watched him go. His words had given her a
little chill and she pulled her mohair shawl snug across her
shoulders. The air in the shed was dusty with hay and the mites that
fed on it made her throat itch. Gloomy gray light flooded the dimness
as Jebb flung back the doors.
    The stablehand's head was still wrapped in
bandages. Jebb had been sleeping on a box pallet in one of the horse
stalls when the Sundering happened, and had ended up with a chunk of
granite embedded in his skull. He'd bled for two whole days. Only the
gods knew why he wasn't dead. Laida Moon, the clan healer, had
pronounced it to be a miracle of "the thick Onnacre head."
Jebb had embraced this diagnosis with such enthusiasm that he'd
started referring to himself as "Old Thickey."
    Wearing one's injuries with pride had become a way
of life in the Hailhouse. Gat Murdock had lost an arm. Lansa Tanner
was still abed with injuries too numerous to mention; it was likely
she would lose an eye. Quiet, big-boned Hatty Hare had suffered burns
on the right