Sword of Ice and Other Tales of Valdemar

Silent with guilt, he loped down the road.

Two days later, he was ruing his wish for a storm. While the precious items he had bought in town were

securely wrapped in layer upon layer of lavishly waxed skins, he had no such protection, and was drenched to the core when finally he reached home, letting himself into the barn to change and then go via the adjoining, dry overhang into the house proper.

'Rivin?' he heard, low and soft from his right, and he spun—panic catching him off guard—only to see Sattar, sitting in a golden pile of hay with her knees drawn to her chest and her arms wrapped around her legs. She looked up at him, and he noticed the dark rings around her eyes.

Somewhere inside him, despite her appearance, he felt a deep weight lifted, and relief flooded every pore.

She's alive, he found his mind sighing.

'Sattar—' He swallowed. 'You scared me.'

She nodded, and he noticed a haunted look in her eyes.

'What's wrong?' he asked, kneeling next to her. Concern tinged his voice.

She flinched as he touched her, her muscles clenching spasmodically, and then the emotion smoothed away as she took rigid control of her body. She smiled at him, her lips tight, if not pained. One hand sought his hair and the other went around his shoulder in a gesture that reminded him keenly of his mother.

'Sa ... sa ... sa,' she murmured. 'How was your trip, Rivin?'

He shrugged, wrapping his arms around her and placing his cheek against her shoulder.

'How did you convince Da about the girls?'

' Twas nothing. Da is very easy to talk to if you— catch him in the right mood.'

He heard loss and something he knew but could not name lace her words, but he ignored it, instead closing his eyes and being content to listen to her heartbeat.

'You know I would've rather stayed—' he started.

'Sa, sa,' she interrupted. 'We all must have our freedoms, fledgling. I would not limit you yours.'

He sat up, shaking droplets from his hair. 'Look, I'm soaked. How about I put on some of my dry things and you take the packs inside?'

She nodded, smiling. 'I'll get to stoking the fire-Father can complain if he wants, but the rain is a good omen and you're cold. The wood is worth it.'

With brisk efficiency, she took the packs and went inside.

It took him a while to realize that she had never told him what was wrong, and he cursed himself for not recognizing the same tactics he had used on his cousin.

Rivin watched the scythe slide over the grain, listening to the whisper of the wheat as it cut. He blinked rapidly, exhaustion blurring his vision. He had been working sun up to sun up for the past two days, with one more day to go. Harvest week was crucial to the prosperity of the crop—if they didn't reap it in tune, the wheat would spoil along with their profits.

While he was used to this sort of work, he wasn't so sure of his sister. She was some hundred yards away, working her section of the field, cutting with slow, even strokes. In the past months since the planting season had started, she had grown more and more anxious—worried almost—with lines of fatigue growing around her eyes. Rivin had no idea why she felt this way—the crop was growing well, and they should be able to harvest enough to make a large profit. But, still, the state of desperation—almost depression—she had fallen into made him wonder, and agitated him no small amount.

He did not know what made him stop and look up. He thought that he heard a soft voice call his name like a lost spirit on the breeze, but he was never sure. One moment he was biting his lip to keep himself awake, the next his head had snapped up and trained on Sattar, who had fallen motionless in the field.

'Sattar?' he called, dropping his scythe and running over.

Rivin knelt when he came to the body of his sister, and was shocked to see blood staining the heavy layers of her skirts. A claw of pure fear gripped his heart, and

he glanced toward the scythe she had been using, fearing that she had fallen on it.

But, no, the blade shone like a clean moon, the silver edge dulled, perhaps, by the work it had been doing, but not bright red with fresh gut-blood. Than what . . . ?

'Move away, boy!' Delanon roared, coming out of nowhere, and Rivin was pushed back by surprisingly strong hands.

'Sattar?' he heard his father say, panic in his voice. The man shook her, rolling her over and staring into her pale face. Even from where he lay in the ripe crop, Rivin could see the sweat on her clammy skin, could almost feel the chill coming off her cool body.

'Should I—should I get the Healer?'

'Yes! Now!' his father roared, picking her up and cradling her tenderly, like a lover. His jaw was clenched tight, his eyes downcast, and Rivin could clearly hear him say, 'Don't die, girl. Papa loves you. Don't die now. Not yet.'

And then the boy was running—not for his life, but his sister's.

'Let me see,' said the Healer, his face blank as he bent over the unconscious form of Sattar.

Rivin was still breathing heavily as he leaned against the doorway to his sister's room. The Healer lived a full hour down the road, but it had seemed to Rivin to be a thousand miles he traveled before he finally arrived at the old man's house, banging on the door and screaming at the top of his lungs as if the Hounds of Hell were on his heels. It had taken another thousand years to saddle the Healer's horse, and then a thousand leagues to ride back, with Rivin gasping the whole way.

Now, safe at home, he watched in anxious concern as the Healer drew back the covers and examined his sister.

After a moment he looked up, giving Rivin and Delanon a severe look and saying, 'Please leave the room.'

The two men filed out, Rivin panting now from increased fear as well as exertion.

The door shut with an ominous thud.

Rivin waited, shifting nervously from foot to foot. After a moment, he felt an iron hand on his shoulder, and turned to look into Delanon's dead eyes.

'Go,' he said, pointing out the door, toward the fields.

Rivin's jaw dropped, and it took all his will not to scream, You've got to be joking!

'Now,' Delanon said, leaving no question of authority.

Rivin submissively lowered his head and walked out the door.

In the field, he picked up his fallen scythe, looking at the only-half-harvested crop, blind to the fact that the profits this year would be slim.

The silent whisper of the scythe was the only sound he heard, gasping like the laboring death-rattle of a dying person.

'Ho—boy.'

Rivin stopped his work, dumbly turning toward the Healer who was standing in the stubble of wheat-trail that Rivin had made.

'We must speak.''

Mute still, and shivering from sweat-chills and weakness, Rivin leaned on his scythe, waiting.

'How is she?' he asked bluntly.

The Healer shook his head. 'There is a sore deep inside her that my Gifts and knowledge can't seem to reach. I am going to try and summon help, but I fear I may not be quick enough.'

Rivin scrubbed his face, pretending that the dampness this action left on his hand was sweat, and not tears.

'Why has this happened?'

The Healer frowned, a line of worry between his brows. 'Did not you know, boy? She has miscarried. The babe could not survive the strain of the work she was doing. Some can, but she was too frail.' A note of disapproval entered the man's voice.

Rivin blinked, the chill in his body suddenly concentrating and finding a focus in his breastbone.