Tanis stared at the magic-user. Her straight black hair poured over her shoulders. Her voice was low and vibrant. "She is important to you, this swords-woman?" the mage prodded when he did not reply.
"She is—" Tanis faltered under the intensity of her blue gaze, so startling against that dark skin— "an acquaintance. We are traveling together."
The black pupils widened, and the edges of the magic-user's lips curved. "Ah. An acquaintance."
"Yes." He looked away.
The woman's words carried an undertone of amusement. "This is Kitiara's battle, not yours, Tanthalas Half-Elven. How fortunate for Kitiara that she has an 'acquaintance' with the strength and courage not to abandon her at such a dangerous time. One wonders what you would do for a wife or child if you would go to such lengths for a mere acquaintance."
Tanis flushed. "You are bound to fight against this Valdane, then?" he said hurriedly.
She nodded. The half-elf, after hesitating, returned to the group.
You have no intention of accompanying them. Xanthar's voice carried a note of reproach.
I am afraid, Xanthar, and I am not a very powerful mage. They don't need me. They'll do fine alone. But they may not follow through on the task if they think I intend to leave them behind.
Xanthar reached over and plucked a twig from a tree with his beak. Then he peeled the bark from it, rotating it with his tongue while removing the bark with the edge of his beak. And you believe the ettin is leading them to the Icereach? I must point out, Kai-lid, that the ettin seems to be heading north, whereas the Icereach, the last time I checked, was in the southernmost reaches of Ansalon.
Kai-lid didn't answer. Xanthar mused, I have heard that there is a sla-mori in Darken Wood, one that leads far to the south. It might be rumor, or it might not.
A sla-mori?
A secret passage. A magical tunnel that whisks occupants far, far away, if they can fathom its mystery. Rumor has it the elves built the sla-moris long ago.
And this sla-mori is to the north?
The owl nodded. A short distance—in a valley next to Fever Mountain. Perhaps that is where the ettin is going. Then Xanthar changed the subject once more. You have looked closely at Kitiara, I assume.
Yes.
And you have seen? Not with your two eyes, but with your inner eye?
I have seen, Xanthar. I wonder what she plans to do.
Xanthar laughed out loud. You believe she knows, then, Kai-lid? Truly you give humans more credit for self-awareness than I do.
But how could a woman be with child and not know it?
Never underestimate humans' deafness to their inner voices, Kai-lid. Never.
Chapter 12
Attacks
The girl's face, like that of her older brother, was dirty with soot and walrus grease, rubbed in by their mother early that day to ease the bite of the cold wind that swept across the Icereach.
"Haudo," she whispered to her brother, her black eyes bright with the delight of her idea. "I am an ice bear." She stretched her fur-mittened hands far above her head, warm in its sealskin hood with seabird-feather trim. She emitted an approximation of the polar bear's roar. Then she giggled.
But Haudo frowned. "We must never mimic the ice bear, Terve," he reminded her with the pedantic tone that was second nature to older brothers. "He is the grandfather of this land, and we must honor him."
Terve sulked. "You are a spoilsport, Haudo. I wish I'd stayed home."
Haudo sighed. "You pestered me to come along until Father ordered me to take you. I told him you were too little. I told Father you'd get tired, that you'd be no help at all. But they wanted you out of the way so that they could braid sealskin into ropes in peace for once, so I—"
"That's not true! I can too help find the frostreaver ice!"
"Then do it," Haudo grumbled. "And for once in your eight winters, Little Sister, be silent while you do something."
"You have only four winters more than me, Brother," Terve complained, but she held her tongue for a short time after that. The boy and girl poked through the litter around Reaver's Rock, an outcropping of densely frozen ice an hour's ride from their camp by iceboat. Their boat lay on its side a short distance away, its large sail flat against the ice and its long, wooden runners shiny. The packed ice of the Icereach was slick enough here to permit the use of the Ice Folk's traditional form of transport, although buckling of the snow and ice and occasional crevasses that had filled with drifting snow made the way treacherous. From here, the Icereach seemed to undulate in gentle hills; Haudo could barely see the smoke from the peat fires of his home village.
The Ice Folk boy probed at the base of the gigantic outcropping, looking for slivers of reaver ice dislodged by frost heaving. The steel-hard material could be fashioned into hide scrapers, small knives, even into sewing and knitting needles, although only the Revered Cleric could supervise the gathering of the large chunks suitable to become The People's traditional weapon, the battle-ax known as a frost-reaver. Terve wrapped even the tiniest shards in tanned seabird skins and laid them reverently in the basket she'd woven from strips of walrus gut.
Inevitably Terve piped up again. "Why do The People call it Reaver's Rock, Haudo? Who was Reaver? And this is ice, not rock."
Haudo grinned at the shortness of his sister's self-imposed silence, but he answered gently. Haudo was of the Storyteller Clan; it was his role in life to memorize the thousands of tales that made up the oral history of the Ice Folk. This telling of the Reaver's tale would be good practice, even though little Terve had surely heard the story dozens of times. And a tale would help pass the time.
He puffed out his chest, took a deep breath, mimicked the storytelling stance of his father, and began,
