A Sword from Red Ice

TWENTY-FOUR The Weasel's Den

The march was grueling on both men and horses and Marafice was glad they had thought to bring the carts that the grangelords, in their haste to return to Spire Vanis and enter the contest for surlord that was surely taking place there, had left behind in the camp. The grangelords had left behind a lot of things without value—servants included—and it all added to the general motley of Marafice Eye's crew.

The carts now, they were a good thing. Saved the badly wounded having to be thrown over the backs of horses, or even worse—God forbid—being dragged behind them on sleds. The first thing he'd done after the rout was to set those fancy grangelord servants hitching the carts. It all had to be executed in haste of course for it had not been clear then whether or not the Bludd army would mount a full pursuit. Luckily they had not, preferring instead to chop down most of the remaining Hailsmen, chase the city men off the Crabhold and occupy and secure the gate. It was a miscalculation, Marafice reckoned. For any war chief with experience could have taken one look at the tired and bloody city men army and known it for easy pickings. The Bludd warrior in command was lazy, Marafice concluded. He had the swaggering looks of his father, the Dog Lord, but he was not half the man.

Marafice shuddered as he forced his great black warhorse down into the rocky stream. That moment after the horn sounded and the front line of the strange new army broke free from the woods behind the roundhouse, the Knife had known fear so concentrated it had stopped his heart. Clan Bludd. He had recognized their colors and their trappings straightaway and he knew instantly that he must call a retreat He had met the Dog Lord man-to-man, looked into his eyes, and heard the timbre of his voice. Marafice Eye, with twenty years spent in the Rive Watch protecting three successive surlords, had never met anyone who had impressed him like Vaylo Bludd.

He had assumed that the Dog Lord would he leading the Bludd army. He was wrong. That wrongness was why his army of three thousand men was alive today. If he hadn't felt such fear of the Dog Lord he might have been ambivalent about retreat Certainly Andrew Perish and his God-fearing nine hundred had wanted to stay and fight. They held the gate. Almost. It may have been possible to secure it They had the number. Even with those bastard grangelords stealing away with half the army, superior manpower was theirs.Two factors were not in their favor though. One, they were unfamiliar with the Crabhouse, and it would have taken time and trial to secure it. And two, they had been fighting from noon to sundown and were flat-out spent. Even Andrew Perish, whose zeal gave new meaning to the phrase 'second wind' had been forced to admit that his men were flagging. That last hard fight with Hailsmen for the gate had been devastating. Many of Perish's faithful had fallen.

At least it had doused their God fires, and made it less of a fight to call a retreat.

It was hard to know how many had died in the rout. Numbers had been fluid, bodies already strewn across the roundhouse steps and its river hill. Marafice could not take such matters lightly, and he had played the retreat over and over again in his head. It was a hard thing for a warlord, a retreat. Did you command the front or bring up the rear?

He had brought up the rear, because that seemed like the way he had lived his life. When you were bom a butcher's son in Spire Vanis you started at the back.

Still, even if the retreat had not gone as well as it might, Marafice believed the men who marched with him this day would live longer lives because of it. Bludd, Blackhail, Dhoone: all three northern giants had their eyes on Ganmiddich. It would have turned into a killing field. Three thousand city men holed up in the the most bitterly contested clanhold in the north? How long before the real might of Blackhail turned up? And what about the self-crowned Thorn King, Robbie Dhoone?

Marafice shook his bead as he shortened the reins and encouraged his mount to take the shore. They would not have been supported.

Who the hell in Spire Vanis cared about this rabble of fanatics mercenaries, and aging brothers-in-the-watch? No one now that the grangelords had upped stakes and headed south. Indeed it would suit most of the high-and-mighties in Spire Vanis if the Protector General of Spire Vanis simply never returned home.

The Rive Watch was always a tricky proposition for an aspiring sur-lord. The eager candidate would almost certainly be a grangelord, reared from birth to be hostile to the Rive's power and the rough-necked men who wielded it. A swallowing of pride was usually called for. Some were smart about it—Iss, a grangelord by fosterage, had planned ahead, and joined the watch as a young man. Marafice had respected him as a leader, but he had always known Iss held him in contempt. Brothers-in-the-watch might be lacking in finery and titles but that did not make them stupid. They controlled Mask Fortress itself: the seat of the Surlord's power. Some courting was called for if you fancied calling that fortress home. No one could take it without the Rive Watch's support.

Now that the watch's leader was a thousand leagues away from home, stuck on the wrong side of the Wolf for fear of making a crossing, that courting had suddenly got easier. Some bright and ambitious brother-in-the-watch had doubtless declared himself in command while Marafice was away. He would be insecure, not wholly supported by men who were loyal to the Eye. That meant the aspiring grangelord could play a hand of divide and conquer; set one faction against the other, whisper promises to both and keep none of them. Marafice knew how it would go down. He had seen the same kind of dealings several times before.

That was why he should have been there. If he'd been in the city the day that Iss died no one could have matched him. The watch was his. Thanks to a quick marriage to the Lord of the High Grange's sluttish daughter, a grange and its titles were as good as his own. Even Iss himself had declared Marafice Eye as his successor. It was a rock-strong foundation that had now been rendered worthless.

First come, first take: that was the law of Spire Vanis. Mask Fortress did not hold open its doors until all contenders had been assembled and accounted for. It wasn't a tourney, governed by the rules of polite engagement The doors were closed the instant someone claimed the surlordship for his own. Prising those doors open again was a long, bloody and frequently futile task. It was the difference between rolling a boulder down a hill and carrying it up again. You needed a hundred times the force.

What am I doing even thinking of it? Marafice chastised himself. Here he was, stuck in the godforsaken clanholds, in some wild river territory eight days west of Ganmiddich, with three cartloads of badly injured men on his hands and another two hundred walking wounded, unable to find a safe place to cross the high and swift-moving Wolf, all the while constantly having to check over his shoulder lest crews of heathen clansmen attack his rear.

Marafice frowned at the sky. At least there was some sun about, not like yesterday when the thunderheads blew in from the south and turned the Wolf into a chop field of flying branches and jagged water. Damn the river to hell. They had tried to take the same crossing that they'd used coming over, but the ferryman had upped and gone and taken his ropes with him. Iss had arranged the crossing, and Marafice hadn't taken much interest in it at the time. The only thing he recalled for certain was that Clan Scarpe was somehow involved.

It had been a very stupid mistake, not insuring that the retreat to the city hold was properly covered. It made Marafice angry with himself just to think of it. Who knew or cared how the grangelords had crossed the river? They didn't have injured—anyone not able-bodied had been thoughtfully abandoned on the field—nor did they have carts, tents or supplies. Mounted men, all of them, they had probably used the dozen boats that were tied up back at the camp and swam across the horses. The boats had been scuttled, of course. That order would have given the Whitehog no end of delight.

There was the bridge of boats at Bannen, but Marafice knew no welcome would be offered to city men there. Bannenmen had fought with Blackhail for Ganmiddich, and Marafice had felt nothing but anxiety during the two days they spent crossing Bannen lands. Ban scouts had watched them as they headed west along the rivershore. Potshots had been taken, and there was a short exchange of fire. About two hundred swordsmen had appeared on the river cliff above Marafice's column the next day. The Bannenmen had sat their horses, gray cloaks blowing in the wind, mighty longswords holstered at their backs, and sent Marafice a message he received loud and clear. Keep walking.

It was another piece of luck, Marafice reckoned. That Ganmiddich roundhouse was like honey to the bees. Word of Bludd seizing it had doubtless mobilized the might of Bannen, and the forces that remained behind were safe-keepers, insufficient in number to mount an attack on three thousand city men.

"God is good," Perish had claimed the next night as they made a light and nervous camp on the Wolf. "He will see us home"

Marafice had declined to tell Andrew Perish exactly what he thought of that. Home for God was heaven and to get there you had to be dead. Instead he had told Perish of his still-evolving plan to approach Scarpe.

When not talking about the One True Cod, Andrew Perish was as sharp as an iron tack. The white-haired former master-at-arms had leant in toward the fire so that that the crackle of burning pine needles stopped his words from traveling where he did not want them. "Iss had friends at Scarpe. He paid them good coin to secure that crossing. They must have pulled those barges all the way east to Ganmiddich— upriver, no less—and that's the kind of service that doesn't come cheap."

Marafice nodded. He had already worked out some of this for himself. "Scarpe's sworn to Blackhail—one of their former sons is the new Hail chief. How will it sit with them to aid the army that attacked Blackhail at Ganmiddich?"

Perish pushed his lips together and breathed deeply through his nose. Slowly and gravely he began to shake his head. "Not nearly as bad as it should. Do not forget they let us cross in the first place. What did they think we were going to do? Make parlor visits? Someone at Scarpe knew what we were about, and either wasn't much concerned, or even worse it suited them." Perish's cataract-burdened gaze rested long on Marafice Eye. "If you're asking me is it worth making overtures at Scarpe my answer is yes. If you're asking me how to go about it I say use caution and be prepared to move out quickly. No clansman fears our God and all are damned, but some move in deeper hells than others."

Marafice stood. The heat from the fire was hot upon his face and the blackening pine needles suddenly smelled like embalmer's fluid. At that instant he wished he had something to crush between his fists, so deeply and completely did he hate the grangelords who had abandoned this army. How dare they? How dare they leave these men injured, unsupported, and cut off?

Aware that he was pacing and that his fists were pumping, Marafice made an effort to calm himself. Not for Perish's sake—the man had taught him how to protect his balls from sword thrusts when he was seventeen; there was little room for pretense between them—but for the sake of others who were standing and sitting close by, marking the conversation between their commander and the former master-at-arms.

Finally, Marafice had been able to speak. "I hear your warning," he told Perish. "We'll be there in a couple of days. We will see how Scarpe lies."

Looking around, Marafice reckoned there was a very good chance they were in Scarpe-held territory right now. He could see smoke in the not far distance, rising above ugly purplish pines that looked half burned. The river was not bonnie here. Dozens of streams and creaks drained the headlands, and the waters they transported ranged in color from gray and scummy, to tarlike black. Upshore, an abandoned and improperly sealed mine head leaked yellow fluid into a shallow river pool that had a dead raven floating on the surface. Everyone had to be careful with their horses, for the ground was littered with sharp-edged slate and seeded with devil's thorns.

Down column, they were having difficulty pulling one of the carts up the stream bank and Marafice rode down the line to help them, nodding once to Jon Burden along the way. The command is yours.

The carts had originally been designed to transport those dozens of little luxuries that grangelords deemed necessary to life; silk pillows, perfumed oil, wooden salt scrapers, beeswax candles, back itchers, preserved fruit, field armor, war armor, riding armor, red wine, white wine, fine liquors and all manner of cured and exotic meats. A lot of that stuff had been left behind and it made for poor eating but good comradeship. Fruit fights had occurred. Pillows had been commandeered as targets; and the salt scrapers had found a brief but deeply satisfying use as firewood. The alcohol had run out three days back: it was the only taste his men and the grangelords shared.

Seeing that one of the rear cartwheels was wedged in the crack between two hunks of slate, Marafice ordered the horses to be unhitched. Forward was not going to work here: the cart needed to roll back. As the driver and others close by set to work on the horses, Marafice and a dozen other men dismounted to brace the rear. The driver had a steady hand and was able to warn those in the water the instant the hitch was released. Marafice accepted the great weight of the cart, and began barking out orders. Shoulder muscles shaking in intensive bursts, he and the other men controlled the backward roll into the stream.

It was smallest of the three carts, he was grateful for that. They'd padded it with blankets and a decent pile of sword-shredded silk cushions, but it was not an easy ride for the twenty-five men within it. As he looked over the tailgate he saw this was the cart containing the clansmen they'd taken as captives. Two Hailsman and two Crabman, all wounded and chained to the posts. It wasn't much of a headcount, but Marafice was close to glad there were no more. Captives were a headache. They needed to be watched, fed, doctored, and, in the par ticular case, protected from the zealous tendencies of Perish and his faithful who would like to see them burn.

The Hailsmen stared at Marafice with proud and wary faces. The two hammermen were big men with silvery stretch marks across the skin of their arm and shoulder muscles. One of them had been responsible for the deaths of a dozen brothers-in-the-wateh; Marafice knew this to be so because he had watched the man fight with his own eye. He was young, with an unscarred face and clear brown eyes, yet Marafice had the feeling that he had been the one in command at the gate. He had been an untiring fighter and good rallier of men. Marafice doubted if they would have been able to take him if one of Steffan Grimes' crossbowmen hadn't softened him with a quarrel to the ribs.

All five of the clansmen had turned stone cold in protest when Tat Mackelroy had tried to remove their pouches of powdered guidestone. Marafice himself had issued the order to remove all weapons and personal effects from the captives, but seeing something akin to desperation in the eyes of the clansmen as Tat cut away the first man's powder pouch, Marafice had modified the order. He knew fighting men and he knew desperate men. Let the five keep their clannish tokens: it would go easier on everyone that way.

Later Marafice had had to battle the point with Perish who counted it as an offense against God that men in this column were carrying, how did he put it? The ashes of pretender gods. It had not been a comfortable conversation for Marafice, for at some point he realized he was dead set on having his way. To tell the man who had first taught you how to correctly balance a sword that you were favoring an enemy at his expense was hard. Yet something deep down in Marafice would not move. Strange enough, Perish had let it be and had not referred to the matter since.

It had been Jon Burden who brought up the subject of interrogating the captives. The commander of Rive Company had rightly pointed out that they needed to know the names and ranks of the five men. Marafice had allowed him to question them without use of force but that had yielded nothing. Burden now wanted to be free to rough them up and scare them. Marafice agreed that such measures were necessary, but told him to hold off until the worst of their wounds had healed. Who cared about clannish ranking anyway? They had chiefs, but not much else.

"Driver! Hitch the horses!" Marafice wanted to be gone. He and the other men had made the small adjustment necessary to take the cart on a different course up the bank and now they held it steady while the driver positioned the team and fastened the cinches and chest bare. Rusty water ran over the toes of Marafice's black bonis, Some got in. A clannish sword had pierced the leather during the final charge on the gate.

"Ride on," Marafice commanded. The driver was back on his seat and he clicked his tongue, setting the team into motion.

Marafice realized he was sweating as the weight finally moved off his chest. The young hammerman stared at him as the cart climbed the bank and Marafice frowned back. Damn captives. More trouble than they're worth.

When he was back in the saddle and riding up the column, Marafice found himself snapping out orders. The machinists were falling behind with their contraptions, a wounded mercenary had slumped over the neck of his horse and nobody had bothered to aid him, and a handful of free pikers looked drunk. The Knife was in a bad mood and the sight of that smoke above the rise north of the fiver did not do anything to improve it. It was one thing for the great Penthero Iss to do dealings and double dealings and dickering^—he enjoyed them—but not Marafice Eye. He feared being tricked.

Yet even as he joined Jon Burden at the head of the line he spied a movement between the sickly purple trees. The river was well used here, he noticed. As they followed the curve of the river north, plank jetties and worn paths came into view. Draglines told of boats hauled up the bank and concealed in the woods. A wooden gutting hut sat on piles at the water's edge, and everywhere there were signs of men: burned out fires, moldy tarp, tattered fishing line, whittled sticks, apple cores, trout bones.

Marafice knew they were being watched and kept his chin high and back straight. He had told no one other than Perish about his plan to deal with Scarpe and he was glad of that because it meant no one in the column slowed. Iss' 'advice moved like a cold mist through Marafice's brain. Let them come to you.

The Scarpe roundhouse was a couple of leagues north of the river and you could not see it through the trees. The smoke from the house smelled oily and slightly poisonous—not good for children or asthmatics. Marafice wondered about Scarpe's system of watches. How long had they known the city men were coming? Certainly long enough to abandon the riverbank and hide the boats. Was it long enough to plan a surprise attack? The Knife gave a silent order to Jon Burden to relay down the line. Stand ready.

He meant it for himself, he realized, for the column had already fallen into a quiet, jumpy watchfulness. None dared draw weapons without his say, but they were thinking about it. He could see it in their eyes. A quick glance down the ranks revealed that mounted brothers-in-the-watch were now heavily flanking the two carts that contained their wounded. The third cart, containing mercenaries, a handful of hideclads and the captive clansmen, deserved no such consideration' apparently, and trundled along unguarded save for a lone spearman stationed there by Steffan Grimes.

When arrows were loosed from behind the trees, Marafice jumped in his saddle. Even expecting a surprise he had been surprised, and watched the missiles fly with something between panic and amazement. Long arrows, nearly four feet in length, pierced the dirt and grass in a near perfect line twenty paces ahead of the column, forming a barrier to the way ahead. Dozens and dozens of them continued striking the same thin stretch of beach until a wall of sticks was formed. The arrows' feather fletchings riffled in the wind as the shafts vibrated, sending their message to the city men.

Do not pass.

Marafice and Jon Burden exchanged a glance. The head of Rive Company waited for his commander to speak. The wall was four feet high, two deep and eight long: any fool could pass it. Marafice raised an arm, calling the column to a halt. It was a technicality; most men had already stopped. The woods surrounding the river were quiet. Marafice could not see anyone move within them. He waited, waited. A red-tailed hawk rose on the thermals above the river and swooped south in search of prey. Men in the column began to cuss and spit in mild shows of disapproval. Marafice ignored them.

He heard the mounted men before he saw them, horse hoofs pounding dully in ground softened by yesterday's rain. Thirty warriors dressed in black cloaks and black leathers rode through a break in the trees. They were lean men, tall and pale, with thin braids fastened in complicated arrangements and gleams of silver at their throats and ears. Their weapons were couched, but as they drew to a halt all men save their leader drew swords.

Marafice's hand shot up, commanding his army to stillness. It was an order he would never have given in the past. People who drew weapons in his presence usually ended up dead.

"Our chief denies you passage through this clanhold," called out the head warrior. He had stopped about fifty paces upshore, insuring high ground and a quick retreat for his men.

Marafice forced himself to remember the bowmen concealed in the woods. Otherwise he would very much like to hack these men down. "I want passage south, not west. Take me to your chief."

The head warrior showed no surprise. A hand gloved in expertly tanned black leather patted his horse's mane. "Choose two men to accompany you. Your weapons will be ransomed but held within your sight."

What the hell good will that do me? Marafice thought. Aloud he said, "Pick three of your own to stand as hostages for our safe return." After taking a long and pointed look down his column, past crossbow-men, pikers, swordsmen, more swordsmen, spearmen, machinists and foot soldiers, he added nastily, "They can keep their weapons out and swinging."

Two spots of heat colored the head warrior's cheeks. He chose three of his men who couldn't have looked less thrilled and directed them to stand by the wall of arrows. To Marafice, he said, "Follow me."

He was a fine horseman, turning his horses with grace and precision and building up to a canter as he headed for the trees. All the Scarpemen moved swiftly, putting Marafice and his chosen at a distinct disadvantage: their horses were nervous of picking up speed in the woods. Marafice had picked Tat Mackelroy and a mercenary from the ranks he did not know to accompany him. It was a decision made in an instant, but he was pleased enough with it. Perish and Jon Burden were too precious to lose—they would know what to do if he didn't return. Cut their losses and force a path west. Tat was a good man, and Marafice had become used to having him at his back. As for the mercenary … well, the poor sod might learn something. Or die.

The head warrior cut a tight path through the pines. The tree boughs had been sheared off to a height approaching twelve feet to enable men mounted on horses to ride freely. Marafice felt a tightness in his chest all the same. His deepest fear was to lose his remaining eye. Sunlight razored through the pines at sharp angles, creating bands of light and shade. Seeing the way ahead was difficult. Marafice lagged behind. Tat and the mercenary stayed close, confused but loyal.

When Marafice took a hand from the rein meaning to push away a drooping pine bough, Tat warned him not to touch it. "Poisons pines," he murmured softly. "Scarpe's known for them."

They were led not to the roundhouse but a large clearing in the woods that had been seeded with dark green grass. A canopy made from the same fine black leather as the head warrior's gloves had been erected in the center. Under its shade sat the Scarpe chief, waiting.

Yelma Scarpe was small and sharp-shouldered with thin lips and dyed black hair. She wore a sword like a man, and every one of her ten bony fingers glittered with oversize jewels. Once Marafice and his two men were in open ground, she scribed a shape in the air, and two hundred men stepped from the shadows, swords drawn, points out, forming a circle of blades around the glade.

Marafice forced himself to calm. He had thought it would be a small thing to put himself in danger, but he realized now that it was not. Riding through the pines had thrown him off center and he could not recall what advantages he brought here. Part of him had assumed that once he was here he would know what to do. Iss had made negotiation seem effortless, like breathing, but this air was too rich for Marafice's lungs. He wanted only to be gone.

The chair occupied by the Scarpe chief was high-backed and solid, made from a single block of oak. The armrests were carved in the shape of weasels and Yelma Scarpe rested her rubied and sapphired hands upon their heads. "You stand in my clanhold without my leave. This does not please me."

Marafice was unsure whether or not this statement required a reply. He had remembered one piece of advice given to him by Iss and he held on to it like a talisman. Listen twice before you speak.

Yelma Scarpe drummed the weasel heads. "My nephew tells me you need to cross the river. I command the last crossing between here and the Storm Margin. That means you must make term's with me. It is possible that you would be able to force a path west through my clanhold, but that would cost us both men, and leave you farther away from Spire Vanis, searching for a crossing that does not exist. Five rivers drain into the Wolf beyond this point, three of them from the north. What this means to you and your army is that even staying on course along the Wolf will be diffcult, and you may be forced into the northern woods."

She paused, favoring Marafice with something so hard and joyless he doubted if it could be named a smile.

"My scouts tell me you have injured. Three cartloads."

Marafice said nothing. Sunlight reflecting off one of the Scarpemen's swords was bounefng into his good eye. A black rage was simmering within him and he imagined kicking the Scarpe chief in the head and crushing her against the chair. Finally the pressure became too much. "What if we just steal your fucking boats? You can't match us for numbers-half of your men are at Blackhail."

"You'll be stealing burned wood if you try it," she said back to him, relaxed now that he had stepped into the hole she had dug for him. "The barges have been primed with lamp oil. One word from me and they're up in flames."

Marafice felt like a fool. All of it could be bluff and he would never know it. The five rivers, the last crossing, the barges wet with oil. Iss would have never walked into a meeting ignorant of such things. Knowledge was power. And lack of knowledge meant that you could be backed into a corner and made to pay to get out.

"Shall I name my terms?"

He did not know how he managed not to choke on the words: "Go ahead."

The Scarpe chief made a small satisfied sniff. "I want the war machines, the battering ram. Two hundred horses and their saddles, two hundred suits of armor including leg pieces, and the clansmen you hold as hostage."

Her scouts were good, he had to give her that. She waited for an answer, her purple tongue flicking out once to wet her lips, her jeweled fingers stroking the weasel heads. How had it got so hot in this damn glade? Marafice glanced at the overhead sun and then wished he hadn't. Circles of light burned his eye. That moron with the sword was flashing him on purpose as well. He needed to think but all he could see in his mind's eyes were weasels and blistering light.

With a biting motion of his teeth, Marafice forced himself to weigh the chiefs demands. The war machines? She could have them. They only hit their target one time out of five, as he recalled. And the battering ram would be a pleasure to leave; its wheels got stuck more often than the carts'. Steffan Grimes might kick up a fuss—it was his company's ram, after all—but in Marafice s experience professional mercenaries were usually inured to the vagaries of war. People died, possessions were lost, others were gained: such were the norms for professional soldiers.

The horses, though. They were different. Two hundred was a greedy little demand and she knew it. If he met her on this it would cost his army dear. Brothers-in-the-watch would be deprived of their mounts, for Marafice could not see a way to take horses solely from the mercenaries. The cost would have to be borne fairly, else mutiny was risked. As for the armor—well, she could have his riding plate, for a start. Thing chafed like all the hells when you tried to move in it The other hundred and ninety-nine suits shouldn't be much of a problem either, though the pieces would not necessarily match.

He said, "A hundred horses and I'm keeping the clansmen."

"A hundred and fifty and I keep the clansmen."

She was nothing if not fast. Marafice looked into her small black eyes and told her, "The clansmen are not negotiable." He barely knew why he did it, for up until that point the clansmen had been negotiable—they were captives, their purpose was to be pumped for information and then sold. It even made sense that she, as a clan chief, would want to buy back members of her liege clan, Blackhail. Yet he dd not think her purpose here was a moral one. Anything this woman gave you would end up costing more than its worth.

Just as Yelma Scarpe opened her mouth to speak, Marafice stopped her. He had remembered something about the Scarpe roundhouse and thought, To hell with it I'll let if fly. "I heard there was some burn damage to your roundhouse. Must make it hard to defend."

That closed down her pinched little face. She had just been about to insist on the clansmen, he was certain of it, but now she paused for a moment to rethink. Around the glade, two hundred swordsmen shifted their weight from foot to foot. Some let their sword points dip, others exchanged brief glances.

"A hundred and fifty. Done." Yelma Scarpe rose to her feet. "I'll send out a bargeman to run the ropes. Be ready with your tribute within the hour."

Tribute, that was a nice word for it. Marafice did not bid her farewell, indeed said nothing as he watched her bony rump slip away between the trees. She was a weasel all right. He did not think he had bested her, but at least he had held on to something. Fifty horses and five clansmen to be exact.

The thought gave him some pleasure, and when a lone cloud puffed across the sun he actually smiled at the man who had been trying to blind him with the reflection from his sword. Apparently the Eye smile was not a pleasant sight for the swordsman looked quickly away. Blinded you back with ugliness, Marafice thought with satisfaction.

"Come on, boys," he said to Tat and the mercenary. "Let's get out of this weasel's den and make our way home." Spire Vanis was calling his name.