Tom Deitz - Bloodwinter_玖贝云文库

From a master of contemporary fantasy comes an unforgettable tale of heroes, heroines, and

rogues whose two rival nations are scarred by suspicion, shadowed by war, and summoned to

destiny by a magic that is both gift and curse.

BLOODWINTER

In the icy northern realm of Eron, three young artisans bound by an unspeakable act of violence arrive at

an isolated gem mine on a special commission for their king. They are the arrogant but talented Eddyn;

Avall, his archrival; and beautiful Strynn, newly wed to Avall...but carrying Eddyn's child. Meanwhile, to

the south, in the heart of Ixti's scorpion-riddled sands and sensuous cities, a horrible accident has forced

Prince Kraxxi into exile with blood on his hands and a price on his head. The four will be drawn together

- and torn apartby a magnificent find: a gem with magical properties beyond anyone's imagining or

control. It is a struggle in which hidden forces pursue a frighteningly sinister agenda. For whoever

possesses the gem holds the future of the world...and the power to destroy it.

Visit Bantam's website at www.bantam.com/spectra

BLOODWINTER

A TALE OF ERON

TOM DEITZ

BANTAM BOOKS NEW YORK TORONTO LONDON SYDNEY AUCKLAND

BLOODWINTER

A Bantam Spectra Book / April 1999 Tom and Linda Jean:

you can go home again

SPECTRA and the portrayal of a boxed "s" are trademarks of Bantam Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

Book design by James Sinclair.

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing

from the publisher.

For information address: Bantam Books.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Deitz, Tom.

Bloodwinter : a tale of Eron / by Tom Deitz.

p. cm. (A Bantam spectra book)

ISBN 0-553-37863-5

I. Title.

PS3554.E425B58 1999 813.54-dc21 98-39999

CIP

Published simultaneously in the United States and Canada

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words "Bantam Books" and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other

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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Stephen Andersen

Juliet Combes

Tom Dupree

Anne Groell

Kate Hengerer

Linda Jean Jeffery

Tom Jeffery

Buck Marchinton

Deena McKinney

Howard Morhaim

Lindsay Sagnette

Anita Wilson

PRELUDE: A SCENT OF BURNING

(ERON: APPROACHING GOLD STAR GAP - DEEP WINTER - DAY

LXXXVIII)

Spring, Amalian concluded, had arrived not an instant too early.

It had snowed as late as yester morn: thick, heavy flakes that had come wafting out of the northwest, as though the

mountains in Angen's Spine were airing out their linens for the Light. Which, she supposed, made her and the trek she

mastered among the larger, more recalcitrant motes of accumulated detritus. If The Eight dwelt in those gloomy peaks

behind her, which she doubted - or if the rocks themselves were subtly alive, which some of Common Clan averred -

they'd have to rise early indeed to loathe the cold season as much as she.

Oh, it had been beautiful enough in Stone-Hold-Winter, where the Fateing had sent her last Dark Half. The head-high

drifts had made a fabulous backdrop for the statuary in the forecourt: warriors this rotation, carved in ruddy catlinite

that contrasted nicely with the dark green hollies. Still, the cliffs and crags so prevalent thereabouts were harsh, naked

rock that had as its primary virtue its many grades and colors, most of which were good for carving - which Amalian

had spent all winter doing, and which was another thing she wouldn't miss with the turning of the year.

At least she hadn't been cold. Some of the winter holds were absolutely frigid, in spite of the steam-springs with which

they were heated. Besides, Gory had been posted with her, and he was furry enough to keep several people warm -

even through those wild solstice storms when three strong sets of walls and doors between living quarters and the

cold without failed to stave off winter's fingers.

But she'd missed people, curse it! People in all their variety - any people beyond the same double-hundred-odd she'd

seen day in and day out at the hold. And over half of those were her kin, whom she saw most of the year anyway.

Which was why, when Stone-Hold's weather-witch predicted an early spring and the Ekkon River broke through its ice

a whole eight-day sooner than expected, she'd determined to take the risk.

So far it had been worth it, with far more color in the first-blooms than usual. Why, the gold stars that named this place

almost glowed, and the ferns and bracken were particularly bright and frothy in the hollows among the pines. And the

skies! Clear for days (yester morn notwithstanding) and so blue she wanted to reach up and chip away a chunk to

carve into something precious.

Something for the twins, perhaps. Carmil and Egin: girl and boy. Thirteen now, and poised on the chisel blade between

the children they'd been last Sundeath, when the journey north had begun, and the adults they were fast becoming.

Both were a hand taller than when they'd left the lowlands, and Carmil had breasts and a woman's bleeding. Egin's

voice was shifting so that his singing, which had been so sweet, was now rather more like croaking. And Gory, who'd

seen him daily in the baths, had confided that their little boy now had hair in all men's places - matching that on his

head, which was the same red-lit black as his sire's. Carmil's mirrored Amalian's own rare tawny gold.

She wondered where they were now. Riding ahead with Gory, perhaps? Or back swapping tales with the braver folk

from Oak, who'd swelled their ranks that morning? She envied them - the children their freedom, the Oak folk their

proximity to the northmost of the gorges where the bulk of clan, craft, and kin spent Eron's too-brief summers. It was to

that cleft in the coastal plateau that Amalian led the trek now, through melting drifts of knee-deep snow. If luck rode

with them, some of them would sleep in their own beds tonight, which would be change enough from the crowded

chaos of the way stations that marked the nights between holds, halls, and gorges.

Sighing, she reached back to flip up her cloak's fur-lined hood. A breeze had come whipping out of the gap ahead, and

she wondered if the twinge troubling her knees as she resettled them was merely token of a winter's inaction or the first

insidious gnawings of old age.

Not the latter, she prayed. She wasn't far past thirty, and the sixty more years she expected to attain would be no great

joy if her joints chose to ache through most of them.

And then the wind shifted, riding in from the south, bringing with it a hint of warmth that stirred her heart out of all

proportion to its intensity.

But it brought other things as well: the scent of death, and, so faint as to be barely discernible, the scent of burning.

"I smell death," Amalian informed her husband, reining back the team: golds from Arsten, which had been part of her

wedding dower from Gory's clan, who bred them.

Gory slapped his fractious gray gelding and nodded, his breath making blizzards in the air, riming the beard that framed

his narrow, blue-eyed face. His cloak twitched in the wind. "Sheep," he grunted, as though that explained everything.

Amalian raised a brow. Gory was a fine man and an excellent mate - and said about ten words an eighth, as though he'd

been born with a fixed allotment and treasured them like his clan treasured wagon-cattle.

"Which I presume belong to somebody," Amalian sighed, thinking that perhaps she might get a better account from

the spindly pines that flanked the road to the left, or the rough-shelved slate cliffs slanting up to the right.

Gory grimaced. "Haven't been dead long, and there's only two. Margil's spent some time with the sheep folk and says

the clan clips on their ears mark them as belonging to a small sept-hall on the south rim of North Gorge."

"A good day's ride from here."

Gory nodded.

"Wolves, then? Or birkits? Or -" She refused to name the other, because there was supposed to be no other. Wisdom

said it was too cold for geens - man-sized lizard-things that walked on their hind legs - north of South Gorge. But

Amalian wondered. Wisdom also said they were stupid as snakes, and she knew that was a lie.

Gory shrugged. "Just dead. A little rotten, no sign of violence."

"How long?"

Another shrug. "Thawed maybe two days. Beyond that, the only way of knowing is if we had a female, to check the

unborn. They tend to conceive close to the same time."

"Lucky for us - if we had one," Amalian snorted. "Still, livestock escapes. And escaped livestock often dies."

"Aye," was Gory's sole reply.

By midday they'd crested Gold Star Gap and were on the last long winding slope before the road poured them out on

the plains southeast below them: a patchwork of waving sheep grass and lingering snow, framed by the tips of the

flanking pines. By midafternoon North Gorge should be in sight. By sunfall, they should be well on their way to Tir-Mil

at the bottom.

But somehow she was uneasy. Not one person in the hundred had offered anything useful about the dead sheep, and

they'd seen fifteen now. Speculation over them had been curtailed when they'd found the dead man.

It had been Gory (again) who'd discovered him - poor Gory, whose draw it had been to lead the day's outriders. The

man had been dead at least eight days, and scavengers had been at him, so that it was hard to tell much save that he'd

sheltered at Sharp Stone Station to bathe in the waters there and succumbed - naked - on the deep pool's stony marge.

Heart freeze was possible. Heat could do that, and it was a very hot spring (and one Amalian had looked forward to

sampling before their final approach). As best they could tell, the man had been in his early twenties. And, by the

clothing flung about and ravaged - likely by the same beasts that had gnawed away his insides - he'd come from a

prosperous clan. Beyond that, he'd been unremarkable. Black-haired, lightly bearded, fairly hairy, fit, and of the middle

height and slim build typical of the Eronese. His clan tattoo, which would have revealed much, had been devoured

along with most of his shoulder. Or scratched away, for the bulk of the man's intact skin was covered with long, deep

furrows. He'd hacked off his hair, too, and not neatly, though men often did that near the end of the Dark.

It was another mystery. Amalian had ordered his body wrapped in oiled canvas and stored in the rearmost wagon.

Burning would come later, when they'd determined his identity.

Four sun-hands later, they'd found a dozen more sheep, dead exactly as the others, but clipped to a different clan. And

while that disturbed Amalian, it didn't truly concern her. By nightfall they'd be in Tir-Mil, where'd there'd be people

whose duty it was to attend such things. She was merely the messenger.

What did disturb her was the fact that they could see the gorge now: a dark slash on the horizon, with the perpetual

veil of steam rising out of it. But that steam was laced with darker vapors, which could only be the smoke of copious

burning.

She smelled it, too, as she had that morning. But now it held a sharp, sweet tang she didn't like. If she didn't know

better - if such things hadn't been rendered impossible by unshakable oaths between clan and craft - she'd have sworn

war ravaged the gorge.

But that was absurd.

Besides, the road was flattening, the pines falling away to either side, and there was more waving grass ahead than

melting snow, and that made her heart sing and fly.

The children sang as well - when they deigned to ride beside her: Carmil in her usual clear soprano, Egin in a cracky,

pretentious boy-bass. It was a new song, too, one someone at Oak had contrived over the Deep, and seemed to

involve a drunken man trying to sleep with women who were not always women. So much for her children's innocence.

Egin fairly glowed. She wondered if that spotty glitter along his jaw was the first outpost of stubble.

Three hands later, they crested a rise and saw the guard station sprawling across the road ahead, maybe a shot from

the gorge's northeast rim. Like most such structures built in High King Kryss's time, it was utterly unadorned and of

the prescribed configuration: a single square tower five levels high, with smooth, trapezoidal sides and a flat roof. Each

side fronted a square, walled courtyard marked by a two-story gatehouse, and the whole complex was enclosed by a

lower wall to form a square within a cross within a square when viewed from above. The walls were thick, the

stonework set with such impeccable skill as to show only hair-fine joins, so that neither foe nor winter could claim a

hold. With shots of open country around, the former was unlikely; the latter a foregone conclusion.

Usually, though, such places were alive with people going about their tasks like ants upon a hill. And while Amalian

knew that she'd come upon them days before expected, that offered no explanation for the air of decrepitude that

informed the place.

And then the wind brought smoke from the gorge, which set her choking and folding her hood across her nose, while

Carmil made disgusted faces and Egin scowled.

Gory came flying back with the other two outriders close behind, all wide-eyed and harried-looking. "Come!" Gory

called tersely. "Ride with me. Only... come."

Amalian hesitated, then tossed the reins to Egin as the boy switched deftly from saddle to wagon seat. She mounted

nigh as easily, flinging a leg across Skipstone's back with relaxed familiarity. An instant later they were galloping.

"I could explain," Gory muttered. "It'd be simpler if the guard did."

Amalian started to remind him that there was a time for silence and a time for speech, and then she saw the guard.

It was a woman, no older than herself and possibly younger. She wasn't in the tower, nor even atop the gatehouse that

barred entrance to the forecourt; rather, she slumped like a door page just inside the gatehouse's portcullised entry

arch, as though her duty no longer mattered.

She was dressed appropriately, in North Gorge heraldry - cloak of black and deep green slashed with silver, over the

blood red tunic of War-Hold - but the cloak was dark with stains that mirrored the shadows beneath what should've

been remarkably pretty gray eyes. A naked sword with War-Hold's plain barred hilt rested across her mail-clad thighs,

but Amalian doubted she had the strength to use it - not that she would ever have had much need. Eron, after all, was

civilized.

Wordlessly, Amalian dismounted and strode to within the armspan politeness proscribed. "Greetings," she said

formally. "I am Amalian of Clan Eemon of Stonecraft, out of Stone-Hold-Winter. I hope the Dark has favored you and

that the Light favors you twice and thrice again."

The guardswoman stared at her unblinking, as though she barely heard. Sickness, Amalian thoughtor bone-tired

weariness. Which, now that she looked, seemed more likely.

"Greetings... Amalian, or whatever you said," the woman mumbled in a raspy whisper. "If you seek Tir-Mil, you seek

that which will please you little to find. Which some of you, by law of its council, are forbidden to enter."

Amalian's brow furrowed in a mix of anger and concern. She folded her arms across her breast, letting her cloak fall free

to frame what could be, when she chose, an impressive figure. "It would be best if you spoke plainly."

"Plainly, then," the guardswoman gritted. "Plague."

Amalian flinched back a step. A people who lived so close together so much of the year must fear such things indeed.

"Plague," she echoed numbly.

The woman nodded. "A new plague, the cure for which no one can discover. It arrived from the south, with the last

trek before the Deep. Beyond that, we know little for certain. The winter holds - we pray - have been spared. But

communication has all but collapsed. I have heard nothing from Tir-Mil for four days - and yet I dare not return."

Amalian felt heartsick, not only for her dashed hopes - though surely there'd be some way to risk the gorge - but also

for the despair on this woman's face, which she knew was reflected a thousandfold elsewhere.

To her surprise, Gory spoke. "We found a dead man -"

"It begins as an itch in the ears, nose, and privates," the guard broke in tonelessly, "more often in men than women.

The itch grows worse, and no potion or balm can cure it. In time it grows strong enough to drive men mad. Often, they

attack each other or carve out their own ears and noses and other things. I've heard more than one say that their brains

were being eaten from within."

"And... women?" Amalian breathed.

The guard wouldn't meet her stare. "It... attacks the female parts and womb. We bleed uncontrollably. Those with child

miscarry - or worse. It's feared those who survive will conceive no more."

Amalian shuddered. "And how many do survive?"

The woman shrugged. "A few. We don't know why, though the healers have tried everything. When I came here, it

had taken one in three of the men, and maybe one in nine of the women. Mostly younger women."

Amalian's eyes narrowed. "Men - or males?"

"Men," the guardswoman answered. "Children are rarely afflicted. The weavers, however -"

Amalian looked troubled. "Weavers..."

Gory scowled at her. "What are you thinking?"

Amalian shook her head uncertainly. "That there might be a connection. Weavers to wool to sheep to those dead

sheep we saw."

Gory stroked his chin. "And sheep are driven north with the season, so that the cold may thicken their coats."

"And this plague began in the south."

The guard plucked at her cloak, which, Amalian noted, was thrice-woven sylk, not the wool she'd have expected. "That

much we do know, but little more. No one is allowed to wear wool - and that was only decided four days ago. Since

then, I've had neither word nor relief."

Amalian scowled. "So what you are telling us is that we advance at our own risk. Surely you know some of us will dare

the gorge. Many have family there."

The guard didn't move. "The Law I am given is this: Women may enter at their peril. Men may not until the plague runs

its course."

"Damn!" Amalian spat, spinning 'round to glare at Gory as though it were all his fault. His face, too, was hard and grim.

Then again, he had kin in Tir-Mil; she didn't.

"You lead the trek," he said simply. "You don't lead the people. You've brought them where they need to go and that's

sufficient. What they do as concerns this plague is their decision."

The glare softened not a whit. "And you, husband?"

"I value my life. And I'd prefer that my children have a father."

"Well," Amalian sighed, "I'll alert the trek."

Egin loved a mystery. Close behind that, he had what his mother had always called a reckless fascination with danger.

It was therefore inevitable that he'd catch wind of this plague and the fact that entire halls were being systematically

closed up and torched down in North Gorge, not to mention the people who dwelt in them - once they'd died. And

that, he decided, embraced both elements. There was the puzzle of what had brought this contagion, how it was

spread, why some survived once it had run its course, and the greater enigma of why it singled out men. And there

was the thrill of the forbidden.

The guard had said men were banned, period (as though she'd strength to enforce such a thing alone), and that

women went of their peril.

Nothing, precisely, had been said about boys. And while he wasn't exactly a boy anymore - not in height, hairiness, or

(as he'd happily discovered one cold winter night back in Stone) the ability (in theory) to beget children still, he was

not so far along that rather-too-responsible road that anyone actually expected to find him there. Which meant he'd get

away with as much as he could for as long as he could, and damned be the consequences.

So it was that shortly after first-moon, he left his bedroll beneath his parents' caravan and ambled off in the direction of

the livestock picket, officially to add his excreta to what was already stinking there. Happily, that stench had resulted

in the packhorses and wagon-cattle being billeted downwind - which was to say between the camp, with its circled

wagons and too-bright fires, and the gorge. And more happily, the fact that they were first trek down this season

meant that the grass hereabouts hadn't been grazed to stubble; indeed, was waist high on him and afforded excellent

cover. Add a dull tan cloak and hair still spiky from sleep, and one had a recipe for stealth.

Except that his sister seemed to have heard him (he could tell it was her by the whistle in her breath when she panted)

and tagged along. And since he knew from experience that she would demand to accompany him and would raise an

Eight's-awful cry if denied, he held his tongue when that tawny-topped shape burst through the grass beside him, clad

in riding leathers, and with a face that far too closely mirrored his mother's when anger sat upon her like a mountain

gathering thunder.

"You're a fool!" Carmil hissed. "People are dying down there!"

He tried not to show his fear as he paused for her. "I'm only going to the edge - no farther down than I have to in order

to see -"

"What?"

"Buildings burning. People... dying. I dunno. Excitement! Anything besides Mother and Father and this wretched

trek!"

"You're a man, Egin. Men are forbidden."

He laughed at her. "Last night you told me I was a boy. You can't have it both ways."

"Neither can you! I bleed; you squirt. That's what adults say marks the line."

"But they don't see those things; therefore they don't think about them; therefore they don't act on them. Besides, I

say it's responsibility makes the difference, which is the same as accepting risk."

Carmil started to reply, then clearly thought better of it. "If you die, I'm not going to cry!"

"Wouldn't want you to," Egin sniffed, and strode off through the grass toward the gorge.

They took pains to avoid the trek road, which terminated in another tower, poised right on North Gorge's rim, where

the river road came in from the south. It was deserted, which was both odd and frightening. But there were always

more ways down than one, and it took barely another finger's scouting to locate a trail that snaked along the cliff to the

floor of the gorge, a shot below.

Trouble was, it didn't give much of a view of Tir-Mil, North Gorge's only true city. It did, however, reveal the burning.

What looked like boatsships, even - had been set alight and left to float down the river that divided the fourshot-wide

gash in the land. Maybe there was a better view lower down. As best Egin could tell, the trail ran among boulders,

scraggly trees, and what might be a ruin, tending always west. This had the sense of a place that had once been

important but fallen out of use.

"Egin, no!" Carmil warned as he made to descend. At least the pavement was still solid: plain flat stones set without

mortar, but decent work all the same.

And sure enough, a wall jagged across the trail, with evidence of crenellations along its top, while a whole shattered

tower clung to the cliff on the right. More interesting was the empty archway that spanned the trail-though even Egin

hesitated upon entering. It was really dark in there.

"Egin!" Carmil snapped.

"Just through here and I'll stop," Egin retorted. And though he had actually been considering a retreat, there was no

way he'd not dare the barrier now.

Steeling himself, he took a deep breath. And had not gone two steps into the blackness - not far enough for his eyes

to adjust - when he tripped over something soft. He screamed. The cry cracked halfway through, in a most-unmanly

fashion, yet he screamed again when his hand brushed another hand - and not Carmil's.

"Cold!" he yelped, even as he scrambled backward toward the arch.

Abruptly, he was up and running, grabbing Carmil on the way, and not stopping until they'd regained the rim.

"See anything?" his sister challenged when he paused there, winded from that long, mad scramble. She was barely

panting.

"Dark!" Egin gasped. "And a... dead man."

Carmil's eyes narrowed, exactly like their mother's. "Dead of what? And how long?"

"I don't know! He was still soft. And he didn't smell."

Carmil glared at him, and most especially at his nice wool cloak. "Leave that here," she commanded. "We'll have to ask

Mother what to do about it."

"I'll freeze!" Egin protested, hugging himself. But he unclasped the garment and let it fall.

"The price of disobedience," Carmil snorted. "But I'll let you off easy. You can tell Mother - or I will."

"In the morning."

A reluctant nod.

Egin rehearsed that telling all the way back to the camp. And he was still rehearsing when he crept back into his

bedroll and snugged the blankets under his chin. A layer of padded fabric lay between him and the trampled sheep

grass around the caravan; even so, the broken stems tickled his ear. Pie scratched it, then the other, which had decided

to protest in sympathy. And sneezed - likely from the grass pollen that was already scenting the wind.

He awoke to find his head in agony and his ears filled with an insidious tickle. In fact, he itched pretty much

everywhere - his scalp, his armpits, his groin, even inside his nose.

By midday he'd clawed himself raw and Amalian had dismissed the rest of the trek under command of her second, with

one blood-chilling word.

Plague.

Egin had the plague.

By sunset, he was babbling incoherently, and they'd had to tie his hands.

Two days later, while the year's final dusting of snowflakes drifted down upon breakfast, he died.

Nor was he the last.

PROLOGUE: VIOLATION

(ERON: TIR-ERON-HIGH SUMMER-DAY XXI)

Strynn squinted at the sun, then at the hiltless dagger in her hand, and scowled. It might do; then again, it might not.

She shifted the blade experimentally - as long as her forearm, elegantly tapered as a willow leaf, and folded the requisite

three-hundred-and-sixty times, so that the grain flowed like sylk and gleamed like moonlit fire: delicate as mist, yet so

strong and flexible it would never dull or lose its temper. It all but glowed in the afternoon glare, sunlight waking

glittering embers where iron and certain alloys known but to bladesmiths merged and danced and mingled.

But was it good enough?

She'd come to the water garden behind Smith-Hold-Main to find out and for two related reasons.

The first was the light. What might look smooth as ice by candlelight could look pocked as an old man's face by

harsher midday rays, and different again by mornlight, glowlight, or moonlight. This work must be perfect in all of

them.

The second reason was that she couldn't focus her attention amid chaos, and chaos reigned in the hold behind her,

where masters of the various smithcrafts (most of them born to that calling) labored to pass on their skills to the next

generation. Never mind the students from other clans and crafts who were obliged to spend a quarter at each hold in

turn, so as to acquire a minimal working knowledge of, for instance, forging, if only the making of nails. Trouble was,

those people talked too much - even her peers talked too much - which was why she was seeking solitude and silence.

"Honing is partly a function of sound," Tyrill, the ancient crone of a Craft-Chief, had confided. Sometimes you could

tell something was perfectly sharp by the sound it made when you flipped it with a fingernail. Strynn tapped the blade

experimentally, smiling at the ensuing "ping."

Sunlight, silence, and water. Things best had here, in the complex of glades, gardens, and retreats between

Smith-Hold's north arcade and the face of Eron Gorge, where two hundred years of plantwrights had twined nature and

artifice into a series of environments each utterly unique, yet complementary. A test of another kind - for them.

It was time for her test to begin.

A pause for a yawn, and she rose from the sandstone bench against which she'd been lounging and threaded between

an overgrown hedge and a carefully placed sheep-sized boulder to where a trained stream no more than a foot wide

swept into a shallow pool rimmed with irregular white stones. She knelt where the water entered and set the blade aside

long enough to reach up and pluck a single long black hair from her head. That accomplished, she retrieved the

dagger, set it point down in the water facing upstream, then released the strand so that the current would carry it

toward one gleaming edge. If a blade cut hair in running water with no other force behind it, that was indeed a blade.

And since this One was intended as a gift to her bond-sister and best friend, Merryn san Argen-a, she wanted it to be

absolutely perfect - a blade such as one heard of only in legends.

Closer... closer...

The hair drifted sideways, away from the edge. She shifted the dagger to meet it.

Closer...

Now!

The hair met the edge at an oblique angle, stopped for the barest instant, then moved on - in two pieces.

Strynn laughed and withdrew the weapon, drying it first on the hem of her robe, then on special cloths made for that

purpose. It gleamed in the sun. Bright as the sun, in fact, for at this angle all grain vanished, replaced with the mirror

sheen that reflected her face perfectly.

She frowned at that, as she locked the dagger away in the box she'd made for it.

She hated mirrors.

Not of themselves, of course. Glass, silver, and well-wrought wood, iron, or bronze were innocuous enough. Except

when they reminded her of the curse most of her friends - her female friends, she amended - would've given a winter's

crafting to endure.

Beauty.

Oh, it was fine enough, in theory. She was Eronese, after all, and her countrymen prized beauty - any kind - above all

things. But it was different to value a thing because it was well designed, lovingly made, and elegantly finished, than

to prize a person simply because the chance meeting of a man's seed and a woman's had contrived a certain set of

proportions.

She wasn't even that remarkable. She was no taller than average - exactly as tall as Merryn, in fact. Nor was she

notably slim or fat, but few of her countrymen were, save the aged and infirm, when inaction might render them a trifle

stout. She had black hair, but so did nine in ten of the clans and every single person in her adopted craft. And she had

dark blue eyes beneath arching black brows, but most women could claim the same. Smooth skin, too, she had, and full

rosy lips and an elegantly arching nose, and cheekbones that neither hid nor announced themselves.

Yet somehow the combination "achieved some finer synthesis" (to use her mother's phrase), so that she'd found

herself, at the summer fair two years back, proclaimed the most beautiful woman of her time.

Which had become a curse, because she'd somehow managed to shift from a slightly gawky girl everyone liked to a

symbol of unreachable desire. Which utterly discounted her smithwork (which was what really mattered, especially as

she hadn't been born to that craft) and scholarship (which wasn't far behind), both of which had once been universally

lauded.

Had it only been last autumn when she found herself catching more compliments on her smile than on the swords

she'd spent whole eighths beating and folding? And discovered to her dismay that young men seemed more interested

in what lay between her legs than within her skull?

And that was another curse: that she'd been born in these particular times. It had been eighteen years since the

plague. Eighteen years since one in six of her countrymen had died, and three men to one woman at that. It had played

havoc with clan and craft alike, upsetting balances that had always been precarious if the winter holds were to be

properly staffed. The upshot was that while no one had forced her mother either to wed or reproduce, every woman of

Strynn's generation was under intense pressure indeed to bear at least three children, and men competed for brides like

rabid wolves. Why, even the few conceived by the unwed - the unfathered, as they were called - were now granted a

place within their birth-clan, in a desperate push to bolster Eron's population before Ixti realized how vulnerable her

northern rival truly was.

She, Strynn san Ferr, the most beautiful woman of her time, was therefore a prize indeed. And while it would be her

choice whom she wed, it seemed unlikely that she'd have much say as to when some wedding occurred, other than

fairly soon.

"Oh Eight!" she muttered. Here came one of the principal claimants now, thrusting through the far gate which led

down to Clan Argen's gaming fields, and striding for the near one, a mere three spans away.

She prayed he wouldn't see her - and since her summer robe was the same green as the surrounding grass, and her hair

dark as the evergreen shadows behind her, that was a reasonable aspiration. If she looked down so that her hair veiled

her face, drew her hands into her sleeves, and didn't move, perhaps Eddyn would miss her entirely.

He seemed fairly intent - and not happy, to judge by the scowl that showed even through an unruly fall of

sweat-sodden hair worn too long for the season. And the way he was walking: long, hard steps that all but set the

ground to shaking, with his hands curled into fists around his ball-sticks as though he would strangle them... And no

sign of either shirt or shoes, which was a breach of decorum - Well, it was plain to see that Eddyn syn Argen-yr was

furious.

Probably at losing a game of orney, to judge by the sticks and the short, baggy breeches he wore above muscular legs.

Eddyn didn't like to lose, and for that reason tended to seek the company of those similarly inclined - in sports, arms,

and craft alike. Even when he did yield to defeat, there was always an excuse; often (Strynn conceded) a good one. He

disliked weakness in others, too, and pushed himself harder in compensation, as though to set a standard.

Certainly the body revealed as he drew near was pleasant to look upon, with its hard, spare muscles, sharp definition,

and the smooth waxed skin that had been enforced since the plague, lest body hair harbor the tiny mites that infested

wool and hair alike, and whose larvae (it had finally been determined) thrived on mucus membranes and earwax.

Still, by the look on his face, she pitied anyone who got in his way. Including herself, if he saw her. He hadn't been shy

about pressing his suit of late - not that he had a chance - and certainly not after the boast she'd overheard: that she,

Strynn, was saving herself for the best.

That was a laugh! Eddyn was no more the best than she was (though she was very good at certain things, in which

she took justifiable pride). Rather, he sought her for two reasons alone: her beauty and the power of her clan. Her mind

- Well, it would've been beneath him to wed someone stupid. And her craft - that might in truth be a problem. He was

accounted one of the best smiths of his generation, yet even so was no more than her equal, and she doubted Eddyn

could endure a mate as accomplished as he especially one who'd been born to another craft and clan.

Poor man. It wasn't even his fault, really. He'd no more asked to be principal protege to the daunting old Chief of

Smith-Hold than Strynn had asked to be born beautiful. The best thing that could happen would be if the Fateing

posted him far away next Deep Winter, which would give her time to make up her mind about whom to marry, since she

doubted her clan would grant her much more grace. A Dark at most, she suspected. Three quarters, then figurative

doom.

Which realization lit an explosion of frustration, so that before she could stop herself, she slapped her hand against

the pool's surround.

In the silence - and perfect acoustics - of the garden, the sound carried. Eddyn froze in mid-stride and mid-glower,

spun ferociously, and looked straight at her, eyes narrowed as they sought to pierce the shadowy gloom.

For a moment she thought he would ignore her and continue on. The Eight knew she'd been avoiding him like the Cold

of late, for his eyes went places they shouldn't, and his hands often twitched as though they'd like to follow, and there

was nothing Strynn could imagine more repellent than Eddyn's hands upon her body.

Instead, he marched straight toward her. She looked up at him, giving him no welcome with her eyes; rather

challenging with a hardening of her jaw, a lifting of her chin. If the man had any sense...

"Greetings, lady of the cool and the shade," he called civilly enough as he came within the requisite span for speech.

"You make quite the picture there, though the blue of your eyes would shame the sky reflected beside you."

"Mine are dark, the sky is pale - or are you blind as well as rude?"

Tom Deitz - Bloodwinter

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