Ash held the knife as she had been taught; thumb on the riser, index finger on the dimple, edge out. The handle was lightly hollowed for balance, and a Crosshatch pattern of overlapping flight feathers had been etched into its surface to form a grip. The metal was shockingly cold, and she waited for her body heat to warm it before she spoke. "Ishl xalla tannan."
I know the value of that which I take. Ark Veinsplitter had taught her the words: the first of the Sull prayers.
With a swift and practiced movement she ran the knife's edge across the short hair of the gelding's flank until she encountered the faint resistance of a surface vein. Tendons jerked in her wrist as she sliced through the vessel The horse shuddered briefly, then stilled as blood jetted from its belly. Kneeling forward, Ash opened her mouth to catch the flow. Blood gushed between her teeth, hot and winy and smelling of grass. She swallowed, filled her mouth and then swallowed again. Massaging the flesh around the cut to keep the vessel open, she drank until her stomach was full. Satiated, she clamped her palm against the wound. The gelding stepped into her, increasing the pressure. They both waited. Once the flow had decreased, Ash pinched the horseskin together and removed her hand.
As she sealed the wound with the purified wolf grease she kept in a pouch at her waist, a twig snapped with force beyond the treeline. Ash sprang to her feet. The cedars were a trap for shadows, black and suddenly still. The only thing that moved was mist venting from their roots. Ash listened, watched, smelled, and then slowly unhooked the sickle knife from her belt.
When the second sound came it was not from where she was expecting it. This time it came from the river shore. The wet plunk of something dropping into water. Without thinking she spun about to face it, and even before the scythe's chain stopped swinging, she realized her mistake. Anyone, anywhere could throw a stone into water.
"Drop your weapon." The order came from directly behind her. It was spoken mildly, but Ash wasn't fooled. Her foster father was the Surlord of Spire Vanis: she knew how power sounded.
Without turning she opened her fist and let the sickle knife drop to the ground. The silver letting knife was back in its deerhide sheath attached to her gear belt and she slid her left hand into her coat opening to draw it. A whirring sound and a shot of cool air against her ear stopped her dead.
"Place both hands by your sides and turn around. You do not want me to fire again."
No she did not Instantly, she dropped both hands. The arrow had passed so close to her face the stiff feathers of its fletchings had scratched her cheek. This man is Sull, decided as she turned to face him.
Yet when she saw himm he was not clad in Sull furs and Sull horn-mail. He was dressed in simple deerskins collared with marten, and cross-belted with tanned leather. The belts were buckled in brass, not silver. His hair, and any ornaments that might proclaim his race, was concealed beneath a marten-fur cap. Yet how could he not be Sull? The precision of his voice. His height. The deep shadows beneath his cheekbones. That shot.
Ridiculously, as she stood there facing him, the hair on the left side of her head floated upward, suddenly weightless. The arrow must have charged the strands as it passed.
The stranger inspected her for some time, his eared longbow resting easy in his grip. A hard-sided arrowcase made of overlapping disks or horn was suspended, ranger-style, at a cross angle from his waist. Ash wondered how long he had been spying on her before he'd made his move. "Who are you and what is your business on this path?" Again there was that voice: firm, remnant, its owner sure of his own worth.
Ash raised her chin. "My business is my own to keep. My name I give you freely. Ash."
It was full dark now and the stranger had his hack to the moon. She could not see his eyes. "You are not Sull."
Pitched in the dangerous area between question and statement, the words were a trap. All possible replies damned her. Deny being Sull and she was a trespasser. Claim it and risk being tested and fail. Ash took a breath, stealing extra seconds before answering. She was in Sull territory south of the Flow and southeast of Bludd. That much she knew. Her foster father had possessed maps of this place. Onionskin scrolls, brown with age and dry as hay, that could only be unrolled when it rained. She had seen them once or twice, peering over Iss' shoulder as he studied them. Blanks, that was what she mostly remembered. Unfilled spaces that in other maps would be crisscrossed with mountains, rivers, place names. Even so, her foster father had found something within them that held his interest: the oxbow curve of a coastline; a border illustrated with the footprint pattern of a wolf; a warning spelled out in High Hand, "Here Be Where Sull Are Most Fierce."
Ash thought about that before she spoke.
"I am Ash March, Daughter of the Sull."
The stranger's chest expanded, sucking in the words. A long moment passed. Then another. Up until then Ash had not realized she was afraid. She had thought the looseness in her gut was just the horse blood finding its level.
No thing, breathing Sull will let you live…
The river flowing behind them created drag, sucking the ice mist east. Abruptly, the stranger rested his bow. "I am Lan Falistar, Son of the Sull and Chosen Far Rider." He bowed deeply at the waist and Ash finally saw his face. Acutely angled, golden-toned, with that faint alien sheen that meant Sull. "This Sull asks that you forgive his trespass."
Ash gave some of his silence right back to him She didn't have any idea how to react, was unsure about the nature of his trespass, and was, if she were honest, disconcerted by his age. Ark and Mai had been mature men, their faces lined with experience, their gestures dignified and weighted, yet this person standing before her looked to be less than ten years older than she herself. He was young, and that confused her. Unsure what to do, Ash found herself mimicking her foster father Take control of the conversation: she could almost hear his voice. "Do you travel alone, Lan Fallstar?"
An eyebrow was raised at that. "I do." "How long have you been watching me?"
The Sull Far Rider shrugged, raising slender, finely muscled shoul-ders. "It is not important."
Ash thought it was—she did not like the idea of him watching her as she bled the horse—yet there was exactly nothing she could do about that. Her instinct was to continue questioning him anyway; leave him no chance to question her. "Where do you travel?"
He began moving toward her, and something told her she had made a mistake. With a series of movements so swift Ash could barely follow them, the stranger reached behind her back, crouched, snatched the sickle blade and its chain from the ground and sprang away. "Far Riders answer to no one except He Who Leads. If you were Sull you would know that." With a snap of his wrist he sent the chain into motion. The metal links rustled crisply as the chain wrapped itself in perfect order around the sickle's handle.
Not even Mal Naysayer had done that.
The chain was weighted with a teardrop of metal studded with peridots. The stranger studied this for a moment, cupping it in his free hand and turning it toward the light. Without looking up he fired off a command in Sull.