Midnight Tides/Chapter 8

Where are the days we once held
So loose in our sure hands?
When did these racing streams
Carve depthless caves beneath our feet?
And how did this scene stagger
And shift to make fraught our deft lies
In the places where youth will meet,
In the lands of our proud dreams?
Where, among all you before me,
Are the faces I once knew?

Words etched into the wall,
K'rul Belfry, Darujhistan

Ice fields

Trull Sengar, his brothers, Midik, and Theradas Buhn are at the edge of the ice fields. The Arapay have told them of fur-shrouded killers that hunt the ice fields called Jheck, but so far they have not been attacked. A broad crevasse cuts their path. They decide to descend by rope and spend the night at the bottom. Theradas explores and finds others have been there before, for there is a rough altar with offerings of shells. Beyond is a huge plane of ice, containing the frozen bodies of stampeding beasts, and huge wolves. The brothers speculate it was created by sorcery of the Watcher, of the Ice Hold.

After leaving the crevasse the following morning they come across wolf tracks in the snow, and spend another night in the snow. Trull wakes from a dream and realises something is not right. He realises Rhulad has fallen asleep on watch but Rhulad denies it. Fear confirms that although there are no tracks, they have had visitors who have taken all their food. They move on and by late afternoon the next day they can see in the distance something tall and narrow, reflecting glimmers of sunlight.

A huge spar of ice had thrust itself up from the depths. As they approach, Binadas sniffs the rank air and tells them the creature freed by Hannan Mosag was responsible for raising the spar, and the sorcery was not Emurlahn. Deep within the huge girth of ice could be seen 'the gift'. It is a two-handed sword, bell-hilted, with a strangely fractured and mottled blade. Fear tells Binadas to weave Emurlahn into Trull's spear and to use many Shadow wraiths in doing so to strengthen its blade. He also tells them all not to touch the sword's grip with their bare hands. Trull does not like what he is hearing and questions Fear on what Hannan Mosag has told him about the sword and its provenance. As they talk a wolf appears, watching them, and Binadas hurries to weave his sorcery and strengthen Trull's spear. The wraiths are reluctant to co-operate and Trull asks 'surely they are the spirits of our ancestors' to which Binadas replies "Not ours", just as the wolf charges them.

Trull, fighting off the Jheck during his retreat by PLUGO

Trull's spear hits the spar and shatters the ice, as he and his brothers are beset by small, bestial savages, accompanied by more wolves. The Jheck throw themselves at the Edur, and they have a hard time defending themselves. Rhulad suddenly appears with the strange sword in his hands, and although he kills some of them, he himself is killed. As he falls to the ground the Jheck leave. Fear crouches down to remove the sword from Rhulad's grip but he cannot, the fingers are locked tight around it. The Edur decide to put the body on a sled and take him home that way. Trull takes up position as rear guard for the party and they move off. He gradually becomes separated from them and fights a number of battles with wolves and Jheck, ambush after ambush, until eventually he catches his companions who are waiting at the end of the ice fields. Trull is left wondering why the Jheck were so desperate to gain the sword for themselves.