The
Story So Far
WHEN HE WAS
seventeen, Raif Sevrance of Clan Blackhail developed the ability to
heart-kill game. One morning while he was hunting in the Badlands
with his brother Drey, his father and chief were slain back at
camp. When he and his brother returned to Blackhail they found that
Mace Blackhail, the chief’s foster son, had declared himself head
of the clan. Mace blamed the murders on Vaylo Bludd, chief of a
rival clan. When Bludd sacked the Dhoonehouse of rival clan Dhoone
a week later, Mace’s story of Bludd aggression gained credibility.
Raif found himself isolated. He alone believed that Mace Blackhail
was a liar and a chief-killer.
War against clan
Bludd followed, as Hailsmen sought to avenge their chief’s death.
When Mace received word that a caravan of Bluddsmen were on the
road, heading west to occupy the Dhoonehouse, he ordered an attack.
Raif rode with the ambush party. When he discovered the caravan
contained women and children, not warriors, he refused to
participate in the slaughter. For disobeying an order on the field
and deserting his fellow clansmen in battle, Raif was branded a
traitor to his clan. Four days later, Raif left Blackhail in the
company of his uncle Angus Lok. His oath to protect Blackhail was
now broken, even while he had sought to act with faith and
loyalty.
The two men headed
south. Upon arrival at Duff’s stovehouse, they learned news of the
massacre on the Bluddroad had preceded them. When challenged by a
group of Bludd warriors, Raif admitted to being present during the
slaughter. He told no one that he took no part in the massacre;
loyalty to his clan prevented him from defending himself at their
expense. With this admission, however, Raif forever damned himself
in the eyes of Bluddsmen. He was the only Hailsmen they knew for a
certainty who was present during the slaughter.
When Angus and Raif
arrived at the city Spire Vanis they rescued a young woman named
Ash March who was being hunted down by the city’s Protector
General, Marafice Eye. Angus had a strong reaction when he saw the
girl and immediately put himself in danger to save her. Raif’s
skill with a bow proved invaluable. He single-handedly rescued the
girl by shooting arrows through her pursuers’ hearts.
As Raif, Ash and
Angus headed north to the city of Ille Glaive, Raif learned that
Ash was the foster daughter of the Surlord of Spire Vanis. She had
run away when she learned that her foster father intended to
imprison her in the city’s citadel, the Inverted Spire. Heritas
Cant, a friend of Angus Lok’s, provided the explanation for the
Surlord’s behavior. Cant told Ash she was the first Reach to be
born in a thousand years. She alone possessed the ability to unlock
the Blind, the prison without a key that contained the destructive
might of the immortal Endlords. Cant warned Ash she must discharge
her Reach-power or die.
Raif and Angus agreed
to accompany Ash to the Cavern of Black Ice, the one place where
she could discharge her power without tearing a hole in the
Blindwall that holds back the Endlords. As soon as their small
party reentered the clanholds they were captured by Bluddsmen. The
Bludd chief had lost seventeen grandchildren on the Bluddroad, and
he was determined to make Raif Sevrance pay for those losses. After
days of torture, Raif developed a fever and began to fail. Yet when
Death came to take him she changed her mind. “Perhaps I won’t take
you yet,” she told him. “You fight in my image and live in my
shadow, and if I leave you where you are you’ll provide much fresh
meat for my children. Kill an army for me, Raif Sevrance. Any less
and I just might call you back.”
The next day Raif was
saved by a group of Hailish warriors led by his brother Drey. “We
part here. For always,” Drey said as he let his younger brother,
the traitor, slip away.
Later that day Raif
met up with Ash, who had escaped from Marafice Eye by using her
Reach-power. The Dog Lord had handed her over to Eye in repayment
for a debt. Penthero Iss, the Surlord of Spire Vanis, had aided
Vaylo’s taking of the Dhoonehouse, and Vaylo had come to regret
Iss’ sorcerous help. Ash March was payment in full.
Ash’s health
deteriorated during the journey to the cavern. When she collapsed
in the snow, Raif drew a guide circle and called on the Stone Gods
for help. Two members of the ancient Sull people, Far Riders named
Mal Naysayer and Ark Veinsplitter, heard this call, and rode to
Ash’s aid. Upon seeing her, they suspected that Ash was the Reach.
They also suspected that Raif was Mor
Drakka, Watcher of the Dead; the one predicted to destroy
the Sull.
The Far Riders took
Ash and Raif to a frozen river that led to the Cavern of Black Ice
and then departed. Ash discharged her power, but it was already too
late. By blasting Marafice Eye’s men in the Bitter Hills, she had
caused a rent in the Blindwall. Back in her home city of Spire
Vanis, a nameless sorcerer who had been enslaved by her foster
father was already working to open the breach. “Push and we will
give you your name,” the Endlords promised him. Bound by chains,
broken and tortured, the sorcerer accepted the deal. “Baralis,” the
Endlords named the sorcerer as he broke open the wall.
Meanwhile the clan
wars were escalating. Blackhail waged war on Bludd to avenge the
killing of the Hail chief; Bludd fought Blackhail for the slaying
of its women and children; and Dhoone, dispossessed of its
roundhouse by Bludd, fought to regain its territory. With the help
of his half-brother Bram, Robbie Dun Dhoone claimed the Dhoone
chiefship and retook Dhoone from the Dog Lord. Due to the desertion
of his second son, Pengo, the Dog Lord had been holding the
Dhoonehouse with a skeleton force. He, his remaining two
grandchildren and his lady Nan escaped and headed north toward an
old hillfort where his fostered son, Cluff Drybannock, was
stationed with two hundred men.
In order to secure
sufficient manpower to retake Dhoone, Robbie sold his brother to
the Milk chief, Wrayan Castlemilk, forcing Bram to leave his clan.
Bram was made welcome at Castlemilk, but his taste for
intrigue—acquired in negotiations with Skinner Dhoone and the Dog
Lord—made him break his oath and join the Phage, a shadowy
brotherhood that aimed to defend the world against the
Endlords.
Blackhail took
possession of Ganmiddich, but lost it when an army led by Marafice
Eye broke the Crab Gate that protected it. When news of Penthero
Iss’ death reached the battlefield, half of Eye’s forces fled the
field to rush back to Spire Vanis and vie for power, leaving Eye at
the mercy of a newly-arrived army led by Pengo Bludd. Bludd took
Ganmiddich. Marafice Eye led his injured army—plus four hostages
taken from Blackhail—home to Spire Vanis where his father-in-law
Roland Stornoway was holding power on his behalf. With Stornoway’s
support, Eye became surlord.
Back at Blackhail,
the slain chief’s widow, Raina Blackhail, struggled to come to
terms with her new life. Like Raif, she suspected that Mace, her
foster son, was responsible for her husband’s murder, and she did
not support his chiefship. After her husband’s murder, Mace raped
her in the Oldwood and then told clansmen it was consensual. Raina
married him rather than risk her reputation and status, becoming
chief’s wife for the second time. While Mace was away at war with
Bludd and Dhoone, Raina quietly began to claim power. When Stannig
Beade arrived from Scarpe to replace Blackhail’s guide who had been
killed in the explosion of the Hailstone, Raina suspected he had
been sent to watch her. Tension ran high as Beade began acting as
chief. When Anwyn Bird, Raina’s oldest friend, was assassinated in
cold blood it was the final straw. Guessing that Anwyn had been
murdered to silence dissension, and fearing for her own life, Raina
Blackhail did the only thing she could to protect her clan. She
entered the chief’s chamber one night and killed Stannig
Beade.
After departing
Blackhail, Angus Lok returned to his home east of Ille Glaive. Upon
arrival he found his worst nightmare had come to life: His house
had been burned down. His three daughters and his wife were gone.
Dead. Angus was a ranger, a member of the Phage. He blamed himself
for leading evil to his door.
Ash and Raif, once
they left the Cavern of Black Ice, headed north into Ice Trapper
territory. Ash left Raif while he slept, departing in the company
of Mal Naysayer and Ark Veinsplitter. She chose to have her blood
drained, a ritual cleansing that would allow her to become Sull.
When she and the Far Riders were attacked by Unmade forces at
Floating Bridge, Veinsplitter was killed and Ash became separated
from the Naysayer. As she traveled alone in Sull territory she met
a stranger named Lan Fallstar who told her he would take her to the
Heart of the Sull. They became lovers, but he betrayed her, leading
her into a trap. Knowing that she was a Reach, Fallstar wanted only
to harness the power of her body to kill the Unmade. The Naysayer
found Ash just in time to save her from Fallstar’s assassins, and
together they headed south to the Heart of the Sull.
Raif joined the
Maimed Men, an outlaw clan who lived in the cliffs above the
Rift—the deep cleft in the earth’s crust through which the Unmade
sometimes escaped to attack mortal men. Traggis Mole, the leader of
the Maimed Men, sent Raif to raid Blackhail as a test of Raif’s
loyalty to the Maimed Men. As the raid party left the mine known as
Black Hole, Raif was challenged by his old friend and clansmen
Bitty Shank. Raif killed Bitty to escape, and then fled into the
Great Want, the waste at the center of the continent. He was lost
for a time.
Meanwhile, Effie
Sevrance, Raif’s nine-year-old sister, had been forced to leave her
clan. Effie had been born to the stone lore and was able to tell
when bad things were about to happen. She was an unwitting witness
when Raina was raped by Mace, and Raina feared this knowledge made
Effie vulnerable. Seeking to remove the girl from Mace’s sights,
Raina sent Effie to Clan Dregg. Effie never made it. She was
kidnapped by boatmen from cursed Clan Gray. On the journey to Clan
Gray she met Chedd Limehouse, who had also been kidnapped, and fell
into the Wolf River, where a pike snapped the stone lore from
around her throat.
Raif was found in the
Great Want by the lamb brothers, who were there searching for the
souls of their undead. They told Raif about a battle thousands of
years earlier where their people and many others had died. One
warrior had turned the course of the battle, a man known only as
Raven Lord, who wielded the sword named Loss. Legend held that
after the battle, the field was flooded and all the dead, including
Raven Lord, were frozen beneath the ice. When Traggis Mole was
attacked by Unmade and lay dying, he forced Raif to speak an oath
to protect the Maimed Men. Soon after, Raif left the Rift to search
for the frozen battlefield and the sword. Strikes by the Unmade
were becoming more frequent and powerful and there were some
creatures in the Blind that could only be slain by the Raven Lord’s
sword.
Raif found the sword,
and a moment later an old injury to his chest stopped his heart.
His old friend, Addie Gunn, and the lamb brothers saved him. He
awoke several days later to find himself in possession of the sword
named Loss.