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readiness to swallow, yet he could not take a drink.
The waterskin was as good as empty. Nothing could be spared.
Swallowing the saliva that had pooled under his tongue, he tucked the
waterskin back into its place behind Bear's saddle. When his stomach
sent out a single cramp of protest, he ignored it. He had to think.
    Why am I going this way? Any other heading would
lead him off the bluff and away from the mountains. No climb
involved. So why accelerate his thirst? Why not simply head downhill
and take the easy route? Chances were the Want would shift on him
anyway. A day from now those mountains could have melted into the
mist.
    Raif squinted at the sun, thinking. It was a
winter sun, pale and crisply outlined against the sky. When he looked
away its afterimage burned in front of his eyes. As it cleared he
became aware that his breath was purling white. The temperature was
dropping. The Want had two degrees of coldness: bitter and glacially
raw. Since leaving the fortress Raif had counted himself lucky to
have encountered only the first. Bitter he could live with. Bitter
was the normal state of things for the clanholds in midwinter. It
gave you chilblains and sometimes frostbite in your ears and toes.
As long as you were bundled up and well fed you could live through
it.
    Raw was something else. Raw killed. It froze your
breath the instant it left your mouth, coating every hair on your
face with frost; it numbed the most thickly wrapped hands and feet
and then when it had numbed them it turned them into ice; and it
altered the working of your mind, made you think it was hot when it
was deadly cold, that you just needed to rest awhile and everything
would be all right.
    Raif shivered. He decided to stay on course, but
could not say why. At his side, Bear blew air at force through her
nostrils, forming two white clouds. The little pony had been bred to
live at high elevations in the far north. Her coat was thick and wiry
and her leg hair formed shaggy skirts around her hoofs. She would
probably fare better than him, but he wasn't taking any chances. He
unrolled her blanket and threw it across her back. As he fastened the
toggles beneath her belly he contemplated for the first time having
to kill her. He would place his sword here, well below her rib cage,
and thrust up through her first and second stomachs to her heart. It
was the swiftest death he could give, the instant cessation of blood
pumping from her heart to her brain.
    Heart-kill, it was called. All hunters aspired to
it: that perfectly placed, perfectly powered, blow that would stop
all animals in their tracks.
    Oh gods. Why am I even thinking of this?
Straightening up, Raif slapped Bear's rump, encouraging her to walk
on.
    For a while after that he did not think, simply
walked. They fell into a rhythm, Bear matching him exactly in speed
and rate of climb. Occasionally she would nudge him. Sometimes he
nudged her back. As he walked he savored the pleasure of working his
body hard and forcing his lungs to expand against his chest wall. It
could last only so long. They had no water, and he had no choice but
to consider his responsibility to Bear. She was his animal. He owed
her food, water, shelter and safety. In the event of injury or
sickness he owed her a swift death. Tern, his father, would have
stood for no less. "You have an animal, Raif—I don't care
whether it's a dog or a horse or a one-legged flying squirrel—it
gets fed before you get fed, watered before you drink, and if it's
sick you take care of it." Even then as a boy of eight he had
understood all that his father had meant by "taking care of it."
    Raif held himself back a moment, let Bear walk
ahead of him on the trail. He wished it were that simple. Wished that
he hadn't felt a small thrill of anticipation as he contemplated
running his sword through the hill pony's heart.
    Kill an army for me, Raif Sevrance, Death had
commanded him. Any less and I just might call you back.
    Ice cracked