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predatory shadows in the starlight. Once, Rictus held up a hand and they
both paused to listen. The half-frozen river had been muffled and there was
barely a breath of air moving in the valley. They could hear the creaking of
their own bones, and the soft rush of blood in their throats as their hearts
beat, like the sound of a panting dog.
    There it was, far
off: the faint sad song of the wolf. The hounds beside the two men growled, low
in their chests.
    “A bad sign, so
early in the year,” Fornyx said in an undertone.
    “Mark of a hard
winter to come, my father always said. Phobos, it’s a heavy frost falling. Let’s
get that damned fire lit before our feet freeze to the ground.”
    They trekked
through the brittle snow to the shelter and Fornyx set about lighting the fire;
he was far and away the best of them with flint and tinder. The goats -
twitchy, fey creatures up on the high pastures - seemed here almost
pathetically glad to see their masters, and the flock gathered in front of the
hut, a dark blot on the snow. Soon the firelight picked out the ranks of the
nearest, and their cold eyes reflected the flames at the men and dogs in the
lean-to.
    Fornyx stood
stamping his feet up and down in front of the fire. He and Rictus had stuffed
their sandals with rabbit’s fur, which was singed by the flames as they stood
there, an acrid, campaigning smell.
    “You think the
passes are still open?” Fornyx asked.
    Rictus cocked his
head to one side. “Maybe. It’ll be worse up there on the high ridge. It depends
which way the wind blows the drifts.”
    “I’ll bet Valerian
and Kesero are still down at the sea in Hal Goshen, in some tavern with their
bellies full of cheap wine and their laps full of some cheap tart’s arse.”
    Rictus smiled. “If
they’ve any sense.”
    “You know that
Valerian and Rian -”
    “I know. I’m not
blind.”
    “She’s of an age
now, Rictus, and Valerian’s a good man, for all his antics.”
    Rictus opened his
hands out to the firelight with a curt nod. “I know Valerian’s worth, as well
as anyone.”
    “But-”
    “But he wears the
scarlet.”
    “He doesn’t have
to wear it all his life.”
    “He won’t be
wearing it if he wants to marry Rian. I would not have her live the life her
mother has led.”
    “You have given
Aise a good life, Rictus,” Fornyx said quietly.
    “It would have
been better, were I a man like my father was.”
    Fornyx threw up
his hands. He knew better than to pursue a matter once Rictus had invoked his
father’s memory. “Reach me the wineskin, will you?”
    They sat out the
night, taking it in turns to doze once the middle part of it was past. They
talked desultorily of old battles, old comrades, and the attractions of various
women they had known. They hardly noticed when the snow began to fall again, a
grey veil beyond the firelight that paled the sleeping goats and brought into
the valley an absolute hush, as though the world was awake and aware, but
waiting breathlessly for some happening.
    The fire died
down, and in the snowbound silence they heard again the high, distant call of
the wolf.
    The goats stirred
uneasily at the sound, dislodging snow from their backs so they became piebald.
Now that the flames were low, Rictus and Fornyx could see how bright was the
light from the two moons. Cold Phobos, his face as pale as pewter, and warm
Haukos his younger brother, whose light tinged the snow with a pink like
watered wine. Both moons were full in the sky, and around them the ice crystals
in the air arced in a double halo of rainbow light.
    “Fear and Hope,
both full in the sky together. It’s an omen, Rictus,” Fornyx murmured. They
were both staring aloft, spellbound.
    “I don’t believe
in them,” Rictus growled, but he, too caught some of the sense of wonder, a
feeling that they were standing on the threshold of some change in the world.
    “I’ve seen it
maybe four times in my life, and every time it was on the cusp of new