Rebel Ice Read Online Free PDF

listened as his most experienced tracker relayed the details of his latest excursion.
    "I saw no caravans for ten kim," the scout said. He had shed his outfurs, and was still using thermopacks to warm his red, snowbitten hands. "No sled trails in the air. We know Skjonn has not descended for weeks."
    The two men were the only occupants of the rasakt's shelter. Amber light from the heatarc made their faces ruddy and kept the cold pinned to the layers of stretched skins and salvaged alloy panels that formed the thick, flexible walls. Above their heads, trickles of icy air that had slipped in through tiny cracks in the wall seams and around the top of the rolled hide of the smoke flue danced with the rising heat.
    "What of his forces?" Like other Iisleg, Navn did not speak the name of the Raktar out loud. To do so was considered equal to shouting for the gods to visit death upon the camp.
    "The army is but four suns' journey from us, moving east," the scout said. He was a man of middle years, a veteran of crossing the ice, and bore the scars of countless skirmishes with man and beast on his skin. No emotion showed in his flat eyes. "Perhaps as many as ten thousand men surround him. Reserve battalions flanking them on all sides, ready to supply replacements."
    "Twenty thousand he has, then." Sizable, but not enough to challenge the Toskald forces. Cold made "More than twenty, Rasakt," the scout cautioned. "I counted the reserves at four to one, and more arrive with each passing sun."
    Fifty thousand men . Rasakt Navn forgot about his personal discomfort and regarded the map of the eastern territories. On it were red marks indicating the reported sightings of the central rebel army, but there were so many now, the map skin appeared riddled by pox. "Where do they go?"
    " I cannot tell you." The scout's eyes changed, and his voice went low with shame. "They vanish from their camps before dawn, and they leave no track. It is as if they conjure a path from one place to the next." He made a protective sign over himself.
    Navn restrained a sigh. The rebels were obviously using some manner of surface transport vessels, which were regarded as magical creatures by the outland tribes. Only a few headmen like Navn were educated enough to know that the flying ships did not actually devour men and belch flame.
    This is not for them to know , Navn's father, the former headman of the iiskar, had instructed him. Most ignorance is unnecessary, but some serves as a means of control and rule .
    Using surface-to-space transport on Akkabarr had never been possible. The only ships that came to the surface were flown by the Toskald pilots, the only ones who knew the secret to successfully navigating through the mile-wide, vicious kvinka currents of the upper atmosphere. Once, a tribe had captured a ship, intending to force the pilot to take them to the skim city, but the ship had mysteriously exploded before it ever left the ice, killing everyone on board. The remainder of the tribe was denied supplies and slowly starved to death.
    Navn did not know how the Toskald had convinced so many worlds within the Tryg Quadrant to use Akkabarr as a storage depot and central armory, but that trust had never been betrayed. Shipwrecks of those who tried to raid the planet provided the Iisleg with the bulk of their tithe wealth. Since offworlders constantly tried to get at the billions of weapons stored in subsurface armory trenches, crashes were frequent.
    Not that the crashes would do them any good now with this rebellion brewing.
    Among the eastern tribes, Iiskar Navn held a superior position. It was the largest and oldest of the tribes. Some thought that Deves would imitate his father's warlike ways, but the younger Navn learned that no one could eliminate every enemy, and to die covered in glory still meant one was dead.
    When Navn had taken over as headman, he had demanded moderation and reason instead of battles and glory. His warriors became competent hunters,