Watcher Of The Dead (Book 4)

by J. V. Jones

  When it became apparent the men were not recovering, Cluff Drybannock, Vaylo’s fostered son, broke open his horn of powdered guidestone and drew a guide circle around the sickroom. “Xha vul,” he murmured. “They are being taken.”

  Hearing the words Vaylo had both known and not known what they meant. We are chosen by the Stone Gods to guard their borders. For some reason the Bludd boast sounded in his head. It struck him that the injured men were crossing a border, and he, Bludd chief, could not allow that to happen. Malice bided on the other side. How he knew this he could not say. Perhaps it was the faint, empty scent of the smoke, or the look of solemn expectation in Drybone’s eyes.

  What Vaylo had failed to realize straightaway was what those words would cost. Even Drybone had not fully understood. He had drawn a circle in powdered guidestone, passing the men’s fates into the hands of the Stone Gods. For twelve hours the sickroom became hallowed ground. Bluddsmen came, spoke prayers, left. The injured men slept restlessly, tossing and moaning. Each time they awakened there was less life in their eyes than when they’d fallen asleep. Fear made them clutch at Nan as she tended them. One, the swordsman Boyce Willard, had begged Nan to open his stitches and let “the filth out.” She had done just that, taking her maiden’s helper and slitting the cat gut.

  It was then, seeing the smoke vent along Boyce’s leg, that Vaylo knew what he had to. Nothing could save these men—no nursing, prayers or guide circles—and it was his duty as chief to kill them before they could be consumed by the smoke. Cross that border and they were lost. The Stone Gods could not claim them in that blasted land. Drybone had told him that men who were killed by Kil Ji, voided steel, were unmade. And right now, as he watched the smoke of annihilation cumulate in the hollow of Boyce’s belly and pelvis, Vaylo realized that the only way to prevent them from being destroyed by voided steel was to slay them with live steel instead.

  You could not call it a mercy killing if one of your motives was protecting yourself. “Once a man or woman is unmade they join the ranks of the Endlords. They too will wield Kil Ji and unlike those who are imprisoned in the Blind, they have no need to force their way out. They are here, amongst us, and they walk by night.” Cluff Drybannock’s words, spoken a month earlier in the broken tower, came back and haunted Vaylo.

  Arno and Gormalin: They were the only Bluddsmen he had not killed as a mercy. Perhaps he had killed them in self-defense. Perhaps rage. Either way he did not regret it. His brothers had deserved to die.

  Not these men, though. Not Boyce, not Mad Malky, not Hector nor Jon. These were men who had volunteered to ride out from the fort with their lord and chief. Unlike others, they had survived the Field of Graves and Swords.

  Unlike Yuan, they had not been able to live with their wounds.

  Vaylo looked at the paralyzed boy, and thought about the morning he’d taken the lives of the four injured men. He’d ordered screens to be raised around the pallets and then visited each man in order of rank. Boyce, as the senior clansmen, had been taken last. Vaylo knew he had done a poor job of honoring him. Boyce had heard the gasps and soft cries of his fellow patients and when his chief appeared before him he said softly, “I see you’ve cleaned your sword.”

  No words existed to describe the pain Vaylo felt at that moment. They had damaged muscle in his heart. Inhaling, he waited out the memory.

  When he exhaled he spoke to Yuan Bryce. “You have two arms. Be glad of them. Get well and learn to load and fire a crossbow from your seat. You have taken an oath to guard Bludd borders. Guard them.”

  Nan shot him a stern glance, but Vaylo did not care.

  The lone window in the room was covered with a horse blanket. Light shone through the strap holes in the wool. Yuan’s skin was pale. Sweat greased his forehead and throat. He blinked.

  “Aye, chief.”

  Vaylo nodded brusquely. “When you’re ready come see me at Bludd.”

  He left without looking back.

  You’ll have an advantage when it comes to being chief. You’re a born bastard. Ockish Bull had said those words to him in the dark hours after he’d slain Arno and Gormalin. Vaylo had not thought himself capable of laughter that night, yet somehow Ockish had forced it out of him. They were both bloody, he remembered. Ockish had dealt with the bodies, and then broke the news to clan. They had a new chief.

  Gods I miss him. Only Ockish had been able to lift his mood when he was at his lowest, when chiefing made him do terrible things.

  The wolf dog had made itself comfortable in the padded cart outside the sickroom door, and Vaylo beckoned it impatiently. It was looking older, he reckoned. So was he. Together they made their way through the hillfort and out the southern gate.

  The wind was lively, pushing clouds. Overnight the brown winter grasses of the Copper Hills had greened. Heather was sprouting. Streams were running on distant hillsides, flashing silver when sunlight caught them just right. Vaylo let the sun and wind work on him, resting his eyes and breathing deeply. The Copper Hills represented something essential to clan—the call of open space—and the Dog Lord found some part of himself wanting to ride out and never come back.

  Already the party had started to congregate on the dirt court. There would be forty-five in all, including Nan and the bairns, and mounts would be in short supply. Horses were being strapped and saddled and supplies hauled from the fort. Hammie Faa was in charge of logistics and he appeared to be doing a thorough job. The chubby armsman only looked slightly flummoxed as he packed the spare horse with blankets, fire irons and oil-soaked millet. The horses would need to graze enroute as grain was short. Meat was in short supply too, and Bluddsmen would need to hunt.

  Again, there was that pang of anticipation. To be ahorse, traveling through the Copper Hills, hunting for one’s supper and camping under the stars, was not a bad way to live. Clansmen dreamed of such pursuits. In spring and autumn they would mount longhunts, exchanging the comforts of hearth and kin for the joy of the wild north.

  “Granda. Are we going yet?” The excited call came from Vaylo’s nine-year-old granddaughter Pasha. She was sitting astride his horse, a rangy black stallion with a white starburst on its nose. With horses short, it had been agreed that Pasha and Aaron would take turns riding with Nan, Hammie, Mogo Salt and their grandfather.

  Just as well I no longer have Dog Horse, Vaylo thought. As the gods-ugly beast wouldn’t let anyone ride him save me. Dog Horse had been lost during the assault on the Dhoonehouse. Robbie Dun Dhoone had torched the stables, and the only way to save the horses was to fling back the doors and let them run free. Vaylo had a bolt-shaped burn scar on his right palm as a souvenir of that night. He had not felt the burn of hot metal at the time. His mind had been on his horse.

  So much lost. So little gained.

  “Granda,” Pasha cried. “When are we going?”

  “Get down,” Vaylo said. “Go and find your brother and help Nan with her things.”

  The girl’s smile collapsed and she slid awkwardly from the horse.

  “Today is not child’s play,” he told her. “We leave behind a hundred clansmen. Conduct yourself accordingly.”

  Pasha ran toward the hillfort with a little whimper of distress. Vaylo watched her slip beneath the gate. He could not seem to keep his temper today.

  Whistling for the wolf dog to follow him, he went to talk to Hammie. The armsman had some last-minute questions and Vaylo was glad of the opportunity to tell someone—who appreciated it—what to do. By the time they’d finished conferring, the court was packed with men and horses. Vaylo looked for Drybone, but could not spot his fostered son in the crowd. When Nan came out with the bairns, men began mounting their horses. Hammie helped Nan with her packs. Little Aaron insisted on bearing his own bedroll and training hammer, and stoutly shook away all help.

  Everyone fell quiet as Big Borro brought out the swords. Nine in all, five belonging to the warriors who had died or suffered mercy killings on the Field of Graves and Swords and four belongin
g to the injured whose wounds had not healed. Big Borro carried the swords in a flat oval basket. Collectively they had to weigh close to fifty pounds, yet Borro bore them at arm’s length, held out from his body, in ceremonial display. The Dog Lord did not know who had cleaned the swords, but whoever it was had polished them so fiercely the sun bounced back to the sky.

  Nine blades to be returned to widows, mothers, fathers and children at Bludd. Of all the trials that lay ahead, it was this that disturbed Vaylo the most. Your child is dead. No four words in all the universe cut as deeply as those.

  Mogo Salt put his lips to his sackpipe and blew the stark and plaintive notes of the Cragsman’s Farewell. Bluddsmen touched their measures of powdered guidestone. Some clenched their fists. None wept. As prearranged, Vaylo stepped forward and accepted the swords. The basket had been lined with soft suede and Vaylo saw that Nan had embroidered it with the War Dogs of Bludd. Where did she get the time, this lady of his?

  Nan had the bairns in hand. Their packs had been set on the ground and their heads lowered in respect. Vaylo passed them as he brought the swords to the stallion that would bear them home. The horse had been trapped and blinkered in maroon leather. In place of a saddle, a buckskin cradle had been strapped to its back. The swords would be transported in the cradle, and no man, woman or child would mount the stallion until the swords had been brought home to Bludd.

  Hammie and others helped lash the basket in place. Vaylo checked the cinches twice. He’d be damned if this package was coming loose. While he worked, the wolf dog bellied in the dirt and waited. When its ears angled toward the hillfort, Vaylo glanced up to see Drybone standing in the shadows behind the gate.

  Cluff Drybannock had dressed and armed himself in full Bludd regalia. A crimson collar overlaid his greatcloak and his waist-length hair had been braided into a warrior’s queue and bound in a knot at the back of his neck. Copper wire had been wrapped around the grip of his longsword, and his hand knife was suspended at his waist in a dog tail sheath. Vaylo counted the details and resumed his task.

  Drybone meant to honor his chief and clan with his dress, yet he did not look like clan. He looked like Sull: the red skin with its metallic tinge, the cheekbones cut like diamonds, the eyes that took in light and then gave it out.

  When had he changed? Vaylo wondered. Dry’s mother had been a Trenchlander whore, his father a Bluddsman. Surely there had been a time when Dry looked more like clan?

  At Vaylo’s feet, the wolf dog let out a single, high-pitched whine. Every night the dog accompanied Cluff Drybannock as he walked the hill-wall, keeping watch.

  “Go,” Vaylo told it.

  The black and orange dog sprang up and raced toward Drybone. Dry put out a hand to still it and the creature dropped to its haunches ahead of the the gate.

  “Hammie,” Vaylo said. “Call the column to order. You and Nan in the front with me.”

  “Aye.”

  Vaylo walked wide of the court to give men and horses space to maneuver. He waited. Drybone did not move from his position by the gate.

  “Come with me,” Vaylo had said to him in the dark hours after the Field of Graves and Swords.

  “I cannot, my father. I am Bludd and I am Sull. This is where I choose to make my stand.”

  Vaylo glanced at the old Dhoonewall fort. Damp had rotted the masonry. Chunks of fallen stone lay embedded in the courtyard. One of the chunks had a crisp crater surrounding it. Vaylo wouldn’t have been surprised if it had fallen in the night. Even so, the fort was still defensible. Its broken watchtower was still high enough to provide early warning of an attack. The copper roof would resist fire and the exterior, although damaged, was double-walled. There were worse places a man could call his own. Vaylo just wished Dry had picked one closer to Bludd.

  Buckling his cloak, Vaylo crossed to his horse. Most of the men were mounted now and the horses were lively, shaking their heads and kicking. Odwin Two Bear’s gelding reared and Odwin had to pull back the reins and ride the animal off the court. The bairns were already mounted. Pasha was sitting behind Nan on Nan’s white gelding, and Aaron was trotting Mogo’s short-necked stallion in rings. Hammie was holding Vaylo’s horse.

  Dust kicked up by the horses blurred the air. Vaylo could taste the copper in it. It tasted of Dhoone. The dust at Bludd had tasted of baser metals, of iron and nickel and lead. He recalled the time time his father had beaten him on the redcourt in front of a dozen sworn clansmen. “Swallow,” Gullit had roared as he pushed his booted foot into the back of Vaylo’s head. “No bastard talks back to the chief.”

  Vaylo thought he might have been ten at the time. Gullit had been preparing for a boar hunt in the Tick Woods. As he walked from the stable with his saddle, Gullit had caught sight of his youngest son. “Boy. Run in the house and fetch my weapon.” Vaylo remembered bolting into the Bluddhouse, pleased that his lord and father had set him an important task and anxious to perform it swiftly. When he opened Gullit’s weapon case in the chief’s chamber he’d been dazzled by the rows of honed steel. No one opened Gullit’s case without his sanction and to look upon the armaments amassed by Bludd chiefs was a privilege. Longswords, broadswords, short swords, swan necks, scimitars, knives and more knives hung by their hilts in individual slots. The throwing spears were less carefully arrayed and had been dumped into the door box like sticks in a jar. Vaylo picked the last spear he’d seen his father use, closed and latched the case and sprinted onto the court.

  His first indication that something was wrong was when his father did not extend his hand to accept the spear. “What’s this, boy?” he’d demanded from the saddle. “I said bring my sword.”

  Even at ten Vaylo knew not to contradict his father. His mistake had been more damning than that. “But you’ll need a spear for the boar.”

  The Dog Lord winced to think of it. There had been twelve men within earshot. Some had laughed.

  “Boy thinks you can’t make a kill with a sword,” Dinny Hawks, Gullit’s favored drinking companion, had quipped.

  “You are getting slower, Chief,” Roland Ingo had added. “Best put some distance between you and the wild pigs.”

  The comments were typical warrior talk, the kind of jests men made before hunts to relieve tension. Yet Gullit Bludd had not laughed. His mouth had narrowed and he’d slid from his horse.

  “You think me incompetent, boy?”

  “No, sir.”

  That was the moment when Vaylo realized the beating would be a bad one. His father had appraised the contrition in his eyes and found it wanting.

  “Get down on the ground.” Gullit pointed to the dirt with his riding crop. “I’ll grind that smirk off your face.”

  Vaylo vividly recalled the sting of false accusation—he had not smirked—but could not recall speaking up to defend himself. Instead he had fought back and that had only made the beating worse. Already he knew how these things worked, yet his anger always overruled his sense. He wasn’t that different from Gullit when it came down to it.

  He’d beaten his own sons.

  Vaylo put his foot in the stirrup and mounted the stallion. Bludd was a hard clan and Bluddsmen were hard men. Its dirt was hard and black—even in summer when it was bone dry—but it had never killed anyone to swallow it.

  After the beating, he’d pulled himself off the ground and watched as Gullit and his best men had ridden south into the woods. Spitting out blood and dust, he’d made his way back to the roundhouse. He was a Bluddsman and this was home. There was nowhere else for him to go.

  Vaylo looked east toward the black hills and forests of Bludd. He’d been away too long. Dhoone, Ganmiddich, the Dhoonewall: between them he hadn’t stood on Bludd dirt for close to a year. Now he and forty men were heading home, and the only thing he expected for a certainty was trouble. His eldest son, Quarro, had chiefed the clanhold through three seasons and it wasn’t likely that he would welcome back his father with open arms. Bludd didn’t have a fancy throne like Dhoone and no kings had ever
ruled there, yet it had things a man could grow possessive over; silent forests of cedar and hemlock, creaking forests of ancient oak and ash, the best boar hunting in the clanholds, the Pipe Rapids on the Snarewater, the Garnet Room at the heart of the Bluddhold. Vaylo knew how it felt to lord over them. It was not likely his firstborn would relinquish them without a fight.

  It would be bloody. Quarro would need to be beaten and turfed. The Dog Lord didn’t much like the thought of it. All dealings with his natural sons left him cold.

  Shortening the reins, Vaylo turned his horse to look back at the gate and Cluff Drybannock, his eighth and fostered son. The only one he had never beaten. The only one he had ever loved.

  Dry’s gaze met his through the dust. Pride burned in Dry’s methane blue eyes. Seeing it, Vaylo realized that they would not bid one another farewell. Dry would not move from the gate and he, Vaylo, would not cross the thirty feet to Dry’s position.

  They understood each other. In this.

  Vaylo did not think he would ever understand what it meant to be Sull.

  Dry’s gaze was level, his face still. Vaylo acknowledged him with the smallest possible movement of his head. Twenty days ago an offer had been extended and refused. The Dog Lord respected Dry’s choice, but a chief did not speak words of comfort to a man who had opted not to follow him. Banking the stallion, Vaylo whistled for his dogs.

  “East to Bludd!” he bellowed to the forming line.

  One by one the dogs fell in behind him as he took up his position in the fore. The wolf dog came last, tail down. Every few steps it halted and looked back at Drybone. Vaylo ignored it. Nan was trying to catch his eye to give him one of her gentle smiles. He ignored her also.

  Best to focus on the journey. Forty men now depended upon him for their welfare. All had volunteered to make the journey home to Bludd. They were Cluff Drybannock’s men and that meant they used swords, not hatchets. Some carried hammers and axes out of custom and a handful were proficient at wielding them, but Vaylo knew he stood alone as an avowed hammerman. It made him feel like a killhound or an aurochs: creatures that had once thrived in the north and were now dying out.