by J. V. Jones
That was a thought that never failed to make Vaylo smile. Robbie Dun Dhoone might have won back his roundhouse, but Bluddsmen had stripped it down to the bare walls. Vaylo had no idea where the loot had gone—he hadn’t taken anything for himself except a half-dozen kegs of fine Dhoonish malt—and he found he didn’t care. Gone was enough. Gone would slow the Thorn King down.
“Hammie,” Vaylo said, turning about to address his armsman Haimish Faa. “When did you last see the wolf dog?”
Hammie was huffing and puffing his way up the hill. He was thirty years younger than the Dog Lord but about four stone heavier and Faa men, like Bludd chiefs, had never been walkers. Hammie wiped his red and wet nose with his coat sleeve, wincing as raw flesh met coarse wool. “He left as soon as the bairns awoke. ’Bout dawn.”
The Dog Lord nodded, his mind eased. He’d seen the other three dogs throughout the day as they ranged back and forth, patrolling, guarding, hunting. The big black bitch had brought down two jackrabbits and carried them straight to his hand. The young male had brought back a sick-looking woodrat and Vaylo had taken it from the dog’s jaw and flung it as far as he could. Unhappily it hadn’t been the last he’d seen of the rat as the dog kept finding it and bringing it back. Every time this happened the worm-infested vermin looked a little worse for wear, and Vaylo thought to himself, Do I really have to touch this? Touch it he did though. The young male’s eagerness and joy were two things he didn’t want thwarted. You couldn’t have a dog love you unconditionally and not give anything back.
The wolf dog had been with him for seven years and of all the dogs Vaylo had loved and owned it was the wolf dog who was closest to his heart. The Dog Lord did not show it, he did not need to, for the two of them knew what lay between them. The Dog Lord’s worries were the wolf dog’s worries. His kin was the wolf dog’s kin. That the dog had stayed up all night guarding Aaron and Pasha was as it should be. The wolf dog had been present that terrible day when Vaylo had found seventeen of his grandchildren dead and buried in the snow above the Bluddroad. The dog knew how precious the two remaining grandchildren were. Still it wasn’t like the wolf dog not to home every few hours. All the dogs ranged wide and then returned at various times to insure their human pack was safe. Vaylo hadn’t seen the wolf dog since last night when he’d scolded the beast for snatching a rabbit from the fire. It was good to know that after the wolf dog skulked away in shame and anger he returned later to guard the bairns.
Truth was they were all hungry and short-tempered. Rabbits alone did not make a meal. If you ate too much they gave you the runs and if you didn’t eat enough you starved. It was, as Ockish Bull would have said, a choice between the ugly and the just plain bad. Nan and the bairns got the best of it. The organ meat could stay with you for half a day, but the muscle meat, which Vaylo and Hammie enjoyed, only hung around long enough to bid a fond farewell to your gut. The dogs didn’t mind it, but then what did dogs know about decent food? Vaylo was grateful for what they caught, but after fifteen days of jackrabbit, woodrat and opossum his gratitude was wearing thin.
It was turning out to be a hard journey, harder than he had imagined when he’d first decided its course the night they escaped from the Tomb of the Dhoone Princes. The distances involved were longer than he’d anticipated and the hardships more wearing than he could have foreseen. Nothing to eat except lean meat, no clothes except what lay on their backs, no weapons except a kitchen knife, a longknife and a maiden’s helper. Until yesterday when they finally entered hill country, they hadn’t even been able to cook the meat brought down by the dogs, so wary was Vaylo of lighting a fire. Man hunters were out in the Dhoonehold, searching for the Dog Lord and his party, and all it would take for them to spy their prey was a lone line of smoke on the horizon or a flickering orange glow amidst the trees. Twice now Vaylo had spied mounted men in the distance and each time he’d known they had Dog meat on their minds. Man hunters had a look to them: lightly armored, finely horsed, hungry. Vaylo feared them, for he very much doubted whether Robbie Dun Dhoone cared if his enemy was taken dead or alive. The man hunters carried crossbows and would shoot at distance, and there were nights when Vaylo could not sleep for the thought of Pasha and Aaron being shot in the back.
Yesterday had brought an easing of his fears. The Copper Hills were a no-man’s-land of bleak moors, wind-stunted pine forests, heather fields and rocky peaks. They had seen no sign of habitation in over two days and last night Vaylo had finally judged it safe to build a cookfire. They had been weary, but merry enough, and for a wonder Hammie had produced a small wedge of red cheese. “The laddie from Dhoone gave it to me,” he said by way of explanation, “and I was saving it for the right moment.” They had all taken a bite, though Aaron had spit his out, declaring it tasted like chicken wattles, and that had caused a huge scrap amongst the dogs. While three of them fought over Aaron’s chewed-up leftovers, the wolf dog had sneaked in and stolen the rabbit from the fire.
Vaylo had roared at all of them then, the bairns included, and ordered everyone except Hammie to go to sleep. His nerves were not what they had been, he realized later as he lay atop his cloak and looked out at the dim, starless night. The loss of forty good men at the Dhoonehouse followed by the rigors of a fifteen-day journey had worn him thin. How old was he now? Fifty-three, fifty-four? Too old to be starting from scratch, yet what choice did he have? Last night, before beginning his watch, Hammie had said to him, “Chief, we’re living through bad times.”
Vaylo had not replied, though he knew well enough what his response should have been: “Hammie, I created them.”
Gullit Bludd had not taught his bastard son much, but by default Vaylo had learned certain things at his father’s hearth. The first amongst them was that no one would look out for him save himself. The second was that if he made a botch-up of things—be it letting the dogs out when one of the bitches was in heat, forgetting to haul the warriors’ leathers in from the rain, or failing to skin a deer carcass before it froze—it was no one’s responsibility but his own. Break it, you fix it or get a beating. That was the way Gullit’s hearth had worked.
It had not been a bad lesson all in all, though it had come back to haunt him in recent months. He, the Dog Lord, had brought the clanholds to its knees, and Vaylo had the uncomfortable feeling that there was no one to set it to rights only him. Gods, why had he ever accepted Penthero Iss’ offer of aid? He should have taken the Dhoonehouse alone. The invasion was damned from the start, from the very first moment when Vaylo had said to Iss’ emissary, “Do what you must, halfman. Just spare me the details so I can deny them.”
Suddenly tired, Vaylo stopped climbing and sat on a loose hump of rocks. Below him, Nan and Hammie were shepherding the bairns along a particularly sharp draw. The wind had tugged Nan’s sea gray hair from her braid and flushed her cheeks with blood, and she looked young and a little bit dangerous. She’d taken to holstering her maiden’s helper crosswise on her back like a longsword, and Vaylo knew that the little pouch at her waist that used to contain her portion of powdered guidestone now held henbane instead. She’d come across it ten days back, growing on the banks of a melt pond near the Dhoone-Spur border, and picked it and dried it for self-protection. It was deadly poison and she had enough to kill all of them, save the dogs, and the only place she trusted to store it was her powder pouch, for no child would ever dare touch that.
“Pasha. Aaron. Slip behind those bushes and relieve yourselves. Quick about it now.” When Aaron hesitated Nan set him in motion with a pat to his backside. Hiking quickly up the remaining slope, she left Hammie to pick up the rear.
“The Dhoonewall can’t be that far away now,” she said to Vaylo as she sat beside him on the rock and gazed south across the rolling highlands of Dhoone. “And then this journey will be done.”
Nan Culldayis was no talker and she spoke only when she had something to say. Vaylo waited.
“A hundred and eighty men await you at the Dhoonewall,” she said finally, stil
l looking ahead. “That’s exactly three times the number you commanded thirty-five years ago on the raid to steal the Dhoonestone from Dhoone.”
She was right, and Vaylo understood all she meant by those words. Somewhere not far north of here lay the fastness known as the Dhoonewall. It had been the Dog Lord’s destination right from the start. His eldest son Quarro commanded the Bluddhouse and Vaylo knew enough about the greed and ambition of his seven sons to guess that he would never be welcomed back. The Bluddsmen at the Bluddhouse would be loyal to Quarro now, and a failed and aging chief arriving home with a single armsman as escort probably wouldn’t be allowed through the gate. Worse, he might even be shot during the approach. So no, not for one minute had Vaylo considered returning to the Bluddhouse—he would not debase himself by appealing to his eldest son for shelter. He would head north instead to the Dhoonewall, where the longswordsman Cluff Drybannock stood ready with a hundred and eighty men.
It had seemed like a lifetime ago when Vaylo had sent Drybone north to defend the two major passes in the Copper Hills. The Dhoonewall was a defensive rampart spanning the six leagues that separated the passes. It had lain unused since the time of the River Wars, and only one of the original six hillforts remained livable. Vaylo had feared Dun Dhoone using the fort as a base to gather men and launch an attack on the Dhoonehouse, so had decided to garrison it with Bluddsmen. His original plan had been to kill two birds with one stone—send his troublesome second son Pengo far away from the Dhoonehouse where he could do no harm. Pengo would have none of it though—threatening to take the bairns with him if his hand was forced—and Cluff Drybannock had offered to take his place. Vaylo had regretted letting Drybone go. Cluff Drybannock was the best longswordsman in the North. He was a bastard, part Sull, part Bluddsman, and when he’d turned up at the Bluddhouse twenty years ago Vaylo had taken him as his adopted son. He missed Dry, and feared he had made a mistake by sending him away.
That wasn’t what Nan was about here, though. She had watched him these past days, seen his spirits fall and his temper rise, and she sought to tell him in her own way that all was not lost. If he had managed to carry out the most audacious raid of the past hundred years with a crew of sixty men, then imagine what he could do with three times that number. That was what Nan meant to say. He could not deny the logic of it, but he had been young then and filled with certainty. He was old now and the only thing that he was certain of was that he had made mistakes.
Vaylo glanced down the hill, checking on Hammie and the bairns. Pasha and Aaron were in good spirits, whooping and hollering at one of the returning dogs. The bitch looked to have another rabbit in her jaws. That made three in under a day.
To Nan he said, “I must be sure who my enemy is before I send good men to fight. My sons are scattered across the clanholds—some hold houses, some don’t. If I were to attempt to take their holdings from them by force then Bludd would be killing Bludd. As for Dhoone, the Thorn King can keep it. I sat on the Dhooneseat for a while and I canna say I enjoyed it. That seat is cold, Nan, and it was won at too great a cost to my soul. Anything I win now will be hard-fought and hard-defended. Yet what that prize might be I canna say. Always in the past my next move was clear to me: raid, invade, ambush, crack down on my rivals, attack. Yet things have changed for me, and I’m no longer sure what comes next.”
At his side Nan breathed evenly and did not speak. Clouds were breaking up in the south and bands of sunlight swept across the hills. It was too windy for frost, but it was cold enough, and Vaylo felt the wind tears sting his eyes.
After a while Nan stood. Turning so that she was opposite him, she said, “You knew my da, Nolan Culldayis. He swung hammers with Gullit during the River Wars. Took up carving wood after your father died, used to make foxes and blackbirds and other fancies. I asked him once what he was working on. It was new block of cherrywood and he’d just started whittling. He said to me, ‘I don’t know what it is yet, Nannie. Knowing would ruin the surprise.’” Nan raised a finely shaped eyebrow at Vaylo. “It was the possibilities, you see. As long as he didn’t know what he was carving there were more of them.”
Vaylo bowed his head at his lady, acknowledging the wisdom of her story yet not sure if it meant anything to him. A clan chief with jaw sprang surprises; he was not doing his job if he himself was surprised.
Rising, he held out a hand to accept the bitch’s third rabbit of the day. She’d been waiting all the while Nan had been speaking, halted by a small gesture of Vaylo’s hand, and now she came forward, wagging her tail so forcefully it rocked her bony rump right along with it. “Good girl,” he told her, taking the bloody fur-covered sack from her jaw. He inspected it, frowned, and then gave it right back. “Eat,” he commanded. And she did, opening her jaw wide and wolfing it down whole in a unlovely, jerky motion that looked like a dry heave in reverse.
Vaylo was glad to have it gone. One more rabbit and there was no telling what he might do: run back to the Dhoonehouse and bunny-kick Robbie Dun Dhoone in the head.
“Nan,” he said, holding out his arm for her to come to him. “Did I ever tell you about the day your da taught me his special move?”
Aware that he was shutting down all talk about the future, Nan nodded knowingly and let him put his arm around her. “The Culldozer?”
“Aye. The one where he’d let his hammer lie flat against his horse’s belly just so and then present his left flank to the enemy so they couldn’t tell he was armed. Then once he got close enough, he’d swing about and uppercut them in the jaw.”
Nan shook her head in bafflement. “I suppose it saved the pulltooth some work.”
Vaylo grinned. Pasha ran up to them and wriggled under her granda’s free arm, and he got to tell his two best girls about the day he dropped his newly minted warhammer on Nolan Culldayis’ left foot whilst attempting the special move.
The wind wailed as they walked, blowing in their faces and scaling their skin. Silvery spikes of heather undulated in waves like the surface of a lake. Ahead the Copper Hills grew taller and more desolate, and Vaylo could see sunken holes in their faces where ancient and unsealed mine shafts lay. Ockish Bull had told him once that the deepest hole ever dug by a clansman could be found in these hills. “Harlin Dhoone ordered its excavation. Had an old mineshaft reopened, climbed down to the deepest level, and pointed to the ground. ‘Dig there,’ he commanded his men, ‘and do not rest your spades for one year.’” Vaylo recalled asking Ockish what the hole was for; had Harlin reason to believe that a new lode of copper lay beneath? Ockish had shaken his large bland head. “Copper, no. Harlin dug it as a warning to his enemies. Cross me and you’ll end up down there.”
Vaylo frowned. With Ockish Bull you could never quite be sure what was and wasn’t true. He could spin tales with the best of them, and possessed a facial expression so inscrutable that it never helped to look at him while he spoke. Vaylo smiled to himself, remembering. Gods, he missed him.
“Granda. Over there. Look.”
Vaylo followed the line of his grandson’s arm, squinting to make out detail in the distance. “What is it, boy?” he barked, unable to see anything in the valley except heather and shrunken pines, and feeling the first stirrings of fear.
“Mounted men, Granda. Dozens of them.”
Dear Gods, no. “Get down,” he hissed. “Now!”
“Granda,” came Pasha’s voice, cool as cream. “They’re Bludd. I can see the red banns.”
Cluff Drybannock. Vaylo had dropped to his knees—he was the only one who had done so—and Hammie came forward to offer him a hand. Preferring to stand on his own, Vaylo slapped him away. “What do you see?” he asked.
Hammie frowned in concentration as he scanned the valley. “Bairns are right,” he said eventually. “There’s over a hundred clansmen down there. It’s definitely Bludd, I can see their cloaks. They’re heading right for us.”
“It’s Drybone!” Aaron said excitedly. The boy began jumping up and down and waving both hands over
his head. “We’re here! We’re here!”
Vaylo and Hammie exchanged a glance. Hammie shrugged. Vaylo pressed his knuckles against his heart; some tightness there. “Warriors do not jump up and down when they greet each other.” He gave his grandson a long, reprimanding stare. Dropping his arms, the boy fell silent. “Good. Chin up. You too, Pasha. One on each side of me.”
As the bairns fell in line, Vaylo looked ahead. He could see the horsemen now, see the rich blackness of sable cloaks and the oily sheen of well-groomed horses. Most of the men had spears couched upright on saddle horns and all had longswords holstered so high on their backs that the crossguards and hand-guards were visible above their shoulders. They had moved into the formation known as “rule of all,” where a single line curved inward forming a reverse C shape so that the farther a man stood from the center the more forward he was. It was a little-used formation and Vaylo wondered what, if anything, it meant.
