A Sword from Red Ice

by Julia V Jones

  Hope of catching Hammie and Mogo dwindled as he found himself on the wrong side of a melt creek that had sprung on the valley floor. Of course, Vaylo eluded himself, he should have kept an eye to the seasoned man. Mogo Salt, had been here the longest; his route would be the best. Irritation made Vaylo force jump, and the stallion stum bled on theupslope, panicked, and tried to-throw him. The Dog Lord hung on grimly, knees clamped to the horses belly, knuckles white around the reigns. It occured to him that he could end the race simply trot the horse back and congratulate the winner-but it seemed a petty kind of act. Give up now and he'd deprive either Hammie or Mogo of the satisfaction of beating his chief.

  Shaken and with the old pain nagging at his heart, Vaylo galloped back to the hillfort. For a wonder Hammie Faa won. Those big nostrilsi had meant more air, which made for a faster horse. Both men assailed him with their stories. Hammie's saddle had slid off center, his mount had thrown a shoe. Mogo had taken the lead, hit a pothole, had a near miss with the offending shoe. Vaylo grumbled at them, told them he'd taken time midway to boil himself a cup of tea. Hammie beamed, his cheeks as red as only a Faa man's could be.

  "Inside," Vaylo ordered. "And no telling this to the bairns." As he spoke he looked up at the drum-shaped war terrace that extended out from the fort's north ward. Cluff Drybannock stood there speaking to someone Vaylo recognized and knew.

  The surprise of it chilled him. He had thought himself at the end of the earth here, yet there was his third son.

  It was difficult to keep his mind in the moment. Stirring himself, he frowned skeptically at the hoof that was missing a shoe, told Mogo he'd more than likely ducked horseshit, not iron, and steered his small group onto the path that led to the western door.

  The hillfort no longer boasted viable stables and all horses were kept belowground in the western ward. Someone had done a fair job of boxing and partitioning the space, and Vaylo saw that sheets of scrap copper had been molded into troughs. He forced himself to unsaddle and brush down the stallion. Hammie knew something was up and offered to take charge of the feed and watering. Vaylo let him. "For a man with a new horse," he told him, "you didn't do half bad."

  Hammie pressed his lips together, nodded, and then said, "Chief." Vaylo took that word up the stairs with him and into the north ward. The big double doors were open and the air outside blew in. Bluddsmen were sitting on benches and leaning against walls, keeping up the pretense of oiling swords, mending tack, scraping rust from chainmail. One man was actually taking a swipe at the mold on the walls with a cloth soaked in lye; Nan's circle of influence was growing. They were quiet as he walked through the room and onto the war terrace.

  Cluff Drybannock and Gangaric HalfBludd were the only men on the balcony. They were standing close to the stone balustrade, off center to avoid the gazes of the Bluddsmen in the ward. Neither man was speaking. The distance between them was a fraction too great to allow relaxed conversation. They turned to him as he stepped outside. Gangaric looked relieved.

  "Father," he said. "It has been a long time."

  Vaylo clasped his son's arm, and was surprised to feel an equal pressure in return. "Son."

  Gangaric HalfBludd had made himself an axman and a HalfBluddsman in memory of his great-grandfather, Thrago, and he wore a fine crimson cloak overmounted with a heavy collar of woodrat skins in the manner of the border clan. His mighty war ax was cradled across his back. The limewood handle rose above his left shoulder for ease of draw. The fierce oyster-shell-shaped blade was protected by a bloodstained mitt. Such was the price of warriorship in HalfBludd, Vaylo recalled: You had to dress in your own drawn blood.

  "Have you ridden from the Bluddhouse?"

  Gangaric's large head was bare and his scalp featured alarming bands of part-shavings. "I've been on the hoof for thirteen days. The snow slowed me."

  Vaylo unpinned his heavy sable warcloak. It would need to be aired to dispel the stench of panicked horse. Laying it over the balcony he asked, "What news?"

  This was the question Ganga «had been waiting for, the one Cluff Drybannock had doubtless asked only to be answered coldly, I await my fathers return.

  Vaylo knew all about his sons.

  "Pengo has possession of Ganmiddich," Gangaric said. "He won it from the Spire's amiy, and is now under fire from Blackhail, Bannen and Scarpe."

  Sweet mother of all bastards. This news was so startling it rendered Vaylo speechless. Pengo, his worthless second son, in command of one of the great prizes of the clanholds? How had this happened? How many flukes of fate and pigs escaping from pokes had it taken to bring this piece of good fortune to bear? Ganmiddich taken from city men? Finding his voice he asked, "The Spire routed Blackhail and Ganmiddich?"

  "Aye. Pengo rode in at battle's end. Blackhail was beaten, and the city men were set to claim the Crab Gate. Then the city men split their army. Half stayed to shore the gate, and half withdrew."

  This just kept getting stranger, "Why would the city men do such a damn fool thing?"

  Gangaric shrugged. The skin on his face and neck was deeply ice-tanned and wormed with broken veins. "The half that withdrew crossed the river and headed back to Spire Vanis. The half that Pengo saw off headed west."

  Vavlo nodded, thinking. West was good. West was away from Bluddsworn clans. Turning his back on his son, the Dog Lord gazed north across the gray and snow-mounded valley. From here you could not see the Field of Graves and Swords, and he was glad of it. Glad also that the hundreds of Bluddsmen and women Pengo had led from Dhoone all those weeks ago had found a home. And as yet come to no harm.

  "Ganmiddich can be held by small numbers as long as the gate remains sealed." It was Cluff Drybannock speaking, the words his first since Vaylo had arrived.

  Gangaric challenged them. Pushing his hand against the air that separated him from Drybone, he cried, "Gates sealed! What sort of Bluddsmen would we be if we hid behind closed doors like frightened maids?"

  "Live ones," Vaylo said flatly, spinning about. He was surprised by how closely his third son's words echoed his own thoughts of earlier that day. Hide. Sit and wait. The complaints were almost the same. To distract himself he asked, "What of Withy?"

  Gangaric threw a defiant glance at Cluff Drybannock before speaking. "Withy suffers. Hanro took harm when Skinner Dhoone attacked, and has not recovered from his injuries. Thrago holds the house. Dun Dhoone has already mounted one attack;"

  Wt are the clan that makes kings. That was the Withy boast, so of course Robbie Dun Dhoone would want to rewin the Withyhouse for Dhoone. You could call yourself a king without Withy, but you could-n't become one until the Withy chief anointed your shoulders and laid some new-made crown on your head. As Vaylo recalled, the old Dhoonish crown had bad been forged into a Blackhail sword.

  Vaylo leant against the stone balcony. His legs and spine were sore after the horse race and he needed the support. Hanro was his sixth son. Thagro his fifth. They had both been at Withy for months, though Hanro had been there the longest and hud held the command. Vaylo imagined his sixth son must be ill indeed to secede that command to his older brother. Or worse, Thrago may have seized it. Vaylo glanced at Gangaric. The relationships his sons had with each other was something he did not fully understand. Some were allies. Some not. Gangaric and Thrago had been close as boys, and they had both wed HalfBludd maids.

  All wives were dead now, slain by Hailsmen on the Bluddroad, but that was a dark thought for another day.

  "You intend to travel south to Withy?" Vaylo asked. It nearly wasn't a question.

  "Aye. Thrago needs aid." Gangaric's jaw came up. Pointedly, he looked back at the shambling, crazily roofed hillfort. And then sneered. "We are Bludd. We must fight."

  Gods help me not to hit him. Vaylo ground down his seventeen remaining teeth. Directly across from him Cluff Drybannock stood tall and still, his waist-length braids moving in the breeze, his expression controlled. Watching his fostered son calmed Vaylo and he took a moment to fish inside his belt pouch
and pull out a cube of chewing curd. The curd was old and the mold had gotten into it, but he worked it soft in his mouth and swallowed the bitter taste.

  What did he need here? Looking at Gangaric's hard, mutinous face, Vaylo decided that what he needed was more information. He spat the chewing curd over the edge. "How does Quarro sit at Bludd?"

  Vaylo himself had sent Gangaric to aid his eldest brother, Quarro, after Robbie Dhoone's torching of the Sacred Grove and his tearing down of the outhouse widely believed to have been built from the remains of the last Dhoonestone. If Vaylo remembered rightly Gangaric had not wanted to go, and had insisted on taking a crew of axmen along for comradeship and support. Were those men here today? Probably. Gangaric was not the sort to ride hundreds of leagues across unfriendly territory on his own.

  Gangaric kicked a loose chip of masonry with his foot. Uncomfortable. He took a speaking breath, glanced at Drybone, and then exhaled and didn't use it. Finally he blurted, "I would rather we speak alone."

  "Speak or I will break your ax arm."

  For a long moment no one moved. The holes in the centers of Gangaric's sky blue eyes got bigger and blacker. All of Vaylo s sons had grown up in fear of their father. The question was: Had that fear gone? I am fifty-three, Vaylo thought. Am 1 capable of beating my son?

  It was a question he did not have to answer. Jerking into motion, Gangaric cried, "Here then. If you force me to say it. The Bluddhouse has turned into a stinking well. Quarro grows fat and lazy—drinks ale all day and stays abed with Trench whores. Calls himself chief, though not many call him it back. He and his cronies are holed up in the house. Dun Dhoone's garrisoning men at Wellhouse, spoiling for battle. What does Quarro do? Decides to have a pit dug for bear baiting. A fucking bear pit. With the Sull sneaking on our eastern bounds, the Trenchlanders raiding our farms, and the Thorn King knocking on our door, he digs a bear pit!" Gangaip was shaking so stpmgly, the limewood ax handle was vibrating above his shoulder like a twanged string. "Something needs to be done before it all goes to hell. I'm not going back there. The place stinks worse than this."

  Vaylo breathed in and out, and tried to recall why he'd cSitinued having sons after his first was born. Angarad had had a hard time with the labor, and the mewling purple creature that had been produced after three days did not seem worth the effort and the risk. Quarro, she decided she would name it, after some grandfather's grandfather who might have once worked in a quarry, or possessed only a quarter of something vital—like a ball. Vaylo had not liked him. Straightaway, he knew that. Little Quarro screamed like someone was trying to skin him and shit like a sick dog. What was hard to uraerstand then was why he, Vaylo Bludd, had gone ahead and made six more. For a certainty he should have stopped at two. That way Gangaric HalfBludd, formerly Bludd, would not be standing there, daring to accuse his father of inaction.

  "Did Scunner Bone go to Withy?" Questions seemed the best way to deal with his feelings. Firing them off provided some relief.

  "The Bone," Gangaric repeated with annoying possessiveness and familiarity. "The old timers still at Bludd. What of it?"

  Scunner Bone was an Otler-trained cowlman, a handful of years older than Vaylo Bludd. Old-timer was an insult to both of them. "Nothing of it. What are your numbers?"

  "We're a dozen hatchets in all." Again, there was that snide glance at Drybone, this one specifically aimed at his sword. Hatchetmen—ax and hammer wielders—made no secret of their contempt for narrow blades. Vaylo wondered if Gangaric had ever had the pleasure of watching Drybone take off a man's head. One sweep was all it took. Rather poetically he called it moon upon the water. Aware that his thoughts were getting muddy, Vaylo took a moment to pace the width of the war terrace. The bit of sun that had sparkled earlier was gone, forced out by a conspiracy of clouds. He imagined it must be cold, but could not feel it. "You say Dun Dhoone's garrisoning men at the Well house? Is he there himself?"

  "No. His second-in-command Duglas Oger commands the crews."

  That meant Robbie Dhoone himself would move to take Withy… and possibly Ganmiddich. "Where are Blackhail's armies?"

  "They move southeast from Bannen."

  It was, if you thought about it, a pretty steady queue. Nearly everybody in the clanholds—including Drybone and he himself—had possessed the Ganmiddich clanhold at some point in the past seven months. Bludd had it now, Blackhail was aching to retake it, and you could not rule out Dun Dhoone. The three giants of the north, one small but exquisitely placed roundhouse: someone would get crushed.

  "There's a new Crab chief. He's housed at Croser."

  The politics of the clanholds could be labyrinthian, Vaylo decided. Croser was an eccentric, self-possessed clanhold that usually had the wisdom to avoid other people's fights. "Married to one of the chiefs daughters?" Vaylo ventured.

  Gangaric actually grinned. "We reckon so."

  Vaylo grinned back. Cluff Drybannock's face remained still.

  "How long will you stay?" Vaylo asked his third son.

  "Today and tomorrow if you'll permit it."

  It was probably foolishness to be pleased by the hesitancy in Gangaric's voice. It probably meant he was getting softer as well as older. Just as he was about to give his son leave to stay as long as he and his men saw fit, Cluff Drybannock spoke up.

  "You say the Sull are on our borders. What is their business?"

  Vaylo felt a chill travel up his spine. He had not thought to ask any questions of the Sull.

  Gangaric regarded his fostered brother with some suspicion, his eyes narrowing as he tried to find fault with the question. "They're on the move. They use our paths, cross into our territory at will. Hell's Town is teeming with them, the old Sull. The pure Sull. They're leaving the Heart Fires and heading north."

  The wind picked up as Gangaric spoke, blowing hard against their faces and breaking against the walls of the fort. One of the massive copper sheets on the roof began to whumpf as air got under it. The sound hammered at Vaylo's thoughts, made him think of the things Drybone had told him in the tower. Terrible, believable things.

  "The Sull are not human," Ockish Bull had told Vaylo the night thirty-five years ago after they'd encountered the Sull army in the woods east of Cedarlode. "Remember that and you will know something important" It hadn't seemed like much of a statement at the time and Vaylo had thought Ockish was being Ockish: inscrutable just for the sake of it. He should have known better. The times when Ockish Bull was making the least sense were the times when he spoke the hardest truths.

  The silence created by Gangaric's words wore on, gaining meaning. The Dog Lord knew he would have to be the one to break it— Gangaric had the look of a man who'd fallen in a hole and wasn't sure how to get out, and Drybone would not speak a worthless word—yet he found it strangely difficult. Heartiness was beyond him. He kept seeing the Field of Graves and Swords in his mind's eye. Derek Blunt and his men dead.

  Drybone standing at the north-facing window, keeping watch. Vaylo looked from his flesh-and-blood son to the son he had chosen, and realized he would soon have to make a choice. Gangaric had not ridden hundreds of miles out of his way for a cozy visit with Da.

  "Come," Vaylo said to both his sons, "let us go inside and get fed by Nan. We will all be Bluddsmen this night."

  Gangaric searched his father's eyes, and then bowed his head with gallantry learned from the HalfBludds. "As you wish." Vaylo imagined he was considering his crew of eleven men.

  Drybone observed this, his head level, his nostrils moving as they drew in cool air. "Father," he said quietly, "send Nan my respects. This warrior must keep the watch tonight."

  The old pain in Vaylo's heart deepened. Of course Dry could not eat with Gangaric—the man had carelessly mentioned Trench whores. Cluff Drybannock nodded a brief farewell to Gangaric and moved inside the fort.

  He took something essential with him. Vaylo felt its loss, but could not put into words what it was.

  Gangaric seemed relieved to have him gone. "I forgo
t to tell you," he said, coming forward to escort his father inside, "you are a grand-father again. Pengo's wife has had the baby."

  Shanna. Pengo had gotten her pregnant before his first wife was slain, but Vaylo cared little of that. "Is it healthy?" he asked, allowing his son to guide him through the double doors.

  "Aye. She's sucks so much they call her Milkweed."

  Vaylo laughed, though in truth what he was feeling was fear. Fear for Drybone, fear for his new granddaughter, fear for all of Bludd. Milkweed. Quite suddenly he remembered the reason for having more children. He had hoped to have a girl.

  THIRTY-FOUR Yiselle No Knife

  On the third day the land began to change. The slopes south of the Rift grew greener as the grasses and heathers were replaced with stone pines, blue cedar and hemlock. The hills themselves shifted into rolling valleys, forested hummocks and ridges and rocky bluffs. On the north side of the Rift the Craglands had begun, and spear-shaped hunks of rock towered over dwarfed pines and bushy black spruce. The Rift was perhaps fifty feet across now, and if they had wanted to they could have climbed into it and made the crossing to the clanholds. Boulders as big as barns, and entire dead trees, complete with boughs and root balls, choked the crack. Colonies of ptarmigan nested amid the rocks, and saxifrage and lousewort grew in mats from the Rift's buckled walls. Raif wondered what existed beneath the debris and boulders. Did the Rift still lead to the abyss?