by J. V. Jones
Vaylo remembered his favorite fishing hole in the Bluddhold, a green pond no wider than a man could spit. It was set so deep amongst the basswoods and sword ferns that if you didn’t keep your eyes lively you’d miss it. He’d stumbled upon it after old Gullit Bludd had given him a beating for some misdemeanor or other, and cautioned his bastard son not to show his face in the roundhouse for a week. By the fourth day, Vaylo recalled, he was so hungry he was spearing wood frogs with his boy’s sword and tearing tree oysters from rotten stumps. That was when he found it, the fishing hole. He was looking up at the canopy, tracking some scrawny squirrel that he hadn’t a snail’s chance in a salt barrel of ever catching, when he walked straight into the water. Icy cold and clear as emeralds, it was so beautiful that even a boy of nine couldn’t help but catch his breath and admire it.
Of course, he did what every nine-year-old would do when faced with a body of still water; he found some pebbles and skimmed them. As the pebbles skipped over the surface they created ripples that attracted silver minnows in search of flies. “Fish!” Vaylo had shouted triumphantly, and promptly set about whittling a fallen branch into a rod. As he worked he invented fancies about the fishing hole in his head. He was the first living man to ever stand here, the first to blaze a trail through the impenetrable tangle of Direwood, the first to pull a two-stone trout from the hole’s icy depths. When he got to the tricky part where he had to notch the stick to run a line, Vaylo was so absorbed in his daydreams that he lost his grip on the knife.
He’d been sitting on some bit of rock close to the water’s edge, and the blade plonked into the silt at his feet. As he dug fingers into the sand to grasp the hilt, his gaze slid between his legs and onto the face of rock. Something was engraved in the stone. A crescent moon, cut so deep that a lizard had laid her milky eggs in the hollow, stood above a single line of script. Vaylo was no scholar, and he wouldn’t learn to read until many years later, but he’d seen enough clannish writings to know that the script wasn’t clan.
The quarter-moon was a sign of the Sull.
Vaylo recalled feeling many things at that moment: excitement that he had stumbled upon a site once held by the Sull; fear that some kind of danger still lurked in this place; and disappointment that he had not been the great discoverer after all. The Sull had been here first.
It had been a lesson that had stayed with him for close on fifty years. Clan had gained land at the expense of the Sull, and a chief’s job was to insure they didn’t get it back.
“Granda! Your nose is red!” Pasha’s high, excited voice cut through Vaylo’s thoughts, forcing him in to the present. Where he most definitely belonged.
“Granda’s nose looks like beetroot,” Aaron chimed.
“There’s only one thing for it,” Vaylo proclaimed loudly, glancing from one pale and shivering grandchild to the next. “Last man to the top smells like cow fart.”
Pushing Pasha and Aaron from him, Vaylo charged up the slope. They had been heading along a creek bed that ran along the base of a small hill, and the first part of the climb was steep. His knees creaked, a muscle in his left thigh started cramping, and all seventeen of his remaining teeth gave him grief as blood pumped at pressure through the roots. But dammit he was going to make it to the top of that hill. Behind him, he heard the bairns’ feet thumping as they scrambled to catch up. Pasha called after her granda to wait, while little Aaron squealed excitedly at Hammie Faa to get moving. Vaylo laughed out loud at the thought of Hammie being dragged into the race, then wished immediately he hadn’t. Gods, but he was old. Lungs as holey as his had no business getting involved in anything faster than a brisk walk. And exactly which Stone God was responsible for making a man want to do a fool thing like win a race? Unable to decide whose domain it fell under, he cursed all nine just to be safe.
Pasha had the long legs of a colt and the sheer bloody-mindedness of a Bludd chief, and within half a minute she had passed him. Vaylo huffed and puffed and willed himself up the hill. Rain blasted his face, and the wind sent slimy, partially decomposed leaves splattering against his chest like bugs. It was getting so dark that he could barely see his feet. Just as he thought he might at least come in second, his grandson overtook him on the final stretch. Windmilling his arms and whooping with delight, Aaron streaked ahead. The Dog Lord growled at him as he passed.
“Granda!” Pasha shouted once she’d reached the top. “You’d better hurry. Hammie’s gaining.”
That won’t do at all, Vaylo thought. It was one thing to lose a race to a young whippet of a girl, another thing entirely to lose one to a chunky spearman with two left feet whose favorite saying was “A thorough job beats a fast one every time.”
Clamping his jaw together, the Dog Lord reached for his final reserve of strength. He found himself remembering the days he’d spent living at the fishing hole. The rod had worked like a charm. And with the fish nipping like puppies and a place to call his own he’d decided to stay away two weeks not one. That would show his father. When his son failed to return after the first week, Gullit Bludd would be beside himself with worry. Vaylo imagined the scene of his homecoming over and over again during the long nights camped out in the forest; his father’s gruff but relieved welcome, the playful cuffing, the break in Gullit’s voice as he said, “You had me worried for a while there, son.” It had felt so real that the morning he returned to the Bluddhold, Vaylo had actually expected his father to be standing on the redcourt, waiting for him.
Only Gullit Bludd had not been at the roundhouse that day. He’d taken his two legitimate sons on a longhunt four nights back, and had left no message for his youngest son, the bastard.
The old hurt burned within Vaylo like fuel. Once a bastard, always a bastard. Well, just watch and see what a bastard can do.
Fists pumping, Vaylo attacked the final stretch of the hill as if it were an enemy that needed beating. Hammie had to be thirty years younger than he was, yet the Dog Lord refused to think about it. Jaw was what counted in the clanholds, and no one had ever had more of it than the man who had stolen the Dhoonestone from Dhoone. One final push and the hill was his. Hammie tried to keep pace but his short, sturdy legs were designed for distance not speed, and he fell back when Vaylo topped the hill.
As the bairns rushed forward to cheer them, both men shared a long, weary “What the hell were we thinking?” glance before dropping to their knees. Hammie began to wheeze like a goat. The Dog Lord felt a familiar pain in his chest, but ignored it.
“Hammie smells like cow fart!” Aaron dove on top of the spearman, propelling him further into the mud. Laughing so hard she snorted, Pasha ran to join her brother and soon both children were jumping up and down on Hammie’s belly, roaring with laughter and yelling “Cow Faa—rt!” at the top of their lungs.
Hammie endured this for about as long as any man could before firmly setting the bairns on their feet. Wiping himself off he rose with some dignity. “Seeing as I haven’t had a bath in over a month, I’d say that cow fart might just be an improvement.”
This statement started the bairns giggling all over again. Vaylo was concerned about the noise, but glad in his heart to hear it. Pasha and Aaron deserved this. They’d been as good as gold these past five days, and quieter than was good for any child.
“Hush now, little ones.” Nan’s voice was gentle but firm. She hadn’t taken part in the race, and only now reached the top of the hill. The wind had dragged back her hood and sheened her face with rain. “It’s late and we must be quiet.”
Vaylo nodded his thanks. Somehow Nan knew that he couldn’t bring himself to discipline his grandchildren just then. She was the smartest one of the lot of them, and the Dog Lord was glad she was his.
As he held out his hand so she could pull him up, he heard a low howl echoing from the south. Wolf dog. Even though he had heard the call of his oldest, best-loved dog countless times before, Vaylo felt a loosening of muscle in his gut. Some sounds bypassed a man’s thoughts and entered his body direct
ly, and the call of a wolf was one of them.
All five dogs had been ranging wide throughout the evening, forming a protective circle around the party and hunting small game for food. Just before sunset the oldest bitch had brought Vaylo a jackrabbit still in its winter whites. Vaylo had no appetite for raw meat and judged it unsafe to light a cookfire, yet he had taken the rabbit from her jaw all the same. A dog giving up its prey for you was no small thing, and only a fool didn’t understand that.
The dogs were trained for silent patrol, and although all had been taught to alert their master to danger by issuing a single piercing howl, only the wolf dog ever sounded. The other four always deferred to him.
“Everyone down,” Vaylo hissed, cursing himself for his stupidity. Thanks to him they were now standing on the most exposed point for leagues—and not a damn tree in sight. At least there was no moon to light them.
The mud smelled sweetly rotten, and when Vaylo scooped up a handful he could feel the dead matter in it. Beetle legs and stalks of grass scratched his skin as he smeared it across his face, blacking himself out against the night. Nan didn’t waste a moment with feminine fussing and swiftly did the same to herself. Hammie was closest to the bairns and saw to them before masking himself. Both children submitted soundlessly to Hammie’s ministrations, but Vaylo knew they were scared. Tears welled in Aaron’s eyes.
Aaron was his only living grandson. Just seven years old, the boy had lost his mother and his homeland. And he hadn’t seen his father in thirty days. Remembering his own tears as a boy—tears of hurt and loneliness and rage—Vaylo reached over and laid a hand on Aaron’s back. The Dog Lord had spent thirteen years growing to manhood in Gullit’s house, and not once during that time had anyone touched him with simple kindness. He was the chief’s bastard son, begotten during the drunken revelry of Spring Fair, his mother rumored to be the lowest of the low: a common stovehouse whore. The only affection he’d received was from his father’s hounds. Good dogs, who had treated him like pack.
Ahooooooooo. The wolf dog’s howl came again, pitched lower this time and closer. The Dog Lord’s protectors were on the move.
Vaylo nodded to Hammie, and the small party began to belly down the east face of the hill. It was raining hard now and Vaylo’s cloak was quickly soaked. About halfway down the slope, he spied a copse of spindly blackthorn and altered his course toward it. He was listening intently, but could hear nothing above the wind. The wolf dog’s call had come from the south, and that meant Dhoonesmen riding out from the Thistle Gate.
“Granda, I can hear horses coming.” Pasha tried hard to whisper, but at nine she hadn’t quite gotten the hang of it and the words came out louder than if she’d spoken them in her normal speaking voice. Nan put a finger to her lip to hush her, but the damage was done.
Hammie and the Dog Lord shared a glance. The spearman had left his spear in the Tomb of the Dhoone Princes, where he had used it to bar the trapdoor that led from the roundhouse to the tomb. Hammie was still in possession of a good knife, though; a foot-and-a-halfer cast from a single rod of blued steel. The kitchen knife Vaylo now called his own was another matter entirely. The tang rocked loose in its handle, and three days of rain had cankered the blade. Of course Nan still had her maiden’s helper—a slender dagger with a wicked double edge and some pretty scrollwork—but Vaylo would never consider taking it from her. A Bluddswoman had as much right to defend herself as any man.
Scrambling with his knees and elbows, Vaylo pushed toward the blackthorns. Finally he could hear what Pasha heard: horses at canter, closing distance from the south. Dogs be good, Vaylo willed. If the five beasts homed too quickly they would betray their master’s position. Right now Vaylo needed them to stay put.
Reaching the bushes, he tugged off his rain-drenched cloak and threw it across the branches. It wasn’t much protection against the needle-sharp thorns, but it was better than nothing, and Vaylo had the bairns’ eyes and tender cheeks in mind. Gesturing furiously, he beckoned Pasha and Aaron to push through the tangle of winter-hardened canes and into the center of the copse. When they hesitated he fixed them with full force of his chief’s glare and hissed, “Now!”
Not once in Vaylo’s thirty-five-year chiefdom had anyone disobeyed an order spoken in his command voice and no one was about to start now. The children jumped into action, ducking their heads and plowing through the bushes as if they were being chased by wolves. Even Nan and Hammie moved smartly, Hammie pulling his cloak taut around his body and diving into the bushes like an otter into water. Vaylo took little satisfaction from their responses. He could hear horses closing distance from the far side of the hill, and the rhythmic beating of their hooves sounded like war drums.
Three, he counted. And they weren’t slowing. That was something.
Vaylo ducked into the bush as the horses crested the ridge. As he gulped air to steady himself his knees touched Nan’s. When he looked at her face he knew he was seeing a mask: firm and fearless, calm as if she were accustomed to crouching in a thornbush daily. Frowning, she rubbed dirt from the corner of Aaron’s eye and tucked Pasha’s black hair under her hood. Her instinct with the bairns was flawless. She knew that no-nonsense, oft-repeated gestures calmed better than soft words and protective hugs.
Vaylo edged about slightly, presenting his back to the children, and then slid the kitchen knife from his belt. Hammie knew the game and did likewise. The sharp odor of newly wetted ground acted like a drug on Vaylo’s windpipe and he found himself breathing deep, clear breaths. The riders were almost upon them. When the pounding of hooves grew deafening Vaylo spoke a prayer to his favored god, Uthred. Not this time.
Almost it was granted. The riders drew abreast of the bushes and continued southward, spraying clumps of mud against the blackthorns as they passed. Then suddenly there was a change in the rhythm of hoof falls, a subtle slowing, a pause as one man swiveled in his saddle and looked back. The sludge in Vaylo’s boots curdled. Sweet Gods, the cloak! It lay there, muddy and nondescript, soaked in the rainy colors of the night, indistinguishable from its surrounding in every regard. Except shape.
Vaylo imagined the rider’s gaze sliding across the blackthorns. He heard the jingle of bit irons as horses’ heads were pulled about. No words were spoken, but Vaylo imagined an exchange of wary nods. Hammie Faa looked to his chief.
The Dog Lord spun the moment, imagining all possible outcomes. Judging from the noise made by the horses’ trappings, the riders were well-equipped. Harnesses tooled to support the hardware of war had a certain sound to them. The unusual quantity of buckles and D rings created a percussion of sharp snaps. For a certainty they were Dhoonesmen—they were traveling south from the Dhoonehouse in haste—but Vaylo doubted they’d been sent to track him. In his experience man hunters traveled light. Whatever their purpose they were dangerous. A small group of men did not stop to investigate a tiny discrepancy in the dark of night unless they were confident they could deal with surprises. Vaylo glanced at his grandchildren and then wetted his mouth. Pushing dank air from his lungs he whistled for his dogs.
A single note, diamond-sharp, ripped through the noise of the storm. All was given away in that moment, and while five dogs responded with a chorus of unearthly howls, horses were spun about and kicked into motion.
Vaylo nodded at Hammie. To Nan he mouthed the words, Stay here and do not move. For the children themselves he had no words. Nan knew what to do.
As the dogs homed, Vaylo moved free of the brush and caught his first sight of the riders. Three horses, three men. Dhoonesmen, lightly armored for travel but armed with full battle complements. They were clad in blue wool cloaks fastened with thistle brooches and shod in stiff boar’s-leather boots. Two held nine-foot spears, and all had the sense to don battle helms before approaching.
Vaylo felt the old mix of excitement and fear as he prepared to face them. Here I am again, outmanned and outhorsed. The Underdog Lord, they should have named me.
Hammie Faa picked his po
sition—three feet back from his chief. Even now he could not give up the habit of respect. Vaylo reckoned he was all of twenty-three.
“Who stands there?” came a hard, commanding voice as the riders approached. Hearing the accent, Vaylo revised his opinion. At least one of these men was Castlemilk dressed as Dhoone.
The dogs were rapidly closing distance, and Vaylo waited . . . waited . . . before speaking. When the first of the dogs—the big black-and-orange bitch—came within striking distance, he stilled her with a raised fist. Immediately the bitch sank to her haunches, her amber eyes glowing, a growl smoldering deep within her throat. Within moments the other dogs arrived, instinctively forming a circle around Vaylo’s party and the Dhoonesmen. One by one, they followed the bitch’s lead and bellied the ground.
The two riders bearing spears reined their horses within striking distance of Vaylo, whilst the third, the smallest in stature, hung back. Their thornhelms cast black shadow across their faces and Vaylo could not see their eyes. Both spearmen’s horses were well-made and would outpace the dogs over distance, but the smell of the wolf dog made them nervous. Both animals were flicking their tails and tracking the wolf dog’s position with their ears. The third rider’s horse was past its prime, a dun mare long in the tooth and short-hoofed, but it wasn’t nervous like the others. It stood its ground well, its ears forward, interested and alert, calm under its master’s hand. Vaylo immediately reassessed its rider: any man who could command a horse to calmness in the presence of wolf musk had skills to be reckoned with.
“Answer the question!” The Castleman spoke again, puncturing his words with a thrust of his spear and a forward charge of his horse. He was tall, but lacked the shoulder breadth of a hatchetman. Dual scabbards holstered on opposing sides of his gear belt indicated his weapon of choice.