A Fortress of Grey Ice (Book 2) (28 page)

It was just as Angus Lok had said. The golden boy was puffing himself up to be a king.
He warned me about Robbie Dhoone, and I did not heed him.
Vaylo was suddenly overcome with a deep possessiveness for the very land he had earlier dismissed. He might not love Dhoone, but he would not relinquish it. He was the Dog Lord, and once he had fastened his jaws upon an object he’d never let it go. They’d have to kill him first.

Turning to face his sons, he said, “We must not be caught unawares again.”

Gangaric nodded his large and part-shaved head. He was all axman now, sure and powerful in his heavy crimson cloak, the weight of his broadax straining the leather harness at his breast. Thrago, named for his great-grandfather yet the least self-willed of the three, followed Gangaric’s lead and sat ready on his mount. Pengo met Vaylo’s gaze, his ungloved hand smoothing his horse’s mane. “So, Father. What would you have us do?”

Vaylo chose to ignore the arrogance in his second son’s voice. He shifted his position slightly to include Cluff Drybannock in the circle. “We must increase our watch. Success at the Bluddhouse will leave Dhoone thirsting for more. They’ll strike again. And soon. Robbie Dhoone’s eager to make a name for himself. He’s after his uncle’s sworn men.”

“The Bluddhouse, more like,” contested Pengo. “We’ve claimed his clanhold, now he’s after claiming ours.”

Vaylo shook his head, growing impatient. “Robbie Dhoone had no intention of taking the Bluddhouse. He didn’t have the men for it. Aye, it was doubtless pleasing to see the Sacred Grove go up in flames, but this raid was more about Dhoone than Bludd. The young pretender’s sending a message to the Dhoone warriors at Gnash.
Come, join me. Leave Skinner. He’s an old man with an old man’s ways, and he doesn’t have the jaw to retake Dhoone
.”

Pengo’s face twisted. The scar on his cheek, caused when he’d fallen through a trapdoor at Withy, stretched to an ugly white line. “If you’re such an expert on what the Dhoonesman thinks, how come you didn’t think to guard our roundhouse against him?”

The wolf dog, perceiving an insult to his master, began to growl very softly from behind a screen of withered bulrushes. Vaylo, seeing something familiar and disturbing in the hard lines of his son’s face, lashed out. “Get off your horse. I am your chief. Don’t you dare speak down to me from the high comfort of your saddle like some grand city lord. I’ve led this clan for thirty-five years—and I can’t remember one of them when you’ve performed any service to earn your keep.”

Pengo’s nostrils flared. His eyes burned with a force that made him shake. Vaylo saw him look to his brothers for support, but both Thrago and Gangaric managed to stay occupied with stilling their jittery mounts. Pengo snatched up his reins and pulled back his horse’s head.

“Ride away now,” Vaylo warned, “and you forfeit your say in this clan.” As he spoke he knew it was a mistake—give a man no way to back down and you either lose or humiliate him—but the unsettling vision of seeing his dead wife’s features living beneath Pengo’s own made him angry, not wise.

Pengo turned the great gray warhorse, forcing a path between his brothers. As he put spurs to his mount, his gaze alighted on Cluff Drybannock, who stood tall and unmoving by the water’s edge. With a sudden heft of his weight, Pengo swung his horse to charge him. The two men, one mounted and one afoot, stared at each other for the scant seconds it took the horse to cross the distance between them. The Dog Lord held his breath. There was a moment, when something ancient and fearless sparked in Drybone’s eyes, when Vaylo realized how little he knew of his fostered son. Cluff Drybannock was not his real name. He had been called it by Molo Bean, who had laughed as the young and starving orphan had stuffed himself with dry bread at Molo’s table. Who Dry was, what he’d seen and done before coming to Clan Bludd, was unknown. The one and only time he’d spoken of his father was that first day, when he claimed the man was a Bluddsman so Bludd must take him in. His mother was a Trenchlander . . . and Trenchlanders were Sull. Vaylo saw that Sull in him now, and was overcome with the sudden certainty that if Dry chose to, he had ways within his power to halt the horse.

Yet he did not. At the final instant, Cluff Drybannock moved aside. Lake water seeped around his boots as he stepped onto a floating bed of mallow grass at the lake’s edge. Pengo’s horse entered the water with a great splash, quickly rearing back at the shock of its coldness. Pengo easily gained control of the beast and turned it back onto the shore.

“Aye,” he said to Drybone. “It’d suit you well enough if I rode away.” Abruptly, he dismounted. “But I don’t think I’ll give you the satisfaction of taking my place just yet.”

Drybone did not speak. After a moment he turned his back on Pengo and bent to collect water from the lake. Vaylo watched as Dry released cupped hands above his forehead and let the dark, oily water run down his scalp.
He stopped Pengo from losing face, yet he needn’t have. Why?
When the answer came it made Vaylo feel old.
For me, just for me.

Pengo raised his voice to his brothers. “Gangaric. Thrago. You lazy sons-of-bitches. Get down from your saddles. I’ll be damned if I’ll stand here alone.”

Vaylo looked on with distaste as his two younger sons did Pengo’s bidding. Sometimes he wondered if he hadn’t brought the curse of his sons upon himself.
I married my half-sister. No man can come that close to trespass and remain unpunished
. Stone Gods! But Angarad was fair then! The color of her skin, the way her eyes crinkled when she laughed. Old Gullit Bludd had adored her. He’d grunt at his sons, ignore his bastard, and shower his daughter with gifts. The only time Vaylo could recall seeing his father pay coin for anything was when a Far South trader had shown him a sea pearl as black as night. Angarad was thirteen then, more lovely than a thousand pearls, and when she’d held the jewel to her hair it disappeared, so closely were the two matched in sheen and hue. Gullit had bought the jewel on the spot, and named it for her. Angarad had worn it till her death. Vaylo had it now, yet he’d never once looked upon it in the nine years she’d been gone. Strange how he had once thought it beautiful. Now he knew it for the dark omen it was: no girl of thirteen should be given a black jewel.

She had not wanted him. How could she? She was fifteen, in the fullness of her beauty, and the man who claimed her had slain the father she loved. Worse than that somehow was Vaylo’s bastardy. Angarad was her father’s daughter: she had grown up believing in his word. She had seen firsthand how Vaylo was treated, and that seeing had darkened her feelings for the rest of her life.

The Dog Lord sighed deeply. He could not blame her. She was proud, as a Bluddswoman should be, and she had borne him seven healthy sons. Toward the end, during the last few months of her life, when she insisted on being carried out to the Bluddcourt each morning in her wicker chair, there had been a softening. All she had to do was show him one small sign of affection to steal the heart from his chest. He had wanted to love her all along.

It was an effort to drag his mind from the past.

To Thrago he said, “Take a crew of thirty south to Withy. Warn Hanro of what passed at the Bluddhouse. Tell him to double watches on all borders—especially in the east where the Withy hunt-runs cross into the Ruinwoods. You’ll stay with Hanro until I call you back. And before you say it I’ll hear no argument about which of you is to take command of the Withyhouse. Hanro has it. He’s been there for ninety days, and he should know how best to defend it by now.” Vaylo couldn’t resist a jibe at his second son. “And be sure to watch your step, else you’ll fall through a trapdoor and end up with a hole through your head.”

Pengo scowled.

Thrago nodded. “I’ll leave on the morrow.”

“Good.” Vaylo turned to Gangaric. His mind was fully engaged now. Angus Lok had warned him that Robbie Dhoone was cunning and hungry. Vaylo had been cunning and hungry himself once; it shouldn’t be difficult to put himself in the Dhoonesman’s place. “Gangaric. I want you back at the Bluddhouse. Take a small crew with you. No more than two dozen spearmen and bowmen. You’ll be working with Quarro to secure the Bluddhold. I want three hundred yards of timber cleared around the roundhouse. And take Scunner Bone with you. He’s old, but he’s devious, and he knows how to lay horse traps and strangle lines.”
And it’ll stop him from catching any more damned eels for me to eat.
“Send him to Withy when he’s done.”

Gangaric was not so pleased with his assignment. He had styled himself a HalfBludd axman, and had plans to travel south to the Halfhouse and take up arms there. Now his father was commanding him east, and at the head of a crew of archers and spearmen, no less. Every axman Vaylo had ever met had nothing but contempt for weapons that relied on piercing, not chopping, blades. Gangaric fought his dissatisfaction. Deeply scarred and blistered hands flung back his braids. “Aye. I’ll go east. Though I’ll be taking a half-score of axmen as escort.”

Vaylo forced himself not to object. Six axmen were neither here nor there. If it pleased his third son’s vanity to have them, then it came at a small price. “Well enough. I’d have you leave at dawn. All in the Bluddhouse must know our hearts are with them.”

Gangaric bowed his head, a strangely courtly gesture that lay at odds with his manner and dress.
He’s learning grace from the HalfBludds
, Vaylo thought, pleased despite himself. HalfBludd axmen were renowned for two things: their reckless joy on the battlefield, and their gallantry with clan maids off it. It certainly wouldn’t hurt Gangaric to pick up a few manners whilst learning how best to chop off a man’s head.

Vaulting into his saddle, Gangaric said, “I’d best get back. There’s much to settle if I’m to be gone by first light.”

Thrago followed after him, and the two of them rode at gallop to the Dhoonehouse. The moon was high now, silvering the thistle fields and moving deep within the lake. The wind carried the scent of resin from the western pines, a smell that reminded the Dog Lord of surgeons’ tents and wound dressings. Underfoot the first dew of nightfall was crisping to ice.

Vaylo was aware of the silence that grew between the three remaining men. Cluff Drybannock and Pengo Bludd seldom had much to say to each other, but tonight the hostility running between them crackled in the air.

“Pengo,” Vaylo said eventually. “I want you to take a company of a hundred men north. Ride overnight to the Dhoonewall and secure—”

“No,” Pengo hissed. “I’m not leaving this roundhouse while
he
’s still in it.” He snapped his wrist in Drybone’s direction. “Send
him
to those blasted rocks—he’s not one of us. He won’t be missed.”

“
Silence!
” Vaylo roared, taking a step toward his son. Fifty-three years old Vaylo was, yet Pengo still flinched before him. “Cluff Drybannock is your brother by fosterage and a warrior of this clan. You will show him due respect, or as the gods are my witness I’ll beat you where you stand.”

Pengo took a step back, his face flushing with blood. “That bastard thinks he’s as good as a chief since he took Ganmiddich. But what good did it do us? He held it for less than a month.”

Cluff Drybannock regarded Pengo with such a depth of coldness it made hairs rise on Vaylo’s neck. It was not Dry’s fault Ganmiddich had been lost—Vaylo knew that blame lay with himself for sending Dry north to Dhoone when they were already undermanned—yet Dry did not speak up in his own defense. His pride allowed for no excuses.

Addressing himself to Vaylo, Dry said, “I will take command of the Dhoonewall.”

“No, you will not!” Vaylo replied hotly. “That charge falls to my second son.”

“Let him take it, Father,” urged Pengo, sensing an advantage. “He’s unwed. He has no wife to drag north for his comfort.”

Vaylo halted for a moment as he made sense of what his son said. Pengo couldn’t be thinking of taking his new wife to the Dhoonewall. The Dhoonewall was a defensive rampart spanning two major passes in the Copper Hills. It had lain unused since the time of the River Wars—and then manned only briefly. Built by Hawker Dhoone, it had once been a source of Dhoonish pride; a means of protecting the Dhoonehold and Dhoone’s precious copper mines from Maimed Men raiders, and preventing hostile clans from mounting northern attacks. Now the copper mines were mostly sealed. Iron had long since taken over as the metal of choice for forging weapons, and the number of Maimed Men had been declining for decades. As far as Vaylo knew, only one of the original hill forts was livable and that was a broken-down tower of crumbling mortar and mossy stones. No woman could be taken there. Especially one as heavy with child as Pengo’s wife.

Vaylo heard his voice fall dangerously low as he said, “You
will
man the Dhoonewall and you will
not
take your wife.”

“I don’t think so, Father. You may command the Dhoonehold, but
I
command my wife.” Pengo flicked a piece of straw from one of his braids. “And while I think on it, I’ll have her bring the bairns along as well. They’ve been so long in your care they think they’ve an old man for a father.”

Vaylo wanted to strike him. Pengo’s two children were his sole remaining grandchildren. To even speak of putting them in danger was unthinkable. It made Vaylo see spots of red rage before his eyes. “Your wife stays here. She’s with child. You can’t drag her and the bairns to some broken piece of rock-wall. I forbid it.”

“She.
She
. You don’t even know her name, do you? All Shanna is to you is a means of restocking your grandchildren. A brood mare. Well start looking for someone else to do your rutting, Dog Lord, for if you send me north to the Dhoonewall you’ll never see Shanna or the bairns again.”

Gods help me not to kill him.
Vaylo grabbed his braids in his fist and tried not to grind his teeth. There was truth in what his son said, he could not deny it. He couldn’t remember the name of Pengo’s new wife, though she had been a daughter of the clan for twenty years. Oh, he knew her well enough by sight—a striking girl with the dark skin and black eyes of her sister, Pengo’s first wife—yet the only time he’d spoken to her was when she became visibly heavy with child. It had been the same with all his sons’ wives: he valued them, but only as mothers of his grandchildren. Now Pengo’s wife was six months pregnant, soon to bring forth the clan’s first newborn since the massacre on the Bluddroad. Every effort must be made to keep her safe. Vaylo wanted that child.