A Sword from Red Ice

Of course. Vaylo should have guessed. He knew the ranger well. When they'd met all those months ago in the Tomb of the Dhoone Princes, Angus Lok had tried to tell him some of the very same things. He had certainly warned him. "Return to Bludd and marshal your forces and wait for the Long Night to come. Forget about Dhoone and this roundhouse and your fancy of naming yourself Lord of the Clans. Days darker than night lie ahead." Vaylo had barely marked the words at the time, so intent was he on holding onto the Dhoonehouse. Yet Angus Lok had found someone else nearby who was willing to listen, someone whose blood pulled him toward the Sull and their causes, someone who was hungry to know.

Vaylo searched for how he felt. Almost you could not blame the ranger—bring a snake into your house and you will end up bitten— but he was less certain about Dry's role. Should he have listened so eagerly? How could you stop a man from wanting to know the history of his people? You could not, and to do so would deprive him of his freedom. That was that, then. There was no disloyalty on Dry's part, only listening. Yet it still hurt.

Dry stood waiting and Vaylo knew him well enough to know that he was anxious about his chiefs reaction. Vaylo made an effort. "Angus Lok's information is usually sound, though he is particular in how and where he metes it out." It was the best he could do for now, and Dry sensed it.

Dry could have pointed out that Angus Lok only told him what he would have eventually discovered for himself, yet he did not. Instead, he said, "A half-moon is rising."

It was a truce. Cluff Drybannock was part Sull and he could not deny it—did not want to deny it—and Vaylo knew he had little choice but to accept it. Neither man wanted to dwell on what it meant for the future: Sull goals and clan goals would not remain the same. For now they were both united in defending the hillfort: leave it at that. "Let us walk in the moonlight back to the fort," Vaylo said. Cluff Drybannock crosseojfche chamber and took his chiefs arm, and they were both comforted by the touch for a while.

TWENTY-FOUR The Weasel's Den

The march was grueling on both men and horses and Marafice was glad they had thought to bring the carts that the grangelords, in their haste to return to Spire Vanis and enter the contest for surlord that was surely taking place there, had left behind in the camp. The grangelords had left behind a lot of things without value—servants included—and it all added to the general motley of Marafice Eye's crew.

The carts now, they were a good thing. Saved the badly wounded having to be thrown over the backs of horses, or even worse—God forbid—being dragged behind them on sleds. The first thing he'd done after the rout was to set those fancy grangelord servants hitching the carts. It all had to be executed in haste of course for it had not been clear then whether or not the Bludd army would mount a full pursuit. Luckily they had not, preferring instead to chop down most of the remaining Hailsmen, chase the city men off the Crabhold and occupy and secure the gate. It was a miscalculation, Marafice reckoned. For any war chief with experience could have taken one look at the tired and bloody city men army and known it for easy pickings. The Bludd warrior in command was lazy, Marafice concluded. He had the swaggering looks of his father, the Dog Lord, but he was not half the man.

Marafice shuddered as he forced his great black warhorse down into the rocky stream. That moment after the horn sounded and the front line of the strange new army broke free from the woods behind the roundhouse, the Knife had known fear so concentrated it had stopped his heart. Clan Bludd. He had recognized their colors and their trappings straightaway and he knew instantly that he must call a retreat He had met the Dog Lord man-to-man, looked into his eyes, and heard the timbre of his voice. Marafice Eye, with twenty years spent in the Rive Watch protecting three successive surlords, had never met anyone who had impressed him like Vaylo Bludd.