A Sword from Red Ice

Vaylo cursed their father, silently and with feeling. Pengos treachery had led them to this. Pengo Bludd had been so eager for any kind of fight that he'd deserted the Dhoonehouse, taking everyone he cou bribe, sweet-talk, or bully along with him. Only forty had remained behind, and a holding the size of Dhoone could not be defended by such numbers. When the attack came they'd had no warning. There'd been no one to spare for long watches. Robbie Dun Dhoone and his army of blue cloaks must have been laughing as they broke down the door.

The Dog Lord let the bile rise to his mouth, and then jabbed it against his aching teeth with his tongue. Where had Pengo been when the Thorn King came a-knocking? Riding south most likely, his nostrils twitching to the smell of city men's blood. The damn fool had chosen the wrong war! Thought he'd engage the Spire Lord's army in the south rather than protect Bludd's holdings in the north. Well I hope he finds some measure of glory fighting city men for he'll get nothing save a swift death from me.

The anger warmed but did not comfort Vaylo. The rain kept coming, running down his face and streaming off the tip of his nose. It was hard to see, even harder to know what to do. As best he could tell they were crossing an overgrown graze. Stalks of gray, winter-rotted oats slapped his legs, and waist-high thistle burrs kept snagging his cloak. Everything was wet and getting wetter. Underfoot, the rich blue-black soil of eastern Dhoone was rapidly turning to mud. Vaylo swore he could hear the nSsquitoes hatching. The night had that smell to it; the soggy aliveness of spring.

The hill graze was one of dozens they had crossed since escaping the Dhoonehouse. The land east of the Dhoone was mostly grassland. Catde and horses grazed here in summer and spring, sheep year-round. Yet numbers had dwindled, and Vaylo hadn't spotted a single black head in two days. Livestock had been seized. Dhoone's horses were now roasting over Bludd fires and swelling Bludd breeding stock. Their sheep were cropping grass in the Bluddhold. Without animals to care for, Dhoone farmers had either fled or were lying low until better times. And now that a Dhoone sat upon the Dhooneseat once more, those better times were about to start.

Word was already being spread. Twice now the Dog Lord and his small company had been forced to drop belly-down into the wet grass as mounted Dhoone warriors rode past. Both times Vaylo had spoken a prayer. Please gods, let them not be man hunters.

He would take all their lives—Aaron, Pasha, Nan, Hammie and then himself—rather than risk being dragged back to the Dhoonehouse and the man who ruled there. The Dog Lord had looked into the eyes of Robbie Dun Dhoone and seen what absences lay there. The Thorn King had jaw, no doubt about it, but it wasn't the hot reckless jaw of Thrago HalfBludd or the muleheaded jaw of Ockish Bull. It was a cold and calculating jaw. The sort of thing that would drive a boy to pull the legs off a cockroach just to see what would do, and a grown man to use others and then discard them lik gnawed bones.

Vaylo shivered, not from cold but sheer relief. Robbie Dun Dhoone had not laid hands on his grandchildren. Thank the sweet gods for that.

It had been a hard five days since they'd escaped, no doubt about it After the Dhoonehouse had been sacked their little party of five had been forced to retreat to the Tomb of the Dhoone Princes. Right then with Robbie Dun Dhoone beating down the door, Vaylo wouldn't have given a tin spoon for their chances. Dhoone had retaken Dhoone, and Bludd—the clan who'd been squatting in the Dhoonehouse for half a year—had to be made to pay for their presumption. Robbie had ordered the slaughter, not capture, of Bluddsmen. Not a moment too soon, Pasha had located the secret entrance that led to the tunnels beneath Dhoone. Mole holes, Angus Lok had called them. Vaylo had not believed they existed.

Yet another thing he was roundly wrong about. The network of tunnels had deposited them in a dense copse of crabgrass and black willow, at the bank of a muddy creek just one league southeast of the Dhoonehouse. It had taken most of the night to travel the dark, underworld passages of Dhoone.