A Sword from Red Ice

Indignation oiled Vaylo's knee joints and he worked the hill hard, stabbing its thin rocky soil as he climbed. This was Copper Hill country and the slopes were pitted with old mine shafts and vent holes. As far as Vaylo knew there was only one copper mine still open—and that was far to the east, sunk deep beneath Stinking Hill. Copper hadn't been seriously mined on the Dhoonehold for five hundred years, and only cragsmen and raiders walked these hills now. You could still see the copper though; a certain greenish tint to the soil made everything that grew here look healthier than it really was. Many of the little rills and creeks that drained the hills sparkled with red ore. Copper had made Dhoone rich at one time, and paid for the construction of the finest roundhouse in the north. Dhoone copper had once been carted overland all the way to the Far South, and strange kings and warlords had forged mighty weapons from it and sent back all manner of treasure in payment. Copper's glory days had long passed though, and it had been fifteen hundred years since a copper weapon had bettered a steel one on the field. Still, copper had its uses even now. Vaylo had heard that in the Mountain Cities people liked to eat off it, and he knew clan maids like to wear it in their ears and around their wrists. Copper was stretched into wire and hammered into pipes, fired with tin to make bronze and zinc to make brass. At the time Vaylo had taken possession of the Dhoonehouse, the mine at Stinking Hill was still producing a hundred tons of raw ore a year. He had shut it down of course, then thought better of it and ordered it reopened. Gods only knew what was happening there now. One thing was certain: After all the looting and cattle raiding carried out by Bluddsmen over the past six months, Robbie Dun Dhoone would need all the hard cash he could get.

That was a thought that never failed to make Vaylo smile. Robbie Dun Dhoone might have won back his roundhouse, but Bluddsmen had stripped it down to the bare walls. Vaylo had no idea where the loot had gone—he hadn't taken anything for himself except a half-dozen kegs of fine Dhoonish malt—and he found he didn't care. Gone was enough. Gone would slow the Thorn King down.

"Hammie;" Vaylo said, turning about to address his armsman Haimish Faa. "When did you last see the wolf dog?"

Hamrnie was huffing and puffing his way up the hill. He was thirty years younger than the Dog Lord but about four stone heavier and Faa men, like Bludd chiefs, had never been walkers. Hammie wiped his red and wet nose with his coat sleeve, wincing as raw flesh met coarse wool. "He left as soon as the bairns awoke. 'Bout dawn."

The Dog Lord nodded, his mind eased. He'd seen the other three dogs throughout the day as they ranged hack and forth, patrolling, guarding, hunting. The big black bitch had brought down two jack-rabbits and carried them straight to his hand. The young male had brought back a sick-looking woodrat and Vaylo had taken it from the dogs jaw and flung it as if as he could. Unhappily it hadn't been the last he'd seen of the rat as the dog kept finding it and bringing it back. Every time this happened the worm-infested vermin looked a little worse for wear, and Vaylo thought to himself, Do I really have to touch this? Touch it he did though. The young male's eagerness and joy were two things he didn't want thwarted. You couldn't have a dog love you unconditionally and not give anything back.

The wolf dog had been with him for seven years and of all the dogs Vaylo had loved and owned it was the wolf dog who was closest to his heart. The Dog Lord did not show it, he did not need to, for the two of them knew what lay between them. The Dog Lord's worries were the wolf dog's worries. His kin was the wolf dog's kin. That the dog had stayed up all night guarding Aaron and Pasha was as it should be. The wolf dog had been present that terrible day when Vaylo had found seventeen of his grandchildren dead and buried in the snow above the Bluddroad. The dog knew how precious the two remaining grandchildren were. Still it wasn't like the wolf dog not to home every few hours. All the dogs ranged wide and then returned at various times to insure their human pack was safe. Vaylo hadn't seen the wolf dog since last night when he'd scolded the beast for snatching a rabbit from the fire. It was good to know that after the wolf dog skulked away in shame and anger he returned later to guard the bairns.