A Cavern of Black Ice (82 page)

"Granda, why do they have to be
tied?" Casha, now his eldest grandchild, sent a long,
sympathetic look the wolf dog's way.

Vaylo brushed the girl's jet black
hair. Her mother had Far South blood in her, and the child was dark
skinned and dark eyed and beautiful to behold. "Because I'm
expecting a visitor, and the dogs seldom take kindly to those."

One of the dogs, a lean bitch who was
all teeth and snout, growled. Vaylo hissed at her, though in truth he
was not displeased. As he returned his gaze to his granddaughter, a
red light shining through the slitted window in the opposite wall
caught his eye: the Bludd Fire burning in the upper chamber of the
tower. Seven days and nights it had blazed, long enough for all in
the cityholds to know that the Dog Lord now stood at their door.

Vaylo tried to tear his eyes away but
couldn't. There had been a time when taking Ganmiddich would have
meant something, when the thought of war and raids was what roused
him from his bed every morning and kept him awake past midnight with
his warlords every night. He fought because he had the jaw for it,
because he loved to win more than he loved life itself. Now, though,
he fought from hate.

And fear.

Vaylo rose and closed the iron
shutters, engaging each of the seven clasps and drawing the bar.

Blackhail was the reason Cluff
Drybannock had moved against Ganmiddich. He had been there the night
the women and children were found off the Bluddroad. He had helped
excavate the bodies. Any clan who might form an alliance with the
Hail Wolf and his clansmen had to be sent a message of death. Drybone
knew it. The Dog Lord knew it. And although no word had passed
between them, they both knew the war would not end until Blackhail
had been destroyed.

Vaylo put a hand on the iron shutters,
resting the heavy bulk of his standing weight. The Ganmiddich Tower
and its red fire still burned upon his irises. The Hailsman who lay
imprisoned within it still burned upon his soul.

He was just a
lad
. When Vaylo
had entered the tower yesterday at noon he had not known what to
expect. Watcher of the Dead, people had started calling him after the
night he'd slain three Bluddsmen at Duff's. He'd fought like a Stone
God, they said, and freely admitted to being present at the Bluddroad
ambush before he'd forced his way through the door.

Vaylo's hand cooled to the temperature
of iron. Now he had this Hailsman here, imprisoned upon the Inch. He
had seen him with his own two eyes, minded his wounds, and sniffed
his stench. Cluff Drybannock and the others had expected him to
finish the Hailsman off. He saw that on their faces, later, when he
had emerged from the tower and they stood waiting in a half circle
about the skiff. Drybone had even given orders that no beating was to
be so great as to threaten the Hailsman's life or limb: that
privilege belonged to the Dog Lord.

Yet Vaylo had not used it. He hardly
knew why himself. Seeing the Hailsman lying there on the bench,
beaten, his clothes dark with blood and river grime, Vaylo had
tortured himself: How had it happened, that massacre on the
Bluddroad? Did the Hailsmen go in expecting to kill women and
children? Did one man panic and kill one child out of anger or
surprise and the others followed suit? Had any of the women fought
back? How long had it taken for his grandchildren to die?

Vaylo closed his eyes, let the iron
shutter take more of his weight.

No. He had not killed the Hailsman. He
would, because he was the Dog Lord and no one could slay his kin and
survive, yet there were things he needed to know. Things only someone
present that day could tell him.

The dogs stood and growled. Immediately
Vaylo looked to the door. A few seconds passed, and then knuckles
rapped against the wood. A moment later Drybone entered the room,
leading a girl before him. Depositing her in the center of the room,
he turned to leave without a moment's hesitation. Vaylo knew he would
wait outside, at a distance where he could be sure not to overhear a
word.

Penthero Iss' foster daughter matched
gazes with the Dog Lord. As Drybone had promised, she was tall and
thin, yet Vaylo knew enough about young women to realize that the
thinness would leave her soon enough. A few weeks of lard and oats
would see to that.

"What have you done to Raif
Sevrance and Angus Lok?" The girl's voice was cold, and for the
briefest moment Vaylo was reminded of her foster father, Penthero
Iss. He had reared this child from birth.

Vaylo gave no answer. Instead he walked
from the window to the hearth and came to sit in the company of his
dogs. His two grandchildren scrambled quickly to his feet, the
youngest tugging at his dogskin pants, demanding to be picked up and
held in his granda's lap. Vaylo was aware of his grandchildren's
unease: They had sensed the fear of the dogs.

Normally when a stranger entered their
master's territory, the dogs were quick to show their teeth.
Growling, they would test their leashes, lower their tails, and watch
the intruder with eyes that held memories of pack kills on the frozen
tundra of the Want. Yet from the moment Iss' foster daughter had
entered the room all the dogs had been silent. Not one of them
growled, not even the wolf dog. They lay on their bellies, rumps
pushed up against the hearthwall, ears flat against their skulls. As
Vaylo picked up his grandson, one of the bitches whined softly and
withdrew farther into the pack.

Vaylo watched the girl as she waited
for his reply. Her silver gold hair brushed against her shoulders,
falling as straight as if each individual strand had been weighted
with lead beads. Her eyes were the same gray as the sky before a
storm, large and clear, with silver filaments in the irises that
reflected light. Everything about her looked conjured up from silver,
water, and hard stone. Yet she was little more than a child, and she
was afraid; Vaylo wasn't fooled about that for an instant. He saw how
she clutched at the fabric of her skirt to prevent her hands from
trembling, how a muscle in her throat bobbed when she swallowed…
and she swallowed a lot.

It was interesting that the first
question she had asked had concerned her companions, not herself.

Vaylo said, "You have been well
treated by my clan?"

"Answer my question."

"Answer mine."

The girl flinched at the hardness of
his voice.

Vaylo pressed his hands against each of
his grandchildren's shoulders in turn, calming. Their granda's anger
frightened them.

"I have been treated well enough.
Fed. Clothed. Confined." The silver in the girl's eyes turned to
something darker, like steel. "Now tell me what has become of my
friends."

Vaylo made her wait upon an answer. He
was impressed by her courage—he couldn't recall the last time
anyone had demanded
anything
from him—yet he had been
the Dog Lord for too long now to let a surlord's daughter force him
into speaking before his time.

When he was good and ready he said,
"Angus Lok is being held in the pit cell directly below my feet.
His only harms have been the dampness of the four walls that surround
him and the poorness of his diet. By all accounts he has little taste
for raw leeks and sotted oats."

"And what will you do with him?"

It was on Vaylo's mind to reply,
"Whatever I wish," yet the girl chose that moment to push
back her hair. The curt, guileless flick of her wrist was the action
of a child, not a woman. To Asarhia March her hair was still a
hindrance, something to be flicked away like a mosquito or a bit of
dust, not a veil to be toyed with for the benefit of men. Vaylo
almost smiled but didn't. The ghosts of granddaughters lost began to
gather in the room.

"I shall hold Lok here in
Ganmiddich until such a time as I see fit to move him. When I am
ready I will either ransom or exchange him. There are some in the
North who would pay good money for his head."

If this was news to the girl, she
didn't show it. She merely blinked and said, "And Raif?"

"He will die by my hand."

The girl took a breath. The light in
her eyes dimmed, actually dimmed, as if something within her had
blocked the fuel they needed to burn. A noise such as Vaylo had never
heard before sounded deep in the throats of his dogs. The skin along
his arms puckered with goose-flesh as he listened to the fearful
keening.

Letting his grandson slide to the
floor, he stood. "Raif Sevrance and his clan slew our women and
children upon the Bluddroad. In cold blood they drew steel, and with
cold hearts they rode down my grandchildren as if they were nothing
more than sheep." Vaylo didn't take his eyes from the Surlord's
daughter as he spoke. Every sense he had told him there was danger
here, from this slip of a girl, and he never questioned his
instincts. He was the Dog Lord: He lived by them.

The girl stood perfectly still. Light
from the fire seemed
pulled
toward her, as if she were
sucking it from the hearth. The air in the room moved, puffing
through the dogs' coats and the children's fine black hair.

Unnerved, Vaylo continued speaking, his
voice becoming louder as he approached the center of the room. "Raif
Sevrance is a slayer of children. A murderer. An enemy to this clan.
I will kill him because I have no choice. Nine gods demand it."
Barely an arm's length from the girl now, he reached out and
touched her cheek. It was like touching stone.

Muscles in the girl's throat began to
move.

Sorcery.

Recognizing it for what it was, Vaylo
snatched back his hand and sent it plunging downward to the gray iron
clansword at his waist. As he drew metal from the hound's-tail
scabbard, the girl's lips fell open. Something dark and liquid, like
molten glass, purled on the tip of her tongue. Shadows lived within
it, floating slowly through its liquid eye like specks of dust in
oil.

Vaylo's skin cooled. Deep within him,
in the blood vessels that connected his mind to his heart, he felt
the nearness of something he could only name as evil. His dogs felt
it, too. Behind his back he was aware of them, whimpering and
scratching at the floor. He was aware also of the wolf dog moving
into place by his grandchildren.

"You shall not kill him yet
."
Vaylo spoke because he knew exactly how fast he was with the blade,
exactly how long it would take him to cut through the girl's neck…
and he knew it wasn't enough.

The words were softly spoken, whispered
darts, each one making the girl blink. The light in her eyes
brightened. The dark mass on her tongue hung, half in the Dog Lord's
world, half in the moist cavern of her mouth. Its surface rolled like
hot tar. Vaylo saw his own death reflected there before the girl
inhaled, sucking the substance she had created back into her lungs.

The chief's chamber trembled. Ceiling
timbers ticked and shuddered, and a thin stream of masonry dust
showered the hearth.

The dogs began to howl.

"Granda! The lady looks sick!"
Vaylo's granddaughter spoke in a child's idea of a whisper that was
actually louder than her normal speaking voice. "Shall I bring
her the stool?"

Vaylo considered the Surlord's
daughter. The blankness of moments earlier had gone from her face,
leaving her looking like a young girl who had played too hard and
stayed up too late. She swayed, and Vaylo automatically put out his
swordhand to steady her. Glancing over his shoulder, he said to his
granddaughter, "Yes, fetch the stool. Quickly, now." Then,
to the dogs, "
Silence
!"

Vaylo couched his sword. His hands were
trembling, but the blade slid into the scabbard on first attempt.
What had just happened here?

Part of him almost knew, almost
recognized what the girl had brought forth, yet when he probed for a
memory that might explain it, he drew blank. All sense of evil had
left him. The girl was just that: a girl. As his granddaughter
dragged the maid's stool across the floor, Vaylo shouldered more of
Ash's weight.

Blood trickled from her nostrils to her
mouth as he lowered her onto the stool. She was trembling, and Vaylo
sent his granddaughter and grandson to fetch a good malt from Nan
Culldayis. He was glad to have them gone from the room.

"Here." Vaylo handed the girl
the soft red kerchief from around his neck. "Clean yourself."

He watched her do so, taking deep
breaths to calm the worn muscle that was his heart. He needed a
drink. Badly. The faint odor of urine in the room testified to the
fear of one of the bitches. Vaylo could not find it in himself to
discipline her.

"I should slay you now, Surlord's
Daughter. Do the whole of the Northern Territories a favor."

She looked up at him, her gray eyes as
clear as a child's. "But you wont."

She had the truth of it; he needed her
alive and well. Yet he would not let her know that. "What are
you?"

"You do not want to know."

She was right. He was the Dog Lord, and
he existed in a world of earth and clay, where roundhouses were
seldom built more than three stories above the ground and all gods
worshiped lived in stone. What he had seen upon her tongue was
something else, something that belonged to another people and another
place. And as that thought turned over in his mind, he finally
realized what part of him already knew.

This girl did not belong with Penthero
Iss in Spire Vanis. This girl belonged to the Sull.

Seventeen teeth ached with raw,
needling pain as Vaylo thought upon his old enemies. Bludd shared
borders with the Sull, with the Trenchlanders who were part Sull,
part clansmen, part anyone else who stayed long enough in their
slash-and-burn settlements to give birth or spread their seed.
Trenchlanders were one thing. The real Sull, the
pure
Sull,
were something Vaylo feared above all else.