A Fortress of Grey Ice (Book 2) (78 page)

He saw one of his worries made real as he and Hammie gained the rise. The Horns and the two-storey stable gate had been thrown open and an army of Bluddsmen were assembling there. Grooms and boys were bringing out horses, spears were being thrust into saddle shoes, hammer chains fastened, wagons loaded, plate strapped across chests, barrels rolled over the court, chickens chased, swords oiled, bows braced, helms lowered, and sable greatcloaks fastened at throats. It was a sight to stir a Bluddsman’s heart, and Vaylo knew with a certainty he had no power to control it.

A call to arms was mother’s milk to Clan Bludd.

Hammie swore, taking the words right from Vaylo’s mouth.

Pengo Bludd stood in the center of the field of men, high atop his great gray warhorse, allowing a young boy elevated on a mounting stool to fasten his hammer chains about him as if he were a chief. When he spied his father approaching, he raised a hand in greeting, his eyes triumphant.

He had planned it well, Vaylo had to give him that. Frowning grimly, the Dog Lord approached the Horns.

Pengo had the audacity to ignore him at first, finding himself much occupied with cradling his spiked hammer just so. Men milling around him had the decency to look shamefaced in their defiance, and none had the nerve to ignore their chief. They opened a space for him, nudging back their mounts to give him space.

“Son,” Vaylo said quietly. “I see your spine still bends both ways.”

Color flushed Pengo’s cheeks, and he made his stallion rear to disguise his feelings. “I’ve raised an army, Dog Lord. Time was when you would have done the same.”

Silence spread through the men like a ripple on a pond. At that moment Vaylo would have given his soul for a horse. He shifted his gaze from face to face, taking tally, recalling names. Many here were Pengo’s men, but others were not. Cuss Madden, Ranald Weir, the three Grubber boys, Cawdo Salt, Trew Danhro . . . and so the list went on. Even the smith Tiny Croda was geared and mounted.

It was pointless asking how this had been done. Bluddsmen prided themselves on their ability to ride to war at short notice. Jaw depended on swift, decisive action, not meticulous planning. Perhaps Pengo was right: thirty years ago he might have done the same.
But that was a different time and there was less to lose
, he told himself, but he wasn’t so sure he was right. Maybe there was always a lot to lose, but the young didn’t know it.

“Where do you ride?” he asked.

Pengo looked as if he couldn’t quite believe his father wasn’t giving him a fight. “South to Withy,” he said bullishly.

Vaylo nodded. It was a flexible position. From Withy Pengo could monitor the Spire’s armies, move swiftly east to Haddo and HalfBludd, or strike against Blackhail at Ganmiddich. He probably hadn’t made up his mind which.

The Dog Lord motioned to the wagons. “I see you’re taking a fair cut of my supplies?”

“What would you have us do, Father? Starve?”

You, son, in a minute.
“And women, too?”

Pengo shrugged, growing more confident. “A warrior must have other comforts beside food.”

Vaylo sprang forward and grabbed his son’s booted foot, twisting hard. Pengo rose in his saddle, his eyes widening in shock and indignation. Vaylo thrust up. Somewhere in his son’s knee bone cracked.

“Listen to me, boy. Take the men, take the women, take the food. But take my grandchildren and die.” Another thrust upward. “Do you understand?”

Pengo winced. One hand had gone to his horse’s neck to balance himself and the other had gone to his knee. His gaze flicked nervously from side to side. Men were looking at their feet, their pommels, their fingernails: anywhere but at Pengo Bludd.

“I
said
, do you understand?”

He nodded.

“Good.” Vaylo didn’t release his hold, though he slackened the upward pressure. “Now I’m going to send Hammie to that cart over there, and he’s going to take the bairns back inside. Aren’t you, Hammie?”

“Yes, chief.”

“And you and I are going to stay here until he’s done it.”

Hammie moved with the speed of a Stone God, and his task was completed in under two minutes. Vaylo got a good long look at his second son during that time, and decided he very much disliked him. Pengo just got to look ridiculous, and that suited Vaylo well enough. When he was ready he released him.

Pengo swung his weight back into his saddle. He was shaking with rage, and might have charged his horse if it hadn’t been for the five dogs moving to circle his father. He settled on sharply jerking its head toward the Dhoonehouse. “I hope you die there,” he said to his father.

Vaylo wanted suddenly to be gone. Ignoring his son, he addressed his clan. “Bludd!” he cried. “A hard life long lived to us all!”

Men cheered, and the army began to move out on his call. Pengo sent daggers to his father, and then shoved and bullied his way to the head of the train lest anyone forget who was its leader.

Vaylo stood on the tower court and watched his clansmen trot south along Blue Dhoone Lake. The wagons churned the shore to mud, and a patch of yellow spring flowers Vaylo had admired that very morning was beheaded, crushed and finally driven beneath the dirt. It took Pengo’s army the better part of an hour to leave the court, with many warriors and wagons lagging behind. Someone had failed to catch all the chickens, and the stupid creatures flapped and fretted, declining to take advantage of their chance for escape. The dogs wanted at them, but Vaylo wasn’t sure yet how badly the Dhoone stores had been raided and he thought he just might need them himself.

Already there had been waste; barrels split and leaking beer—it’d be a boon night for snails—sagging grain sacks discarded, a crock of butter smashed and oozing yellow grease onto the court. As Vaylo looked on a handful of women came forward to begin the clearing-up. They were nervous of him, wary of drawing too close or meeting his eye; Nan had probably sent them. Sighing heavily, he left his dogs to lick up the butter, and crossed into the Dhoonehouse.

Loyal men were awaiting him inside the great blue entrance hall. Hammie and Samlo Faa, Odda Bull, Glen Carvo and more stood in a half-circle and greeted their chief with silent, telling nods. Most were warriors past their prime.
Like me
, Vaylo thought with a stab of black humor.
I’ve been left in charge of an army of old men.

Nothing for it but to send the young ones to do the legwork. “Hammie. Do the rounds and take a head count. I want every green boy and maid reckoned for, and weapons found for all of them. Samlo. I need you to ride out to the guard posts along the borders. There should be at least twenty swordsmen between here and the Flow. Bring them in.”

Hammie and his younger, bigger brother nodded. Already some of the tension in their faces had eased: the Dog Lord would not fail them.

As they rushed off to do his bidding, Vaylo sent Odda Bull to inspect the Dhoonehouse’s defenses and report back to him that night. Odda was graying but still hard. He’d been cousin to Ockish, and could play the pipes; a good man to have around.

“Glen,” Vaylo said to Strom Carvo’s brother when he was done with setting tasks. “You’re with me.”

They went to see Nan first. The Dhoonehouse was quiet and strangely echoing. Torches had gone out and no one had thought to relight them. In the tunnel leading down toward the kitchens Vaylo saw boot prints stamped in something sticky like honey. Flies were just getting interested.

The Dhoone kitchens were a series of high-ceilinged chambers clustered together on the west wall of the roundhouse. “Kitchens” was perhaps too simple a name for them, for some of the chambers contained granaries and butteries, game rooms and brewhouses, a mews for poultry and stock tanks for fish. The kitchens were a lot grander here than in Bludd, and Vaylo found himself wondering where a lad might go to beg scraps and fancies from the cook. He didn’t have to wonder long as Nan came out to meet him and guide him and Glen toward the proper part of the kitchens, where things were actually cooked.

Nan’s movements were serene, her lovely sea-gray braid smooth as woven corn. “They waited until I’d left to help with the lambing,” she said, almost managing to keep the same serenity in her voice.

Vaylo nodded, though he needed no explanation from her. Nan Culldayis’s loyalty had never been a question in his mind. She had loved both of them, that was the wondrous thing, first his wife and then him. Nan had been with Angarad the day she died, had held her like a sister as she spoke of the old times when they’d been girls together in Bludd. Nan had been a fair maid in her youth, with long chestnut hair and eyes to match . . . but Vaylo had never thought anything of her. Only Angarad had stirred his heart. Now, nearly forty years later, things had changed between them. Nan’s husband had been killed during a raid on Croser the year following Angarad’s death. Shared grief had brought some comfort and healing.

The proper kitchen, as Vaylo decided to call it, was in the process of being cleared up. At some point Nan had run out of women to command, and had set a stable boy and the two bairns to cleaning. A lot of sweeping was being done, but Vaylo doubted its effectiveness. The stable boy would sweep one way, and Pasha and Ewan would sweep the dirt right back at him. Vaylo had a half a mind to pick up a broom and show them how it was done—he’d swept out his share of stables and yards over the years—but he suspected cleanliness wasn’t the point here. Nan was doing exactly the same thing with the grandchildren as he was doing with his men: keeping them busy.

“So, Nan,” he said to her. “What have they left us?”

“Some livestock. A little grain.” She grinned at him. “All of the eels.”

Vaylo barked a laugh, and instantly felt better than he had all day. His grandchildren were here. Nan was here. His dogs were on the court, making themselves sick. At his side Glen Carvo’s face was like stone. Glen and his late brother had been much alike: strong warriors, and loyal but serious men. Vaylo missed Strom every day. He missed every Bluddsman who’d died since he’d made chief.

“Is there enough to make do?” Vaylo asked Nan.

“There’ll be enough. I’ll see to that.”

Vaylo nodded, understanding all she had not said. Nan Culldayis was claiming this worry for her own; she would not let him share in it. “I’ll be in the stables if needed,” he said to her. And then, to the stable boy: “If you’re coming with Glen and me you’d better get a move on, lad.”

The stable boy couldn’t quite believe his luck. He looked hopefully at Nan, who nodded her consent and told him to leave the broom against the wall.

The small party of three left the kitchens and headed west through the darkening corridors of Dhoone. Hammie hadn’t yet returned with a head count, but Vaylo could tell it wasn’t going to be good. He was taken with the feeling that he, Glen and the stable boy were rattling around in an abandoned ship. Still. He couldn’t blame the clansmen who rode south; they were following their hearts rather than Pengo Bludd. They simply wanted to fight.

I waited too long to punish Blackhail. I held on to Dhoone when I should have been visiting the gods’ own vengeance upon every Hailsman in the North.
Vaylo puffed out a great quantity of air. Glancing around, he noticed they were passing through the King’s Quarter of the Dhoonehouse. He could find little to like in its cavernous halls and meeting chambers long stripped of furnishings and other comforts. Some ancient blue velvet curtains hung on a wall that had neither windows not doors, and that seemed to sum this place up. Faded finery without purpose.

Yet it was his. And he must keep it, else it make a mockery of his life. He had traded part of his soul to gain this place, and if he lost it there was no getting any of that missing soul back.

Last night’s tremor had released great quantities of dust, and Vaylo roused clouds of gray powder as he quickened his pace. That was another thing that weighed upon his mind: why the earth had shaken. Vaylo recalled one summer nearly a lifetime ago when he and Ockish Bull had laid a wall. It was punishment for some misdemeanor or other, and Gullit had sent them both to Gamber Hench to do his backwork for a month. Gamber was old, but still the best mason in the clan, and he had taught Vaylo and Ockish some things worth knowing. Vaylo had learned that a dry wall could never be laid quickly; stones needed time to settle. Gamber held the earth they walked on was much the same as one of his walls in progress, still settling. That had made sense to Vaylo, and ever since then, whenever he’d felt a slight shift in the land beneath him, he’d think of Gamber Hench and be satisfied there was no reason for fear. Yet what had happened last night had seemed the opposite of that. An
un
settling. And Vaylo was unsettled.

Yet what could he do about it? He wasn’t a Stone God, just a chief.

By the time he reached the stables his mood had darkened, and it was an effort to keep the blackness hidden from his men. First things first. “How many horses are still boxed?”

The stable master had ridden south, but one of the grooms had already taken the initiative and was busy walking the remaining horses to stalls closer to the doors. “Pengo ordered all the boxes to be cleared,” the youth said, gulping. “But the master wouldn’t do it.”

A kind of loyalty there
, Vaylo thought, even though the man had deserted him. “And how many did the master leave us?”

“Three dozen, not counting the ponies.”

Oh gods.

“They didn’t take Dog Horse,” the groom added quickly, catching sight of Vaylo’s expression.

No one would, unless they fancied a swift kick to the vitals. Seeing the groom still watching him, half anxious and half hopeful, Vaylo made an effort. “You’ve done well, lad. Just be sure to keep these beasts well tended.” The groom nodded. “And for now Glen’ll be needing his mount.”

As the groom went to fetch and saddle the swordsman’s horse, Vaylo turned to Glen Carvo.

“I need you to ride at haste to the Dhoonewall. Cluff Drybannock stands there with a hundred and eighty men. We need them home.”