A Fortress of Grey Ice (Book 2) (87 page)

Madness, that’s what this was.
Then I am mad and my clan is mad
. . . and that seemed just about right. As seven swordsmen formed up at the internal door behind him, Vaylo gave the word for Nevel and Oddo to lift away the bar on the great double stable doors of Dhoone.

Wind howled through the stables as the two Bludd warriors set the doors in motion. Smoke funneled around itself, forming a vortex that was sucked through the opening. Flames sprang to life, spilling along the edges of the doors, dripping onto the hay-strewn floor and shooting out fountains of sparks. As Oddo and Nevel ran back, the horses of Clan Bludd charged through the double doors. In the crush of horses, Vaylo made out the hard black form of Dog Horse, his head low and his ears pinned back: he’d trample some Dhoonesmen along the way. When Oddo and Nevel were behind him, Vaylo called the retreat. The horses were on their own now. Stone Gods save their souls.

Almost they made it to the internal door before the first Dhoonesmen rode in. Five there were, with the thornhelms turning their heads into grotesque shapes and the blue axes of Dhoone in their grips. Vaylo set his three-stone hammer in motion, and stepped forward to meet them.

“BLUDD!”

Horse blood sprayed in Vaylo’s face as his hammer blasted into the first Dhoonesman’s mount, making contact deep in its chest. The horse reared and fell back, and the Dhoonesman lost his saddle and was unseated. Vaylo whipped his hammer back, circled it once to gain momentum, and then sent it flying into the Dhoonesman’s guarded face. The thornhelm crumpled inward, and the man fell to his knees, vomit spewing from the helmet’s mouth hole. Vaylo swung his hammer back into motion and picked another target. His men were fanning out around him, forming a protective wedge around the door. The advantage was theirs, Vaylo realized, at least until the Dhoonesmen’s eyes grew accustomed to the dimness and the smoke.

At his left Oddo Bull was matching his hammer against a Dhoonesman’s sickle-bladed ax. No weapon could match the hammer for strength, but it had a short reach and needed space to be properly swung. The Dhoonesman knew this, and was forcing Oddo back. Vaylo was torn between aiding Oddo and saving himself from a newly arrived Dhoonesman bearing a longsword of blue steel. Swinging his hammer above his head, Vaylo loosened his grip on the hammer loop and let the weapon fly. It smashed into the longswordsman’s chest with the force of a battering ram, sending the man flying backward in the saddle. As he fell into the line of Dhoonesmen behind him, Vaylo took the kitchen knife from his belt.

“To the door!” he screamed, springing toward the axman engaging Oddo. Sometimes a small knife was best, he thought, as he rammed the blade into the axman’s kneecap. “Oddo. Back,” he commanded, as he yanked the knife free of bone. Ahead of him the seventeen-year-old had fallen, his shoulder cleaved off by another blue ax. Vaylo shuddered, stepped back.

Seeing his chief no longer had his warhammer, Nevel Drango stepped forward to cover him on the retreat. Nevel’s sword was an ugly bastard, no doubt about it. Black and curved, with six separate fullers running like plowlines down the blade. It had one purpose—chopping off heads—and Vaylo saw the Dhoonesmen shy away from meeting it. Covered, Vaylo risked a backward glance at the door. All but he and Nevel were through.

“On my word, Nevel,” he cried, his voice hoarse. “
Now!
” They stepped backward together in a strange sort of dance. An ax was loosed and
chunk
ed into the door frame. Nevel swept his executioner’s sword in a half circle as Vaylo edged toward the opening. Shooting out a hand, Vaylo grabbed Nevel’s gear-belt and dragged the swordsman through the door.

Then, mercifully, the door was closed, six men throwing their weight against it as the bolts were shot. It would not hold. Vaylo knew it would not hold, but it would give them precious minutes to rally and reform.

Turning to his men, he wiped the film of sweat and blood from his face. Two of them were gone; forever lost on the other side of the door. Oddo had taken an ax slice to the side of his jaw, and his earlobe was hanging off. Another man’s face was deathly pale, and Vaylo looked down to see the man’s fist digging into a hole in his armor. Blood pooled around his fingers. Sweet Gods, he’d taken a longsword to the gut. Vaylo put his arm out for him, and the man came to him. “You’re a brave lad,” Vaylo said as he drove the kitchen knife through the man’s armor and into his heart.

The six remaining warriors stood in silence, their breath coming hard, sweat dripping from their chins and noses. They knew all about the different ways to die, knew that wounds to the gut were amongst the worst of them.

There was no time to think or grieve. The assault on the stable door had begun.

Vaylo glanced around. Surely there was some way to seal this section off? A wooden door standing between you and your enemies didn’t rank highly on anyone’s list of defenses. He noticed he was pressing the flat of his hand against his chest, and stopped himself. Some pain there. Probably indigestion. Even before he could decide the next course of action, a cry came from west of him.

“Dhoonesmen in the roundhouse!”

The Dog Lord looked to his men. This night was turning from one kind of hell into another. He could ask no man to stay here and guard this door—it was certain death for little reward—but it turned out he didn’t have to. Oddo Bull and a small, fair-haired swordsman stepped forward.

Vaylo suddenly felt old and damned, but he could not let them know it. In silence, he clasped both men’s arms. Oddo Bull wished him a life long lived, but Vaylo could not say it back to him. Their fingers held for a moment. Vaylo found his voice. “Tell the bastards we sunk their guidestone.”

Oddo smiled. It was enough, it had to be.

Vaylo turned and made his way west through the roundhouse, a crew of four swordsmen flanking him.

The main gate still held but fighting was under way in the entrance hall. Hammie Faa ran to meet them. A door in the kitchen had been breached. Dhoonesmen were forcing their way in by the dozen. Bluddsmen were dead. Samlo was dead, Vaylo could see that for himself. Hammie’s younger, bigger brother lay in a bloody pool by the stairs to the East Horn.

“He stopped a Dhoonesman from raising the gate,” Hammie said.

“He was a strong fighter,” Vaylo murmured, touching his pouch of powdered guidestone. “Just like his father before him.”

Hammie’s shoulders began to shake. Vaylo vowed then to kill his second son. Pengo would die for this; it was as simple as that.

“Hammie,” he commanded. “You’re with me. Nevel. Lead the crew to the kitchen, see if it can be sealed. Protect the women. You know what to do if it comes to it.”

Nevel Drango nodded: Kill the women rather than let the Dhoonesmen despoil them first and kill them later at their leisure. “Chief.”

The word was a farewell. Vaylo knew in his heart he would never see Nevel or the other three men again.
We have been routed.
Vaylo put his arm around Hammie’s shoulder, and headed north to the chief’s chamber.

They met only one invader along the way; a Castleman who looked like he didn’t know where he was going or where he’d come from. Hammie was armed with a nine-foot spear, and saw him off with a vicious blow to the lower gut. The spearhead smelled of shit when Hammie yanked it free.

Vaylo pounded on the chief’s door when they reached it. “Nan! Let me in.”

Nan Culldayis opened the door, holding a two-foot maiden’s helper in her hand. It made Vaylo proud to see it.

“Nan. Get the bairns. Quick now.”

She moved swiftly, asking no questions of him. Tension lines drawn in her forehead made her look older than her forty-eight years, but to Vaylo she had never seemed more beautiful. She would have killed herself and his grandchildren rather than let the Dhoonesmen have their way with them.
This
was a woman worth loving.

The two bairns clung to her skirts, and Vaylo crouched down for a moment to talk to them. “We must all be quiet and swift. Like foxes. Can you do that, for your old Granda? Be quiet and swift?”

Pasha nodded, pale and frightened. The youngest made no reply.

Vaylo had no time for more. He stood. “Hammie. You’re in the lead. I’ll bring up the rear.”

“Where we going, chief?”

It was a good question. “To the Tomb of the Dhoone Princes.”

Hammie accepted this as if it were perfectly sane and logical; Vaylo loved him for that. “Lead on.”

The entrance to the tomb lay further north of them, in the great barrel-vaulted guidehouse. It was a short walk, but Vaylo knew luck wasn’t with him this night. When two helmed Dhoonesmen appeared on the path in front of him, blocking the entrance to the guidehouse, he couldn’t say he was surprised.

“Bludd Lord,” came a voice through the thornhelm. “All your men lie dead and dying. I’d say it was time you yielded this house.”

Vaylo scanned the man’s weapons and battle dress. Fisher fur, a fine blued longsword, plate bossed with copper: it was the Thorn King himself, Robbie Dun Dhoone.

“Yes,” Robbie said, reading the knowledge on Vaylo’s face. “The king has returned.”

Vaylo heard something then that quickened his blood and gave him hope. “Hammie,” he murmured. “Forward on my say.” To Nan he sent a look that said,
Easy
. To the Dhoone King, he said, “You got my name wrong, Robbie Dun Dhoone, I’m not the Bludd Lord, I’m the
Dog
Lord.”

And then his dogs rushed in. “Nan! To the tomb,” Vaylo screamed, as five hounds, part wolf, part dog, streaked past him in a single body of bunched snouts, bared teeth and flattened ears to get at the men who threatened their master. Straightaway they brought the Dhoone King’s companion to ground, one bitch springing as high as the man’s neck, sinking her teeth into his carotid arteries, whilst another fastened its mighty jaw around his ankle. Robbie Dun Dhoone stepped away, his expression hidden by the thornhelm, his blue sword sweeping in a protective circle around him.

Hammie rushed up to him, pinning him at a distance with his nine-foot spear whilst Nan, Vaylo and the grandchildren moved through. Hammie and the dogs held the Dhoone King there while Vaylo rushed into the guidehouse and pulled on the great iron ring attached to the flagstone that formed the entrance to the tomb.

Cold, still air rose to meet him as the flagstone fell back. “Down!” he commanded Nan and the bairns. “Hammie. To me!”

Two of the dogs were tearing the Dhoone King’s companion limb from limb, and the other three were snapping at the king’s heels, feinting and snarling, their eyes shrunken to dots. Hammie lowered his spear and ran for the tunnel. Vaylo heaved the great flagstone on its end, so the face with the ring was now facing down, lowered himself into place, and then called for his dogs. The dogs, hearing a tone in their master’s voice they had never heard before, obeyed instantly, breaking contact and hurling themselves toward the tomb. Vaylo felt their dog heat as they passed him.

Grabbing hold of the ring, he heaved the flagstone back into place, plunging them all into darkness. “Hammie. Your spear.” Vaylo could hear the Dhoone King rushing forward, his feet pounding against the stone. Feeling his way in the blackness, Vaylo thrust Hammie’s spear through the ring, securing the entrance. It would hold for now—it was awkward enough to lift a sunken flag of stone without a handle, let alone one that was jammed in place with a spear—but it would not hold for long.

For a period of perhaps six seconds, Vaylo did nothing but sit on the step and breathe. He was worn out. Now that his eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness he could see moonlight spilling in ahead. The tunnel passed under the roundhouse’s walls, leading north to the tomb, and blocks of quartz in the ceiling let in light.

“Come on,” he said, his voice weary. “Down we go to pay our respects to the dead kings.”

Everyone, including the dogs, rose at once. Vaylo felt Nan’s hand gently touch his arm. He had to push it away. His grief was too raw.

The dogs understood what his lady did not, and followed him at a careful distance, their tails down. The wolf dog whimpered softly. Little Ewan began to sob. Vaylo had no comfort to give, not yet, and led the way to the tomb in silence.

The Tomb of the Dhoone Princes was much as he remembered it: stale and haunted by memories of past glories. The standing tombs glowed pale in the moonlight, sentinels guarding the underworld. Vaylo shivered, and realized quite suddenly he was terribly cold.

“Hammie. Nan. Pasha. Ewan,” he addressed his small party. “If we’re ever to get out of here we have to think. Last time I was here the ranger Angus Lok told me there was a tunnel leading north from this very chamber. Said it was so old that even Dhoone had forgotten it. Right now that tunnel’s our only hope. So what I need all of you to do is push, prod, knock and shove every bit of stone in this place to find the opening mechanism.” It sounded insane even as he said it, but all four of them accepted it calmly and began to spread out around the tomb.

Vaylo frowned for a minute, trying to recall the little rhyme Angus Lok had said. How did it go now? “
In the Tomb of the Dhoone Princes there be, a Bolthole for those who canna look nor see.
”

Everyone turned to look at him. “Is that the clue, Granda?” Pasha whispered excitedly.

“Aye. It’s the clue,” he told her, not wanting to disappoint. The rhyme said as good as nothing, and the black thoughts circling his mind settled into place. First Ewan, then Pasha, Hammie, Nan, and then himself. The order seemed important, and he asked the Stone Gods for the courage to see it through. The Dhoone King had talked of yielding, but Vaylo had seen the truth of it in the pale blue eyes beneath the thornhelm. Robbie Dun Dhoone was not a man to be held to his word.

And time was running out.

“Granda! Why does this man have no eyes?” came Ewan’s high voice. The boy was too young to be afraid of death and all its trappings, and was swinging from the effigy of the Dark King, Burnie Dhoone.

Vaylo shrugged. “The masons never got around to it.”