A Sword From Red Ice (53 page)

Well close enough to a hundred and eighty . . .
but he would think about that later, when the sun wasn't shining in
squares upon the flagstone floor that were almost warm when you
walked on them, and the laughter of the bairns wasn't tumbling down
the spiral-cut stairs.

Vaylo passed through the hillfort's central hall
and into its northern ward. The building and part of the wall it
defended was wedged between two hills. It was a basic structure with
three rounded wards at ground level, three smaller ones on the floor
above, and a warren of cells and store rooms on the upper level.
Upwall, about two hundred feet to the east, a broken bit of
watchtower with a partially collapsed roof remained standing. Vaylo
hadn't gone up there yet, but he intended to do so soon as he had
noticed Cluff Drybannock spent much of his time there. Drybone had
visited the other five hillforts in the chain and pronounced them
larger and better sited, and wholly destroyed. "Tumbled stone
and freestanding walls are all that are left," Dry had said.
"The roofs are gone and fox pines have seeded in the wards."

The hillforts still made little sense to Vaylo,
though he was glad for his own sake that Dhoone had built them.
Situated on the northern edge of the Copper Hills, they looked down
over the scrubby fellfields, heaths and uplands that lay to the
north. They had seen hard fighting in their time, that much he could
tell, for there were places in the curtain-wall where you could see
the ghosts of long-past impacts: spider cracks of the kind that were
caused by heavy shot, sections of stone that had melted to glass,
craters and burn rings. The sight of them gave Vaylo a queer feeling
in his chest. He knew the Maimed Men controlled a broken city
somewhere to the north, but he wasn't sure if they had ever been
capable of such a violent assault.

The Dog Lord chided himself as he passed through
the ward door and onto the battle terrace. He should have learned the
histories from Molo Bean and Ockish Bull. It would be reassuring to
know exactly what the deal was here. It could be that a thousand
years ago some bold Blackhail chief had launched a fiendish attack
from the north. Maybe, gods bless them, the Lost Clan had been in
ascendancy and Dhoone had felt threatened by their closeness. The
clanholds were nothing if not stingy with their histories. Withy and
Wellhouse kept tally, so the stories went, and there was something
about a locked room at Castlemilk that was said to contain precious
scrolls. For fifty-odd years now the Dog Lord had—in the deep
and longstanding tradition of Bludd chiefs—disdained learning
the history of the clanholds, but he was beginning to regret his
ignorance.

Mistakes have been made. Gods willing I'll make no
more. Thinking of Ockish Bull made the Dog Lord smile. His words
performed the alchemy of placing contrition right next to defiance.

Vaylo's smile held as he spread his hands wide on
the stone balustrade and leaned out into the fresh air. He was
looking north over the fort valley and the headlands beyond it. The
afternoon sun was blocked by the fortress at his back. This was the
best spot in the entire building, this broad, half-roofed battle
terrace that extended out from the northern ward. Standing here a man
could imagine he was sailing north on a great ship through a strait
that passed between two islands. The wind blew in your face no matter
what time of day or night you came here and you could not see the
earth below your feet.

Nan had commandeered part of the terrace as a
playground for the bairns, and pretty much every man in the entire
hillfort came out here a couple of times a day to breathe some good
air instead of moldy foulness. A couple of men were out here now,
sitting on the crates Nan had brought out for the bairns. Mogo Salt
and Odwin Two Mar were sitting with their backs against the fortress
wall, spearing carrots from a copper bowl with the tips of their
swords. At the opposite end of the balcony a man whom Vaylo did not
recognize was keeping watch, armed with a beautiful limewood self
bow.

Vaylo called across to him. "Where is
Drybone?"

The man turned, revealing the high cheekbones and
finely sculpted bonemass of the Sull. "Sir, he is in the tower."

He was accoutered with tokens of Bludd—the
red leather grip on his sheathed sword, the hollowed-out bone
containing his measure of guidestone, the carbuncles of garnet on his
cloak brooch—yet Vaylo did not know him.

"What is your name?"

"I'm Kye Hillrunner, once of Trenchland, now
of Bludd." His voice was proud but Vaylo detected the
nervousness underneath it. He was young, and this was the first time
he had met his chief.

"Drybone took your oath?"

"Yes, sir. Eight months back while I was
housed at Bludd."

Now that he had gotten a better look at the boy,
Vaylo saw that his features lacked the icy perfection of full-blooded
Sull. "How long have you been with us?"

"Five years. I worked on Ockish Bull's horse
farm. That's where I met Cluff Drybannock and he began to train me."

Vaylo nodded; he thought the young man needed it.
"So you met Ockish?"

"He died soon after I got there. His son let
me stay on."

So Ockish had taken the boy in as a tied clansman.
It fit, for all Sull, even Trenchlanders, were known for their skill
at breeding horses. And Ockish always had a soft spot for strays.
Vaylo knew better than to ask Kye who his father was or what claim he
had to Bludd. If he was a bastard that was his business. Subject
closed.

"Keep the watch for Bludd," the Dog Lord
said to him in parting. "We are chosen by the Stone Gods to
guard their borders."

It was part of the clan boast and Vaylo hardly
knew what made him say it, yet if he was surprised by his own words,
he was surprised more by the young man's response.

"I know it. That is why I am here."

A cold finger of fear touched the base of Vaylo's
spine. He looked at the young warrior, saw the slow burn of purpose
in his inhumanly bright Sull eyes. It was not easy to turn away from
it, yet Vaylo did, and headed back into the dampness of the fort.

What was happening here? he asked himself as he
headed for the east ward. What trick was Ockish Bull playing from his
grave? And what was Drybone's part in this? How many more Sull
Bluddsmen would he stumble upon within these walls? Oh it was true
enough Bludd had always taken in its share of Trenchlander
mongrels—they shared a border after all—yet Vaylo could
not set aside his agitation. The boast, the damn boast. We are Clan
Bludd, chosen by the Stone Gods to watch their borders. Death is our
companion. A life long lived is our reward. Fifty-three years he had
lived with those words, fired by their hard-driving pride. When had
they changed on him? How could words mean one thing one day and then
the next day something else?

The blond swordsman Big Borro opened the fortified
east door for him, tugging back the greasy hank of leather that hung
in place of a pull ring. "Snow tomorrow," he said as Vaylo
stepped out onto the Dhoonewall.

Snow? Vaylo frowned at the sun and cloudless sky.
It didn't seem possible, yet he was wise enough not to voice a
contradiction. It had been sixty years since a Borro man was last
caught in a storm.

The Dhoonewall was cracked and weather-beaten. Its
northern edge had been carved by the wind, and the breakwall had
tumbled so there was nothing to stop a man from stepping over the
brink. Entire sections of stone walkway were missing, the gaps
overlaid with loose planks. In other areas the stone had buckled and
erupted upward, forming shambling mounds where weeds thrived. Vaylo
was careful where he put his feet. From where he stood he could look
both north and south, and the great breadth of the earth was visible.
The Copper Hills rolled out around him in purple and rust-brown
waves, a sight to thrill a clansman's heart.

Now the tower was another matter, and as Vaylo
closed upon it he had some fear for his head. Chunks of stone had
fallen recently. Others looked imminent. Unlike the main building,
the tower had not been capped with copper and its collapsed and
black-rotted roof timbers still gripped a tinkling deathtrap of
slates. Vaylo made a dash for the door. Reminding himself that when
he'd held the finest structure in the clanholds—the Dhoonehouse
at Blue Dhoone Lake—he'd never much enjoyed it, the Dog Lord
entered the collapsed tower.

It smelled like a wellshaft, and echoed like one
too. Both the tower and the Dhoonewall sank their foundation deep
into the cleft between the two hills, and the first thing Vaylo
spotted was a way down. Should have brought a torch, he thought, for
although the roof had fallen in, six stories still came between him
and the light. A single arrow slit high on the west wall provided the
only source of illumination. Vaylo moved cautiously. Underfoot, the
mold was as slick as ice.

"Dry!" he called out, frustrated. "Are
you there?"

The sound footsteps echoed along the tower's
rounded walls. A line of masonry dust sifted from the ceiling.
Vaylo's gaze tracked a movement across a dark spot he had assumed was
solid stone and Cluff Drybannock came into view.

"I apologize for not lighting a lamp."

Vaylo huffed. "You did not know I was
a-coming. Here. Take my arm. Lead me up."

It did not occur to Vaylo to doubt Dry's ability
to see in the darkness. From boyhood Cluff Drybannock had always
fared best by night. Whilst boys older than him slept peacefully in
their beds, he was out on the redcourt, practicing his forms. Vaylo
remembered spotting Dry once when he didn't realize he was being
watched. A boy of twelve rendered blue by the moonlight, repeating
the same sword stroke a hundred and twenty times.

Cluff Drybannock took his chief's arm and guided
him up the stairs. At some point between the first and second story
the light increased, yet neither man made the motion to pull apart.
Vaylo told himself that Dry was probably worried that his old chief
would slip and break his neck.

Wind drilled through the tower. Vaylo wondered how
much longer there was to go. The soft and familiar pain below his
heart was letting him know that it resented stairs. Finally Dry
slowed the climb and led his chief through a stone arch into a
circular, vaulted chamber with boarded-up windows. The center of the
vault had collapsed and a heap of stones, black lumber and roof tiles
lay on the floor beneath it. Vaylo peered up through the hole and saw
sky.

"The floor above holds up the remains of the
roof." This did not seem like an especially comforting
statement. Vaylo ignored it and crossed to the north-facing window.
It seemed odd that Drybone had removed the middle boards from this
window but not the one facing south. "I met one of your new men
today," he said. "Kye Hillrunner."

Cluff Drybannock nodded, but did not speak. Vaylo
supposed he had no reason to; no question had been asked.

Dry was dressed in serviceable gray wool pants and
a tunic of gray suede. The quarter-moon he'd painted just beyond the
crown of his hairline had faded, and although opal rings still bound
his waist-length hair, Vaylo was gratified to see that his wrist
leathers and the grip of his longsword were red.

"It is clear enough this day to see the
Rift." Drybone's fine and powerful hand fell again on his
chief's arm, his touch light as he directed Vaylo to the exact
direction. "It is the dark line on the break of the horizon."

Vaylo saw it. Without Dry he would never have
recognized it for a gap in the world so little did the line in the
far distance give away. "Is that where the Maimed Men live?"

"No. They lie east of here where the Rift is
at its deepest."

"You watch it."

Again there was no question and Cluff Drybannock
was silent. "I set off for the Rift once," Vaylo said, his
gaze still ahead. "I was nine and I was mad at Gullit. Decided
to take off and never come back. Rode all the way to the Deadwoods,
three whole days, before the anger finally left me and I turned for
home with my tail between my legs. Had an idea about joining the
Maimed Men."

"This Bludd warrior is glad you did not join
them."

Vaylo was glad he was facing forward. Tears spiked
in his eyes and he could let the wind blow them away. Seven sons and
not a kind word or touch from one of them. He had been a bad father,
he knew it. Obsessed with matters of clan, short-tempered, selfish,
but surely he had never been cruel? You were, countered a hard voice
in his head that sounded suspiciously like his father's. You resented
your sons for being born legitimate, for not having to fight tooth
and nail as you did. It was true enough, that was why things were
different between him and Dry. They were bastards, and they knew all
the small and big things that meant. Keeping his voice level, Vaylo
said, "Tell me why you watch." Seconds passed and the wind
blew and then Cluff Drybannock replied, "My blood makes me."

The same cold finger that had touched Vaylo
earlier touched again in the exact same place. He had not expected
such an answer, but now that he heard it he could not claim surprise.
All along he had known his fostered son was made of a different,
older substance than he himself. Others had known it too. Ockish Bull
had helped rear Dry, and upon his death had left him a small purse.
The great swordmaster Vingus Harking, great-uncle to the HalfBludd
chief Onwyn HalfBludd, had come out of retirement, wheeling himself
north in a cart pulled by dogs, just to train Dry for one year.
Vingus had worked with others during his time at Bludd, but it was
word of Cluff Drybannock's burgeoning skill that had roused him from
his fossilage at HalfBludd. You could not meet Cluff Drybannock and
not realize his worth.

Something glinting in the headland beyond the fort
valley drew Vaylo's gaze. "Is there a stream over there?"