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still
setting out their wares. Merchants and bidwives were draping their
stalls with red-and-gold ribbons, bolts of turquoise cloth,
embroidered belts and boned bodices, horn-and-paper fans, fake
jewels, silk purses, lace collars and straw hats. Angus felt the skin
on his face tighten as he walked between the stalls. A hole opened up
in his chest and it was suddenly difficult to breath. Stopping, he
put a hand on a tent pole for support.
    â€œWhat’s the matter, lovey?
Too much of the black stuff last night?â€

CHAPTER 23
    This Old Heart
    BIG BORRO WAS dead. Midge Pool dead.
Wullam Rudge. Quingo Faa, who had been some convoluted cousin of
Hammie’s. Thirteen Bluddsmen dead in all, and a couple not
likely to make it. The numbers kept mounting and Vaylo wondered what
had happened to his jaw. Right now he could not think as a Bludd
chief should think: I’ll get the bastards who did this.
    The enemy was a phantom. You could not
kill what was already dead. There was no glory to be claimed on this
field, no satisfaction in bettering the foe. Just horror and
uncertainty, and no sense that the battle was won. How many had
attacked in the Deadwoods? Four? Five? Against forty men. The Dog
Lord did not understand odds like that. When Bluddsmen outnumbered
their foe they won.
    Vaylo began a circuit of the camp. It
was one of those bleak spring days where the wind whipped at ground
level and the rain turned into that persecutor of spirits: sleet.
They were just northwest of the Bluddhouse, tactfully camped on the
edge of Quarro’s sights on the slope of a west-facing hill.
Four hours ago at dawn Odwin Two Bear and Hammie Faa had left on a
mission to parley with Quarro, and Vaylo was awaiting their return.
    On the whole he didn’t hold out
much hope.
    Nan was sitting by the campfire doing
something with her hair. As soon as she caught sight of his face she
stood. Vaylo waved her down. Her comforts would not work on him now.
Idly, without thinking, he whistled for his dogs. Together he and the
three animals headed up-slope to look at the house they’d once
called home.
    Some said it was the ugliest roundhouse
in the clanholds; Vaylo reckoned they might be right. He’d
certainly ruled his fair share of them. Dhoone was like an ice
palace, cool and blue, built to impress. Ganmiddich looked like
something out of a fairy tale, with its tower and green walls and
beach upon the Wolf. Bludd was a steaming mound. Ockish used to call
it the Dunghouse, but he’d beat you senseless if you agreed
with him. Vaylo had always thought the woods surrounding it were
pretty. He found them beautiful today.
    They used to say that if you wanted to
make friends with a Bludd chief gift him with the seeds of a rare red
tree. The saying appealed to something in Vaylo, though he suspected
it had never been true. There were some nice trees in the woods and a
couple of them you wouldn’t see anywhere else in the North,
fancy things with leaves like red lace and others with bark like
rusted metal, but you could have given the rarest tree in the world
to Gullit or his father Choddo and you would have got a smack in the
teeth for your trouble.
    Abruptly Vaylo turned away. He had
spotted Odwin and Hammie riding back on the hill trail and he did not
think it was a good sign that they brought no one with them.
    â€œTell Quarro I come in peace. The
chiefship is his and I make no claim upon it. Allow me entry so that
together we may defend our house against all threats.â€

CHAPTER 24
    Stillwater
    â€œI’M NOT PUTTING my feet in
that water,â€

CHAPTER 25
    Target Practice
    â€œIT’S THE HEART,â€

CHAPTER 26
    Small Game
    THEY HUNTED CLOSE to the den and only
tracked small game. They cornered an opossum in its set and dragged
it into the moonlight to feed. Things were shifting within them and
this would be their last meal before the full moon. Digestion took
the largest toll on their