"Father," he said. "It has been a long time."

Vaylo clasped his son's arm, and was surprised to feel an equal pressure in return. "Son."

Gangaric HalfBludd had made himself an axman and a HalfBluddsman in memory of his great-grandfather, Thrago, and he wore a fine crimson cloak overmounted with a heavy collar of woodrat skins in the manner of the border clan. His mighty war ax was cradled across his back. The limewood handle rose above his left shoulder for ease of draw. The fierce oyster-shell-shaped blade was protected by a bloodstained mitt. Such was the price of warriorship in HalfBludd, Vaylo recalled: You had to dress in your own drawn blood.

"Have you ridden from the Bluddhouse?"

Gangaric's large head was bare and his scalp featured alarming bands of part-shavings. "I've been on the hoof for thirteen days. The snow slowed me."

Vaylo unpinned his heavy sable warcloak. It would need to be aired to dispel the stench of panicked horse. Laying it over the balcony he asked, "What news?"

This was the question Ganga «had been waiting for, the one Cluff Drybannock had doubtless asked only to be answered coldly, I await my fathers return.

Vaylo knew all about his sons.

"Pengo has possession of Ganmiddich," Gangaric said. "He won it from the Spire's amiy, and is now under fire from Blackhail, Bannen and Scarpe."

Sweet mother of all bastards. This news was so startling it rendered Vaylo speechless. Pengo, his worthless second son, in command of one of the great prizes of the clanholds? How had this happened? How many flukes of fate and pigs escaping from pokes had it taken to bring this piece of good fortune to bear? Ganmiddich taken from city men? Finding his voice he asked, "The Spire routed Blackhail and Ganmiddich?"

"Aye. Pengo rode in at battle's end. Blackhail was beaten, and the city men were set to claim the Crab Gate. Then the city men split their army. Half stayed to shore the gate, and half withdrew."

This just kept getting stranger, "Why would the city men do such a damn fool thing?"

Gangaric shrugged. The skin on his face and neck was deeply ice-tanned and wormed with broken veins. "The half that withdrew crossed the river and headed back to Spire Vanis. The half that Pengo saw off headed west."

Vavlo nodded, thinking. West was good. West was away from Bluddsworn clans. Turning his back on his son, the Dog Lord gazed north across the gray and snow-mounded valley. From here you could not see the Field of Graves and Swords, and he was glad of it. Glad also that the hundreds of Bluddsmen and women Pengo had led from Dhoone all those weeks ago had found a home. And as yet come to no harm.

"Ganmiddich can be held by small numbers as long as the gate remains sealed." It was Cluff Drybannock speaking, the words his first since Vaylo had arrived.

Gangaric challenged them. Pushing his hand against the air that separated him from Drybone, he cried, "Gates sealed! What sort of Bluddsmen would we be if we hid behind closed doors like frightened maids?"

"Live ones," Vaylo said flatly, spinning about. He was surprised by how closely his third son's words echoed his own thoughts of earlier that day. Hide. Sit and wait. The complaints were almost the same. To distract himself he asked, "What of Withy?"

Gangaric threw a defiant glance at Cluff Drybannock before speaking. "Withy suffers. Hanro took harm when Skinner Dhoone attacked, and has not recovered from his injuries. Thrago holds the house. Dun Dhoone has already mounted one attack;"

Wt are the clan that makes kings. That was the Withy boast, so of course Robbie Dun Dhoone would want to rewin the Withyhouse for Dhoone. You could call yourself a king without Withy, but you could-n't become one until the Withy chief anointed your shoulders and laid some new-made crown on your head. As Vaylo recalled, the old Dhoonish crown had bad been forged into a Blackhail sword.

Vaylo leant against the stone balcony. His legs and spine were sore after the horse race and he needed the support. Hanro was his sixth son. Thagro his fifth. They had both been at Withy for months, though Hanro had been there the longest and hud held the command. Vaylo imagined his sixth son must be ill indeed to secede that command to his older brother. Or worse, Thrago may have seized it. Vaylo glanced at Gangaric. The relationships his sons had with each other was something he did not fully understand. Some were allies. Some not. Gangaric and Thrago had been close as boys, and they had both wed HalfBludd maids.

All wives were dead now, slain by Hailsmen on the Bluddroad, but that was a dark thought for another day.

"You intend to travel south to Withy?" Vaylo asked. It nearly wasn't a question.

"Aye. Thrago needs aid." Gangaric's jaw came up. Pointedly, he looked back at the shambling, crazily roofed hillfort. And then sneered. "We are Bludd. We must fight."

Gods help me not to hit him. Vaylo ground down his seventeen remaining teeth. Directly across from him Cluff Drybannock stood tall and still, his waist-length braids moving in the breeze, his expression controlled. Watching his fostered son calmed Vaylo and he took a moment to fish inside his belt pouch and pull out a cube of chewing curd. The curd was old and the mold had gotten into it, but he worked it soft in his mouth and swallowed the bitter taste.

What did he need here? Looking at Gangaric's hard, mutinous face, Vaylo decided that what he needed was more information. He spat the chewing curd over the edge. "How does Quarro sit at Bludd?"

Vaylo himself had sent Gangaric to aid his eldest brother, Quarro, after Robbie Dhoone's torching of the Sacred Grove and his tearing down of the outhouse widely believed to have been built from the remains of the last Dhoonestone. If Vaylo remembered rightly Gangaric had not wanted to go, and had insisted on taking a crew of axmen along for comradeship and support. Were those men here today? Probably. Gangaric was not the sort to ride hundreds of leagues across unfriendly territory on his own.

Gangaric kicked a loose chip of masonry with his foot. Uncomfortable. He took a speaking breath, glanced at Drybone, and then exhaled and didn't use it. Finally he blurted, "I would rather we speak alone."

"Speak or I will break your ax arm."

For a long moment no one moved. The holes in the centers of Gangaric's sky blue eyes got bigger and blacker. All of Vaylo s sons had grown up in fear of their father. The question was: Had that fear gone? I am fifty-three, Vaylo thought. Am 1 capable of beating my son?

It was a question he did not have to answer. Jerking into motion, Gangaric cried, "Here then. If you force me to say it. The Bluddhouse has turned into a stinking well. Quarro grows fat and lazy—drinks ale all day and stays abed with Trench whores. Calls himself chief, though not many call him it back. He and his cronies are holed up in the house. Dun Dhoone's garrisoning men at Wellhouse, spoiling for battle. What does Quarro do? Decides to have a pit dug for bear baiting. A fucking bear pit. With the Sull sneaking on our eastern bounds, the Trenchlanders raiding our farms, and the Thorn King knocking on our door, he digs a bear pit!" Gangaip was shaking so stpmgly, the limewood ax handle was vibrating above his shoulder like a twanged string. "Something needs to be done before it all goes to hell. I'm not going back there. The place stinks worse than this."

Vaylo breathed in and out, and tried to recall why he'd cSitinued having sons after his first was born. Angarad had had a hard time with the labor, and the mewling purple creature that had been produced after three days did not seem worth the effort and the risk. Quarro, she decided she would name it, after some grandfather's grandfather who might have once worked in a quarry, or possessed only a quarter of something vital—like a ball. Vaylo had not liked him. Straightaway, he knew that. Little Quarro screamed like someone was trying to skin him and shit like a sick dog. What was hard to uraerstand then was why he, Vaylo Bludd, had gone ahead and made six more. For a certainty he should have stopped at two. That way Gangaric HalfBludd, formerly Bludd, would not be standing there, daring to accuse his father of inaction.