"Did Scunner Bone go to Withy?" Questions seemed the best way to deal with his feelings. Firing them off provided some relief.

"The Bone," Gangaric repeated with annoying possessiveness and familiarity. "The old timers still at Bludd. What of it?"

Scunner Bone was an Otler-trained cowlman, a handful of years older than Vaylo Bludd. Old-timer was an insult to both of them. "Nothing of it. What are your numbers?"

"We're a dozen hatchets in all." Again, there was that snide glance at Drybone, this one specifically aimed at his sword. Hatchetmen—ax and hammer wielders—made no secret of their contempt for narrow blades. Vaylo wondered if Gangaric had ever had the pleasure of watching Drybone take off a man's head. One sweep was all it took. Rather poetically he called it moon upon the water. Aware that his thoughts were getting muddy, Vaylo took a moment to pace the width of the war terrace. The bit of sun that had sparkled earlier was gone, forced out by a conspiracy of clouds. He imagined it must be cold, but could not feel it. "You say Dun Dhoone's garrisoning men at the Well house? Is he there himself?"

"No. His second-in-command Duglas Oger commands the crews."

That meant Robbie Dhoone himself would move to take Withy… and possibly Ganmiddich. "Where are Blackhail's armies?"

"They move southeast from Bannen."

It was, if you thought about it, a pretty steady queue. Nearly everybody in the clanholds—including Drybone and he himself—had possessed the Ganmiddich clanhold at some point in the past seven months. Bludd had it now, Blackhail was aching to retake it, and you could not rule out Dun Dhoone. The three giants of the north, one small but exquisitely placed roundhouse: someone would get crushed.

"There's a new Crab chief. He's housed at Croser."

The politics of the clanholds could be labyrinthian, Vaylo decided. Croser was an eccentric, self-possessed clanhold that usually had the wisdom to avoid other people's fights. "Married to one of the chiefs daughters?" Vaylo ventured.

Gangaric actually grinned. "We reckon so."

Vaylo grinned back. Cluff Drybannock's face remained still.

"How long will you stay?" Vaylo asked his third son.

"Today and tomorrow if you'll permit it."

It was probably foolishness to be pleased by the hesitancy in Gangaric's voice. It probably meant he was getting softer as well as older. Just as he was about to give his son leave to stay as long as he and his men saw fit, Cluff Drybannock spoke up.

"You say the Sull are on our borders. What is their business?"

Vaylo felt a chill travel up his spine. He had not thought to ask any questions of the Sull.

Gangaric regarded his fostered brother with some suspicion, his eyes narrowing as he tried to find fault with the question. "They're on the move. They use our paths, cross into our territory at will. Hell's Town is teeming with them, the old Sull. The pure Sull. They're leaving the Heart Fires and heading north."

The wind picked up as Gangaric spoke, blowing hard against their faces and breaking against the walls of the fort. One of the massive copper sheets on the roof began to whumpf as air got under it. The sound hammered at Vaylo's thoughts, made him think of the things Drybone had told him in the tower. Terrible, believable things.

"The Sull are not human," Ockish Bull had told Vaylo the night thirty-five years ago after they'd encountered the Sull army in the woods east of Cedarlode. "Remember that and you will know something important" It hadn't seemed like much of a statement at the time and Vaylo had thought Ockish was being Ockish: inscrutable just for the sake of it. He should have known better. The times when Ockish Bull was making the least sense were the times when he spoke the hardest truths.

The silence created by Gangaric's words wore on, gaining meaning. The Dog Lord knew he would have to be the one to break it— Gangaric had the look of a man who'd fallen in a hole and wasn't sure how to get out, and Drybone would not speak a worthless word—yet he found it strangely difficult. Heartiness was beyond him. He kept seeing the Field of Graves and Swords in his mind's eye. Derek Blunt and his men dead.

Drybone standing at the north-facing window, keeping watch. Vaylo looked from his flesh-and-blood son to the son he had chosen, and realized he would soon have to make a choice. Gangaric had not ridden hundreds of miles out of his way for a cozy visit with Da.

"Come," Vaylo said to both his sons, "let us go inside and get fed by Nan. We will all be Bluddsmen this night."

Gangaric searched his father's eyes, and then bowed his head with gallantry learned from the HalfBludds. "As you wish." Vaylo imagined he was considering his crew of eleven men.

Drybone observed this, his head level, his nostrils moving as they drew in cool air. "Father," he said quietly, "send Nan my respects. This warrior must keep the watch tonight."

The old pain in Vaylo's heart deepened. Of course Dry could not eat with Gangaric—the man had carelessly mentioned Trench whores. Cluff Drybannock nodded a brief farewell to Gangaric and moved inside the fort.

He took something essential with him. Vaylo felt its loss, but could not put into words what it was.

Gangaric seemed relieved to have him gone. "I forgot to tell you," he said, coming forward to escort his father inside, "you are a grand-father again. Pengo's wife has had the baby."

Shanna. Pengo had gotten her pregnant before his first wife was slain, but Vaylo cared little of that. "Is it healthy?" he asked, allowing his son to guide him through the double doors.

"Aye. She's sucks so much they call her Milkweed."

Vaylo laughed, though in truth what he was feeling was fear. Fear for Drybone, fear for his new granddaughter, fear for all of Bludd. Milkweed. Quite suddenly he remembered the reason for having more children. He had hoped to have a girl.

THIRTY-FOUR Yiselle No Knife

On the third day the land began to change. The slopes south of the Rift grew greener as the grasses and heathers were replaced with stone pines, blue cedar and hemlock. The hills themselves shifted into rolling valleys, forested hummocks and ridges and rocky bluffs. On the north side of the Rift the Craglands had begun, and spear-shaped hunks of rock towered over dwarfed pines and bushy black spruce. The Rift was perhaps fifty feet across now, and if they had wanted to they could have climbed into it and made the crossing to the clanholds. Boulders as big as barns, and entire dead trees, complete with boughs and root balls, choked the crack. Colonies of ptarmigan nested amid the rocks, and saxifrage and lousewort grew in mats from the Rift's buckled walls. Raif wondered what existed beneath the debris and boulders. Did the Rift still lead to the abyss?

"That's Bludd territory over there," Addie said, wagging his chin south. "See that stand of big red pines on the ridge, that's their marker. Anything east and south from now on is theirs."

Raif had wondered about those trees. In a sea of black, green and blue their rust-colored trunks stood out like a warning. A pair of eagles had made their nest at the top of the tallest pine, building a black ring around the point.

"How far to the Racklands?" Raif asked, working out a sudden twinge of pain in his left shoulder.

The little fair-haired cragsman shrugged. "Depends upon the path."

It was an uncharacteristically vague answer for Addie Gunn, and Raif wondered if they had reached the edge of his knowledge. The cragsman hailed from a Dhoone-sworn elan, and perhaps he had avoided grazing his sheep in territory claimed by Bludd. Raif glanced over at Addie. The cragsman had tied a band of rabbit fur around his ears; it looked as if he was wearing a bandage. Goat grease on his nose and lips made them shine. "Best keep moving," he said. "It's too cold to stop."