As the bairns rushed forward to cheer them, both men shared a long, weary "What the hell were we thinking?" glance before dropping to their knees.. Hammie began to wheeze like a goat. The Dog Lord felt a familiar pain his chest, but ignored it.

"Hammie smells like cow fart!" Aaron dove on top of the spearman, propelling him farther to the mud. Laughing so hard she snorted, Pasha ran to join her brother and soon both childen were jumping up and down Hammie's belly roaring with laughter and yelling. "Cow Faa-rt!" at the lop of their lungs.

Hammie endured this for about as long as any man could before firmly setting the bairns on their feet. Wiping himself off he ran with some dignity. "Seeing as I haven't had a bath over a month, I'd say that cow fart might just be an improvement."

This statement started the bairns giggling all over again. Valyo was concerned about the noise, but glad in his heart to heat it. Pasha and Aaron deserved this. They'd been at good as gold these past five days, and quieter than was good for any child.

"Hush now, little ones." Nan's voice was gentle but firm. She hadn't taken part in the race, and only now reached the top of the hill. The wind had dragged back her hood and sheened her face withm rain.. "It's late and we must be quiet."

Valyo nodded his thanks. Somehow Nan knew that he couldn't bring himself to discipline his grandchildren just then. She was the smartest one of the lot of them, and the Dog Lord was glad she was his.

As he held out his hand so she could pull him up, he heard a low howl echoing from the south. Wolf dog.. Even though he had heard the call of his oldest, best-loved dog countless times before, Valyo felt a loosening of muscle in his gut. Some sounds bypassed a man's thoughts and entered his body directly, and the call of a wolf was one of them.

All five dogs had been ranging wide throughout the evening, form-ing a protective circle around the party and hunting small game for food. Just before sunset the oldest bitch had brought Valyo a jackrab-bit still in its winter whites, Valyto had no appetite far raw meat and judged it unsafe to light a cookfire, yet he had taken the rabbit from her jaw all the same. A dog giving up its prey for you was no small thing, and only a fool didn't understand that.

The dogs were trained for silent patrol and although all had been taught to alert their master to danger by issuing a single piercing howl, only the wolf dog ever sounded. The other four always deferred to him.

"Everyone down," Vaylo hissed, cursing himself for his stupidity. Thanks to him they were now standing on the most exposed point for leagues-and not a damn tree in sight. At least there was no moon to light them.

The mud smelled sweetly rotten, and when Vaylo scooped up a handful he could feel the dead matter in it. Beetle legs and stalks of grass scratched his skin as he smeared it across his face, blacking himself out against the night. Nan didn't waste a moment with feminine fussing and swiftly did thee same to herself. Hammie was closest to the bairns and saw to them before masking himself. Both children submitted soundlessly to Hammie's ministrations, but Vaylo knew they were scared. Tears welled in Aaron's eyes.

Aaron was his only living grandson. Just seven years old, the boy had lost his mother and his homeland. And he hadn't seen his father in thirty days. Remembering his own tears as a boy—tears of hurt and loneliness and rage—Vaylo reached over and laid a hand on Aaron's back. The Dog Lord had spent thirteen years growing manhood in Gullit's house, and not once during that time had anyone touched him with simple kindness. He was the chiefs bastard son, begotten during the drunken revelry of Spring Fair, his mother rumored to be the lowest of the low: a common stovehouse whore. The only affection he'd received was from his father's hounds. Good dogs, who had treated him like pack.

Ahooooooooo. The wolf dog's howl came again, pitched lower this time and closer. The Dog Lord's protectors were on the move.

Vaylo nodded to Hammie, and the small party began to belly down the east face of the hill. It was raining hard now and Vaylo's cloak was quickly soaked. About halfway down the slope he spied a copse of spindly blackthorn and altered his course toward it. He was listening intently, but could hear nothing above the wind. The eolf dog's call had come from the south, and that meant Dhoonesmen riding out from the Thistle Gate.

"Granda, I can hear horses coming." Pasha tried hard to whisper, but at nine she hadn't quite gotten the hang of it and the words came out louder than if she'd spoken them in her normal speaking voice. Nan put a finger to her lip to hush her, but the damage was done.

Hammie and the Dog Lord shared a glance. The spearman had left his spear in the Tomb of the Dhoone Princes, where he had used it to bar the trapdoor that led from the roundhouse to the tomb. Hammie was stili in possession of a good knife, though; a foot-and-a-halfer cast from a single rod of blued steel. The kitchen knife Vaylo now called his own was another matter entirely. The tang rocked loose in its handle, and three days of rain had cankered the blade. Of course Nan still had her maiden's helper—a slender dagger with a wicked double edge and some pretty scrollwork—but Vaylo would never consider taking it from her. A Bluddswoman had as much right to defend herself as any man.

Scrambling with his knees and elbows, Vaylo pushed toward the blackthorns. Finally he could hear what Pasha heard: horses at canter, closing distance from the south. Dogs be good, Vaylo willed. If the five beasts homed too quickly they would betray their master's position. Right now Vaylo needed them to stay put.

Reaching the bushes, he tugged off his rain-drenched cloak and threw it across the branches. It wasn't much protection against the needle-sharp thorns, but it was better than nothing, and Vaylo had the bairns' eyes and tender cheeks in mind. Gesturing furiously, he beckoned Pasha and Aaron to push through the tangle of winter-hardened canes and into the center of the copse. When they hesitated he fixed them with full force of his chiefs glare and hissed, "Now!"

Not once in Vaylo's thirty-five-year chiefdom had anyone disobeyed an order spoken in his command voice and no one was about to start now. The children jumped into action, ducking their heads and plowing through the bushes as if they were being chased by wolves. Even Nan and Hammie moved smartly, Hammie pulling his cloak taut around his body and diving into the bushes like an otter into water. Vaylo took little satisfaction from their responses. He could hear horses closing distance from the far side of the hill, and the rhythmic beating of their hooves sounded like war drums.

Three, he counted. And they weren't slowing. That was something.

Vaylo ducked into the bush as the horses crested the ridge. As he gulped air to steady himself his knees touched Nan's. When he looked at her face he knew he was seeing a mask: firm and fearless, calm as if she were accustomed to crouching in a thornbush daily. Frowning, she rubbed dirt from the corner of Aaron's eye and tucked Pashas black hair under her hood. Her instinct with the bairns was flawless. She knew that no-nonsense, oft-repeated gestures calmed better than soft words and protective hugs.

Vaylo edged about slightly, presenting his back to the children, and then slid the kitchen knife from his belt. Hammie knew the game and did likewise. The sharp odor of newly wetted ground acted like a drug on Vaylo's windpipe and he found himself breathing deep, clear breaths. The riders were almost upon them. When the pounding of hooves grew deafening Vaylo spoke a prayer to his favored god, Uthred. Nor this time.

Almost it was granted. The riders drew abreast of the bushes and continued southward, spraying clumps of mud against the blackthorns as they passed. Then suddenly there was a change in the rhythm of hoof falls, a subtle slowing, a pause as one man swiveled in his saddle and looked back. The sludge in Vaylo's boots curdled. Sweet Gods, the cloakl It lay there, muddy and nondescript, soaked in the rainy colors of the night, indistinguishable from its surrounding in every regard. Except shape.