It had not been a bad lesson all in all, though It had come back to haunt him in recent months. He, the Dog Lord, had brought the clan-holds to its knees, and Vaylo had the uncomfortable feeling that there was no one to set it to rights only him. Gods, why had he ever accepted Penthero Iss' offer of aid? He should have taken the Dhoonehouse alone. The invasion was damned from the start, from the very first moment when Vaylo had said to Iss' emissary, "Do what you must, halfman. Just spare me the details so I can deny them."

Suddenly tired, Vaylo stopped climbing and sat on a loose hump of rocks. Below him, Nan and Harnmie were — shepherding the bairns along a particularly sharp draw. The wind had tugged Nan's sea gray hair from her braid and flushed her cheeks with blood, and she looked young and a little bit dangerous. She'd taken to holstering her maiden's helper crosswise on her back like a longsword, and Vaylo knew that the little pouch at her waist that used to contain her portion of powdered guidestone now held henbane instead. She'd come across it ten days back, growing on the banks of a melt pond near the Dhoone-Spur border, and picked it and dried it for self-protection. It was deadly poison and she had enough to kill all of them, save the dogs, and the only place she trusted to store it was her powder pouch for no child would ever dare touch that.

"Pasha. Aaron. Slip behind those bushes and relieve yourselves. Quick about it now." When Aaron hesitated Nan set him in motion with a pat to his backside. Hiking quickly up the remaining slope, she left Hammie to pick up the rear.

The Dhoonewall can't be that far away now," she said to Vaylo as she sat beside him on the rock and gazed south across the rolling highlands of Dhoonc. "And then this journey will be done." Nan Culldayis was no talker and she spoke only when she had something to say. Vaylo waited.

"A hundred and eighty men await you at the Dhoonewail," she said finally, still looking ahead. That's exactly three times the number you commanded thirty-five years ago on the raid to steal the Dhoonestone from Dhoone."

She was right, and Vaylo understood all she meant by those words. Somewhere not far north of here lay the fastness known as the Dhoonewall, It had been the Dog Lords destination right from the start. His eldest son Quarro commanded the Bluddhouse and Vaylo knew enough about the greed and ambition of his seven sons to guess that he would never be welcomed back. The Bluddsmen at the Bluddhouse would be loyal to Quarro now, and a failed and aging chief arriving home with a single armsman as escort probably wouldn't be allowed through the gate. Worse, he might even be shot during the approach. So no, not for one minute had Vaylo considered returning to the Bluddhouse—he would not debase himself by appealing to his eldest son for shelter. He would head north instead to the Dhoonewall. where the longswordsman Cluff Drybannock stood ready with a hundred and eighty men.

It had seemed like a lifetime ago when Vaylo had sent Drybone north to defend the two major passes in the Copper Hills. The Dhoonewall was a defensive rampart spanning the six leagues that separated the passes. It had lain unused since the time of the River Wars, and only one of the original six hillforts remained livable. Vaylo had feared Dun Dhoone using the fort as a base to gather men and launch an attack on the Dhoonehouse, so had decided to garrison it with Bluddsmen. His original plan had been to kill two birds with one stone—send his troublesome second son Pengo far away from the Dhoonehouse where he could do no harm. Pengo would have none of it though—threatening to take the bairns with him if his hand was forced—and Cluff Drybannock had offered to take his place. Vaylo had regretted letting Drybone go. Cluff Drybannock was the best longswordsman in the North. He was a bastard, part Sull, part Bluddsman, and when he'd turned up at the Bluddhouse twenty years ago Vaylo had taken him as his adopted son. He missed Dry, and feared he had made a mistake by sending him away.

That wasn't what Nan was about here, though. She had watched him these past days, seen his spirits fall and his temper rise, and she sought to tell him in her own way that all was not lost. If he had managed to carry out the most audacious raid of the past hundred years with a crew of sixty men, then imagine what he could do with three times that number. That was what Nan meant to say. He could not deny the logic of it, but he had been young then and filled with certainty. He was old now and the only thing that he was certain of was that he had made mistakes.

Vaylo glanced down the hill, checking on Hammie and the bairns. Pasha and Aaron were in good spirits, whooping and hollering at one of the returning dogs. The bitch looked to have another rabbit in her jaws. That made three in under a day.

To Nan he said, "I must be sure who my enemy is before I send good men to fight. My sons are scattered across the clanholds—some hold houses, some don't. If I were to attempt to take their holdings from them by force then Bludd would be killing Bludd. As for Dhoone, the Thorn King can keep it. I sat on the Dhooneseat for a while and I canna say I enjoyed it. That seat is cold, Nan, and it was won at too great a cost to my soul. Anything I win now will be hard-fought and hard-defended. Yet what that prize might be I canna say. Always in the past my next move was clear to me: raid, invade, ambush, crack down on my rivals, attack. Yet things have changed for me, and I'm no longer sure what comes next."

At his side Nan breathed evenly and did not speak. Clouds were breaking up in the south and bands of sunlight swept across the hills. It was too windy for frost, but it was cold enough, and Vaylo felt the wind tears sting his eyes.

After a while Nan stood. Turning so that she was opposite him, she said, "You knew my da, Nolan Culldayis. He swung hammers with Gullit during the River Wars. Took up carving wood after your father died, used to make foxes and blackbirds and other fancies. I asked him once what he was working on. It was new block of cherrywood and he'd just started whittling. He said to me, 'I don't know what it is yet, Nannie. Knowing would ruin the surprise. " Nan raised a finely shaped eyebrow at Vaylo. "It was the possibilities, you see. As long as he didn't know what he was carving there were more of them."

Vaylo bowed his head at his lady, acknowledging the wisdom of her story yet not sure if it meant anything to him. A clan chief with jaw sprang surprises; he was not doing his job if he himself was surprised.

Rising, he held out a hand to accept the bitch's third rabbit of the day. She'd been waiting all the while Nan had been speaking, halted by a small gesture of Vaylo's hand, and now she came forward, wagging her tail so forcefully it rocked her bony rump right along with it "Good girl," he told her, taking the bloody fur-covered sack from her jaw. He inspected it, frowned, and then gave it right back. "Eat," he commanded. And she did, opening her jaw wide and wolfing it down whole in a unlovely, jerky motion that looked like a dry heave in reverse.

Vaylo was glad to have it gone. One more rabbit and there was no telling what he might do: run back to the Dhoonehouse and bunny-kick Robbie Dun Dhoone in the head.

"Nan," he said, holding out his arm for her to come to him. "Did I ever tell you about the day your da taught me his special move?"

Aware that he was shutting down all talk about the future, Nan nodded knowingly and let him put his arm around her. "The Culldozer?"

"Aye. The one where he'd let his hammer lie flat against his horse's belly just so and then present his left flank to the enemy so they couldn't tell he was armed. Then once he got close enough, he'd swing about and uppercut them in the jaw."

Nan shook her head in bafflement. "I suppose it saved the pulltooth some work."