"Jones, J V - Sword Of Shadows 02 - A Fortress Of Gray Ice V2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Jones J. V)

“He came to warn me. The Sull are preparing for war.” The words did not rest easy in the Tomb of the Dhoone Princes; cold currents caught them and blew them against the walls, creating sharp little echoes that hissed, Sull. Sull. Sull.
Vaylo sucked on his black and aching teeth. He could not rid himself of Spynie Orrl. The old goat haunted him, he was sure of it, whispering words in the black of night as if he hardly knew he was dead. There are outside forces at work here, Bludd chief. I know it. You know it. And the question that now remains is, are you content to let it be?
Suddenly tired of games, Vaylo cried, “What is going on here, ranger? There’s secrets beneath secrets, plots inside plots. I’m not a scholar or a seer. I look at the sky and see only sky. How am I to protect my clan against dangers I cannot see?”
“You already know the answer to that, Dog Lord,” Angus said, his voice soft and dark as the shadows that gathered about him. “Return to Bludd and marshal your forces and wait for the Long Night to come. Forget about Dhoone and this roundhouse, and your fancy of naming yourself Lord of the Clans. Days darker than night lie ahead, and no amount of land or titles will stop the shadows when they come. Chiefs die as easily as pig herders, yet they’re nowhere near as blameless. Men look to you to lead them. So lead. Leave this place, set aside your battles.” Angus’ gaze flicked to the fifty stone coffins lining the walls. “It’s all small purchase in the end.”
Vaylo had his hand on the wire grip of his sword. Anger was hot within him, and he thought of many things to say to this man, but in the end there was only one. “I will not relinquish Dhoone.”
The ranger nodded. “Aye, I had an inkling you’d say that.”
The anger puffed out of Vaylo, leaving him feeling weary and very old. By rights he should call Hammie Faa or Drybone and have them take the ranger away—and not gently at that. Yet he feared Angus Lok, feared the knowledge he held and the counsels he kept. Feared them, and wanted them for himself.
Resting his weight against the tomb wall, Vaylo said, “You know the Surlord offered a sow’s weight in gold for your head?”
“What, only one of them?” Angus scratched the stubble on his jaw. “I’d have thought the chin alone was worth more than two.”
Vaylo did not take the bait. “And the Lord Rising of Morning Star sent one of his White Helms to bid for you. I daresay I could make a pretty profit if I chose to, auctioning you off for the highest price.”
“Yet you choose to do something else.” The humor left Angus now, quick as if it had never been there at all. Vaylo reminded himself that this man was one of the best longswordsmen in the North, marksman and assassin, expert horseman and field surgeon. Friend of the Sull.
He thought carefully before speaking his next words. Pride was at stake here, both the ranger’s and his own. “I choose to offer you a deal. The Mountain Lords are no friends of mine, and if I thought so once then I was a fool. I’m old enough now that I can admit my mistakes, but not so old that they cannot shame me. The clanholds are at war, and I will not deny my part in that, nor will I surrender my gains, but I canna say that I sleep well at night. I have lived too long on the edge of things not to recognize when those edges change. Bludd is a border clan and I am a border chief. You know our boast. We are Clan Bludd, chosen by the Stone Gods to guard their borders. Death is our companion. A hard life long lived is our reward.”
Vaylo looked carefully at Angus Lok. The moon was rising now, silvering the standing tombs so they looked like men of ice. The ranger’s face was deeply shadowed, and looked leaner and hungrier for it. He wants this, Vaylo thought, and so he spoke his deal.
“Help me guard my borders. I don’t need might or swords or warriors—Bludd has them in numbers—I need knowledge from a man I can trust. I know you will not name the brotherhood that claims you, and can guess well enough what breed of oath they made you speak. Yet there is middle ground here, between a chief’s oath and a ranger’s oath, and though our wars may be different our enemies may one day prove the same.”
Angus stood silent and unmoving, his weight held evenly between his feet. Time passed, and then he said, “And in return?”
“I’ll see you released.”
The two watched each other, each mindful of what was at stake. Angus Lok might be a clever and amiable prisoner, well able to coax information and favors from any man who guarded him, yet he had to know that no Bluddsman would ever set him free. Sixty days of captivity had taught him that.
“I know you travel these lands,” Vaylo said, “speaking with clansmen and city men alike. What I ask is that you share your knowledge of the clanholds with me.”
The ranger’s eyes glittered cold. Any other man and the deal would be done by now, for talk was cheap and confidences easily betrayed. Yet Angus Lok was not any man . . . and he had lived twenty years with the Phage. He said, “I am no petty traitor, Dog Lord, and I go running to no man with news given to me in confidence. Nor would I speak a word that endangered friends or kin.” A pause, while the ranger allowed Vaylo time to remember that the man standing before him was kin to Raif Sevrance, murderer of Vaylo’s own grandchildren. “Yet there are matters where our interests meet,” a dangerous smile, “not least of which is setting me free.”
Vaylo inclined his head. The deal was done. Neither man would insult the other by haggling over terms.
“So,” Angus continued briskly. “You would have information from me. Well, much though I hate to come courting with swords, I should warn you to watch your back.”
“Blackhail?”
“No. Dhoone.”
The word seemed to warm the vault, Vaylo swore it. All about stonework creaked and settled, sending spores of blue sandstone to seed the air. “How so?”
Angus shrugged. “The battle for the chiefship is coming to a head. On one side you have Skinner Dhoone, brother to the slain chief Maggis. He names himself chief-in-exile and gathers men about him at the Old Round outside of Gnash.”
“Aye.” The Dog Lord nodded. He had Skinner’s measure. The Dhoone chief-in-exile put no fear into Vaylo Bludd. Skinner had a high temper and he blew hard and long, but he had lived too many years in the shadow of his brother and no longer had his jaw. Any other man would have tried to retake Dhoone by now. A month ago he might have seized it if he’d had the balls, for Vaylo and Drybone were housed at Ganmiddich, and the Dhoonehouse held by Pengo Bludd. Vaylo snorted air. He had nothing but contempt for a man who had a chance but failed to seize it.
“And on the other side you have Robbie Dhoone,” Angus continued. “The golden boy of the Dhoone warriors, who claims chiefship through some questionable second-cousining and the Thistle Blood through his dam.”
Vaylo pushed himself off from the wall with force. “A young pretender, nothing more.”
“Not from what I’ve heard, Dog Lord.” Angus’ voice was strangely light. “Then again, perhaps you have better intelligence than I. After all there’s limits to what a man can hear in a cell.”
Put in his place, Vaylo had nothing to say other than “Go on.” They both knew who was master of secrets here.
“Robbie Dhoone has the golden hair and fair eyes of the Dhoone kings, and he knows how to cut a figure with them. They say he’s born to the sword, but the weapon he draws in battle is the great ax, much loved of the old kings. By all accounts the Thistle Blood runs true within him, and he can trace his line back to Weeping Moira. And I’ve heard it said by more than one man that he signs his name Dun Dhoone.”
Dun. “Thistle” in the Old Tongue, the name the Dhoone kings took as their own.
Unease must have shown itself on Vaylo’s face, for Angus said, “Aye, Dog Lord. You see the way the lake drains now. He’s young and ambitious and well loved in Castlemilk, and he’s puffing himself up to be a king.”
“He quarters in Castlemilk?”
Angus nodded. “He raises an army there.”
Vaylo turned his back on the ranger to give himself time to think. The likenesses of the Dhoone kings watched him, stone eyes alive with moonlight. The pretender will try to retake this place, he thought. That is the warning Angus Lok would have me heed. All talk of kingship is hollow unless a king holds the land he claims.
Behind him, Vaylo heard the sound of Angus crossing to the far side of the vault. Shadows lay deep there, amongst the oldest of the standing tombs. All edges had been worn to curves by nothing more than air. “And there’s more, Dog Lord.” Angus said softly, causing Vaylo to turn. “The border clans best ready themselves against raids from the Mountain Lords.”
Vaylo grunted. There was always more. “The Surlord and the King on the Lake have long had an eye for the green hills and black mines of Bannen and Croser. Spring raids are nothing new. Heron Cutler led a sortie five years back, and took a blade in the kidneys for his trouble.”
Angus squatted to inspect the capstones surrounding the effigy of an ancient and faceless king. As he spoke he ran a finger along the mortar lines, testing. “If I were you, Dog Lord, I’d watch the clans nearer home. The Lord Rising of Morning Star stands close enough to HalfBludd to smell the staleness there.”
This was news. “Cawdor Burns plans to strike against the Bludd-sworn clans?”
The ranger did not look up from inspecting the wall as he said, “Who can say? The Lord Rising is no man’s fool. He’ll sit and watch the clanholds crumble from the safe haven of his Burned Fortress, and as soon as he spies a weakness he’ll move. HalfBludd is past her glory. She’s been in decline since Thrago HalfBludd deserted his birthclan to name himself chief of Bludd.”
Vaylo found himself nodding. It was so. Thrago HalfBludd was his grandfather, the Horse Lord who brought back glory to the Bluddhouse after the defeat at Crumbling Wall. Yet whilst Thrago was in the field winning victories for Bludd, his birthclan suffered for want of a strong chief, and Bludd’s gain was HalfBludd’s loss. “I’ll send word to Quarro at the Bluddhouse, get him to send a crew of hammermen to HalfBludd’s southern reach.”
“Do that. But be sure to keep your watch.”
Vaylo bristled. He did not care for advice from any man, let alone some cocksure, trusty runner for the Phage. He was the Dog Lord, and he had lorded his clan for thirty-five years, and a chief did not hold his place that long by being anybody’s fool. Resting his hand on the hilt of his sword, he said, “When I was seventeen my brothers drew their knives and tried to slay me. When I was twenty-two Broddic Haddo crossed swords with me for the chiefship of Bludd. Five months back I took Dhoone by force, and twelve weeks later I fought for my life on the banks of the Wolf. Every day I ask myself the question, ‘Which one of my sons will betray me first?’ And every night I lie awake in the darkness and watch the slaughter of my grandchildren by Hailsmen play out before my eyes.”
“Still I am here. I’ve won and lost more than you can imagine, ranger, yet here I stand, lord and chief. Do you really think I need counsel from one of my captives on how best to watch my back?”
Angus bowed his head in acknowledgment. “I’m sorry for that. The habit of caution lies deep within me.”
“That is why you are a ranger, not a chief.” Once again, Angus nodded. They both knew that caution would take a man only so far.
“Get up,” Vaylo commanded him, suddenly wanting this meeting to be done. “Go and present yourself to Drybone and tell him the nature of the deal we have struck. He’ll return your arms and provision your dry-pack and see you on your way.”
Still Angus did not rise. “And my horse?”
The magnificent bay gelding. As soon as Vaylo had set eyes upon it he had known it for a Sull horse. “It will be returned.”