Prince of Dogs (Crown of Stars 2)

Both current and wind aid him this night. He can smell the sea and the estuary before he gets too close. He beaches his eight ships on the western shore and sends scouts westward to guard against an incursion of the Soft Ones’ soldiers, should they have sent any in this direction to seek out the fleeing RockChildren. No doubt they are too busy killing those who fled in disorder. No doubt they are too busy burying their own kind, for they are distractible in their grief.

The disaster brought on by Bloodheart’s death will hurt the RockChildren, certainly, but only a fool would not find advantage in it. No one of Bloodheart’s ambitious sons could have killed the enchanter without bringing down on himself Bloodheart’s vengeance. Now that fate is reserved for another.

Now, after the rout, how many of Bloodheart’s sons survive? How many had taken their followers to raid eastward and did not fight at Gent at all? All this he must consider before he knows how and when to act.

The old priest sits in the belly of the boat and sings nonsense as he wipes blood from the oozing wound in his chest and licks it off his fingers.

“How did you do it?” he asks the old wizened creature. “Why did you do it?”

“Why are you curious?” asks the old priest, who talks mostly in questions.

“Bloodheart found your heart hidden in Rikin fjall. He forced the bargain on you, to hide his heart in place of your own.”

“Will anyone ever find my heart now?” cackles the priest.

No doubt he is half mad. His kind usually are; it is the price they pay for their power. “What happened to your heart?” he asks again. “How did you manage to hide Bloodheart’s heart in your own chest when it was meant to be hidden in the fjall?”

“Did he think he was cleverer than I?” The old priest snorts, and for an instant cunning sparks in his rheumy eyes. The creature is very old, the oldest male he has ever seen. “Did he think I would take my old heart to where there might be battle? I could have been killed!”

“Do you fear death, then? The curse of the nestbrother—”

“The curse! The curse! Do I look like a hatchling? I turned the curse. I stole Bloodheart’s voice and finished the speaking for him. Hai! Hai!” He begins to sing, but the song has an unsettling flow, like a river running uphill. “‘Let this curse fall on the one whose hand commands the blade that pierced his heart.’ Ailailai!”

There is no more sense to be gotten from the old creature, so he only tests the chains with which he had bound the old priest before giving orders to his soldiers. Of those cousins remaining to him, he leaves half to guard the ships. The other half he takes with him as he trots north just above the bluffs to the very mouth of the river.

Fifth son of the fifth litter, he knows how to make use of a lesson: He was captured once by this male named Count Lavastine when his ship got bottled up at the mouth of the Vennu River. It will not happen again. If a trap lies in wait at the mouth of this river, he will be ready for it.

He smells human soldiers long before he sees the telltale lines of a small fort set upon a bluff and somewhat hidden by a cunning layer of branches and scrub. Some of the plants woven into the log ramparts still live, though he can taste the brittle decay of the others on his tongue when he licks the air.

His cousins stir and growl restlessly behind him, for they were granted no leave to fight when they fled Gent. He can taste their dissatisfaction, but they have not learned patience. They will learn it from him tonight, or they will die.

He lifts a hand and gestures to them to fan out. The ground slips beneath his feet, sand and coarse grass and such plants as can stand the ever-present blast of the wind. He bangs spear on shield and from the depths of the fort he hears the frantic rustling of men struggling to ready themselves for battle.

“Hear me!” he calls. “Send your leader to talk, for my force outnumbers yours.” He tastes the air, scenting for their essences. “You have but some thirty of your kind, and I have over one hundred of mine. I give you this choice: Fight us and die, this night, or retreat from your fort south and west to the camp of your kin, and live.”

“How can we trust you?” shouts one of them, appearing only as a dark shadow of helm against the sky and a certain tang of stubborn resiliance in the air.

“I am the one whom Lord Alain freed at Lavas Holding. By the honor of that lord, I swear I will do you no harm … as long as you retreat at once and leave this place to me.”

The man spits, though the spray cannot travel so far. “You, an Eika, swearing by our good Lord Alain’s honor!”

Stubborn creature! He has no time to waste. Soon the other ships will come.

“Then if you have a brave man among you, send him out and I will stand hostage under his knife while the rest leave. When they are well away, he may follow unmolested. But you must act now, or we will attack.”

They confer. He can’t hear them, but their fear is a bracing scent on the breeze, pungent on his tongue. By now they must know they are surrounded and outnumbered.

In the end, of course, they agree. They have no other choice except to die, and Soft Ones always struggle to live even when they must live like dogs to do so. Like the old priest, they fear death and the passage to the fjall of the heavens, and that fear can be used against them.

One of them emerges. He goes forward and lets the man stand with knife poised at his throat while the others march in a swift but orderly fashion into a night made gray by the lowering moon. His own soldiers storm the fort after them and circle down to the strand. They bark to him. There are machines within the fort, and with some impatience he stares at the man before him, who at last withdraws the knife and retreats slowly.

“I remember you,” says the man, and then turns and runs as if expecting an arrow in the back. At once, one of his cousins raises his bow and nocks an arrow for the easy shot. He springs forward and bats bow and arrow down.

The rash cousin swears. “You are weak to let them run!”

It takes only a moment to kill him for his disrespect. Then he turns on the others. “Question me if you must, but do not disobey me. I intend to accomplish what Bloodheart could not accomplish because he was not willing to use the lessons of the WiseMothers to guide him.”

He waits as blood leaks onto his feet and the fire that animated the cousin spills onto the earth and soaks into the ground. No one speaks.