On this throne Bloodheart sat and he surveyed his new domain with satisfaction. Possessively, he rubbed the gold torque on his arm. Sanglant could not help himself: he reached up and touched the iron collar that now circled his neck where once he had worn gold.
The movement drew Bloodheart’s eye. He leaned toward Sanglant—but not too close. No closer, really, than he would have gotten to his own dogs.
“Why are you still alive,” Bloodheart asked, “when all the others are dead?”
“Let me fight,” said Sanglant, and suddenly feared he sounded like he was pleading. Ai, Lady, he did not want to die such a dishonorable death. He would not have wished this on his worst enemy, to die like a dog, among the dogs. “Give me an honorable death, Bloodheart. Let your boldest warrior choose weapons and we will have it out, he and I.”
“Nay, nay.” Bloodheart bared his teeth in a grin. Jewels glinted, a rich treasure studding his teeth. “Am I not king among the Eika of the western shore? Have I not fought down all the other tribes until they all bared their throats before me? Do I not boast a king’s son in my pack of dogs?” He laughed, pleased with his triumph. “I think not, my prince. You are the prize in my pack, a fine lord with his handsome retinue. For my dogs are like to the kingdom of Wendar, are they not? Led by you.” His grin turned into a snarl. “Lead them for as long as you can. For you will weaken, and when you do, they will kill you.”
Beyond, the Eika methodically looted the corpses before they dragged them into the crypt. One, rifling the Eagle’s body, ripped his Eagle’s badge from his cloak and tossed it. It landed at the feet of Bloodheart, who picked it up, bit it, and spat.
“Brass! Pah!” He tossed it down and Sanglant swatted dogs aside and grabbed it up from the floor. But that turmoil set the dogs to snapping and snarling again. He made good use of the badge; it had a clean, rounded edge and was good for jabbing. The dogs backed off and settled down again. One of the big ones growled at him, but he made a sharp gesture, and it lifted its head to expose its throat to him in submission.
He wiped hair from his lips, trying to clean the horrible taste out of his mouth. His left hand throbbed. Blood leaked, slowed, stopped—as had the gash on his head, which had already stopped bleeding. That was the secret of his mother’s geas, of course, the one she had set on him when he was an infant, the day she vanished from human lands. That was what her blood had given him: keen hearing and unnatural powers of healing.
An Eika grabbed the dead Eagle by the heels and dragged the body away toward the crypt. Sanglant pressed the Eagle’s badge against his cheek.
He was hit so hard by the memory of the young Eagle— Liath—touching him on his cheek in the silence and intimacy of the crypt that he was dizzy for a moment. The dogs, alert to any least weakness, stirred and growled. He tensed; they quieted.
By the Lady, he would not, he must not, let Bloodheart win. This at least he could believe, that Liath was still alive, for the last report he had been given before he and his Dragons were utterly overwhelmed was that the children of Gent had been led to safety.
“You are speechless, Prince,” said Bloodheart. “Are you half dog already? Have you lost the power to talk?”
“I am like you, Bloodheart,” he said, his voice hoarse; but his voice always was hoarse now, for he had survived worse injuries than these. The iron collar, and his chains, weighed heavily on his neck. “My heart rests not within me but with another, and she is far away from here. That is why you will never defeat me.”
But the dogs, ever watchful, growled softly. They were willing to wait.