“I should never have brought them here,” he added to himself. He bent a knee to study the hole. It was cut smoothly into the back wall and plainly canted down at a steep angle. “Do you know where this leads?”
“We asked the keeper. All he knew is that when they swamped out the keeps here, they washed everything down that rat hole.”
“Into the sewers?”
Malthumalbaen shrugged. “Keeper seemed not to think so. Says his houndskeep is older than all of Tashijan. Before they plumbed and dug sewers for this place.”
Brant stood up. He held a fist tight to his side.
“But the keeper called for some help. They should-”
The entire houndskeep suddenly erupted with howls and baying barks, drowning out the giant’s words. Loud snatches of cursing accompanied the cacophony.
“That must be him,” the giant said.
Brant headed down the passage toward the commotion. He held off both giants with a raised palm and Dart with a stern look of worry.
Still, Dart trailed him. She kept a few steps back, fearing she might be recognized.
Brant reached the corner and peered around.
Dart noticed him flinch in shock. As the hounds continued to howl, curiosity overcame fear of discovery. She moved behind Brant and stared down the passage.
“Git that monster out of here!” the keeper yelled.
Near to filling the low passage stood a shaggy-furred beast that could have challenged the two giants in size and stature. A bullhound. It padded deeper, heading toward them. Its head was the size of a shield, and the remainder of its muscled form was banded in fur the color of burnt copper and ebony. Ropes of drool dangled from its half-snarled lips, capable of etching stone with its caustic touch if the hound were riled.
Brant reached behind him, intending to push Dart back to safety, but she avoided his hand and ran past him and down the hallway. With all the demands on her time, she had not seen the bullhound in ages.
“Barrin!” she called out, too delighted and relieved to care who might see her.
The bullhound snuffled and tossed its head a bit. Saliva flew to the walls, etching the stone. It then lowered its muzzle to accept Dart’s affection. The stub of its tail wagged in a blur.
Dart hugged the great beast, grabbing both ears, which required a full spread of her arms. She tugged a bit and heard a rumble of contentment.
“You’re going to spoil the kank,” a voice growled behind the bullhound’s shoulder.
A familiar figure stepped around to the front. He wore his usual furred breeches and knee-high mud brown boots. But it was his face that was the most welcome, a friend after the horrors of the past bells. The lower half of his face protruded in a slight muzzle, marking him, like the loam-giants before, as one touched by Graced alchemies in the womb. But only Tristal, god of Idlewyld, produced such men and women, wyld trackers, blessed with air and loam like the hounds here, creating the most skilled of Myrillian trackers and hunters.
“Lorr!” Dart called out happily.
She released her grip on the bullhound and hugged the wyld tracker with as much enthusiasm, though she didn’t tug his ears.
All around, the hounds continued their baying.
The houndskeeper stalked around, keeping well clear of Barrin’s haunches. “Got ’em all riled up! Your beast is going to put ’em all off their feed.”
Lorr shifted out of Dart’s embrace, but he still kept an arm around her. She felt a tremor deep in his chest, and while not a sound came from him, the hounds quickly quieted as if commanded.
The houndskeeper kept his fist on his hips, but he nodded. “That’s better.”
Lorr glanced up the passage. By now, Brant and the two loam-giants had stepped into view. “So someone brought a gift of Fell wolves to the knighting-and now you’ve gone and lost them.”
Dart heard the disdain and thread of anger behind the tracker’s words.
Dart touched Lorr’s arm. “They-he’s a friend of mine from back at the school in Chrismferry.”
Lorr studied Dart, then nodded. Some of the anger drained from him, but a trace of disdain remained. Friends or not, the tracker had little use for fools. “So then tell me what happened? Where have these whelpings gone off to?”
Brant pointed to the side passage. “Over this way.”
“Show me.”
Brant, trailed by the two giants, led the way back to the hole in the hall.
Lorr shifted closer to Dart and whispered to her. “I smell blood on you. Fresh blood.” He nodded to her hand. “What happened?”
“There was some trouble,” she offered lamely, avoiding the longer story.
Lorr nodded forward. “That boy didn’t-”
“No!” Dart cut him off. “The opposite. He saved me from worse harm.”
Lorr seemed satisfied, and Dart was happy to let him move to other matters. How was the castellan faring? Had Dart heard about Tylar’s bumpy arrival? Moments later, they reached the last cell in the passageway. Lorr noted the rusted and broken hinge, and as the story of the escape was related again, Lorr inspected the hole in the wall.
“And you’re sure they were Fell wolf cubbies and not loamed rats?”
Brant stood off to the side, arms crossed. Dart didn’t like the way his nose had pinched since Lorr’s arrival, as if he smelled something distasteful. Lorr, in turn, was unusually hard and abrupt with him during the telling of the tale. An unspoken tension remained between them. Dart could not understand why.
A new voice called from behind them. Dart jumped slightly, surprised by the sudden appearance. She had not heard a single booted tread. And no wonder. When she turned, she saw the stranger was also a wyld tracker, muzzled like Lorr, though perhaps slightly less protuberant. Then again, it might be the new tracker’s age. Fourteen winters at best. Also, while Lorr’s hair was a match to his brown boots, the younger tracker had long locks the color of a raven’s eye, black with a hint of blue. His skin shone with a ruddy blush and was as smooth as river stone worn by rushing waters.
“My sister’s son,” Lorr said. “Kytt.”
Brant’s nose crinkled even more. Dart suspected that if Brant had had fur, it would be bristling right now.
Kytt held out a hide flask. “I’ve fetched the musk secretions and had the alchemists dilute it in yellow bile as you ordered, Tracker Lorr.”
“Piss and musk?” one of the giants mumbled. “Mind me never to share a drink with these two.”
Lorr accepted the flask. “Musk from a fox will carry a scent far.” He bit the stopper free and decanted the flask’s contents down the hole. “We’ll see where this leads us.”
He stood up and tilted his head slightly as if testing the air. He remained like that for a long breath, then stirred again.
Lorr stepped away and waved the younger tracker ahead. “I will let you know what I discover.”
Brant stepped forward and blocked them. “I would go with you. The Fell wolves were my duty. I will not forsake it.”
“Too late for that, it seems. Besides, there have been enough mistakes this day. We need no one who smells of the Huntress muddying up the trail with his bumbling.”
Brant refused to move. Only his shoulders tightened, ready for a fight.
Dart failed to understand the layers of friction that lay beneath all this posturing. She knew that Brant hailed from Saysh Mal, the cloud forest and god-realm of the Huntress. But what difference did that make to Lorr? She stepped to intervene-and not just to settle a peace between them.
“I would like to go with you and Kytt,” Dart said. She should be safe with the trackers, and where they’d be searching would surely be away from the more traveled areas of Tashijan. Also, if she wanted to hide, it might be best to keep moving while doing it. “And I’d appreciate it if you’d let Master Brant come with us.”