The Hounds of Nemhain (The Foreigners Isle Saga) by Kathy Cecala

Author:Kathy Cecala [Cecala, Kathy]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-11-03T04:00:00+00:00

IX.

In the month the Romans called ‘February’, the island of slaves was thrown into what seemed a dark world of endless storms and ice. An enormous rogue wave crashed up and over the great cliffs, and the interior of the isle was partly flooded with seawater, which came right up to the edge of the raiders’s lair. Mantach and his raiders sealed themselves up safely in their second-floor quarters, drinking and eating and gaming, while their slaves shivered in the freezing flooded pens, stacking up hay bales and logs to stay above the swirling waters. Some of the slaves died of sheer coldness, the bitter winds sapping all the warmth from their bones, leaving them as pale corpses.

Armenius wheedled Torlach into allowing Mantach’s bride to join the other British women in an unflooded cell, where they all huddled to together and managed, with Bran’s help, to build a small fire within a circle of stones; they allowed the Roman girl Vibia to lay closest to it, out of concern for her condition.

Bran squeezed a small blanket of sewn-together furs through the iron doors and indicated to the women that they should cover the girl. Vibia then glanced up at him, briefly, from under the fur, in a mild and curious way.

Bran’s hut did not flood, since it was raised a few feet above the ground. Armenius, who usually slept on the bottom floor of the raiders’ fortress, had joined him and Ecna now, and all the hounds were brought in from the floodwaters, so the hut was a crowded, noisy, tumultuous place. Most of their energy was spent keeping the hounds settled and from fighting with each other. They amused themselves by creating names for the dogs: The girl-hound remained Nemhain, while Ecna named one of the boy-hounds Fergal, after her father:

“You name him after the man who sold you, as a little girl?” Bran was incredulous.

“It’s a good name,” Ecna insisted. “Perhaps the hound Fergal will be more worthy than the man.”

Armenius chose a grand Roman name, Caesar, ironically, for the most submissive boy-hound; and Bran named the remaining dog Earc, simply because it amused him to name a dog after a lizard.

“Then I’ll catch one of those little creatures and name it Hound!” he laughed. The little hut still shook with winter’s winds, but it was a place full of life and talk and laughter and barking; that week was one of the happiest so far for him since he had come to the island. At night the three slept soundly amid the great pile of big, warm, snoozing hounds.

Once the sea receded, the dogs were released daily to gnaw off their whale, but they always returned as swiftly as possible, for even their thick coats of fur could not shield them from the icy sea winds. Ecna braved them to go out daily to collect urchins, sea bird eggs and winkles for the endless stews she made each day—it turned out she was a good cook, too. Bran particularly liked a broth she made with sea-plants, cockles and clams.

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