Raul pushed between them. ‘What odds are you offering?’
‘Three to one suit you?’
‘Done.’
Raul shook out the few coins left over from his debauches. Lachlan eyed them with contempt. He made a showman’s gesture to the rest of the room. ‘Step up and place your bets.’
A few tipplers impressed by the size of Wayland’s dog chanced a penny on it, but Lachlan’s reputation as a connoisseur of fighting dogs was generally known, and he had to double the odds before people began to unbelt their purses.
‘Why are you so miffed?’ Raul muttered to Wayland. ‘We ain’t going to wriggle out of it, so we might as well make some money.’
Wayland shoved him away. ‘I’ve had it with you.’
News of the contest had spread and citizens were flooding into the alehouse. Lachlan told the taverner to broach a keg at his own expense and the atmosphere in the hall grew rowdy. A pair of prostitutes linked at the elbow circled the crowd like overblown roses. Over by the door the taverner was charging a farthing admission, his assistant laying pennies on a block and chopping them in quarters with a cleaver. Lachlan presided over the festivities, glad-handing the new arrivals and encouraging them to bet. Wayland laid a soothing hand on his dog. Both of them hated crushes. More and more people pressed in, until only the space cleared for the fight was empty and even the rafters had been occupied. The table holding the stakes was heaped with coins minted in every country in Europe and principalities far beyond.
Lachlan came over to Wayland. ‘Leash your dog. Do you know how to scratch?’
‘The dog has never felt a leash and doesn’t care for rules.’
‘Fair play. We’ll let them scrap until only one of them’s left standing.’
The cry had come from the entrance. The taverner and his assistant were trying to force the door shut against a mob of latecomers. Wayland glimpsed Syth’s face bobbing up and down behind the scrum.
‘Get Vallon!’
Lachlan heard the exchange and took a step forward, but Syth had already gone and the taverner was shoving the door shut.
The room quietened in anticipation. Wayland’s dog panted in distress. ‘Let’s have some air in here,’ said Lachlan. His order was relayed through the crowd until shutters were opened and a sluggish draught flowed through the hall. Thunder trundled away in the distance.
Wayland heard strangulated grunts and the sound of scrabbling feet.
‘Unbar the door,’ Regan shouted from outside. ‘I can hardly hold him.’
Lachlan smiled at Wayland. ‘Open up,’ he called. ‘Make way. Watch yourselves. This one bites.’
Wayland and his dog exchanged looks. The door barged open and the crowd in front of it shrank away on each side. Down the aisle charged a pale block of bone and muscle, towing Regan on his heels. Everyone cringed from such unbridled ferocity. As Lachlan turned to view the arena, Wayland’s dog disappeared into the startled spectators.
Amid the buzz of disappointment, Dormarth tore loose and went rampaging round the pit, whimpering as he sucked up the smell of his vanished opponent. Wayland had never countenanced such a hideous brute. It was smaller than a mastiff in height, yet it carried on its squat limbs and bull neck a skull as large as the head of his own giant hound. With its high-set slitted eyes, ears cropped to the bone, and huge teeth curving up from underslung bottom jaw, it reminded him of some monster fished up from depths where sunlight never reached. Ropes of scar tissue braided its muzzle and from its rump twirled a rat-like tail that seemed to have been added as an obscene joke. Dormarth picked up the scent of his dog on him and lunged against his waist with unhinged jaws. Wayland could determine the minds of dogs as well as other men could fathom their fellows, but there was nothing to plumb in this beast’s brain except an insane lust to kill its own kind.
Lachlan gave Dormarth a kick that would have crippled gentler breeds and walked up to Wayland. ‘Did you order your dog to turn tail?’
‘I told you it doesn’t fight.’
‘Call it back.’
‘I will not.’
‘Your dog wins by forfeit,’ Raul said, with a reproachful look at Wayland.
Lachlan stood with legs akimbo, his hand on his sword. ‘We agreed on a contest and you defaulted. I never overlook a broken contract.’
‘I agreed nothing.’
Blood rose in a tide up Lachlan’s face. He appealed to the crowd. ‘What say you? You paid to see a fight. Say aye if you want your money’s worth.’
The mob bayed and pounded tables.
‘Give him your sword,’ Lachlan told Regan. Wayland took it. He had no choice. Raul had realised where things were heading and his face was drawn in the rictus of a man contemplating a disaster of his own making. Lachlan wandered to the other side of the circle and began swishing his sword as if trying to unstick it from his hand. Wayland heard the engorged breathing of the spectators. A breath of night air wafted through the open windows. He whistled.
As Lachlan sank into a combat stance, the spectators against one wall shuddered. Two standing at the front toppled like skittles and the dog hurtled past them into the arena. Before anyone had registered its return, it smashed into Dormarth, bowling him over like a keg. Dormarth rolled into the fire and sizzled in the coals before springing up in a stench of singed hair. While he was still unsighted, Wayland’s dog seized him by a front haunch and swung him against the table holding the stake money. Silver sprayed across the room. Dormarth arched as if double-jointed and buried his teeth in the dog’s left shoulder. He clung like a horrible parasite as Wayland’s dog whirled. Both dogs let go simultaneously and went for each other’s muzzles, their teeth meeting with a clash. The dog reared on its hind legs, forcing Dormarth up, and they went steepling around the arena in a stiff-legged gavotte until the dog imposed its greater height and weight and forced Dormarth over. Dormarth released his hold and lunged for the dog’s throat, but the dog was quicker and knew no rules. It barged Dormarth’s head away, followed up with the full weight of its body and clamped its jaws across Dormarth’s spine. It lifted him like a sack and swung him to the ground with a ‘whumph’ that drew sickened groans from the spectators. Again and again the dog smashed its opponent to the floor, Lachlan dancing from foot to foot around the battle.
‘Call your dog off!’
Even when Wayland had dragged it away, Dormarth wouldn’t give up. Spine broken, innards ruptured, he dragged himself on his front legs, his useless rear trailing the contents of bowel and bladder.
‘Don’t just stand there!’ Lachlan shouted. ‘Kill him.’
Regan lifted his sword in both hands and Dormarth swallowed the blade as if it were a reward. The crowd moaned with ecstatic revulsion.
The dog sat before Wayland, its lungs whooping and blood splashing from its torn muzzle. But for those sounds, you could have parcelled out the silence.
‘By God, I never saw anything like it.’
Someone swung down from a roof beam to claim his winnings. Lachlan wafted his sword as if to ward off a catastrophe he hadn’t yet got the measure of.
A rap sounded on the door. It came again, louder.
Lachlan’s cheek muscles knotted and unknotted. He waved a hand. ‘See who’s there.’
Bolts were hammered open. The mob by the door gave way and Vallon and Garrick entered with drawn swords. Raul snatched Regan’s sword from Wayland.
‘We heard there was a riot,’ Vallon said. ‘Are my men acting rowdy? Have they disturbed the peace?’
Lachlan looked at the remains of Dormarth. He looked at Wayland. He looked at Wayland’s bloodied dog. He looked at Raul hefting Regan’s sword. In the end he didn’t know where to fasten his gaze.
Raul began picking coins from the straw. ‘Captain, there was a wager on who had the best fighting dog.’
Someone hauled Dormarth’s mutilated corpse past Vallon. ‘An evening’s harmless sport,’ he said. ‘Good. Well, I’m sorry to drag my company away, but it looks like the entertainment is over.’
Lachlan took a step towards him. Vallon raised his chin. ‘Yes?’
