Children of Chaos

ten

THEREK HRAGSON,

brother of the bloodlord and satrap of Tryfors, was the light of Weru on Nardalborg—when he was there, which was not often enough. The rest of the time Huntleader Heth did what was required and did it very well, but Therek still took every excuse he could find to come up to the moors and spend a day or two there, where life was simpler. The swearing in of a new class of cadets was ample reason.

This was supposedly spring, yet a blizzard howled around the walls. Summer on these desolate fells could be missed with a sneeze, and fall was a myth when there were no trees to drop leaves. The snow would soon melt, of course, adding more mud to the tracks, but up in the high country, edgeward, some of it might hang on. That was bad, because this year's crop of Werists was on its way. The first of them had been trickling into Tryfors when he left.

Heth had not long ago sent last year's leftovers on in the first caravan of the year; he would need at least four more runs to move the new crop over the Edge before winter, and anything that slowed down the first three would make the last one dangerously late. Worse, Therek had a strong hunch that his darling Baby Brother Stralg was shortly going to demand a sixth. Call it warrior's intuition; he would bet half his battle honors on it. Every caravan depended on caches of food and fuel stocked by at least three pack trains. Late departures tempted the gods; Heth might lose a train up there, and he could not spare the mammoths, let alone the men. And Stralg was screaming for every additional Hero he could get.

The great hall was battened tight against the storm, lit by sputtering, stinking torches. Flames danced, shutters rattled, and Florengian slaves rushed back and forth with jars of beer. The assembly had just finished eating, not yet finished drinking, and was about ready to start fighting. Therek looked out over tables flanked by big men in striped palls, a wild, all-male scene, noisy and fiery, implying danger lurking. Most assemblies of Werists ended in ructions, but that was just man play—unauthorized battleforming was savagely punished and hence rare.

Good to see so many. He kept the Nardalborg Hunt at full strength, around four sixty, but the rest of his host had been bled dry to keep Stralg supplied. Tryfors Hunt was back up to about three sixty, but the Fist's Own was down to two. Cullavi Hunt and the Fiends existed only on baked clay. He kept shifting packs from town to town, changing their stripes so that no one would realize how few men he really had. All the governors in his satrapy claimed to be in even worse shape, but they would naturally say that.

Only here could Therek imagine he was back in his campaigning days, those long summers in the field with Stralg and his other brothers and a few old trusties like Gzurg Hrothgatson, who was sitting beside him now. They'd begun two dozen years ago, disciplining heretic Werists who would not submit to the new bloodlord, and that had been a raw job; it had turned to sport later, when they were establishing Stralg's hold over the cities and mainly fighting extrinsics. Most of those old comrades were gone to the Dark One now, and those that were left were showing their years. Like Gzurg and his crocodile teeth.

Or Therek himself. Even an extrinsic was old at fifty-three, and very few Werists lasted so long, so he was lucky to have so few infirmities. The faces near him were all blurs, but he could count the cavities in the teeth of tonight's candidates because they were sitting at the far end of the hall. He scanned those fourteen eager young faces, wondering how many Gzurg had passed, and which. Old or not, the Toothed One still had his training skills, and he had driven those boys through fire and ice for the last few days. It was amazing that only two had dropped out. Both were expected to recover.

How many and which? All warriors enjoyed gambling, especially with subordinates who dared not argue the odds very hard. The rules were traditional—you tried to pick either men you thought would make the cut, or the one who would come in first. That paid the best odds, of course, and Therek had always had a good eye for winners. This year the favorite was a promising young brute named Snerfrik, huge and vicious. Therek had even wondered if Snerfrik might be one of his, but the seers said not, and seers were never wrong. But Snerfrik was so obviously destined to be runtleader that no one would give decent odds against him, so this time the hostleader had changed his strategy, betting on those who would make the team. He did not think much of the three probationers he'd brought up with him from Tryfors—they'd have done better to wait a season for the next testing there.

Thirteen faces were well tanned and windburned, but one was even browner. The darkie hostage must be good, for Therek had found lots of eager Nardalborg metal wanting to ride on the odd man out. He'd gotten some astonishing odds from those who couldn't see that he had rigged the game before it even began.

He chuckled to himself and drank a private toast to the destruction of all Florengian vermin. Ten years or so ago it had seemed a good idea to move his collection of hostages up here to Nardalborg, where they could have no chance of running away. The Celebre kid had been by far the youngest, and there had been no children of his age to play with except sons of Werists. Having been assured that they beat the shit out of him on a daily basis, which was good for all concerned, Therek had not worried.

Until the day he'd seen a dung-faced Florengian youth stalking around in a probationer's rope collar! His immediate interview with Heth had been fiery, to say the least, but the damage had been done by then, and he could not overrule the huntleader without damaging his authority. All he'd been able to do was refuse to allow any such trash to be tested anywhere in his entire satrapy. The more Heth had insisted that the whelp was a born fighter, the more Therek had explained that you could not trust a Florengian! They were traitors, perjurers, turncoats.

Those oath-breakers had killed his other sons.

And they were cowards. Stralg had raped the entire Florengian Face as easy as reaping corn. A torrent of loot and slaves and hostages had spouted over the Edge to Nardalborg and on down the great river, enriching all Vigaelia just as the life-giving silt of the annual flood fertilized the plain. When there was no opposition left, the bloodlord had begun to withdraw, planning to replace his garrisons with locals he had trained. That had been his mistake. Every single man Stralg had initiated into the cult defected. Then they started training and initiating others like themselves. The war had flared up again, but this time with Vigaelian Werists facing Florengian Werists. Three sons of Therek Hragson had died fighting those faithless brutes. He would never trust a Florengian, never!

Nor would Gzurg Hrothgatson, for certain. Earlier in the year Gzurg had reached the end of his fighting days. It had been a close call, as he admitted, for on his last changing he had nearly failed to come back, and a man trapped in battleform would be dead in a day.

The trouble was healing. Fights, even between well-matched Werist forces, rarely lasted more than a few minutes. Good chases might take half a day, but the body could forgive even those if they were not too frequent. Sooner or later, though, a man's luck ran out and he was wounded. A Werist healed much faster in battleform—he could also recover from damage that would kill him instantly in normal shape—but the effort could be so great that the body forgot the way back. Gzurg's next change would be his last.

So Stralg had sent the old Hero home to Vigaelia to see what he could do to speed up recruiting. Having invited him to test the Nardalborg candidates, Therek had finally allowed Brownie Boy to try his luck. The dupes in the Nardalborg Hunt who had been willing to bet on him had failed to see that Gzurg, after all the years of fighting, all the bloodshed and betrayal, was far more likely to take up embroidery than ever to let one more detested Florengian Werist into the cult. Therek was going to rake in a fortune tonight. The Orlad vermin hadn't realized it, obviously, sitting there with naked treason burning in those freakish black eyes. Oh, was Baby Turncoat ever in for a disappointment! He didn't know his hostleader had seen through his duplicity and was watching him even now.

"Have y'ever counted up, broth'r," Gzurg growled, leaning closer in a blast of sour beer fumes, "how many men you shent to the Dark One in y'r time? Pershon'ly I mean?"

"No. Have you?"

"Till I ran out of fingers." The hostleader brayed a drunken laugh at his absurd understatement.

" 've you ever counted up the girls you bedded?"

"No; 've you?"

"Yes."

Gzurg's great teeth clashed shut as he hiccuped. "Shay, wash tryin' 'member—what wash the name of that duke up near White Lake tried to argue us because he thought his shordsh-men had us shoe-rounded? You 'member?"

"Don't recall." Therek just hoped the old lush would be able to remember the names of the candidates he had passed.

"Think't was before we shack'd Jat-Nogul."

No, it had been the year after. "Still don't recall."

"Never forget it. Dozen men with swords out all aroun' him and you changed and went through 'em ina blur and cut his throat and were back out again 'fore he hit the groun'!" The drunken brute guffawed and took a long suck on his straw.

"You ready to give your speech?"

"Sure. Then we can get down to some sere-yes drinking, mm?"

Therek stood up. And up. Werists tended to start big and grow bigger. He had always been skinny and tall, and now he towered half again over any extrinsic—if he straightened up, which he preferred not to try. He spread his talons on the table, leaning forward to scan the hall. The lads called him "the Vulture" behind his back, so his seers told him. He liked that, although "Eagle" would have been more respectful.

Elbows rammed into ribs and silence fell quickly.

"Fifteen years ago," Therek squealed—he had no teeth left, so his voice tended to whistle, but that was his listeners' problem. He could chew with his gums. "Nardalborg was a traders' staging post, a collection of tents and sod huts. It was here that our dread bloodlord, my brother—"

Pause for obligatory cheering. It was here he'd said farewell to Stralg—with a silent Good riddance!—and settled down to enjoy the life of a satrap: wealth, women, and power. The hills were stiff with good game and every summer would bring forth a rash of small rebellions that he could enjoy stamping out, often in concert with his brothers and Saltaja's husband, Eide. Surprisingly for Heroes, the four of them had worked well together. Having the Witnesses of Mayn on their side had given them an insuperable advantage, and the only thing better than a good fight was a good fight you couldn't lose. The land was quieter now, alas. Since the Florengian war had sucked away all the manpower, it would be hard to organize two decent opposing hordes.

In the good old days, Therek had regarded Nardalborg as the cesspit of the world, much preferring Tryfors, with its zesty nightlife. Nowadays not a female in the city would look at him twice in her worst nightmares, not even the Nymphs. He'd come to prefer the masculine world of Nardalborg, where he wasn't tantalized so often.

He smiled and the cheering choked into silence. "It was here that Stralg assembled the great horde that he led off to his conquest." Which still had not ended. He turned to his neighbor. "And one of the men who went with him that day..."

During the renewed hubbub, he noted that the fourteen candidates were on their feet cheering Gzurg as hard as any. For days the Crocodile had battered and exhausted and maltreated them, so now they cheered him? Men were strange. Perhaps they were just showing how tough they were. Therek sat down and sucked beer and waited for his bets to pay off.

When Gzurg shouted, his voice came through clear and hard, and he seemed to have sobered himself up, at least temporarily. He ran through a few quick platitudes and went to the part everyone was waiting for. Copper, silver, even women, would be changing hands in a moment. He paused and peered into the gloom. "Are the candidates present?"

"There." Therek pointed.

"Ah, good. First, my congratulations to Satrap Therek and Huntleader Heth. I have rarely passed more than half a class of candidates. In this case, out of the sixteen who presented themselves, I am proud to approve ten."

He grinned that terrible display of teeth again as he waited for the cheering to subside. "First—and I will add that he is an easy first, a man who displays courage, toughness, dedication, and honest bloodthirsty ferocity such as I have rarely been honored to witness ..."

Therek watched Snerfrik preening under the praise.

"—coming in well ahead of his nearest competitor, is... Candidate Orlad."

The hall stilled. Even the wind dropped for a moment, and the slave waiters froze, wondering what was wrong. In the distance mammoths trumpeted. As the Florengian hostage walked forward, dark eyes shining with triumph, five hundred pale eyes watched in total silence. He had been odds-on favorite to pass, but First? Gzurg must be crazy. He'd drunk his brains away. Or been hit on the head too often. Put a filthy Florengian belly-worm ahead of fifteen honest Vigaelian lads?

And now Therek would have to hold the bastard's hands and listen to the freak parroting an oath he had absolutely no intention of keeping ... would have to put the winner's chain collar on him... And, oh horrors! would have to embrace him.

No, this was intolerable. This was an insult to holy Weru and Therek himself and the memory of those three sons who had died. The only good Florengian's a dead one. Something fatal must be arranged. Soon.