Children of Chaos

forty-two

HERO ORLAD

soon discovered that the seer had not been lying, at least about the wine. Before left flank reached Eriander's temple, its out-of-town guest fell on his knees in the gutter, thus provoking much mirthful comment on overindulgence. He was still puking when they carried him back to the barracks, and by then the cramps had started. Orlad was faking some of it, but he was in enough real pain and distress to know that the conspirators had been dangerously overgenerous with the drug. Had the seer not warned him, they might have seen their planned entertainment ruined by the premature death of the star attraction. They left him on his rug with a bucket and went away laughing to continue the evening's program. Confident that there would be listeners in nearby cubicles, Orlad continued his playacting, and he kept it up much of the night, even after the others returned. Why should they sleep when he couldn't? The effects of the poison wore off, but he was starting to believe that he was going to die on the morrow. Praise the Lord of Battle, who alone decides!

♦

On the morrow, it rained.

At first light Orlad rose, dressed, and repeated the Heroes' morning prayer. The final words took on a significance he had never truly appreciated before: Today I will win or die.

Guests were always given the cubicles farthest from the door, where the traffic was lightest, but there were times when that seemed a very sinister courtesy. He tiptoed the length of the barracks and went out as quietly as he could. It was only then that he discovered the glorious mercy of Weru—a steady drizzle falling from a gray murk almost low enough to touch, a total absence of wind. Heroes did not kneel to thank their god, they raised both fists to the heavens, and Orlad barely restrained a scream of joy as he did so. He could not hope to win, but now he could make a fight of it. First score to him!

There would be food in the mess, but his stomach roiled at the thought. He trotted across the yard to the trough, rinsed his mouth, filled his canteen, and splashed water over a face already soaked. Rain! Oh, great god of battle!

"Orlad!" Flankleader Leorth came stumbling out of the dormitory wearing his brass collar and nothing else. He looked up at the sky in horror.

"Thought I'd make an early start!" Orlad yelled. Stealth could not help him now. "Fine day for a run." Recalling that it was polite to give thanks for hospitality, he added, "May holy Veslih reward you as you deserve."

He headed for the gate.

"Wait!" Leorth came running to intercept him, wincing as his bare feet impacted the pebbles. "No, no! I'm sure the Vulture won't expect you to travel on a day like this. There will be snow on—"

"My lord commands and I obey."

"But after your gripe last night—"

Orlad spun to face him. "Shouldn't have said 'early' start. Meant 'head' start."

Leorth's guilt flamed red above his flaxen beard. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that I intend to make a fight of it. You I will send to Weru to announce my coming. And your precious Vulture can flap on his nest all he wants."

Something genuinely catlike showed in Leorth's eyes. "Would you prefer to make it single combat?"

"Not after that wine, thank you." Orlad was being unfair in condemning unfairness, because fairness was no part of the code. The road to victory need not be straight, Heth said.

"Then I wish you an interesting journey." Smile. "I wish you good hunting and an early death." Sneer. Orlad trotted out the gate. Now he believed.

♦

He jogged on cobbled streets between buildings of stone, ran on a muddy track lined by poor-folk shacks, and dropped back to a walk as he reached the vegetable plots and orchards beyond the town. Already the Vulture's Nest was fading into the grayness behind him. He wondered if anyone had yet dared waken the satrap to break the bad news.

The trail wound interminably through a maze of tiny, stony plots, but the harvest was in and the leaves all shed, leaving a drab, waterlogged landscape that offered no hiding places. He had seen no empty mats in the barracks, and no one had slipped out before he did, so he could assume that the ambush could not be set up yet... unless Leorth's flank was to have help, which seemed unlikely. Twelve against one should be adequate.

Seers never lied, but that Dantio creature bent truth like a sailor tying knots—going around dressed as a woman, flaunting a distaff! Wasn't that lying? Of course, he wasn't actually a man, either. Gelding was the most fucking horrible thing to do to a kid, and artist Benard's blasphemy in comparing it to Werist training should have cost him half his teeth. Forget him. Forget all three of them. Families were for children. Orlad Orladson would live or die alone.

Tactics?

A backward glance revealed nothing moving among the stark black trees and tumbledown stone dykes. Yet his prints in the mud were clear enough. The skin on his back crawled at the thought of pursuit. Wind and rain would make tracking harder, but there wasn't really enough of either yet to throw warbeasts off the scent. The worst thing he could possibly do was panic, although only an utter madman could stay calm with twelve warbeasts on his track. Breath recovered, he moved up to a trot again.

Soon he neared the end of the farmland, where even Tryforian farmers gave up. Ahead of him lay more orchards, then pasture rising steadily until mist became fog and fog turned to cloud. This slope overlooking the town and offering prime grazing, which some old-time ruler had claimed for his own, could only be the King's Grass. Today the killing field.

Tactics?

Know your enemy.

Leorth liked being feline and feline meant ambush. Almost certainly this would be his first human kill, so he would want to do the deed himself. In order to let the satrap watch, he would have planned to set up his trap close by the trail, having spread the rest of his flank around King's Grass to make certain the victim did not escape. The wine had been poisoned so the killers would have time in the morning to take up position—nothing slowed a man like a night of vomiting and belly cramps.

But Orlad had been forewarned, thanks to brother-sister Dantio. Leorth would have to go dog, meaning running the quarry to exhaustion. It would be a straight chase, and holy Weru had sent this glorious mist and drizzle to deny Therek the pleasure of watching.

Orlad reached the last scabby trees. Boulders of all sizes lay scattered over the King's Grass, everything from nasty cobbles for breaking ankles to monoliths the size of small houses, but he recalled that there was a denser boulder field near the crest of the first rise. That would certainly have been where Leorth had planned to lie in wait, still within the satrap's view. Conversely, the pursuers must go through there, too, so it would be the best place for the quarry to make his last stand and ambush the frustrated ambushers.

Orlad had no reason to carry a waterlogged pall now. Pausing to shed it, he heard a low complaint, which he traced to a solitary mouflon tethered to a last, isolated tree some distance uphill to his left. If he had still doubted the eunuch's warning, that poor bleating beast would have convinced him. The herds had been removed in case they distracted the hunt, but a light snack had been left there to reward the returning victors. His murder had been carefully catered.

As he kicked off his sandals, he scanned the slope below him. The town itself was completely invisible, but he guessed that the hunt had started by now. Let the game begin!

He began to lope, angling into the wind. Up ahead a clammy breeze dragged filmy draperies of rain across the hillside. It would carry his scent back to the hunt, but even that might be turned to his advantage.

As his breathing and heartbeat increased, he summoned the power of his god and changed. Not very much yet, although enough to hurt like the rack. He stretched his legs, hardened his feet, and increased his chest capacity while trying to leave his head alone, although his thinking was bound to be cramped as his muscles became greedier for all available blood. Now he swung along with a six-foot stride on legs coated with dense black fur like moleskin. Hairiness came naturally because it gave protection, and hair color was conserved. Vigaelian warbeasts were flaxen or golden, rarely bronze, so there would be no trouble telling the players apart in this match.

The world, too, had changed—losing color, gaining relict scents of the herds that had grazed there only yesterday, of herders and their dogs. He remembered to angle upwind. His breath came in gales, his hooves beat rhythmically on the turf, and he rejoiced in his strength. Speed was exhilarating. No, he was not a victim being hunted down. He was a warrior leading his foes into a trap, and although he had no hope of dining on that victory-feast mouflon, he would make sure that some of them did not live to enjoy it either.

He must not let left flank catch him before, er... wherever it was he was going ... rocks. Rocks? Rocks all around him now. He had reached the rocks. He stopped and drove himself through the agony of retroforming, which was always worse than the original change. Rain seemed colder coursing down smooth skin.

Now he could think, while gasping for air. He was just inside the boulder field, but there was still enough grass there to make walking on human feet possible. Who was the hunter now? If he could manage to make his first few kills in silence, he might take quite a toll on the enemy. His best option was to move downwind inside the cover and hope the enemy would follow his trail, letting him catch their scent. It was a sign of his desperation that he was reduced to hoping that his opponents would be utterly stupid.

As he scrambled up on a rock to look back, something moved behind him, in the corner of his eye, something still human and vulnerable. The seer had misled him! He was up against more than just rear flank, and he had run right into a trap. Roaring fury, he flashed through a change even as he leaped, claws out and fangs bared to rip open the prey's throat.

The prey screamed something... human words ...

Orlad managed to retract his claws, but no Werist could have retroformed fast enough to complete that leap in human form. The prey went flat on his back with Orlad's fangs at his neck. Eyeball-to-eyeball... Familiar scent. Without conscious effort or awareness of pain, Orlad finished retroforming.

"Waels!"

Face white as chalk around his bloody birthmark, the victim stared up at his deadly assailant. He made a choking noise.

"That was close," Orlad said. Too appallingly close! He had very nearly torn out the throat of his ... his former classmate.

"You're safe!" Waels whispered. "Oh, Orlad! We were so worried!"

"Who's 'we'?"

"Me, then." The disfigured mouth twisted in a smile. "My lord is kind?"

"Looks like attempted rape," remarked a familiar voice above them.

Those large hairy legs belonged to Snerfrik. Orlad sprang to his feet and confirmed this. Vargin was emerging from behind a boulder. But both of them were wearing palls striped in orange, green, and red. And so was Waels. Orange for Therek's host, green for the Nardalborg Hunt, yes. But red pack? Their sashes were standard warrior brown, but the knots were at their backs, out of sight.

Waels had been assigned to blue pack, left flank; Vargin and Snerfrik to gold pack, right flank. And there stood Ranthr, who had been red pack, right flank, but his sash was tied at his back, too.

Red pack, rear flank, was to be Orlad's own, as soon as Huntleader Heth assigned him warriors. Could he trust what his eyes were telling him?

"Weru's balls!" he roared. "What are you all doing here?"

Snerfrik laughed. "We got called for first hunt, and old Heth—"

Orlad was about to do battle. "Report, warrior!"

Big Snerfrik jerked to attention. "My lord is kind. The huntleader summoned us for our first hunt, my lord, but when we mustered, he had us change palls. I mean, he reassigned us all to your flank. Temporary assignment. He ordered us to make sure our leader returned safely."

Waels clambered to his feet, moving gingerly. "He also said you might find us better game than oribis."

"And we saw a black warbeast coming," Hrothgat explained from the top of a large monolith.

Orlad hurled a fast prayer at Weru: May Your servant Heth Hethson gain glorious and immortal memory among Your Heroes!

"Well?" Waels said, rubbing his back. His eyes shone fiery bright. "Did you find any game worth our attention, my lord?"

Orlad distrusted that gleeful smile, but there were too many other things going on to worry about it now. "Did you break anything, warrior?"

"My lord is kind. A shoulder blade, three ribs, and possibly my neck."

All of which he could heal in battleform. The rest of rear pack were visible now, emerging from behind, or on top of, boulders. A leader might take some pride in the fact that they were all still paired with the buddies he had assigned them back in the spring.

"I'm being hunted. Anyone in sight yet, Hrothgat?"

"Four... no, five. Ah, seven. Warbeasts of various types, my lord. Well spread out. Coming at a slow trot. Eight."

"There should be twelve in all. They intend to kill me. Anyone want out?"

Eleven heads shook. "No," they said, or, "No, my lord." Eleven sets of teeth showed.

Oh, Weru! Last night family, and today friends. Friends? He didn't know how to deal with family and friends. All his life he'd been alone. He must find time to think about these things later.

"Then spread out." He pointed both ways along the length of the boulder train. "Take cover and wait as long as you can. When you're spotted, attack, otherwise hold off until the ruckus starts, and then join in. Any questions?"

"Prisoners?" asked Waels, always the spokesman.

"No."

All those teeth flashed again.

"My lord is kind," they said. What else could they say? Those who lived would have a memorable first hunt to relate. What a pity satrap Therek would not be able to watch!

Orlad might not die after all—might even win a victory. Dear, wonderful Huntleader Heth! But how many friends was he leading to their deaths? He shivered violently—fight now, think later.

"Rear flank—strip!"

♦

Orlad hurried downwind through the rocks with Waels at his heels. "I feel catty," he said over his shoulder, thinking of Leorth.

Waels laughed as if this was a tremendous game. "Beef for me, then. Just point where you want me." Soft-spoken Bloodmouth was ever an ocean of surprises; his amusement seemed genuine.

Orlad found a suitable monolith, climbable on one side and vertical on the other, high enough to give him a view. He raced up the slope, and by the time he reached the top he was down on all fours, grinding bones and joints, sprouting dark fur. The pain took his mind off a horrible hollow feeling in his gut. He had fought often enough, but not this sort of fight.

Extrinsics often wondered—but were rarely foolish enough to ask—how warriors told friend from foe in battleform, when appearance was useless and speech limited at best, usually impossible. The answer was that men living together for an extended period and eating the same food acquired their own group scent. A pack knew its own and was expected to recognize the other packs in its hunt. Larger units had to resort to artificial markers—paint sometimes, but not all warbeasts could distinguish colors. Strong-smelling herbs worked better. Even so, there were many tales of friend mauling friend in the heat of battle.

With odds of twelve to one and permission to accept all necessary casualties, Flankleader Leorth must be feeling very confident as he closed in on the boulder train. He need no longer worry about driving the subject out into the open to die, because the mist had blocked the satrap's view. He could guess why Orlad had headed upwind and he was certainly not going to lead his flank into that nightmare maze and then turn downwind. With only one man opposing him, he did not start by seizing the high points, as he should have done. Indeed he almost made a game of it, spreading his men out to enter the boulder field in line abreast.

Unaware that the entire former Nardalborg runt class was in there also, every pair caught what they thought was Orlad's scent and tracked it back, straight into the labyrinth.

Shivering with bloodlust, Orlad watched from his perch as they came. He was in full cat-form now, with the addition of a pair of dagger fangs, a useful variant old Gzurg had told him about. Had he been thinking at human rate, he might have been amazed at his opponents' folly, but all he knew was that the nearest of them, slinking in on all fours practically under his aerie, was white and feline. Close to its tail lumbered a great yellow bear-thing on two legs—standard practice being to pair speed with strength. They could as easily be Leorth and Merkurtu as any others. They were heading to pass below Orlad on his left. Remembering his buddy waiting below, he forced his tail to stop twitching and point right, so that Waels could circle around that way, keeping out of sight. So far, this was just standard training.

For almost sixty heartbeats, Leorth's flank prowled through the rocks, looking for one warrior. Battle broke out everywhere simultaneously—hunter encountering quarry, quarry pouncing on hunter—just as the cat below Orlad decided to jump up on this convenient rock. Raising its tawny eyes, it saw a panther looking down. Orlad screamed to warn Waels as he sprang, but his voice was just one in the uproar. Three Tryforians broke from cover, four Nardalborgians raced out after them, and a free-for-all developed in the open.

Orlad's opponent, already rearing back to leap upward, was bowled over by the darker warbeast. Each immediately tried to disembowel the other with rear claws. Yes, the white cat was Leorth. Although he was underneath, he had a momentary advantage because he could bring his forepaws around to rip Orlad's back while his own was unreachable. He tucked in his head to try for a throat bite and Orlad drove a tusk deep into his left eye.

Even that blow would not kill a warbeast outright, but it did throw Leorth into convulsions. Freed from his grasp, Orlad was able to do a thorough job of ripping his neck open.

He rose from the bloody, twitching corpse to look for his mate, and heard the struggle before he dodged around the boulder and saw it. The bear-creature was still upright, roaring as it tried to hug Waels to death. Waels had gone badger—squat and thick and solid—and fortunately had managed to keep his front paws inside the deadly embrace; so far he was resisting the crushing pressure that would otherwise collapse him. The bear was visibly shrinking in height as it moved bulk into its arms; Waels's neck was growing steadily longer as he tried for its throat with his teeth.

Waels was in trouble, but Orlad would have helped him even if he had been winning. Claws extended, he went up the enemy's back as if it were a tree. The bear-thing screamed and dropped its victim. It reeled back in an effort to smash this new tormentor into the rock behind it. Orlad sawed at its neck with his tusks. Waels hit the ground, rolled, and then went for its groin and belly, front paws flailing in a blur of knife-sharp claws. It screamed again and crumpled in a scarlet flood. The winners savaged it until they were certain it was dead. That was all.

Silence had returned. Hero battles never lasted long.

The tang of blood in his mouth warned Orlad that he was ravenous. He needed meat, raw meat for preference. There was meat there. Forbidden meat. Must not. Bad example.

He was so overwhelmed by the excitement of the battle and the smell of blood that he needed a moment to realize that there was a blazing agony in his back and some of the blood must be his own. Fortunately, he had made his hide loose enough that Leorth's claws had slid before they could dig deep; although the gashes ran the full width of his back, they were mostly superficial.

Heal first, retroform second. He twisted around and managed to lick the lowermost cuts—which helped little with healing, but felt good. Another large and slobbery tongue joined in. Bloodmouth was an entirely appropriate name now for this gory monster with the familiar scent. He wagged his stumpy tail, but that was just Waels being consciously funny.

Orlad managed a purr.

Not just the healing. Something else wrong ... yes, a leader must not lie around letting his wounds be licked. He struggled up on all fours and headed for the King's Grass, still in battleform, spine very stiff. Waels shivered and yelped and became a man on hands and feet. He rose and came to walk alongside, chattering human noises that the Orlad beast did not understand.

Death smells led him to many-many bodies on the grass. Most were warbeasts, but a few had tried to change back as they died and those looked much worse—half-human monsters, fur alternating with livid corpse-pallor, all streaked watery crimson by the rain. Their brass collars, which had been golden bright only minutes before, were tarnished now to a dingy brown. Two-legged people were dragging out more dead.

Orlad drew a deep breath and retroformed. The world of smell and sound dimmed; vision and thought surged back. But it really hurt, and he would have to go through it again because he wasn't properly healed yet. He turned a shriek of agony into a brave attempt at a victory howl.

"All right?" he asked Waels. "Anything broken?"

His buddy was one big walking bruise, but he was grinning. "Not anymore."

Thirteen corpses. Plus the two he and Waels had killed. "Who did we lose?"

"Caedaw and Vargin," Snerfrik said glumly. He was sitting on a rock and gingerly flexing his right arm, which looked well chewed but mostly healed already.

"Ranthr, Charnarth," Hrothgat added. "My lord is kind ... one got away."

That was bad news, although the massacre could not stay secret long. "Eleven for four? This is a great victory, men!" Anything better than fifty-fifty was good in the Heroes' eyes when the initial odds had been roughly even. "We have done well, for cubs."

"My lord is kind," Waels said, staring into the fog. "You didn't see any cattle on your way up here, did you, lord? I could eat a mammoth."

"I could eat anything," Namberson muttered.

Judging by the corpses, so could some members of the flank. It happened, and a wise leader pretended not to notice unless the offense was flagrant.

Now what? The leader must decide. First the mouflon, to dull the insane craving for meat. And then, according to the rules, Orlad should report the unfortunate incident to Satrap Therek. That ought to end the matter, because self-defense was an unalienable right within the order. Resisting arrest was never a crime. But who had ambushed whom? And if Orlad Orladson expected a fair judgment from Therek Hragson, he was still as crazy as he had been yesterday at this time.

He would have to lead his troop back to Nardalborg and rely on Heth to shield the others from the satrap's wrath. He doubted very much that even Heth could shelter the hated Florengian, though. Would he let Orlad sneak away and head out over the pass ahead of Caravan Six? A solitary crossing would be quite a feat for any man, even a Hero, and he would need the proper clothes, and rations for the first leg, to get him as far as the cache at First Ice. Would Heth let him attempt it? No. Orlad could not even ask him. Therek would send a seer to find out how the criminal had escaped and then loose his murderous rage on Heth.

Leadership was less easy than expected.

He must send the others back to Nardalborg while he... He what?

He needed time to think.

"I have to battleform again and heal my back. Snerfrik, you'd better come with me and finish that arm. Waels, you are in charge. Get the men dressed. There's a mouflon tethered near the road, down where the trees begin. Try not to let anyone... Listen!"

Even puny human hearing could distinguish hooves, squealing axle, and cracking whip, all coming fast. Someone was driving a team brutally up the hill. That made no sense. The survivor could not have reached the town yet. Even if he had, the response would be Werists in force, not a chariot. The fugitive might have missed a driver in the mist and failed to pass a warning, but who would be driving a chariot up a moorland road the way this one was moving? If he was only some extrinsic attending to his own business, he might go past the battlefield without noticing. If he saw the bodies and tried to go back to Tryfors, he would have to be stopped before he could raise the alarm.

Perhaps his team might be persuaded to bolt in the wrong direction? No, the chariot was already too close for Orlad to position men behind it. He realized with a shameful, un-Heroic dismay that he might have to order a murder in a couple of minutes.

A faint shadow of onagers and car congealed out of the gray murk, going by on the left, probably not close enough to see the watchers. But the sole occupant was tall as no man was tall. Therek Hragson had not wanted to be cheated out of his entertainment, an entertainment that had already cost the lives of Ranthr, Charnarth, Vargin, Caedaw, Leorth, and ten others.

"Kill him!" Orlad screamed, and battleformed.

♦

He ought to have died on the spot. Every one of his companions had sworn his oath to Therek Hragson as the light of Weru, so the satrap had claim on their loyalty before all mortals on Dodec. Orlad had not worked that out ahead of time and his warbeast couldn't. He knew nothing then but hate. Unaware even of the healing gashes in his back, he streaked.

Therek saw the black cat coming like the hand of death and knew who it must be. No doubt he congratulated himself on his good judgment in foreseeing the faithlessness of Florengians. He turned his car on one wheel and laid into the onagers without mercy, steering them down the steepest grade he could find. Having scented the pursuing carnivore, they needed no encouragement, and for a few frantic minutes they managed to stay ahead of the warbeast.

The hillside was steep. Given a clear stretch of turf, the terrified onagers might even have held on to their lead long enough to reach the town, where Therek could have found aid. But there were rocks. The little ones he ignored. The boulders he had to dodge, whereas Orlad simply hurdled them, black death inexorably gaining on its prey.

He was closing the gap, but a middle-size rock ended the chase. Chariots were not meant to be driven like that. A wheel shattered into a cloud of fragments. The car spun full circle around its long axis, hurling the satrap out like a shot from a sling, while snapping shaft and yoke and hopelessly entangling the onagers in the traces. The axle splintered into tinder, sending the other wheel careering off down the hill. Rig and team crumpled together on the grass.

Having the choice of hitting the ground as an elderly man of fragile build or of battleforming in midair, Therek naturally chose to battleform. His pall flew free. His appearance changed little—his talons grew larger, his mouth expanded into a true hooked beak—but from that moment he was a dead man, for he could never go back. No matter; as the greatest fighter of his generation, he would acquit himself gloriously, sending his foes ahead to proclaim his arrival in the halls of Weru. This he prepared to do.

He landed nimbly enough on needle-tipped toes while Orlad ripped turf in a mad effort to change direction, find footing, and launch himself in attack. As he left the ground Therek swung on one foot and lashed out with the murderous spur on his heel. Driven by the full power of his five-foot leg, that scythe could slice a man open like a soft fruit. Alas, time takes its toll. A third his age, Orlad twisted in midair and caught the leg in his teeth as it went by him. Bones crackled like bacon rinds.

Orlad hit the ground full-length and bounced upright, spinning to face his foe. Therek fell headlong on the turf and was buried under a screaming heap of warbeasts.

♦

"I wanted him," Orlad said petulantly, scowling at the remains—which covered an impressive expanse of ground.

"Greedy!" Bloodmouth muttered. "Must learn to share."

"There's a piece for everyone," Hrothgat countered, grinning. "Er, what's the rest of the host going to say, lord?"

Ah, Weru! Left flank had come hunting in battleform, clear evidence of naked aggression, so their deaths could be forgiven, but liege lord and brother to the bloodlord was the wrong game in any man's bag. Heth could not save them now. Eight men had just become outlaws.

"My lord is hungry?"

Orlad recoiled as Snerfrik thrust a steaming mass of gory meat at him. Then he saw it had hide on one side and must be onager, not satrap, so he snatched it and began tearing it with runty human teeth, every lump sliding down his throat as purest joy. Soon all the naked, soaked men around him were doing the same, laughing and growling, rubbing gore on one another's faces in childish joy at being winners, being blooded Werists, just being alive. Their wounds were already healed to old white scars.

Their leader could not laugh. The score was twelve for four now, but the monster they had unleashed would not stop feeding soon. Even if Stralg tried to appoint a new hostleader, his decision could not arrive until spring and the matter would not wait that long. There were currently only three huntleaders in Therek's Host—Heth, Karrthin, and Fellard—and the vote would tie at one apiece. That was the Heroes' way. There would be war.

The danger was extreme. Extrinsic outlaws could be arrested, imprisoned, tried, and executed, but not Werists—what jail would hold them? Anxious to demonstrate loyalty, the three hunts would compete for the honor of running down the renegades and dismembering them.

Meanwhile seven men were waiting for their new lord to issue orders. Beyond sending them back up the hill for their palls and sandals, Orlad had not a useful idea in his head.

He had several useless ones. If Fellard and Karrthin suspected that Heth was behind the assassination and his whole hunt was lurking in ambush ... so leave the dead men's Nardalborg palls as a clue? ... perhaps so obvious a clue that the Tryfors men would suspect a trap ... the only thing that could throw warbeasts off the scent was running water...

Where to run, where to hide? Before Stralg unified the Face, dozens of cities would have been happy to hire a small band of Werists, no questions asked, but now the only independents were brigands. Must they sink to that? Orlad knew no world except Nardalborg, a staging post and stronghold. Tryfors was a trivial little town, yet last night even Tryfors had shown him how naive he was. He needed help, but no one would help an outlaw. Dantio could become Mist or Mist Dantio just by changing his clothes, but a Werist's collar was there till death. With his call to battle, Orlad had sent four friends to their deaths—he'd also accepted the other seven's loyalty, and to betray their trust would be to sin as Therek had sinned. Having no lord but Weru, he was now a hordeleader. He wanted to scream.

"Another chariot coming?" Namberson muttered. Eyes turned downwind, downhill.

Yes, coming fast, too. Please, holy Weru, no more killing today! This one was heading straight for them and no extrinsic driver could locate them in this obscuring drizzle. As it became visible, the driver veered aside to keep his onagers upwind from the blood—no passenger, just one man wearing a shabby leather cloak, whose hood framed a brown face and hid his ears. Eyes and teeth shone as he reined in, showing no fear of this mob of blood-streaked killers feasting at the scene of their crime. He did not disembark.

Orlad regarded the smile with distrust. "What do you want?"

"To help."

"Why?"

"Why?" Dantio's laugh showed amusement, not alarm. "Because I'm your brother, you big ruffian. Families stand together, don't you know that?"

The brother combinations Orlad had known at Nardalborg had taught him that a fight with one was liable to become crowded very quickly, but this was different. "You don't know me."

The bizarrely boyish face smiled in triumph. "Yes I do. I held your hands when you were learning to walk. And even if you weren't my brother, I'd want to help you for what you just did. That!" The seer pointed to the mangled remains of Satrap Therek. "Down with the House of Hrag! You just changed the world—I said you were a seasoner, didn't I?"

"What sort of help?"

"Save-your-neck help. We're all fugitives now—you and me and Fabia and Bena. We've all got to get out of here smartly."

"Can't leave my men."

"Of course not! Where are you planning to lead them? Go back to Huntleader Heth and apologize for killing his father? Oh, you didn't know that? None of you knew? Well, it's true." He laughed shrilly. "My lords, you have chosen yourself a worthy leader. I'd say so even if I weren't his brother. It only takes one snowflake to start an avalanche. I think Orlad is that snowflake and the avalanche is moving. All your lives you will boast that you fought with Orlad at King's Grass!"

Munching Werists stared back coldly at this high-pitched curiosity. If their flankleader vouched for him, fine. If he didn't, still fine. The dead could not testify.

Orlad was confused by too many unfamiliar emotions. Dantio's strangely gentle face sent disturbing signals, yet he had no choice but to trust the seer. "What are you offering?"

"The others have gone on ahead by boat. I stayed behind to enjoy the palace's reaction when Fabia's disappearance was reported... and to see how you fared, Brother." The smile returned. "A very welcome surprise! Now I'm on my way to meet them at the mouth of the Little Stony. It's not far. I expect you can run."

Waels was Tryfors-born. "Bloodmouth?"

"Easily, lord. Won't even need to battleform, unless my lord wishes it."

The seer said, "Know the reedy inlet just downstream from the ferry dock, Hero?"

Waels said, "Yes."

"I am going to meet the boat there."

Orlad looked over his horde and they were all grinning with relief. "We'll give you a fair start and try not to eat you when we catch you." He had no choice. "So we escape by boat. Where to?"

Still the Witness smiled. "I can't answer for Benard and everyone else, but Fabia and I are planning to go home. We have business to attend to."

"Go," Orlad said.

Dantio drove off into the mist. For a while they could hear him yodeling a joyful song. It faded into the mist and wind.

"Where's 'home,' my lord?" Narg asked around a mouthful of raw onager.

"Celebre, on the Florengian Face. Our father is a sort of king there. He's either dying or already dead."

"Aha!" That was Waels, but others were leering also. "And who will succeed him?"

"Dunno. Some old fogies get to choose—it could be me, or one of my brothers, or—"

Snerfrik's stentorian bellow was louder than anyone else's. "Then we'll help them decide! Won't we, lads?"

The flank roared its approval. That enthusiastic show of loyalty gave Orlad a rush of emotion that almost choked him. Struggling not to show it, he shrugged. "Eat up, then."

A eunuch, a girl, an artist—and a Werist! What sort of contest was that?

May the best man win!

This story will be concluded in Mother of Lies,

in the city of Celebre.