Mother of Lies

SALTAJA HRAGSDOR

emerged from her room and told Ern to stay there on guard. Humming happily, she set off in the same direction Fellard had gone. This was going to work out very well, advantage snatched from the jaws of adversity.

Fabia’s escape required a change of plan. In retrospect, Saltaja should have taken the girl into her confidence sooner, but in all her long lifetime, she had never admitted to anyone that she was a Chosen-that was a quick way to a living grave. There had been no way of testing the girl on the river, and it was too late to unchurn that butter now, however helpful it would have been to have a second chthonian in the family. Stralg would have to do the best he could about Celebre without any of the doge’s children-and if the war was heading that way, the city would probably not survive anyway.

No, Saltaja would have to summon Cutrath back from Nardalborg and shape him herself. A wife could have given him the years of care required, but the long journey downstream to Kosord would have to suffice. She chuckled, wondering what her traveling companions would think of a young Werist who sat so close to his dear aunt all day and every day. Cutrath should be happy enough at the change of plan; a Werist would have to be insane to prefer a posting to Florengia nowadays, and her nephew had never struck Saltaja as insane. Petty, mean, and nasty, yes, but not insane. The family was not done for yet-there was the unknown Heth bastard, whom Therek was hiding from her, and probably a few Stralg by-blows growing up in Florengia. Stralg never acknowledged his bastards, but he must have sired a host of them in his time.

She stepped out into the herb garden-sodden, waist-high undergrowth and rain dribbling from foliage overhead, an unmistakable sense of evil. By the time she had forced her way through the jungle to a far corner and found a secluded nook between two trunks, her clothing was soaked through. There she veiled herself, spinning darkness until the court faded into gray around her and no one would notice her unless they actually walked into her. She stripped naked, then knelt and dug her fingers into the soil.

By blood and birth; death and the cold earth. “Most unholy Mother Xaran, accept the sacrifice I bring You to Your glory.” She felt the power flow, the Mother’s attention focus on her. She remained crouched there, patiently waiting, indifferent to the cold and wet, warmed by excitement. The Old One would certainly enjoy this bounty She was about to receive. She would reward Her servant. The earth hungered.

The door opened to admit a dozen Werists in orange-red-black stripes, who proceeded to spread themselves all around the court and crouch down as she had. One of them came so close to her that he was probably heading for the same spot, so she applied Dominance to make him stop. He knelt behind some weeds, grinning with nervy excitement and almost close enough to touch.

Evidently conversation had been forbidden, because only the rain made any noise at all, and that was a fine show of discipline from men facing their first true battle. Saltaja tried to imagine the sound of thirteen hearts beating in unison, very fast. The orange in the men’s palls showed that they belonged to Therek’s host, the red that they were from the Fist’s Own, Fellard’s hunt. The next arrivals were eight men in orange-brown-blue, the incompetents who should have done a better job of guarding Fabia Celebre. Evidently they thought they were on punishment detail, for every one of them carried a shovel or pick and looked furious at this indignity. Fellard was smart enough when he chose to be. Few Werists would have lured their victims here so plausibly.

The ploy held only barely long enough. Not a pick had been swung before another flank in orange-red-blue came trotting in and the prisoners’ anger flared into suspicion. Lastly came the huntleader himself, in his orange-red stripes. He slammed the door behind him. That seemed to be the order to attack, but the Heroes were above all fast, and everything happened instantly: the hidden dozen leaping up, the eight hurling down their spades, all thirty-three men dropping palls and battleforming. Thirty-three blond warbeasts in brass collars clashed in a savagery of claws and fangs and animal roars.

Saltaja had seen Werist battles before, but never at such close quarters. She had barely registered that the fight was about to begin before she was splattered by flying blood. A catlike thing fell writhing beside her, thrashing talons in its death throes, but two wolves leaped on top of it, going for its throat. Clawed feet blurred by her on the other side, something slammed into one of the tree trunks, releasing cataracts of spray. Everywhere men were screaming, dying, and bleeding torrents into the cold earth, sacrificed to Mother Xaran. Through the fingers she kept hooked in the soil, Saltaja felt a huge surge of joy and gratitude, like cold fire blazing up from the ground. The sheer power of it was stunning. Rarely had she known the presence of the Old One so strong.

Hero battles never lasted long, and this one was already over. One by one the cats and hounds and bears reverted to naked young men, panting and blood-soaked. Soon only four wounded warbeasts remained, howling in pain and struggling to heal themselves. One was identified as one of the condemned and dispatched; the other three were comforted and encouraged.

“Take no honors!” Fellard shouted-he had blood around his mouth and angry red scars across his chest. “They redeemed themselves by dying well.”

The response was an angry growl of agreement. He could equally have said that his own men had not fought well, for their advantages of surprise and odds of three-to-one had not saved them from heavy losses. Although Saltaja heard no open expression of shame at the murder of friends, the screaming jubilation that normally followed a Werist battle was strangely absent. When one of the wounded had retroformed and the others been borne away on palls to be cared for in more pleasant surroundings, the last man to leave closed the door on fifteen corpses.

Also on Saltaja Hragsdor. The herb garden was a trampled, bloody ruin. Two of the fallen had died from broken necks and one had been brained against a wall, but most had bled to death or been disemboweled. Fifteen healthy young men had been murdered to the glory of the goddess of death, and She rejoiced in Her feast.

Drunk with her mistress’s joy, Saltaja laughed aloud, scrabbling in gory dirt, smearing handfuls of the red muck on her breasts, licking blood from the corpses, kissing their wounds. Power blazed through her. With such blessing she could repair Therek and perhaps even make something useful out of Cutrath. She would certainly not have to put up with further trouble from those Celebrian hostage nuisances.

Having donned her soaked and soiled clothes and scrubbed her face with wet grass, Saltaja left the herb garden just in time to miss a gang of Florengian slaves coming to remove the bodies. Still veiled, she stepped into a doorway and they went grumbling past her along the corridor without noticing. A hot bath was definitely required, and after so much excitement, she was hungry.

Alas, back at her rooms, she found her two bodyguards in high agitation. Flankleader Ern might be senior, but Brarag was louder.

“The satrap, my lady, dead!”

“Murdered!”

“Up on the hill-”

She paced the length of the chamber three times before she wrung a clear story out of them. In the fog and rain the ambushers had themselves been ambushed so effectively that only one survivor had come running back to report. His packleader had led out his other three flanks and found Therek dead beside the ruins of his chariot.

It took time for all the rocks to land. Saltaja collapsed on a chair as the impacts registered.

The implications were… were shattering.

Was this the start of the rebellion she feared? Even if it weren’t, the deserters would certainly strike as soon as they heard there was no Hragson hostleader to rally the defense. The fire would spread. Far away in Kosord, Horold could not even hear of their brother’s death for a thirty or two. Winter was almost upon them, closing the pass and bringing the seasonal wind reversal that made upstream travel on the Wrogg close to impossible. Horold could not bring up an army before spring or early summer. The rebellion would have sunk deep roots by then.

And Orlad Celebre was involved. That dewy, newly collared Werist she had met yesterday had not been the dutiful idealist he had pretended. He had been bait! For the second time that morning, Saltaja caught herself on the verge of hurling a curse, and only sudden caution stopped her. She must think this out before she wasted any of her good standing with the Mother.

Those accursed Celebrians! Paola Apicella, Fabia’s wet nurse, had killed Karvak. Now Saltaja had lost a second brother because of those same iniquitous hostages. They were everywhere, like vermin. Benard Celebre had somehow released Fabia from her cell. Orlad Celebre had murdered Therek. Saltaja had always had doubts about the death of the eldest, Dantio. The Witnesses insisted he was dead, but she had never seen his body. Even the Old One, Who certainly knew the dead, had never given her a clear account of what had happened to him.

Meanwhile, who should she appoint as replacement hostleader?

“Fetch Huntleader Fellard,” she told Brarag. “And who are the other… What did you just say?” She had not been listening. Why were they both looking so terrified?

“I said you must flee, my lady!” Ern shouted. “They’re saying…” he gulped nervously. “… saying terrible things about you, my lady! They’re talking about…” He peered over his shoulder at the closed door.

Saltaja could guess what They were talking about, whoever They were. They were talking about her being a chthonian, about safety in numbers, about coming to get her. They were talking about burial facedown in the cold earth. That was what they did to Chosen-no trial, no testimony by Witnesses of Mayn, no divine judgment from Speakers of Demern, no delay. All her life, almost, she’d had Werist brothers around to defend her, if not the terrible Hrag himself. She shivered-because she was frightened, not because she was smeared with mud and blood under rain-soaked clothes. All her great powers could not stop a mob.

“Fetch Huntleader Fellard! At once! At once!”

He came so quickly that he must have been very close. His earlier nonchalance was gone, and it was clear that Fellard had not had an easy morning. He had cleaned himself, yet he still smelled of blood and his face twitched with discordant emotions-hatred for what she had made him do, shame that he had done it, the overwhelming compulsion to please her that she had imposed on him… and fear. Incredibly, Fellard was afraid of something. A man in command of five packs of Werists, four sixty, afraid?

She stood by the window, the light at her back. “I understand my brother has been slain?”

“Apparently so, my lady.” He did not care.

“It will be necessary to appoint a replacement-subject to the blood-lord’s confirmation in due course. Who are the Huntleaders in Therek’s Host, apart from yourself?”

Fellard put his fists on his hips and stared at her with what seemed to be disbelief. “Karrthin of Tryfors Hunt, Heth up at Nardalborg. My lady.”

“Only three?”

“That’s all we have. The Cullavi Hunt and the Fiends were disbanded, and the men sent over the Edge. I believe Nardalborg Hunt is at full strength, but I’m down to two sixty, and Tryfors has three. That was before this morning, you understand.” Shame blazed up in his face. “Several sixty in transit are billeted at Nardalborg, but those men are not truly under Heth’s command.”

Therek had whined about being under strength and she hadn’t listened. The unknown deserter horde must outnumber the forces in Tryfors handily, and she had sacrificed fifteen men to the Mother. Wait a moment!-

“Did you say ‘Heth’?”

“Heth Hethson, my lady.”

“And who was his father, really?”

Fellard looked puzzled. “Gossip says the satrap, my lady.”

Mother of Death! Heth was quite a common name. She had been thinking of Therek’s missing bastard as a child, but she must have presumed wrong. Therek had been slyer than she thought. He would have given Nardalborg to his most trusted deputy. The family still controlled the pass!

And shaping worked best on blood relatives.

“Heth’s work at Nardalborg is too important to interrupt. Bring me this Karrthin.”

Fellard chewed his lip. “He’s not here. I’m told he drove out to inspect his herds. His mistress, more likely. Runners are on the way to him.”

“And what will happen when he returns?”

“It will be interesting.” Now his fear made more sense.

So men of the Fist’s Own Hunt, on her orders, had slaughtered men belonging to Tryfors Hunt, which outnumbered it handily. Revenge was a powerful motive in itself, but ambition always came first with the Heroes, and there was a promotion to be claimed. Small wonder Fellard was nervous, facing an unequal battle with his troops already made restive by the massacre.

“Karrthin will naturally accuse you of arranging my brother’s death because you were here, and you will accuse him because he was not. Is there any evidence who did do it?” Not that evidence would matter.

“The witnesses reported discarded orange-green-red palls.”

Yesterday Orlad Celebre had been wearing orange-green-red: orange for Therek and green for Nardalborg. So Heth was prime suspect in the murder of his father. Did Heth know who his father was? Fellard had known of Therek’s plans for Orlad-had Heth? Had he deliberately set a countertrap? Or had it been a horrible misunderstanding?

She said, “At the moment you have effective control of the city. Under the circumstances, you had best arrange to have Huntleader Karrthin met on his return, preferably at a narrow place on the trail with poor visibility.”

“You think his packleaders are so stupid they would stand aside and let me try?” Fellard’s face twisted in torment. “My lady, there is a lynch mob brewing!”

She knew she was not disguising her own fear as well as should, so she flaunted it in poor-little-woman mode. “But you will protect me!”

That was an order. “I will try, my lady. They’re talking of digging a grave in the herb garden and throwing you in it.” Facedown, of course.

Rumors about her being a Chosen had seethed for years. Yesterday she had suggested the pain-of-death order; today she had made Fellard carry out the execution. Sometimes a mob got things right. She shuddered. Fear was a new and strange experience for her, although she had always found it amusing in others. She was surprised how much it muddled her thinking, like trying to run in deep mud.

“If I appoint Karrthin as the new-”

“Lady, anyone you appoint to anything will die very soon.”

“Then explain how you will defend me.”

“We must flee, my lady. I’ll send men to seize all the boats they can, and we’ll head off downstream before Karrthin returns.”

No! That felt impossibly wrong. She would be fleeing inward, away from the Edge, abandoning Stralg. The rebels would close the pass, divide the Children of Hrag. “Let me think!” she barked, and began to pace. There was something not right about this. She needed to sleep on it to obtain the Old One’s guidance. Impossible at the moment, of course.

The lynch mob was the most urgent, but blood would be shed over Therek’s disputed succession, an army of deserters was waiting to pounce, and the Florengian war effort must be sustained somehow.

Therek, Orlad, Fellard, Karrthin, Hethson, Orlad, deserters, Nardalborg, Fabia, Orlad-

Rain! That was what was wrong. Heth could have planned Orlad’s rescue, but not the satrap’s death, which had been caused by the rain. Without rain, Therek would have watched the murder from the safety of his tower.

Heth commanded the largest hunt and Nardalborg controlled the road to the Edge. If she could Shape Heth, she might bring some order to the situation yet. Fellard was fidgeting, repeatedly shooting nervous glances at the door.

“You will escort me to Nardalborg,” she said.

“But-” Fellard turned to the window. The rain had stopped. “There will be fresh snow up-”

“Don’t argue. We leave at once.”

He bowed hastily and turned.

“Wait! I need more guards on these rooms. And do you know a girl called Puss?”

“I think there’s a kitchen maid by that name.”

“Send her to me. And on your way out…” Saltaja looked with disgust at Guitha, who was staring at the walls again. “Take that to the herb garden. Make sure you’re not observed. Say aloud, ‘Beloved Mother Xaran, your servant Saltaja sends you this.’ Then cut her throat.”

Ivory pale, Fellard stared hard at her, seeming at a loss for words.

“You will obey me!”

“My… lady…” His voice failed him. He took Guitha by the wrist and led her out.