Dave Duncan - Mother of Lies

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?