Dave Duncan - Mother of Lies

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.

huddled by himself next to the foremast, chin on knees, struggling against madness. Too much joy! He was crumbling under the sheer load of emotion, his and others. Holy Mayn granted Her Witnesses all knowledge, but the corban She required was that they must never use it. They must observe and never participate, excepting only that they might testify for Speakers of Demern in criminal trials. All this Dantio had sworn at his initiation. Yesterday he had broken his oath, and for that he must die.

Of the five divine senses the Goddess had given him, “sight” was the least of his problems. The fighting at Tryfors was out of his range now, and he could see nothing of importance, only a peaceful passing landscape of pasture and some orchards, fading back edgeward to the gloomy forests of the Hemlock Hills with the glint of the Ice beyond. Seaward he could see to a hazy height of land two or three menzils away. The Wrogg was already a wide river here, a braid of streams twined between shoals and bushy islands, so the crew was busy with sweeps, keeping the boat in the best current they could find. “Doldrum weather,” they called this near the Edge, and it heralded the seasonal wind reversal. Upstream traffic had tied up to wait for a change. Poppy and the other Witnesses had fled Tryfors at dawn, heading downstream, carrying word of Witness Mist’s catastrophic meddling.

When the news reached the Eldest at Bergashamm, she would anathematize him and he would die. That was the price of his victory. He had accepted it; it was a problem for another day. At the moment he was overwhelmed by the sheer concentrated emotion aboard Free Spirit. He could not ignore it, as Witnesses generally could, because he was personally involved, trapped in impossible conflicts, with fear, love, anger, and hate beating on him like hailstones. He had kicked a rock and started a landslide.