Dave Duncan - Children of Chaos

Except that there was nobody home. Some sort of ceremony was already in progress a couple of bowshots away from the village, at the base of a rocky knoll bedecked with a few straggly fruit trees. The crowd looked surprisingly big to have come from so few houses.

"What's happening? A midsummer festival?"

"Something," Verk muttered, frowning.

"Praying for rain, perhaps. Let us go and see." Frena worked the reins, easing Night back, flicking Dark's haunches. The chariot curved off across the fields, heading for the assembly.

The center of attention was a man standing under a tree with his arms raised, as if appealing to the Bright Ones. The crowd had gathered in an arc before him, children closest, adults on the outside. Voices surged like waves of Ocean beating on shingle, but in no song or chorus she knew.

"What in the world are they doing?"

Verk did not answer, his craggy features oddly tense as he studied the scene.

"Which god do farmers pray to?" Even a city girl ought to know that much. "Holy Weru, perhaps? He's god of storms."

Still concentrating on the crowd, Verk muttered, "Not Weru, mistress! Not farmers."

"Holy Ucr, then?"

Everyone knew Father was an initiate of the Ucrist mystery, for no one could acquire so much wealth without the god's blessing. As patron lord of prosperity and abundance, Ucr should support farmers as much as merchants.

"They might pray to Ucr to stay away," Verk muttered. "Holy Nula, more like. Turn away, mistress! This is not for you. Go back—now!"

"You do not give me orders!"

"Stop her!" howled Uls, who had caught up with them by cutting the corner of the curve.

The crowd had noticed her approach and turned to watch. So far the man under the tree was ignoring her... and was wearing nothing but a blindfold? The man under the tree was hung there by his wrists, feet barely touching the ground. He was bloody, as if he had been savagely beaten.

"What is this?" Frena cried.

"Drive on, mistress!" Verk barked. "This is not for you."

"I am not going anywhere until I understand what is going on here! And what are those men over there doing?" Three of them, digging a hole.

"Tell her that black hair is bad luck!" Uls yelled shrilly.

"And black onagers, too! Drive away, mistress, as you value your life. They think you're coming to rescue him."

"I will rescue him!" she shouted. "What crime has he committed? What Speaker has pronounced holy Demern's judgment? Is that hole meant to be a grave ?"

"Of course it is," Verk howled. "Now, drive on !"

Some of the watchers shouted and started running forward.

"Remind her what happened to her mother!" Uls screamed.

"I will not drive on!" Frena bent and gripped the brake lever with both hands. She raised it to dig the claw into the ground; the chariot shuddered and slowed, throwing her against the wicker of the front and raising a cloud of red dust. "What they are doing is murder. Tell them who I am. I want to know what they're doing to that man and what he's done to deserve—"

"Missy!" Verk barked, in a tone she had not heard from him before. He jerked the brake lever from her grip by slamming it down with his sandal. "Your father swore by his god that he would have me impaled if I did not bring you home safely today. Now you must drive on or I will."

With his longer arms, he reached past her to tug on Dark's reins. He snatched the whip from the socket and expertly laid it on Night's back. Braying in protest, the onager surged forward and the car began to turn away from the mob.

The mob howled and gave chase.

"What the man has done is use the evil eye, mistress. I expect he cursed the lambing or made the rain stay away." Something clinked off his helmet. "What they are doing, mistress, or are about to do, is send him back to the Old One who sent him, and whose thing he is." Gradually the chariot was gathering speed. "And good riddance for all such as he!"

The crowd was running. They were coming for her, like the mob that had killed her mother. Black hair was unlucky, the mark of the Old One. Nonsense, of course— Florengians had darker pigmentation than Vigaelians, that was all, and she had inherited it from her mother. Shouting and baying, the crowd streamed toward her. She could make out no words, but the hatred was obvious. The village dog pack had arrived already, yapping and snarling all around, making Dark and Night twitch and snap and try to kick.

The man under the tree had been a Vigaelian spattered with filth and blood, not a Florengian, so it was not his color that had provoked the lynching. Perhaps he really was a chthonian, a Chosen of the Old One.

Stones spun through the air, narrowly missing her. The mob's words were still incomprehensible, but there was no mistaking the rage and threat in that animal roaring. She cried out as a rock struck her shoulder.

"Uls!" Verk yelled. "Cover my left!" He thrust the whip into Frena's hand and drew his sword.

She thrashed the onagers and screamed at them to go faster. The stubborn brutes were distracted by the dogs, more inclined to kick and bite than run and draw the pack after them.

"I still don't understand!" she said as calmly as she could. The Old One, Mistress of Darkness, was named Xaran , but that name was never spoken except in holy rites, lest it summon Her. The Chosen were Her agents, supposedly workers of evil. Yet it was very hard to see evil in that helpless victim dangling under the tree, or holy Demern's justice in this brute horde.

"He belongs to the Evil One." The swordsman yelled more oaths at the onagers. He was trying to shield her as rocks and sticks rang on his metal scales and thumped against the sides of the chariot. "She sent him. They have covered his eyes lest he afflict them with evil, and gagged his mouth to stop his curses. They must send him back to Her who sent him, laying him facedown in the ground and covering him with good earth. Do you want to share his grave, mistress?" He goaded the onagers with his sword, but missiles were striking them, too. Braying with rage, they lurched into a full gallop.

Frena's arm was bleeding, and she'd have a nasty bruise there soon. If one sharp stone could hurt this much, what had the man under the tree endured already? Or her mother, who had been waylaid by an unknown mob of thugs outside her own front door, and beaten so badly that she had died a few days later? At least she hadn't been buried alive! Blood and birth; death and the cold earth ...

Now a raging, screaming mob was pursuing her as the two chariots squealed and bounced away from accursed Bitterfeld. Nimble youths were closing the gap, and some were armed with poles. Although they were only skinny, near-naked shepherd boys with wild, shaggy hair, as they drew nearer Frena thought she would rather be chased by a pack of hungry catbears. Everyone knew that madness came from holy Eriander, not the Old One, but surely the bloodlust and hatred in those boys' eyes was pure evil? Fortunately the onagers, having decided to run and not fight, were going as fast as they could; now all the snarling and snapping just made them try harder.

Uls had pulled alongside them on the left, but the pursuers were not much interested in him. They wanted the girl with black hair, dark eyes, and brown skin. Many townsfolk in Skjar considered such coloring unlucky. Frena had been cursed in public more than once and out here people were even more superstitious.

Journey had become nightmare, a pleasant drive a flight for life. Again she lashed the onagers. Two youths were closing in at the back of the chariot, evidently intent on grabbing Frena. Another was running alongside, staying out of Verk's reach and trying to strike him with a pole. Verk parried repeatedly, but the bouncing of the car made both attack and defense matters more of luck than skill. If that pole caught Frena with a crack on the head, she would be sharing a stranger's grave.