Dave Duncan - Children of Chaos

She felt a tug on her fluttering robe, but Verk was not so distracted that he missed the move. He swung. The boy screamed and went down in blood. His companion tried to board in the confusion and met the same fate. A staff rang on Verk's helmet. Older men were arriving, carrying larger poles, and they were more dangerous, trying to spoke the wheels or break the onagers' legs while staying out of reach of the swords.

But even hardy hill folk could not outrun onagers for long. One by one they gave up and slumped to the ground. When the last of the dogs had disappeared, Frena glanced back along the trail of crushed grain she had left from the village, confirming that the chase had been abandoned. So she was safe, and could now take time to admit to a whirling heart and sick terror. The exhausted onagers dropped from a trot to a walk.

"It's all over," Verk said. He put an arm around her, and she realized that she was weeping. She was not sure which shocked her more—her weakness or his brazen presumption. But she let his arm stay there while she dribbled tears on his shiny scales.

The chariot stopped.

"I was a fool. It was my fault for not listening to you. I'm sorry. And I'm very grateful to you and Uls."

" Aee ! Just doing our duty, mistress. Saving our own skins also. That's never hard."

She swallowed and wiped her eyes with the back of her She was trembling quite disgustingly. "My mother... She had two swordsmen with her when she was attacked."

"Hadn't heard that ," Verk growled. "What happened to them?"

"No one knows. They must have run away."

"All bark and no bite isn't worth table scraps."

She pulled free of his arm. "My father will reward you well."

Verk pouted. "Happy ending won't excuse bad start."

"You're right. It would be best if Father never heard about it."

" Aee ! The onagers don't speak much, but Uls...

Uls!?" Uls was sagged limply over the rail of his chariot. His brother leaped down and ran to help.

♦

The hills dividing Lake Skjar from Ocean had once been famed for their forests of cloud-combing hemlocks. It was written in the Arcana that arrogant mortals had used the timber to build themselves houses fit for gods, and holy Demern had removed the trees until mankind learned humility. Apparently that had not happened yet, because the Bright Ones had not returned the trees. The sunburned slopes were barren, fit only for pasturing ibexes, and the only memorials to their former glory were a few fragments of giant roots wedged in the rock.

At a division in the trail, Verk reined in his chariot and waited for Frena to bring hers alongside. He had been driving Uls, whose arm had been shattered by a blow from a staff. Although Verk had bound it up with the strap of his scabbard, Uls was obviously in agony—his face ashen, the immobilized limb swollen and discolored against his mail vest.

One branch of the track wandered on along the hillside; the other headed down toward the shore, where a narrow strip of flat land showed a startling green. The lake spread out beyond, a bright expanse of blue that met a sharp horizon speckled with storm clouds like puffs of mold on week-old bread.

"Onager ranch down there, mistress—By-the-Canyon."

"Yes. Father owns it." She was weary from the journey and still depressed by the horrors she had seen at the village. She kept thinking about the ghouls and their victim, wondering if they had finished burying him yet. Had he truly been a Chosen, or as innocent as her mother?

"The bouncing is hard on poor Uls," Verk said. "And the teams are tired. If we leave them all down there, I can drive you home now and come back tomorrow with help."

Normally Uls protested loudly at any suggestion that he be parted from his brother. He was beyond even that now.

Frena said, "He will be missed. If we can go on to the city, we can take him to the House of Sinura." She could have the cut on her arm healed at the same time. Cost was no problem to Horth Wigson's daughter. "I would just as soon not worry my father by mentioning what happened." He had so many worries!

Verk said, "There is also the matter of the sword, mistress. It's a poor swordsman drops a precious bronze sword and forgets to pick it up."

"Can't we stop somewhere and buy a sword?"

Silence. Verk was staring at her, and for some reason she felt her face burn all the way up to the roots of her hair. How dare he look at her like that!

Finally he said, " Aee ! I am a lucky swordsman today."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that when your father hired us he made me swear on the Arcana that I would tell him when anyone offered me gifts. He swore on the shrine of Ucr that he would give me thrice. So now I get three swords I can sell?"

"Me? Bribe you? You dare accuse me of ..."

But he had dared, and she had tried to bribe him. She looked away, unable to meet his cold stare. More furious at herself than at him, she said, "Let us get Uls down to the ranch house quickly."

♦

So it was that Uls was dosed with poppy and put to bed, the weary onagers led away to be fed and watered. Frena herself was granted refreshment with all the deference due Horth Wigson's daughter. Rested, she drove off along the trail with a fresh team and Verk as passenger once more.

"I was not trying to get you impaled, Verk." She studied the road ahead. "I just want to keep Father from being worried unnecessarily."

"My lady is kind." His tone was so flat she could not tell if he was mocking her. "I know of a swordsman who failed to save his master and the master's wife had the man skinned. Aee ! It was sad."

"I am sure Father will not skin you. I would just as soon not tell him. He would be very upset." He would be devastated. Horth, who now rarely went anywhere, in his youth had made the arduous, hazardous trek over the Edge to the Florengian Face. This had been long before Stralg's invasion, when the trail was less used and even more difficult than it was nowadays. Horth had returned with precious trade goods that had formed the foundation of his fortune, but he had also brought a wife, Paola Apicella, the only love of his life. Rich men were expected to keep concubines, sometimes junior wives, but there had never been a hint of another woman for Horth, even after Paola's death three years ago; never a whisper among the servants. A brutal and senseless mob attack in the streets of Skjar had killed her. He must not learn that the same sort of mob had so nearly claimed his daughter.

Verk said, "I spoke in haste, mistress. How can we explain Uls's absence? My brother is a simple soul, yet I am fond of him. I do not wish to see him skinned."

"Stop ranting about skinning! No one skins anyone in Skjar. He fell out of his chariot when the axle pin broke and the wheel came off." A white lie, surely, told without malice, just to save her father needless anxiety?

" Aee ! Then the wicked stableman who mounted the wheel must be beaten."

Frena opened her mouth indignantly and closed it again. That might be true. All this talk of punishment was strange to her. She had never considered a life where such things might happen. "It was my fault. I set too fast a pace and Uls's chariot overturned on a rock."

Verk's pale face twisted under its lawn of golden stubble as if wrestling against a smile. "And what sort of guard would let you be so foolish? Aee ! I will be impaled most surely."

"Stop that! You know perfectly well that Father orders no punishment more than the law allows."

"Forty lashes for a man of my age," Verk said sadly. "But who counts? A court will surely judge a sturdy swordsman fit to bear more anyway. Who will employ him when he bears such scars?"