Dave Duncan - Children of Chaos

" 'In the sacred name of the most mighty—'"

"Never mind all that offal! I can guess he begins with a demand for more Werists, right?" He always did.

"Er... yes, my lord. He, er... he says that he must follow up his recent success at Miona, that the enemy are summer people and will not fight in winter, but to Vigaelians their weather is nothing, so he has a natural advantage in—"

"Toad piss! Florengia has no seasons; winter and summer all alike. How many this time?"

"Er... he expects Tryfors to supply one complete pack, at least two flanks being experienced men. You are also to send your best huntleader... my lord."

Impossible! Therek could not possibly spare forty-nine men and he was certainly not sending Heth. Heth was being discreetly silent. In the last few years he had watched men head out in sixties and sixty-sixties and only a dribble of cripples return.

"How many more caravans does he expect me to squeeze in before winter?"

"He did not say."

"Then how many men in total, mm?"

"He did not say, my lord... here."

Therek missed it, but Heth didn't. "Where does he say it?"

"With respect, my lord, I am authorized to advise only the hostleader."

"Answer him!" Therek bellowed, and then answered for himself. "You read the other dispatches! You can read them without opening them ?" Why had he never thought of that? The bag-head cows had never told him they could do that. They never volunteered anything! He wondered if Saltaja knew they had that ability.

"I cannot read a sealed dispatch, lord."

"But you can tell the meaning?" Heth asked.

"If I am close enough to it," the seer admitted glumly, "and the content is important."

Therek chortled. "And were you close enough to the other dispatches that arrived today? Of course you were. You wouldn't have missed that chance to snoop. What did my dear brother write to our sister, mm? Tell me that!"

"All of it, lord?"

"Start with the most interesting news and I'll tell you when to stop."

She sighed. "Yes, lord. He wrote that he suffered a major defeat at Reggoni Bridge. Rebel Hordeleader Cavotti had sabotaged—"

" The Mutineer !" Therek screamed.

"The Mutineer, then. He had sabotaged the bridge and it collapsed when your brother's hunt was crossing, dropping the men into a gorge. The vanguard was isolated. It was attacked by the freedom fighters—"

"Rebels! Oath-breakers!"

"—and destroyed. The bloodlord lost more than sixteen sixty men, almost an entire host. He wants as many replacements ... His exact words in this case, my lord, were that your honored sister is to send 'as many men as the lunatic Therek can be forced to move over the Edge.' My lord."

Therek contemplated wringing her neck and reluctantly decided not to. "Heth, can you get five more caravans out before winter?" They had never managed six in a season before.

"I can but try, my lord. The weather will decide."

"Can you make the caravans bigger?"

"No!" Heth said firmly. "Not without more slaves and more mammoths. And if we did find some way to stock the food caches for more than four sixty men, most of the shelters will barely hold even that many. They were built for smaller caravans. Four sixty is the absolute limit... my lord."

Then Therek had an idea, a beautiful idea, a shining constellation of an idea. "Don't bother reserving a space for Warrior Orlad."

"My lord is kind," Heth muttered uncertainly.

"All those recruits ... eager but inexperienced," the satrap mumbled. He chuckled gleefully. But he couldn't do it here, not at Nardalborg. Not one of themselves. Very bad for morale, that would be. "Tonight you may proceed as requested. I am sure Runtleader Orlad will do very well. Give all the cadets my best wishes. Dismissed."

"My lord is kind."

"Oh, and one other thing... When, in due course, Runtleader Orlad is initiated, as I am sure he will be... send him to me, in Tryfors."

He heard Heth shut the door. The white blur of the Witness remained, cowering as far away from him as she could get. All those splendid young new warriors! Before sending them off to battle, it would be only fair to give them some practice in running down Florengian Werists.

sixteen

FRENA WIGSON

spent another day in a blur of preparations for her dedication banquet. Replies to the invitations came flooding in—not that baked clay tablets could flood, but many of the responses were brought by runners, leggy youngsters capable of reciting astonishingly long messages verbatim. They did not exactly flood either, but they did trickle sweat onto floor tiles, for the rain had stopped and the heat was more insufferable than ever.

Food was arriving on groaning oxcarts. The beer was brewing, filling the entire residence with heady odors of yeast. Still more decisions had to be squeezed in between dress fittings and the uncountable little crises that ran everywhere like arpeggios on a dulcimer. Horth was nowhere to be seen. Although his days were always devoted to business, when Frena was at home he usually managed to share a meal with her—nibbling barley cakes and sipping ibex milk while she, like as not, gorged on goose in ginger or trout stuffed with oysters. That day she dined alone, while Vignor the storyteller chanted some of his ancient tales to keep her from brooding. She saw Master Pukar just once, in passing. He smiled and bowed. She nodded and swept on by. She would sooner trust a fireasp.

Still, every day ends. The time came when she could bolt the door on Inga and Lilin and the rest, on her father and his staff, on Pukar and the world. Exhausted, she rolled herself out like dough on her sleeping platform and closed her eyes. At that point the Problem leaped at her like a starving catbear.

The mother she had loved had belonged to the Old One and she herself had been promised to that goddess. Even without the previous night's vision, it should have been obvious that only divine aid could have brought a tiny baby through the Edgelands alive. For Paola's sake, Frena should honor that promise and make her dedication to Xaran, not the Twelve. But how could she manage it, and with so little time? Obviously her prayer had been heard. She had been shown the past. Tonight she must ask for guidance for the immediate future. Exhausted though she was, she had no trouble staying awake until the household slept.

Muffled in a dark robe, she felt safely invisible as she crept along the corridor on her pilgrimage. Her father was still at work, a sliver of light showing under his door. When she reached the archway out to the grass, she stopped to listen. Very far away she could hear the inevitable mating cats, yapping dogs, and drunken revelry from the sailors' hostels in Fishgut Alley. The house itself was a tomb. Bad thought ! The stars that shone just now above Kyrn—the Wagon, Graben's Sword, Ishrop, and Ishniar—were almost never visible in muggy, canyon-bound Skjar. But nothing stirred nearby, and she had no excuse not to proceed.

She hurried through the gardens to the grave. She was of two minds about stripping, but in the end it seemed wisest not to dirty her robe, so she removed it and hung it on a branch. The cut on her shoulder had scabbed over, but she found a sharp flake—probably builders' marble—and scratched out a few drops of blood.

"Mother?" Feeling absurd whispering to earthworms, she was hard to remember how serious this was. There was none of the presence she had felt before. Last night had been mystery and sanctity. Tonight was pure farce. "Mother... Xaran ..." She had never spoken that name aloud before. It sent such a thrill of fear through her that, stubbornly, she repeated it.