Dave Duncan - Children of Chaos

Guthlag cackled and elbowed his arm. "Stuff that! You ever heard tell of the fall of Kosord?"

"Just scraps and rumors." Much more than he had ever wanted to hear, in fact, but he was obviously about to hear more. Perhaps he would learn how Guthlag had survived when the rest of the defenders did not.

"Aye. Well the pyromancer foresaw it, o' course, lady Tiu. She saw Stralg's horde on its way. He'd seized Skjar an' Yormoth an' a few other cities already, and Kosord would give him control of the plains, so no surprise. Hordeleader Kruthruk had been predicting he'd try for Kosord next. Fine man, Kruthruk." Guthlag spat nostalgically. "Course Stralg was running 'bout a host an' a half by then, 'bout twenty sixty. Kruthruk couldn't field even a couple of hunts, so the odds would ha' been at least five to one."

" Would have been?"

"Aye. Well, the lady read it in the fire and announced the news, and State Consort Nars was the light of Demern on Kosord. A Speaker has to give true judgment, no matter what his own interests—his blessing and his corban are the same. Nars judged his city would fare better if it didn't resist. He ordered Kruthruk to take his men and go over to Stralg. Kruthruk refused."

Benard had heard that tale before and decided then that he would never understand Heroes. He still thought so. "Better death than dishonor?"

"Some of that," Guthlag admitted. "More that his brother had been a candidate for bloodlord, so Kruthruk wanted Stralg's guts for rat bait."

"Even if that meant all his men dying, too?"

"Their duty. Said he would let Weru decide. Stralg drew up his horde on the plain and they agreed to fight it out that night. Then the state consort insisted Kruthruk give his men the choice. 'Bout half of them went over to Stralg—knowing, o' course, that he would send them into battle first to let them prove their new loyalty."

Ouch ! "That doesn't sound like very good judgment to me."

"Then you're no Speaker!" the old man barked. "Stralg was bound to win, see, and he razes cities that defy him. He'd be in a better mood if his own losses were lower."

"You're right, I'm no Demernist." Benard had often wondered if his father's title of doge had been the Florengian equivalent of a state consort. Who else but a Speaker could give his children away to a monster? "That's too cold-blooded for me."

"Thaz what been a Speaker izzle bout." Guthlag hic-cuped. "The cause was hopeless, so Nars's god told him he'd best serve his city by dying 'longside his troops."

Benard pointed to a mound in the distance. "What place is that?"

"Umthord."

"I thought we went through there? A priest told—"

"Naw. Stay on the levee."

Benard drove on, passing a line of near-naked peasants wielding hoes in the everlasting war against weeds. He waved and was ignored. The sky seemed oppressively big, out here on the plain.

"And the lady Tiu chose to die with her husband?"

"That she did. She drove the chariot and brandished a sword so that they would treat her like a combatant. Knowing what Stralg's horde did to women."

"Why? Surely even Stralg would not dare touch a Daughter of Veslih!"

"She said it'd be best for the city, because Stralg would never trust her and she couldn't trust him. Nils tried to tell her she was wrong and he couldn't do it ! Saw him standin' there with tears running into his beard and he couldn't tell her she was wrong. So they went off together. But they had Kruthruk assign one man to guard Ingeld until the new overlord took over the city."

Ah! "How old was Ingeld?"

"Sixteen." Guthlag sighed.

So did Benard. He couldn't imagine Ingeld at sixteen, for he kept seeing her as she had been six years ago, when they were lovers.

"Kruthruk picked me," Guthlag said, "oldest man in the host. Talkin' makes me thirsty."

Benard reined in again. The night battle outside the walls had been a massacre, they said. He hadn't known about Kosord's Werists fighting on both sides and slaughtering one another, but he could believe it. After that, even, the citizenry had tried to contest Stralg's entry, leading to riots, retaliation, and the bloodshed Tiu had died to avert.

"Drive on!" Guthlag belched and wiped his mouth.

Benard remembered the brake, whapped the onagers. "How much defending did you have to do?"

"Enough." Such modesty was unheard of in a Werist.

"The rioters broke into the palace, didn't they?"

"Faugh! The rioters were just extrinsics with spears. I splattered some gobs of flesh around an' after that the rest stayed well back. But Stralg's warbeasts was more serious. I took out three of them before their packleader got there and called them off. When Stralg himself arrived, I was still blockin' the door, still in battleform, all reekin' of gore. He had Horold in tow. Told me he wanted to talk to Ingeld, an' she came out."

The lady had seen much trouble in her life, but that interview must have been one of the worst moments. She had never told Benard this. He had not even been born then. It was shocking to realize all the things that the world had gotten up to before he was there to see.

"This was the jade stair?"

"Naw, the west door."

Benard tried to conjure up the scene. He knew the passage well enough ... narrow and straight, about fifteen steps ... he counted them in his memory and there were fourteen ... darkness, rushlights flaming and smoking, making shadows dance. Much blood, Stralg and his men crammed in at the bottom, perhaps a few bodies... Ingeld defiant at the top and the monstrous Guthlag-thing crouching beside her. Or looming over her—it would not be wise to ask the man to describe his warbeast. Bleeding...

Guthlag growled. "Stralg said she could marry his brother and swear to be loyal, else he'd give her to the troops, which was it to be?"

"So she accepted the handsome Horold?"

"No. Ah, you'd have been proud of her, lad! She laid out some terms of her own. One of them was that I be spared. So I was. Stralg himself said I'd earned that."

"Praise indeed!"

Guthlag sighed nostalgically for what must have been the greatest moment of his life. "Ah, the Fist's a Hero's Hero. 'Member you asked about battleform? Well, here's your answer: Yes, we can put it on anytime we want, but snot allowed. Man changes form without orders, he's headin' for a load of what your friend the Pimple's goin' through right now. And, my lad, changing's not something done lightly. It hurts! All your joints grind, your bones bend. A man needs to be mad to go through with it. Or really scared. Doesn't matter which in a real fight, because them already changed will turn on shirkers, so when the leaders form, we all form."

"What other terms did Ingeld demand for her marriage?"

"Hard to say." Guthlag scratched busily. "In battleform, anything more'n simple words gets pretty tricky. Lost a lot of blood, too. An' I was trying to watch half a dozen Werists, wondering what to do if they all came up the stairs at me at once. So I didn't get much of it. Something to do with sons ... And her husband was to go free."

"Her what ?" Benard squealed, causing the onagers' long ears to pivot in alarm. The old man's chuckle told him he'd reacted as required.

"So wash it to you if lady was married before, my lad?"

"Nothing." He glanced at Guthlag and saw that his denial did not convince. How many people knew or suspected that he'd once been Ingeld's lover? "What was his name?"

"Ardial Berkson. A Speaker, o' course. Nars's chosen heir."

"How long had they been married?" Had she had any say in her father's choice? Had she loved him?

" 'Bout a sixday. He was standin' on other side of her, cool as bronze. Anyway, when Stralg balked at something, she said, 'Packleader, kill me.' I was packleader of the red, then, see?"