Dave Duncan - Children of Chaos

"No! Oh, no, that's too much! I've known I've swallowed a lot of whoppers in my time, but that one chokes me."

"Watch your teeth, boy," Guthlag growled. "I'm telling you Mayn's truth. We had it agreed. I was to kill her rather than see her taken alive. That wasn't the final code word, though."

Ingeld was capable of it, Benard decided, like her mother. Whether she would have been capable at sixteen was another question. "Obviously Stralg believed her."

"Stralg had a seer with him. Asked if she was bluffing. Seer said she wasn't. So he agreed. She went to his brother whose looks musta' helped some. Handsome as a god, he was. Ardial wash an ugly cuss an' fishy cold, like all Speakers. He just bowed and walked away between the Werists, stepping over corpses. I was allowed to swear fealty to Horold. First thing he did was order me never to put on battleform again."

It took Benard a moment to realize what his companion had just said. He glanced again at the twisted hands and knees, the pain-racked face. Werists had no need of Sinurists because they could heal themselves in battleform.

"He's probably long forgotten that order. Can't you ask to try?"

"Werists don't beg, boy."

Surely self-defense must be a permissible excuse? Had Guthlag brought the gold along as bait for an ambush so he could battleform in a fight with bandits? No, that was absurd. Was Benard supposed to try and run away with it and be hunted down?

"This journey isn't easy for you, lord. Why didn't you send someone else?"

The resulting pause was so long that Benard thought the old man wasn't going to answer, but eventually he growled, "Came along because Satrap told me to. Said I was the one who had to keep track of you anyway, and I was the only man in his host he could trust not to gut you soon as his back was turned."

"That was kind of him."

"Aye. He wants to do it himself, see?"

Benard knew that. "At least Horold's honest. Did he mention when?"

"Naw. He did say I gotta run you down if you try to escape."

"I have no intention of—"

Guthlag cackled unpleasantly. "Just as well, because it shard to think about anything in a chase sept the game, un'stand? Catch something an' not kill it—snot likely."

Benard stared straight ahead, but his stomach was churning. "I do not intend to try running away."

"That's what her ladyship told me." The old man affected a prissy falsetto. " 'I'm just afraid dear Benard will never abandon all that marble,' she said. 'The darling boy thinks of nothing except his art.' "

"Ingeld did not call me a darling boy!"

"No. She called you a bullheaded idiot."

At last, Benard saw the plot. How could he have been so blind? She had said marble to the Werist, but marble was not the problem and they all knew it. The problem was Horold wanting to kill him. She wanted Benard to run away.

"So the real reason you came was because Ingeld asked you to and this gold came from her, yes?" Meddlesome woman!

The old man cackled drunkenly. " 'Gotta do something to save him,' she says."

A kind thought, maybe, but Benard was hurt that she had tried to buy him off, even if she had not seen it that way. He would not go unless she went with him. Why couldn't they see that sometimes it took more courage to do nothing? True, he rarely went to see her, because the satrap undoubtedly spied on her through his seers, but the thought of never seeing her again was unbearable. One day she would understand that the only way to save his life was to run away with him.

He waited until Guthlag needed another drink, which was not long.

He reined in. There were several boats in sight and more coming, all with bare masts and oars out as they let the current swing them around a great curve, close in to the bank. As the Werist raised the almost-empty wineskin to his mouth, Benard leaped from the chariot. He went down the bank in three great strides that almost smashed his ankles, and launched himself in a dive that should have cleared the fringe of reeds and landed him in the water with a spectacular belly flop.

Something intercepted him in midair. It must have beaten him to the water's edge and turned there, because it threw him sideways and landed him flat on his back in the reeds. He looked up at monstrous open jaws and fangs like chisels, eyes glaring, talons out, and a foul blast of hot wine fumes.

He was going to die. It was going to tear his face off. Guthlag had warned him what happened in a chase, warned him a warbeast was too stupid to understand language. But there were brays of terror in the background and a frenzied rattling. The onagers had panicked at the sight or smell of the warbeast.

"The chariot!" Benard screamed. "The gold! Get the gold!"

The talons touched his forehead and stopped. Benard lay petrified, staring up at the horny, hairy paw that would be the last thing he would ever see. The Guthlag-thing raised its head to look after the fleeing team and chariot. It uttered a snarl of fury and was gone, flying up the bank and racing off after the onagers like a giant cat.

Benard went the other way, hit the water, and started swimming with all the power he had, foaming through the water toward the nearest boat. It would give him a ride back to Kosord. Guthlag would not abandon the gold to follow him. No matter what Ingeld wanted, Benard Celebre was not going to run away from a little turd like Cutrath, nor a big turd like his father either, and she would just have to learn to live with that fact.

Eighteen

PAOLA APICELLA

stood by the door, not daring to go out on the balcony lest the crowd down there see her and harm her, mindless rage-beast that it was. Torches flamed and sputtered in the night, the fires of war. The battle was reaching in through windows and over walls; she could hear missiles striking shutters, strife downstairs — voices raised in fury, sounds of destruction, animal howls as Werist tangled with Werist .

Behind her, the child slept the sleep of innocence in her crib. One wavering flame above the little bronze lamp revealed a room of luxury, full of lustrous hangings, soft mats, plump quilts. Palaces were very fine, but it was time to leave. Paola crossed the room to the lamp. She held it to the hangings, and when she had sent fire licking up those in three or four places, she tipped oil and burning wick on the sleeping platform. The bedding leaped eagerly into flame and acrid clouds that stung her eyes and throat. Now the defenders had more than the attackers outside to worry about.

She scooped up the child, so heavy now! She was not soon enough, for something heavy dropped on the balcony in a scrabble of claws. A monstrous black shadow towered up against the glow outside, then shimmered and shriveled and became a very large Vigaelian, soaked in blood and sweat, naked except for a brass collar. He was panting almost too hard to speak.

" She-fiend !" he gasped . " What have you done ? Give me the brat ." He strode forward, one hand reaching for her throat and one for the child . " We need you no longer, chthonian ."

She had done what was needed. The babe was weaned and now the woman had seriously upset the satrap by setting his palace alight, so he was going to kill her.

Hate!

He reared back. " Stop that !" He tried again, and this time he fell back farther. " What are you doing ? Stop it!"

Hate-hate-hate! She advanced, still clutching the child, who also had strength that the woman could draw on. The Werist backed away, screaming curses, trying to fend her off with wild swings of his fists, although she was not even close to him. He came to the doorway and his screaming took on a new note .