Dave Duncan - Children of Chaos

She was still five or six treads from the bottom when shouts of protest from the doorway alerted her to trouble. Horth staggered to a halt; she steadied him, and heard him mutter something she suspected was a prayer. Brass collars were advancing through the crowd, people shuddering away in alarm from brutal stubbled faces, massive bare limbs. Their leader halted at the bottom of the stairs, fists on hips. He had eight Werists at his back.

"Huntleader Perag Hrothgatson!" Horth exclaimed, resuming the descent with Frena still on his arm. "Twelve blessings on you, Hero, and your fine warriors. You have doubtless come to inspect the security arrangements for the visit by our noble satrap and—"

Perag had a sneer to swallow an ox. "Ain't he gorgeous, lads? Which one's the prettiest, do you think?"

Horth's smile did not waver. "May I offer you and your men some refreshment, Huntleader? Too early in the year for wine, I'm afraid, but we have some fresh-made beer."

Including two soured batches that would do perfectly for these brutes.

"I came for you, boy. My lord wants you."

"There must be some misunderstanding." Horth halted two steps up, so his eyes were more or less level with the intruder's. "Satrap Eide and his lady are invited to our feast."

At close quarters the Werist smelled bad and looked worse. His height and width were incredible. Verk and Uls and the rest of the house swordsmen stood against a distant wall, livid with fury and shame, completely irrelevant.

The Werist shook his head contemptuously. "Tell him when you see him. Take him, lads!"

It had been rehearsed, obviously. Moving impossibly fast for their size, two younger thugs jumped forward and grabbed Horth's arms. Hoisting them high, like flagpoles, they wheeled around and ran him out of the hall, bearing him backward with his humiliation visible to everyone. His jeweled cap slid down over one eye and his head only barely cleared the lintel.

"This is outrageous!" Frena yelled. "The satrap himself ordered this ... ordered ..."

The Werist's leer stopped her.

"Not bad! Dusky beauty, they call this, lads. Tradition is, men get to kiss the maiden."

Frena bleated, "No!" She tried to back away, up the steps, but his great arms reached out and plucked her like a berry. He crushed her to him and forced her lips apart with his. It was the most disgusting experience of her life—feet clear of the floor, back bent almost to the breaking point, and that animal slobbering in her mouth. She punched and kicked and gained nothing. When he had done, he laughed and handed her to the man beside him, who repeated the process. Fingers pawed and squeezed her. Without letting her touch the floor once, the brutes passed her along the line as if they were sharing a wineskin. The last one set her down on her feet and she fell backward into somebody's arms. Now she had some idea of what a collective rape would feel like—performed in front of the whole household, including all of Horth's swordsmen.

"Wine!" she gasped. "Vinegar! Brine! Anything!"

Someone handed her a beaker of wine. She rinsed her mouth and spat into a bowl conveniently offered. "Ugh! Filthy brutes! Don't they ever bathe?" The intruders had gone.

"It makes little difference with that lot," Verk said. He was white-lipped with fury.

"My lady, your hair," Inga bleated. "Oh, your train!"

Frena drained the rest of the wine. "Mother of Death take my hair!" she roared. "And take them! Verk, follow me. Are the chariots ready?" Without waiting for an answer, she plunged into the crowd and it opened for her.

nineteen

HORTH WIGSON

was dumped roughly in a chariot and his elbows tied to the rail, so he was bent over backward facing the rear. That position would have been awkward for any man; for him it was torture, and he was certain the two Werist whelps knew that. They pulled his hat down over his eyes and left him to suffer while they waited. Normally he would just add such humiliation to the bill, and the pain in his spine was trivial compared to the agonies of molten bronze the gods churned in his belly after every meal, but such open brutality was a very bad omen. Obviously his secret plans had been discovered. He had been very careful to commit no illegal act, nor had he confided in anyone, even Frena, but a tyrant who commanded the powers of seers could condemn a man for even thinking treason.

Thunder roared. A gust of icy air whirled through the heat and disappeared again.

Then Perag Hrothgatson said, "Ready?"

"The load's on board, my lord. Did you get a good grope?"

"Indeed. That's prime stuff, lad! Don't get to play with dugs like that very often."

This was all for Horth's benefit, of course. Hrothgatson was Saltaja's favorite henchman and had very probably led the mob that killed Paola. Had Horth ever managed to buy proof of that, he would have arranged for the Werist to die, but very probably was not enough to justify execution. The real culprit had been Saltaja, anyway. Alas, a Chosen was vulnerable to nothing less than a maddened mob. Or perhaps another Chosen—Master Pukar had been working on the problem for years without finding any sure way to strike at her. Now time had run out.

The man who jumped aboard, making the chariot lurch, certainly smelled like Perag, but nothing more was said. He whipped up the team, and they rattled off over the cobbles. With thunder roaring almost continuously the streets must be almost empty, but more speed meant more bouncing and so was of little consolation to Horth, who was flapped up and down like a rug until he thought his back would snap.

♦

The chariot rumbled over only four bridges before it stopped, so it had not gone as far as the palace. That was another bad sign. From the reek of urine and rotting meat, Horth could guess he was on Blackstaur, which was the tanners' island, but also home to other unsavory trades, as if evil stench attracted evil deeds. Many hands hauled him from the car and ran him indoors and down steps. When a door creaked open and then slammed shut behind him, the noise echoed spookily. A push sent him sprawling on slimy flagstones, stinking of sewer.

"Up!" Something hit him in the ribs, not hard enough to break any. He rose and pulled off his hat. He was in a cellar or crypt without windows, lit dimly by a single lamp and very crowded by three Werists, one of whom was Hrothgatson. "String him up!"

The same two bruisers as before tied ropes around Horth's wrists and hung him in the center of the cell with his toes barely touching the ground. Then they armed themselves with cudgels and waited, grinning eagerly. Horth was not in the least surprised when the huntleader produced a cloth and blindfolded him. This was all standard technique to put him in a cooperative mood. He had never been subjected to quite so much of it before, but he knew of others who had. He also knew of many who might have been, but had never returned to tell.

"Now, lord?"

"No hurry. Give him time to think."

The door thundered shut.

More bluff. Horth was supposed to start worrying that his tormentors might still be in there with him, about to strike without warning. They had left him fiendishly uncomfortable, dividing his weight between strangled wrists and toes already cramped; and yet that position did ease the fire in his back.

Although Werists were known for their brutality, the satrapy was popular in Skjar. The plutocracy Stralg had overthrown had favored the rich, taxing the poor and keeping them firmly in their place. Eide Ernson kept everyone in place, but he levied no taxes at all. On clay, he owed Horth more than sixty-sixty-sixty measures of gold, probably the largest single debt in all Vigaelia. Horth knew he would never see one copper twist of it again, because any request for repayment would be answered with bronze rather than gold. This did not trouble him. When another "loan" was demanded, he would negotiate some small favor that would cost the satrap himself nothing—a ten-year monopoly on salt, for instance. Thus Eide levied no taxes; Horth waxed even richer, ready to be fleeced again in the future; and the poor paid anyway.