Dave Duncan - Children of Chaos

In truth he wasn't proud tonight. He was sick with shame at what was going to happen.

♦

The feast went well. Humbly served by their superiors, the cadets ate well, drank even better, and became stupidly raucous. Heth delivered his speech and was cheered. An ensemble of six flankleaders dressed as women dropped in to sing very badly, play pipes and drums even worse, and dance a striptease that left them wearing nothing except their collars and a total of a dozen melons. By then the audience was helpless with drunken mirth. Except the runtleader. Orlad drank mostly water and never relaxed his vigilance, as if he knew that this nonsense must presage treachery.

After the dancers had gone and the diners had eaten their fill, it was he who broke the spell. Watching him fidget, Heth was not surprised when the question came, but he saw with genuine admiration how the quiet words cut through the drunken gabble and stopped it. A born leader, that one.

"My lord? What happens next? In our training, I mean?"

"Nothing. You're done. It's over." Heth paused a moment to let the implications seep through the beer. Then he gave them another speech, and no one was drunk enough to interrupt a huntleader. "Congratulations, warriors! You know you have achieved what no men ever have. Your runtleader told me he would see you all qualified before the last caravan departed. I told him he was crazy. He has done it with days to spare and no dropouts. Yours is the honor, but you know who to thank for your success. I am going to break a host rule and promote Runt Orlad directly to flankleader."

"Fame to Orlad!" yelled Runt Waels, leaping up, beaker in hand. Another ten took up the shout and rose also, not without staggers.

Orlad sat and scowled, ever suspicious of mockery. In the silence while the others toasted his name—for even a Werist could not speak and suck on a straw at the same time—he said only, "So when do we get our collars, my lord?'

"Now. They must first be dedicated. Irig, please?"

Irig Irigson, packleader of the red, had the finest voice in the hunt. He reached into a bag he had been wearing at his hip all evening, and produced a dozen strips of shiny brass. These he took over to the god and held them high as he sang a ritual incantation. The others stood in silence until the last note reverberated away. Then he brought them over and cast them down on the table in front of Orlad.

Heth said, "Sit."

Eleven men hastily sat down. Runt Ranthr missed his stool and sprawled on the floor, but no one spared him a glance.

Orlad frowned. "What is the ritual?"

"None. You earned that collar, warrior. You won it by your own sweat and blood and no man but you has the right to hang it around your neck. The god has now blessed it. I salute you and congratulate you." Heth tried a smile, knowing it would be refused. "And I pray to holy Weru that I never meet you in battle." That was no lie. He heard quiet mutters of agreement from the other packleaders behind him.

The boy selected a length of brass, examined it, flexed it. He hooked a finger in the chain around his neck, snapped that away, and then glanced to Heth for guidance.

"I just bend it around?"

"Yes. I warn you, you will feel quite a jolt." The main reason Heth preferred the cadets to be drunk and lying on couches at this point was that the shock was little short of being struck by lightning, but he had no doubts that Orlad could survive it when so many lesser warriors had.

The others watched intently as the Florengian centered the metal at the back of his neck, then forced the two ends forward until they met. Weru, being also god of storms, honored each new Hero with a clap of thunder. The first one always seemed the loudest, and this time the bolt must have landed right outside the chapel. Stunned by the noise, several cadets tumbled off their stools. Orlad sprawled forward on the table, dislodging a cataract of dishes that fell unheard because every ear in the building was still ringing. Irig, still hovering at his back, had no need to catch him.

Then he reeled to his feet with one great bellow of jubilation, shaking both fists at the sky. He was pale and dazed, but those midnight eyes blazed with triumph as he fingered the seamless golden band encircling his neck. Now he had the power to make that neck thicker than a bear's or slender as the Vulture's, but the collar would always fit. He would die wearing it.

He sobered as the packleaders closed in to congratulate him. When their thumping and hugging was over, he returned Heth's handshake almost halfheartedly, as if impatient to move on to some new struggle. He did not resume his seat with the boys. Now Warrior Orlad stood with the men.

Who was to go next? The runts waited for Orlad's orders, but he was no longer runtleader and gave none. As cautious hands reached to the heap of brass, Bloodmouth said, "Can we do it all together, my lord?"

"If you wish."

They all agreed to that, although probably few of them saw as he had that this would conveniently forestall argument over who got the loudest thunder. Eleven leather collars were ripped away and eleven strips of brass bent into place simultaneously. One long crashing roll from the heavens sufficed for all of them. Only Waels and Hrothgat fell backward, and they were caught by Orlad and Packleader Ruthur, respectively. The Nardalborg Hunt gained another eleven warriors.

♦

They had all risen, because that was what Orlad had done. Eighteen men in that chapel at that time of year naturally gravitated into a rough circle around the fire. Thump! thump ! said the shutter.

Formalities followed. Heth told the new Heroes where they were assigned, so they knew what palls and sashes to obtain from the commissariat. He never sent new warriors straight off to the front, and they tried not to show relief when they heard that this rule still applied. He awarded them another day's rest before they must report in—nothing much would happen until the storm lifted. He told them where they would find girls waiting to help them celebrate.

So he came to the vital last rite of passage, their first chance to try out their warbeasts in earnest.

"As soon as the weather clears, of course, you are allowed a day to go hunting. Packleader, what did the scouts report?"

Ruthur of gold pack was a big man with a squeaky voice and a foolish braying laugh, which he used now. "A difficult choice, my lord! First, there's two herds of oribis up on Deadcold Hill."

Snerfrik's loud groan was followed by a chorus of boos from everyone else. Correction: from ten others. Orlad did not react. Oribis were good eating but as game for Werists they might as well be precooked.

"Rather chase ducks," Vargin said.

The packleader sniggered. "You want something more sporting? There's a bachelor moving in from the south."

A quick gasp was followed by bravado cheers. Ruthur brayed again.

"That's all?" Heth demanded angrily.

"Not another mouse on the moors, my lord."

With the rutting season fast approaching, a bachelor mammoth was an earthquake on legs. Every winter a few of the monsters were attracted to Nardalborg's females and had to be disposed of. They were slain with bronze-tipped spears, and Heth never sent less than thirty men for one mammoth. Only lunatics would try battleforming against something that size.

He said, "A difficult decision. If you choose the bachelor, then I'll send reinforcements with you, so it won't be your own hunt, and you'll have to use weapons. Or you can wait for something better in a sixday or two." Their pride would never let them do that. "I will allow individual choices," he added, glumly aware that not one of them would degrade himself by choosing the oribis. "Flankleader Orlad?"

"Oribi, my lord." No hesitation.