Dave Duncan - Children of Chaos

Heth discovered that he was no longer surprised at being surprised by Orlad. "Warrior Snerfrik?"

The big man stared in bewilderment at the Florengian. He looked around the equally puzzled faces of his friends. Very hesitantly he said, "The mammoth, my lord...?," so his indecision turned the statement into a question.

"Warrior Vargin?"

Vargin went through the same process. All of them did, leaving the vote at eleven mammoths and one oribi. Orlad seemed quite unworried that he alone had made the coward's choice, but he understood Heth's one-word bark—

" Why ?"

He jumped to attention. "My lord is kind. Since I intend to apply for immediate transfer to Florengia I do not wish to risk an injury that might keep me from traveling on Caravan Six. My lord is kind."

He had added twist to prod. No one ever volunteered for service in Florengia anymore. But he just had, so who was the coward now?

"That explains it," Heth said grimly. "Dismissed—except for you, Flankleader."

♦

Snow swirled across the floor, smoke belched from the hearth, and then came a massive thud as the departing Werists slammed the door. While calm returned to the chapel, Heth stood staring glumly down at burning logs, ignoring the new Werist waiting at his side. He could taste vomit. For the first time since he had wrapped on his own brass—no, for the first time since Therek had tied a probationer's rope around him—Heth was tempted to disobey an order. Thump ! said the shutter. Finally: "So you want a transfer, do you?"

"My lord is kind."

"In public, you ask."

"My lord, with respect, I did mean to apply to my packleader tomorrow."

Heth grunted. "Then my fault for asking. Let's discuss it. I want you in my hunt. You are the best. Stay and you'll be a packleader inside two years." He might advance even faster in Stralg's embattled horde if he lived long enough; promotion there was by survival more than ability. "However, if you persist in your transfer request, I cannot refuse you after what you have achieved with the runts. You have earned the right."

"My lord is kind!"

Heth glanced at him, wondering if he had just missed an actual smile. If so, it had been directed at the image of the god. Although the kid was staring fixedly ahead, he was certainly pleased. It was a possible solution—ship him out and put off Therek somehow until Caravan Six was out of reach.

"You do realize that the Vigaelian Werists in Florengia will see you as one of the enemy and the natives will count you traitor? Every time you go into battle you'll be attacked by the wrong side, or even both sides."

"It is a risk I must take."

"So you won't be put into battle. You'll be set to scouting and probably spying."

"My lord is kind. I do not speak or understand Florengian."

So he couldn't be a spy. And didn't care. This was like trying to talk a would-be suicide down off the battlements, which Heth had attempted several times, but never with success.

Twelve curses ! "There is another problem. A few days ago I reported to Hostleader Therek that the runts were about to be initiated. He replied that I am to send you to Tryfors right away."

Another quick glance. The boy looked slightly puzzled, not terrified. Would he ever look terrified? And obviously he was not going to ask why.

"I don't know why," Heth said. "In this he was merely confirming orders he gave me in the spring, when you were sworn."

"I am very honored that the satrap takes an interest in me, my lord." The kid's voice was perhaps just a hairsbreadth less confident now. Suicidally stubborn but not quite stupid.

"He always has. They don't call him the Vulture for nothing. You do know that he lost three sons in the war? He blames the Florengian Werists for their deaths."

"The oath-breakers, my lord. I, too, despise and hate them."

Weru 's balls !

Heth wanted to scream out, He is crazy! He is my father and he is crazy! He wants to run you for the hunt ! But he couldn't say that. Therek Hragson had fought all his life for his brother, for his oaths, for the cause he believed in. He'd almost died a dozen times and always refused to quit and that was why he looked like a monster now. He was Heth's father, his mentor, his liege lord, and the words could not be spoken.

If the boy couldn't sense Therek's insanity, then there was no hope for him.

"Dismissed. We'll talk again when the weather clears."

thirty-four

CUTRATH HOROLDSON

and a much-reduced band of fellow Werists arrived at Tryfors in a driving rainstorm. He took an instant dislike to the town and familiarity only confirmed his first impression. For one thing, it was so overcrowded with Werists that there were not enough Nymphs to go round, and on his very first night he got blacklisted by both the commercial cathouses just for playing a little rough. Almost as bad, Tryfors was ruled by his crazy Uncle Vulture, who looked even more like a plucked stork dying of scurvy than he had on his last visit to Kosord. There were rumors that the next caravan might be put off until spring. Given the choice of freezing to death in the Edgelands or spending half a year with Uncle Vulture, Cutrath would ask for time to think.

He was lonely and homesick. Back in Kosord he had been the satrap's son, always able to call for the drinks. Here he was only the Fist's nephew and likely to get beaten up for it any time he went near a beer shop. His only pelf was the same pittance every other man received. He'd set out with a fortune in gold and silver sewn into his pall and lost every twist of it the first time he got laid—whatever she'd put in the beer had nearly killed him. Since his mother had predicted something of the sort while weeping farewells all over his brass collar, he was glad she was far away and would never know. Worst of all, perhaps, was the knowledge that the buddies he'd set out with from Kosord had vanished somewhere along the Wrogg. He was deeply hurt that his friends had abandoned him.

When blue pack was ordered out to Nardalborg, he was glad to see the last of Tryfors. An easy two-day jog, they said. They hadn't mentioned the slope, or the weather, or the weight of a waterlogged pall. They ignored the black clouds boiling up in the north. They took no account of what a long river voyage did to men sitting idle in a boat. They forgot that a satrap's son in training would naturally do his long-distance running with some help from a flunky driving a chariot.

Blue pack left town before dawn with everyone making nervy jokes about which body parts were most likely to freeze and fall off. Cutrath trotted along in the front row between Packleader Jarlion and Center-Flankleader Quirb, whom reassignments and desertions had left as his last remaining companions from Kosord. They both had families back there, raising dark suspicion that they had been sent along only to see Cutrath safely delivered to the Edgelands, and would then be free to go home.

At the top of the first hill, Cutrath and some others threw up. After that the stronger runners were set to help the weaker ones by caning their legs every time they faltered. That day was the longest of his life, and very nearly the last, because around noon the black clouds arrived with gale winds and blinding snow. Six men either collapsed completely or became lost in the storm. Cutrath did reach Halfway Hall alive, but he had no memory of doing so, and later could not counter taunts that he had been carried in.

Halfway Hall would have held a dozen men adequately and twenty at a pinch, but forty-three were pickles in ajar. Food and fuel ran out the next day; the blizzard did not.