Dave Duncan - Children of Chaos

HERO ORLAD

soon discovered that the seer had not been lying, at least about the wine. Before left flank reached Eriander's temple, its out-of-town guest fell on his knees in the gutter, thus provoking much mirthful comment on overindulgence. He was still puking when they carried him back to the barracks, and by then the cramps had started. Orlad was faking some of it, but he was in enough real pain and distress to know that the conspirators had been dangerously overgenerous with the drug. Had the seer not warned him, they might have seen their planned entertainment ruined by the premature death of the star attraction. They left him on his rug with a bucket and went away laughing to continue the evening's program. Confident that there would be listeners in nearby cubicles, Orlad continued his playacting, and he kept it up much of the night, even after the others returned. Why should they sleep when he couldn't? The effects of the poison wore off, but he was starting to believe that he was going to die on the morrow. Praise the Lord of Battle, who alone decides !

♦

On the morrow, it rained.

At first light Orlad rose, dressed, and repeated the Heroes' morning prayer. The final words took on a significance he had never truly appreciated before: Today I will win or die .

Guests were always given the cubicles farthest from the door, where the traffic was lightest, but there were times when that seemed a very sinister courtesy. He tiptoed the length of the barracks and went out as quietly as he could. It was only then that he discovered the glorious mercy of Weru—a steady drizzle falling from a gray murk almost low enough to touch, a total absence of wind. Heroes did not kneel to thank their god, they raised both fists to the heavens, and Orlad barely restrained a scream of joy as he did so. He could not hope to win, but now he could make a fight of it. First score to him!

There would be food in the mess, but his stomach roiled at the thought. He trotted across the yard to the trough, rinsed his mouth, filled his canteen, and splashed water over a face already soaked. Rain! Oh, great god of battle!

"Orlad!" Flankleader Leorth came stumbling out of the dormitory wearing his brass collar and nothing else. He looked up at the sky in horror.

"Thought I'd make an early start!" Orlad yelled. Stealth could not help him now. "Fine day for a run." Recalling that it was polite to give thanks for hospitality, he added, "May holy Veslih reward you as you deserve."

He headed for the gate.

"Wait!" Leorth came running to intercept him, wincing as his bare feet impacted the pebbles. "No, no! I'm sure the Vulture won't expect you to travel on a day like this. There will be snow on—"

"My lord commands and I obey."

"But after your gripe last night—"

Orlad spun to face him. "Shouldn't have said 'early' start. Meant 'head' start."

Leorth's guilt flamed red above his flaxen beard. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that I intend to make a fight of it. You I will send to Weru to announce my coming. And your precious Vulture can flap on his nest all he wants."

Something genuinely catlike showed in Leorth's eyes. "Would you prefer to make it single combat?"

"Not after that wine, thank you." Orlad was being unfair in condemning unfairness, because fairness was no part of the code. The road to victory need not be straight, Heth said.

"Then I wish you an interesting journey." Smile. "I wish you good hunting and an early death." Sneer. Orlad trotted out the gate. Now he believed.

♦

He jogged on cobbled streets between buildings of stone, ran on a muddy track lined by poor-folk shacks, and dropped back to a walk as he reached the vegetable plots and orchards beyond the town. Already the Vulture's Nest was fading into the grayness behind him. He wondered if anyone had yet dared waken the satrap to break the bad news.

The trail wound interminably through a maze of tiny, stony plots, but the harvest was in and the leaves all shed, leaving a drab, waterlogged landscape that offered no hiding places. He had seen no empty mats in the barracks, and no one had slipped out before he did, so he could assume that the ambush could not be set up yet... unless Leorth's flank was to have help, which seemed unlikely. Twelve against one should be adequate.

Seers never lied, but that Dantio creature bent truth like a sailor tying knots—going around dressed as a woman, flaunting a distaff! Wasn't that lying? Of course, he wasn't actually a man, either. Gelding was the most fucking horrible thing to do to a kid, and artist Benard's blasphemy in comparing it to Werist training should have cost him half his teeth. Forget him. Forget all three of them. Families were for children. Orlad Orladson would live or die alone.

Tactics?

A backward glance revealed nothing moving among the stark black trees and tumbledown stone dykes. Yet his prints in the mud were clear enough. The skin on his back crawled at the thought of pursuit. Wind and rain would make tracking harder, but there wasn't really enough of either yet to throw warbeasts off the scent. The worst thing he could possibly do was panic, although only an utter madman could stay calm with twelve warbeasts on his track. Breath recovered, he moved up to a trot again.

Soon he neared the end of the farmland, where even Tryforian farmers gave up. Ahead of him lay more orchards, then pasture rising steadily until mist became fog and fog turned to cloud. This slope overlooking the town and offering prime grazing, which some old-time ruler had claimed for his own, could only be the King's Grass. Today the killing field.

Tactics?

Know your enemy.

Leorth liked being feline and feline meant ambush. Almost certainly this would be his first human kill, so he would want to do the deed himself. In order to let the satrap watch, he would have planned to set up his trap close by the trail, having spread the rest of his flank around King's Grass to make certain the victim did not escape. The wine had been poisoned so the killers would have time in the morning to take up position—nothing slowed a man like a night of vomiting and belly cramps.

But Orlad had been forewarned, thanks to brother-sister Dantio. Leorth would have to go dog, meaning running the quarry to exhaustion. It would be a straight chase, and holy Weru had sent this glorious mist and drizzle to deny Therek the pleasure of watching.

Orlad reached the last scabby trees. Boulders of all sizes lay scattered over the King's Grass, everything from nasty cobbles for breaking ankles to monoliths the size of small houses, but he recalled that there was a denser boulder field near the crest of the first rise. That would certainly have been where Leorth had planned to lie in wait, still within the satrap's view. Conversely, the pursuers must go through there, too, so it would be the best place for the quarry to make his last stand and ambush the frustrated ambushers.

Orlad had no reason to carry a waterlogged pall now. Pausing to shed it, he heard a low complaint, which he traced to a solitary mouflon tethered to a last, isolated tree some distance uphill to his left. If he had still doubted the eunuch's warning, that poor bleating beast would have convinced him. The herds had been removed in case they distracted the hunt, but a light snack had been left there to reward the returning victors. His murder had been carefully catered.

As he kicked off his sandals, he scanned the slope below him. The town itself was completely invisible, but he guessed that the hunt had started by now. Let the game begin!

He began to lope, angling into the wind. Up ahead a clammy breeze dragged filmy draperies of rain across the hillside. It would carry his scent back to the hunt, but even that might be turned to his advantage.