Dave Duncan - Children of Chaos

With odds of twelve to one and permission to accept all necessary casualties, Flankleader Leorth must be feeling very confident as he closed in on the boulder train. He need no longer worry about driving the subject out into the open to die, because the mist had blocked the satrap's view. He could guess why Orlad had headed upwind and he was certainly not going to lead his flank into that nightmare maze and then turn downwind. With only one man opposing him, he did not start by seizing the high points, as he should have done. Indeed he almost made a game of it, spreading his men out to enter the boulder field in line abreast.

Unaware that the entire former Nardalborg runt class was in there also, every pair caught what they thought was Orlad's scent and tracked it back, straight into the labyrinth.

Shivering with bloodlust, Orlad watched from his perch as they came. He was in full cat-form now, with the addition of a pair of dagger fangs, a useful variant old Gzurg had told him about. Had he been thinking at human rate, he might have been amazed at his opponents' folly, but all he knew was that the nearest of them, slinking in on all fours practically under his aerie, was white and feline. Close to its tail lumbered a great yellow bear-thing on two legs—standard practice being to pair speed with strength. They could as easily be Leorth and Merkurtu as any others. They were heading to pass below Orlad on his left. Remembering his buddy waiting below, he forced his tail to stop twitching and point right, so that Waels could circle around that way, keeping out of sight. So far, this was just standard training.

For almost sixty heartbeats, Leorth's flank prowled through the rocks, looking for one warrior. Battle broke out everywhere simultaneously—hunter encountering quarry, quarry pouncing on hunter—just as the cat below Orlad decided to jump up on this convenient rock. Raising its tawny eyes, it saw a panther looking down. Orlad screamed to warn Waels as he sprang, but his voice was just one in the uproar. Three Tryforians broke from cover, four Nardalborgians raced out after them, and a free-for-all developed in the open.

Orlad's opponent, already rearing back to leap upward, was bowled over by the darker warbeast. Each immediately tried to disembowel the other with rear claws. Yes, the white cat was Leorth. Although he was underneath, he had a momentary advantage because he could bring his forepaws around to rip Orlad's back while his own was unreachable. He tucked in his head to try for a throat bite and Orlad drove a tusk deep into his left eye.

Even that blow would not kill a warbeast outright, but it did throw Leorth into convulsions. Freed from his grasp, Orlad was able to do a thorough job of ripping his neck open.

He rose from the bloody, twitching corpse to look for his mate, and heard the struggle before he dodged around the boulder and saw it. The bear-creature was still upright, roaring as it tried to hug Waels to death. Waels had gone badger—squat and thick and solid—and fortunately had managed to keep his front paws inside the deadly embrace; so far he was resisting the crushing pressure that would otherwise collapse him. The bear was visibly shrinking in height as it moved bulk into its arms; Waels's neck was growing steadily longer as he tried for its throat with his teeth.

Waels was in trouble, but Orlad would have helped him even if he had been winning. Claws extended, he went up the enemy's back as if it were a tree. The bear-thing screamed and dropped its victim. It reeled back in an effort to smash this new tormentor into the rock behind it. Orlad sawed at its neck with his tusks. Waels hit the ground, rolled, and then went for its groin and belly, front paws flailing in a blur of knife-sharp claws. It screamed again and crumpled in a scarlet flood. The winners savaged it until they were certain it was dead. That was all.

Silence had returned. Hero battles never lasted long.

The tang of blood in his mouth warned Orlad that he was ravenous. He needed meat, raw meat for preference. There was meat there. Forbidden meat. Must not. Bad example.

He was so overwhelmed by the excitement of the battle and the smell of blood that he needed a moment to realize that there was a blazing agony in his back and some of the blood must be his own. Fortunately, he had made his hide loose enough that Leorth's claws had slid before they could dig deep; although the gashes ran the full width of his back, they were mostly superficial.

Heal first, retroform second. He twisted around and managed to lick the lowermost cuts—which helped little with healing, but felt good. Another large and slobbery tongue joined in. Bloodmouth was an entirely appropriate name now for this gory monster with the familiar scent. He wagged his stumpy tail, but that was just Waels being consciously funny.

Orlad managed a purr.

Not just the healing. Something else wrong ... yes, a leader must not lie around letting his wounds be licked. He struggled up on all fours and headed for the King's Grass, still in battleform, spine very stiff. Waels shivered and yelped and became a man on hands and feet. He rose and came to walk alongside, chattering human noises that the Orlad beast did not understand.

Death smells led him to many-many bodies on the grass. Most were warbeasts, but a few had tried to change back as they died and those looked much worse—half-human monsters, fur alternating with livid corpse-pallor, all streaked watery crimson by the rain. Their brass collars, which had been golden bright only minutes before, were tarnished now to a dingy brown. Two-legged people were dragging out more dead.

Orlad drew a deep breath and retroformed. The world of smell and sound dimmed; vision and thought surged back. But it really hurt, and he would have to go through it again because he wasn't properly healed yet. He turned a shriek of agony into a brave attempt at a victory howl.

"All right?" he asked Waels. "Anything broken?"

His buddy was one big walking bruise, but he was grinning. "Not anymore."

Thirteen corpses. Plus the two he and Waels had killed. "Who did we lose?"

"Caedaw and Vargin," Snerfrik said glumly. He was sitting on a rock and gingerly flexing his right arm, which looked well chewed but mostly healed already.

"Ranthr, Charnarth," Hrothgat added. "My lord is kind ... one got away."

That was bad news, although the massacre could not stay secret long. "Eleven for four? This is a great victory, men!" Anything better than fifty-fifty was good in the Heroes' eyes when the initial odds had been roughly even. "We have done well, for cubs."

"My lord is kind," Waels said, staring into the fog. "You didn't see any cattle on your way up here, did you, lord? I could eat a mammoth."

"I could eat anything ," Namberson muttered.

Judging by the corpses, so could some members of the flank. It happened, and a wise leader pretended not to notice unless the offense was flagrant.

Now what? The leader must decide. First the mouflon, to dull the insane craving for meat. And then, according to the rules, Orlad should report the unfortunate incident to Satrap Therek. That ought to end the matter, because self-defense was an unalienable right within the order. Resisting arrest was never a crime. But who had ambushed whom? And if Orlad Orladson expected a fair judgment from Therek Hragson, he was still as crazy as he had been yesterday at this time.

He would have to lead his troop back to Nardalborg and rely on Heth to shield the others from the satrap's wrath. He doubted very much that even Heth could shelter the hated Florengian, though. Would he let Orlad sneak away and head out over the pass ahead of Caravan Six? A solitary crossing would be quite a feat for any man, even a Hero, and he would need the proper clothes, and rations for the first leg, to get him as far as the cache at First Ice. Would Heth let him attempt it? No. Orlad could not even ask him. Therek would send a seer to find out how the criminal had escaped and then loose his murderous rage on Heth.