Horg stared down at the head, whose eyes—frozen in death—seemed to be staring up at him, and he turned a ghastly color, almost as pale as the bloody head.
“I see you two recognize each other,” said Norgaard.
Draya’s blood tingled. Her stomach clenched. Her heart raced; her palms were sweaty. She had heard warriors describe similar sensations as they stood waiting in the shield-wall for the order to attack.
Horg licked his lips. He was not about to give in without a fight. She could see him scrambling about desperately for some way to weasel out.
Vindrash, help me! Draya prayed. Give me courage.
Standing atop the dune, alone and apart, Draya called out to Norgaard. “Does this mean, Chief, that you have recovered the Vektan Torque?”
A collective gasp swept through the crowd. Heads jerked in her direction. Eyes widened in shock, jaws dropped, mouths gaped. Among those staring at her was Horg. He scowled, his hands clenching to fists.
“Kai Priestess.” Norgaard bowed low, in respect. “It grieves me deeply to say that we did not recover the sacred torque, though my son was almost killed in the attempt.”
Norgaard raised his voice, which wasn’t really necessary. The crowd was so quiet, so attentive, he could have whispered and they would have heard every word.
“The godlord whose head lies at the feet of this craven coward”—Norgaard pointed at Horg—“came to us flaunting the sacred Vektan Torque. He claimed that the gods of the Vindrasi were dead and the fact that he had the torque proved it. He demanded that we worship his gods and pay him in silver and cattle to leave us in peace. We answered that we would pay him in blood!”
The Torgun cheered. The Heudjun shifted uneasily and glanced at each other, their faces darkening.
Norgaard resumed speaking. “The ogre godlord had the temerity to wear the Vektan Torque into battle, hoping to demoralize us. Instead, it gave us courage. Our Bone Priestess”—he indicated Treia, who stood at his side—“summoned the Dragon Kahg. The dragon, too, was furious at the loss of the sacred torque. He attacked the ogres, and with the Dragon Kahg’s help, the Torgun routed the ogres, sent them running for their ships like whipped dogs.”
“If you defeated the ogres and killed their godlord, where is the torque?” demanded Sven in a stern voice.
Norgaard rested his hand proudly on Skylan’s shoulder. “My son challenged the godlord who wore the torque to fight in single combat. Skylan killed the ogre and took the torque from the whoreson’s neck. But the ogres do not fight with honor. They had brought one of their foul shamans into battle. The shaman used evil magicks on my son and froze him where he stood, so that he could not move a muscle. The shaman took the torque from my son’s hand and ran off with it to his ship, which immediately set sail.”
“Why didn’t you pursue them?” Sven asked, frowning.
“The ogres had set our dragonship ablaze, leaving it damaged. We spent all night repairing it. Some of my warriors tried to swim after them,” Norgaard added with pride, “but that proved impossible.”
“What of the Dragon Kahg?” Draya asked. “Why didn’t he take the torque from the ogres?”
Norgaard looked to Treia. All dealings with the Dragon Kahg were referred to the Bone Priestess.
Treia seemed reluctant. She had a thin, reedy voice that could sometimes be shrill. She knew this, and she had never liked to speak in public.
“The Dragon Kahg—” Treia’s voice cracked from nervousness. She swallowed and started again. “The Dragon Kahg feared that if he attacked the ogre ships, the ogres would destroy the torque.”
The carved eyes of the dragon gleamed red. Perhaps it was merely the position of the ship, but the eyes seemed to be glaring at Horg. Because of him, the ogres were now in possession of one of the powerful Five Dragons of Vektia. Draya heard the terrible news with equanimity. She had allowed herself to hope for a brief moment that disaster had been averted. The gods had deemed otherwise, though whose gods were doing the deeming was open to question. For the moment, the Gods of Raj appeared to be on the ascendant.
Horg tried one last bold move. “Lies!” he sneered. “All lies. I will tell you the truth. Several weeks ago, I was riding to visit one of the Steppe Clans. During the night, I was attacked by thieves. I fought them, but there were too many, and they took the torque from me. I did not tell anyone about this, for I was determined to find the thieves myself and have my revenge. And now I can put a name to the thief. Skylan Ivorson! He and Torgun raiders stole the torque! He gave it to the ogres when it became clear that the Torgun would lose the battle—”
The Torgun on board the ship howled in rage. Several of the warriors leaped into the water and started toward the shore. Norgaard barked a sharp command, and they floundered to a halt.
The Heudjun were confused. Clearly they did not know whom to believe, and they started arguing among themselves. Horg’s cronies were loud in his support. Others like Sven were troubled and eyed Horg darkly. Norgaard was respected among the Heudjun. Horg was not. Few trusted him. Yet, he was their Chief. Their own honor was at stake. They wanted to believe him.
Norgaard shifted his gaze to Draya, giving her fair warning of his next move. She understood, and she gave a slight nod in return.
“Since it is our word against the word of the Chief of Chiefs, we seek the judgment of the Kai Priestess,” said Norgaard.
Everyone, including Horg, turned to Draya. Horg wore an expression of confidence that was not entirely misplaced. Never before had Draya crossed him.
She fears me, he would be telling himself. She won’t dare betray me. She knows what I’ll do to her.
Draya drew in a deep breath. No one stood beside her. She was alone on the dunes. Yet she felt the supporting touch of an immortal hand.
“Norgaard, Chief of the Torgun, tells the truth.” Draya spoke loudly, clearly. “It is Horg who lies. He admitted to me on the night of the beacon fire that he gave the Vektan Torque to the ogres in return for a pledge that they would sail off and leave us in peace. And as part of the deal, Horg also gave the ogres the Torgun. That is why the Heudjun did not go to your aid, Norgaard. He promised the ogres we would not.”
Horg flushed in rage. His thick brows contracted. He would have spoken, but Sven forestalled him. Stepping out from the line of warriors, Sven faced Draya.
“You knew the sacred torque was missing, Kai Priestess,” he said in accusing tones. “Why didn’t you make the truth known to us before now?”
Draya felt half-suffocated. The hand on her shoulder tightened its grip.
“I was afraid of Horg and what he would do to me,” Draya replied. Shoving up the sleeve of her robe, she showed him the bruise marks. “I was ashamed.”
Draya lifted her head, stood tall and proud.
“As Kai Priestess, I swear by the blessed Vindrash that I am telling the truth.” She raised her hand to touch the silver dragon amulet she wore around her neck. “Norgaard Ivorson, I call upon you to swear to Vindrash that you are telling the truth.”
“I swear by Vindrash,” said Norgaard firmly. “And I swear by Torval, who gave us victory and delivered the ogres into our hands.”
“He is the liar,” Horg cried loudly, “and so is my wife! They’re in this together! She paid the Torgun to steal the torque. You all know the Kai have long been angry that it was taken from them!”
Draya looked at Norgaard and saw a smile touch his lips. There could be only one response to this terrible charge, and she realized suddenly that Norgaard had been digging this trap ever since his arrival. Horg had not merely stumbled into the pit. He had jumped in feetfirst.
“The honor of the Torgun has been called into question,” Norgaard said. “There is only one way to settle this. I call for the Vutmana! Let the gods be my judge.”
He turned to his warriors. “Are the Torgun prepared to back me in this challenge?”
The warriors answered with a mighty shout that caused the Venjekar to rock in the waves.
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“I accept the challenge!” Horg shouted. He glanced around confidently at his warriors. “The honor of the Heudjun is at stake! The Heudjun will back me!”
When the Kai Priestesses had first laid down the Law of the Challenge known as the Vutmana, they had wisely understood that the practice was open to abuse. Unless checked, any ambitious young buck hoping to become a Chief could issue a challenge. A Clan Chief might well find himself forced to spend most of his time fending off rivals.
The Kai had therefore declared a Chief could ask his clansmen to fight with him. For their part, the clansmen of the warrior making the challenge had to be prepared to back up his challenge with their blood. In addition, the challenger had to stake his own wealth on the challenge. If the gods went against him, he would pay a substantial sum to the winner for the insult. Issuing a challenge was thus a very serious matter, not to be undertaken lightly.
Horg was confident. The Heudjun warriors would never back down from a fight, no matter whether they believed him or not.
But long moments passed and no one spoke. Horg turned, glowering, to Sven. “Well? Why do you wait? You are not afraid of these yapping dogs, are you?”
Sven’s lips tightened. He stared grimly at Horg. “I do not know what others will do,” Sven declared. “For myself, I will not fight to save the skin of a man I consider to be a liar, a drunk, and a bully. A man who has brought shame on us all.”
Sven threw down his battle axe. The weapon landed in the sand at Horg’s feet, not far from the ogre’s grisly head.
Horg’s eyes bulged. He seemed to swell with fury. “You do not fight, Sven Teinar, because you are a coward!” Horg glared around at the others. “What about the rest of you? Are all of you craven?”
In answer, Sven’s sons proudly threw down their weapons. Other warriors joined them, tossing their weapons at his feet. Their women cheered and called out support. Horg’s latest concubine clapped her hands wildly.
At last, only Horg’s cronies remained. They held on to their weapons, hedging their bets, but they sidled away from him. None would look at him.
Horg was angry and he was puzzled. He should have kept quiet, but he had drunk a good deal of cider, and the spirits seized hold of his mouth.
“Sons of whores!” he raved. “I saved your sorry arses! Two hundred ogres there were! Two hundred monsters who would have come howling down on you in the night, slitting your throats, raping your women, and burning your homes! I gave them a moldy shinbone, and the ogres sailed away and left you—”
Horg came to a stammering halt. He had just realized what he was saying.
Sven eyed Horg balefully. “You admit it, then. You gave the ogres the sacred torque, and you lied when you claimed it was stolen.”
“I admit nothing,” Horg said sullenly. “Except that all Heudjun are pisspants.”
Sven turned to Norgaard. “Chief of the Torgun, our shame is very great. We ask the spirits of your dead to forgive us. You are free to challenge Horg Thekkson to the Vutmana. We will not oppose you.”
Sven walked off across the sand. His sons followed him, as did the rest of the warriors. Their womenfolk walked with them, putting their arms around their husbands in sympathy and ordering excited, clamoring children to keep quiet.
Horg looked dazed, like a man who feels pain in his back and looks down to find the head of a spear protruding from his gut.
The Torgun steered their dragonship in to the shore. Men jumped over the sides to assist in the landing. Norgaard did not jump into the water with the others. He was forced to walk down the ship’s gangplank. Horg’s eyes glittered. The old look of cunning was back. He turned to his cronies and grinned. Draya could not hear his words, but she could guess them.
“I’ll be fighting a cripple,” he said.
His cronies laughed and clustered around him, pleased that they had placed their bets on the right man.
Splashing through the waves, heading into shore, Skylan and Norgaard looked at each other; then Skylan threw back his head and laughed.
A thrill of excitement surged through Draya.
One of the rules of the Vutmana was that a Chief may select a champion to fight in his stead.
A rule Horg had apparently forgotten.
“Thank you, Vindrash!” Draya whispered.
CHAPTER
4
Draya returned to the Great Hall of the Gods and was thankful to find it empty. Soon, she would have to assemble Fria and the other Bone Priestesses, and the acolytes would also assemble to prepare for the Vutmana. But for now, she was alone with Vindrash.
Horg would not face the crippled Norgaard. He would have to fight Skylan, the strong warrior son. Horg had forgotten the provision about champions, apparently. Or perhaps he didn’t even know it. The Law of the Challenge was recited every year during the annual Clanmeld, but Horg generally paid scant attention to the recitations, which admittedly went on for days. He spent the time jesting with his friends or catching up on his sleep to be ready for the nightly revels.
The Gods of the Vindrasi judged the Vutmana, determined which man was best suited to be Chief and gave that man the victory. But were the Gods of the Vindrasi fit to judge?
Draya pondered this question in an agony of doubt.
The Vindrasi Gods had been too weak to hold on to the Vektan Torque, allowing it to fall into the hands of one of the Vindrasi’s most feared enemies. Draya’s one poor consolation was that the ogres did not know what they had or how to use it. They might learn over time, however, and that could not be allowed. The spiritbone of the Vektia Dragon had to be recovered.
A daunting task! An old man of the Luknar Clan, who claimed he had seen eighty winters, told tales of having visited the ogres’ realm as a boy, during the glory days when the Vindrasi had been a mighty people, ruling the oceans as their gods ruled the heavens. But that was long ago. Many years had passed since the Vindrasi last crossed the seas to ogre nations. Vindrasi glory was now nothing more than an old man’s fading memory.
No one knew now how to find the ogres’ realm. The Vindrasi dragonships would have to sail seas strange to them, and they would need a strong, wise, intelligent Chief of Chiefs to lead them on what could be a desperate voyage for their own survival. Half the time Horg was so drunk, he could not find his own slop bucket. Draya remembered his threat to get rid of the Kai, to get rid of her.
Could the gods be trusted to make the right judgment?
Draya’s faith was her reason for being. As her own life grew more wretched, she clung to Vindrash for support, turning to the goddess for comfort and consolation. Now it seemed Vindrash clung to her.
Torval had fought a great battle and lost. The goddess Desiria was dead. Vindrash was in hiding, unable to respond to the prayers of her people for fear her enemies might find her. If the Gods of the Vindrasi were vanquished, the people who depended on them would be left weak and vulnerable, exposed to powerful enemies. For centuries, the Vindrasi had been conquerers. Now they would be the conquered, their land occupied by strangers, forced to bow to strange kings.
Which left Draya with a terrible decision to make. Could she entrust the future of her people to gods who were fighting for their very existence?
Kneeling before the statue of Vindrash, Draya brought her question to the goddess and waited, trembling, for the answer.
The eyes of the goddess were empty. There was no life in them.
“Don’t do this to me!” Draya cried out. She beat on the floor of the Great Hall with her fists. “Tell me that I can trust you!”
She heard the hiss of the wind through the chinks in the wooden walls. She heard the laughter of children and the squabbling cries of seabirds quarreling over a dead fish. She heard the scream of a swooping hawk.
Draya curled in on herself, wrapped her arms around her knees, and moaned. She was so very tired. The darkness was so very dark. She was so very alone.
“Give me an answer!” she prayed.
The response w
as silence.
Draya sat back on her heels.
Perhaps that was the answer. . . .
That evening, the Heudjun Priestesses assembled in the Great Hall of the Gods. The young acolytes were excited. They did not understand the terrible import, and they viewed the Vutmana as a holiday. The older women were more subdued, for they recognized that whatever the outcome, life for the Heudjun would never be the same.
“If Horg is judged innocent, we are in trouble,” Sven told his wife. “He will take the opportunity to avenge himself on those of us who opposed him, and there will be nothing we can do to stop him.”
“You did what you had to do, Husband,” Fria said practically. “Horg gave the sacred torque to our enemies to save his own flabby skin. You could not condone such a heinous crime.”
She gave her husband a hug. “No matter what happens, my love, I am proud of you. You did right, and so the gods will judge.”
“I did right when I married you,” Sven told his wife fondly, and he kissed her on her forehead.
The Great Hall buzzed with conversations, each woman relating what she knew of the ceremony. Draya had never presided over a Vutmana. Neither she nor any of the Bone Priestesses of the Heudjun had ever seen one. Horg had become Chief of Chiefs upon the death of his father, the former Chief. There had been no challengers. Too late they realized their mistake, and now they were paying for it in shame and humiliation. Horg’s dishonor was their dishonor. The possibility that the Torgun, the poorest clan among the Vindrasi, would gain ascendancy over the Heudjun, their Chief becoming Chief of Chiefs, was a bitter draft to swallow.
Vindraholm had been chosen lord city long ago by the fabled Kai Priestess Griselda the Man-Woman to settle a feud between the Heudjun Clan, who resided in Vindraholm, and the Svegund Clan, who wanted their city, Einholm, to receive the honor. Griselda had traveled to each of the cities. On the day she arrived in Vindraholm, the sun shone brightly. When she went to visit Einholm, the city was hit with one of the worst storms in recent memory. The will of the gods was clear.
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