by Dave Duncan
The huntleader smiled. “Two days should be more than ample, my lord. If we encounter any ice devils, they will be exhausted and starving.”
Fabia could not let such folly go unchecked. Nor could she discuss her chthonic efforts to view the Queen of Shadows. She suspected that her attempts had been somehow blocked, for her dreams had revealed nothing except brief glimpses of Saltaja gnawing on bloody meat and crossing the Dust River on a bridge of corpses. She had no idea whether those were genuine sendings or the Mother of Lies plying her with nightmares.
“Lord Marno, I beg you not to underestimate Saltaja Hragsdor! She ruled all Vigaelia for fifteen years. No one has ever done that before. I will never be convinced that she is dead until I see her carcass. She did have food. She had four sixty head, on the hoof.”
Into the angry silence, Giunietta spoke softly. “The lady may be mistaken, but she means what she says.”
The Mutineer drummed fingers on the table. “I want to raze this place. If I leave a garrison here, I risk drawing an attack by Stralg’s forces to retake it. If he gains any inkling that his sister may be approaching, he will certainly try to reoccupy the site. But I see your point. Huntleader, we will take this warning seriously. I will leave you here with blue pack for a thirty to kill any stragglers coming over the pass. They should be in no condition to fight back. When you are ready to withdraw, take enough from the food cache for your own use, and then burn the rest, and the buildings. Start your patrols right away.”
Melchitte rose. “My lord is kind.” He stepped over the bench and headed for the door.
“And when you come back, bring our prisoner.” Something about Marno’s smirk raised Fabia’s hackles. She noted both Dantio and Giunietta looking at him strangely. She recalled Felice’s warning that he might have surprises of his own.
He popped one of the round, green peppery fruits into his armory of teeth and spoke around it. “What are your plans?”
“We have no plans, only wishes,” Dantio said. “First I must rescue the seers Stralg kidnapped. When he set out to invade Florengia, he ignored the Eldest’s protests and took a dozen seers with him. We know that most have since died, but the survivors must be informed that the compact is now broken and their ordeal is ended. If we can rescue them, the Fist will lose his eyes.”
Cavotti seemed curiously unenthusiastic at the prospect. “That will help in the long run, certainly. I agree that mercy requires us to release the poor women, but I must consider how best to use this turn of events. Giunietta, how can I inform them of the news?”
The three of them discussed seers. Fabia explained to Orlad and Waels, then began considering her own priorities. When Cavotti reached a long arm for a sweet roll, she was ready.
“My lord? Before we discuss what we want you to do for us, why don’t you explain what you intend to do with us?”
The ogreish, misshapen eyes turned to study her. Seeing that she bore his gaze without flinching, he said, “Aren’t we allies against the Fist? Don’t you trust me, lady Fabia?”
“I hope we can be allies. No, I don’t trust you.”
He raised his eyebrows, snuggling them up around his horn stub. He was amused. “Wise of you, perhaps. I’m not sure just how I want to use you. Your arrival has changed things considerably.” He pulled something out of the nearest bowl and crunched it with his millstone teeth.
“Ten years ago, Stralg controlled the Face, and we were a raggle-taggle pack of oath-breakers hiding out in the jungles around Ocean. Every year after that we grew stronger. Every year we grew stronger faster. Now Stralg is down to about three sixty-sixty and I have more men than he does. I need more, because I have been herding him this way, to the northwest. I knew he would want to keep his lines to Vigaelia open. He knew I knew that, and knew I would always leave this direction less defended than any other. We both have seers and know more or less where the enemy is. We are playing a gigantic game of tégale.”
He paused to nibble while Fabia made a quick translation.
“The art in this sort of war lies in concentration and dispersion. Last rainy season Stralg occupied the town of Miona. He squeezed twenty sixty of his men in there, so we surrounded it and burned it. Few Heroes escaped, and almost no extrinsics. He hasn’t made that mistake again. That is why he has not occupied Celebre yet. At the moment he holds roughly the area from Umsina to Veritano, including Celebre, but he has only a token force in the city itself. Even our advantage in numbers would not hold him if he wanted to break out, but he doesn’t, because Veritano is his escape route, understand? He was stocking it, making ready for a pullout over the pass in the spring.” The Mutineer grinned, which was a nightmare sight. “A Stralg pullout! He goes first and the Old One takes the hindmost.”
Again Fabia translated for her neighbors. Waels was smiling, Orlad scowling.
“Armies never willingly give battle,” Cavotti said, “unless they are sure of at least a local advantage in numbers. Eventually I will force Stralg into a corner, bring up all my reserves, and crush him. I came here because we learned that he had left Veritano vulnerable. He miscalculated, or else he hoped to trap me into a bad move. Either way, I took the bait. I planned to burn it, expecting him to rush in and take it back so he could restart his escape plan. Reinforcement here would shrink his perimeter elsewhere, understand, and make life easier for us. But I do not want to lose men.
“Now you bring news that there is no back door for my lord Stralg. Not only have you burned his bridges, but Vigaelia has turned on the spawn of Hrag. His brothers and sister are dead. He is alone. This makes a real change, and will require new strategy. Any beast is most dangerous when cornered. I can try to keep him ignorant of this development. Or I may let him find out. If I do that, what will he do? Break out to the south, and abandon hope of going home?”
Dantio muttered, “Open negotiations?,” but Cavotti was obviously addressing Orlad. There was a crackling tension between the two Werists.
Orlad asked Fabia a few questions to make sure he understood. Then he said, in his accented Florengian, “He takes Celebre?”
Cavotti nodded his oversized head, leering terrible teeth. “I think he may do that! He could seize the city and hold it hostage as his price for peace.”
Would the Mutineer then treat Celebre as he had Miona?
“So it seems that by returning we have doomed Celebre,” Fabia said. “My lord, we wish most of all to visit our father, if he still lives, and to comfort our mother. We ask your help in this. Will you refuse it?”
The great wall of teeth showed again. “I wish to destroy Stralg. That is the only thing that matters to me. Your request must be judged against the demands of war. I will give you my decision as soon as I have made it. In this nightmare game of tégale, I have one more tile to show you, although one of very minor importance.”
Cavotti was facing the door, she was not. She turned to see who was making that peculiar clattering sound.
Huntleader Melchitte had returned, chivvying along a prisoner who was at once taller than he was and about one-third the width. He was a Florengian, his ankles and wrists chained together so that he was forced to walk in a stoop, shuffling his bare feet. The only other thing he wore was a dirty loincloth, so narrow it would have barely made a sleeve for Cavotti. He was obviously only a boy, and Fabia felt a flash of anger that a child should be so maltreated.
She turned to say so, and was shocked by Dantio’s horror-struck expression. She took another look at the prisoner. He, in turn, was staring at Cavotti with a truculent expression that failed to conceal an understandable fear. That face? She had seen a face like that in a vision. And in Benard’s art. And she had spent half a year with Saltaja Hragsdor.
“My lord Cavotti,” she said, since no one else was speaking and she disliked his sneer. “Obviously you have captured a Stralg by-blow, or a nephew, perhaps. But he is only a child. Must he be chained like that?”
The Mutineer turned his scowl on her. “He needed a less
on in manners.”
“They’re scared of me!” the boy jeered.
Fabia said, “If he talks back to you in his position, then I admire his courage, if not his wits. Are you frightened that he will escape? Cannot your warbeasts track down a fugitive?”
Cavotti smirked. She turned back to the boy and now he was the one showing shock. He was staring at her in disbelief. She had guessed who he was—and he knew her also? Just as Benard had known her the first time they met. That explained Cavotti’s little game. Suddenly furious, she jumped up and went over to the boy.
“I am Fabia Celebre. What’s your name?”
Even stooped, he was taller than she was. He hesitated. “Chies Celebre.”
No—Chies Stralgson! She had seen a vision of Stralg dragging her mother away. “Then you are my half-brother.”
He nodded as if he expected to be struck. “You are so like Mama!”
“I am flattered to hear it! You look much like your father. I am happy to meet you, brother Chies!” She kissed his cheek. “Here is your oldest brother, Dantio.”
Dantio had recovered his poise and was apparently willing to follow her lead. He walked forward and gave the youth a hug. “Well met, brother Chies. We did not know you existed, but we shall not hold it against you that you do. How is Mama?”
Young Chies looked as if the sky had just fallen on him. “All right,” he mumbled. “Or she was before I was … kidnapped. Kidnapped by these—”
“Don’t poke sticks at the bears, Chies,” Fabia said quickly. “Not when you’re the one in the cage. And there—” She hoped this was going to work. “—is your youngest brother, Orlad. He used to be Orlando, but it’s safer to call him Orlad.”
For a moment Orlad glowered at the beanpole and the beanpole stared at the Werist in horror. Then Orlad said, “Why don’t I just tear his head off?”
“Don’t be snarly,” Fabia said. Curiously, Chies seemed to have understood that remark. Had his father taught him Vigaelian, just as Paola had taught her Florengian?
Orlad switched to Florengian. “Welcome. The more family is the best. Better, I mean.” But he stayed at the table.
Chies said, “Thank you.” Surrounded by unexpected relatives willing to be allies, he lifted his chin and shot a look of triumph at Cavotti. He did not lack courage.
“Tell us, my lord,” Fabia said, “how our brother came to be here to meet us?”
“First you tell me how you recognized him.” Cavotti would not have survived so long had he been a trusting man.
Fabia was not about to confess to receiving visions from Xaran. “I know Stralg abducted my mother. Now I know why. Also, I knew his uncles, and his aunt, and my brother Benard used Stralg’s likeness in a mosaic. Please can he be unchained? You know he can’t escape.”
The Mutineer said, “Loose the pup, Huntleader. Your father is dying, my lady. The council will have to choose a new doge, and this trash started mincing around like a prince of the blood. I didn’t think the elders would be insane enough to elect him by themselves, but the Fist might force them. We removed the temptation.”
“He wants to use me to trap my father!” Chies snapped. The boy’s loyalties were a bit confused, perhaps. Understandably.
Cavotti said, “He has grandiose ideas of his own worth. He imagines his sire would bother to cross a street to rescue him.”
“If you saw him as a political token, then the Fist may as well,” Fabia said, aware that she was now the one poking sticks at bears.
Dantio intervened with the question that had to be asked. “Has our father named a successor, my lord?”
Cavotti chuckled. “Apparently he did. He was asked, not long ago. To everyone’s surprise he rallied enough to cast the dead man’s vote.”
“And?”
“He said, ‘The Winner!’” Thanks to his beetling brows, the big man’s smile was more fearsome than most glowers Fabia had ever met. “Perhaps he meant Stralg. I doubt that he meant lord Chies.”
“Then the elders will decide,” she said. “Since we offer them a wider choice now, may our half-brother accompany us to Celebre?”
“Si’ down, all of you,” Cavotti growled. And, as Chies’s chains clattered to the floor, “You, too, boy. Eat if you’re hungry. My lady, Celebre is in the middle of Stralg country. You are escaped hostages. You realize the danger you will be in if you surface here?” He looked to Orlad. “You, especially. No Florengian enters Celebre now with a brass collar on. Understand?”
Orlad nodded. “I will risk this.”
“We all will,” Dantio said.
“Your necks are your business,” Cavotti said, shrugging. “Your loyalty I cannot doubt, but the bastard I will not trust. He stays here. You can leave with me. I will turn you over to people who will try to get you into Celebre. No guarantees. If you do get in there, though, for gods’ sake keep your heads down.”
Chies, who was eating with both hands, found room in his mouth to say, “He wants to use you to lure my … to lure the Fist into Celebre so he can burn it down, like he did with Miona.”
Fabia had wondered that earlier, but remarked, “I think your father is too clever to fall into the same trap twice, Chies.” However, she suspected the Mutineer might be cleverer still.
CHIES CELEBRE
watched with mixed feelings as his new relatives drove away. In their place, he would have chopped his head off, but they seemed willing to accept him. Things were looking up. The accursed chains had been struck off. If Stralg lost, Chies Celebre was the doge’s brother. If Stralg won, Chies Stralgson was the Fist’s son. He would have felt happier being taken home, though. He had been allowed to overhear the Mutineer ordering Huntleader Melchitte to treat the prisoner well as long as he behaved himself and kill him otherwise, or if the Fist tried to retake Veritano. It was not fair to make him hostage for what his father might choose to do.
He went back to the dining hall and celebrated by eating up all the food left on the table—everything except the greenfish, which he disliked—and emptying the wine flasks. The world suffused with rosy well-being.
Melchitte peered in. “There you are.” He surveyed the table. “Pig!”
“‘Waste not, want not,’ my mommy always says.”
Pigface sneered. “And a sweet, dutiful little lad you are, too. Well, bastard, I was told you are to be treated well. Mind your manners and we’ll agree on what that means. Otherwise, I win the argument. Don’t try to escape. You know warbeasts can follow a scent? And outrun a chariot? And you know what usually happens when a pack runs down its quarry?”
Chies tried cute. “Please, my lord! I’ve just eaten! Besides, why should I want to escape? The food here’s better than the palace’s. I’ll need a girl in a day or two, but it’s not urgent yet … unless you have a spare one lying around?”
Melchitte laughed and went away. Rebel Werists were much the same sort of louts as the Vigaelian ones Chies had cultivated for years. Talk dirty and they would eat out of your hand.
He decided to go and lie down. Thanks to the chains, he had not had a decent sleep in days, nor nights either, and he was very full. And drunk. But when he reached his room he was still sober enough to take the key out of the door and hide it under a loose floor tile.
The next day, after his stomach settled, he mooched around the complex, had a swim, inspected the llamoid pens, and took a very brief look at the pile of corpses that the Heroes called the bird feeder. Bored, he began chatting up Werists. Among four sixty men some would be susceptible to the smiles of a winsome lad, and he soon located Sesto Panotti, leader of rear flank, blue pack. Sesto was not much older than he was and almost as good-looking—not that Chies had any intention of letting their friendship get serious. Girls were his preferred prey, but he would tolerate a grope or two for a good cause.
Sesto had lost a man in the battle, which meant eleven men for six chariots. There would be no harm in taking a passenger along on patrol, would there? I could ride with you, Sesto. In
terested, Sesto asked his pack-leader, who shrugged and agreed. Staying on the lookout for Stralg forces approaching from seaward was serious work, but rear flank had drawn the evening patrol Iceward and that was a meaningless exercise. Nothing more was going to come over the pass at this time of year. Sesto told his new friend to find himself a chlamys and be ready one pot-boiling after noon.
The chariots were racing models, very light, made of bentwood and wicker, their four-spoked wheels rimmed with bronze. Sesto’s had a quiver for hunting, although it held a long-handled ax instead of arrows. They were rigged with teams of four for the long climb up to the Altiplano. Even so, the guanacos went at a slow walk.
“Never drove a team of four,” Chies said hopefully.
“Now’s a good time to start.” Sesto gave him the reins.
A chariot was cramped with two men in it, and a chlamys was a very loose garment, open down the sides. Being right-handed, Sesto had put himself on the left. Soon he said, “You’re doing great, lad!” and gave Chies an encouraging pat on the butt. Oh well. Chies had known what the price would be and driving a rig like this was fun. He just wished the rest of the flank was not following so close, able to watch what their leader was doing.
After a while he said, “How far do we go?”
“How far would you like me to go?”
“Don’t mean that. Not as far as you’ve gone already, please. I’d rather you waited until tonight so we can both play.”
“Promise?”
“Oh, you bet! I need some lessons, and you’re a wonderful hunk.” Chies’s door could be locked from the inside. “I meant, how close to the Ice?”
“Second shelter. We have to destroy the equipment there and burn it. That’s what the axes are for. They burned the first shelter yesterday.” Sesto chuckled. “Death to the ice devils! No escape.”
Thinking of that disgusting pile of corpses at the bird feeder, Chies did not comment. He was half ice devil himself.
The jaunt turned interesting again when they emerged on the Altiplano. After the guanacos had gotten their wind back, Sesto told him to give them their heads, and they took off like a sea storm. Whee! The wind whirled Chies’s hair around and the wheels hardly seemed to touch the ground. Best of all, Sesto needed both hands to hang on. It was a shame that the road was so straight, and that a bank of cloud hid the Ice itself. But this was living! One day Chies would have his own racing stable.