Children of Chaos

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.

The second night was worse than the first, with hunger added to the ordeal of cold and overcrowding. The refugees sat in one squalid mass and slept very little, mostly trading horror stories of Stralg's crossing fifteen years ago, while reassuring one another that the Edgelands had been made much safer now with a cleared track and overnight shelters.

'My brothers died there six years ago,' Cutrath said. 'We're not even into the Edgelands yet!'

Someone suggested that breakfast should be Cutrath Horoldson, and the motion carried with only one dissenting vote.

The sun came up in a clear sky, revealing a desolate world of white hills and nothing else. A sharp, undulating horizon was unnerving in itself, but the lack of a road was worse. Jarlion waded out a short distance and then came back to consult with his flankleaders.

'We can't run through the drifts,' he explained. His breath smoked. 'If we zigzag around them, we'll have to cover many times the distance. Nardalborg lies eastward, but I don't know exactly where. I propose waiting until the sun is higher, then returning to Tryfors. Any better suggestions?'

No one spoke up to point out that the road back was as invisible as the road forward. No one mentioned snow blindness, or the real hazard of fair-skinned Vigaelians charring on the outside while freezing on the inside. No one seriously suggested eating Cutrath.

¦

The first hint of rescue was a strident trumpeting in the distance. Whatever made the noise was approaching from sunward, invisible in the glare, and Jarlion drew up the pack in battle order, just in case.

They were almost certainly the famous Nardalborg mammoths, Cutrath told himself, shivering so hard that the ice in his beard crackled. There were other nasty things like catbears in the hills, but the only wildlife that could seriously harm a pack of Werists were wild mammoths. Whatever these were, there were a lot of them. 'Kill 'em and eat 'em raw!' he muttered, and was rewarded with some approving chuckles.

The first men to make out the monstrous shapes started to swear. Flankleaders shouted warnings against premature changing. When it became clear that the brutes carried riders, Jarlion ordered the pack to stand down.

It was not true that mammoths were big, Cutrath decided. They were enormous, and the tusked male leading them was twice that. They were hard to load because their front legs were longer than their back legs, but they could carry a dozen or so men apiece all the way to the Ice. He counted twelve females and four cubs. The five humans were all swathed in fur, but on three of them it had been dyed green. The other two wore palls as well.

When the train halted, the dozen females stopped, scratching and attending to the cubs. The male continued to move around, snuffling, but his Nastrarian mahout seemed to have him under control. The two Werists began unloading the sumpters, and Jarlion sent center flank forward to assist. The rations were only smoked meat and the sort of unleavened biscuit that would keep forever in sealed jars, but men stood around in the snow and feasted.

The Werist with the two-color pall must be Huntleader Heth himself. Jarlion bowed and gave his name with his mouth full.

'Very happy to see you, my lord.'

Heth, from what could be seen of him, was a burly, square-faced man with a minimal smile. 'Glad to be of help, Packleader. It was worth the ride. If there was no one here, we'd have just restocked the shelter. No others on the