is the day I have dreamed of since our parting, fifteen years ago. I have worked for it unceasingly. Today I return and the family is complete again. Today we are reunited at last. But tomorrow we lose Orlad.'
forty-two
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.
¦
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:
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.
