Children of Chaos

stiff with good game and every summer would bring forth a rash of small rebellions that he could enjoy stamping out, often in concert with his brothers and Saltaja's husband, Eide. Surprisingly for Heroes, the four of them had worked well together. Having the Witnesses of Mayn on their side had given them an insuperable advantage, and the only thing better than a good fight was a good fight you couldn't lose. The land was quieter now, alas. Since the Florengian war had sucked away all the manpower, it would be hard to organize two decent opposing hordes.

In the good old days, Therek had regarded Nardalborg as the cesspit of the world, much preferring Tryfors, with its zesty nightlife. Nowadays not a female in the city would look at him twice in her worst nightmares, not even the Nymphs. He'd come to prefer the masculine world of Nardalborg, where he wasn't tantalized so often.

He smiled and the cheering choked into silence. 'It was here that Stralg assembled the great horde that he led off to his conquest.' Which still had not ended. He turned to his neighbor. 'And one of the men who went with him that day...'

During the renewed hubbub, he noted that the fourteen candidates were on their feet cheering Gzurg as hard as any. For days the Crocodile had battered and exhausted and maltreated them, so now they cheered him? Men were strange. Perhaps they were just showing how tough they were. Therek sat down and sucked beer and waited for his bets to pay off.

When Gzurg shouted, his voice came through clear and hard, and he seemed to have sobered himself up, at least temporarily. He ran through a few quick platitudes and went to the part everyone was waiting for. Copper, silver, even women, would be changing hands in a moment. He paused and peered into the gloom. 'Are the candidates present?'

'There.' Therek pointed.

'Ah, good. First, my congratulations to Satrap Therek and Huntleader Heth. I have rarely passed more than half a class of candidates. In this case, out of the sixteen who presented themselves, I am proud to approve ten.'

He grinned that terrible display of teeth again as he waited for the cheering to subside. 'First—and I will add that he is an easy first, a man who displays courage, toughness, dedication, and honest bloodthirsty ferocity such as I have rarely been honored to witness ...'

Therek watched Snerfrik preening under the praise.

'—coming in well ahead of his nearest competitor, is... Candidate Orlad.'

The hall stilled. Even the wind dropped for a moment, and the slave waiters froze, wondering what was wrong. In the distance mammoths trumpeted. As the Florengian hostage walked forward, dark eyes shining with triumph, five hundred pale eyes watched in total silence. He had been odds-on favorite to pass, but First? Gzurg must be crazy. He'd drunk his brains away. Or been hit on the head too often. Put a filthy Florengian belly-worm ahead of fifteen honest Vigaelian lads?

And now Therek would have to hold the bastard's hands and listen to the freak parroting an oath he had absolutely no intention of keeping ... would have to put the winner's chain collar on him... And, oh horrors! would have to embrace him.

No, this was intolerable. This was an insult to holy Weru and Therek himself and the memory of those three sons who had died. The only good Florengian's a dead one. Something fatal must be arranged. Soon.

eleven

FRENA WIGSON

was fighting for her life with a black blanket of darkness wrapped around her head. Rushing water tugged at her ankles, trying to throw her down, while wind flailed rain back and forth. She was barely able to think in the tumult, certain only that if she fell she would be washed away and lost. And she must hurry. Danger pursued her. Its form was vague, a growling, fanged noise lurking in the storm, hiding its approach under the roar of the storm, but creeping ever closer as she fought her way step by step up the slope. She was in Skjar. The air reeked of Skjar. The alley was typically Skjaran, with rough timber walls tight about her, with unexpected outcrops of rock and sudden changes of level and grade. The walls were coarse where her hands pawed at them. Her breath came in painful gasps, a stitch stabbed in her side. Rain streamed over her face and soaked her clothes— tore at her clothes, as if the storm sought to strip her naked.

Meaningless rags and planks went swirling by her. She must be adjusting to the darkness, for she could make out a slight widening of the way, not worthy to be called a square, but a place where two alleys crossed, one steeper than the other. Windows were barred, doors firmly bolted. Water frothed and leapt over the stones, washing away the gravel of the road. Wind wailed in rooftops. She saw no one else around, but sensed the monstrous danger slithering closer to her heels.

A small door in one corner, a curiously misshapen shape between a wall and a rocky knob, held the answer. There was the salvation she sought. As she clawed her way along the wall toward it, fighting the rising water and the spiteful wind, she saw the crooked door begin to open. What lay beyond was blacker than the night, blacker than eternal space or bottomless caverns. Even the torrent in the streets did not dare enter there. Wider and wider, and a figure emerging, a less-dark darkness taking shape in that uttermost darkness... a woman... smiling, beckoning...

'Mother!' Frena screamed. She scrambled wildly toward the door, but the smiling figure retreated within, fading into the stygian black, still smiling, beckoning. Frena tried to follow and met resistance. She wanted to enter and someone or something held her back. 'Mother! Mother!'

¦

She sat up, trembling and choking. It was the same dream again, but knowing it was a dream made it no less terrifying. Her sheet was soaked as if she had bathed in it, and her head throbbed. Sweat was normal for Skjar, terror was not. The glimmering night lamp showed nothing wrong: sleeping platform, carved chests, delicately shaped chairs, mosaic and hangings, Ashurbian funeral urns ... all as it should be. But every time she drifted off to sleep she had this nightmare of her mother. By rights she should ring for Master Frathson, her father's oneiromancer, so he could explain the portents and look up the offerings required to avert the gods' wrath; but her mother had always mocked the old man and his skill. Dreams were phantasms sent by the Mother of Lies, she'd said, and best just ignored.

Frena touched the sore place on her shoulder, and her fingers came away black in the dim light.