Children of Chaos

'What'ch waitin' for, boy? Drive on, an' stop daydreaming.'

'Yes, lord. Giddyup!' Benard slapped the onagers with the reins.

'You got the brake down.'

Ah, yes...

¦

After a long period of bouncing, Benard said, 'Any word of Cutrath?'

Guthlag cackled. 'Pimple's still in the sweatbox. You miss him?'

'No. Who does?'

'No one I know of.'

'So you don't think I'm in any danger?'

'Arr! Didn't say that. You're in plenty danger.'

'Even after what the satrap said?'

'Hope so,' the old man said grumpily. 'Honor of the host's at stake. Course, it'll take some planning. Anything happens to you, then Horold'll have to ask a seer who dun't, right? Means the pimple wouldn't dare do anything himself, 'cause he knows his daddy'll beat him bloody for disobeying. No local Hero will, for same reason. But a twist of copper in a beer house can buy all the thugs you want, and there's Heroes coming through town all the time, heading for the Edge. Uphold the honor of the cult, see? By morning the culprits are long gone and you're feeding the eels.'

'My lord is kind,' Benard said, but he said it to himself. If it happened it happened.

He still did not know why Guthlag had brought a fortune in gold along on a simple two-day outing, but he knew better than to ask. Besides, there were more interesting things to think about. The Anziel statue was like a sore tooth, impossible to ignore for long. The angle of Her gaze would be critical—

¦

After the second wine break, Guthlag's painkiller began making him talkative. 'That drawing of your'n really took me back,' he mumbled. 'Handsome man, then, Satrap was.'

'Even when I knew him. Must have been a vision in his youth.'

'He wash at that, lad. Spec I wound be here if he hand bin.'

'My lord is kind,' Benard said blankly.

Guthlag cackled and elbowed his arm. 'Stuff that! You ever heard tell of the fall of Kosord?'

'Just scraps and rumors.' Much more than he had ever wanted to hear, in fact, but he was obviously about to hear more. Perhaps he would learn how Guthlag had survived when the rest of the defenders did not.

'Aye. Well the pyromancer foresaw it, o' course, lady Tiu. She saw Stralg's horde on its way. He'd seized Skjar an' Yormoth an' a few other cities already, and Kosord would give him control of the plains, so no surprise. Hordeleader Kruthruk had been predicting he'd try for Kosord next. Fine man, Kruthruk.' Guthlag spat nostalgically. 'Course Stralg was running 'bout a host an' a half by then, 'bout twenty sixty. Kruthruk couldn't field even a couple of hunts, so the odds would ha' been at least five to one.'

'Would have been?'

'Aye. Well, the lady read it in the fire and announced the news, and State Consort Nars was the light of Demern on Kosord. A Speaker has to give true judgment, no matter what his own interests—his blessing and his corban are the same. Nars judged his city would fare better if it didn't resist. He ordered Kruthruk to take his men and go over to Stralg. Kruthruk refused.'

Benard had heard that tale before and decided then that he would never understand Heroes. He still thought so. 'Better death than dishonor?'

'Some of that,' Guthlag admitted. 'More that his brother had been a candidate for bloodlord, so Kruthruk wanted Stralg's guts for rat bait.'

'Even if that meant all his men dying, too?'

'Their duty. Said he would let Weru decide. Stralg drew up his horde on the plain and they agreed to fight it out that night. Then the state consort insisted Kruthruk give his men the choice. 'Bout half of them went over to Stralg—knowing, o' course, that he would send them into battle first to let them prove their new loyalty.'

Ouch! 'That doesn't sound like very good judgment to me.'

'Then you're no Speaker!' the old man barked. 'Stralg was bound to win, see, and he razes cities that defy him. He'd be in a better mood if his own losses were lower.'

'You're right, I'm no Demernist.' Benard had often wondered if his father's title of doge had been the Florengian equivalent of a state consort. Who else but a Speaker could give his children away to a monster? 'That's too cold-blooded for me.'

'Thaz what been a Speaker izzle bout.' Guthlag hic-cuped. 'The cause was hopeless, so Nars's god told him he'd best serve his city by dying 'longside his troops.'

Benard pointed to a mound in the distance. 'What place is that?'

'Umthord.'

'I thought we went through there? A priest told—'

'Naw. Stay on the levee.'

Benard drove on, passing a line of near-naked peasants wielding hoes in the everlasting war against weeds. He