sinister collar. Orlad stared back with his emotional defenses higher than mountains. Since leaving Nardalborg, he had begun to shed his crust of enforced brutality. Hints of a decent human being were starting to emerge, but he did not know how to respond to a mother. Or any woman, for that matter.
“So big!” she whispered.
“You think that’s big, you ought to see Benard!” Fabia said. “Orlad, you chump, hug her until her ribs creak.”
Orlad forced a smile and did more or less that. The tension broke, if not the ribs. Oliva said “Oh, Orlando, Orlando!” about fifty times, kissing him as she did-his face did not lack stubble. Dantio and Fabia exchanged relieved smiles. Had there ever been so much joy at a lying-in-state? Were Benard there, he would be blubbering like the triple fountain. Somehow Dantio did not think his father would have regarded this celebration around his bier as disrespect.
“Oh, Orlando, my baby!”
Dantio caught Fabia’s eye and they exchanged grins.
The dignitaries were pushing forward to greet the revenants, giving Dantio precedence as the eldest, of course. He would certainly not be the heir, but he could not explain that now. It was all he could do to withstand the waves of riot and emotion washing in from the city. The first fires had started. Mobs of enraged extrinsics were savaging golden warbeasts but paying a terrible toll for their presumption. Black warbeasts were swarming out of hiding to aid them.
More palace officials streamed into the hall. So the news had escaped: The children are back! Elders of the council, summoned to the palace by the trumpets, were shoving to the head of the line to pay their respects. Heads of families famous in the city’s history: Giordano Giali, Ritormo Nucci… The temple of Ucr was burning. A seer was running along the corridor outside, and Werists were coming too. Vigaelian Werists.
Screaming gods!
Only one man could emit that fearful stench of death and evil. Dantio dithered in panic. Had he miscalculated? What if the Fist’s seers had not heard about the broken compact after all? Perhaps it was not a hunt for his Chies bastard that brought Stralg to Celebre this night, but a craving for revenge on the legitimate children! Therek, Horold, Saltaja all dead, and their killers gathered here?
“Out!” Dantio yelled at Orlad. “Stralg’s coming. He’s almost here! Hide!” The rest of what he tried to say was lost in screams of alarm. Half the assembly thought he was addressing them. They bolted for the pillars and disappeared into the night and the rain. Then the rest had second thoughts and followed.
Oliva remained, with Dantio and Fabia beside her. Speaker Quarina, the high priest, Berlice, ancient Nucci… yes, the elders and only the elders, eight of them so far. They were more than a little flustered, but they were standing their ground, gathered around the catafalque.
“Fabia, you should leave, too!” Dantio said, but he was too late and knew she would not have gone anyway.
The north door flew open, shedding light that was immediately blocked by the bloodlord himself. He strode in without bothering to have his bodyguard inspect the hall. He had no need to, because a white-shrouded seer scuttled along at his side like a dog on a leash. For thirty years Witnesses of Mayn had kept him safe from harm. Incongruously, and unknown to anyone but Dantio, the stooped little woman with him was blazing joy like the sun. She did know that the compact was ended. She could smell the trap awaiting him. She luxuriated in it, savoring her hate.
Stralg slammed the door behind them, thundering rage like a sea storm. Out beyond the pillars, a steady thumping drumbeat of fear from the onlookers in the rain failed to hide one great bugle call of hatred. Dantio knew that emotional note as well as he knew his brother’s voice. Orlad saw the cause of all his troubles at last, and he had left his bodyguard outside. With his faithful Waels to help him, Orlad would never resist this temptation.
The bloodlord had been a handsome man in his youth. As he advanced into the candlelight, Dantio recalled faint memories of him on the day of the fall, mostly of how big he had seemed. He still did. While he was not battle hardened into bestiality as his brothers had been, he was not a normal human, either, standing over eight feet tall and massive in proportion. Wearing only his brass collar and a black loincloth, totally hairless, with skin as white as granular ice and a head like a boulder with ears, he resembled some oversized statue come to life.
He had not visited Celebre in ten years. The elders shrank away from his glare. He peered down at the doge’s corpse and spat on it. Then he located Oliva.
“So, now you’re a widow. Want to come back to me?”
“Never,” she said, with admirable calm, but her internal hate was almost unbearable.
“Wouldn’t want you anyway. But you, now…” He had just noticed Fabia. “Who’re you?” He licked ice-white lips with a long red tongue.
“Fabia Celebre.”
Amazingly, she was almost as calm as she looked. Oh, sister! Was she counting on Orlad to protect her from the monster, or relying on her own chthonic powers?
The Fist glanced at his attendant seer, who stayed silent behind her veils. There were, Dantio noted, definitely some Florengian Werists coming over the palace walls now, Cavotti’s men. How could he let Orlad know that help was on the way? Would that information make him wait for reinforcements? No, it would just drive him on. He would not want to share the Fist’s death with anyone.
The bloodlord had realized that all was not right. “When did you get here? Who brought you?”
“I arrived this evening.” Fabia’s voice rose. “My brothers brought me. Your sister tried to, but she was on the wrong side of the Fist’s Leap when we burned the bridge, so I wouldn’t wait up for her if I were you.”
“She is lying, isn’t she?” Stralg asked his Witness.
The answer was a shriek of triumph. “No, she’s not!”
He roared and swung a fist to smash her, but the old woman anticipated the move and dodged back.
“Stralg Hragson!” Compared to the great pillars, Orlad was only a tiny shape against the fires in the city behind him, but he had amplified his throat and lungs so his bellow carried even over the roar of riot and trumpets. “I am Orlad Celebre, Doge Piero’s son and heir. I killed your brother Therek on the hills above Tryfors. I helped kill your brother Horold on the Milky River. And your sister, also, trapped in the Edgelands without food or shelter or any way to escape. They are dead, Stralg, all dead! You stand alone, last of that vile litter, and you are about to pay for your crimes.”
The elders would not have understood the Vigaelian words, but the smell of challenge was obvious. They quickly shuffled around behind the catafalque, clearing the battlefield.
“True!” screeched the seer, scampering to safety also. “He speaks the truth, monster!”
Stralg turned his great head to look at the north door. His bodyguard was out there. He started to move that way and Orlad ran forward, with Waels at his heels. Stralg stopped and spun around to face them again. They stopped also. It was a standoff. But they were closer to Stralg than he was to the door.
“Coward!” Orlad yelled. “When I was three years old I had more courage than you have now. You held out your hands to me and I went to you! You lifted me up and threatened to smash my brains out, I’m told. Try that now; I’m bigger.” He stretched out his arms. “Come to me, coward.”
Stralg must weigh more than the two younger men put together, but he had not lived so long by accepting personal combat against odds. They would certainly be on him before he could reach the north door and open it.
Orlad moved one pace closer. “Therek is dead!” he mocked. Pace… Waels followed, still his shadow. “Saltaja is dead! Horold-”
Stralg blazed rage and hatred. He lowered his head like a bull as he watched the two of them come. It seemed to Dantio that the man’s legs were growing and his arms shrinking.
Pace…
“Hostleader Arbanerik!” Orlad chanted. Pace… “Remember Arbanerik? And Nils Frathson?” Pace… “They’ve been stealing your recruits, Stralg!” Pace… “They have forty sixty now, the largest horde in Vigaelia. They killed Horold, Stralg, with a little help from us Celebres. They took Tryfors, Stralg. The garrison switched sides rather than fight.”
Orlad stopped his slow approach. “You’ve lost Vigaelia, Stralg! And Cavotti has taken Veritano, Stralg. The game is ended, Stralg!” He beckoned mockingly. “Your turn now. Come to me, coward.”
Stralg charged. As he moved, he battleformed, ripping off his covering. His face bulged into a huge fanged
