Mother of Lies (33 page)

Stralg had been pulling back, concentrating his forces in the northwest of Florengia. So far he was avoiding towns and cities, having learned at Miona that they were flammable. At the moment the Fist’s prime objective was undoubtedly to protect his supply lines and his road home. Cavotti had closed in around his perimeter and the rest of the Face was basking in the delusion that it had been liberated, that the war was over. It wasn’t, but how long the present standoff would continue was in the lap of Weru Himself. A year of victories had boosted the partisans’ morale enormously and they were collaring new men far faster than Stralg could bring in reinforcements. Another year should do it, two at the most.

Today, if all went well, the bloodlord would lose another sixty men. The bestial sounds of battle grew louder; then the road dipped and Cavotti saw evidence of recent carnage in the hollow ahead. The track was flanked on either side by jungle, an exemplary ambush site. Vespaniaso had chosen well. There were bodies in open view on the ground and thrashing shrubbery showed that the fighting continued on both sides. The vultures had not arrived yet.

The llamoids unanimously decided that they did not want to go any closer. Marno battleformed his throat to release the growl of a hunting cat-bear, a sound that never failed to curdle their blood. The chariot shot forward like an arrow, down the long slope. By the time he managed to rein in the team to a walk, he was in among the bodies—ten Florengians and four Vigaelians. That was a puzzling, bothersome ratio. If the ice devil foragers had been running along the road, they should have died on it when the jaws closed. How had the battle gotten into the shrubbery?

What he was hearing now, over the guanacos’ terrified humming, was mostly just screaming. Werists roared a lot during a battle. When it was over, the surviving losers screamed. Heroes could recover from incredible wounds. With proper care, they could take an amazingly long time to die, and the winners were usually in no hurry. Butcher had been known to keep men dying for days, using nothing more complicated than a sharp stick. Something along those lines was going on in the shrubbery.

It didn’t sound quite right, though … It took the Mutineer a moment to realize that the spectators were jeering in Vigaelian.

He yelled at the team and lashed out with his whip. The llamoids were happy to oblige. The chariot jumped forward, careering wildly along the trail, rocking wildly, zigzagging between bodies, gathering speed. For a moment, as the car cleared the last corpse and began to climb the long slope ahead, Cavotti could hope that he was actually going to get away unnoticed. The Vigaelians in the shrubbery had more amusing things to do than keep an eye on the road. Then an animal throat bugled. Three golden warbeasts scrambled out of the brushwood and came after him, closely followed by two more, all baying like hounds to summon more.

The chase was on. There was no hope of a chariot outrunning Werists, but he had about a fifty-yard start and might as well save his breath as long as he could.

What had happened? Had the consistent foraging pattern been a trap? Had the notorious ambusher himself been ambushed? Perhaps he had been betrayed, or Vespaniaso had. Giunietta? Or perhaps this was just the chance of war and the Mutineer’s good fortune had run out at last. In ten years he had never been seriously wounded.

The luck stops here.

That had not been Vespaniaso’s main force at all, just some of his scouts running into the ice devil foragers and dying for it, a minor skirmish. The main forces were elsewhere.

Cavotti kicked off his sandals and ripped away his chlamys, leaving himself wearing only his collar. He battleformed just enough to let the guanacos smell him. They hummed like a million beehives and increased their pace. The chariot raced up out of the hollow, onto miles of empty plain, in danger of flying apart from the battering it was taking on the ruts. He saw no cover, nothing much in sight anywhere except a few clumps of fruit trees, usually with a cottage and outbuildings nearby, now deserted. The roofs of Tupami were visible in the distance, across an empty plain that somewhere hid Vespaniaso and eight sixty men.

Having stayed biped, Cavotti could grip the rail with taloned, black-furred paws while twisting around to view the pursuit. He saw the same five yellow brutes behind him, all quadruped and more or less feline. Another three farther back had chosen to go more equine for greater speed. He had taken on long odds before, but eight to one was unthinkable. The three leaders were so close that he felt he was staring straight down their slobbering maws and had to struggle against an urge to battleform all the way; he must keep his wits working as long as he could.

He wondered if they knew who he was. After so many years of battle-forming, he had grown absurdly big, even for a Werist. Only Filiberno could match him for size, and Filiberno was so battle-hardened that he looked more like a bear than a man. Very few of the Freedom Fighters traveled by chariot and only Cavotti and Filiberno drove teams of six. If the Vigaelians knew that they were about to become famous, they would try not to kill him too quickly. His dying days were likely to be long ones.

The road swung north in a long curve. The right-hand ice devil cut the corner, which was clever for a warbeast and stupid by human standards. Cavotti waited, watching, judging distances … angle … and speed, because the team was tiring. The two closest pursuers were almost close enough to stroke, keeping their eyes fixed on him but unable to board the speeding, bouncing chariot. The corner-cutter was moving in on the right, aiming for the team, being animal-stupid.

It closed on the lead right guanaco and everything happened at once. The team swung left to avoid the predator. The left-hand pursuer found itself almost under the wheel and tried to come aboard. Gripping the rail for balance, Cavotti swung a killer back-kick to smash its head in. The chariot left the trail, such as it was, and the axle broke. He vaulted over the rail; cleared the tumbling wreck of llamoids, warbeast, and chariot with one giant step off the pole; and hit the ground ahead going flat-out. One of the pursuers lay alone in the dirt, howling as it tried to heal its shattered skull. Distracted by the guanacos’ screams and wildly flailing limbs, the other three had leaped in on the kill. Stupid! He would have gained a hundred yards before they realized their main prey was escaping.

Cavotti sprinted away along the trail on cloven hooves, gradually increasing the length of his stride as he went. Biped was his standard warbeast because it gave him an overview of what was happening on a battlefield. His front limbs were armed with claws, his mouth with fangs, and his forehead sprouted a conical horn about a handbreadth long. Being still fresh, he should be able to keep ahead of the pack for quite a while.

The problem was that he had nowhere to go. Eight sixty friends concealed somewhere along this road or one of the many other trails close by were absolutely no help when you had no idea exactly where they were and had—he risked a backward glance—a lot of enemies after you. Human-Marno would be able to count them. Now he just knew they were too many to fight. He had nowhere to hide and they could follow his scent anyway. Oh,
Weru’s armpit
! The road was bending to the left for no reason. He went across country, cutting the corner, but the pack would cut it more.

Why stay on the road? Human-Marno had had a reason. Oh, yes, friends on the road maybe somewhere, if lucky.

Livestock ahead … from where? … more livestock … golden … They were warbeasts, Vigaelian warbeasts rising out of the ground. Many, many, many … Another Stralg patrol coming out of a hollow. They had seen him, were heading his way. Human-Marno would have been able to work out who they were but it didn’t matter. He was between enemies. No escape.

He changed direction, heading for a lonely tumbledown shack under some spindly, unpruned trees, a farm abandoned when its owner died in the war, long ago. Peasants lived in villages now. Safer. Cover would not save him, but if he got his back against a wall he might take a few more of the brutes with him. He hurdled fences. He was slowing now, but he could still reach the ruin before the opposition reached him—conserve his wind for the fight.

He hurdled a last tumbledown fence into a wasteland of weeds and shrubbery. He was probably the first man to set hoof in there for fifteen years, nearly sixteen. He was thirsty. There was no defensible position, not even a stoop he could stand on to gain some height. He chose a barn wall where he would not have the sun in his eyes. Nothing to do now but wait.

The luck stops here
. One more year and he would have learned how victory tasted. Now it would be Stralg who got Marno stuffed, not contrariwise. The devils might guess who he was. Biped warbeasts were unusual. Memo: Fight to the death.

He had little time to catch his breath before a long tawny beast came over the fence and without breaking flow gathered in its back feet and sprang at him like a golden flame. His hoof caught it full in the muzzle. He was slammed back against the wall and it went down in a splash of blood. Two came in together. He slashed and kicked. Something massive crashed into his groin, but his genitalia were retracted deep inside and covered by a bony plate. Jaws caught his right wrist and crunched it. They were all over him now. He clawed and jabbed and tried to kick, but they were too many, smothering him. Talons raked his chest, rattling off every rib like rocks on a washboard. He sank his horn in an eye socket and was blinded by blood. Teeth at his throat—

He had never imagined that there could be such pain. Some of the howling must be his, bubbling through blood … not all of it his. He’d hurt some of them. But his limbs were all twisted and broken and would not obey him. He was down in the dirt, howling and bubbling, writhing to try and escape the pain and only making it worse, bleeding … hurting.
Oh, Weru, help me!
Two naked Vigaelians were standing over him, mocking, laughing, and systematically stomping him so his bones wouldn’t set. Another had found a pointed fencepost.

ORLAD CELEBRE

located the strip of pemmican he had dropped on the cave floor, gnawed off another piece, and went back to lacing up his boot. The boot had spent the night inside his bedroll and was warmer than his hands. The pemmican gritted on his teeth as he chewed.

“A hot bath,” Fabia said, busily doing much the same things at his side. “I would give its weight in gold for a tub full of hot, scented water.”

Waels looked up from folding his blanket. “It would freeze with you in it. How long did you say you spent here, my lord?”

“About a thirty. At least it’s out of the dust.”

They were in the Cave, a labyrinth under a mountain of rock slabs. Orlad had lived in there while helping to build the bridge at Fist’s Leap, a short distance along the trail.

Fabia yawned. They all yawned a lot now. “How far to the Edge from here? In real distance.”

“Less than a menzil.”

“And that will take us five days?”

Orlad rolled up his blankets. “Heth always allows five days. It takes as long as you need. No more shelters. The Cave will seem like a palace.”

“Wait until you get to the Edge!” Waels said. “There’s a great marble gate with stone lions. And hot baths. The wine shop—”

“You talk too much. Heroes should be strong and silent.”

“My lord is kind.” Waels did not sound very repentant. “And this is the day we have been waiting for. Click! The trap is sprung.”

“No!” Pathfinder Hermesk tried to yell and managed only a feeble wheeze. “You mustn’t! Mass murder. Travelers do not do such things to one another.”

At first the Celebre team had traveled by forced marches, bypassing some shelters to gain ground on Saltaja. The Pathfinder had started strong, but slowed as they grew closer to the Edge, his aging lungs laboring and wheezing. The dust of the last two days had been especially hard on him. Fabia could not have kept up any better with the two Heroes if she had worn a brass collar herself. Dantio, the weakest of the five, had done well until he sprained an ankle just before Mountain of Skulls. The team had waited there, giving him as long as possible to heal and keeping watch for pursuit, but since then they had barely managed to stay ahead of the Vigaelians. Most mornings they saw flames from the burning shelter they had left the previous day.

“We warned you what we were going to do when we began,” Orlad said impatiently. “And now we have no choice. The wolves will catch us if we don’t stop them.”

“I agree that Saltaja must die,” the Pathfinder whispered. “But how can you be certain she is there?”

“She is there!” Fabia took over the argument. “Who else would be burning the shelters? Werists wouldn’t. They hope to go home one day.”

“But all those innocent men with her?”

“We decided this back at First Ice, when we could still think straight.”

Orlad could barely make out his sister’s face in the gloom of the Cave, but her voice carried absolute conviction. It was she who had persuaded them that to try blocking the trail back then would be futile. The construction at First Ice would be too easily repaired and to interfere with it would just bring a troop of warbeasts after them. Fist’s Leap, as Orlad had admitted when she cross-examined him, could be made completely impassable, and by then Saltaja would have closed off her own retreat. Fabia’s arguments had carried the day then and she repeated them now.