"Are you all right? You were sitting on that mound, still as death, then you started groaning. I couldn't catch you before you fell," she said. "You're bleeding!"

Gently, the elf-woman eased him onto his back. She ran for a blanket, and wrapped him snugly to stop his shaking. From a canteen she tilted water on his face, wiped away sweat and blood.

Sunbright craned his head to see, to orient himself. Oh, yes. They were six or seven miles south of the village, in the worst of the wasteland. Three days ago Sunbright had drunk his last sip of water, eaten the last sc.r.a.p of meat, and mounted a low mound that gave a view in all directions. Then he'd lowered his head, and prayed, and waited, while Knucklebones patiently tended camp and potted rats with a sling. Then, after three days of broiling in the sun and shivering by night, a vision had come.

"I know-I know where we're to go." Sunbright creaked. He could barely speak, for his tongue was swollen from thirst. Knucklebones cooed and trickled water in his mouth. But his thirst for knowledge was greater. "Sanguine Mountain, with a cleft like blood, where the gra.s.slands end, and rise to mountain and forest."

"And what will we find there?" she asked, bandaging the sc.r.a.pe on his forehead.

"I've no idea," he rasped, then accepted more water. "It's the place. A raven showed me. Our fate lies there."

Knucklebones frowned, blew out her cheeks, combed his hair with her fingers, and said, "I believe you. I just hope you can convince the tribe."

Rengarth Barbarians were never easily convinced.

They argued for days until the shaky rafters of the common house rang. Smoke from sacred pipes was blown back and forth by shouts, accusations of cowardice and betrayal, threats and challenges, fistfights, scoldings, tears, pleas.... Talk went in circles and off on tangents. Stories were recounted and corrected. Prayers were offered.

Time and again, the argument came down to someone shouting, "We must go because we can't stay here! To live on foreign soil will be the death of our tribe!"

"All right," bellowed Magichunger, the loudest, "but why go the path Sunbright suggests? He's not a real shaman! He knows nothing! The G.o.ds wouldn't speak to him. We might as well follow a blind mole as go his route."

An angry chorus shouted him down while others agreed. More shouting went on outside where the walls of the common house had been removed. Anyone who'd killed an enemy or born a child could speak in council, and over three hundred barbarians gathered every night. Someone s.n.a.t.c.hed the speaking stick from Magichunger and thrust it into Sunbright's hands.

"Tell them again!"

Reluctantly, Sunbright held up the speaking stick, just a plain stick with a skunk's skull atop. Yet when raised, only the wielder could speak. As if by magic, the council hushed. Sunbright suppressed a sigh. "I don't claim special knowledge," hie said evenly, "but I made a vision quest, asking the G.o.ds for a destination. I was rewarded with a dream of Sanguine Mountain. The message-from the G.o.ds, not me-is clear. We should go there." He lowered the stick as if it were suddenly too heavy.

Someone amended, "And we can't stay here!"

"But how do we know?" someone hollered, and the wrangling ran around the circle again.

Sunbright slumped on the floor of the hut. Cross-legged, his knees toasted at the council fire, yet toes dug his kidneys. The room was packed, and steamy as a sauna with charged bodies.

Knucklebones, who'd been silent for days, took his hand to rest on her knee. "How much longer will this go on?" she asked quietly.

"Forever, I fear," sighed the shaman. "You can't believe how hardheaded barbarians can be. My people don't remove rock slides from a trail, they just lower their heads and bash through."

"I believe it, but tell me ..." the thief said, more loudly now because of the noise. ". . . that blood oath that Thornwing started that night. Most of the tribe swore with her, right? But what did they swear to do?"

"Hunh?" Sunbright grunted, rubbed his burning eyes, and cudgeled his brain. "Umm ... They swore to ... follow me if I were driven from the tribe."

"Then go."

Sunbright peered at her stupidly, as if she'd spoken a foreign tongue.

"Go." Her hand made a pushing motion. "Say you're packing and leaving tomorrow, and going to Sanguine Mountain. The ones who swore the oath must follow, mustn't they?"

The shaman juggled the new idea in his head: he had as much trouble accepting new customs as anyone. "They only swore that if I were driven out..."

"Driven out, walk out, there's little difference," Knucklebones said as she nudged him to his feet.

"Just say it. Anything to stop this blather! We'll be rotted to skeletons before this bunch agrees on whether snow falls down or up!"

Sunbright untangled his legs to rise, mumbling, "On the tundra, it sometimes blows sideways- Ouch!" Knucklebones slapped his leg to keep his attention focussed.

The shaman stood a long time with his hand out, indicating he wished the speaking stick, but many people were heard before he got it. Finally grasping it high, he stated, "Come dawn I begin packing.

The next dawn I leave for Sanguine Mountain. I ask those who took the blood oath to follow me to ...

follow me." He handed the stick to someone, and plunked down.

If Knucklebones expected that thunderclap to still the audience, she was disappointed. Shouting erupted louder than before. A dozen hands grabbed for the stick. Tears flowed. At some taunt, Magichunger whirled and punched a man. A brawl erupted among the hotheads. Folks cheered and booed.

Crawling around the fire, Sunbright spoke in Forestvictory's ear. The woman, big all over with forearms like hams, requested the speaking stick and got it. She held it high and shouted, and gradually the brawl subsided. Men and women untangled, rubbed b.l.o.o.d.y noses with skinned knuckles.

In the hush, Forestvictory proclaimed, "Sunbright has suggested we need a trail chief to oversee the journey. I volunteer unless someone else wants the ch.o.r.e. No? Then I too will pack at dawn, and leave the next dawn. Anyone who goes with us must be ready."

She relinquished the speaking stick, and more people spoke, some pa.s.sionately, some with anger, some calmly. There was wrangling whether the blood oath applied, but as more tribesfolk said their piece, it seemed the oath was enough to move them. Many agreed to go. A handful, led by Magichunger, held out, but when asked what they intended to do instead, gave no answer.

"Is the tribe to split then? Such a thing must not be!" a woman began to wail.

Sunbright gestured, took the stick, waited for silence. Finally he said, "So some will go, and some will stay. It makes my heart heavy to think the tribe may split, for together we are strong, singly we are weak. Yet I would ask one thing. The path we travel will be dangerous. We might meet orcs, renegade soldiers, bandits, marauding animals, monsters-anything. I think we should elect a war chief to oversee our defense. And for that task, a hard and thankless one, I suggest Magichunger."

For the first time, silence followed a proclamation. Big, broad Magichunger rubbed his nose, scratched blood from his red beard, glared at Sunbright across the smoky hut, and spat, "You don't fool me. It's a trick so I'll go along."

"No trick," said Sunbright. "You're our best fighter, after Blinddrum and Thornwing, and by tradition neither of them can be war chief. I know we've never been friends, and you resent my barging into the tribe, but most of us will leave. It would be a great boon if you helped. Certainly we can use your sc.r.a.pping smarts and good right arm, and those of your friends."

The burly man looked for a trap, or some way to rebut the gentle request. "As war chief," he grumbled, "I lead the fighters in skirmishes? And when attacked, everyone must do as I say until the enemy is beaten off?"

Sunbright nodded, as did older folks recalling times of war. Magichunger turned, and muttered to his friends. They grumbled, fretted, and argued while the rest of the tribe waited. Finally Magichunger turned, rubbed his nose again as if embarra.s.sed. "We'll go," he growled.

Walking hand-in-hand under desert-bright stars, Knucklebones said, "You were very clever in there, Sunbright."

"Not so clever," he said. "Just desperate to get my tribe off this ash heap. It reminds me of the worst corners of the h.e.l.l I almost didn't escape, but at least then I left my enemies behind."

"What?" The part-elf looked up, but his hawk's face was only a silhouette against stars. "What do you mean, enemies?" she asked.

"Barbarians hold grudges forever, Knucklebones. From before birth even, for we're born into feuds going back to the day New Man rose from the ice. Some spend their lives plotting revenge, and will throw their lives away getting it. With us wild folk, the heart often overrules the head.

"Magichunger will always be my enemy. And his friends and family too. I must beware his knife in my back, awake and asleep. Many others don't like my new customs, or new twists to old ones, and for us to survive will take magic, I fear."

"Why fear?"

"Magic is taboo. A fear of magic runs strong." "But you purified their drinking water! Everyone saw it, and appreciated it."

"I 'blessed' the water, I did not bewitch it. Not for my own gain, mocking the G.o.ds' power, but acting for the good of the people. That's why I said a shaman's no good without a tribe to work for.

"And now I'd have us cross our ancestral lands. I don't know ... the gra.s.slands-prairie-is stronger than the tundra, but the life drain happens there too. We may need magic to survive, and ... I don't know what I'll do."

"You'll return to your mother's hut and sleep," the thief said, standing on tiptoes to kiss his cheek.

"Then we rise and pack to embark on a new adventure!"

Chuckling, Sunbright hugged her off the ground and kissed her soundly.

Chapter 12.

Toch swung his club backhanded and smashed Kab across the snout. Tumbling down the hillside, rolling in dust, the wounded orc sprawled to a halt, clutched a blood-spurting nose, and s...o...b..red, "What that for?"

The larger orc wasn't finished. Toch crabbed down the slope, raised his obsidian-studded club, and thumped Kab repeatedly.

"No noise, I says! Quiet, I says! But you, you burp at wrong time and chase off game!"

Toch vented his anger with more blows. Other orcs squatted on their heels and picked at stones, or scratched lice, careful to avoid catching h.e.l.l. Kab wailed and howled and screamed, thrashing limbs, as Toch beat and kicked every inch of the orc's gray, warty skin.

Finally Toch's arm tired, and he threw the club down in disgust. With filthy, cracked nails he scaled the slope again, plunked his tusked jaw atop the rise, and glared at the world. The goats had bounded up to higher slopes, out of reach. Toch was so hungry he could eat rocks. Perhaps he should beat Kab more, tenderize the meat, then eat it. It would teach the others to follow orders and maintain silence on the hunt. He hoped a female gave birth soon. Baby orcs made excellent stew, and he could keep it all to himself. That was one good reason for dragging along females. They were always pregnant.

Stomach growling, Toch stood on the hummock under an overcast sky, and tried to guess which way to go next. Like many Icebeast Orcs, he was tall, almost six feet, with long limbs and hands that could break bones. With the approach of winter, gray hair thickened on his hide like a mountain pony's. His head was a rat's nest of lank black hair, but he still wore a steel helmet and a tattered smock of stout gray wool that retained the faded sigil of the One King, a red hand with fingers splayed. The paint had mostly cracked off.

He remembered, vaguely, belonging to the One King's army. How the chief orcs had said they'd be well-fed, have huts and villages instead of wilderness and badlands, how they'd live among humans and share their wealth as long as they didn't kill anyone. Details were fuzzy, but he remembered fine food: fresh-killed beef, apples from orchards, wriggling eels from stocked ponds, even real bread such as orcs could never bake, and whole barrels of wine that made his head spin and his feet crazy. He licked gray lips at the memory. Life had been good under the One King. Lots of food, steel weapons, not much fighting, plenty of naps, fires under roofs at night.

Then it ended. They claimed the One King was dead, burned by a dragon, or overrun by enemies.

Or that he'd gone to sleep in the catacombs. Or that he'd shunned the orcs because they didn't work and fight and kill enough to suit his bloodthirsty ways. Or that they were too quarrelsome for his ideas of peace. Memories were muddled in his dim brain, but the One King had been good.

Now he was chief of a troop in the Dementia Range, a hard life even for orcs. The land was difficult to cross, either naked rock or stunted cedars and heather and gorse, impossible tangles that forced the orcs to game trails or open s.p.a.ces. The troop had done well raiding around Ascore and Sepulcher and Cantus. Too well. Men and dwarves banded together to root the orcs from the forest, even sending hated war dogs. Toch's troop retreated to the foothills of the Dementia, but found little game.

Goats were swift and bouncy, remorhaz and condors inedible, wolves and mammoths wary, humans nonexistent, and cave trolls considered orcs slave-fodder. So, after a frustrating summer in the north, Toch led his band out of the mountains, but the southern forests were infested with elves, and the prairie too open. Now where? West, into unknown lands? Or perhaps he should reduce the force, kill the older orcs and women, dry their meat, and whip the able fighters across the prairie to fat lands in the far south. They had to go somewhere, always roving as orcs had for centuries, wandering over the next hill, scrounging what they could.

He sighed like a bellows, licked Kab's blood off his fingers. It was hard being leader....

"Uh! Look! There!" grunted an orc. "He comes! He comes!"

Toch whirled, and almost fell off the hill.

On a mount behind Toch stood the One King.

The king was human, but his skin had a yellow cast that denoted orcish blood, orcs always believed. The man was tall, black-haired and bearded, with a long, solemn face that was as cold and pitiless as a corpse's. He wore silvery robes with a splayed hand red as blood, and a silver crown studded with gems black as coal. The Hornet, people in Tinnainen had called him, like a black-yellow insect in man's form.

"Orcs, hear me," trumpeted the king. He kicked at his long hem, and walked down a trail through waist-high gorse. Two-score orcs fell back in awe and fear. Toch tripped down the slope. Dimly he remembered the etiquette beaten into him by orc chiefs. Picking up his studded club, he swatted the orcs to kneel, then knelt himself "My children," rolled the king's words. "Umm .. . My heart lifts at the sight of you again. I have returned to the world. As before, I, uh, come in peace for all the speaking races. Again there will be contentment and, uh, peace throughout the lands-"

"And food?" The words escaped Toch. He trembled, fearing death for interrupting the king.

"Uh, yes, food! Much food! Mead halls full of it. Tables groaning under the weight of golden turkeys stuffed with chestnuts and, uh, crusty brown bread! Wine by the gallon, rich and red as blood!

And jam tarts with fluffy pastry, and fruits, such as melons ..."

Murky eyes shining, the orcs slavered as the king rambled through a menu. Then he talked more of peace, and the good old times, but returned to food when their attention flagged. Finally, he summed up,"... but before there can be peace-or melons or figs or b.u.t.ter-we must take up arms, spread south, and attack the outposts of the Netherese Empire! As before, the Neth are our enemies! You, uh, what is your name? Toch? Toch, you are to lead your band south, cross the Barren Mountains to the Sanguine that flows red with rust, and punish the tall folk of the prairie! You will know them by their golden horsetails that shine in the sun! Find them, and make them suffer, for one of them a.s.saulted your king in the old days!"

"Tall folk. Horsetails. A-salted." As trained years ago, Toch repeated the commands without fully comprehending them. He did understand that they should ambush blond people in the south. Clear enough. "Steel, majesty. We need steel to kill. They have shining blades...." He offered the obsidian- studded club as evidence.

As kings should, the One King antic.i.p.ated his subjects' request. Gesturing the orcs to shuffle backward, the tall human sketched a door shape in the air, and a door appeared. Orcs oohed and ahhed. The king pulled the wooden handle. With a clatter and a clang, hand weapons cascaded out of nowhere: war axes, mattocks, cleavers, falchions, stabbing spears, all good steel sharpened and blackened against rust. Orcs scrambled for the treasure, but Toch kicked them aside. Stooping, he grabbed a short-handled war club of two lethal iron spikes shaped like buffalo horns. The tough hickory and heavy steel hefted nicely in his gnarled hand.

"Take them with my blessings, and go!" bellowed the king. "Go south and harry the tall ones with horsetails! You will meet others with my sigil."

Flicking a hand into the phantom closet, the king withdrew a silk roll, a paint brush, and a crock sealed with wax. Toch remembered this from the old days too. He shook out the silk, found it a cut-out pattern for the red hand such as decorated his faded tunic.

"Garb yourselves to show respect," the One King commanded. "Join others bearing my seal, and spread the word to all outcasts to punish our enemies! Do not disobey, else I visit you by night, and cut out your hearts."

Banging shut the magic-shifted cabinet, the king raised both hands in the air. The orcs cowered and whimpered, but the king only crossed his breast and disappeared like a soap bubble.

Orcs muttered and grunted, but with the king gone, their awe soon evaporated, and they squabbled over the weapons. b.l.o.o.d.y-nosed Kab took a fancy to a cleaver clutched by a female. He picked up a rock, bashed in her skull, and s.n.a.t.c.hed the weapon. "With this, I kill enemies! I become chief!" he said as he shook it high and cackled to the mountaintops.

From behind, Toch swung, buried an iron spike in Kab's temple. The orc dropped dead, and Toch wrenched loose his weapon, pleased at how well it killed. He kicked Kab's body hard several times, then spat on it.

To the rest of the tribe, he ordered, "Paint yourselves with the red hand like mine! We go south to kill horsetails! But first," he kicked Kab's body again, "build a fire! I hunger!"

Far away, in a cave high in a mountaintop, the flinty Sysquemalyn touched the black glistening top of the scrying table. From this stronghold, out of reach of anyone without magic at his disposal, she smoothed the surface and spied on the world. And occasionally stepped into it disguised as the One King.

Using that legend, she chuckled, was brilliance on her part. As with all messiahs, the One King's death had mattered little, for rumors circulated that one day he'd return to lead his people to greater heights.

Of course, Sysquemalyn knew the original king had been a fake; a lich, a long-dead wizard with dreams of glory. Eventually, as always with such petty despots, the "One King" was exposed and killed, and his army fell apart.

Sysquemalyn herself had served in the king's court as a vagabond bard or freebooter named Ruellana. She forgot the details. She'd been keeping an eye on Sunbright, tweaking odds to win her bet with Candlemas. But she knew the One King's ways, had heard his insipid speeches, and remembered that he'd scared the h.e.l.l out of the Neth. Memories of his short reign lived on, for scrying in nooks and crannies of forgotten lands, the monster-mage had often seen the faded red hand on the worn tunics of bandits, orcs, and other misfits.

So ... employing a quick disguise, a flowery speech, many promises, a fistful of weapons, and threats of death, almost overnight Sysquemalyn had rejuvenated an army and aimed it like a fire arrow at her enemies. Even now, scores of bloodthirsty villains attacked outposts of the empire, especially the fields and orchards that fed Ioulaum and Specie, where Lady Polaris had homes, and the pastures and forests of Castle Delia, her country manor. Now she'd unleashed orcs upon the Rengarth Barbarians, whom she'd seen trekking across the prairie, bound for Sanguine Mountain, which would soon live up to its name.

"Sunbright will suffer when his people suffer. And Polaris will suffer, wounded in the purse. The whole empire-the whole world-will pay for what I've endured! And I, who was Sysquemalyn, will wait until my enemies' lowest ebb. Then shall I strike, and bathe in their blood!"

Cackling, she stroked the tilted black tabletop, located another wandering band of marauders and, donning the disguise of the One King, returned to work.

Having decided to leave the wasteland, the tribe did not depart in two days, or even a week.

In a flurry of activity, people flocked to kill wild game, barter for old cattle and sheep and jerk the meat; to slice hides into straps and pouches and boots; to hunt relatives in town and persuade them to rejoin the tribe; to fashion new weapons and baskets and clothes.