Watt-Evans, Lawrence - Annals of the Chosen 01 (31 page)

The Seer, with her motherly impatience,
seemed much easier to believe—and besides, whether he had ever actually led
anyone or not, Boss was the Leader of the Chosen and they were supposed to
follow him.

"This way," the Seer said, and
Breaker shrugged off the Speaker's words and followed.

Winterhome, he
discovered, was huge—but largely empty with the Uplanders gone. There were
three streets of the great shelters, each miles long, radiating to the west,
southwest, and northwest from a central p
laza; to the east of the plaza a gigantic
steep slope of broken stone led up toward the only break in the Eastern Cliffs,
a trail zigzagging across it. Where most of the world was green and inviting
now that the sun was above the cliffs, this slope was mostly reddish brown,
though here and there a few patches of moss and lichen showed that the rocks
were not utterly lifeless.

To the north and
south of the square lay the homes and businesses of the Host People—or at least
those who were not employed as live-
in caretakers of the clan houses. When the
travelers reached the plaza the Seer dismissed their guide, and led the way
into the tangle of streets and alleys to the south.

Here, at last, the
streets were inhabited, and Breaker got his first real look at the
Host People.

He was not
particularly impressed; they all wore black from head to toe, with tight black
hoods hiding their hair and ears. The few visible women added a black scarf
pulled up over their mouths and usually their noses, as well; the men wore b
ristling beards
instead.

The men's garments
were tunics and breeches, cut generously, but bound at wrists, elbows, knees,
and ankles with black garters to keep their clothing from getting in the way.
The women's floor-length robes, on the other hand, were
great baggy
swirling things, almost tentlike, that were worn loose, without any sort of
belt or binding; combined with the hoods and scarves it was impossible to tell
what any of the women actually looked like. Wrinkles around the eyes gave some
clue as to age, but beyond that all the females were simply interchangeable
black shapes of varying size.

In all his travels so
far, from Mad Oak to Stoneslope and Seven Sides to Winterhome, Breaker did not
think he had ever seen less attractive feminine attire. T
here had been towns
where he was not permitted to see the women at all, and others where women
walked the streets stark naked, but never before had he encountered garb so
utterly unappealing. He wondered whether this was ordained by the local
ler,
or was
a purely human aberration.

"Do you know why the women dress like
that?" he asked the Scholar quietly.

"For protection," the Scholar
replied. "When the Uplanders come down from the plateau—well, you've got
a lot of eager, active young men who are accustomed to roaming freely across
wide areas who are suddenly thrust into close quarters with nothing much to
occupy their time. They get bored and need outlets for their energy. Add in
young women who are outside the protection of their clan system, and you've got
a recipe for trouble—everything from rude remarks to outright rape and even
murder. Hasty marriages, fatherless children .
.."
He shrugged. "Not that those don't happen anyway,
of course, but at least they're not common."

"But the women are still there,"
Breaker protested.

"But the
Uplanders can't tell the pretty girls from the grandmothers. Easier to talk to
their own women, who
don't
dress like that—or to the Host People's whores, who also don't."

Breaker glanced around, and saw no exceptions
to the smothering black garb. "They don't?"

"Indeed they don't, not when they're
making themselves available—which they aren't right now, with the Uplanders not
here, so you can stop looking."

"I wasn't
..."
Breaker began, then stopped. He grimaced. "All
right, but I was merely curious about what they
do
wear."

"Furs, usually. The Uplanders find fur
exotic, since
ara
and other birds dominate on the plateau
and there are no fur-bearing beasts up there. And after all, it's in the winter
that the Host People play host."

"If you two are done ogling the
women," the Seer said, "Boss is in here." She pointed at an open
door.

There was no signboard, no hanging tankard,
no shop window, no bell, nothing to indicate that this place was open to the
public; Breaker hesitated.

The Archer did not; he stepped forward and
marched into the building. The Seer followed. Warily, Breaker and the Scholar
stepped in; then Breaker paused on the threshold to make sure the Speaker was
accompanyin
g them.

Once she was past
him, Breaker turned and
found himself in what was plainly an ordinary inn or tavern; half a
score of black-clad customers were scattered about several tables and benches,
most of them holding pewter mugs. They had apparently been gathered around the
one person not wearing black, a handsome man in his thirties who wore a
tooled-leather vest over a fine white blouse, but all had now turned to stare
at the newcomers.

The man in the
leather vest had turned, as well. He was tall and muscular, though not quite a
match for Bow or Breake
r, with black curly hair and a magnificent black beard. Brown eyes and
white teeth shone as he smiled at the newcomers, and Breaker felt an irrational
urge to smile back—the man's charm was undeniable.

"Seer!" he
said. "And Lore! What brings
you
here? And
who—oh, wait, I
recognize Babble, and that fellow looks like Bow. Is this other our new
Swordsman, then?"

"I am," Breaker acknowledged—and he
felt an odd warmth as he spoke those words.

"Then have you all journeyed here to
introduce us? It hardly seems as if you
all
needed to come!"

"That's not why we're here," the
Seer began.

The Leader held up a hand, and she fell
silent. "Then perhaps this is not the best place to speak," he said.

"Perhaps
..."

"Then come." He gestured.

A moment later Breaker was following the Leader
up a set of stairs he had not even consciously noticed, not quite certain how
he had come to be there. The man called Boss had taken control of the situation
from the first, giving no one an opportunity to argue; he had instructed, and
they had obeyed. The six Chosen had suddenly become the cooperating team
Breaker had always thought they should be.

But now Breaker was
not sure whether he was entirely pleased about that. Yes, it was good to have a
leader who could actually lead, good to hav
e everything falling into place, but this
assumption of authority seemed a bit sudden. Being part of a team was good;
being a subordinate on a team was not quite so clearly beneficial. Breaker
liked to think he could make his own decisions.

Although he kne
w that far too often
of late, he hadn't. He had just gone along with what was expected of him,
playing out his role as the Swordsman, doing what the Seer and the Scholar
wanted him to do. He had followed them halfway across Barokan without serious
argument, but now that he was being guided by the Leader, the man he was
supposed
to obey, he balked?

He grimaced at his own foolishness.

And then the six of them were in an upstairs
room, one that held them all well enough, but was somewhat crowded with half a
dozen people in it. All of the new arrivals found places for themselves—the
Speaker and the Scholar sat on the bed, the Seer took the room's only chair,
the Archer
stetted on the windowseat, and Breaker
perched himself on a trunk. The Leader closed the door,
then turned and
leaned against it.

"Now," the
Leader said, "since there's really only one reason I can think of that
three-fourths of the Chosen would be gathered together, I assume someone's
heard something terrible about the Wizard Lord, and you want
a decision on
whether or not we need to remove him. I don't think that's something we want to
discuss in front of the Host People, or anyone else but ourselves, so I've
brought us up here—but you know they'll figure it out quickly enough, word will
be all over Winterhome in an hour, and the Wizard Lord himself will know by
morning."

"He already knows," the Seer said.

"You're sure of that?"

"Absolutely. We've spoken to him. And we
told at least one of our guides, come to that, so there's no secret to
keep."

The Leader nodded.
'Then there's no element of surprise to consider, and it may not matter if
rumors are all over Barokan.
That
would seem
to mean there's no need to rush. So I'll be happy to hear all about whatever
atrocity has been alleged, but first le
t's take a minute to get to know our own
situation." He pointed at Breaker. "Stand up, Swordsman, and tell us
about yourself."

Breaker rose. "What would you like to
know?" he asked.

"To begin with, what's your name?"

Breaker glanced at the Speaker, then said,
"I'm called Sword now; for most of my life I was known as Breaker."

'Those aren't your
name."

"No, of course not. My people don't use
true names."

The Leader nodded. "And where are those
people? Somewhere in the northern valleys?"

"A town called Mad Oak, in Longvale,"
Breaker acknowledged.

"And old Blade showed up there, asking
for someone to replace him?" "Yes."

"Why did you volunteer?"
"Someone had to do it."

The Leader looked at him for a long moment;
Breaker looked calmly back. Then Boss nodded again. "I see," he said.
"Someone had to—but why you?"

"Because no one else was speaking
up."

"And the glory of being the world's
greatest swordsman, one of the eight Chosen
...
?"

Breaker smiled. "That didn't hurt."

"And you had no ties holding you to Mad
Oak?"

Breaker shrugged. "I had friends, and my
family, and I had never seen anywhere else, but nothing that prevented me from
taking on the role."

"Family? You're married? Children?"

Breaker was genuinely shocked. "Oh, no,
of course not! But there are my parents and my sisters."

"Ah. Of course. So you trained with old
Blade, and fought him and won—how did that go?"

Breaker frowned. "That was . . . odd. I
cut him worse than I had intended—he was distracted and dropped his guard. The
Wizard Lord spoke up during the fight, you see. Through a rabbit."

"Did he? How do you know it was the
Wizard Lord, and not some other magician? Perhaps one of your local priests
wanted to ensure your victory, as a matter of local pride."

Breaker blinked.

"Our priest couldn't do that," he
said. "Another wizard, perhaps?"

"I suppose it's possible," Breaker
admitted. "No one else mentioned that possibility, though—not Blade nor
the wizards present."

"Perhaps they were fooled as well—or
perhaps some of them were part of the scheme."

"Or perhaps it really was the Wizard
Lord," the Seer interjected. "Boss, can we get down to
business?"

"In a moment. I
like to know who I'll be working with." He looked around at the others.
"I've met the rest of you, of course, though I don't know as much about
some of you as I would like. I notice that the Thief isn't here, nor the
Beauty—why is that, Sword?"

"The Thief
wouldn't come," Breaker explained. "She says she regrets ever taking
the role, and she won't leave her husband and children. As for the
Beauty, we found you
first."

"Fair enough. Where is the Beauty, Seer?
Up north? Out on the coast?"

"That way," the Seer said,
pointing. "About half a mile." The Leader blinked in apparent
surprise. "Is she?" "Yes."