Honor among thieves

Chapter One

On the far side of the Whitewall Mountains, in the grasslands of the barbarians, in the mead tent of the Great Chieftain, fires raged and drink was passed from hand to hand, yet not a word was spoken. The gathered housemen of the Great Chieftain were too busy to gossip and sing as was their wont, too busy watching two men compete at an ancient ritual. Massive they were, as big as bears, and their muscles stood out from their arms and legs like the wood of dryland trees. They stood either side of a pit of blazing coals, each clutching hard to one end of a panther’s hide. On one side, Torki, the champion of the Great Chieftain, victor of a thousand such contests. On the other side stood Morget, whose lips were pulled back in a manic grin, the lower half of his face painted red in the traditional colors of a berserker, though he was a full chieftain now, leader of many clans.

Heaving, straining, gasping for breath in the fumes of the coals, the two struggled, each trying to pull the other into the coals. Every man and woman in the longhouse, every berserker and reaver of the Great Chieftain, every wife and thrall of the gathered warriors, watched in hushed expectation, each of them alone with their private thoughts, their desperate hopes.

There was only one who dared to speak freely, for such was always his right. Hurlind, the Great Chieftain’s scold, was full of wine and laughter. “You’re slipping, Morg’s Get! Pull as you might, he’s dragging you. Why not let go, and save yourself from the fire? This is not a game for striplings!”

“Silence,” Morget hissed from between clenched teeth.

Yet his grin was faltering, for it was true. Torki’s grasp on the panther hide was like the grip of great tree roots on the earth. His arms were locked at the elbows, and with the full power of his body, trained and toughened by the hard life of the steppes, he was pulling as inexorably as the ocean tide. Morget slid toward the coals a fraction of an inch at a time, no matter how he dug his toes into the grit on the floor.

At the mead bench closest to the fire a reaver of the Great Chieftain placed a sack of gold on the table and nudged his neighbor, a chieftain of great honor. He pointed at Torki and the chieftain nodded, then put his own money next to the reaver’s-though as he did so he glanced slyly at the Great Chieftain in his place of honor at the far end of the table. Perhaps he worried that his overlord might take it askance-after all, Morget was the Great Chieftain’s son.

The Great Chieftain did not see the wager, however. His eyes never moved from the contest. Morg, the man who had made a nation of these people, the man who had seen every land in the world and plundered every coast, father of multitudes, slayer of dragons, Morg the Great was ancient by the reckoning of the East. Forty-five winters had ground at his bones. Only a little silver ran through the gold of his wild beard, however, and no sign of dotage showed in his glinting eyes. He reached without looking for a haunch of roasted meat. Tearing a generous piece free, he held it down toward the mangy dog at his feet. The dog always ate first. It roused itself from sleep just long enough to swallow the gobbet. When it was done, Morg fed himself, grease slicking down his chin and the front of his fur robes.

A great deal relied on which combatant let go of the hide first. The destiny of the entire eastern people, the lives of countless warriors were at stake-and a debt of honor nearly two centuries old. No onlooker could have said which of the warriors, his son or his champion, Morg favored.

Torki never made a sound. He did not appear to move at all-he might have been a marble statue. He had the marks of a reaver, black crosses tattooed on the shaved skin behind his ears. One for every season of pillaging he’d undertaken in the hills to the north. Enough crosses that they ran down the back of his neck. Not a drop of sweat showed yet on his brow.

Morget shifted his stance a hairbreadth and was nearly pulled into the fire. His teeth gnashed at the air as he fought to regain his posture.

Nearby, his sister Morgain, herself a chieftess of many clans, stood ready with a flagon of wine mulled with sweet gale. As was widely known, she hated her brother-had since infancy. No matter how hard she fought to prove herself, no matter what glory she won in battle, Morget had always overshadowed her accomplishments. Letting him win this contest now would be bitter as ashes in her mouth. Nor did she need to play the passive spectator here. She could end it in a moment by splashing wine across the boards at Morget’s feet. He would be unable to hold his ground on the slippery boards, and Torki would win for a certainty.

“Sister,” Morget howled, “set down that wine. Do you not thirst for western blood, instead?”

Morg raised one eyebrow, perhaps very much interested in learning the answer to that question.

The chieftess laughed bitterly and spat between Morget’s feet. But then she hurled her flagon at the wall, where it burst harmlessly, well clear of the contest. “I’ve tasted blood. I’d rather have the westerners alive, as my thralls.”

“And you shall, as many of them as you desire,” Morget told her, his words bitten off before they left his mouth.

“And steel? Will you give me dwarven steel, better than the iron my warriors wear now?”

“All that they can carry! Now, aid me!”

“I shall,” Morgain said. “I’ll pray for your success!”

That was enough to break the general silence, though only long enough for the gathered warriors to laugh uproariously and slap each other on the back. The shadow of a smile even crossed Torki’s lips. In the East the clans had a saying: pray with your back turned, so that at least your enemies won’t see your weakness. The clans worshipped only Death, and beseeching Her aid was rarely a good idea.

“Did you hear that, Torki?” Hurlind the scold asked. “The Mother of us all pulls against you now. Better redouble your grip!”

The champion’s lips split open to show his teeth. It was the first sign of emotion he’d given since the contest began.

And yet it was like some witch’s spell had been broken. Perhaps Death-or some darker fate-did smile on Morget then. For suddenly his arms flexed as if he’d found some strength he forgot he had. He leaned back, putting his weight into the pull.

Torki’s smile melted all at once. His left foot shifted an inch on the boards. It was not necessarily a fatal slip. Given a moment’s grace he could have recovered, locking his knees and reinforcing his strength.

Yet Morget did not give him that moment. Everyone knew that Morget, for all his size and strength, was faster than a wildcat. He seized the opportunity and hauled Torki toward him until the balance was broken and the champion toppled, sprawling face first on the coals. Torki screamed as the fire bit into his skin. He leapt out of the pit, releasing the panther skin and grabbing a mead jug to pour honey wine on his burns.

The longhouse erupted in cheers and shouts. Hurlind led a tune of victory and bravery against all odds, an old song every man and woman in the longhouse knew. Even Morgain joined in the refrain, Morgain of whom it was said her iron ever did her singing for her.

In the chaos, in the tumult, Morget went to his father’s chair and knelt before him. In his hands he held his prize, the singed pelt. Orange coals still flecked its curling fur.

“Great Chieftain,” Morget said, addressing the older man as a warrior, not as a parent, “you hold sway over the hundred clans. They wait for your instructions. For ten years now you have kept them from each other’s throats. You have made peace in a land that only knew war.”

Ten years, aye, in which no clan had feuded with another. Ten years without warfare, ten years of prosperity. For many of those gathered, ten years of boredom. Morg had united the clans by being stronger than any man who opposed him, and by giving the chieftains that which they desired. Instead of making war on each other, as they had since time immemorial, the clans had worked together to hunt such game as the steppes provided and to raid the villages of the hillfolk in the North. Yet now there were murmurs in the camps that what every warrior wanted was not ten more years of peace but a new chance to test their mettle. Morget had been instrumental in starting those murmurs but he had only fed a fire that was already kindled by restlessness. Eastern men, eastern chieftains, could not sit all day in their tents forever and dream of past victories. Eventually they needed to kill something, or they went mad.

Morg the Great, Morg the Wise, had pushed them perhaps as far as he could. As he turned his head to look around at his chieftains, how many eyes did he meet that burned with this new desire for war? Now that the mountains lay open to them, how long could he hold them back?

“All good things,” Morg said, looking down at his son again, “should come to an end, it seems. Just as they say in Old Hrush. You’ve won the right to make your say. Tell me, Morget, what you wish.”

“Only to stand by your side when we march through this new pass into the west, and crush the decadent kingdom of Skrae beneath our feet.”

“You lead many clans, Chieftain. And I am not your king. You do not require my permission to raid the West.”

It was true. It was law. Morg was the Great Chieftain, but he ruled only by the consent of the clans. “I have the right, aye, to raid the West. But I don’t wish just to scare a few villagers and take their sheep,” Morget explained. “For two hundred years that’s all we’ve done, ever since the Skraelings sealed off the mountain passes. Now there is a new pass. Once, long before any of us were born, our warriors spoke not of raiding but of conquest. Of far greater glories. I wish, Great Chieftain, to make war. To take every mile of Skrae for our people, as has always been their destiny!”

Alone in that place, Morg carried iron, in the form of a sword at his belt. All other weapons had been stacked outside, for no warrior would dare bring a blade into the house of the Great Chieftain. Should he desire it, if his wishes countered those of his son, Morg could draw his sword and strike down Morget this instant. No man there would gainsay him for it.

They called him Morg the Wise, sometimes, when they wished to flatter him. Behind his back they called him Morg the Merciful, which was a great slander among the people of the East. If he struck the blow now, perhaps those whispering tongues would be silenced. Or perhaps they would only grow into a chorus.

The chieftains wanted this. They had made Morget their spokesman, and sent him here tonight to gain this audience.

And Morg was no king to thwart the will of his people for his own whims. That was the way of the decadent West. Here in the East, men ruled through respect, or through fear, but always honestly-because the men who served them believed in them. Morg was no stronger than the chieftains he’d united. He lived and died by their sufferance. If he did not give them what they wanted, they had their own recourse-they could replace him. And that could only be done over his dead body. Great Chieftains ruled for life, so murder was the sole method of their impeachment.

On his knees, Morget stared up at his father with eyes as clear and blue as a mountain stream. Eyes that never blinked.

Morg knew he must decide, now. There was no discussion to be had, no council to call. He alone must make this decision. Every eye watched his face. Even Hurlind had fallen silent, waiting to hear what he would say.

“You,” Morg said, rising and pointing at a thrall standing by the door. “Fetch boughs of wet myrtle, and throw them on the fire. Let them make a great smoke, that all will see, and thereby know. Tomorrow we march through the mountains to the west. Tomorrow we make war!”