Bones of the Dragon - Margaret Weis [41]
Horg took another step; then he halted. He paused a moment, turned too fast, and almost stumbled over his own feet. He pulled himself upright and said with massive calm, “I gave it to the ogres.”
Draya pressed her hand over her thudding heart. “Vindrash save us!” she gasped. “What have you done?”
“What have I done?” Horg repeated, and his face flushed in anger. “I have saved us from death—that’s what I’ve done. The ogres came with their ships. Their sails filled the skies—”
“So many that no one else saw them,” said Draya caustically.
“I was riding alone! They would have sent their warriors ashore, but I met with their godlords, made a deal—”
“You gave them the sacred torque,” said Draya. “But that wasn’t enough. They wanted blood, and you gave them our kinsmen.”
“We were outnumbered!” Horg bawled, raising his fists and shaking them in the air. “They would have destroyed us!”
“The Vektan Torque belongs to the gods. You have given what was not yours to give. Torval’s curse will fall on you!” Draya’s voice trembled. “His curse will fall on us all!”
“Torval’s curse!” Horg laughed and struck himself on the chest. “Look at me, bitch. I’m going to tell you something about Torval.”
“Get out!” Draya cried. The smell of cider and his sweaty, filthy body sickened her. She averted her face, gripped the altar with her hands. “Get out of my sight, you drunken coward!”
“I’ll go,” said Horg. “I have a new woman to warm my bed and a cask of cider to drink. But first, bitch, you’re going to listen to what I have to say for a change. Torval won’t curse me. The old fart couldn’t curse a cat! The ogres told me. There was a war in heaven, and our gods lost.”
Draya laughed. “How ludicrous!”
“You don’t believe me?” Horg sneered. “Ask your precious Vindrash. If you can find her.”
Draya started to angrily refute him, but the words died on her lips. She didn’t believe him—or rather, she didn’t want to believe him.
“You are shamed, dishonored, no longer fit to be Chief of Chiefs. I will tell the people what you have done.”
Horg shrugged. “Go ahead. And I’ll tell them what I know about the gods.” He smirked at her. “Where does that leave you, Kai Priestess? If the gods are dead, who in the name of Hevis needs you anymore? Certainly I don’t!”
Horg made a lunge for her. She tried to escape, but he was too fast. He grabbed hold of her, gripping her by her chin and digging his fingers into her jaw. Draya moaned in his grasp. He held her so tightly, she was afraid to move for fear he would shatter her jaw as if it were an eggshell.
He laughed again, then snarled at her. “Here’s what I think of you. And here’s what I think of your fucking gods.”
He flung Draya to the floor. She landed heavily on her hands and knees. She tasted blood. Her teeth had cut the inside of her mouth. Her eyes burned with tears. She kept her head lowered, determined not to let him see that he had made her cry.
She heard Horg’s footfalls thud across the floor, felt them vibrate through her body. He slammed the door, and she flinched at the sound.
Draya remained where she was, afraid to get up. Finally, she glanced around. Seeing that Horg had truly gone, she sighed and leaned weakly against the altar. The awful calamity had stunned her. She touched her hand gingerly to her face, felt the bruises Horg’s gouging fingers had left behind.
“It’s not true,” she said bleakly. The tears spilled over and ran down her cheeks. “It’s not true!”
“I’m afraid it is, my dear,” said a gentle voice. “We who are immortal. We who cannot die. We watched Aylis cradle her dying child, Desiria, in her arms. Her wyrd had snapped, and now the tapestry of all our lives is starting to unravel.”
The wyrd.
The Vindrasi believed that when the thread that ties a babe to the mother is cut, the thread of that child’s wyrd begins. The wyrd is spun by the Norn, three sisters of the God Gogroth, who came at Torval’s summons to plant the World Tree. His three sisters sat beneath the tree, one twisting the wyrd on her distaff, one spinning the wyrd