It was a vain hope, though, as Adrian well knew. He shared his brother’s blue eyes and corn-gold hair, and not much else. Once, true, they had shared laughter and comradeship. But even in his best days Esmond had possessed little of his smaller and younger brother’s capacity for self-examination. And what little he once had was long gone now.
So, in the end—which took but three seconds—the only words which came out were: “Tomorrow, then. Dawn. I will kill you.”
He turned on his heel, moving as easily as a direbeast, and strode out of the tent. Within seconds, all the chieftains had followed except one.
Adrian studied him. Prelotta was his name, and he was the chief of the Reedbottom tribe. The Reedbottoms held no great stature in the barbarians’ informal but elaborate way of ranking the various tribes and clans, so Adrian had had no real contact with him previously. The land of the Reedbottoms was in the marshy lowlands of the northeast, where disease and parasites took too great a toll for velipads to be of much use. So the Reedbottoms, unlike any of the other Southron tribes, were mainly agriculturalists. They fought on foot, to the disdain of other tribes—even if, Adrian suspected from subtle signs he had detected, none of the other tribes was all that eager to wage war on them. Apparently the Reedbottoms were ferocious on their own chosen ground, where cavalry tactics were not well adapted. And Adrian had heard that they used some of the huge beasts they favored as draft animals quite effectively in battle.
Am I the only one thinking I’ve been an idiot? came Raj’s soft “voice.”
Center sounded almost sour; as close, at least, to having an emotion in his tone as Adrian could remember. i overlooked them also. we have been too preoccupied with diplomacy. they would make far better raw material than the normal run of Southrons. the probability is 79% ± 4.
“You wish?” asked Adrian politely.
Prelotta was rather young for a tribal chieftain. Not more than forty, Adrian guessed. It was a bit hard to tell, however, because Reedbottom customs favored even heavier ceremonial cicatrices and tattoos than other tribes. Prelotta’s face was like that of a carved wooden mask, the cheeks drawn tight by scars and the brow almost completely obscured by elaborate designs. The light brown hair atop his head was arranged in a wild and heavily pomaded style which not even the most decadent Vanbert noblewoman would have dared to show in public.
“I am curious,” he said in his nasal northeastern dialect. “Slings are a weapon not favored much by the Sons of Assan. Although we Reedbottoms use them, often enough.” His hideous disfigured face twisted a bit. “But, then, that is perhaps one of the reasons we are often called the Nephew of Assan.”
The “Sons of Assan” was the term that the Southron tribes used to refer to themselves. Assan being not actually a member of their pantheon of gods, as Adrian could remember being told by Emerald scholars in the long ago, so much as a vague ancestral spirit. A bit similar, in a way, to one of the race of giants which the Emerald legends claimed had been the parents of the gods themselves.
“Nephew” of Assan, is it? Well, at least he seems to have a sense of humor. That’s a start.
And not a small one.
Adrian’s own face twisted into a wry smile. He spread his arms and looked down upon himself. Like Esmond, he too had yielded to the climate and was wearing a loincloth. “You’ve seen my brother. Would you match this body against his with hand weapons?”
Prelotta spent a moment examining him. Then: “Your shoulders are actually very wide for a man with your slender frame. And while your arms don’t have your brother’s muscle, they don’t look weak either. A good body for a slinger, that—provided, of course, you have the skill.”
Despite the heavy dialect, Adrian was impressed by the man’s diction. That was another myth of northerners, he’d found since coming here. The Southrons were thought to speak almost like animals. But Adrian had found that, despite their barbarism, the Southrons were actually prone to verbal pyrotechnics and frequent poesy. In their own way, their speech was just as flowery as that of any effete Emerald scholar or pompous Confederate official—annoyingly so, if you had to listen to hours of speeches by tribal chieftains in council.