Oath of Swords

Chapter Sixteen

It wasn’t necessary to buy maps after all.

A chance remark from Brandark informed Tothas of their need shortly after the ferry set them ashore once more, and the guardsman blinked, then gave his youthful mistress a scolding look and produced his own map. Bahzell matched the Spearman’s look with a glower of his own, but Zarantha-who’d regained her normal spirits as soon as the ferry vanished back into the mists-only grinned, and Brandark’s smothered laughter didn’t help. Bahzell had already reached the unhappy suspicion that his friend’s and Zarantha’s souls were entirely too much akin; now he was certain of it.

But at least he could get some idea of where he was bound, and it was even worse than he’d feared. He sat on the cold ground, opened the map across his thighs, found the scale, and located Alfroma, then tried to hide his dismay as he walked thumb and forefinger across the map. Alfroma was six hundred leagues from Riverside as the bird flew, but they were no birds, and this Sherhan place wasn’t even shown.

“Could you be showing me just where Sherhan is?” he asked, and Tothas leaned over his shoulder to point to a location southeast of Alfroma. It would be on the far side of the city, Bahzell thought, and sat studying the map in glum silence for over ten minutes while frost melted under his backside.

The best of maps could hide unpleasant surprises, but even if this one didn’t, following the roads would add another two hundred leagues, and they’d have to hunt and forage on the way. Either that or stop periodically to earn the money, somehow, for the next stage. Worse, Tothas had already assured him the roads got worse-much worse-once they left Angthyr.

Of course, they had sound beasts and no wagons. That would be a plus on bad roads, but this little jaunt would take them two months by his most favorable estimate. And that assumed two women and a man fresh from his sickbed could stand the sort of pace on horseback that a Horse Stealer could set on foot. Zarantha probably could; Rekah and Tothas were another matter, and the scarlet and gold leaves were already falling.

He looked up to meet Tothas’ eyes, and the Spearman’s expression matched his own. The others probably had no idea what they faced. Rekah certainly didn’t, or she would have been far less cheerful. He suspected Zarantha had a sounder appreciation of what awaited them, whether she chose to admit it or not, but Brandark, for all his toughness, was city-bred, and he’d never made a forced march through sleet or snow in his life. Bahzell had; that was why winter campaigning had never appealed to him, and, from Tothas’ face, he’d seen his own share of winter marches. Clearly, he looked forward to this one no more than Bahzell did, which raised an interesting question. If he knew what he was getting into, why hadn’t he even tried to talk Zarantha out of it? Especially in his weakened condition?

Bahzell was fairly certain he wouldn’t have liked the answer to that question if he’d known it. He sighed once more, then stood, handed the map back to Tothas, shouldered his arbalest, and set off through the ground fog with the others at his heels.

The fog burned away as the morning drew on, and Bahzell’s heart rose as his ill-assorted party moved more briskly than he’d dared hope.

Zarantha’s mule proved just as fractious as its wicked eyes suggested. It made a determined attempt to take a mouthful out of Bahzell’s arm when she pushed up past Brandark to ask the Horse Stealer a question, but she controlled the abortive lunge with the ease of long practice and favored it with a description of its ancestry, personal habits, and probable fate that made both hradani cock their ears in appreciation. The mule seemed unimpressed, but though it eyed Bahzell’s arm with wistful longing it also settled down, and the Horse Stealer answered Zarantha’s question. She reined around and pressed with her heels to ask for a trot, and Bahzell snorted as he watched her post gracefully back to her place beside Rekah. Stay on a horse, indeed!

Tothas and Brandark changed off places at midday. The armsman rode companionably at Bahzell’s shoulder, and the Horse Stealer began picking his brain about the conditions they were likely to face. The hradani didn’t much care for what he learned, but that wasn’t Tothas’ fault. The Spearman’s answers were those of a man who knew exactly what Bahzell was asking, and why. They also confirmed his own insight into the rigors stretching before them, and his every word only deepened Bahzell’s puzzlement. The man was obviously of officer quality; Rianthus would have given him platoon or company command in a heartbeat. What he was doing with a penniless “noblewoman” like Zarantha baffled the hradani, but he was plainly more than a simple hireling. Even when he rode at the head of their short column with Bahzell, the corner of his eye was perpetually on Zarantha, and the answers that were so forthcoming when it came to road conditions and terrain became politely vague whenever the conversation turned towards his mistress.

It would have required someone far stupider than Bahzell to think Zarantha hadn’t concealed a great deal about herself, yet the fact that Tothas was so ready to support her deception-whatever it was-reassured the Horse Stealer oddly. He couldn’t have said why, except that he found himself liking Tothas even more than he liked Zarantha herself. Besides, he told himself, Zarantha might have any number of legitimate reasons for caution. Her willingness to travel at this time of year was compelling evidence her situation was grave, if not desperate, and if she’d manipulated Bahzell and Brandark into helping her, that didn’t mean she had reason to trust two hradani she hadn’t yet had time to learn to know.

They held to a good pace all day and continued straight past the village they reached shortly before sunset. Bahzell longed for the comfort of a roof and walls, but they had too few kormaks to squander on inns. He kept his eye out as they moved on down the high road, but it was Tothas who spotted the perfect campsite. A thicket of intermixed pine and fir provided a thick, resinous windbreak and firewood in plenty, a small stream offered fresh water, and Bahzell accepted the Spearman’s suggestion with gratitude.

His new companions had borne up well and maintained a brisk pace, and there were surprisingly few rough edges to the way they made camp. Rekah might be a flutterer who’d clearly heard entirely too many romantic ballads, but she was also an excellent cook, and she took over the fire pit as soon as Brandark and Tothas finished it. Bahzell and Zarantha saw to the horses and mules, and her skill with them confirmed his suspicion that she must have been put into her first saddle before she could walk. Nor did she let the “Lady” before her name stand in the way of any task that needed doing. While Brandark and Bahzell gathered wood and Tothas tended the fire, she sat peeling potatoes and carrots for her maid without so much as a hint that it might be beneath her.

Supper was as delicious as it smelled, and no one seemed inclined to sit up afterward. They’d covered forty miles from Riverside, and all of them were fatigued, but the possibility that ni’Tarth might have sent someone after them only reinforced Bahzell’s inherent caution. No one argued his decision to set watches, but Tothas started to protest when Bahzell divided the task into thirds and asked Zarantha and Rekah to take the third watch without assigning him to one . . . until a single quiet sentence from Zarantha shut his mouth with a snap. Bahzell longed to know just what she’d said, but the fast, liquid sentence was in some dialect not even Brandark recognized. Whatever it was, it worked, and Tothas wrapped himself in his blankets without another word.

The night was uneventful-aside from the usual, chaotic dream fragments that tormented Bahzell-but a quiet, horrible rasping sound pulled the Horse Stealer awake with the dawn. He rolled over and sat up, and his ears lowered in shocked sympathy as he saw its source.

Tothas sat hunched in his bedroll, coughing as if to bring his lungs up while Rekah watched anxiously and Zarantha sat beside him. The Spearman fought his bitter, convulsive coughs, strangling his sounds against a white-knuckled fist, and Zarantha held his wasted body in her arms. One hand cupped the back of his head, urging his cheek against her shoulder, and quiet agony had replaced her usual smiling deviltry. Her hands were gentle as she murmured encouragement into his ear, and tears gleamed in her eyes as she met the Horse Stealer’s gaze. There was anger with the anguish in those eyes-not at Bahzell, but at whatever had wreaked such ruin on Tothas-and a silent plea, and the hradani gazed back at her in silence for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly, laid back down, and turned his back while Tothas fought his lonely battle.

The armsman coughed with wracking desperation for at least fifteen minutes before he could stop, but his face showed no sign of it when Bahzell stopped pretending to sleep twenty minutes later, and if he was a little slower as he saddled his horse the next morning, Bahzell didn’t begrudge the time. He couldn’t. Zarantha might play whatever role she pleased, but her devotion to her armsman disarmed his distrust. And his heart went out to Tothas’ gallantry when the Spearman finally mounted as if nothing at all had happened, with a refusal to ask for quarter any hradani could respect.

They stopped in Kor Keep for supplies.

They were too poor for the gouging hradani would invite, so Bahzell and Brandark sent the humans off with their skimpy funds, and Zarantha did far better than they’d dared hope. She returned with the pack mule loaded heavily enough to fold its ears resentfully back, and managed it for barely a third of the contents of Brandark’s purse. The Bloody Sword gave Bahzell one look, then handed the purse back to her and made her their official treasurer.

She’d managed to pick up a few extra blankets and enough sacked grain to eke out their animals’ grazing, as well, and Bahzell actually began to feel a bit optimistic. Nothing could keep the journey from being unpleasant, but it seemed there were advantages to traveling with a poverty-stricken noblewoman. At least she seemed to have learned to pinch kormaks until they squealed!

The weather remained clear for the next few days, but the nights grew steadily chillier, and Tothas was obviously in constant pain. Yet aside from an occasional coughing fit-few, mercifully, as terrible as that first one-he neither slowed them nor once complained, and Bahzell soon realized he’d never met a braver man. The Spearman’s illness was a more exhausting-and frightening-battle than the Horse Stealer had ever faced, yet Tothas fought it with unflinching courage, and Bahzell was startled by his own pride on the day he discovered he could call this man a friend.

It was easier than he’d expected when Zarantha first entrapped him. Tothas spoke seldom, but what he said made sense. More, his absolute devotion to Zarantha was the sort of loyalty hradani could appreciate, and his unwavering, uncomplaining gallantry won Brandark’s heart, as well as Bahzell’s.

Yet there was something more to Tothas, something in his attitude, and they were past Kor Keep on the way to the Duchy of Carchon before it dawned on the Horse Stealer what that something was. The Spearman had never looked at him and seen a hradani; he’d seen only a man, to be judged on his own merits, without prejudice or preconception.

It was the first time anyone-even Hartan-had done that since he’d left Navahk, and a small, ignoble part of him resented it, as if Tothas’ acceptance were a sort of secret condescension. That shamed him when he recognized it, for Tothas never condescended. Indeed, he held others to high standards-the same ones he held himself to-and his was no hasty judgment. He’d watched both hradani for days before he decided about them; once he had, he accepted Bahzell’s leadership with the same unwavering support, if not the same devotion, he gave Zarantha.

He trusted the two hradani, and that trust was a two-edged sword. When one was trusted, one must prove worthy of being trusted, and Bahzell knew Tothas’ trust had transformed an arrangement forced upon him by expediency into something far more constraining. But there was a curious satisfaction in the transformation, a sense of belonging, of doing something worth the doing because those doing it with him were good people.

And they were good people, despite whatever secret they hid.

However rough the road, however tired Zarantha might be, Bahzell had yet to hear her first complaint, and she and Brandark had joined forces to keep his own life from becoming boring. She was actually helping the Bloody Sword refine his accursed composition. The two of them shared their labors with the others most nights, but at least Brandark let her do the singing.

Rekah was more mercurial, and she had her bad days, especially as the nights grew colder. But she did her part and a bit more, and however grumpy she might be of an evening, she was always up early, always ready for the next day, be it ever so grueling.

And then there was Tothas-a man, Bahzell had realized, who knew he was dying in the saddle. That was the reason he described the roads ahead so carefully. He’d chosen the hradani as his successor, the man who would see Zarantha safely home if he himself could not, for he was a man who would do his duty to the end, whatever that end was, and that , Bahzell realized, was what truly drew him so strongly to the Spearman.

No wonder Zarantha was so fiercely devoted to her armsman. No wonder she held him in her arms when he woke coughing and watched him with hidden hurt as they rode. She might laugh at Brandark’s sallies or tease the others to hide her pain, but that, Bahzell knew, was because it would have shamed Tothas if she hadn’t-and understanding how deeply she cared for her armsman touched the Horse Stealer with fear whenever he tried to guess what drove her to lead a dying man she loved into the teeth of winter.

A cold wind moaned in the leafless scrub of the lonely Carchon Hills. They were near the top of the range; tomorrow they would start down to the border between Korwin and Carchon, and Bahzell hoped they’d find warmer weather when they did. The picketed horses and mules stood silent under frost-glazed blankets, cold stars glittered pitilessly, and he shivered as he returned to the fire to build it back up. He’d been colder than this, but that didn’t mean he liked it, and it was only going to get worse from here.

Flames crackled about the fresh wood, and he kept his head turned to preserve his night vision. He had no reason to anticipate trouble-they were well beyond ni’Tarth’s reach, and these hills were all but unpopulated-but trouble had a way of coming without sending word ahead, and he had no mind to be fire-dazzled if it did.

He resumed his slow walk around their perimeter. Brandark had found a boulder to use as a heat reflector and slept between it and the fire with only his beaky nose poked out of his blankets. Rekah and Zarantha had pooled their bedrolls and body heat beside him, and Tothas, by common consent, had the warmest spot of all, in the low hollow with the fire itself. It was lonely, out here in the moaning night while the others slept, but Bahzell was grateful he was awake, not sleeping himself and prey to his maddening dreams. Frost squeaked under his boots as he moved still further from the fire, eyes searching the dark, and his mind was busy.

The dreams refused to release him. They besieged him night after night, until he dreaded the moment his eyes closed. Familiarity had worn the jagged edge of terror smooth, but the terror hadn’t gone away. It couldn’t. It was the demon he fought as Tothas fought his hacking spasms, and he was tired of it. So very, very tired. He closed his mind to the dreams, rejected them, pushed them out of memory with all his strength, yet still they plagued him, laughing at his efforts to outrun them. There was no mercy in them . . . and nowhere he could hide from them.

He sighed heavily, then stiffened as a boot scuffed behind him. He whirled, reaching for his sword, then relaxed.

“I was thinking you were asleep,” he said.

“I was.” Tothas’ voice was raspy, as if he hovered on the brink of one of his coughing fits, but his face was calm in the starlight. He’d wrapped a blanket over his cloak, and he stepped past the hradani to sit on another boulder, drawing the blanket tighter about him, and shivered.

“A bitter night,” he said quietly. “Not much good for sleeping anyway, I suppose.”

“Aye, but not so bitter as we’ll be seeing soon enough,” Bahzell replied in a tone of quiet grimness.

“No, not that bitter.” Tothas gazed at the toes of his boots for a long, silent moment, then raised his eyes once more. “You’re troubled by your dreams, Bahzell,” he said in the soft voice of a man making a simple statement, and the hradani stiffened, ears half-flat, and looked down at him. A minute passed, then two, and Tothas only gazed back up at him and waited.

“Aye.” Bahzell cleared his throat. “Aye, I am that. I’d hoped you’d not notice.”

“I don’t think Rekah or Lady Zarantha have. I’m not sure about My Lady-she sees things others miss-but I don’t sleep so well these days.” Tothas allowed himself a small smile. Not bitter or resentful, but one of what might almost have been wry amusement. “I’ve heard you muttering in your sleep. I don’t speak your language, but I know trouble when I hear it, and I thought-”

He shrugged, but his invitation hovered, and Bahzell sighed and sat beside him. He placed himself to cut the wind that tugged at Tothas’ blanket without even realizing he had and rubbed his chin in thought, then sighed again.

“Aye, it’s trouble you’ve heard. No, let’s be honest; it’s fear,” he admitted, and it was amazingly easy to confess it to this man.

“Why?” Tothas asked simply, and Bahzell told him. He told him everything, even things he’d never told Brandark. Of course, Brandark was hradani. He’d understood the terror those dreams held without telling, but there were depths of fear Bahzell had never been able to expose to his friend. Not in so many words. Not with the honesty with which he revealed it to Tothas there in the windy blackness.

The Spearman heard him out without comment, other than a thoughtful frown as Bahzell described Jothan Tarlnasa’s appearance at Derm and a smothered chuckle at the way Tarlnasa had left the barge. But when the hradani ran out of words at last and sat staring down at his empty fists, Tothas cleared his throat and laid a hand on Bahzell’s knee.

“I understand your fear, Bahzell,” he said. “I don’t suppose I would have if you hadn’t explained it-you and Brandark are the first hradani I’ve ever met, and we in the South Weald know little about your people. The West Weald and Border Weald run up against the Broken Bone hradani; they may know more, but all most Spearmen know of them are the old tales of the Fall, and I’ve never heard them from the hradani side. What was done to you-what you call the Rage-” He shook his head, and his hand tightened on Bahzell’s knee. Then he released it with a pat and rose.

“We all lost in the Fall,” he said, standing with his back to the Horse Stealer, his voice frayed by the wind. “We were all betrayed, yet none, I think, so badly as you. So, yes, I understand your fear. But-” he turned back “-perhaps there’s no need for it. Dreams need not be evidence of fresh betrayal, and the fact that this Tarlnasa fellow is undoubtedly an idiot doesn’t make him a liar. It may truly be the gods speaking to you.”

“Aye.” Bahzell rose to stare out into the night beside him. “I’ve thought on that. I’ll not deny it was in my mind at first that it was some poxy wizard, but my folk remember a thing or two about wizards. Old wives’ tales maybe, but we’ve not forgotten what was done to us, and I’m thinking this thing’s lasted too long for such as that. Aye, and it’s grown no weaker, and it should have, with the leagues I’ve put behind me since it started. I suppose it’s grateful I should be if it’s not, but that’s not the way of it. The Dark Gods have brought naught but ruin to my folk, and as for the Gods of Light-”

He clenched his jaw, staring into the dark until his eyes ached, then looked down at the Spearman, and his voice was harsh and ugly.

“I’ve no use for gods, Tothas. Those of the Dark may torment my folk, but at least they’re honest about it! And what have the precious ‘good ’ gods ever done for me or mine? Did they help us? Or did they leave us to rot when the other Races of Man turned their backs to us for things we never chose to do? Evil-aye, that I can be understanding, but where’s the use in gods that prate of how ‘good’ they are yet do naught at all, at all, for those as need it, and why should I be giving a fart in Phrobus’ face for them?!”

Silence stretched out between them once more, and then Tothas sighed.

“A hard question,” he said, “and one I can’t answer. I’m no priest, only a warrior. I know what I believe, but I’m not you, not a hradani.”

The sorrow in his voice shamed Bahzell somehow. The Horse Stealer bit his lip and laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“Tell me what you believe,” he said so softly it surprised him.

“I believe there are gods worth following,” Tothas said simply. “I don’t understand all that happens in the world, but I know evil could never flourish without the Races of Man. It’s us , Bahzell-we’re the ones who turn to the Dark or the Light, choose which we’ll serve. Good people may do terrible things through fear or foolishness or stupidity-even spite-but what if there were no ‘good’ people? What if there were never anyone to take a stand, to say, ‘No, this is evil, and I will not allow it!’?”

“And who’s been saying that for my folk?” It should have come out bitter and filled with hate, but somehow it didn’t.

“No one.” Tothas sighed. “But perhaps that’s the reason for your dreams-had you thought of that? You say you’ve no use for gods, Bahzell. Aren’t there any you could think worthy of your service?”

“None.” Bahzell grunted. He cocked his head, looking down at the Spearman, and his tone softened once more. “You’re after being a good man, Tothas.” The Spearman flushed and started to shake his head, but the hradani’s voice stopped him. “Don’t be shaking your head at me-and don’t think it’s in my mind to flatter you. You’re no saint, and a dead pain in the arse a saint would be in the field, I’m thinking! But you’ve guts, and loyalty, and a readiness to understand, and those are things even a murdering hradani can value. But-” Bahzell’s deep voice rumbled even softer, gentle yet unflinching “-I’m knowing how sick you are, what it is that loyalty’s costing you. So tell me, Tothas-what god is it you serve, and why?”

“I serve the Gods of Light.” Tothas’ voice accepted the reference to his illness without a quaver, and he shrugged. “Oh, I’m sure others serve them better, but I do the best I can-when I’m not feeling sorry for myself.” He smiled up at the towering hradani. “I thank Orr for wisdom, when it can get through my thick skull, and Silendros for beauty, when I have the eyes to see it. When I’ve time for it, I sit on a hill somewhere out in the plains of the South Weald and look at the trees and grass and the summer sky and thank Toragan for them. But I’m a warrior, Bahzell. It’s my trade, the thing I do best, and its Tomanāk I follow. The Sword God can be hard, but He’s just, and He stands for the things I’d like to stand for. For skill in battle, for honor and courage in defeat, for decency in victory, and loyalty.”

“But why? ” Bahzell pressed. “Oh, aye, I can respect those things, but why turn to a god for them? Why thank a god for wisdom when it comes out of your own head? Or for beauty, when it’s your own eyes that have the seeing of it? Or for guts and loyalty, when those things come from in here -” his huge hand brushed Tothas’ chest “-and not from out there?” The same hand rose and gestured at the skies.

“You follow them, yet not one of them’s reached down to you and said, ‘This is a good man, who’s been after doing all I ask of him, and I take his illness from him.’ Not one of them, Tothas, and still you follow!” He shook his head. “That’s a thing no hradani would be understanding. It’s not my folk’s way to ask others for aught. We’ve learned the hard way that it won’t be given, that there’s no one and naught to count on but our own selves when all’s said and done. What we have, we build or take for ourselves, and spit on ‘gods’ who’ve no time for such as us. A man looks after his own in this world, Tothas, and it’s lucky he is if he can do it, for no one else will!”

Tothas smiled.

“That sounds to me like a man who’s angry at what he hears himself saying.”

“Whether I’m liking it or hating it won’t change what is ,” Bahzell shot back. “It’s the way of the world, and no one knows it better than hradani, for we’ve seen it too often. Aye, we’ve had a bellyful of it!”

The Spearman looked up at him for another long moment, then cocked his head.

“Why are you here, Bahzell?” he asked softly.

“Eh?” Bahzell blinked down at the human.

“Why are you here?” Tothas repeated. “In a world where a man looks after his own and Phrobus take the hindmost, why did you save Lady Zarantha in Riverside and why are you still here? Why didn’t you leave us to fend for ourselves once we left the city?”

“Because I’ve a head of solid rock,” Bahzell said bitterly, and Tothas’ laugh was soft.

“I believe that. Oh, yes, I believe that, my friend! But if you believe that’s the only reason, you know yourself less well than you think.”

“Now don’t you be thinking I’m aught but what I am,” Bahzell said uneasily. “Stupid, aye, and one who’s yet to learn to think before he acts-that I’ll grant you! And maybe I’ve a wee bit of guts, and a notion my word should be meaning something when I give it, but I’m no knight in shining armor. No, and I’ve no least desire to be one, either!”

“ ‘A knight in shining armor’?” There was a smile in Tothas’ voice, and he slapped the hradani on the elbow. “No, you’re certainly not that , Bahzell Bahnakson! The gods only know all that you may be, but I don’t think even they could see you as that!”

“Aye, and don’t you be forgetting it!” Bahzell snorted.

“I won’t,” Tothas reassured him. He gathered his blanket about him and shivered, then turned back towards the fire. “But while I’m remembering you aren’t, you might ask yourself whoever said you should be? Or why in Tomanāk’s name the gods should need one?”

Bahzell stared after him, ears at half-cock, and the Spearman chuckled as he picked his way back to his bedroll through the windy cold.