Oath of Swords

Chapter Twenty-seven

Incense drifted once more about Crown Prince Harnak, and he forced himself not to pace. It was hard. Harnak was always nervous when High Priest Tharnatus summoned him; even the Scorpion’s messengers could stumble and betray themselves-or Harnak. But this summons had been no less curt for the polite formulae in which it was couched, and the prince gnawed his lower lip with his remaining teeth while he waited.

A foot sounded behind him, and he turned quickly from the altar. He flushed at the evidence of his anxiety, but Tharnatus smiled.

“I thank you for coming so promptly, My Prince, especially on so bitter a night.”

Harnak simply nodded, though “bitter” was a weak word for the night beyond the temple. The snow had been belly-deep on his horse, and he’d passed two drifts high as a mounted man’s head. Only Tharnatus could have gotten him out on such a night, and the thought of how the priest must relish the power to do just that touched him with resentment.

Tharnatus’ eyes gleamed as if he’d read the prince’s thoughts, but he only waved for Harnak to sit in one of the front pews and folded his own hands in the sleeves of his robe as he faced him.

“I would not have requested your presence, My Prince, had the matter been less than urgent. I understand things remain . . . difficult at court?”

“You understand aright.” Harnak didn’t-quite-snarl, and Tharnatus smiled gently. “Those bitches are practically members of Bahnak’s own family by now, and he’s using the damned bards to keep the tale alive.” Harnak’s molars ground together. “Even my brothers have taken to laughing behind my back, curse them, and the winter only makes it worse! With so much time indoors and nothing to do but drink and listen to tales-”

He clenched his fists, and Tharnatus nodded in grave sympathy.

“I regret hearing that, My Prince-and even more that I must tell you the dog brothers have . . . encountered difficulties.”

“Difficulties?” Harnak’s head snapped up, and Tharnatus shrugged.

“The Guild has never been the most reliable of the Scorpion’s servants, My Prince. True, I believed they should have sufficed for this simple a task, but the Guild Master has written to inform me otherwise. To date, the dog brothers have lost upward of forty men trying to kill Bahzell.”

“Forty?! ” Harnak repeated. The priest nodded, and the prince swallowed. How could even Bahzell have-?

“In fairness to the dog brothers,” Tharnatus said gravely, “Bahzell seems to have had far more luck than he should have. Apparently he took service with an Axeman merchant as far as Morvan, and the other guards shielded him from the Guild’s initial attacks. He has left that protection since, yet he seems unusually difficult to track. Even the Scorpion’s lesser servants can find him only with difficulty in the wilderness, and the dog brothers seem able to find him only when he enters their net in a town or city. They almost had him twice in Morvan itself-once in a tavern where he was working as a bouncer-” Harnak’s eyes glowed, even in his disappointment, at the thought of Bahzell’s finding himself so reduced “-and again in an alley. Unfortunately, he survived both attacks, as well as a third in Angthyr. By now, he knows the Guild has marked him, which will only make him harder to kill. The Guild Master hasn’t abandoned all hope, but it seems we set them a more difficult task than we realized, My Prince.”

The priest’s voice trailed off suggestively. Harnak looked at him, but Tharnatus only looked back impassively.

“And?” the prince prompted harshly when he could stand the silence no longer, and Tharnatus surprised him. The priest pursed his lips and rocked slightly on his toes for several moments, then shrugged.

“There are more ways than the dog brothers to our goal, My Prince.”

“Such as?” Harnak made himself speak calmly, but disbelief and hope warred in him. Could it be after all that Tharnatus meant to suggest-?

“It seems Bahzell is more important than we guessed,” the priest said at last. “You need not know all of them-indeed, not even I know them all-but his death has become important to the Scorpion for many reasons. The entire Church has been mobilized against him, with all its resources, and we have the aid of certain servants of Carnadosa in this, as well.”

“We do?” Harnak sat back in astonishment. The dark churches seldom cooperated. That, little though any of them cared to admit it, was their greatest weakness; they, like their deities, were too jealous of their own power and individual strategies to join forces as their enemies did, and mutual suspicion worked against them when they did. What in Sharna’s name could make that whoreson Bahzell important enough to produce such cooperation?!

“We do,” Tharnatus confirmed calmly. “Yet we can count on little from them, at least for the immediate future, for their own power is even weaker than our own in the Empire of the Spear.”

“The Empire of the Spear?” Harnak blinked again. “Bahzell is in the Empire of the Spear?” Tharnatus nodded, and Harnak’s eyebrows rose. “Why?”

“I’m not certain, My Prince,” the priest admitted. “Something, I suspect, to do with the Carnadosans, since they’ve offered us their assistance, but not even they seem to know precisely where he is at the moment. The dog brothers have also lost track of him, I fear, though he must surface again somewhere. In the meantime, however, the time has come for us to make an end of him, and it is for that reason I requested you to visit me tonight.”

“What can I do?” Harnak’s earlier resentment had vanished at the thought of bringing Bahzell down once and for all, and Tharnatus smiled.

“The Scorpion has decided to commit a greater servant to the task.” His smile turned as hungry as Harnak’s, but there was fear in it, as well, and the prince understood why even before the priest continued. “Since Bahzell first transgressed against the Scorpion in Navahk, it is only fitting his death should come from here, and the great dark of the moon falls four nights hence. On that night, we shall summon one of the greater servants and bind it to Bahzell’s destruction, and we look to you to provide the sacrifice.”

“Of course,” Harnak said instantly. “Tell me what you require.”

“As this will be one of the more powerful of the greater servants, My Prince, the ritual requires a sacrifice of special value. I shall need a virgin of childbearing age, fit and strong. It would be best if she has been handfasted so that we may bind her betrothed through her, as well. Ah, and intelligence is important. Can you find such in the time we have?”

“Um.” Harnak rubbed the permanent dent in his forehead in the nervous gesture he’d acquired, and frowned. “I think so. It won’t be easy-we can’t use peasant scum for this, and the girl I’m thinking of comes of a powerful family. I may need the Church’s help to take her without trace.”

“Are you certain of her virginity?”

“Who can be certain?” Harnak chuckled coarsely, but the priest didn’t join him, and his look banished the amusement from Harnak’s face. “I believe she is,” he said more defensively, “but I can hardly ask her!”

“No, I suppose not.” Tharnatus frowned and rubbed his chin, then sighed. “Very well, the Church will help take her, but it would be best to choose two, just in case. This sacrifice must go to the knife virgin; best to be on the safe side, and we can always make use of the other later.”

“Of course,” Harnak agreed.

“Good! But after the binding, My Prince, the Scorpion has a special task for you, as well.”

“For me?” Harnak’s voice was more cautious, and Tharnatus nodded.

“For you. The servant may fail. It seems unlikely, yet something seems to have protected Bahzell so far. But even if something has, it will be no aid-whatever it may be-against a blade consecrated in the sacrifice’s blood. Yet there must be a hand to wield the blade, and you, as the follower of the Scorpion most personally affronted by Bahzell, must bear it.”

“I must bear it?” Harnak stared at Tharnatus in horror.

“You, My Prince. It is your destiny, for you and Bahzell have become counterweights in a struggle even greater than that between Navahk and Hurgrum. Both of you are princes, and the war to which you are called has greater implications than even I had realized. You stand in the Scorpion’s own stead in that war, and it is only through you that His greatest power may be unleashed.”

“But you said Bahzell is in the Empire of the Spear!” Harnak protested desperately.

“So he is. As soon as the ritual has been completed, you must depart for the Empire to seek him.”

“In winter?” Harnak was aghast at the very idea-and even more so at the thought of facing Bahzell sword-to-sword, cursed blade or not. “The journey would take weeks-months!-in this weather. How could I justify it to my father, and who knows where he might be by the time I got there?”

“The Scorpion requires this service of you,” Tharnatus said sternly. Harnak swallowed audibly, and the priest softened his rebuke with a smile. “Come, My Prince! There are answers to all your concerns.”

“There are?”

“Indeed. You will justify the journey to your father by telling him you’ve heard Bahzell is bound for the Lands of the Purple Lords, there to take ship up the Spear come spring to return to Hurgrum. The dog brothers will see to it that a ‘traveler’ with word to that effect arrives in the city within the next few days, and Churnazh will be as eager as we to see to it that Bahzell never does any such thing. Bahnak has grown stronger over the fall and winter; by spring he might even be ready to take the field against Navahk once more-or so Churnazh will fear, and he knows as well as we how the tales weaken your position as his heir. Your desire to deal with Bahzell once and for all will make perfect sense to him, will it not?”

Harnak nodded against his will, and Tharnatus shrugged.

“Under the circumstances, I believe he will not only allow you to go but to take a sizable retinue with you, as well. You will then take ship at Krelik and sail down the Spear. With luck, you should reach the Empire before Bahzell resurfaces.”

“Take ship at Krelik?! ” Shock startled Harnak to his feet. The thought of trekking overland down the course of the Saram in Bahzell’s wake had been bad enough, but this was insane! “How can I possibly reach Krelik?” he demanded in a slightly calmer voice under the weight of Tharnatus’ reproving eyes. “Surely you don’t think the other Horse Stealers will grant me safe passage through their lands? None of them would dare offend Bahnak so!”

“You’ll avoid Horse Stealer lands,” Tharnatus said. “And, no,” he went on when Harnak opened his mouth once more, “I’m not so great a fool as to suggest crossing the Wind Plain. You’ll go south, around the Horse Stealers.”

“Across Troll Garth and the Ghoul Moor?” Harnak swallowed again, harder, and his voice was faint. Trolls were far from intelligent and tended to lair up in the winter, but they were also nine feet of perpetually hungry killing machine. If one of them scented fresh meat in winter, an entire pack would materialize out of the very ground, and as for the Ghoul Moor-!

“Across Troll Garth and the Ghoul Moor,” Tharnatus confirmed. “The Scorpion will protect you, although,” he added thoughtfully, “it would certainly be wiser not to travel at night.”

“Tharnatus, I-” Harnak began, but a raised hand silenced him.

“The Scorpion requires this service,” the priest repeated, and Harnak sank back down into the pew while sweat beaded his brow. There was no recourse from that cold, inflexible demand, for if the Scorpion gave much, He could also demand much . . . and those of His servants who denied His demands would envy the sacrifices upon His altars before they died.

“Do not fear, My Prince,” Tharnatus said more gently. “The Scorpion’s sting shall be above you, and His pincers shall go on either hand. No creature of the Dark will dare defy his power.” He squeezed Harnak’s shoulder. “If there were more time, He would not send you into peril, even with His protection. Surely you must realize your value to Him, the hidden sting waiting at the heart of Navahk to destroy what His enemies like Bahnak would achieve here? But the upper Spear is frozen already; within weeks, the ice will reach as far south as the Lake of Storms, and should the greater servant fail, you must reach Bahzell and slay him quickly. The Horse Stealer must die, My Prince, both for your sake and the Scorpion’s, and His greater servants are but His pincers. You will be His sting, armed with His own power and mightier than any servant. He will see to it you reach Bahzell unharmed.”

“Of course.” Harnak summoned a smile. Even he knew how weak it was, but Tharnatus squeezed his shoulder again and nodded in approval.

“Good, My Prince! And remember the ritual to come. Yours may be a cold road, but at least we shall start you upon it warm and well fed.”