Oath of Swords

Chapter Thirty-three

Crown Prince Harnak stood by the rail and wrapped his cloak more tightly about him as wind whipped across the steel-gray Spear River. The air was chill, if far warmer than it would have been at home in Navahk, and the deck still felt alien and threatening underfoot, yet it was infinitely better than the icy journey across the Ghoul Moor and Troll Garth had been.

He shivered, and not with cold, at the memory of that nightmare ride. His father had made no more than a token protest at his choice of routes. Indeed, Harnak suspected Churnazh would shed no tears if his firstborn son failed to return-so long as no one could blame him for it-but Harnak’s retainers had been another matter. They knew the perils of his proposed path as well as he did, and they’d lacked any promise of safety from Sharna.

He’d been less than reassured by that promise himself and understood why men he couldn’t even tell about it had been terrified, but understanding hadn’t made him patient. He’d taken out his own fear on them, lashing them with his contempt, reminding them of their oaths, driving them with such fury that they’d feared him more than the journey, and it had worked. They’d been surly and frightened as their horses forged through the snow, but none had dared protest, and his stature with them had grown as no attacks came. There’d been a night or two on the Ghoul Moor when they’d huddled in their blankets like terrified children, refusing to look at the things moving in the icy moonlight beyond their campfires, yet the Scorpion’s promise had held, and the journey to Krelik had been accomplished without incident.

Harnak had been in two minds about that. His relief upon reaching Krelik to find the promised ship waiting had been enormous, but the trip had given him too much time to brood over his mission.

The ceremony which bound the demon to its task had been all he’d dreamed of. The sacrifice had been even stronger than Tharnatus had hoped. Her shrieks had become gurgling, animal sounds of torment long before the end, yet she’d survived it all, right up to the moment the demon appeared to rip out her still-living heart. The sense of power, the echoes of his own hunger which had washed over him from the rest of the congregation, amplified by his own awe and terror at the raw might they’d summoned, had filled him with a towering confidence that their purpose must succeed.

And there’d been another moment, almost sweeter yet, when Tharnatus presented the consecrated blade to him, charged with the sacrifice’s very soul. Harnak hadn’t known exactly how Tharnatus meant to prepare the sword for its task, yet he’d expected it to be an anticlimax. Surely nothing could equal the towering power of seeing that monstrous demon bow to their command!

He’d been wrong. The demon had devoured the sacrifice’s life energy as the price of its service, but Harnak knew now that there was more than simple energy to life, for Tharnatus had trapped their victim’s very soul. Snatched it up before it could flee, and bound it into the cold, hard-edged steel soaked in her life’s blood. Harnak had felt her soul shriek in terror and agony worse even than the torture of her body as something else-a tendril of Sharna’s very essence-reached out like gloating quicksand to suck her into its embrace. He’d sensed the terrible instant when that soul broke and shattered, smashed into slivers of raw torment in the brief, endless moment before it became something else.

A key. A . . . doorway into another place and the path to an unspeakable well of power. The power, he’d realized shakenly, of Sharna Himself. The Scorpion’s own presence had filled the blade, and he’d felt it tremble at his side, alive and humming with voracity, as Tharnatus solemnly belted it about his waist. He’d touched the hilt and sensed the weapon’s yearning, its implacable purpose. It was impatient, that blade, eager to drink Bahzell’s blood and soul, whispering promises of invincibility to him, and the shadow of its power had descended upon him like dark, impenetrable armor.

Yet there’d been a colder, frightening side to it, as well, for the Church had mustered all this might to insure Bahzell’s destruction, and whatever his other faults, Harnak wasn’t stupid enough to believe it would have done so if there’d been no need. He’d seen the demon, felt the raw destruction that filled the very air about it. No mortal warrior could stand against it, yet the Church had forged the blade he bore, as well. Just in case, Tharnatus had said, but the sword’s very existence said the Church was unsure the demon could bring Bahzell down. And if that uncertainty was justified, if Bahzell could, indeed, withstand the very spawn of Sharna, would even the power of Harnak’s blade be enough?

He stood on the deck and listened to wind whine in the rigging, the slap and wash of water along the hull. They were lonely sounds, cold ones that strengthened the chill about his heart, yet he had no choice. He’d set himself to this task, knowingly or not, the first time he entered Sharna’s temple, accepted the Scorpion’s protection and power. Should Harnak fail Him in return, he would envy the maiden who’d died upon the altar, and he knew it.

He shivered again, then shook himself. This was no time for brooding. They were four days out of South Hold; all too soon it would be time to unload their horses and set out on Bahzell’s trail once more . . . if the demon hadn’t already slain him.

Harnak of Navahk closed his eyes, longing to pray for the demon’s success. But only one god would hear him now, and that god had already done all it might to bring that success about. And so he drew a deep, chill breath, squared his shoulders, and went below once more, to wait.

South Hold was a fortress city, built in the angle between the Spear and Darkwater rivers. Its walls towered over the water, gray and cold against a sky of winter-blue steel as Harnak’s vessel entered the crowded anchorage where tall, square-rigged ships lay to their buoys or nuzzled the quays. Those ships flew the banners of Purple Lord trading houses, for South Hold might be the major port of the Empire of the Spear, but the Purple Lords refused passage up the Spear to seagoing vessels of any other land. They used their lucrative stranglehold on the river to monopolize the Spearmen’s carrying trade, and they cared not at all for the festering resentment that roused.

Harnak’s river schooner edged in among them, and he stood on the foredeck, gawking at the size of the city and the strength of its defenses. South Hold made Navahk look like the wretched knot of misery it was, and he felt a sudden, fresh chill at the thought of how the city might react to the arrival of two score northern hradani.

But that was a concern which never arose, for Harnak’s taciturn skipper knew his job. Harnak had never learned what the human truly was-a smuggler, at the least, though it seemed likely from the brutality of his crew that he dabbled in more violent trades when opportunity arose-but clearly the Church had briefed him well for his mission. He guided his vessel across the main basin without stopping, then slipped it deftly into the channel of the Darkwater and alongside a run-down wharf on the river’s southern bank. The warehouses beyond it were as ramshackle as the wharf itself, and they were more than a mile outside South Hold’s walls. That was a clear enough indication of the sort of trade they served; the surly, heavily armed “watchmen” who glowered suspiciously at the schooner simply confirmed it.

The schooner’s master wasted no time. Hardly had his sails been furled and his mooring made fast than he was hustling his passengers ashore. His determination to complete his mission and be gone was evident, but Harnak had little time to resent it, for someone awaited him at dockside.

The prince beckoned his chief guardsman to him and jerked his chin at the confusion of men and horses beginning to froth awkwardly ashore.

“Get those fools straightened out, Gharnash. We don’t want any attention we can avoid.”

“Yes, Highness.” Gharnash looked as if he wanted-again-to ask what was truly happening. The guardsman was hard and brutal, a clanless man, outlawed by his own tribe and taken into Harnak’s service precisely because he had nowhere else to turn, no other refuge or countervailing loyalty, yet he was no fool. He’d served Harnak for over six years, and he knew the prince too well to accept Harnak’s surface explanation for this journey. That Harnak hated Bahzell and wanted him dead, yes; that much Gharnash readily believed, but he also knew the prince feared the Horse Stealer. That made his feverish insistence on personally hunting Bahzell down most unlike him, and there was something . . . odd about Harnak’s new sword.

Yet Gharnash said nothing. His prince had secrets he didn’t know-and didn’t want to know-and instinct and reason alike told him this was one of them.

Harnak gazed into Gharnash’s eyes, reading the man’s thoughts more clearly than Gharnash knew, then snorted and turned away. He stepped to the dock with an arrogant confidence he was far from feeling, and a small, red-cloaked human bowed to him.

“Greetings, Your Highness. Our master welcomes you.”

Harnak returned the greeting with a shallower bow of his own, and his heart sank. If all had gone well, the demon should already have slain Bahzell, yet there was no exultation on his greeter’s face. The man straightened from his bow and let his cloak slip open to reveal a gemmed amulet, and Harnak inhaled sharply. This man was an archpriest, senior even to Tharnatus, and he was suddenly acutely aware of the lack of respect his own bow had implied.

The archpriest met his eyes, and a faint, amused smile curled his lips as he read the quick prickle of Harnak’s panic. But he forbore to comment upon it, and gestured to a nearby warehouse.

“Come, Your Highness. Let us discuss our business less publicly.”

“Ah, of course,” Harnak agreed, and followed the priest through a door one of his attendants held open. The attendant closed the door behind them and stood guarding their privacy, and Harnak licked his lips.

“Please excuse any seeming disrespect,” he began stiffly, “but-”

“Don’t disturb yourself, Your Highness,” the archpriest said smoothly. “We both serve the Scorpion; let His service make us brothers.”

Harnak nodded stiff thanks, and the priest smiled again. There was no humor in that smile, and the prince felt his belly tighten.

“I know your mission here, of course,” the archpriest told him, “and I have information for you.”

“Information?” Harnak’s voice was sharper than he’d intended. There was only one piece of “information” he wanted to hear, and the priest’s tone told him he wouldn’t.

“Yes. I regret to inform you-” the man’s smile vanished into an expression of bleak hatred “-that the greater servant failed in its task.”

“It failed?! ” Harnak goggled at the other in disbelief-and fear. “How? I saw the servant-nothing could have withstood it!”

“The evidence, alas, suggests you’re in error.” The priest’s eyes glittered in the dim warehouse. “I don’t know precisely how it happened, but the servant was destroyed, and Bahzell . . . wasn’t.” He shrugged and glanced significantly at the blade at Harnak’s side. “Surely you were told it might fail, Your Highness. If not, why are you here?”

“Well, of course I knew it was possible ,” Harnak muttered, “but I didn’t think- That is, I found it difficult to believe the Scorpion’s sting could actually miss its mark.”

“But it hasn’t, Your Highness. Not yet, for you are His true sting, are you not?”

Harnak nodded curtly, unable to trust his tongue, and the archpriest donned his smile again.

“Be of sound heart, Your Highness. The Scorpion will guide you to him you seek, and the blade you bear will not fail. He will fight at your very side through it, and no mortal can prevail against Him when He Himself takes the field. Yet I fear you must be on your way soon if you’re to overtake the Horse Stealer.”

“You know where he is?”

“No, but I know where he’s bound, which is almost as good.”

“Well?” Harnak pressed.

“For a time, Your Highness, he was in the company of certain enemies of Carnadosa. They didn’t tell us who those enemies were, but we have our own sources, including certain dog brothers who met them and survived, and they need not concern you, anyway, for Bahzell is no longer with them. The Carnadosans have returned to their own concerns, leaving us to deal with ours, but we feel confident that Bahzell will shortly seek to reach Alfroma.”

“Alfroma? Where’s that, and why should Bahzell go there?”

“It lies in the Duchy of Jashân, Your Highness, and why he wishes to go there need not concern you, either. If he reaches it, however, your chance to slay him will vanish . . . and the Scorpion will be, ah, displeased .”

Harnak swallowed and nodded.

“Excellent,” the archpriest said benignly. “Now, Bahzell was just inside the northern edge of the Shipwood when the servant intercepted him and was destroyed. That was two days ago. Given his desire to reach Alfroma, it seems certain he’ll proceed south through the forest. If he reaches the Darkwater, he can travel upriver by boat to his destination, but crossing the Shipwood should slow him and give you your chance to overtake him.”

“But how will I find him?” Harnak tried to hide his secret hope that there was no way to do that, but the priest only gestured to his sword.

“The Scorpion will guide you. I fear the dog brothers have lost so heavily in their attempts upon him that they’ve called off the active hunt for him, but two of them will guide you as far as Sindark on the Darkwater. If Bahzell knows the land and his own whereabouts well enough, he’ll no doubt head for Sindark himself, as the most likely place to find passage upriver, but you can travel by the highroads while he picks his way through the forest. You may well intercept him there; if not, you should be west of him, between him and his destination, and you can take ship down the river until you meet him. The lesser servants still find him difficult to locate in the wilderness, but the sword you bear is no lesser servant. Once you come within ten leagues of him, it will lead you directly to him.”

The archpriest shrugged, and a chill touched Harnak’s heart as the human smiled once more.

“From there, Your Highness,” he said softly, “the task will be yours.”