Oath of Swords

Chapter Thirty-seven

Bahzell finished making camp, such as it was, and let himself slide down beside Brandark’s bedroll with a groan of weary pain. Broken ribs throbbed dully under the rough, blood-stiff dressing on his left side, yet he was in far better shape than Brandark. The Bloody Sword was barely conscious, and Bahzell tasted the bitterness of guilt as he uncapped his water bottle.

Brandark had faced no less than four Rage-maddened opponents-and killed three of them-while Bahzell dueled with Harnak. It was the sort of fight that made legends, but it had cost him the tip of his right ear and the last two fingers of his left hand, and those were the least of his hurts. The ugly cut in his left biceps had bled badly until Bahzell’s rough and ready stitches closed it, yet the wound in his right leg was far worse. Steel had cut to the bone, severing muscle and tendons; it would have crippled him for life . . . except that Bahzell knew enough field medicine to recognize the stench of gangrene.

His friend was going to die, and it was Bahzell’s fault. He knew Brandark would disagree, that he’d say-truthfully-that he’d chosen to come despite Bahzell’s warnings, yet it was Bahzell who’d brought Harnak after them, and it was Bahzell’s insistence on aiding Malith’s villagers which had doomed Brandark. The Purple Lord cavalry would cut his throat instantly, not tend his wounds, if Bahzell left him behind, but dragging him along was only prolonging his torment, and Bahzell knew it.

He held the water bottle to Brandark’s lips, and the Bloody Sword swallowed thirstily. He drank half the bottle, and his eyes slid open. They were cloudy with pain and fever, but he managed to smile.

“Still with you, you see,” he husked in a parody of his usual tenor, and Bahzell soaked a rag in water and mopped his face.

“Aye, so I do,” he replied, and somehow he kept his own voice steady as Brandark closed his eyes once more.

He lay silent, breathing raggedly, and Bahzell cursed his powerlessness. He’d managed to stop the bleeding and get Brandark onto one of their horses, then thrown a pack saddle onto one of the mules and driven the other animals away before he broke south once more. He’d hoped the patrol which must have attacked Harnak’s men would decide the “brigands” had scattered and split up to chase riderless horses, and it seemed to have worked. No one had come straight after them, at any rate, but they were still hunting, and some of them, at least, were ahead of the hradani. He’d lain on the crest of a hill and watched a score of troopers sweep a shallow valley he and Brandark had yet to cross, and he knew they wouldn’t give up. Not after the losses they must have taken against Harnak’s guardsmen. It was only a matter of time until one of those patrols caught up with them, and when it did-

“You know you’ve . . . got to leave me behind, don’t you?” Brandark whispered, and Bahzell looked down quickly. He opened his mouth, but Brandark shook his head with another of those tight smiles. “D’you think . . . I don’t know I’m dying?”

“Hush, little man! There’s no need to talk of dying yet.”

“Give me . . . a couple of days . . . and I won’t have to ‘talk’ about it.” Fever left Brandark’s weak voice hoarse and frayed, but it still held a trace of his usual tartness. “I know you’re . . . an idiot, but don’t . . . prove it. ’Thout me . . . to slow you, you might break through yet.”

“And what sort of champion of Tomanāk goes about abandoning his friends, then?” Bahzell shot back, wiping the Bloody Sword’s face once more. “A fine way to act that’d be!”

“Oh . . . hog turds.” Brandark’s strength was ebbing quickly, but he shook his head again. “Don’ han’ . . . me that,” he muttered. “Nev’r wanted . . . be a champion ’n th’ firs’ place, you . . . idio’ . . . .”

He trailed off in incoherent mumbles, and Bahzell stared out into the night and bit his lip. He’d never felt so helpless, so useless. He rested one hand lightly on Brandark’s right shoulder for a long, silent moment, then rose and stumped across the fireless camp to the one pack of rations he’d hung on to. He started to open it, then stopped, and his ears flattened as he glared down at a long, cloth-wrapped bundle.

It was Harnak’s sword, shrouded in the dead prince’s bloodstained cloak. Its fire had faded when Harnak died, yet Bahzell had sensed the power and hatred lying quiescent in it, waiting only for a hand to lift it once more. He’d dared not leave it behind-gods only knew what it would do to anyone mad enough to touch it!-but what was he supposed to do with it now?

He straightened his aching spine and growled in bleak, exhausted bitterness. He hadn’t dared touch the thing with his bare hand, but he’d held it in a fold of Harnak’s cloak to examine it and found the scorpion etched into its guard. He would have liked to think that simply marked it as an assassin’s blade, but what he’d seen-and felt-it do in battle made that nonsense. No, he knew why it bore Sharna’s symbol . . . and that it proved things were even worse in Navahk than he’d believed. Gods! Did Churnazh even suspect what was using him as its opening wedge? It seemed impossible. Crude and brutal Churnazh was, but surely he had cunning enough to know what would happen if any of his neighbors came to suspect him of trafficking with Sharna! Yet if Sharna’s church could reach as high as Navahk’s crown prince, who knew who else it had reached? Or where?

Bahzell scrubbed his face with his palms, feeling sick and exhausted and used up. He was the only one with proof of how far evil had reached into Navahk. That made it his job to do something about it, but he was so tired. So very, very tired and sick at heart.

“So,” he muttered bitterly into his palms, “why not be telling me what I should do now , Tomanāk?”

“Do you really want to ask me that?”

Bahzell snatched his hands down and stared around in shock, but the night was still and quiet, free of apparitions, and he swallowed, then drew a breath.

“As to that,” he told the darkness, “it’s new at this championing I am. I’ve no real notion what it is I can or can’t be asking of you.”

“You may ask anything you wish of me,” that deep voice murmured within him. “What I can give you, I will.”

“Will you, now? And what of him? ” Bahzell cried in despair. “It was me brought him to this, and not a thing at all can I do for him now!”

“I think we had this conversation once before,” Tomanāk said quietly, “and I told you then that I can heal through my champions.” Bahzell stiffened and sensed an unseen smile. “You’ve destroyed a nest of black wizards, rescued a mage, slain a demon, saved an entire village’s homes, and bested a servant of Sharna armed with a cursed blade far more powerful than you’ve guessed even yet, Bahzell. After all that, is it so hard to believe I’d help your friend if you asked it of me?”

“You can heal him?” Bahzell demanded, disregarding the catalog of his own accomplishments.

“We can heal him,” Tomanāk corrected, “if you serve as my channel, but it won’t be an instantaneous process. That would require too direct an intrusion on my part.”

“I’m not caring about ‘instant,’ ” Bahzell shot back. “Just you be telling me what to do and how to go about it!”

“You have a unique mode of prayer,” Tomanāk said so dryly Bahzell blushed, but then the god chuckled in his brain. “No matter. It’s the way you are, and difficult as you can be, I wouldn’t change you if I could.”

Bahzell’s face burned still hotter, but Tomanāk only chuckled again and said, “Draw your sword, Bahzell. Hold it in one hand and lay the other on Brandark, then just concentrate on your friend. Think of him as you remember him and see him that way once more.”

“And is that all there is to it?” Bahzell asked incredulously.

“You may find it a bit more difficult than you assume, my friend,” Tomanāk told him. “And don’t get too confident. How much we accomplish will be up to you as much as to me. Are you ready?”

Bahzell hesitated in sudden, acute nervousness. It was one thing to fight demons and cursed blades. Fighting, at least, was something he understood; this notion of healing was something else again, and the idea that he could do it was . . . disconcerting. And, he admitted, frightening. Another step into whatever future he’d embraced when he entered the War God’s service, yes, but an uncanny one that would make his acceptance of that future more explicit and inescapable. He stood motionless for a few seconds longer, then sighed and drew his sword. He held it in his right hand and knelt beside his friend, then laid a tentative hand on Brandark’s wounded arm.

“Ahem!” Bahzell’s ears flicked as a throat cleared itself soundlessly in his brain. “You’ll have to do a bit better than that,” Tomanāk informed him.

“Better?”

“Bahzell, we’re not going to hurt him, but how well this works will depend in no small part on how thoroughly you enter into it. Now stop being afraid he’s going to break-or that you’re going to turn into a purple toad-and do it!”

Bahzell blushed more brightly than ever, but his mouth twitched in a small smile at the asperity in the god’s mental voice. He drew a deep breath, closed his eyes, and fastened one huge hand on Brandark’s slack shoulder. No one had told him to, but he bent his head, resting his forehead against the quillons of the sword in his other hand, and tried to empty his mind of Brandark as he now was. It was hard-far harder than he’d anticipated-for the image of his dying friend haunted him, and something deep inside jeered at the thought that he could do anything to change that. This wasn’t the sort of battle Bahzell Bahnakson had ever trained to fight. It wasn’t one where size or strength mattered, and he didn’t know the moves or counters, but he clenched his jaw and threw every scrap of will and energy into it.

Sweat beaded his brow, and his fingers ached about his sword, but slowly-so slowly!-he forced his mental picture of Brandark to change. He drove back the slack-faced, gray-skinned reality, fighting it like some living enemy, and a new picture replaced it. Brandark lounging back on the deck of the ferryboat leaving Riverside in his dandy’s lace shirt and flowered waistcoat, smiling down into the deck house at Zarantha and Rekah, ears aquiver and eyes alight as he sang his maddening Lay of Bahzell Bloody-Hand to them. The spritely notes of the balalaika, the smile on Brandark’s face, the sense of energy and deviltry which were so much a part of him-Bahzell brought them all together, welding them into what Brandark ought to be. What he was , Bahzell told himself fiercely-and what he would be again!

Sweat rolled down his cheeks, and then, suddenly, his mind snapped into focus. It was like the release of an arbalest bolt, an abrupt, breathless flash of vision, and in that instant he truly heard the music, Brandark’s voice, the slap and gurgle of water under the ferry’s bow. It was as if he could reach out, touch that moment once more. And then, in some strange fashion he knew he would never be able to describe, he did touch it, and became a bridge, a connection between the image and this wretched, fireless camp. Something crossed that bridge, flowed through him, burned in his veins like agony, and something else came with it-something fierce with war cries and the clash of steel, terrifying with the thunder of heavy cavalry, grim with purpose and glorious with the bright, defiant sound of bugles. His closed eyes couldn’t see the brilliant blue light that flashed briefly from his blade, licked up his body, darted down his arm to Brandark, but he felt it. Felt it like the strike of lightning, cauterizing him, consuming him, and his own strength poured out to meld with it and flood down, down, down into Brandark’s faltering body.

It was the most draining, glorious thing he’d ever experienced, and it was far too intense to sustain. He felt that torrent of power snap into Brandark, felt his friend’s heart spasm under its lash, and then he was shrugged aside. The energy was too potent, too wild and fierce to constrain, and Bahzell cried out as it flung him away. His eyes popped open, and then he gazed down at Brandark, chest heaving as he sucked in huge lungfuls of air, and the world went very, very still.

His friend’s cropped ear and fingers were healed over, no longer raw and crusted but clean, smooth tissue.

Bahzell reached out and touched that wounded ear. It was cool, no longer hot with fever, and suddenly Bahzell was fumbling with the dressing on Brandark’s arm. He ripped it aside, and his eyes went huge when he saw the cut. It was less completely healed than the Bloody Sword’s ear or fingers, but the wound looked at least two weeks old, and Bahzell’s hands shook as he drew his dagger and cut away the bandages on Brandark’s thigh.

He hesitated as he bared the inmost layer, clotted and thick with oozing suppuration, then drew them aside and gasped. The terrible wound remained, but it was clean and healthy. He touched it lightly, then pressed harder, felt the solid, meaty strength of intact muscle and sinew, and drew a deep, hacking breath of joy.

“Well done!” a deep, echoing voice cried within him. “Well done, indeed, Bahzell Bahnakson!”

“Thank you,” Bahzell whispered, and it was not for the compliment. He closed his eyes again, recalling how he’d thrown the uselessness of uncaring gods into Tomanāk’s teeth, and someone else laughed deep inside him. It was a laugh of welcome, a war leader’s slap of congratulation on the shoulder of a warrior who’d fought well and hard in his first battle, and he smiled.

“Thank you,” he repeated more normally.

“I told you it would take us both,” Tomanāk said, “and it’s not every one of my champions who can fight as hard to heal a friend as to slay a foe, Bahzell.” Bahzell inhaled once more, treasuring the deep, joyous holiness of that moment-the knowledge that he held life in his hands, not death-and someone else’s huge, gentle hand seemed to rest lightly upon his head for a single endless moment. But then it withdrew, and he straightened as he sensed the War God’s change of mood.

“Brandark will recover fully, in time,” Tomanāk told him. “He’ll need care, and it will be some weeks still before that leg is fit to bear his weight, but he’ll recover. Without the tip of his ear or the fingers, I fear, but fully in every other sense. And with that behind us, perhaps its time to turn to the question you originally asked.”

“Which question?”

“The one about what to do with Harnak’s sword,” Tomanāk said dryly.

“Ah, that one!” Bahzell shook himself and settled back on his heels, sword across his thighs. “I’ll not deny I’d dearly like that answered, yet it’s but one. What’s to be done about old Demon Breath’s doings in Navahk?”

“One thing at a time, Bahzell. One thing at a time. My champions are only mortal, and I expect them to remember that.”

“Well, there’s a relief!” Bahzell chuckled.

“I’m glad you think so. First, the sword. You were right not to leave it behind. It’s failed in its original purpose, but that only makes it more dangerous, in a way. It was forged as a gate, Bahzell-an opening to Sharna’s realm so that he himself might strike at you through Harnak.” Bahzell swallowed, but the god continued calmly. “That constituted an unusual risk, even for him, and when you and I defeated him, it cost the Dark Gods more access here than you can guess. I’m sure his fellows will have something to say to him about it, but despite his failure in this instance, it remains a gate keyed to him, a path to reach anyone unfortunate enough to pick it up. There are few ways to neutralize something this powerful short of destroying it, and that, unfortunately, would liberate all its energy at once-and kill whoever destroyed it. Under the circumstances, the wisest course is to bury it at sea. Somewhere nice and deep, where my brother Korthrala can keep it safe.”

“At sea, is it? And how am I to be getting there with the ports no doubt closed against me?”

“That, Bahzell, is up to you. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

The Horse Stealer growled under his breath, yet there was an odd lack of power to the growl, and he felt the flicker of Tomanāk’s tart amusement.

“As for Navahk,” the god went on after a moment, “I think we can leave that for later. There are other forces at work, and I don’t expect you to deal with all of Norfressa’s problems on your own. Send word to your father and let him alert his allies. The Dark Gods work best in the dark; expose them to the light of day, and half the battle is won. In the meantime, you and Brandark have enough problems to deal with. Just try to get both of you out of this in one piece, Bahzell. Brandark is one of my sister’s favorites-and I’ve put a great deal of effort into you .”

Bahzell started to shoot something back, but there was a sudden stillness in his mind, and he knew Tomanāk had gone.

“Well,” he murmured instead, gazing down at Brandark’s relaxed face and listening to his even, sleeping breath, “now there’s a thing!”