Oath of Swords

we can’t be shut of them. We can’t force them to stay clear of us without breaking a few heads, and that would upset the Merchants Guild, so Kilthan lets them join us. He charges ’em for it, since they’re riding under our house’s protection, but the fee’s a joke. Just enough to make the agreement formal and require them to go by our rules.” The captain shrugged. “I suppose it’s worth it in the long run. They’d draw brigands like a midden draws flies anyway-and not just down on themselves, either-and at least this way we can stop their doing anything too stupid.”

He paused to snort in exasperation as two of his galloping archers narrowly avoided collision and completely missed their targets in the process, then shrugged again.

“Just our own wagons’ll take up a mile and more of road. Add the other odds and sods, and we’ll have over a league to cover, and precious little help from the pox-ridden incompetents the others call guardsmen.”

Bahzell hid a smile at the sour disgust in Rianthus’ voice. Kilthan’s captain was an ex-major from the Axeman Royal and Imperial Mounted Infantry, and the standards to which he held his men were enough to make any ordinary freesword look “incompetent.” Yet the desire to smile faded as Bahzell considered the task the captain faced. A target as long and slow as Rianthus had described would have been vulnerable with four times the men.

“D’you know,” he said slowly, “I’ve no experience of what they call brigands in these parts, but I’ve met a few back home in my time, and I’m wondering what might happen if four or five chieftains should be taking it into their heads to try their hand at us together.”

“It’s been tried,” Rianthus said grimly. “We lost thirty guards, seventeen drovers, and so many draft animals we had to abandon and burn a dozen wagons, but they didn’t take a kormak home with them-and the lot who tried it never raided another merchant.” He turned his head, eyes glinting at Bahzell. “You see, when someone attacks our caravans, we go after ’em root and branch. If we need more troops, Clan Harkanath will hire a damned army . . . and if we don’t get them this year, we will the next. Or the next.” He showed his teeth. “That’s one reason all but the stupid ones stay clear of us.”

“Is it, now?” Bahzell rubbed his chin, ears shifting slowly back and forth, then smiled. “Well, Captain, I’m thinking I can live with that.”

“I thought you might.” Rianthus watched the horsemen canter from the archery range, then turned to prop his elbows on the wooden rail around it and leaned back to frown thoughtfully up at the towering hradani.

“You’re going to be the odd man out, I think,” he went on, and nodded his head after the departing archers. “Most of our lads are mounted, but damned if I’ve ever seen a horse big enough for the likes of you.”

“No more have I,” Bahzell agreed, “and I’ll not deny a man a-horse can catch me in a sprint. But I’ll match your horsemen league for league on foot-aye, and leave their mounts foundered in the dust, if I’ve a mind to.”

“I don’t doubt you, but it’s still made it fiendishly hard to assign you to a platoon. In the end, the only place to put you is with Hartan, I think,” the captain said, and grinned at Bahzell’s polite look of inquiry.

“Hartan commands Kilthan’s bodyguards. They’re not part of any regular company-and neither,” he added wryly when Bahzell’s ears cocked, “are they any sort of soft assignment. They’re the lads who watch Kilthan’s back, his strongboxes, and the pay chest, and if you think we work these fellows hard-” he waved at the archers’ fading dust “-you’ll soon envy them! But the point is that they never leave the column or ride sweeps, and they’re the closest to infantry we have, so-” He twitched a shoulder, and Bahzell nodded.

“Aye, I can see that,” he agreed, but then he fixed the captain with a quizzical eye. “I can see that, yet I can’t but be wondering how the rest of your lads will feel about having such as me watch over their pay?”

“What matters is how I feel about it.” Rianthus gave the hradani a look that boded ill for anyone who questioned his judgment-and suggested he had a shrewd notion who those individuals might be- then raised one hand in a palm up, throwing away gesture. “And while we’re speaking of how I feel, I may as well tell you that one reason I agreed with Kilthan about your hire is that your-situation, shall we say?-makes you more reliable, not less. You and your friend are hradani, and you can’t go home again. If you should be minded to play us false, finding you afterward wouldn’t be so very hard, now would it?”

“You’ve a point there,” Bahzell murmured. “Aye, you’ve quite a point, now I think on it. Not that I was minded to do any such thing, of course.”

“Of course.” Rianthus returned his grin, then pointed at the arbalest over his shoulder. “Not to change the subject, but one thing I’d like you to consider is trading that for a bow. I’ve seen crossbows enough to respect ’em, but they’re slow, and anything we fall into is likely to be fast and sharp.”

“I’ve neither hand nor eye for a bow,” Bahzell objected, “and gaining either takes time. If it comes to that, I’m doubting there’s a bow in Esgan made to my size, and gods know I’d look a right fool prancing about with one of those wee tiny bows your horse archers draw!”

“That’s true, but even one lighter than the heaviest you can pull would be nasty enough-and faster.”

“That’s as may be.” Bahzell glanced at the empty archery range, then stepped across the rail, waved politely for the other to follow, and unslung his arbalest. Rianthus raised an eyebrow, then hopped over the same rail, and his other eyebrow rose as Bahzell drew the goatsfoot from his belt and hooked it to the arbalest’s string.

“You span that thing with one hand? ”

“Well, it’s faster that way, d’you see,” Bahzell replied, and Rianthus folded his arms and watched with something like disbelief as the Horse Stealer cocked the weapon with a single mighty pull. He took the time to return the goatsfoot to his belt before he set a quarrel on the string, but then the arbalest rose with snake-quick speed, the string snapped, and the bolt hummed wickedly as it tore through the head of a man-shaped target over fifty yards away. Rianthus pursed his lips, but whatever he’d thought about saying died unspoken as Bahzell’s flashing hands respanned the arbalest and sent a second quarrel through the same straw-stuffed head in less than ten seconds.

The hradani lowered the weapon and cocked his ears inquiringly at his new commander, and Rianthus let out a slow, deep breath.

“I suppose,” he murmured after a moment, “that we might just let you keep that thing after all, Prince Bahzell.”

***

They left Esgfalas on schedule to the hour, and for all Rianthus’ disparaging remarks, the “rag and tag” merchants who’d attached themselves to Kilthan moved with almost the same military precision as the dwarf’s own men. But Rianthus had been right about one thing: there were over three hundred wagons, and the enormous column stretched out for almost four miles.

Bahzell had never imagined such an enormous, vulnerable, toothsome target. It was enough to make any man come all over greedy, he thought, yet the size of it made sense once he’d had a look at Kilthan’s maps.

The roads in Esgan might be as good as any in Hurgrum, but most merchants preferred to ship by water wherever possible. Unfortunately, the best river route of all-the mighty Spear River and its tributary, the Hangnysti, whose navigable waters ran clear from the Sothoii Wind Plain to the Purple Lords’ Bortalik Bay-was out of the question for Esganians. The Hangnysti would have taken them straight to the Spear in a relatively short hop . . . except that it flowed through the lands of both the Bloody Swords and Horse Stealers alike before it crossed the Ghoul Moor. No merchant would tempt hradani with such a prize, and even hradani avoided the Ghoul Moor.

That meant all the trade to Esgan, the Kingdom of Daranfel, and the Duchy of Moretz funneled down the roads (such as they were) to Derm, capital of the Barony of Ernos, on the Saram River. The Saram was riddled with shallows and waterfalls above Derm, but from that point south river barges could ferry them down the lower Saram, Morvan, and Bellwater to the Bay of Kolvania. And, as Rianthus had said, this was one of the last (and best-guarded) caravans of the year; anyone who possibly could had made certain his goods went with it.

None of which made the lot of Kilthan’s guards any easier. Rianthus had kept them training hard, but six weeks of camp living while they waited for the caravan to assemble had taken some of the edge off them, and the other merchants’ guards ranged from excellent to execrable. It would take Rianthus a few days to decide which were which; until he had, he was forced to assume they were all useless and deploy his own men accordingly, and the constant roving patrols he maintained along the column’s flanks, coupled with regular scouting forays whenever the road passed through unclaimed wilderness, took their toll. Men and horses