Oath of Swords

dabble in this. It’ll likely be the death of you, and not a pretty end!”

“Well, no one ever said you were smart,” Brandark replied, “and, if the truth be known, I don’t suppose anyone actually ever said I was.”

“If they did, they lied.” Bahzell gave him one last shake, then sighed again. “All right, if you’re daft enough to be coming, then I suppose I’m daft enough to be glad for the company.”

Chapter Eleven

The heavy wooden chair back flew apart. The stubs of its uprights stood like broken teeth, and then they, too, flew apart as the sword thundered down between them and split the seat. Splinters hissed, and Harnak of Navahk screamed a curse as he whirled to the chest beside the ruined chair.

He drove his sword into it like an axe, then wrenched the blade free and brought it down again and again and again, cursing with every blow. He hacked until he could hack no more, then hurled the blade across the room. It leapt back from the wall, ricocheting to the floor with a whining, iron clangor, and he glared down at it, gasping while spittle ran down his chin.

But then he closed his eyes. His wrist scrubbed across his mouth and chin, and he dragged in a deep, wracking breath as the Rage faded back from the brink of explosion. It was hard for him to beat it down, for he seldom chose to do so, but this time he had no choice.

He mastered it at last and shook himself, glaring about his chamber at the wreckage. Even the bedposts were splintered and gouged, and he clenched his jaw, feeling the gaps of missing teeth, as he wished with all his heart those same blows had landed upon Farmah or Bahzell Bahnakson.

He swore, with more weariness than passion now, and waded through the rubble to the window. He sat in the opening’s stone throat, staring hot-eyed out over the roofs of Navahk, and rubbed the permanent depression in his forehead while he made himself think.

The bitch was alive-alive! -and that slut Tala with her, and the pair of them were in Hurgrum!

***

The nostrils of his misshapen nose flared. How? How had two women, one a mere girl and beaten half to death into the bargain, gotten clear to Hurgrum through his father’s entire Guard? It wasn’t possible!

Yet that whoreson Bahzell had contrived it anyway. He’d drawn virtually all the pursuit after him, and he and that bastard Brandark-and it had to be Brandark, whatever the japester’s father claimed!-had cut the single patrol to find them into dog meat. And while they’d done that , somehow the bitches had reached that sanctimonious dog-lover Bahnak’s court. He’d actually taken them in, put them under his own protection in his very palace!

Harnak spat another curse, and fresh hatred rose as more spittle sprayed humiliatingly through his gap- toothed snarl. Bahnak had been careful to take no official note when Churnazh outlawed his son. He’d even restrained Farmah from accusing Harnak of the crime, for to contest the sentence Churnazh had imposed would commit him to a fresh war against Navahk. His own men would demand it-and his allies would slip away if he appeared too weak to launch it.

But, by the same token, Churnazh’s allies would never support an attack on Hurgrum. If he were attacked , yes, they would come to his aid, for each feared the destruction of any one of them would be the opening wedge for Bahnak’s conquest of them all. But they were too weakened-and frightened-by what Hurgrum had already done to carry a fresh war to Bahnak, which meant he had no need to refute the charges against his son. With Bahzell safely beyond Churnazh’s reach, all Bahnak had to do was keep silent and let his allies-and Navahk’s, curse them!-laugh.

And they were laughing. Harnak clenched his fists, choking on bile. Every bard in every city-state of the Bloody Swords and Horse Stealers alike seemed to be singing the tale of Bahzell Bahnakson’s cunning. They’d made the puking bastard some sort of hero, and if they never mentioned Harnak’s name, there was no need to. If Bahzell’s father was sheltering Farmah and she was content to have it so, then Bahzell couldn’t have raped her . . . and if he hadn’t, everyone knew who must have. No one dared say so, but Harnak had seen it even in the eyes of the Guard, and he dared not show his face in public. Only the iron fist of his father’s terror kept women from spitting on his shadow as he passed . . . and his father had five sons.

The crown prince glared down at his fists. He was the eldest son, his father’s heir . . . while Churnazh lived. But what would happen when he died? Harnak knew his brothers. All of them, with the possible exception of that gutless wonder Arsham, had tumbled unwilling wenches, yet no one knew they had. Now everyone knew he had-yes, and believed he’d tried to kill the girl, too. Either of those crimes was more than enough to absolve any warrior of loyalty to him, and all it needed would be for one of his brothers-just one-to claim the throne to set the army of Navahk at its own throat . . . and Harnak’s.

He couldn’t let that happen. Yet how could he stop it?

He brooded down at his fists, the flame of his hatred smoldering down to smoking embers that would never quite die, and thought.

There were only two possibilities, he told himself at last. Either all his brothers must die, leaving no other claimant of the blood to challenge him, or else Bahzell, Farmah, and Tala must die.

Neither solution was perfect. If he had his brothers murdered, they must all die in the same hour, and his father with them, for only one person in Navahk could profit by their deaths, and Churnazh would know it. Yet even if all four of his brothers-yes, and his father, too-perished, too many who remembered how Churnazh himself had butchered his way to the throne might seek to emulate him. A crown prince rapist believed to have murdered his entire family would be too weak and tempting a target for someone to pass by.

But if he settled for killing Bahzell-assuming he could find the Sharna-cursed bastard-and the bitches, he would have to hope his father lived for a great many years. If Bahzell died, he would become one more dead enemy, not a taunting reminder of failure, and Navahk had been taught to respect men whose enemies were all dead. And if the sluts died, then the living symbol of his crime would die, as well. Passing time would erode the certainty of his guilt, give Churnazh’s countercharges the chance to sink in, but it would take time. It would take years, more maddening years in which he would be denied his proper place, still crown prince and never ruler.

And he must have all three of them, for as long as any of them breathed, their very lives would keep the tale alive. All of his enemies must perish to put time on his side . . . and perhaps there was a way. One not even Churnazh guessed at. Nor would he, for if he should ever suspect what allies Harnak had taken, he would rip out his son’s heart with his own bare hands.

Harnak nodded, ruined face twisted in an ugly smile, and looked back out the window. The sun was well into the west. Once darkness fell, he had a call to pay.

***

The single horseman trotted quietly down the brush-choked valley. There was no road here, only a trail of beaten earth, and his horse’s hooves fell with a dull, muffled sound. The slopes to his left cut off the moon, drowning the narrow way in darkness, and something inside him basked in the black silence even as his horse snorted and tossed an uneasy head.

A mile fell away, then another, as he threaded his way into the twisting hills. Few came here, even in daylight, for the nameless hill range had an unchancy reputation. Of the few who came, fewer still departed, and even Harnak’s carefully chosen bodyguards-clanless men, outcasts who owed all they were or ever could be to him-had muttered uneasily when they realized his destination. They always did, and he’d sensed their frightened relief when he ordered them to stop and await his return. None of them knew what he did on his rides into the hills, and none cared to know, for they’d seen him come this way with prisoners tied to their saddles, and he always