Oath of Swords

“I’m thanking you.” Sincerity softened Bahzell’s voice, but the landlord only shrugged and stumped back off, and the hradani took Tothas’ weight from Zarantha’s shoulder.

“I’m thinking-” he began, then broke off as the door flew open. Brandark’s arms were heaped with enough baggage to weigh down even a hradani, and the women hurried over to relieve him of sufficient for him to see over the rest.

“I’m thinking,” Bahzell resumed, “that now Brandark’s here, he can be seeing you to our rooms while I get Tothas neck-deep in hot water.”

“By all means,” Zarantha said briskly. She opened one of the bags she’d taken from Brandark and withdrew a small bottle and a horn spoon. “And give him two spoonfuls of this-it’ll ease the coughing.”

Bahzell stuffed the medication into his belt pouch with a nod and turned away to half lead and half carry Tothas to the washrooms.

Hirahim, Bahzell thought a few hours later, might not be as irked as he’d first thought to find this inn named after him. Its rooms were expensive for its neighborhood, but the food was excellent, and the staff had seen to their needs with rare dispatch. Tothas had stayed awake long enough to consume an enormous bowl of thick, hot soup before they tucked him between the warmed sheets of his bed, and his breathing had been far easier as he dozed off.

Bahzell and Brandark, immeasurably refreshed by their own hot baths, had left Zarantha and Rekah watching over him and repaired, at Zarantha’s insistence, to the taproom after supper.

“You two have done your share and more,” she’d half scolded when Bahzell questioned the wisdom of wasting their scant funds on drink. “We can spend a few coppers on you. So go! Get out of here! Just don’t get into any brawls and break anything we’ll have to pay for!”

The hradani had departed with alacrity, and they’d soon discovered that The Laughing God’s cellars matched its kitchen. The local wines were too thick and sweet, but they couldn’t really afford wine anyway, whatever Zarantha might say, and the ale was excellent.

Now they sat before the hearth, listening to the pop of burning wood and the sizzling spit as an occasional raindrop came down the flue, and nursed two of The Laughing God’s biggest tankards. The other patrons had made room for them with a bit more haste than dignity, but they’d calmed down since, and Bahzell stretched his boots towards the fire while he savored his ale . . . and the surprised faces about him. Brandark’s finery had astounded everyone, and some of those who’d prudently withdrawn from his vicinity had been lured back when he uncased his balalaika and began strumming.

It hadn’t taken long for someone a little braver than the others to ask for a song, and the Bloody Sword had obliged with a smile, though he’d asked-with uncommon tact, Bahzell thought-for someone else to provide the voice. By now he was in a huddle with two locals, fingering silent chords while one of them played something softly on a penny whistle. His head nodded as he followed the melody, and Bahzell suspected the trio would soon be shouting for someone to sing along with their joint efforts.

The bouncer had kept an eye on them at first. Not hostilely, simply with a trace of wariness, but he, too, had relaxed when Brandark began to play. Taken all in all, it was the warmest reception two hradani were likely to find anywhere outside their native lands.

It was being a good night for The Laughing God, too-due, perhaps, to the attraction of two “tame” hradani, Bahzell thought sardonically. Few had left, and enough newcomers had filtered in to fill the taproom. The landlord had assigned two more servants to help the harried barmaids and stood behind the bar in person, eyes smiling as he watched the briskness of his business. More people wandered in by twos or threes, finding room to sit where they could, and Bahzell raised his own tankard for a refill.

One of the barmaids swung past on her way back to the bar and thunked it down on her already crowded tray, and he looked back at Brandark. The Bloody Sword was nodding vigorously now, one of the locals was beckoning to a deep-voiced fellow who’d already favored them with two songs, and-

“Watch yourself, hradani! ”

The shout cracked across the taproom, and surprise jerked Bahzell’s head around. He caught movement from the corner of his eye even as he turned, and pure instinct sent him lunging to his feet and away from it.

The same shout had stopped the man who’d walked up behind the Horse Stealer. But only for a second; even as Bahzell moved, the stranger raised a clenched fist to his lips and blew.

Something hummed past Bahzell’s ear on a pffffft! of expelled breath. It spanged off a polished copper pot above the hearth, and the hradani snarled. He was vaguely aware of other movement-of Brandark catapulting from his chair, the bouncer reaching back over the bar towards his brother, a wave of confusion and consternation-but his eyes were on the man who’d tried to kill him. The stranger’s clenched fist opened, throwing the small, hollow tube it had held into the fire, and his other hand went up under his cloak.

A shortsword gleamed as he drew it, and Bahzell snatched out his dagger, but a wave of bodies erupted from the crowd before he could move. At least ten of them, foaming up from the tables and benches to join a concerted rush, and all of them were armed.

Bahzell cursed and stepped back. His foot hooked under the trestle bench he’d been seated upon, and his lead attacker ducked frantically as its heavy wooden seat exploded upward. He managed to evade it, but three others went down, tangling their fellows, and Bahzell’s ears were flat to his skull as he went for the leader.

He didn’t know who these people were, but each of them carried a shortsword-the longest weapon a man could expect to conceal under a tunic or smock-in one hand and a knife in the other, and they knew what to do with them. Neither hradani had expected trouble, and their armor and swords had been left in their room, but Bahzell’s dagger was as long as most human shortswords . . . and he, too, knew what he was doing.

His would-be killer came at him in a strange, circling stance Bahzell had never seen before, sword advanced and knife held back at his hip, and the hradani’s empty left hand spread wide. He had no time for subtlety against so many enemies, and he took a chance and lunged.

The sword darted out as he’d expected, engaging his dagger, and the knife drove forward for his belly, but his left hand struck like a serpent. Fingers of steel clamped the man’s wrist. They yanked him close, a tree-like knee rammed up between his legs, and Bahzell’s dagger slipped free of his sword as he convulsed in agony. The blade twisted in, driving up under his arm, and blood sprayed from his mouth as he went down with a gurgling scream.

Steel clashed to Bahzell’s left as he kicked the dying man aside. Brandark had reacted almost as quickly as his friend, tossing his balalaika to one of his fellow musicians with one hand while the other went to his own dagger. The local caught the instrument in sheer reflex, then yelled in panic and scrambled for safety as the killers stormed forward.

Customers scattered like quail, and someone shrieked and folded forward as Brandark opened his belly. The horrible sound died with chilling suddenness as the Bloody Sword drove his dagger into the nape of his victim’s neck like an ice pick, but three more attackers vaulted over the trio Bahzell’s bench had felled, and the Horse Stealer sprang back to get his back to the hearth.

Brandark fell in beside him, as if summoned by telepathy, and a third would-be killer fell to writhe and scream in the sawdust as Bahzell ducked and hooked a vicious upward thrust into his groin. A sword hissed at the Horse Stealer’s face, and he was just too slow to dodge. It opened his cheek from eye to chin, but the man behind it paid with his life. He went down, momentarily entangling the man beside him, and Bahzell roared as he caught the encumbered man by the throat and drove his dagger up under his sternum.

A wild, fierce war cry split the air beyond the attackers, and steel flashed in the lamplight as the bouncer brought down the broadsword his brother had tossed him from under the bar. It caught a man between neck and shoulder, and the dead man went down shrieking, but Bahzell had no time to see more than that. The innocent bystanders had disappeared through windows and doors or under tables; the taproom was clear now, and he’d been wrong about the numbers. At least a dozen men were still trying to kill him, and the world dissolved into a boil of confusion as they very nearly succeeded.

Steel clashed, someone’s blood soaked his right arm to the elbow, he heard Brandark gasp at his side, the bouncer’s shrill war cries echoed in his ears, and even through that howling bedlam he heard the sharp, musical snap of a bowstring. A slash got through to his left arm, but he sensed it coming and managed to avoid the worst of it. It opened his forearm from wrist to elbow, but the messy cut was shallow, and even as the sword went back for another thrust, he brought his boot heel down on its wielder’s instep. Bone crunched, the attacker screamed