Oath of Swords

“My Lady’s no telepath, no thought-hearer. She’s an empath. She could sense your feelings, knew you for honest and honorable men, but she couldn’t hear your thoughts, and we’d been in hiding for over three months . She’d . . . forgotten how to trust, I think, and when we knew we could trust you, she’d thought better of it. There’s a trick some wizards have-Phrobus, for all I know all of them have it!-that lets them pluck thoughts from unguarded minds. They can’t do it to a mage, and Rekah and I were taught a way to block against it in Axe Hallow, but there was no time to teach that to you. All it would have taken would be one wizard to see her identity in your mind, and-”

“And it’s dead we’d all have been,” Bahzell said grimly.

“Dead, indeed,” Tothas agreed.

“And when she found the dog brothers were after us? ” Brandark asked.

“What could she do but go on? Tomanak knows I’d die for her-I’ve been her personal armsman since she was a babe-but I’m not likely to live out the journey,” Tothas said, and Bahzell’s eyes softened. “She knows it as well as I, but she dared not leave me behind, nor would I have let her. Yet she needed you two, needed your guts and loyalty as much as your swords. And at least we knew the dog brothers hadn’t realized who she was, or they would have killed her first, while she was unguarded upstairs, before trying for Bahzell.”

“Aye, that’s sense, but why the forged passport, Tothas? Why not be telling that border guard captain the truth and ask an escort home?”

“Because My Lady’s asked after our escort in every village we’ve passed through, and no one she’s asked yet ever saw them. That means they never got this far, that whatever happened to them is still ahead somewhere. I knew those men, Bahzell. I’d’ve taken Sword Oath nothing could stop them-not all of them-but something did, and there’s no reason to think it wouldn’t have stopped another fifty men. Aye, or a hundred for all I know!”

Bahzell nodded and leaned back in his too-small chair, ankles crossed and ears lowered in thought, and Tothas watched him in taut silence. He and Brandark could almost feel the intensity with which the Horse Stealer’s mind worked, and, finally, Bahzell gave a slow nod and straightened.

“All right, Tothas. You’ve told it, and I’m thinking Lady Zarantha had the right of it all along. Yet something’s happened to her now, and it’s in my mind that means something was after changing here in Dunsahnta.”

“Here?” Brandark asked. “Why not somewhere back along the road?”

“Because whatever could take her from a locked room-aye, and half-kill Rekah in the way of it, without our hearing a sound-could have done the same thing in the night on a lonely road. No, something here gave her away.”

“But what?” Tothas asked hopelessly.

“Well, as to that, I’ve no certain knowledge, but were either of you after watching that greasy little landlord when he first arrived?”

Bahzell eyed his companions keenly, and they shook their heads.

“I was,” he said grimly, “and it was white as snow he went, even before that door came down.”

“You think he set them on us?” Brandark asked in an ugly voice, and Bahzell shrugged.

“It might be, and it might not, but what I am thinking is that he’d guessed what had happened from the start. And for that, he had to be knowing something .”

“Ah?” Brandark murmured evilly, and Bahzell nodded.

“Ah, indeed,” he agreed, and stood. He dragged on his aketon and scale mail and reached for his sword, and his face was bleak. “If yonder wee toad is after knowing a single thing, I’ll have it out of him one way or another, and when I’ve done, it may just be we’ll know where to start looking.”

“But what can we do against sorcery?” Tothas asked, and Brandark smiled at him.

“Tothas, we’re hradani. We know what wizards can do, but none of us would ever have made it to Norfressa without learning a trick or two.”

“Wizardry?”

“No wizardry,” Bahzell grunted, “but there’s precious little a wizard can be doing with a foot of steel in his guts, and no wizard ever born can control a hradani who’s given himself to the Rage. That was their mistake, d’you see, when they made us what we are. The only way they can stop us is to kill us, and a hradani, Tothas,” his eyes burned, and his voice was very, very soft, “takes a lot of killing with a wizard in reach of his blade.”

Chapter Twenty-two

Mail jingled and weapons harness creaked as Bahzell led Brandark and Tothas downstairs. The taproom was a wasteland of empty chairs and crooked tables, smelling of stale drink and smoke, and the two servants who should have been putting last night’s clutter to rights huddled in a corner, whispering urgently to one another.

Their whispers chopped off with knife-sharp suddenness as the armed and armored trio appeared. The servants exchanged furtive, frightened glances, then one of them reached for his broom while the other cleared his throat, picked up a heavy tray of dirty tankards, and started to sidle out.

“Not so fast, my lad,” a deep voice rumbled, and a tree-trunk arm blocked his way. Bahzell smiled, and the servant froze and licked his lips.

“M-M-M’lord?” he quavered.

“It’s a word with your master I want. Where might I be finding him?”

“I-I’m sure I w-wouldn’t know, M’lord.”

“Wouldn’t you, now?” Bahzell watched the man’s shoulders tighten. “I’d not like to think you a liar, so just you give me your best guess, and it’s grateful I’ll be.”

The servant swallowed and darted an agonized look of appeal over his shoulder, but his fellow was busy sweeping up sawdust-a task which obviously occupied him to the exclusion of all else.

The man with the tray looked back up at Bahzell. The hradani made no threatening gestures, but his eyes were cold, and someone his size required no theatrics. The servant swallowed again, then slumped.

“I-In the kitchen, M’lord.”

“There, now. You did have a notion, didn’t you? And it’s grateful I am.” Bahzell looked at Brandark. “Brandark, my lad, why don’t you find a seat and keep these fine fellows company for a bit.”

“Certainly.” The Bloody Sword bowed to the servants and settled into a chair just inside the doorway.

“Don’t be long,” he called after his departing friends. “I left my balalaika upstairs, and I can’t entertain properly without it.”

***

The Brown Horse’s kitchens were none too clean, and Bahzell’s nose wrinkled at the smell of rancid grease and over-ripe garbage as he thrust the swinging door open.

The landlord was in the middle of the kitchen, talking excitedly to another servant. This one was just fastening his cloak when Bahzell and Tothas entered, and he and his master froze like rabbits.

The Horse Stealer hooked his thumbs in his belt and rocked gently, his smile almost genial, and the landlord’s face twitched.

“Ah, that will be all, Lamach,” he said, and the servant started for a rear door, only to freeze again as Bahzell cleared his throat. He looked back over his shoulder, and the hradani cocked his head at him.

“Now don’t you run off on our account, Lamach. You’d be after making me think you don’t like us.”

He crooked a beckoning finger, and Lamach swallowed, but his feet moved as if against his will, carrying him back to the towering hradani.

“That’s a good lad!” Bahzell looked at Tothas. “Why don’t you take Lamach outside there, Tothas? It’s only a word or two I need with his master, and if the two of you see to it we’re bothered by naught, why, Lamach can be on his way as soon as we’ve done. Unless, of course, there’s some reason his master should be reconsidering his errand.”

Tothas nodded curtly and waved Lamach out into the hall. The doors swung shut, and Bahzell turned back to