Oath of Swords

He looked up uneasily. It was dark under the trees, even in leafless winter, but the sky beyond the web of overhead limbs was still clear and blue. Yet the prickle on the back of his neck only intensified, and he stopped dead, turning in place to scan the wet, silent woods.

“What?” Brandark’s soft question felt shockingly loud in the quiet, and Bahzell twitched his ears.

“I’m none too sure,” he replied quietly, “but something-”

He broke off, ears going flat to his skull, as wind roared suddenly in the branches above him. The day had been still, without so much as a breeze, and he heard Brandark curse behind him as a fist of air smote the forest. One moment all was still; the next a sucking gale snatched at the trees like angry hands. Limbs creaked and groaned, crying out against the sudden violence, and the afternoon light was abruptly quenched. It didn’t fade. It wasn’t cut off by moving clouds. It simply died, plunging the forest into inky blackness, and a long, savage roll of thunder smashed through the roar of the unnatural wind.

Bahzell staggered as the tumult crashed about him. Small, broken branches pelted them, and Brandark’s horse screamed in panic. The pack animals and remounts caught its fear, lunging against their leads and squealing in terror, and Bahzell leapt in among them to calm them. Brandark fought his horse back under control, then dismounted, clinging to its reins with one hand while he lent Bahzell as much aid as he could with the others, but the shriek of the wind battered at them all. Two of the horses broke free and thundered madly away, then a third, and the wind howl went on and on and on and on .

Fresh thunder crashed, louder even than before. A glare like a hundred lightning bolts lit the forest in lurid light, and Brandark shouted something. Bahzell turned his head, but the Bloody Sword wasn’t looking at him; he was staring up, ears flat, lips drawn back in a snarl. Bahzell followed his gaze upward-and froze as thunder smashed the heavens yet again.

There was more than thunder in that wind-sick darkness. There was something huge and black, riding the maelstrom on batlike wings. He couldn’t see it clearly, but what little he could see was the stuff of nightmares. The glare of lightning leapt back from ebon hide and scale and bony plates, and the hideous shape swept back around, circling like a hawk in search of prey.

Thunder crashed in a final, shattering spasm, more terrible than any that had come before, and then, as suddenly as a slamming door, it died. The wind eased-a little-and both pack mules broke their leads and galloped frantically into the blackness.

“BAHZELL! ” The deafening bellow was louder than the thunder had been. It split the darkness like an axe, huge and inhuman, a hissing, cackling sound mortal ears had never been meant to hear. “BAHZELL! ” it shrieked again, and Brandark snatched his eyes back down from the heavens to stare at his friend.

Neither spoke. They simply turned as one, dragging their remaining horses with them, and fled while that hideous voice howled across the sky.

The vast, inhuman bellow roared Bahzell’s name once more, and unaccustomed panic gripped him. The packhorse he led squealed, lunging against the lead rein in terror as it caught on a low-hanging branch, and he swore as he jerked the leather free. The forest was darker than the pits of Krahana, trees loomed like the rough- barked legs of monsters intent on tripping him up, and still that guttural voice shrieked his name. Brandark’s horse went to its knees, and Bahzell slithered to a halt, waiting while the Bloody Sword wrenched the beast back up lest they lose track of one another in the blackness.

Something crashed behind them, like a dozen city gates splintering under a score of rams, and his name hooted and gibbered at them out of the darkness. They redoubled their pace, running blindly, bouncing off trees, stumbling over uneven ground, and the crashing, splintering sounds pursued them. Bahzell could picture the monster ripping entire trees out by the roots, throwing them aside as it rampaged through the forest in pursuit. He heard Brandark’s desperate panting beside him as his friend gasped for breath, knew they could run no faster, but the sounds of shattering wood were overtaking them quickly, and he swore savagely. They couldn’t outrun something that could batter whole trees from its path, and the thought of being pulled down from behind while he ran like a panicked rabbit was too much to endure.

The ground angled suddenly upward, and he staggered as the abrupt slope surprised him. He scrubbed sweat from his eyes, chest heaving, and saw a hill like a bare, black knob. A long-ago fire had created a clearing about it, and he turned his head as Brandark slithered to a stop beside him.

“We won’t . . . find . . . a better spot!” the Bloody Sword gasped, and Bahzell nodded grimly. At least if they faced whatever it was out here it couldn’t drop trees on them-unless it brought a trunk or two with it.

“Keep going!” he panted back, but Brandark shook his head. He was already leading the two horses he still had towards the top of the hill, and he actually managed a grin as he looked back over his shoulder.

“No point!” he shouted. “D’you honestly think I can outrun that?! ”

Bahzell swore again, but his friend was probably right-and there was no time to argue. He followed Brandark up the hill, and the two of them tethered their remaining horses to the burned out snag of a mammoth oak. Bahzell took time to make sure the knot was secure-partly because he’d need the packhorse’s supplies in the improbable event that he survived, but mainly because it was something to do besides simply stand there-then drew his sword. He walked to the very crest of the hill and stood gazing back the way he’d come, and bright, sharp fear filled his mouth. He knew his capabilities; he also knew this was a foe no man could fight and win.

Brandark scrambled up beside him, his own sword in hand, and wind whined about their ears. A faint, corpse-green glow lit the sky above them, and they stood silhouetted against it, listening to the crash of toppling trees as the bat-winged horror stormed towards them. Bahzell’s starving lungs sucked in enormous gulps of air after his long, stumbling run, and then he stiffened as an enormous oak toppled in a smash of splintered limbs and shattered trunk. That tree had to be sixty feet tall, but it crashed to earth and bounced, and a monstrous form-all spider legs and bat wings and huge, fanged, pincer-armed head-stalked down its broken length like a dream of Hell taken flesh.

“BAHZELL! ” it howled, and started up the slope.

It was an obscene mix of insect and bat, moving with the darting vitality of a lizard, and foot-long fangs clashed as it snapped its jaws and screamed his name. He remembered Tomanak’s description of demons as something so weak they were hard for the gods to “see” and knew in that moment that he never wanted to meet anything the gods could see clearly. The thing’s breath hissed and bubbled, strands of emerald spittle drooled from its teeth and pincers, and the stench of an open grave blew to them from it.

“Ah, Bahzell,” Brandark’s tenor was unnaturally clear, almost calm, through the wind and the noise of wood splitting in talons of night-black horn, “I realize you’ve been having something of a religious crisis lately, and I’d never dream of pushing you one way or another. But if you have been considering accepting Tomanak’s offer, well, this might be a very good time for it.”

Bahzell gritted his teeth, eyes fixed on the approaching demon. The Rage glittered within him, already reaching out to claim him, yet Brandark’s words echoed through it, and he felt a sudden, terrible suspicion. Had Tomanak known this would happen? Worse, had he arranged for it to trap Bahzell into his service? Twelve hundred years of distrust shouted that the god had done just that, but only for an instant. Just long enough for him to recognize it . . . and reject it instantly. Tomanak was the god of justice, and justice could be hard, but it didn’t lie-and neither did its patron.

More than that, there was no need for Tomanak to entrap him. Not now. For Tomanak had been right; Bahzell had only thought he knew what evil was. Now he saw its very embodiment flowing up the muddy slope towards him and realized the War God had known him better than he’d known himself. Bahzell Bahnakson could not look upon such horror and vileness, couldn’t picture it stalking someone else , and not fight it. His terror flashed like spits of lightning, and the oncoming demon turned his bowels to water as no mortal foe ever had. He wanted desperately to turn and flee once more, and it wasn’t the Rage that stopped him and stiffened his spine. It was outrage stronger even than his fear. The recognition of evil . . . and the knowledge, the acceptance, that it was what he’d been born and bred to fight.

“All right!” he howled to the wind. “If it’s wanting me you are, then have me you can!”

He raised his sword in both hands, and the steel flashed like a mirror as a bolt of savage blue lightning split the darkness. He felt it strike the five-foot blade, run down it, flare up his arms and stutter in his heart, and his lips drew back in the snarl of the Rage.

“Bahzell, no!” Brandark screamed. “I didn’t mean alone , you idiot!”

The Bloody Sword clutched at his friend’s harness, but too late. Bahzell launched himself down the slope at