Oath of Swords

when-”

“Oh, hush, man! The Phrobus-spawned army can be looking after itself, and right this moment it’s your necks I’m thinking of. So just tell me if you’ve all the details straight.”

“But it’s not right , Milord! ’Twas our trouble, and-”

“Malith! ” The villager winced at the volume of Bahzell’s exasperation and scrubbed his calloused hands together, then swallowed.

“Yes, Milord. I understand,” he said meekly.

“Good!” Bahzell looked up as Malith’s wife scurried off to hide the last of the money they’d found on the dead landlord’s person. Two more women were busy stuffing the hradani’s pack saddles with food under Brandark’s supervision, and the Horse Stealer nodded in satisfaction. He’d been looking forward to a night or two under a roof, but that was before he landed himself and Brandark in this fresh fix. Fiendark seize it, that pompous lackwit would be related to the local governor!

Brandark buckled the saddle tight and wiggled his ears outrageously at the two young women, then kissed each of them firmly. Both of them giggled and blushed, but one of them laughed out loud and seized his right ear to drag his head down and give him a daring kiss in reply before they darted back inside the palisade.

Bahzell grunted, shoved himself to his feet, and crossed to Brandark. It was time and past time to be out of here, he thought, though precisely where he and Brandark could go now was something of a delicate question. The only thing of which he was certain was that they couldn’t take their fresh trouble to Jashan and drop it on Zarantha and her family. Relations between the Spearmen and the Purple Lords were always bitter, for the Empire hated and resented the half-elves’ monopolistic control of its foreign trade. But that very control made them a force not even the most powerful Spearman noble could challenge with impunity, and they were only too likely to choose to make an example of Duke Caswal if he tried to shield two hradani who’d “murdered” the son of a powerful family. They’d done it before, using their grip on the Spear River and its shipping to blockade the trade of nobles who’d irritated them as a way to remind their fellows of who held the Empire’s leash.

“This,” Brandark remarked as Bahzell reached him, “is probably the worst idea you’ve had yet. You know that, don’t you?”

“D’you have a better one?”

“No, not really,” the Bloody Sword admitted.

“Well, then.” Bahzell rubbed his chin for a moment and frowned at the eight new horses they’d added to their string. They were well-bred animals, no doubt worth a pretty price somewhere, but they were going to be a handful for two people to manage, and none of them were up to a hradani’s weight. On the other hand, they couldn’t exactly leave them behind, now could they?

He sighed, then clapped Brandark on the shoulder.

“Well, climb up, little man. Climb up! We’ve some ground to cover before sunrise!”

“No doubt.” Brandark swung up into the saddle and twitched his ears at his friend. “Just once, Bahzell-just once! -I’d like to leave someplace with you and not have someone on our trail. Is that too much to ask?”

“Oh, be still with you!” Bahzell was already jogging south down the rough trail that served the village as a road, and Brandark urged his horse to a canter at his heels. The other animals lurched into motion on their leads, and the Horse Stealer’s voice carried through the wet squelch of hooves in mud. “You’ve more complaints than a little old lady in a brothel! Why, the way you’re after carrying on, folk might think you weren’t enjoying yourself at all, at all.”

“Enjoying myself! Listen, you overgrown lump of gristle, I-”

Their cheerful bickering faded into the darkness, and the villagers shook their heads at one another in disbelief.

***

Major Rathan No’hai Taihar was a lean, dangerous man. He was also a very well-born Purple Lord, and it showed-both in the arrogant tilt of his head and the rage in his eyes as he gazed down at the body of his cousin Yithar and listened to the illiterate headman of this miserable collection of hovels.

“ . . . an’ then Milord Yithar come t’collect th’ rest of next quarter’s rent, Milord,” Malith said anxiously, hands wringing a shapeless cap before him. “We was expectin’ him, of course, for he’d said as how he’d be here, an’ he’d just come up th’ track when we heard it.”

“Heard what?” Rathan demanded, waving a scented handkerchief under his nose against the muddy woodland stink. He knew there was money in the timber business, but what had possessed Yithar to buy up this wretched village was more than he-

“We heard ’em comin’ out of th’ woods, Milord.” Rathan’s eyes snapped back from the body to Malith’s face, and the villager swallowed. “Hradani they was, Milord. Must’a been at least a half-score of ’em-maybe more-an’ I think they was layin’ for Milord Yithar, like they knew he was collectin’, y’see.”

“Hradani?” Rathan repeated incredulously.

“Aye, Milord. Hradani. Y’can see their tracks yourself, out yonder where they come from, an’ again where they headed south with Milord Yithar’s horses . . . after.”

Rathan glared at him, and Malith swallowed again, strangling his cap.

“And none of you did a thing to help him, hey?” Rathan’s voice was silk-wrapped ice, and Malith paled.

“Milord . . . Milord Yithar don’t allow no weapons ’mongst his people-not but a boar spear or a huntin’ bow or two-an’ we’re not trained with ’em no how. ’Twas all we could do to get the gates closed and save our ownselves, ’deed it was, Milord!”

Rathan growled. The fingers of his right hand twitched towards his sword, yet the inability of these patchwork peasants to defend even themselves was disgustingly evident. Singing tension held for a long, still moment, and then he growled again and took his hand away with a grimace of contempt.

“So you just watched these bastard hradani murder Lord Yithar and his men,” he sneered instead, and Malith stared at the ground and bobbed his head.

“We did, Milord. ’Tweren’t no good thinkin’ we could’a done elsewise, for we couldn’t. ’Deed, we couldn’t even a held th’ gate, if they’d thought to attack us when they was done.”

“Attack you? ” Rathan gave a crack of scornful laughter. “Why in Hirahim’s name should anyone attack this? ” His gesture of disdain took in the village, and Malith looked up earnestly.

“Why, Milord, they would’a done it in a minute, ’deed they would’a, if they’d’a known.”

“Known what , you fool?”

“Why, known as how we’d saved up Milord Yithar’s rent money, Milord. Every copper of it.” The headman reached out as if to grasp the major’s arm before he remembered himself and snatched his hand back, but his pathetic eagerness was plain to see. “They was so busy lootin’ him an’ his men, they must not’a realized Milord Yithar was a’comin’ here, not leavin’, Milord, an’ we been downright afeared they’d come back an’ take th’ rent, as well!”

Rathan blinked, for he’d assumed the villagers were going to claim the brigands had stolen the rent payment. No one could have proven otherwise, and it was a rare peasant who wouldn’t do his betters gleefully out of their legitimate earnings.

“You mean they didn’t take the rent?”

“No, Milord, ’tis what I’m a’sayin’. They didn’t know as ’twas here, an’ we’d be thankful if you’d take it with you when you goes. ’Tisn’t much for Milord Yithar’s family, an’ all, but we feel it sharp that we couldn’t’a done somethin’ to save him. He . . . he could be a mite short if the dibs was out’a tune, Milord Yithar could, meanin’ no disrespect, but if you’d see as how his family gets th’ rent we’re owin’ . . . ?”

The headman’s voice trailed off, and Rathan shook himself. He turned away from the village, gazing down at the countless tracks which marked the muddy field where his cousin had died-the tracks, had he but known, which the villagers themselves had made under Bahzell’s direction-and then back at Malith. His expression was just as arrogant, but a faint hint of approval, like a master’s for a trained dog’s cleverness, tinged his smile.

“Of course, Headman Malith. Give it to my clerk-he’ll count it and give you a receipt, and I’ll personally see that Lord Yithar’s family receives it. Yes,” his smile vanished into a glare as his eyes turned back to the south, “and all