Oath of Swords

“So?” Rathan demanded.

“This, sir.” The scout pulled a bronze buckle from his belt pouch. “I found it when I first searched the camp.”

The major turned the buckle in his fingers and frowned at the jagged characters etched into the metal.

“What is this?” he asked after a moment, his voice less irritated and more intent, and the scout hid his relief as he tapped the marks with a finger.

“Those’re hradani runes, sir. I’ve seen ones like them on captured Wild Wash equipment.”

Rathan’s head jerked up, and he stared around the camp once more. There’d been more horses here, and heavier ones, than they’d been trailing, and the tracks slanted into the campsite from the wrong direction, which meant-

“They’ve joined up with the rest of their filthy band!” he snapped, and twisted round to his second in command. “Halith!”

“Sir!”

“Get couriers out. Call in all the scouts, then send riders to the closest regular army posts. There are more of them than we thought, and I’ll want every man when we catch up with them. Go on, man! Get moving!”

“Yes, sir!” Halith wheeled his horse, already calling out the names of his chosen messengers, and Rathan laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant laugh, and his eyes glittered as he stared off to the southeast along the plainly marked tracks leading from the camp.

“I’ve got you now, you murdering bastards!” he whispered, and dropped the buckle. It landed rune-side up, and as he turned to remount his horse, his heel came down on the sigil of Crown Prince Harnak’s personal guard.

***

The sun lay heavy on the western horizon when Bahzell called a halt. A stream flowed at the bottom of a deep, tree-lined ravine, and the grass along its banks was still green. The horses and mules would like that, and Bahzell liked the concealment the ravine offered.

Brandark dismounted to lead his horse down the gully’s steep northern face. The slope was acute enough to make getting their animals down it difficult, but the southern side was far lower, and the Bloody Sword nodded in appreciation. Bahzell had far better instincts for this sort of thing than he did-no doubt from the time he’d spent on the Wind Plain-but Brandark approved. If anyone stumbled over them, they’d probably come from the north, and the steepness on that side would slow them while the hradani broke south.

“I see you’ve shown your usual fine eye for selecting first-class accommodations,” he said. “What do you think about a fire?”

“Best not,” Bahzell replied. “It’s warm enough without, and those who can’t see flames can still smell smoke if the wind’s wrong.”

“Um.” Brandark pulled at his nose, then nodded. “You’re probably right. Of course, by now we both stink enough they can probably smell uswithout smoke if they get within a league.”

“Well, yon stream’s deep enough. Once we’ve the horses picketed, I’ll be taking the first watch, if you’ve a mind to soak your delicate skin.”

“Done!” Brandark sighed. “Gods! Even cold water’ll feel good by now!”

***

Harnak cursed as his horse stumbled. All of their mounts were weary, and his men were straggling once more as the sun began to slip below the horizon, but the prince never considered stopping. He no longer even had to touch the hilt to feel his sword’s hard, hating pull. That fiery hunger had bled into his own blood. It dragged him on despite exhausted horses and failing light, simmering in his soul until he hovered on the very brink of the Rage. He was here. The whoreson bastard was here , so close Harnak could smell him, and he snarled and struck his mount with his spurs.

The horse squealed in surprised hurt, lunging so hard it almost unseated him. Exhaustion or no, there was no withstanding the goad of roweled steel, and it bounded ahead while Harnak’s guardsmen swore under their breath and fought to match their prince’s pace.

Some of them couldn’t, however they tried, and they tried hard. They’d feared this journey from the moment they heard of it, and, like Harnak himself, they felt adrift and lost in this strange, too warm place where anyone they met was likely to see them as brigands or invaders. They dreaded the thought of facing a roused and angry land so far from home, yet they’d begun to harbor even more fearful suspicions about their leader and the sword he wore. Harnak surrounded himself with hard and brutal men, and some of the cursed weapon’s ravening hunger spilled over into them. It touched the dark spots in their own bloodstained souls like seductive black fire, hazing their thoughts, and when they realized what was happening, they were terrified.

But it was growing harder for them to recognize the influence. It was becoming part of them, like a pale shadow of the furnace it had lit deep at Harnak’s heart. It gripped them like a drug, blending with their fear of losing the column in this alien land, and goaded them on as Harnak’s spurs goaded his horse. Yet try as they might, their weary mounts were unequal to their demands. More of them fell back, stringing out in a long, ragged line as the darkness came down.

Harnak knew it was happening, and a corner of his mind demanded he slow, let the others catch up, bring them all in together to overwhelm Bahzell and Brandark when he found them. Yet it was only a corner, lost in the roiling blood taste, and he ignored it and drove on into the falling shadows.

***

Rathan turned his head to glare at the western horizon as the last crimson rim of sun fumed amid the clouds. They were close to the bastards now. He knew it-he could feel it. Hradani needed big, heavy horses which could never match the pace and endurance of his men’s lighter mounts, and enough detachments had come in to double his company’s original hundred-man strength. He had men enough to deal with any band of brigands; all he needed was another two hours of daylight, and he didn’t have them.

He clenched his jaw and fought his own impatience. It didn’t matter, he told himself. The sun would rise again, and, indeed, it might be wiser to wait until it did. A night battle was always confusing, at best; at worst, it could turn into disaster as friend turned on friend and the enemy escaped.

He was just opening his mouth to order a halt when his lead scouts crested a low slope several hundred yards ahead of him. The last light burned like sullen blood on their helmets, and then, suddenly, they were snatching at slung bows and he heard the first shrill screams.

***

Harnak jerked around in the saddle as a horse shrieked like a tortured woman. There was still light enough for him to see one of his rearmost men go down as a mortally wounded mount plunged head over crupper. The guardsman hit hard and lay still, and shouts of alarm and terror mixed with fresh cries of pain as arrows pelted his straggling rearguard.

The prince stared in disbelief, and a flicker of motion even further behind him caught his eye. Dark, indistinct figures, blurry but gilded with sparks of sunset from helmets and chain mail, swirled on a low crest beyond his men, shooting as fast as they could pull their bows. The light was so bad they were firing almost blind, yet blind fire was as deadly as aimed when there was enough of it, and another of his men pitched from his saddle.

Harnak had no idea who they were, but their abrupt, murderous appearance filled the tiny corner of his soul that still belonged to him with panic. He didn’t know how many enemies were back there, but his men were too spread out for a fight, and their horses were too weary for flight. He knew, suddenly and beyond question, that he would never see Navahk again, that the Scorpion had sent him to his death after all, and terror mixed with the wild, overmastering hunger of the sword he bore-the hunger that had come to dominate all he was-and flashed over into the Rage.