Oath of Swords

He howled like a mad animal, and a livid green glare flashed like poisoned lightning as he ripped his sword from its sheath. His men heard him, recognized his Rage and felt their own respond, and the wild, shrill scream of hradani fury rose, filling the newborn night as the last embers died on the horizon and Harnak’s column came apart.

Most of his men wheeled on their attackers, blazing with the need to rend and kill until they themselves were slain, but those closest to Harnak didn’t. The instant their prince drew the cursed blade, its power reached out to them. The dark secrets of their own hearts made them easy prey, and it seized them by the throat, wrenching them back to the south with Harnak, for the one creature in all the world it had been forged to slay lay ahead, not behind. It hurled them onward while their fellows turned at bay, and they thundered blindly into the night behind their howling prince.

***

“What in the names of all the gods-?!”

Major Rathan blanched as the shrieks rose like demons. Darkness fell with deadly speed, washing away vision, but not before he saw the first huge figures explode into his scouts. The horse archers tried to scatter, but they’d never expected their enemies to wheel into the teeth of their fire, and the hradani’s weary mounts had caught their riders’ fury, burning out their last strength in a frantic surge of speed there was no time to evade. Most of the archers got their swords out before the charge smashed home, but it didn’t matter. They went down like scythed wheat as their quarry turned upon them.

“Form up! Form up! ” Rathan shouted, and bugles blared as his stunned men responded. There was no time to dress ranks properly, and unit organization went by the board as the troopers struggled to form front. It was all a mad swirl, a crazed delirium of plunging horses and shouts in the darkness, but somehow they formed a line.

“Lances!” Rathan bellowed. The last light was gone, drowning the hills in darkness that would make any semblance of control impossible, but he dared not let his men be taken at a stand by charging enemies, and at least the hradani’s shrieks of Rage told him roughly where they were.

“Charge! ” he screamed, and two hundred mounted men thundered forward into the night.

***

Bahzell Bahnakson jerked to his feet as the first screams came out of the north. He stood among the trees for just a second, peering into the darkness, and knew he’d heard those sounds before- made them before. It wasn’t possible. Not this far south! Yet there could be no mistake, and then he heard bugles ringing over the hills and knew there was no time to waste on confusion or wonder.

He slithered down into the ravine like an out-of-control boulder. He almost fell a dozen times, but somehow he kept his feet and staggered into the camp just as a soaking wet, stark naked Brandark erupted from the stream.

“What-?!”

“No time, man! No time! They’ll be on us in minutes!” Bahzell shouted back, and Brandark strangled his questions and dashed for the heap of his clothes and armor, ignoring shirt and trousers to drag on his arming doublet while Bahzell leapt to the picket line. He grabbed a pack saddle and pushed his way in among the stamping, suddenly panicked animals, but the cacophony of screams raced nearer like some huge, malevolent beast, and it was headed straight for them.

He spun away from the horses and reached for his sword as he realized there wasn’t even time to saddle up. Brandark was still struggling with his haubergeon, and Bahzell backpedaled away from their mounts, putting himself between his friend and the lip of the ravine, as mounted men thundered into the woods above them with insane speed.

Horses went down, shrieking as legs broke or they speared themselves on unseen branches, but a few of them somehow threaded the obstacle and hurtled down the slope with howling demons on their backs, and crimson-shot green fire blazed from Harnak’s sword as he took his mount into the ravine like a madman. His horse squatted back on its haunches, sliding and slithering, screaming in fear as the ground fell away before it, but somehow it held its feet, and the prince’s eyes were pits of madness.

“Bahzell! ” he shrieked, and charged.

Bahzell’s head twisted round at the sound of his name, and blue flame snapped down his own blade as the sword in Harnak’s hand hurled the prince at him. There was no more time for confusion-there was only the instant answer of his own Rage, and he leapt to meet his enemy.

“Tomanak! ” His bull-throated war cry battered through the high, mad shriek of Harnak’s hatred, and his sword streamed blue fire as it hissed forward. A blaze of bloody green steel answered, and the blades met in a terrible explosion of fury, bleaching the ravine with a glare of hate that blasted up like sheet lightning. The cursed sword howled like a living soul, and the shock of impact hurled Harnak from the saddle.

The prince hit on his shoulder, yet the power bound into his blade possessed him, and he rolled back to his feet with deadly speed. His plunging mount blocked Bahzell just long enough for him to surge upright before the Horse Stealer could reach him, and he flung himself at Bahzell with elemental madness.

Steel crashed and belled like the hammers of enraged giants, wrapped in hissing sheets of light that blazed hotter with every stroke. Bahzell felt the power of Harnak’s weapon, sensed its hatred and implacable purpose fueling the Navahkan’s Rage, and staggered back one stride, then another, as Harnak hewed at him. A livid emerald corona rose about the shrieking Navahkan, a vague shape that swirled and fought to take the shape of a huge, green scorpion. Its pincers spread wide, groping for Bahzell, and the Horse Stealer fell back again as a deadly stinger stabbed at him. Reeking steam hissed upward where that stinger’s poison spattered like deadly rain, but there was a presence behind Bahzell, as well. He sensed a vast shape rising about him, flickering with an azure glory to match Harnak’s poisonous green, and knew this was no longer a matter of Horse Stealer against Navahkan.

A corner of his mind gibbered in panic-not of Harnak, but of what Tomanak had said about the dangers when god met god in combat-as a warring confrontation of power seethed and frothed. It filled the ravine like a flood, spilling outward in the roil and flash of lightning, and he and Harnak stood at its heart, its focus and its avatars-the vessels that gave it purchase in the world of mortals. He heard more steel clash as Brandark fought for his life, but he dared not take his attention from Harnak. It wasn’t the prince he fought; it was the unspeakable foulness reaching for him from the prince’s blade, and that blade was shorter than his own, quicker and handier in close combat. He knew-somehow, he knew-the slightest wound would be death and worse than death, and it whistled in again and again, keening its hate.

He blocked another deadly stroke and twisted his wrists, guiding it to the side. He spun on his left foot, pivoting as the force of Harnak’s blow carried him past, and his right foot lashed up into the prince’s spine so hard Harnak screamed in pain despite his Rage, but he didn’t fall. He staggered forward a dozen steps and whirled, bringing his sword around just in time, and fresh fire fountained up out of the ravine as steel met steel once more.

***

Major Rathan swallowed as lightning flashed and glared somewhere ahead of him. It was silent with distance, yet its heat seemed to burn across the miles like bitter summer sun. What in all of Krahana’s hells had he and his men stumbled into? His charge had come apart in the darkness, just as he’d feared, and a hurricane of combat raged across the night-struck hills. A dozen hradani, possibly more, had died on his men’s lances without breaking through, but others had carried on into sword range, and no Purple Lord trooper was a fit match for a hradani in the grip of the Rage. Screams and shrieks and curses and the clash of steel and gurgle of dying men filled the darkness, but Rathan’s cavalry had the edge in numbers. Sections of three fought to stay