The War God's Own

but the heat beat them back, and they stopped helplessly.

And then Bahzell Bahnakson walked out of the firestorm, his expression calm, almost tranquil. He nodded to the would-be rescuers who crouched where the heat had stopped them, and they fell in behind him with huge eyes. They followed him back to the others, while the flames beating out of the hillside behind them roared like a huge forge-or like one of Silver Cavern's blast furnaces. There was no possible way for Bahzell to have set off such a holocaust. There was insufficient fuel to feed that seething fury, and even if there had been, there was too little draft to sustain it. But that didn't matter, and more than one Horse Stealer jumped as the stone above the arch cracked in the dreadful heat. The scorpion broke loose and plunged into the column of fire to shatter into a thousand pieces, and Bahzell strapped on his skis without speaking. Then he gathered up his ski poles and looked calmly at Hurthang and Gharnal.

'Let's be going home, Sword Brothers,' he said quietly.

Chapter Twenty-Five

The trip back to Hurgrum took several more days than the outward journey had. The need to transport their wounded (and their dead) would have slowed them anyway, but the real problem was their prisoners. There were only thirteen of them, including Tharnatus, but every one of them knew he was a dead man when he finally reached Hurgrum. The Horse Stealers kept them bound at all times and still had to guard each of them like hawks. Even so, one of them managed to saw through the ropes binding his legs with a sharp-edged stone he'd acquired somewhere and made a break for it late on the second day. The light was none too good, but he made less than seventy-five yards before an arbalest bolt tore through him. Unlike their own dead, the Horse Stealers let him lie where he had fallen for the scavengers, and none of his erstwhile companions uttered a word of complaint.

Once Bahzell was certain he and his followers had gotten away cleanly, he took time out to see to Vaijon and Kaeritha properly. On examination, it was obvious Kaeritha was recovering on her own. Aside from an atrocious headache, a few fresh cuts, including one which was going to leave yet another scar on her cheek, and some spectacular bruises, her only lingering difficulty was her right eye's reluctance to focus properly, and she waved off Bahzell's offer to heal her.

'I'm not so fragile as all that! Besides, Tomanak would get irritated if I ran around asking Him to take care of every little ache and pain for me.'

'If you're certain about it, then,' Bahzell said, and she nodded, then winced and pressed a hand to her temple.

'I'm certain. Mind you, I won't complain if you order me to ride in the sled for another day or two.'

'So that's the way of it! You're thinking as how you've an excuse to lie about like a lady to the manor born while we're towing your lazy carcass back to Hurgrum, hey?'

'Of course,' she replied smugly, and curled up like a cat under the thick rug covering the sled. 'Wake me when we get there,' she said with an elaborate yawn, and he laughed, patted her shoulder, and turned his attention to Vaijon.

He found the knight-probationer sitting up and practicing his Hurgrumese with the three Horse Stealers who had been taking it in turns to tow his sled. His accent was still atrocious, and the hradani were teasing him unmercifully about it. The old Vaijon would no doubt have felt mortally insulted-especially when his accent turned the Hurgrumese for 'mud' into something much more organic-but the new one only laughed along with them, and Bahzell watched appreciatively for several seconds before he interrupted.

'It's sorry I am to be breaking in on this serious-minded language lesson,' he said finally, 'but I'm thinking as how the youngster here might be wishful to have his arm healed. Unless, of course, he's some objection to my 'wasting' healing on such minor bumps and sprains like her ladyship yonder?'

He twitched his head at Kaeritha as he spoke, and the lump under the rug stirred.

'I heard that!' it warned him. 'And you'll pay for it the next time I get your hairy backside in a training salle, Milord Champion!'

Vaijon laughed and shook his head.

'I've no objection at all, Milord. I hope this isn't going to get too habit forming, though. Somehow you always seem to be patching up broken arms for me.'

'Do I, then?' Bahzell said with a smile, dropping down to sit beside him and ease the splinted arm out of its sling. 'Well, I'm thinking I might just be done with such as that, lad, for it's in my mind you won't be after needing any more of 'em broken.' He paused and looked Vaijon squarely in the eye. 'And speaking of arms, and in case I wasn't after saying it at the time, Sir Vaijon,' he said quietly, 'it's grateful I am for your aid and the strength of your arm. You did well, and your courage was all that Sir Charrow-aye, or Tomanak himself-could have been asking of you.'

Vaijon blushed fiery red, but the hradani who'd teased him earlier murmured agreement and approval. The young man blushed even darker and looked around as if searching frantically for some other topic of discussion, and Bahzell took pity on him.

'Now let's be looking at this arm of yours,' he said briskly. 'And as you're a special friend and all, I'll not be charging you more than half my normal surgeon's bill.'

Bahzell sent Gharnal ahead with a complete report for his father while the rest of his party was still a full day out of Hurgrum. He wasn't at all surprised when messengers from Prince Bahnak appeared early the next day with a request which stopped just short of an order to be as inconspicuous as possible when they entered the city. With that in mind, he timed their travel so that night had fallen by the time they reached Hurgrum. The weather had turned bitterly cold again in one of the sudden, seesaw weather shifts which usually marked the end of winter in that part of Norfressa, and the plunging temperatures had driven virtually everyone inside with the sunset, so their late arrival allowed them to reach the palace without attracting any attention.

Bahnak himself, with Barodahn and Thankhar, Bahzell's next older brother, awaited them, and the prince threw his arms around his youngest son in a crushing hug.

'I'd not guessed all you were off to face when I bid you farewell, boy,' he said quietly, 'and it's glad I am to see you home hale and whole.' He broke the hug, then stood back and eyed Bahzell critically. 'Gharnal was after giving me all the juicy details you'd seen fit to be leaving out of your own letter. For example, you'd not mentioned a word at all, at all, about fighting demons in your report.'

'Well, as to that, it was Vaijon did the thing in,' Bahzell replied with a shrug.

'Aye, Gharnal said as much. But it's just as happy I'd be if you could see your way to avoiding such little affairs in the future. Not-' Bahnak raised a deprecatory hand '-that I'm after complaining, mind, and I'm sure you'll know your own business best. But like as not your mother'll be just a mite upset if demons or devils or such were to be biting pieces out of you after all the time she spent bearing and raising you. Mothers are like that, you know, and I'd sooner she wasn't after taking it out on me.'

'I'll be bearing that in mind,' Bahzell assured him with a grin. But then the grin faded, and he turned back to the door through which he'd entered. His companions were quietly carrying in stiff, blanket-wrapped bodies, and he shook his head.

'I was after losing the best part of a third of my men, Father,' he said quietly.

'From all Gharnal said, it's lucky you were to lose so few,' Bahnak said, equally quietly, and Barodahn and Thankhar nodded agreement. 'I've not told their families yet,' the prince went on after a moment. 'I'd no idea how you and your brothers-' he nodded to the rest of the raiding party, not his other sons '-would be feeling such should be handled. And, truth to tell, I'd a few other motives of my own.' He waited until Bahzell turned to look at him once more, then smiled humorlessly.

'What you've done needed doing, and no mistake, but I'm thinking it's likely to be like kicking a hornets' nest when word of it's after getting out. And it will get out. Come to that, I suppose it should be gotten out, and the sooner the better, but the other princes will all be having their own reasons to think the worst of my involvement-especially when they hear as how Chalghaz was after getting caught up in it. And since all that's the case, I'd take it kindly if you and Hurthang and perhaps your friends Kaeritha and Brandark would be sitting down with Marglyth and me to thrash out just how we'd best go about