The War God's Own

would react. The other envoys were at least equally shocked, but they were also confused. Halashu had no more idea than they of what had actually happened, but he already saw where this disastrous morning was headed. Whatever Churnazh might or might not have known, the accusation that his two eldest sons had both worshiped Sharna would devastate his alliances. But there was only one way that accusation could be refuted, and the Navahkan envoy shook himself and wrenched his eyes away from Chalghaz's head.

'So you say!' he spat at Bahzell, and wheeled to glare at Bahnak. 'And you- you say it! But I see no proof. I see only the head of another murdered prince of Navahk!'

'And what of that other lot?' an envoy from one of the other Horse Stealer princes called out. 'Or would you be saying they're not after being 'proof,' either?'

'I don't know anything about them,' Halashu shot back, turning to glare at the woman who'd spoken, 'and neither do you! Perhaps they truly do-did-worship Sharna, and perhaps they didn't. Anyone can be forced to wear a fancy bedgown, Milady, just as anyone can be forced to wear a fancy necklace. I won't say they are or aren't what they seem-but neither will I say he is!' He waved his hand at Bahzell in a choppy gesture. 'I see Horse Stealers wearing the colors of Tomanak and claiming Bloody Swords worship Sharna. Well, why the Phrobus should we take their word for it?'

'Are you after calling me a liar, then?' Bahzell asked in a voice whose mildness deceived no one, but Halashu only flicked a sneer at him, secure in his ambassador's inviolability. He felt the attitudes of the other envoys shifting as his argument registered, and he moved to drive his momentary advantage home.

'I'm saying I see no reason to accept your unsupported word that my folk are blood-drinking, flesh-eating, demon-worshiping monsters,' he said flatly. 'It would certainly be convenient for you Horse Stealers if we were, now wouldn't it?'

'Maybe it would, and maybe it wouldn't,' Bahzell replied coldly, 'but I've not said any such thing. Some of your folk, aye, and we've the proof of that right here.' He waved at the prisoners. 'But all of 'em? No. Whatever the feelings between Horse Stealer and Bloody Sword, I'm after knowing as well as you that most of your folk are decent enough, and few among 'em would wallow in such filth as that. Not even Churnazh, if only because he's after knowing exactly how his allies would turn on him if ever he did.'

Several envoys murmured agreement, and Halashu's jaw clenched as the small opinion swing in his favor swung back the other way. Bahzell's refusal to accuse Churnazh of sharing his sons' perversions was a telling blow. If all this had been some ploy by Bahnak to discredit his enemy, Bahzell would have done exactly the opposite, and Halashu knew it. But he also knew the Horse Stealers didn't have to accuse Churnazh personally. The mere fact that Sharna had gained a hold in Navahk-and upon two successive heirs to the throne, at that!-would shake the Bloody Sword alliances to their foundations. He felt a sick, sinking certainty that Bahzell was telling the truth, or a part of it, at least, yet he dared not admit it.

'How kind of you to omit Prince Churnazh from your lies!' he sneered instead. 'Of course, you didn't accuse either of his sons until after they were safely dead, either, now did you? It's hard for a dead man to defend himself, isn't it, Prince Bahzell?'

'So it is,' Bahzell agreed. 'Of course, it's also a mite hard to be taking a man alive when he's been given a cursed sword as opens a gate to Sharna himself, now isn't it, Milord Ambassador?'

'So you say!' Halashu spat. 'But why should we believe you? You say you're a champion of Tomanak , too, don't you?' He turned to the assembled envoys and threw up his arms in appeal. 'A champion of Tomanak ? A hradani champion? I ask you all, my lords and ladies-why in the names of all the gods should we believe that? Oh, I'll admit it's a bold stroke! What better way to discredit my prince than to murder his sons and then accuse them of having worshiped the Demon Lord? And who better to make the accusation than a 'champion of Tomanak '? But there hasn't been a hradani champion in over twelve centuries! Who among us would be fool enough to claim someone like Bahzell Bahnakson as such?'

'I would,' a voice like a mountain avalanche said. It shook the entire hall, and Halashu spun about and his mouth dropped open as he saw the speaker.

Tomanak Orfro stood beside Bahzell. It was impossible, of course. There was no room in that crowded hall for a ten-foot-tall deity, and yet there was. In some way every person there knew he or she would never be able to explain, Prince Bahnak's hall remained exactly the same size and yet expanded enormously. There was room in it for anything, and the god's presence swept through it like a storm. The prisoners his Order had brought back from Navahk wailed in terror, thrashing wildly against their bonds as the Dark Gods' most deadly foe appeared before them. The guards tightened their grips upon them, but before they could do more Tomanak glanced once at the captives, and their wails were cut off as if by an axe. They stood petrified, eyes bulging in horror, and the smile he gave them was colder than the steel of his blade.

Then he looked away from them. His gaze-no longer crushing and silencing, but no less potent-swept the envoys and, throughout the hall, men fell to their knees and women sank in deep curtseys before the power which had appeared among them.

But not everyone knelt. Halashu of Navahk stood almost like the prisoners, too frozen to move and, as the others knelt, Bahnak himself rose once more from his throne. He stood with his daughter at his side and his older sons behind him, and Tomanak glanced at Bahzell with a smile.

'It runs in the family, I see,' he said wryly, and eyes brightened throughout the hall at the laughter which flickered in his voice.

'Aye, I suppose it does,' Bahzell agreed. 'We're after being a mite on the stubborn side, the lot of us.'

'The lot of you, indeed,' Tomanak said, looking at the ambassadors. 'I hope you won't take this wrongly, Bahzell, but it seemed to me as if the argument could go on for at least a week. Under the circumstances, I thought perhaps I could speed things up a bit.'

'Did you, then?' Bahzell murmured. He let his own eyes sweep the stunned envoys, and a small smile hovered on his lips. 'D'you know, I'm thinking as how you might just have done that thing.'

'I intended to. Of course, with hradani it's hard to be certain you've gotten through,' Tomanak observed, and this time half a dozen of the people in the hall surprised themselves by laughing with him.

'That's better,' he told them, then looked back down at Bahzell. 'You've done well,' he said. 'It's not often that even one of my champions creates a whole new chapter of the Order singlehanded and then leads them to such victory in their very first battle. You've exceeded expectations yet again, Bahzell. That seems to be a habit of yours.'

'I'm sure that's flattering,' Bahzell said dryly, 'but I'd not say as how I was after doing it 'singlehanded.' You'll be knowing even better than I the quality of the lads who followed me-and I'd not call the help of another champion naught.'

'No, you wouldn't. And neither would I, though some might attempt to in your place. I stand corrected.'

Tomanak nodded gravely. Then he turned to Halashu, and his expression became stern. 'I trust, Ambassador, that your doubts as to my champion's honesty have now been resolved? Do you take my word that he is, indeed, my champion, and that whatever you may think, I know all of these-' a hand waved at the warriors who'd followed Bahzell into Navahk and now knelt in wonder as they gazed at their deity '-as my own?'

'Y-Y-Y-' Halashu swallowed hard. 'Yes, Sir,' he choked out finally.

'Good.' Tomanak made a shooing gesture with one index finger, and Halashu fell back instantly into the crowd and went to his own knees. The War God folded his arms, regarding them all for several moments, and a strange, breathless hush seemed to hover somewhere at the bases of their throats.

'Halashu was correct about one thing, you know,' Tomanak told them at last, and now that boulder-shattering voice was gentle. 'Neither I nor any other God of Light have had a hradani champion since the Fall of Kontovar. It wasn't because we no longer cared for you, nor had we abandoned you, however hard your lot had become. But the damage which had been done to you by the Dark Gods and their servants was too terrible. We had been unable to prevent it, and your ancestors-'

He sighed, and his brown eyes shone with a sorrow too deep for tears-one so deep only a god could know it.