The War God's Own

suddenly-a smile tart as alum, yet a smile nonetheless-and chuckled mirthlessly. 'If I was prepared to believe that when I thought your ancestors had attacked mine without provocation, then I see no reason to change my mind now that I know it was my folk who were to blame. Yet I think those of my people who are not here today, who did not hear the truth from Wencit's own lips, will find it difficult to believe. Worse, some of them will refuse to believe, for to do so would require them to give up too much of the hatred in which they have invested their lives. And so, I fear, Wencit's history lesson, however accurate or well-taken, offers no simple solution to our dilemma.'

'Aye, I'm thinking you've the right of it there,' Bahzell rumbled. 'But a solution we need, nonetheless.'

'Agreed. Unfortunately, I see only one which my people could possibly accept.'

'Ah?' Bahzell cocked his head. 'And should I be taking it from your tone that you're thinking as how it's one my people couldn't be accepting?'

'That,' Tellian admitted, 'is indeed what I fear.'

'Well, spit it out, man,' Bahzell said impatiently when the baron paused once more.

'Very well, Milord Champion.' Tellian drew a deep breath. 'The only answer I can see is for us to end this right here, today, before it can escalate further. And the only way I can see to end it is with one side surrendering to the other. And since there are less than two hundred of you and over four thousand of us-'

He shrugged almost apologetically, and Bahzell heard Hurthang's teeth grind beside him. He himself said nothing for a full thirty seconds, and when he did speak again, it was in a very careful tone.

'Let me be certain as I've understood this, Milord. You're saying as how the only way we can be resolving this mess without a war is for us-the ones as were attacked without reason or declaration-to be surrendering to you, as were the ones doing the attacking?'

'Put that way, it certainly sounds… less than just,' Tellian admitted. 'Yet it's the only solution I can see. I have to end this somehow, either with a victory won by force of arms or with a formal settlement to which my own honor is pledged. If I don't, the Court factions which most hate and fear your people may well force King Markhos to order me to take still stronger action. But if you surrender to me, then I will be honor bound to protect you as the terms of your surrender provide, and not even Erthan of South Riding will want to push too hard in that case.'

'So you'd ask the Order of Tomanak to surrender so as to be letting you 'protect' us, is it?' Bahzell rumbled in a dangerous voice. 'Well let me be telling you this, Tellian of West Riding! The Order's no need of your 'protection,' and the one thing I've never learned at all, at all, is how to be yielding my sword to another! So if that's after being the only 'solution' you can see, you'd best be calling up your dogs and finding out how many of them can die with us!'

Tension crackled, and then, to the amazement of every man present, Hathan Shieldarm laughed. Not scornfully or bitterly, but with a deep, rolling belly laugh of pure amusement. All eyes swung to him, and he bent over his saddle bow, laughing still harder. It took several seconds for him to drag himself back under control, and when he did, he leaned forward and murmured something to his courser, then dismounted gracefully, despite the courser's height. He stood for a moment, raised left hand resting lovingly on the courser's shoulder, and then walked around to face Bahzell. He was a foot and more shorter than the hradani, and he craned his neck to look up at him.

'Well, Bahzell Bahnakson,' he said, with a bubble of laughter still lurking in his voice, 'if it's only a matter of your never having learned to do it, perhaps I can demonstrate how it's done!' His own companions watched him as if he'd run stark mad, but he only grinned and drew his sabre, then flipped it up to catch it by the blade and extend its hilt to Bahzell over his left forearm. 'Milord Champion, I yield to you a sword which has never known dishonor, and with it myself, as your prisoner.'

It was Bahzell's turn to stare, and then he heard Tellian roar with laughter as delighted as Hathan's own.

'Of course!' the baron exclaimed. 'All I need is a formal agreement-it doesn't matter who surrenders to whom!' He drew his own sword and leaned low from the saddle with a sweeping bow. 'Milord Champion, I yield, and my men with me!'

'Here now!' Bahzell looked back and forth between Hathan and Tellian with a flustered confusion the prospect of a battle to the death had been unable to evoke. 'Here now!' he protested again, and Wencit joined the laughter.

'I don't see the problem, Bahzell,' the wizard told him between guffaws. 'As Tellian says, what matters is that someone surrenders. And think what a glorious triumph it will be for the Order! Less than eighty of you taking four thousand trained Sothoii warriors prisoner!'

'Now just you be waiting one Phrobus-damned minute!' Bahzell snapped. 'I'll not have the Order- I mean, it's not fitting that- Fiendark seize you, Brandark, will you stop that laughing before I'm after breaking your worthless neck!'

No one seemed to pay him the least attention, and, finally, the glare faded from his eyes and he began to chuckle as well. He shook his head helplessly, then waved both hands at Hathan and Tellian.

'Oh, put up your swords, the both of you! If you're so all-fired eager to be surrendering yourselves, then I suppose the least I can be doing is grant you parole!'

'Thank you, Milord,' Tellian said with becoming seriousness. 'Upon what terms will you grant it?'

'Well, I suppose we should be thrashing that out, now shouldn't we just?' Bahzell agreed. 'It's honored I'd be to invite you into my tent to discuss it, Milord Baron-if I was after having a tent, that is.'

'It just happens that I have quite a nice one which the former Lord Warden of Glanharrow brought with him,' Tellian replied. 'If you and your companions would consent to join me there, I'm sure we can work out the terms of my army's surrender-and parole-to our mutual satisfaction.'

Epilogue

'Are you sure about this, Bahzell?' Vaijon asked quietly.

The two of them stood outside the tent in which Bahzell and Tellian had haggled out the details of the Sothoii's 'parole' while what had been Sir Mathian's army struck camp about them. The men of that army were in a strange mood, one whose like Bahzell had never seen before. The most common emotion seemed to be sheer, unadulterated shock-the stunned disbelief of men whose world has just been turned upside down. Very few of them knew what Wencit had revealed about the early history of the hradani-Sothoii wars, but they did know their liege lord had just surrendered all of them to an enemy they outnumbered by fifty to one. And that they were about to struggle homeward up the Gullet, apparently in total defeat, from a foe who could face them with less than seventy swords.

But there was more to it than shock. There was hatred in all too many of the eyes which flicked constantly over Bahzell or darted to where Hurthang and Brandark stood talking quietly with Kaeritha and Wencit. Too many centuries of mutual slaughter lay between their people and Bahzell's for it to be any other way, and for many of them, the shame of their own 'defeat' only made the hate burn hotter. Rancor and consternation held one another in uneasy balance at the moment, yet their hate also emphasized what Tellian had said earlier. Too many of the Sothoii feared what the united Horse Stealers and Bloody Swords might represent, and the fragile edifice the Baron of West Riding had patched together with Bahzell could still crumble into renewed and bitter warfare all too easily.

'Aye, I'm sure,' he said after a moment, then grinned. 'Or as nigh to it as any man could be!'

'Well, I'm not,' Vaijon told him frankly. He looked away from Bahzell to glare at a Sothoii armsman who'd let too much hate show in his expression as he looked at the hradani. The armsman felt Vaijon's eyes and glanced in his direction, then turned quickly away, and Vaijon snorted. 'You're going to wake up one night soon with a knife in your back if you go with these people,' he warned Bahzell, 'and I don't like the way they look at the rest of our lads, either!'

' 'Our lads,' is it now?' Bahzell teased gently. He clapped Vaijon on the shoulder, and the human looked up at