Oath of Swords

by David Weber

  He was asleep before Brandark could think of a suitable retort.

  * * *

  For the first night in weeks, no dream disturbed Bahzell, and he woke feeling utterly relaxed. He lay still, savoring the slowly brightening pink and salmon dawn, and a strange contentment filled him. Perhaps it was simply the consequence of undisturbed sleep, but he felt oddly satisfied, as if he were exactly where he was supposed to be. The river gurgled softly down the side of the hull, reinforcing the novelty of being afloat, and he sat up and stretched.

  Others began to stir, and he sat idle, content to be so, while cooking smells drifted from the galley. The other boats of Kilthan's convoy floated ahead and astern of his own, nuzzling the docks, hatches battened down, and a peaceful sense of expectancy hovered about them. He gazed out over them, and it came to him, slowly, that for the first time in his life, he was free.

  He'd never precisely resented his responsibilities as a prince of Hurgrum—not, at least, until they took him to Navahk!—but he was who he was, and they'd always been there. Now he was far from his birth land, an outcast who couldn't go home even if he wanted to, perhaps, but in command of his own fate. No doubt he'd return to Hurgrum in time, yet for now he could go where he willed, do as he chose. Up to this very moment, somehow, he hadn't quite considered that. His mind had been fixed first on getting Farmah and Tala to safety, then on keeping his own hide whole, and finally on his duties as a caravan guard. Now it was as if the simple act of boarding the riverboat had taken him beyond that, released him from some burden and freed him to explore and learn, and he suddenly realized how much he wanted to do just that.

  He smiled wryly at his thoughts, drew his boots on, and stood. Brandark snored on, and he left his friend to it, rolled his own blankets, and ambled over to the forward deckhouse. It was higher than the bulwark, more comfortably placed for one of his inches to lean on, and he took advantage of that as he watched the barge master pull a watch from his pocket. The captain glanced at it and said something to his mate, and the crew began preparing to cast off. They picked their way around the snoring guardsmen wherever they could, with a consideration for the sleeping landsmen's fatigue that almost seemed to embarrass them if anyone noticed, but they couldn't avoid everyone.

  One of them poked Brandark in the ribs, and the Bloody Sword snorted awake. He scrambled up and dragged his bedroll to the side to let the riverman at the mooring line he'd blocked, then stretched and ambled over to Bahzell.

  "Good morning," he yawned, flopping his bedding out on the deckhouse roof and beginning to roll it up.

  "And a good morning to you. I see you weren't after rolling overboard in the night after all."

  "I noticed that myself." Brandark tied the bedroll and glanced somewhat uneasily at his haubergeon. He started to climb into it, then changed his mind, and Bahzell grinned.

  The Bloody Sword ignored him pointedly and buckled his sword belt over his embroidered jerkin. Crewmen scampered about, untying the gaskets on the yawl-rigged barge's tan sails, and halyards started creaking aboard other boats while mooring lines splashed over the side to be hauled up by longshoremen. The first vessels moved away from the docks while canvas crept up the masts and sails were sheeted home, and Bahzell and Brandark watched in fascination as the entire convoy began to move. They understood little of what they saw, but they recognized the precision that went into making it all work.

  Half the barges were away, already sweeping downriver with thin, white mustaches under their bluff bows, when a commotion awoke ashore. A brown-haired, spindle-shanked human with a flowing beard of startling white scurried past piles of cargo. He was robed in garish scarlet and green, and he grabbed people's shoulders and gesticulated wildly as he shouted at them. The hradani watched his antics with amusement, and then, just as their own mooring lines went over the side, someone pointed straight at their boat.

  The robed man's head snapped around, his expression of dismay comical even at this distance, and then he whirled and raced for the dockside with remarkable speed for one of his apparently advanced years.

  "Wait!" His nasal shout was thin but piercing. "Wait! I must—"

  "Too late, white-beard!" the barge master bellowed back. A gap opened between the riverboat's side and the dock, and the old man shook a fist. But he didn't stop running, and Bahzell glanced at Brandark.

  "I'm thinking that lackwit's going to try it," he murmured.

  "Well, maybe he can swim," Brandark grunted, but he moved forward in Bahzell's wake as the Horse Stealer ambled towards the rail.

  There was eight feet of water between the barge and the dock when the old man reached it, but he didn't even slow. He hurled himself across the gap with far more energy than prudence, then cried out in dismay as he came up short. His hands caught the bulwark, but his feet plunged into the river, and his dismayed cry became an outraged squawk as water splashed about his waist.

  "Here, granther!" Bahzell leaned over the side. His hands closed on shoulders that felt surprisingly solid, and he plucked the man from the river as if he were a child. "I'm thinking that was a mite hasty of you, friend," he said as he set his dripping burden on deck.

  "I had no choice!" the man snapped. He bent to glare at his soaked, garish garments, plucking at the wet cloth, and Bahzell raised a hand to hide a smile as he muttered, "My best robe. Ruined—just ruined!"

  "Oh, now, it's not so bad as all that," Bahzell reassured him.

  "And what do you know about it?" The old man—who wasn't so old as all that, Bahzell realized, despite his white beard—gave his soggy splendor a last twitch and turned to glower over his shoulder at the gales of laughter rising from the dock workers who'd watched his exploit. "Cretins!" he snarled.

  Bahzell and Brandark exchanged glances, ears twitching in amusement, and then the barge master arrived.

  "And just what the Phrobus d'you think you're doing?" he snarled.

  "I told you to wait!"

  "And I told you it was too late! This is a chartered vessel, not a damned excursion boat for senile idiots!"

  "Senile? Senile!? Do you know who you're talking to, my good man?!"

  "No, and I'm not your `good man,' either. I'm the master of this vessel, and you're a damned stowaway!"

  "I," the newcomer said with dreadful dignity, "am a messenger of the gods, you dolt."

  "Aye, and I'm Korthrala's long lost uncle," the captain grunted, and spat derisively over the side.

  "Imbecile! Ass!" The bearded man fairly danced on deck. "I'll have you know I'm Jothan Tarlnasa!"

  "What's a Jothan Tarlnasa and why should I give a flying damn about one?" the captain demanded.

  "I'm chairman of the philosophy department at Baron's College, you bungling incompetent! Do you think I'd have come down here in full ceremonials and set foot aboard this rat-infested scow if it weren't important?!"

  "Ceremonials?" The captain eyed Tarlnasa's water-soaked splendor and barked a laugh. "Is that what you call 'em?"

  "I'll have your papers revoked!" Tarlnasa ranted. "I'll have you barred from Derm! I'll—"

  "You'll go for another swim if you don't shut your mouth," the captain told him, and Tarlnasa's jaw snapped shut. Not in fear, Bahzell thought, but in shock, judging by his apoplectic complexion. "Better," the captain grunted. "Now, I've no time for you—no, and no patience with you, either. You're on my vessel, and how you got here is your own affair. If you think the dockmaster will fault me, you're an even bigger fool than I think, and that'd take some doing! You stay out of my way if you want me to put you aboard a boat headed back up this way." Tarlnasa started to open his mouth again, but the captain shot him a dangerous look and added, "Or you can just swim back ashore right now. It's all the same to me."

  Silence hovered, and then Tarlnasa sniffed. He turned his back upon the captain, and the riverman rolled his eyes at Bahzell and Brandark before he stumped back to his helmsman.

  "Moron!" Tarlnasa muttered resentfully. He ran his fingers through his beard, t
hen gave his long hair a settling tug, squared his shoulders, drew a deep breath, and looked up at Bahzell.

  "Well, now that he's out of the way, I suppose I should get down to the reason for my visit."

  "Aye, well, don't let us be stopping you," Bahzell rumbled. He started to step out of the man's way, but Tarlnasa shook his head irritably.

  "No, no, no!" he snapped. "Gods give me patience, you're all idiots!"

  "Idiot I may be," Bahzell said less cheerfully, "but it's in my mind you'd do better not to be calling it to my attention, friend."

  "Then just listen to me, will you? You're the reason I'm here!"

  "I am?" Bahzell's eyebrows rose, and Tarlnasa snorted.

  "You are, gods help us all. Why they had to pick me, and get me out of bed at this ungodly hour and send me down here to endure that loudmouthed dolt of a captain and now this—!" He broke off and shook his head, then folded his arms. "Attend me, Bahzell Bahnakson," he said imperiously, "for I bring you word from the gods themselves."

  He raised his chin to strike a dramatic pose, and Bahzell leaned back, ears flattened, and planted his hands on his hips. Bahzell glanced at Brandark and saw the same stiffness in his friend's spine, but then the Bloody Sword made himself relax, shrugged eloquently and stepped to the side. He leaned on the bulwark, gazing back at the receding docks, and Bahzell looked back down. Tarlnasa had abandoned his theatrical pose to glare up at him in self-important impatience, as if the Horse Stealer were a none-too-bright student who ought to have sense enough to beg his mentor to illumine his ignorance. The man was an ass and a lunatic, Bahzell told himself . . . unless the gods truly had sent him, in which case he was something far worse. The Horse Stealer remembered his dreams, and a spike of panic stabbed him. If it was some god sending them, had they left him in peace last night because they knew this madman was coming?

  "And what if I'm not so very interested in hearing what `the gods' have to say?" he demanded at last.

  "What?" Tarlnasa gaped at him, and the hradani shrugged.

  "I don't meddle with gods," he rumbled, "and I'll thank them not to be meddling with me."

  "Don't be an ass!" Tarlnasa snapped, then shook himself, recrossed his arms, and fell back into rolling periods. "You've been chosen by the gods for great deeds, Bahzell Bahnakson. A great destiny awaits you, and—"

  " `Destiny,' is it?" Bahzell grunted. "You can be keeping your `destinies'—aye, and tell whatever god sent you I said so!"

  "Stop interrupting!" Tarlnasa stamped a foot and rolled his eyes heavenward, pleading for strength. "Why the gods should choose a blockhead like you is beyond me, but they have. Now be still and listen to their commands!"

  "No," Bahzell said flatly. Tarlnasa goggled up at the towering Horse Stealer, and elemental hradani stubbornness glared back down at him.

  "But you have to! I mean— That is—"

  "That I don't." Bahzell glanced at the docks, beginning to dwindle in the distance, then back down at Tarlnasa. "We're a mite far out from shore," he said. "I'm hoping you can swim if it's needful."

  "Of course I can! I was born in Derm, though what that has to do with anything is more than I can see. The point is that the gods have chosen me to reveal to you their plans for you. You are commanded to— Stop! What are you doing?! Put me down, you—!"

  The high-pitched, nasal voice cut off in a tremendous splash as Bahzell dropped Tarlnasa overboard. The hradani leaned out across the bulwark, gazing down into the water, and watched a head of streaming brown hair break the surface in a seaweed cloud of white beard and a furious splutter.

  "The shore's that way," he said genially, pointing at the riverbank while the riverboat's crew howled with laughter.

  "You idiot!" Tarlnasa wailed. "The gods—"

  "Take yourself and your poxy gods off before I'm after pushing you back under," Bahzell advised.

  Tarlnasa gawked up at him, treading water as the barge pushed on downstream away from him under full sail. He seemed frozen, unable to believe what was happening, and Bahzell waved cheerfully.

  "Have a nice swim, now!" he called out as the philosopher fell even further astern. Tarlnasa raised a dripping fist and shook it at the departing boat with a wordless screech, only to splutter again as he went under once more. He kicked back to the surface, spat out a mouthful of water, shouted something far less exalted than his earlier peroration, and then swam strongly for the shore while Bahzell leaned on the bulwark beside Brandark and watched him go.

  "You know," Brandark said after a long, thoughtful pause, "you really ought to work on how you deal with others in social situations."

  "Why?" Bahzell asked mildly as Tarlnasa dragged himself up the bank and stood knee-deep in mud, shaking both fists and screeching curses after the barge. "He made it, didn't he?"

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Morvan River was a peaceful place. Golden sunlight slanted across dark blue water, ruffled here and there with white lace or streaked brown with mud where it shallowed, but the central channel was wide and deep. The trees along the banks were splashed with bright autumnal color, but the days were warmer as Kilthan's southbound convoy outran the season, and the brisk slap and gurgle of water sounded under the riverboats' bluff bows. Current and wind alike were with them, and side-mounted leeboards dug deep, providing the keel their flat bottoms lacked as they foamed along with a surprising turn of speed.

  Bahzell and Brandark sat in their regular spot on the foredeck, enjoying the sun's warmth, and the Bloody Sword's clever fingers wove a gentle, pleasantly plaintive tune from his balalaika in and out around the quiet rasp of Bahzell's whetstone. The Horse Stealer sat cross-legged while he honed his sword, and his eyes were hooded, despite their present tranquility, for Bahzell was uneasy. The riverborne portion of Kilthan's annual journey to Esgfalas and back was normally its safest part, but this year was different, for someone—or something—was dogging Kilthan's heels.

  It hadn't seemed that way at first. The voyage from Derm to Saramfal, capital of the elvish Kingdom of Saramantha, had been without incident. Even Brandark, who still harbored a nonswimmer's doubts about this whole notion of boats, had relaxed. They'd actually learned enough to lend their weight on halyards and sheets, and Bahzell had been grateful for the peaceful interlude after his encounter with Jothan Tarlnasa.

  For all his studied nonchalance with Brandark, the episode left him uneasy. The notion that the gods—any gods—took an interest in him was enough to make a man bilious; the idea that they had "commands" for him was downright frightening. It had taken him a full day to get the coppery fear taste out of his mouth, but he had, at length, and he'd actually begun to enjoy the voyage—until Saramfal, at least.

  The elves' island capital wore the city's white walls and splendid towers on its rocky head like a spired crown. He'd known he was gawking like a country-bred lout on market day while the boats tied up in the shadow of those walls, but he hadn't been able to help it. Nor had he really cared. That first sight had been as wondrous as he'd always suspected an elvish city must be, and he'd been eager to explore it, yet once he had, Saramfal's reality had been . . . disturbing.

  He knew now that the "elf " he'd seen in Esgfalas had been a half-elf, for the beauty of the homeliest Saramanthan put the other's half-human comeliness to shame. Saramfal did the same to Esgfalas, but for all its splendor, the elvish city lacked the bustling liveliness of Esgan's cruder capital. There was a sense of melancholy, a brooding disengagement, as if Saramfal's citizens had never quite connected with the world beyond their small, private kingdom. Or, he'd slowly realized, as if they hadn't wanted to.

  The thought had come to him gradually while he watched merchants too beautiful for words and garbed in the elegance of kings bargain with stocky, bald-as-an-egg Kilthan. The dwarf was no rough provincial, yet he'd been like a fork-bearded rock thrown into a magnificent but idealized painting . . . or dream. He'd been too solid, too real, as if Saramantha's borders were frontiers not simply against the rest of the wor
ld but against time itself. The elves had chosen to withdraw behind the brooding wall of memory, ignoring the affairs of Norfressa, and a chill had struck deep inside as Bahzell realized why.

  They remembered.

  Too many of those agelessly youthful faces remembered the decades-long Wizard Wars of Kontovar, the slaughter and fire which had toppled a continent. Their eyes had seen the banners of the black wizards, badged with Carnadosa's golden wand, sweep over the hacked and hewn bodies of the House of Ottovar's last defenders. The Fall of Kontovar wasn't history to them; it was their own lives. It was their fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters who'd died in battle or been dragged to the Dark Gods' altars. It was they themselves who'd boarded the refugee ships, fleeing to the wilderness of Norfressa while the last white wizards of the world spent their lives to call down fire and destruction behind them. Here on this northern continent, where all about them were engrossed in their lives, in building and planning for the future, these people carried memory as his own people carried the Rage. Not just as a thing of horror, but as a thing of shame, for not only had they failed to stop the Fall, they'd survived it when so much else—and so many others—perished.

  Twelve centuries had passed since the Carnadosans destroyed the House of Ottovar, but the elves of Saramantha were as blasted and scarred by the horrors of that destruction as if it had happened yesterday. They dared not open to the world about them lest they be blasted once more, and, for the first time, Bahzell Bahnakson realized how terrible a curse immortality could be.

  Yet whatever they'd chosen, the world refused to leave them entirely alone, for the work of elvish craftsmen and artists commanded enormous prices in other lands, and Saramantha had its own needs. Where those needs crossed there were always merchants to fulfill them, and with merchants came all the paraphernalia of commerce, including docks, warehouses, taverns and inns . . . and thieves.

  The Saramfal Guard dealt mercilessly with any of the riffraff that spilled over into the city, but they left the Trade Quarter to its own devices—less because they condoned lawlessness than because the Quarter was so alien to them—and, over the years, the Merchants Guild had hired its own peacekeepers and evolved its own laws. By now the Quarter was a city within a city, with formal interfaces between it and Saramfal proper, and it remained a lustier, busier, far more brawling community than any elvish city.