The Sword of the South - eARC

by David Weber

  Most of the Races of Man seemed represented. Stocky dwarves brushed shoulders with ivory-horned halflings and the tall, broad-shouldered men of the northern provinces. There were even half a dozen patrons with the slashed eyebrows of the half-elven, and the dark-faced harper perched on the end of the bar boasted Wakūo blood, to judge by his hooked nose and bold, black eyes. Slashed doublets and silk breeches matched their finery against the plain shirts and canvas trousers of seamen while life and vitality bubbled like simmering porridge, rising even stronger and more welcomingly against the pound of rain on roof slates and the echoing rolls of thunder beyond the tavern’s stout eaves. It all made the red-haired man even more aware of his own bedraggled appearance, and he hesitated before plunging into the press in search of some corner in which a man with an empty purse might find a haven from the storm.

  “Ho! Look what the wind’s blown in!”

  The red-haired man turned towards the deep, jovial bellow…and froze in mid stride, as he found himself face-to-face with two fathoms of midnight-black death. He stood there, not daring even to breathe, as the immense direcat gazed up at him out of amber eyes. It was one of the great direcats of the plains, almost seven feet in length, not counting its tail, and well over three feet at the shoulder, with five-inch bone-white fangs. It was also the most feared predator of Norfressa, with absolutely no business in a Belhadan tavern.

  He waited, frozen, anticipating its spring. But it merely seated itself and wrapped its yard-long tail neatly about its toes like some enormous house cat. It cocked its massive head to gaze straight across at him out of those frighteningly intelligent yellow eyes. And as it did, he realized no one else in the entire tavern seemed to consider its deadly presence the least bit out of the ordinary.

  He inhaled cautiously, pulling his gaze away from the direcat by sheer force of will to look at whoever had spoken, and his nostrils widened in fresh astonishment. No stripling himself, he was overtopped by the man he faced, and his green eyes widened as he recognized a hradani. Not just any hradani, either. This was a giant among them; at six and a half feet, the red-haired man’s head barely topped the other’s shoulder. The white apron over the leathers of a fighting man—and the sheathed Wakūo hook knife at his hip—only added to the aura of unreality, for the hradani were the only foes more savage in combat than the huge direcat which sat with such bizarre daintiness at the giant’s side.

  “It’s a powerful thirst as brings a man out on a night like this!” the hradani laughed, and the red-haired man studied the massive figure carefully, reassured by the other’s cheerful manner…and the fact that the direcat hadn’t yet pounced. He glanced back at the beast, and it yawned through its fangs as it returned his regard.

  “Not thirst so much as an excess of drinking water,” he said, kicking his wits back to life, and smiled. The hradani’s tufted ears, foxlike and mobile, twitched in amusement, and his huge laugh bounced back from the rafters like enclosed thunder.

  “Aye, I’m thinking Chemalka and Khalifrio are after having their heads together this night,” he agreed. “Myself, I’m one as prefers my drink in a mug and not so cold! If it’s something stronger than water you’re seeking, you’ve come to the right place in the Iron Axe.”

  “I may have, but I fear the contents of my purse haven’t,” the red-haired man confessed candidly.

  “No money?” The hradani eyed him thoughtfully, then shrugged. “No matter. I’ll not turn any man out on a night such as this. We’ll fire your belly with rockfish stew while the fire’s after drying your hide.”

  He chuckled rumblingly at his own humor and turned to plow through the crowded taproom like a barque under full sail. The press parted before him like foam, and the red-haired man trailed gratefully in his wake. He stayed carefully clear of the direcat, but the beast only glanced at him as he passed and began grooming a scimitared paw. The red-haired man met its incurious gaze respectfully, for the cat must have weighed at least eight hundred pounds which made it worthy of all the respect he could muster.

  “Leeana! Leeana!”

  The hradani’s bass bellow was as loud as before, and the red-haired man wondered if he ever spoke at less than full volume. Even as he wondered, however, his strange host was answered by a sweet contralto. The contrast was astonishing, but the volume of the response almost matched that of the summons.

  “‘Leeana,’ yourself! What now? Another drinking bout to oversee?”

  Customers moved aside to let the speaker pass. She was tall for a woman, within three inches or so of the red-haired man’s own height, though she seemed tiny beside the giant, and her red-gold braids fell below her waist. A flowing skirt of deep green wool swirled about her ankles, covered by a spotless apron; opals gleamed in the silver bracelet clasped around her left wrist; and a massive golden necklet set with a single ruby flashed about her slender throat. The red-haired man’ eyes flickered past her leather headband, then returned with a jerk. What had seemed a simple band was in fact many windings of a thick rawhide thong, and what he’d taken for large wooden earrings were carved wooden grips, instead. He eyed her with the same respect he’d shown the direcat as he recognized the Sothōii garrote for what it was.

  “And what are you and your cronies up to now?” she demanded, hands on hips as she gazed up at the towering hradani through green eyes a shade darker than the red-haired man’s own.

  “No cronies this time, love…though Wencit did say it might be as he’d drop by for a visit.”

  The hradani swept her off the floor, huge hands more than spanning her slender waist, and kissed her enthusiastically before he set her down and tucked her comfortably under his left arm. Then he turned with her to face the red-haired man…who noticed the matching silver bracelet around the hradani’s left wrist.

  “No, lass,” he said. “We’ve a guest without the price of a pot of ale in his pocket. Surely there’s after being a place by the fire and a bit of something in the stew pot still?”

  “I’m sure I can find both, if you’ll take the time from your lowborn friends to watch the bar for me.”

  “To be sure,” the big hradani murmured, tugging his forelock respectfully. His dark face was alight with humor as he kissed the top of her head and swatted her behind gently—two liberties the red-haired man would never have dared with someone who carried a Sothōii garrote. She fisted him in the ribs and spun away like a dancer, and even the roughest-looking patron moved respectfully from her path.

  She smiled and gestured to the red-haired man, and he followed her through an arched doorway and down a short, stone-flagged passage into an enormous kitchen. He was puzzled by how silently she moved until the hem of her skirt swirled to show him that she wore no shoes.

  The kitchen was almost uncomfortably warm, for a fire crackled and seethed in a hearth large enough for a ship’s mast. Wind roared across the chimney tops like a hunting beast, and rain hissed and spat in the flames as drops found their way down the flue. The rumbling storm was barely audible, yet he felt a warm puff of damp breeze on his neck and turned cautiously, then held very still as the direcat padded past, prick-eared head almost level with his own chest. The beast ignored him to curl neatly beneath a high trestle table, and the red-haired man drew a deep breath of quiet relief.

  Leeana waved him towards another table while a half-dozen or so aproned women and a trio of men looked up briefly from their tasks, then nodded respectfully to Leeana and returned to chopping vegetables, peeling potatoes, turning the spit before the main fireplace, or tending pots and kettles on the immense stove which formed an island in the center of the room. Half of the kitchen staff were hradani, as well, he realized with a brain becoming inured to (or at least numbed by) repeated shocks. That mix was certainly odd, though not inherently impossible, he supposed. It was merely unheard of for humans and hradani to keep their swords out of one another long enough to discuss coexistence. But the girl who ran to meet Leeana, pausing in passing to lavish a rough caress on the deadly di
recat, resolved any doubt as to how well this human got along with at least one hradani. Her flaming hair and foxlike ears marked her as Leeana’s daughter by the unlikely tavern keeper.

  “Sit. Sit!” Leeana told him briskly. “Fetch a bowl of stew, Gwynna. And you, Sir—haul off that wet jerkin and set it aside to dry.”

  “You’re too kind,” the red-haired man protested. “I can’t repay the courtesy you show me.”

  “Nonsense!” Leeana snorted. “It does my layabout of a husband good to have a guest about the house. And I’d rather feed one man in the kitchen than wait bar for half a hundred,” she added with a sly smile. “You did me a favor there. It’s my night to tend bar and his to circulate, so you can see I actually stand in your debt.”

  “I’m relieved to have paid my score, then,” he chuckled, shrugging out of his jerkin gratefully. Steam rose gently as he spread it across the back of an unoccupied chair before the flames, and he unlaced his tunic as well, hanging both by the hearth. He rubbed his hands, offering them to the heat and feeling the welcome warmth against his rain-chilled skin and—

  Shattering crockery snatched his head towards the girl, Gwynna. She was a striking child, for all her mixed blood, with the mobile, tufted ears of her father’s people pricking piquantly through the rich red and golden hair of her mother. Her proud cheekbones were lightly dusted with freckles, and huge, dark eyes of midnight blue shone under delicate lashes. She was only a child, but her face already showed the elegant beauty to come. Yet at the moment, that beauty was clouded by shock.

  He had only a second to realize that before a sound of tearing canvas ripped from his left as the direcat surged to its feet. The table under which it had lain crashed aside as the beast rose, lips drawn back, mouth gaping in fanged, bristling challenge. It bounded to the girl’s side—seven feet of midnight menace rumbling a deadly snarl that chilled the red-haired man’s blood.

  “Stand, Blanchrach!”

  Leeana’s voice whiplashed through the sudden tension, and the cat paused, tensed as if against an invisible leash. The red-haired man stared into its amber eyes and felt sweat on his brow, but the cat only edged forward, placing itself protectively between himself and the girl.

  “Your pardon, Sir,” Leeana said more calmly. “I beg your pardon—for myself, as well as for my daughter and her friend. But I’ve never seen such scars. Not even on Bahzell.”

  “Scars?” he asked blankly.

  Her eyes led his own down over his chest and belly, and he sucked in wind and thudded onto the bench like a string-cut puppet. His torso was seamed and ridged, scars running in all directions across hard-muscled flash. Craggy peaks and valleys turned his body into a livid mountain range, and the firelight traced lines of shadow along their curves. He touched them fearfully, and his face blanched.

  A tiny sound pierced his shock. He glanced up, green eyes stunned and confused, and adrenaline spurted afresh as he saw the garrote in Leeana’s hands, the balls of her thumbs poised on the wooden grips.

  “You didn’t know about your own scars.”

  It wasn’t a question, and he shook his head numbly. Her face hardened, her eyes flicked to her daughter, and she spat a brief sentence in a strange tongue. Gwynna’s hands lowered from her mouth instantly, and she stepped back, her own eyes wide as the direcat crouched, tail lashing, and its deep rumble pulsed. The others in the kitchen—including two powerful, dagger-armed hradani—stepped back to give Leeana and the cat room.

  “What manner of man are you?” Leeana’s words were courteous, but her voice was cold and her eyes bored into his. “What do you call yourself? Where do you come from, and why are you here?”

  “I—”

  He stared at her, his eyes half-glazed, and tried again.

  “I—”

  His tongue clove to the roof of his mouth and an expression of utter helplessness flashed over his face. He sought desperately for answers, knowing his life rode upon them, yet his mind spun from the surface of his thoughts into an endless well of silence. He licked his lips and sagged down on the bench, the roaring fire fingering his back with heat, and shook his head slowly, fear for his life overridden by a terror infinitely worse.

  “In the names of all the gods,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t know.”

  Wind howled in the chimney tops, and the flames danced behind him, laughing with the ageless malice of burning wood. His gaze locked with Leeana’s, and his voice was a cry of anguish.

  “I don’t know!”

  * * *

  A trio of dwarves filled the door, gripping a protesting halfling with ungentle hands, and the old man stepped smartly aside. One dwarf’s sliced pursestrings told their own tale, though the halfling continued to protest his innocence. His protests grew more forceful as he smelled the pounding rain, and the old man swallowed a smile as the dismally wailing thief arced gracefully outward. He landed in the far gutter with a terrific splash, his cries quenched in flying spray, and the old man nodded to the dwarves as they stood just inside the door, exchanging comments on the thief’s probable ancestry. Their imaginative speculations held his amused attention for several seconds before he turned away.

  He picked a path through the crowd, sniffing the pipe smoke while his eyes flitted about like a hunting cat’s, and a pocket of silence moved with him as people recognized him. He hid another smile and eyed the crowd speculatively, estimating the sums which would change hands as they paid their shots. It would be a tidy amount, but no more than it was worth.

  The Iron Axe Tavern was always busy, but tonight it was packed. The tavern was known for song, good food, and better drink…and the fact that no one’s throat was ever slit within it. When bad weather stalked Belhadan, the Iron Axe filled as though by magic.

  His eyes searched busily. Bahzell had to be somewhere, but where? Normally, he stood out like a tower, yet now he was nowhere to be seen.

  Ah! The old man grinned as a bellow arose in the rear taproom. He should’ve known he could find his host by following his ears to the loudest noise in the vicinity! He made his way quickly into the rear room and headed for the long, polished bar.

  “Wencit!” the big hradani called, thumping the oaken surface. “Come in! It’s a right soaking you’ve had this evening, but I’ve some Granservan Grand Reserve put by for nights such as this. Let me be pouring some of it down your throat.”

  “Good evening, Bahzell,” the old man replied more sedately, pushing back his dripping poncho’s hood, and wedged up to the bar.

  Other customers pushed back to give him elbow room. Most Belhadans knew him, either by sight or description, and respected his reputation, but wizards were chancy companions at best. No one wished to crowd one unduly; not even one who was their host’s longtime friend. Besides, one glance at his peculiar eyes deterred even the hardiest of strangers.

  Bahzell reached under the bar for a bottle encased in old leather, tooled and warm with the polish of years, and his brown eyes laughed as he carefully filled a glass and set it before the old man.

  “Drink up and be telling me why you’re here,” he ordered. “It was urgent enough your message sounded, yet here you come like a drowned cat. Not the best image for a master wizard, I’m thinking!”

  “Even master wizards melt in the rain,” Wencit said sourly, toasting the hradani gratefully before sipping the amber, honeyed fire. “And nights like this,” he sighed, lowering the glass after one long swallow, “would wet Tolomos himself.”

  “Aye, true enough,” Bahzell nodded. “And you’re not the first drowned cat as scratched at my door this night. There’s a redhead back in the kitchen who looked as if he’d been after swimming the Spear—north to south.”

  “A redhead, you say?” Wencit cocked a bushy eyebrow over his wildfire eyes. “A tall young fellow? Perhaps thirty years old?”

  “The very man.” Bahzell sounded unsurprised. “A friend of yours, is it?”

  “You might say so,” Wencit smiled, “although he doesn’t know it ye
t. The kitchen, you say?”

  “Aye, he’d no coin for drink, so I gave him meat. Leeana’s stew will be taking the chill from him. He reminded me of someone…” The hradani drummed on the bar for a moment, head cocked, eyes intent upon the wizard. “Would it happen I’d be after knowing him, Wencit?”

  “I doubt it. You know a great many very odd people, Bahzell, but this fellow’s outside the circle even of your acquaintance.” Wencit met Bahzell’s measuring gaze levelly. “I’ve no doubt he does remind you of someone, but I give you my word you’ve never met him before.”

  Bahzell regarded him steadily for another brace of heartbeats. Then he flicked his mobile ears and nodded. It was a strange sort of nod, one which seemed to acknowledge more than Wencit had actually said.

  “Well, that being so, I’m thinking there’s naught more to be said,” he said out loud, and it was Wencit’s turn to nod.

  The wizard finished his whiskey and straightened.

  “With your permission, I’ll take myself off to the kitchen.”

  “Aye, you be doing that.” The hradani’s expressive ears twitched in combined amusement and resignation. “You’ve something deep in mind. But then, you always do, don’t you just?”

  “As you say, I’m a master wizard. Master wizards always have something deep in mind.”

  Bahzell’s lips quirked and he snorted.

  “Well, be off with you! I’ve a full bar, and you’ll say naught till it suits you, as well I know.”

  “Alas for my reputation,” Wencit mourned, then grinned and pushed off through the crowd.

  He found his way to the Iron Axe’s kitchens with the ease of long familiarity, and his boots clumped down the passage, but none of the kitchen staff noticed. They were too intent on the confrontation between Leeana and the red-haired man. Wencit felt the tension as he entered the kitchen, but no sign of it colored his voice or expression.