by David Weber
The price of loss. The knowledge that, in the end, he must lose anyone he loved, for only elves were immortal, and even elves died. Yet it wasn't a depressing awareness, for the pain he would feel if he lost his loved ones was the other side of how much joy he took from their company. He could avoid the pain only by renouncing the joy and the trust and the knowledge that he was not alone, and building that sort of armor around his core would simply be a different sort of death.
That stabbing moment of recognition was too intense to last… or to forget. It shivered through him, passing like a silent storm of light, and settled into memory like some exquisite, jewel-winged insect preserved forever in amber. It would always be there, ready for him to draw it forth like a talisman against the dark, and he knew he would treasure it forever.
"Ho, Longshanks!"
He blinked and looked up just in time to see the tight roll of his own sleeping sack fly at him. His hands shot up in pure reflex, catching it just before it would have hit him in the chest, and he glowered at Brandark.
"I'm thinking it's a mite risky to be coming all over frisky so early in the morning, little man," he rumbled. "I'm not full awake yet, y'see, and I might be doing something you'd regret."
"Promises, promises!" Brandark said airily. "Besides, I'm not worried. Kerry will protect me."
"Oh no Kerry won't," Kaeritha said primly.
"You won't?" Brandark stared at her hurt-eyed, voice plaintive, and she laughed.
"No, I won't," she told him. "In fact-"
Her hand flicked, and the snowball neither Bahzell nor Brandark had seen caught the Bloody Sword squarely on the tip of his prominent nose. He squawked in surprise and stepped back, arms windmilling for balance, and then landed flat on the seat of his breeches in the snow while Kaeritha crowed with laughter.
"I see boys will be boys!" she chortled. "And let that be a lesson to you, Brandark Brandarkso-awwk!"
Her laughter broke off as Vaijon hit her with a snowball of his own, and then, suddenly, the air was thick with flying white spheres. Bahzell never figured out who hit him with the first one, and it didn't really matter. Under the circumstances, anyone made a perfectly acceptable target, and he hurled himself into the fray with a deep, rumbling laugh.
They were quite late getting back on the trail that morning.
Chapter Nineteen
Hurgrum was smaller than Bahzell remembered.
He'd expected that, but even so he was surprised by how much smaller it seemed. It was half again the size of Navahk, and Prince Bahnak and his father had razed its worst slums and done their best to straighten out the street grid. They'd installed a rudimentary sewer system (which put Hurgrum ahead of most hradani towns, not just Navahk); imposed bloodthirsty regulations to prevent fires, discourage the construction of fresh slums, and govern the disposal of garbage; and required all new construction to be of brick or stone, not the ramshackle wooden structures which burned in winter with dreary regularity. By any hradani standard, Hurgrum was a thriving metropolis; by the standards of the lands Bahzell had seen since leaving home, it was no more than a largish provincial town. All of its citizens and all the inhabitants of the surrounding territory over which it held sway added together would scarcely have matched the population of anything worthy of being called a "city" in the Empire of the Axe.
Yet even through his surprise, Bahzell felt nothing but respect for his father. Whatever its shortcomings, Hurgrum looked like a town-and a civilized one-because it was. Bahzell's father and grandfather had accomplished that much, and it had been a monumental task for people so little removed from barbarism. And looking upon the fruits of their efforts, Bahzell Bahnakson had no doubt at all his father would complete the other task at which he had labored so long and bring the incessant feuds and small-scale wars of the northern hradani to an end at last.
He paused atop the hill, gazing down at the city in which he had been born, and the rest of his enlarged party halted with him. The day was almost balmy, with a temperature several degrees above freezing and the familiar wet, melting scent of an early-very early-northern spring. He was too accustomed to his homeland's weather to be fooled, of course. There were weeks of snow left, but not so many as there had been, and for now he savored the wind that plucked at his hair and ears like playful hands. There was a vitality in that breeze, the promise of life stirring drowsily beneath its blanket of snow, rousing to check the time and then settling back with a comfortable sigh to enjoy one last, short nap.
He glanced to his left and smiled as he watched Kaeritha push back the hood of her poncho and raise her face to the late morning sun. The honor guard which Prince Hûralk of Durghazh had assigned to see him and his companions safely to Hurgrum also watched her, and Bahzell's lips twitched as he noted the uneasiness in their eyes. Hûralk was the lord of Clan Broken Spear, but though the Broken Spears were Horse Stealers, they were considerably more "traditional" than Clan Iron Axe. They were also more xenophobic, seeing no need to waste courtesy on strangers unless there was some specific reason not to cut their throats and be done with it. Prince Bahnak had been able to quench the worst of their xenophobia, but Durghazh remained distrustful of all outsiders, and the fact that Kaeritha was not only a stranger but a woman and a trained warrior had been hard for Hûralk to deal with. Only the fact that she was also Bahzell's companion (and he knew some of the Broken Spears suspected-very privately; they wanted to keep their teeth-that she was a bit more than that) had won her anything like acceptance, and Hûralk's younger warriors continued to regard her as a distinctly unnatural being.
Brandark had been another source of unhappiness. By now all the northern hradani knew the tale of Bahzell's flight from Navahk and that Brandark had accompanied him for friendship's sake despite the traditional enmity between their cities and their rulers. But Brandark was a Bloody Sword. In fact, he was a Raven Talon, a member of Churnazh's own clan. Of course, it was well known that Churnazh had slaughtered his way to the clan leadership at the same time he'd seized the crown of Navahk, but even so Brandark's mere presence on the brink of what everyone expected to be the final war against the Bloody Swords had struck some of Hûralk's followers as a bad idea. Indeed, Hûralk had quietly suggested to Bahzell that he might, perhaps, want to leave his "friend" behind in Durghazh. He had assured Bahzell that Brandark would be treated with the utmost respect and comfortably housed, but the implication had been clear enough. Obviously Hûralk felt that, however close their friendship, Brandark's natural loyalties to his city and clan were likely to suck him into becoming a Navahkan spy if he got close enough to Bahnak's inner councils.
Bahzell had declined the offer, equally quietly, and without mentioning it to anyone else, but firmly. He was only his father's fourth son, and sixty years younger than Hûralk into the bargain, but Durghazh's prince had paled just a bit at the look in his eyes, and the offer had not been repeated. Nonetheless, Bahzell suspected their "escort" had orders to keep a particularly close eye on Brandark, and he knew the Bloody Sword suspected the same. He could tell by the exquisitely polite way in which Brandark had needled Yrothgar, the escort's commander, from the moment they left Durghazh. No doubt it was just as well that Yrothgar was an urbane sort himself-for a Broken Spear, at least-and had chosen to take it in stride, but Bahzell recognized the sharp, genuine edge in Brandark's humor. His friend would have pushed and prodded at the escort commander whoever that commander might have been, with no regard whatsoever for the consequences. It was precisely the same way he'd twisted Churnazh's nose in satiric verse before he fled Navahk, and anyone who made the mistake of thinking for one moment that he wasn't poised on a hair trigger behind his smiling facade, with one hand already halfway to his sword, would never make another mistake again.
And finally, there was Vaijon. In many ways, Hûralk seemed to have found the young knight-probationer the easiest of Bahzell's companions to swallow. He wasn't a woman, he wasn't a Bloody Sword, and thanks to his earlier experience with Bahzell, he wa
s no longer an overdressed, arrogantly conceited popinjay, either. Unfortunately, he was a knight of Tomanāk. Kaeritha was too, of course, but in her case the fact that she was a woman warrior constituted such a shocking breach of traditional proprieties that her membership in a militant religious order was little more than an afterthought. Where Vaijon was concerned, however, that membership loomed up in the foreground, more important even than the fact that he was a human in an area in which humans were virtually never seen except on the backs of Sothōii war horses and coursers.
Like Bahzell's own clan, the Broken Spears had little use for any gods, whether of the Light or Dark. They might fear, hate, and despise the Dark Gods, but they placed no particular trust in those of the Light, either. After all, no gods had done them any favors over the last twelve hundred years, and virtually any hradani would have hooted with laughter at the very thought that any deity might choose to do one for them now.
The fact that Bahzell had sworn Sword Oath to Tomanāk was bad enough, but at least he was hradani. Presumably he'd looked before he leapt, and even if he hadn't, his common sense would probably come to his rescue before he did anything too foolish in the name of religion. But how could anyone trust a human to show the same restraint? Especially one as young as Vaijon? There was no way to predict how someone with his brain softened by religion might react under the wrong circumstances, and so despite the fact that they rather liked him, Hûralk's guards kept a wary eye on him, as well.
In fact, Bahzell thought with a snort of inner laughter, the escort had been so busy "keeping an eye" on his companions that none of them had had any time left over to pass more than a handful of words with him during the entire journey. But that journey was almost over now, and he felt his spirits rise with every step as he churned back into motion through the muddy, slushy snow.
"Hmpf! Took you long enough to be making it home, didn't it just? And not a letter did your mother and I have in all that time, either! Can you be giving me one good reason I shouldn't be coming down off this throne to kick your hairy backside for you?"
Bahnak Karathson, Prince of Hurgrum and Lord of Clan Iron Axe of the Horse Stealer hradani, had a voice even deeper than his son's. He was three inches shorter than Bahzell, but his words rumbled up out of an enormous chest, and his mobile ears pressed close to his gray-streaked hair as he glowered down at his offspring from the dais on which his throne sat. Bahzell and his companions stood in the Great Hall of Bahnak's palace. The Great Hall would have been appropriate enough as a town hall in most cities of the Empire, but few of those would have been illuminated with the traditional, barbaric spill of torchlight or had such huge, heavily armed guardsmen lounging against the walls and grinning as they watched their prince greet his wandering son's return.
"Not a reason in the world," Bahzell admitted cheerfully. Then he paused and cocked his head thoughtfully. "Other than to be pointing out my hairy backside is wearing armor as might be a bit hard on your toe, that is."
"Oh, might it, now?" Bahnak glared, but the corner of his mouth twitched. "And while we're speaking of armor, could you be so very kind as to be telling me what you think you're doing in those colors? It was bad enough to hear as how you'd been after fooling about with wizards-even a 'white' one!-but it was in my mind that I'd at least taught you better than to be mixing in the business of gods and demons and such!"
"Aye, you did that," Bahzell agreed. "But what's a man to do when a god decides as how he wants him? I tried not listening, and that didn't work. Then I tried outrunning him, and that didn't work. And in the end, a demon tried to eat me and then himself was after turning up in the flesh to bid me join up, as it were, and not a bit of good at all did it do to be telling him no then. Besides, I'd asked his aid, and he'd given it, so what else was I to do?"
"Hmpf! Not much, I suppose, if you'd asked such of him in the first place," his father growled. "And now I think on it, no one as knew you's ever said you were smart, now have they?" Bahzell grinned as Brandark smothered a laugh behind him. "And stupid or no, I'm thinking the color becomes you," Bahnak went on with a slow smile of his own. "Contrasts with your eyes, it does."
"Thank you, Father," Bahzell said with exquisite politeness. "It's pleased I am that you approve."
"I'll not go quite that far-not yet," Bahnak replied, and the hint of steel in the words promised that he meant it. "And Krashnark only knows how it's likely to affect the war. But it's more important that you're after being home, I suppose."
He spoke grudgingly, but even as he did he rose from his carved wooden throne and came down the three steps to the floor of the Great Hall to throw his arms about his son. He hugged him fiercely, hard enough to break the back of any lesser man, and his eyes glowed. Bahzell returned his embrace for endless seconds, and then Bahnak clapped him on the back once with both hands and stepped back.
"Well!" he said, his voice just the slightest bit husky, "your mother's wishful to see you too, and you've some brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews somewhere about the place, as well. We've a deal to talk over, you and I," he went on, letting his eyes move briefly over Brandark, Kaeritha, and Vaijon, "but no doubt we'll get to that in time, and I'm not so brave as to be putting matters of state in front of your mother's orders. So come along-you and your friends-" he added, gathering up Bahzell's unlikely companions with a sweep of his hand, "and let's be getting all the hugging and sniffling over with first."
Chapter Twenty
"So that's the way of it, hey?"
A huge fire crackled on the immense hearth at one end of the drafty dining room as Prince Bahnak leaned back in his chair at the head of the table. There had been a time when Bahzell would have noticed neither the drafts nor the thin wisps of smoke which escaped the chimney to add their tiny contributions to the soot blackening the overhead beams, but he'd met rather more efficient means of heating since then. Not that such small considerations as cold fingers and toes or a little smoke mattered in the least beside the opportunity to see his father once again raising an enormous tankard of ale to gaze thoughtfully at him over the rim.
Bahzell's oldest brother, Barodahn, sat to Bahnak's left, facing Bahzell across the table. Barodahn was a bare half-inch shorter than Bahzell and twenty-five years older. Despite the difference in their ages, they had always been close, but Barodahn was a taciturn sort. Although he shared their father's aspirations to drag their people out of barbarism and had always taken greater pleasure than Bahzell in scholarly pursuits, he was far more like the Horse Stealer ideal, outwardly at least. A long-ago sword had left him with a scarred, grim-looking visage, and he had to feel very close to someone before he decided to open his mouth. Even then, he seldom used two words if one would suffice, but he was their father's senior field commander, and when he gave an order, the hardiest warrior jumped to obey. Bahzell's other brothers were absent-carrying their father's instructions to some of his allies, no doubt-and three of his sisters sat with his mother (much closer to the fire) chatting with his companions.
His mother had her embroidery frame before her, taking advantage of the light to set beautiful stitches, and warm memories flowed over Bahzell as he watched her skillful hands. His grandfather, Prince Karath, had been appalled when his heir chose Arthanal Farlachsdaughter as his bride. She was a Horse Stealer, true, and a first cousin of the Prince of Mazgau, but Clan Iron Axe and her own War Hammer Clan were scarcely friends, and she was a slender, delicate young woman (for a hradani). Karath and his own wife had produced only three children in an eighty-six-year marriage, and he'd nursed serious doubts over how many grandchildren a frail young thing like Arthanal could be expected to bear.
Worse, she had a reputation as a shy girl who was actually bookish-not exactly the sort of consort who would be a political asset to a ruling prince's efforts to unite a warrior people. Karath had done his utmost to prevent such a clearly unsuitable union, but for the first time in Karath's memory, his son's intransigence had matched his own. Bahnak had been attentive,
polite, and willing to admit at least some of his father's points; he'd also been as unyielding as granite, and, against his better judgment, Karath had accepted that an estrangement from his heir would be even more disastrous than a sickly War Hammer daughter-in-law.
But Prince Bahnak's lady had made liars of her father-in-law's fears. True, she chose to remain in the background, but her apparent shyness actually stemmed from a calm self-assurance which knew her strengths lay in less public areas and saw no need to thrust herself forward. She was an astute observer and analyst, and if she was "bookish," it was only because she shared the same thirst for learning that filled Bahnak, although in her case it was the love of knowledge for its own sake while Bahnak hungered for it as the one thing which could raise his people from barbarism. Despite his initial reservations, Prince Karath soon found himself listening very carefully to her advice, and however fragile she might look, she was far, far from frail. The arrival of his first sturdy, noisy grandson put that particular concern to rest quite nicely, and the way the marriage also turned her War Hammer kinsmen from enemies into allies also dawned quickly on him. The old man was never noted for changing his mind easily, but Arthanal was a special case. He soon came to dote upon her, and his son's willingness to defy his own wishes to wed such a treasure only strengthened his faith in Bahnak's judgment.
Even today, few people realized how heavily Bahnak depended upon her. She was not only his collaborator, analyst, and closest strategic adviser, but also his balance wheel, the steadying influence which helped restrain his occasional bursts of excessive enthusiasm for a given project or stratagem, as well as the center about which his entire family orbited. And if she still chose to remain in the background, she had encouraged her daughters to follow their hearts and make their own decisions. Halah and Adalah, the youngest of them, were made very much in her mold, but Marglyth and Maritha, the two older girls, had thrown themselves into Bahnak's projects as boldly as any of her sons.
