by David Weber
A shrill whistle split the air, and a cluster of mounted figures appeared round the bend. They advanced slowly, walking their horses, and Bahzell grinned as he saw their livery. Churnazh's Guard, indeed, and not a regular cavalryman—or a lance—among them.
"Two shots, I'm thinking," he murmured, and Brandark shook his head in disgust.
"It's enough to make me feel embarrassed," he murmured back. "No wonder you louts handled us so rudely."
"Now, now, don't be too harsh." Bahzell watched the riders approach. Eight of them, and Brandark was right. If they meant business, they should have taken the two of them at the charge. "There's naught but two of us, when all's said. It might be they're thinking we'd sooner surrender, being as we're so outnumbered and all."
"That's even more embarrassing," Brandark complained. "Gods, how could even Churnazh find officers that stupid?"
"He's the knack for it," Bahzell agreed, "and speaking of stupid—"
The arbalest leapt up to his shoulder, and suddenly icy eyes stared down it at the Guard captain who'd spurred his horse out in front of his men. The range was easily a hundred and twenty yards, but Bahzell saw the captain's sudden tension, the way his horse's head flared up as his hands tightened on the reins, and then the arbalest snapped.
The quarrel buzzed through the air, glittering in the sunlight with hornet speed, and the captain screamed and threw up his hands as it struck him in the chest. It ripped through his ring mail as if it were paper, exploding out his back in a grisly red spray, and his panicked horse reared wildly.
The dying hradani tumbled to the road, and his men froze for one stunned moment. Then someone shouted, and spurred heels dug deep.
The patrol came thundering up the road, but Bahzell's hands were already moving with trained, flowing speed. He never took his eyes from the accelerating horsemen, but the goatsfoot snapped into place by feel alone, and his arm jerked. The string clicked back over the cog, and he dropped the iron lever. There'd be no time for a third shot, and letting it fall saved a precious fraction of a second. Steel rasped beside him as Brandark's sword cleared the scabbard, and his friend's horse bounded forward even as the second quarrel fitted to the string and the arbalest rose once more.
Hradani—even Bloody Swords—required big horses. They needed time to gather speed, and the closest was still fifty yards clear when Bahzell spotted the rank badge he'd searched for. The arbalest steadied, the string snapped, and the dead captain's lieutenant folded forward with a bubbling shriek as the square-headed war bolt took him in the belly.
The remaining half dozen were up to a hard canter, closing on a gallop, and Brandark thundered to meet them as Bahzell dropped the arbalest and his own sword flashed free. He felt no sense of abandonment—the momentum of a cavalryman's horse was his greatest weapon, and Brandark would have been a fool to take that charge standing—and his lips drew back in an ear-flattened grin as the guardsmen split and three of them came for him. They were in too tight, jostling one another in their eagerness to get at him.
It was almost too easy for someone who'd cut his teeth against the Sothoii. Three massive horses careered towards him, intent on riding him into red ruin, his very motionlessness only urging them on. And then, when they were barely thirty feet away, he leapt suddenly to his left, and his sword flashed.
A terrible shriek of equine agony filled the world, and the right-hand horseman catapulted from the saddle as sixty inches of razor-sharp steel took his mount across the knees. He landed on his head, his shout of panic cut off with the abrupt, sickening snap of his neck, and his horse went down, screaming and twisting while blood fountained from its truncated forelegs.
Bahzell took a precious second to cut the animal's throat as he stepped across it into the road, and his eyes glittered as the other two guardsmen dragged their mounts to a sliding halt and gaped back at him. He took one hand from his sword and beckoned to them, and he could almost hear them snarl as he taunted them. His own fury rose to meet them, but he fought it down, strangling the incipient Rage, as they spurred back towards him.
The distance was too short for them to regain their previous speed, yet that made them almost more dangerous, for they wouldn't override their mark this time. They were further apart, too, opening a gap between them and wary of another feint, and he watched them come, one ear cocked to the shouts and clash of steel behind him, listening for any sound of hooves from the rear.
There was none, and he leapt forward into the opening between them as they charged down on him again. It took them by surprise. The one on his right pulled further to the side, sword poised to unleash a deadly blow, but the maneuver slowed them, bringing them in separately and not together, and Bahzell was on the off side of the one to his left. The left-hand sword came over in a clumsy, cross-body slash that whistled harmlessly wide of a quick duck, and he pivoted to his own right, blade darting up to meet the more dangerous threat from that side.
Steel whined, then glanced from the shoulder of his scale mail with a sledgehammer impact, but his enemy had forgotten how tall his opponent was. He'd cut down from the saddle without guarding his own head . . . and that head bounded from his shoulders as his horse surged past Bahzell.
The Horse Stealer spun on his toes, shoulder aching from the blow his armor had turned, even as the remaining trooper's mount pivoted on its haunches and came back at him yet again. But this time there was as much fear as fury on the guardsman's face. He kept Bahzell to his right, clearing his own sword arm, yet he closed far more tentatively, and his head moved in small, quick arcs, as if he fought an urge to look over his shoulder in hopes of other aid.
But there was no aid. Bahzell faced back up the road now, and he saw one of Brandark's three foes motionless and bleeding in the roadway, the other two swirling in a twisting, furious knot as he held them both in play. His lips drew back in a grin at the sight, and the guardsman paled as he charged to meet him instead of awaiting his attack.
The horse leapt forward with a squeal as the spurs went home, but it was too late. Bahzell's size canceled out the guardsman's height advantage, and he'd sacrificed the weapon of momentum. Worse, his sword was far lighter, for no mounted man could manage a blade to match Bahzell's. What would have been a two-handed great sword for a human was little more than a bastard sword for him. The guardsman's desperate cut glanced harmlessly from the Horse Stealer's interposed blade, and Bahzell twisted at the hips, throwing his shoulders into a two-handed blow that smashed through armor—and spine—in a gout of blood.
The charging horse ran out from under the tumbling corpse, and Bahzell completed his turn and raced up the road. One of Brandark's surviving enemies pitched suddenly from his saddle, clutching at the spouting stump of an arm, and some sixth sense warned his companion. He jerked his horse aside, backing away, and swallowed hard as he realized he was all alone. His eyes darted over the sprawled bodies, and then he yanked his mount's head around, slammed in his heels, darted past Bahzell, and galloped off to the east.
Bahzell slid to a halt, chest heaving, and Brandark looked across at him from the saddle. A deep cut on the Bloody Sword's cheek dripped onto his once splendid jerkin, slashed fabric fluttered where a sword had cut his left shirtsleeve, and his eyes glittered with a fire utterly at odds with his usual dandy's role, but his tenor voice was more drawling than ever.
"Pitiful," he sighed, watching the fleeing guardsman thunder down the road in a flurry of dust. "Simply pitiful. And—" his teeth flashed in a sudden smile "—I do wish I could hear him explain this one to Churnazh!"
Chapter Six
The Grand Duchy of Esgan was nervous about its neighbors. Bloody Sword hradani had poured over its frontiers all too often in its seven-hundred-year history, and the posts along its eastern border were more substantial than those one might find elsewhere, with garrisons to match.
A twenty-man platoon flowed out onto the road as Bahzell and Brandark approached, and Bahzell watched speculatively while they shook themselves in
to order. The only humans he'd ever seen had been Sothoii cavalrymen intent on spilling his blood, and he was almost disappointed by how normal the Esganian infantry looked. They were well turned out, with better armor and weapons than even Hurgrum could provide, yet there was something just a bit sloppy about their formation, as if they knew they were mere border guards.
They were also much darker than most Sothoii . . . and smaller. The tallest was shorter than Brandark and barely chest-high on Bahzell, and the Horse Stealer's ears twitched with derisive amusement as he saw them absorb that fact and draw into a tighter array.
An officer stepped to the fore, his brightly worked rank insignia gleaming, and raised an imperious hand at the two hradani.
"State your business!" His badly accented Navahkan held an edge of truculence and an even sharper one of nervousness, for in addition to their own horses, Bahzell and Brandark led no less than four more with war saddles. Two were laden with bloodstained arms and armor whose original owners no longer required them, and two badly wounded, semiconscious guardsmen were strapped into the saddles of the other two.
"Certainly." Brandark's calm Esganian was far better than the officer's Navahkan. "My companion and I wish to cross the border and travel to Esgfalas in hopes of hiring on as caravan guards."
"Caravan guards?" Even Bahzell, whose Esganian was limited at best, recognized the officer's incredulity. The man's eyes flitted back over their plunder and Churnazh's two wounded guardsmen, and he cleared his throat. "You seem a bit, ah, well-equipped for caravan guards, friend."
"We do?" Brandark turned in his saddle to run his own eyes back over the cavalcade. "I suppose we do, Captain, but it's all come by honestly." The officer made a strangled sound, and Brandark grinned. "We had a slight misunderstanding a few miles back, but when my companion and I were set upon without cause, we had no choice but to defend ourselves."
"Without cause?" the officer repeated politely, with a significant glance at the wounded guardsmen's livery, and Brandark shrugged.
"Well, it seemed that way to us, Captain. At any rate, we claim their arms and horses as lawful plunder."
"I see." The officer rubbed his chin, then shrugged. Manifestly, the reasons for which hradani chose to slaughter one another meant nothing to him, as long as they did it on their own side of the border. "May I ask your names?"
"My name is Brandark, until recently of Navahk," Brandark replied cheerfully. "The tall fellow yonder is Bahzell Bahnakson, Prince of Hurgrum. Perhaps you've heard of him?"
"Ah, yes," the officer said. "As a matter of fact I have. Something about broken hostage bond and rape, I believe." Bahzell stiffened, but the Esganian went on in an unhurried tone. "Since, however, the tale came from an officer of Prince Churnazh's Guard—I believe that's his surcoat there, on the second horse—I saw no particular reason to believe the rape charges. As for the hostage bond, that would be between your friend, Prince Churnazh, and Hurgrum, and no concern of Esgan's. But—" he darted sharp eyes back to Brandark "—no one mentioned anything about you."
"I'm afraid Churnazh wasn't aware of my own travel plans when he sent word ahead," Brandark said smoothly.
"I see." The officer studied the road under his boots for several moments. "Well, under the circumstances, I see no reason to deny you entry, as long—" he looked back up "—as you're on your way through Esgan."
Bahzell's eyes narrowed, but Brandark only nodded.
"We are, Captain."
"Good." The officer returned a crisp nod, then glanced back at the two wounded guardsmen. "Ah, may I ask exactly what you intend to do with those two?" His tone implied that it would only be polite to take them back out of sight—and onto Navahkan soil—before cutting their throats.
"Aye, Captain, you may," Bahzell said in slow, careful Esganian. "It's grateful we'd be if you'd see to their wounds till they can ride again, then send them back to Navahk."
The officer gawked at him, then shot a stunned look up at Brandark.
"As I said, Captain, I'm sure it was all a misunderstanding," the Bloody Sword said blandly. "Under the circumstances, the least we can do is send them home to explain it to Prince Churnazh."
The Esganian officer winced, then nodded with grudging respect and spared the two guardsmen a much more sympathetic look.
"I think we can do that," he said slowly, "assuming you can pay their housing and healer's bills."
"That seems reasonable." Brandark extended a handful of silver to the officer. "Would this take care of it?"
The officer glanced down and nodded, and Brandark smiled.
"In that case, Captain, we'll leave them—and their horses—with you and be on our way, if you don't mind. We wouldn't want any of their friends to turn up and have another misunderstanding right on your doorstep."
Esgan was both disturbingly like and unlike Bahzell's homeland, but it was very unlike Navahk. The road was almost as well maintained as Prince Bahnak's military roads, and the stone walls of the fields they passed were neatly laid and kept. Herds grazed contentedly, crops ripened as the northern summer drowsed into early fall, and there was as much traffic as he would have seen in a normal day in Hurgrum. That was a relief after the wasteland to which Churnazh had reduced his own lands, but there was a marked difference in the way these people acted. Heavy farm wagons rumbled along with the first of the harvest, but most of the traffic was afoot . . . and as wary as the farmer on muleback who paused to gawk at them, then dug in his heels and hurried along before the hradani could do anything more than glance back.
And that, Bahzell thought, was the disturbing thing. He'd always known the other Races of Man feared his people, and he knew enough history to realize they had reason to. Yet this was the first time he'd ever encountered such sullen hostility from total strangers. Brandark seemed unaffected as he rode along at his friend's shoulder, but something inside Bahzell tightened in disgust—or perhaps it was dismay—when pedestrians shrank back against the far side of the road to avoid them and mothers actually snatched children up and turned protectively away on sight.
The hot hostility in other eyes did more than dismay, and he felt his hand steal towards his sword more than once as his hackles rose in response. Wariness, even fear, he could understand, little though he might like it; hatred and contempt were something very different.
"I told you hradani were unpopular," Brandark murmured quietly as a farmhand gestured the evil eye at them and hopped across a pasture wall rather than share the road with them, and Bahzell glanced at him in surprise. Brandark had seemed totally unaware of the Esganians' hostility, but now the Bloody Sword's twisted smile gave that appearance the lie.
"Aye, so you did, and it was in my mind I knew what you were meaning," Bahzell replied. "But this—" He waved a disgusted hand after the retreating farmhand, and Brandark's smile twisted a bit further.
"Well, it's hard to blame them," he said judiciously. "They don't know what shining, stalwart people Horse Stealers are. All they know are nasty, plundering Bloody Swords like your humble servant."
"Like Churnazh's scum, you mean," Bahzell growled.
"Ah, but those are the only hradani they know at all, and, that being the case, then all hradani are scum. After all, we're all the same, aren't we?"
Bahzell spat into the dust, and Brandark chuckled.
"If you think it's bad now, my friend, wait till we reach a town!" He shook his head and brushed at his tattered, dirty shirtsleeve. "Do try to remember we're visitors—and not welcome ones—if you should feel moved to reason with anyone. I suspect lynching a pair of murdering hradani would be a whole year's entertainment for some of these folk. Why—" Brandark's eyes gleamed at Bahzell's snarl "—it might be almost as entertaining for them as cutting Churnazh into rib roasts would be for you!"
They reached the town of Waymeet late that afternoon.
It was a small town—little more than a village where a farm track crossed the main road—and it was obvious word of their coming had preceded the
m. None of the half dozen of the town guard who rode out to meet them were particularly well armed, and their mounts looked like hastily borrowed draft horses, but they kept their hands near their weapons as they drew up across the road and awaited the hradani.
The portly, balding man at their head was better dressed. He also wore the bronze key of a mayor on a chain around his neck, and he looked acutely uneasy as he trotted a little out in front of the others.
Bahzell stayed well back with the horses to let Brandark deal with them without the handicap of his own imposing stature or limited Esganian. The mayor relaxed a bit when the Bloody Sword addressed him in his own tongue and produced their road tokens from the border guard, but he looked unhappier than ever when Brandark announced their intention to pass the night in Waymeet.
