Oath of Swords-ARC

by David Weber

  "I see. And might I hope that you intend to do some more of that stubborn surviving this time?"

  "Oh, indeed I do," Wencit said softly, his smile broad and somehow almost gentle. "Indeed, I do, Gunnery Sergeant. I've got far too many things still to do . . . and too many people still to meet. Dying would be much too inconvenient."

  IX

  Trayn raised his head again as the horse under him began scrambling up out of the stream's deep bed. His skin and, even more, his mind had begun to prickle with a sudden sense of something mortals had never been intended to encounter, and this time he did swallow—hard—as something much too much like panic flickered deep inside him. He felt the horse under him stiffening, felt the tension tightening its muscles, as it, too, became aware of whatever he'd just detected, and he didn't blame the beast one bit. He'd never sensed anything remotely like it, but his mage talent screamed in warning, and whatever he was sensing was getting steadily nearer.

  His captors' horses topped out over the edge of the streambed, but they also continued to climb. The hill they were ascending was considerably taller than most of the others in its vicinity, and he wondered why they were climbing up it, instead of skirting around its foot. He was still wondering when he found out.

  The horse under him turned sharply to the left, and then, suddenly, they were riding straight into the hillside.

  The opening was at least thirty-five or forty feet across, and Trayn's eyes narrowed as they passed through some immaterial yet tangible barrier which had somehow restrained the light glittering from the chandelier-like balls suspended from the roof. The barrier had kept the light from spilling out of the opening, but now that he was inside it and had the light to see clearly, he realized the tunnel was clearly artificial, for the walls which embraced them as they headed steadily deeper were of dressed and carefully fitted stone. The workmanship was as fine as anything he might have seen in the imperial capital, yet there was something . . . wrong about it. The angles were subtly off true, as if the architect's geometry was askew somehow. Twisted. Perhaps it was only the inner sense of peril and debased energy crackling in his mage talent, but he felt a sudden, instinctive certainty that the architect in question had never come from any of the Races of Man. Or, if he'd begun there, he'd been twisted into something else before he ever designed this splendidly built tunnel.

  As they moved deeper, the smooth, featureless stone gave way to glittering mosaics, and Trayn Aldarfro's belly muscles knotted into a solid lump of iron. He'd expected to see Carnadosa's symbols, the wizard's wand representing her status as the patron deity of black sorcery. What he actually saw was the loathsome scorpion of Sharnâ , Lord of Demons and patron of assassins.

  Trayn swallowed again, harder, as nausea rose in the back of his throat. The scenes reproduced in the tunnel mosaics were horrifying images exulting in massacre and slaughter. Images of huge, spiked and spiny demons—monstrous creatures out of nightmare, twisted fusions of insect, lizard, and bat—rampaged through shrieking crowds of terrified fugitives while towns and cities blazed like torches in the night. Huge mandibles snapped warriors and warhorses in two while arrow storms rebounded from chitinous hides and monstrous carapaces as harmlessly as so many raindrops. Pincers and monstrous claws tore other warriors apart, and vast gullets lined with fang-like hooks swallowed screaming victims alive.

  Yet terrible as those scenes were, there were worse. Far worse. There were images of the rites of sacrifice which allowed Sharnâ 's worshipers to command his demonic servants. It was agony and despair, even more than the victims' blood and life essence itself, that fed Sharnâ 's dark appetites and bound his demons to the service of mortals. The death of any sacrifice to the Dark was terrible; the deaths Sharnâ demanded—like those relished by his sister Krahana—went beyond terror and horror to the unspeakable.

  Trayn managed, finally, to close his eyes. It was much harder than he would have anticipated. There was something almost mesmerizing about that sheer, soul-crushing delight in cruelty for cruelty's sake. Something that threatened to suck the viewer in and drown him in the endless, poisonous ecstasy of pure, enthralling evil which Sharnâ promised to those who served him.

  "I love what they've done with the place," Tremala said lightly to Garsalt and Rethak. Her amused tone was obscene against that backdrop of transcendent horror, yet Trayn suspected that amusement was a frail and tattered shield, even to her own ears, against the waves of malevolence, the simultaneous hatred and hunger for all that lived, which filled that broad, splendidly built tunnel like some sort of poisonous incense.

  "I don't like being underground," Garsalt muttered.

  "Oh?" Trayn kept his eyes closed, but he could readily imagine the tilt of Tremala's head, the scornful arch of an elegant eyebrow. "I suppose, then, that you'd rather meet the Bloody Hand—and Wencit; let's not forget about him, shall we?—out in the open somewhere? Somewhere where they could come at us from any direction of their choosing?"

  "He's not worrying about the direction they come from, Tremala," Rethak said bitingly. "He's worried about the fact that there's only one direction he can run towards after they get here."

  "And you want us to think Bahzell and Wencit don't scare the shit right out of you, too, I suppose," Garsalt shot back with a strength which surprised Trayn just a bit.

  "Only an idiot wouldn't be at least a little nervous, Garsalt." Tremala sounded as if she'd been surprised, as well, judging by her almost conciliating tone. "After all, both of them have rather daunting records of success—especially Wencit, if we're going to be honest. Still, if I have to choose between being able to run in more than one direction and knowing exactly where someone like Wencit, or the Bloody Hand and his courser, has to come at me, I'll choose knowing. After all, by and large, running doesn't really help a lot in a situation like that, does it?"

  "No, it doesn't," Garsalt half-muttered in agreement. Still, he sounded at least a little mollified, Trayn noticed. Although that might be simply because he wanted so badly to be reassured.

  "And here's our host," Tremala said suddenly a moment later.

  Trayn's eyes slipped open once more, but this time he kept them resolutely turned away from the mosaics "decorating" the tunnel walls. He couldn't see very much of anything else, because of the other horses crowded around the one to which he was lashed. It would appear that those horses, or perhaps their riders, wanted to stay as far away from the mosaics as Trayn did, but some of the crowding parted as someone else walked through it.

  "Greetings, Tremala," a voice said. "I was beginning to think you might have decided not to come, after all."

  The voice was deep, resonant, and smooth as velvet. It was the sort of voice that instinctively charmed and soothed. Unless, of course, one listened to what lurked in those almost caressing depths. At the moment, the slight but unmistakable edge directed at Tremala made it a bit easier to hear the bared fangs of that inner hunger.

  The horses between the speaker and Tremala finished moving aside with an uneasy edginess. If they'd wanted to avoid the mosaics, they wanted to avoid the newcomer just as badly, and Trayn didn't blame them.

  "Timing is everything, Cherdahn," Tremala replied calmly. "If we'd arrived any sooner, someone like the Bloody Hand would certainly have realized we were here, don't you think?"

  "I suppose he would," Cherdahn agreed. "And," his smile showed curiously sharp and pointy teeth, "I suppose Wencit would have realized we were here, too."

  Cherdahn was very tall, and the thumb-sized, carved emerald scorpion of a high priest of Sharnâ glittered under the overhead light. Simply to possess that symbol was punishable by death in virtually all Norfressan realms, but here it hung against the breast of his richly embroidered scarlet robes, openly displayed in this place consecrated to the monstrous deity he served. His hair, almost as black as Tremala's, was shoulderlength, immaculately groomed and lightly frosted with silver, and his lean, strong-boned face and aquiline nose gave him a distinguished, almost scholarl
y appearance. Until one looked more closely, that was. Close enough to see the peculiar glitter of his skin, the fine pattern that looked undeniably like scales. Or the equally peculiar red glow—surely more sensed than seen—that appeared to glow in the depths of his brown eyes, the way a Dwarvenhame furnace glowed behind the closed door of its firebox.

  Trayn had the eyes—and talents—to take that closer look, and nausea rose into the back of his throat again as he realized what he was actually seeing. No wonder no horse wanted to be any closer to Cherdahn than it had to be!

  "My dear Cherdahn," Tremala half-laughed, "surely you don't think Wencit of Rûm could possibly have failed to realize that someone besides us is waiting for him?" She shook her head with an insouciance in the face of Cherdahn's presence which warned Trayn that she must be even more powerful in her own right than he'd been assuming. "He's been chipping away at my glamour for days now, and I'd be astonished if he hadn't already deduced most of what we're up to long before he ever saw the Bloody Hand's little lightning flash."

  "Indeed?" Cherdahn's voice remained as deep, as polished. As hungry. Yet Trayn knew Tremala had scored a hit of her own.

  "Oh, yes, indeed." This time Tremala did laugh out loud. "That's what makes him so persistently . . . irritating. Still, he's also persistently predictable. The subtlety, Cherdahn, was involved in getting Bahzell here against odds sufficiently daunting to convince Wencit that this time the Bloody Hand and his little horsey were going to need all the help they could get."

  "So, you see the Scorpion as bait?" Cherdahn inquired almost genially.

  "Of course I do. But not just as bait. Even laying aside the fact that He and the Lady are allies, no one but a fool—which, I assure you, I'm not—would ever underestimate the power of His greater servants. True, they haven't fared especially well against the Bloody Hand in the past, but, then neither have the Lady's efforts and servants, have we?" Tremala shook her head. "Dealing with Bahzell, especially with Wencit in the vicinity, is going to require the combination of all our strength. Still, there's no point in denying that the Scorpion's presence is always almost impossible to conceal from one of Tomanâk's champions. Which is why His and the Lady's plans decided to . . . make use of that fact. Turn a challenge into an advantage, as it were. And, of course, our own modest efforts to insure that Wencit would be looking in the right direction at the critical moment constitute 'bait' in their own right."

  "I see." Cherdahn gazed up at her for several moments, then shrugged. "I don't suppose I could quibble with any of that. And, as you say, at the moment things seem to be proceeding quite nicely. Won't you dismount and join us for supper? We ought to just about have time to finish dining before the first of our guests arrive."

  X

  "I truly do hate these miserable holes in the ground," Walsharno said in the depths of Bahzell's brain.

  The starry night had wrapped itself in a thickening shroud of cloud, and the hradani smelled rapidly approaching rain on a strengthening wind out of the east. The disappearance of the stars and the orange sliver of moon which had floated among them had turned the night pitchy black, but Walsharno was a courser and Bahzell was a hradani, and both of them could see with remarkable clarity.

  Not that either of them was very happy about what they could see.

  "I've no doubt at all, at all, as how old Demon Breath would never dream of upsetting you if you'd only be telling him that," Bahzell responded to Walsharno's disgusted observation.

  "Very funny. And I suppose you'll still be laughing when we ride into that outsized drainpipe?"

  "I'm not so very sure we're going to be doing any riding down it," Bahzell said rather more seriously.

  "Going in there all by yourself wouldn't be the brightest thing even a hradani has ever done," Walsharno pointed out acidly.

  "And are you after telling me that agreeing to be one of himself's champions and all was after being a 'bright' thing for a hradani to be doing?"

  "Don't try to laugh it off. You and I both know there's more than enough trouble for any two—or three—champions waiting in there."

  "Aye, that there may be. Still and all, Walsharno, I'm thinking it's not so very likely as there'd be fighting room for you."

  The hradani turned to look at his companion. At just over seven feet, nine inches, no one—not even another Horse Stealer—would ever consider Bahzell a small man, but Walsharno stood twenty-four and a half hands. Bahzell's head didn't quite top the huge stallion's shoulder.

  "You're not exactly a puny little fellow, yourself," the courser pointed out.

  "That's as may be, but I'm better suited to be fighting in twisty little corners underground than you are," Bahzell retorted, and felt Walsharno's unwilling agreement.

  Few creatures in all of Norfressa could match a Sothôii courser stallion for lethality, but a "horse," the size of Walsharno needed fighting space. Needed to be able to rear and kick, needed the ability to dodge.

  "That opening looks big enough for both of us," Walsharno said after a moment.

  "Aye. But who's to say it stays that way? I'm thinking that if I were after setting a trap for the two of us, we'd find that 'drainpipe' of yours getting a mite tight just about the time we were running into one of Demon Breath's wee little pets."

  "So you think that instead I should let you go down there all by yourself?" Walsharno snorted as emphatically as only a courser could. "I always knew Brandark was a smart man. Now I see why he never wanted to let you out without a keeper!"

  "I'm not saying as how you should 'let' me be doing anything of the sort. It's not as if we were having any real choice, is it now?"

  Walsharno snaked his head around and lowered it to look Bahzell in the eye. Silence lingered for several seconds until, manifestly against his will, the stallion tossed his head in grudging agreement.

  "Why do we always have to be the ones going into their miserable little burrows?" he said after a moment. "Why can't they come riding openly up to our gates for a change?"

  "Because we're the good fellows, and they're the bad fellows," Bahzell said lightly. "Still and all," he reached up, unhooked a case of oiled leather from his saddle, and extracted the deadly horse bow of a wind-rider, "I'm thinking as how it's not so very likely we'll be creeping into yonder 'miserable little burrow' without someone noticing."

  He strung the bow smoothly and easily. It had taken his fellow wind riders a long time to convince him to give up his steel-bowed arbalest, and he still wasn't as good an archer as most of them were. They, after all, had literally grown up in the saddle, bows in hand. Bahzell had been doing other things—like raiding the Sothôii himself—at a comparable point in his own life. Still, the horse bow's rate of fire was far higher than even a Horse Stealer crossbowman could manage, and if Bahzell was a bit less accurate, he could pull a bow far heavier than any mere human. In the final analysis, the sheer, incredible power of his weapon made up for quite a lot.

  "Do try to avoid shooting yourself—or me—in the foot with that thing, would you?"

  "And aren't you just the funniest thing on four feet?" Bahzell replied, attaching his quiver to the right side of his belt.

  "I try, at any rate. I promised Brandark I'd keep you from getting too full of yourself."

  "Remind me to be thanking him the next time I see him."

  "I imagine you'll remember all on your own," Walsharno reassured him.

  Bahzell snorted, then turned to study the hillside above them.

  Most people would never have realized there was anything there, but Bahzell and Walsharno weren't most people. Both of them could sense the dark miasma hiding in the heart of the hill, and the cloaking power of Sharnâ which should have hidden the tunnel opening was useless against the eyes of any champion of Tomanâk.

  Bahzell bared his teeth as he saw the loathsome image of Sharnâ 's scorpion, carved into the keystone of the outer arch, and he remembered the first time he'd seen that same image. What he didn't see was anything remotely like a
sentry, and that worried him.

  "I'm thinking as how they must know we're out here," he said.

  "After what happened at the village?" Walsharno snorted yet again, this time in emphatic agreement.

  "Then wouldn't you think it's just a mite overconfident they're being with no one posted to be keeping an eye out for us?"

  Walsharno nodded, and Bahzell's frown deepened. Although Sharnâ couldn't hide the entrance from him or Walsharno by arcane means, things could still be physically concealed, and there was an uncomfortable crawling sensation between Bahzell's shoulder blades.

  "Well," he sighed, "I'm thinking there's only one way to be finding out what it is they've got in mind."

  It was remarkable how quiet something the size of a Sothôii courser could be when it put its mind to it. Walsharno's ability to move almost soundlessly, even through underbrush, had always impressed Bahzell. He himself had spent years honing his ability to do the same thing, and he was far smaller than the stallion, with only two feet, to boot. Despite that, Walsharno made little more noise than he would have made by himself, and what sounds they did make were lost in the sigh of the steadily strengthening night wind.