Oath of Swords wg-1

by David Weber

  The rooms were bigger than The Laughing God’s, but no fires had been laid, there were no hot baths, and meals cost two coppers apiece. Yet they were out of the rain, though it occurred to Bahzell, as he considered their rooms, that the landlord had hardly given them his best chambers. They were on the second floor, off a stubby, blind hallway, with the smaller room squeezed into an awkward space between the inn’s upper storerooms and the attached stables.

  Bahzell assigned that one to Zarantha and Rekah the instant he saw it. The only way to it led past the room he and Brandark shared with Tothas, and, for all its shortcomings, The Brown Horse offered stout doors. With their own door open and the hradani taking watch and watch about, no one could get to Zarantha or Rekah unchallenged.

  Tothas nodded approval of Bahzell’s arrangements, and this time he raised no argument over leaving the guard duty to the hradani. Indeed, he crawled into one of the beds the instant he finished supper, and Bahzell looked at Brandark and pointed to the other.

  “I’ll be waking you in four hours,” he rumbled, “so you’d best not lie awake thinking of more verses for your curst song!”

  ***

  Morning came noisily. None of The Brown Horse’s servants had ever heard of tiptoes, and Bahzell groaned in protest as a waiter barged in with a can of hot water. The servant dropped it beside the wash basin with an appalling bang, then trooped out like an entire company of heavy infantry, and the Horse Stealer sat up with another groan.

  “My, aren’t we grumpy in the morning?” Brandark sat with his chair tipped back on two legs. “You really should cultivate a sunnier disposition,” he went on in a severe tone. “I know! I finished two fresh verses to Bahzell Bloody-Hand last night! Why don’t I sing them f-ummpphh! ”

  The thrown pillow hit hard enough to knock his chair over with a crash, and Tothas shoved up on an elbow and dragged hair out of his eyes.

  “Must you two be so cheerful this early?” He cocked his head at Brandark, then glanced at Bahzell as the Bloody Sword dragged the pillow out of his face. “What’s he doing on the floor?”

  “Penance,” Bahzell growled, and threw back his own blankets.

  He stretched enormously, crossed to the washstand, and poured hot water into the basin, then frowned. There was no steam, and he shoved a finger into the basin and sighed. The “hot” water was barely lukewarm.

  He grimaced, but it was all there was, and at least his people’s lack of facial hair meant that, unlike Tothas, he wouldn’t have to shave with it. He washed his face, rinsed and emptied the basin into the chamber pot, then checked the clothing he’d hung before the fire overnight. It was dry, and he climbed into it with only a trace of wistfulness for The Laughing God’s baths.

  Brandark followed him to the basin, and Bahzell peered out the window. The rain had pulled back to blowing spatters, but a raw, gusting wind shook leafless branches like swords. It looked thoroughly miserable out there, and he hoped Zarantha was right about how long they could stay here, poor service or no.

  A maid walked past their open door with another can of so-called hot water as if his thoughts of Zarantha had summoned her. She knocked much more gently than Bahzell would have anticipated and stood waiting a moment, then knocked again, harder. And then again, harder still.

  Bahzell’s ears cocked as the maid knocked yet a fourth time. He knew how light a sleeper Zarantha was, and he stepped into the hall with a frown.

  The maid looked back over her shoulder and squeaked as she saw him. She couldn’t have been more than fourteen, and this was her first sight of him, and she pressed her back against the closed door, hugging the water can before her like some sort of shield, her eyes huge.

  “Oh, be still, girl!” he rumbled in her language, and wiggled his ears at her. “I gave over eating little girls for breakfast years ago!”

  She jerked and tried to press her back through the door for just an instant, then smiled timidly at the rough humor in his voice.

  “That’s better,” he encouraged. “Now what’s the to-do?”

  “The lady won’t answer the door, sir,” the maid said in a tiny voice, obviously still more than a little uncertain about him.

  “She won’t, hey?” Bahzell waved her aside and knocked himself. No one answered, and his amusement at the maid’s reaction vanished. He pounded again, loud enough to wake the dead, and Brandark came out into the hall behind him.

  “What’s going on?”

  “If I was knowing that, I wouldn’t be after pounding on this damned door!” Bahzell hammered so hard the door leapt against the bar, but still no one answered. “Fetch the landlord, Brandark. I’m not liking this one tiny bit!”

  The Bloody Sword jerked a nod and thundered down the stairs while Tothas took his place in the hall. The Spearman took one look at Bahzell, then at the door, and his face went paper-white. He shoved the hradani aside and beat on the door with both fists.

  “My Lady!” he shouted. “Lady Zarantha!” Silence answered, and he looked desperately up at Bahzell. “Break it down!”

  “So I’m thinking myself, but best we get the landlord up here first.”

  “No! She might-she might be dying in there!”

  “Calm now, Tothas,” Bahzell said as gently as his own fear allowed, and drew Tothas back from the door with compassionately implacable strength, despite the armsman’s struggles. “No one got past us last night, you’ve my word for that, but if aught’s wrong with Zarantha, then it must be so with Rekah, as well, for they’re neither of them answering. And if that’s so, I’m thinking there’s no point in haste.”

  Tothas gave one more futile wrench against his grip, eyes full of agony in his wasted face, then slumped and patted the Horse Stealer’s wrist.

  “Aye,” he whispered. “Aye, you’re right. Would to Tomanāk you weren’t, but you are.”

  He sagged against the wall, hands scrubbing his face, and Bahzell turned as Brandark clattered back with the landlord. The pudgy little man looked both indignant and frightened in his ridiculous nightgown, and he was badly out of breath from the ruthless haste with which the Bloody Sword had dragged him from his bed.

  “What’s the meaning of this?!” he tried to snap, but it came out in a nervous quaver, and Bahzell frowned down at him.

  “Little man,” he said, “we’ve people behind yonder door, and they’re not after answering.” The landlord jerked as if he’d been struck. His eyes darted to the door, and he paled, then swallowed.

  “M-Maybe they’re just a-asleep,” he stuttered.

  “Then it’s the soundest sleep I’ve ever heard of,” Bahzell rumbled.

  “Well, I can’t help that! What do you want me to do about it?”

  “Just you stand right there,” the Horse Stealer told him grimly. “I’m after opening this door, one way or another, and I’m wanting you to know why I’ve done it when I do.”

  “You mean-?” The landlord stiffened as the hradani backed up four paces. “No, wait! You can’t just-!”

  Bahzell ignored him and charged. The human-sized hall was too cramped for him to build much speed, but, as Harnak had learned in Navahk, the door that could stop Bahzell Bahnakson was a very rare door indeed. The crash shook the inn to its foundations, the bar ripped its brackets from the wall with an ear-piercing screech, and the door itself flew clear across the room.

  The Horse Stealer stumbled two more paces forward to regain his balance, but his eyes were already sweeping the room, and a snarl rose in his throat. The single small window hung wide to the rain, and the furnishings were smashed and splintered, as if a madman had run amok with an axe. One bed was empty, but a bloody oval face hung over the side of the other slashed and tattered mattress in a tangle of golden hair.

  The hradani crossed the room in one enormous stride, and his hands were gentle as he touched Rekah’s throat. Her neck was ringed in brutal purple bruises too long and thin to have come from any mortal hand, and blood streaked the bedpost where her attacker had slammed her face in
to it again and again while he choked her, but a faint pulse fluttered against his fingertips.

  “Fetch a healer!” he snapped over his shoulder. Tothas sagged in the doorway like a man who’d taken his death wound, and the petrified landlord gawked past the armsman. “Phrobus take you, fetch a healer before I gut your lard-swollen belly!” Bahzell roared, and the man vanished with a squeal.

  The maid disappeared on his heels, and Brandark caught Tothas, easing him down to sit on the floor, horrified eyes locked on the empty bed.

  “How?” The Bloody Sword’s tenor voice was hard with fury. “In the names of all the gods and demons how? And why didn’t we hear something?!”

  Bahzell only shook his head, but Tothas shoved himself up from the floor. “Sorcery,” he groaned, crossing to Rekah like an old, old man. He touched her bloody face with trembling fingers, and his voice was riven and harrowed. “Sorcery-black, black sorcery!” he whispered, going back to his knees beside the maid, then laid his face on the bed and wept.

  ***

  The healer was a stout, gray-haired matron with a gentle face, and she hissed in horror when she saw the room. She looked ridiculous with her clothing all askew and her hair all wild under the cloak she’d snatched over her head, but her hands were gently deft as she examined Rekah. She peered into the maid’s eyes and moved her head with infinite care, then sighed in relief.

  “Eh, it’s bad!” she murmured. “Mortal bad, but her neck’s unbroken, praise Kontifrio.” She muttered to herself as she checked for other wounds and broken bones, then rounded on Tothas and the two hradani. “And which of you treated her so?!” she snapped furiously, but Bahzell shook his head.

  “No, mother. I’ll swear whatever oath you’re wishing, we’d no hand in it. The door was barred from inside; we broke it down to find her.”

  “What?!” The healer stared at him, then looked at the wrecked door and went almost as pale as the innkeeper had. “Lillinara preserve us!” she whispered, tracing the full-moon circle of the Mother with her right hand, then shook herself and glared back up at the Horse Stealer.

  “Well, that’s as may be, but this lass is bad hurt-bad! She’s a crack in her skull like someone hit her with an axe, and it’s the gods’ own mercy she’s still alive. Out-out, all of you! I’ve work to do, so clear my way!”

  Bahzell nodded and drew Tothas gently away. The landlord was nowhere in sight. His servants had copied his example, and Brandark dived into his personal pack for a carefully wrapped bottle of brandy as the three of them returned to their own room. Tothas coughed and tried to pull away when Brandark forced a huge swallow down him, but something like intelligence returned to his eyes, and Bahzell cleared his throat.

  “Now, Tothas,” he said in a soft voice, “I’m thinking it’s time you told us what Lady Zarantha never did.”

  “Why?” Tothas’ voice was hopeless, and he rocked in his chair, arms folded across his chest. “Oh, My Lady!”

  “Hush, now, man!” Bahzell’s voice was harsh, and Tothas looked up. “There’s no body in yonder room, only Rekah. I’m thinking whoever-or whatever-it was left her for dead, and never a sound did it make while it was about it. If it was minded to kill Zarantha, why not kill her then and there? No, Tothas, she’s alive, or was, and if we’re to get her back, we’ve time for naught but the truth!”

  “Alive?” Tothas blinked, and the horror retreated-a little-as his face recovered some of its normal determination. “Aye,” he said softly. “She would be. She is! They won’t kill her here-they’ll take her home for that!”

  “Who, man? Who?! ”

  “I don’t know-not for certain.” Tothas shook himself again, harder. “You’re right. Tomanāk knows we should have told you sooner, but My Lady was afraid that-” He drew a deep breath, then stood and faced the two hradani.

  “I ask you to believe,” he said in a deep, formal voice, “that we kept it from you out of no distrust. It was My Lady’s decision, and she meant it for the best-for you, as well as for her.”

  “Meant what?” Brandark asked flatly.

  “My Lady . . . misled you. She is, indeed, the Lady Zarantha Hûrâka, and her father is Caswal of Hûrâka, but few know them by that name. Hûrâka is an all but dead clan-she, her father, and her sisters are its only members-but Lord Caswal is also lord of Clan Jashân, and most know him as Caswal of Jashân, Duke Jashân.”

  “Duke?! ” Brandark blurted.

  “Aye, the highest noble of the South Weald after Grand Duke Shâloan himself.”

  “Phrobus!” the Bloody Sword whispered, and Bahzell’s eyes went flint hard as he stared into Tothas’ face.

  “Are you after telling me the second noble of the South Weald sent his oldest daughter overland to the Empire of the Axe with naught but a single maid and three armsmen?!”

  “No. Oh, he sent her overland, but we had an escort of sixty men for the trip. Rekah and I-and Arthan and Erdan, Isvaria keep them-stayed with her in Axe Hallow when the others returned home.”

  “And what were you doing there?”

  “My Lady is a mage,” Tothas said simply. Bahzell heard Brandark gasp and sat down abruptly, his ears flat in shock.

  There’d been a time when “mage” and “wizard” meant one and the same thing, but those days were long past. Bahzell had never met a mage-so far as he knew, there’d never been any of hradani blood-yet he’d heard of them. They were said to have appeared only since the Fall, men and women gifted with strange powers of the mind. Some said they could heal with a touch, read thoughts a hundred leagues away, vanish in the blink of an eye, or any of a thousand other strange abilities, but they were trusted as much as wizards were hated, for they were sworn to use their powers only to help, never to harm except in self-defense. More, they were mortal enemies of black sorcery, pledged before their patron deity Semkirk to fight it wherever they found it.

  “A mage,” Bahzell said finally, very softly, and Tothas nodded.

  “Aye, and there was the problem, for we’ve never had a Spearman mage that lived to come into his powers. You see, when a mage’s powers first wake, he suffers something called a ‘mage crisis.’ I don’t know much about it-it’s only been in the last few years we even knew what to watch for-but no one has ever survived it in the empire. Or, if they have, someone else killed them.”

  “Why?” Brandark asked, and Tothas turned to him.

  “Because of the Oath of the Magi. Only the Axeman mage academies know how to train a mage. Give them their due, they’ve always offered the training to anyone, be they Axeman or not, but they require mage oath as the price of their help. Oh,” he waved a hand as both hradani stiffened, “My Lady had no objection! For the most part it’s no more than an oath never to abuse their powers-d’you think My Lady would refuse that? ” He glared fiercely at his listeners, and Bahzell shook his head.

  “But it’s also a promise to seek out and destroy black sorcery. No mage can match a wizard unaided. None of them have more than three or four-at most six-of the mage talents, and they can draw only on their own energy, not steal it from the world about them. But every mage can sense wizardry, and a group of them has the power to do something about it.”

  “Which wouldn’t make them so popular with wizards,” Bahzell murmured, eyes dark as he recalled the wreckage of Zarantha’s room.

  “Exactly,” Tothas said grimly. “My Lady and her father believe that’s the true reason no Spearman mage has ever survived mage crisis. It’s not that severe for most magi, or so I’m told. The more talents a mage has-and the more powerful they are-the more severe the crisis, but surely at least one mage should have survived in a thousand years!”

  “Unless someone was after helping them to die.”

  “Exactly,” Tothas repeated. “So when My Lord Duke’s daughter showed early signs of talent, he was terrified for her. He had to send her to the Axemen-and quickly and in secret-if he wanted her to live.”

  “And Lady Zarantha? How was she feeling about it?”

/>   “She wanted it, Bahzell. She wanted it with all her heart and soul, and not just for the power of it. She wanted to come home, build our own mage academy under Duke Jashân’s protection. If we’ve been so poisoned by black sorcery that it can reach out and kill the talented while they’re still helpless, we need our own magi. Her father begged her to stay with the Axemen where she’d be safe, but she- Well, she’s a mind of her own.”

  “But why overland? Why not by ship?” Brandark asked.

  “My Lady had a . . . a feeling .” Tothas shook his head. “One of her talents is something called ‘precognition.’ I don’t understand how it works, and it’s one of her weaker talents, erratic and hard to control. But it’s let her see the future a time or two, and she dared not pass through the Lands of the Purple Lords. She thought that was the source of the wizardry, and the Purple Lords control all shipping from Bortalik Bay to Robanwar in the East Weald. If she’d gone by ship-”

  Bahzell nodded. If one of the half-elven Purple Lords was killing magi, the last thing Zarantha could have done was pass through their hands.

  “But was she going to try to sneak home with no more than three armsmen?” Brandark asked.

  “No. We were to come down through the Axemen’s South Province and meet our escort in Kolvania. Fifty men should have been there at least a month before we arrived, but no one had heard of them when we got there. We waited another week, and then My Lady got another ‘feeling’ and we took ship to Riverside. I think she was already considering hiding her identity and trying to get home unrecognized, but then the dog brothers killed Arthan and Erdan.”

  “Dog brothers?! ” both hradani exclaimed, and Tothas nodded miserably.

  “I know she told you it was illness, but it was poison, and wicked stuff. They ate before me-I was waiting upon My Lady and came to supper late-and that saved my own life, for the symptoms came on them first. It was too late for them, but My Lady’s a healer. I don’t know how she kept me alive-I was out of my head and raving-but she and Rekah got us into that miserable place you met us in, and the two of them nursed me through the worst of it.”