Oath of Swords wg-1

by David Weber

  “And the dog brothers missed you?” Brandark said skeptically.

  “Aye. My Lady’s a powerful mage, with three major talents and two minor, and one of the minors lets her confuse the eye. She hid our going, then made certain no one looked closely at her whenever she left the inn. Rekah and I stayed hidden while she made her way about town, searching for a way to get home. I didn’t like it, but the strain of hiding more than one person is wicked, and she wouldn’t let me come with her.”

  “So why didn’t she just ‘confuse the eye’ all the way home?”

  “It only confuses the eye. It won’t work if there’s no one else to direct it to, and out on the high road-” Tothas shrugged again, unhappily, and looked at Bahzell. “That was why that scum cornered her in the alley, Bahzell. She was alone on the street when they spied her.”

  The Horse Stealer nodded, and Tothas sucked in another deep breath.

  “After that-with ni’Tarth hunting her as well as the dog brothers-she dared not stay in Riverside. She’d used a name no one would recognize, but if ni’Tarth was part of the Assassins Guild, they were bound to realize who she truly was when he set them on her.”

  “But why didn’t she just tell us the truth?” Brandark asked.

  “My Lady’s no telepath, no thought-hearer. She’s an empath. She could sense your feelings, knew you for honest and honorable men, but she couldn’t hear your thoughts, and we’d been in hiding for over three months . She’d . . . forgotten how to trust, I think, and when we knew we could trust you, she’d thought better of it. There’s a trick some wizards have-Phrobus, for all I know all of them have it!-that lets them pluck thoughts from unguarded minds. They can’t do it to a mage, and Rekah and I were taught a way to block against it in Axe Hallow, but there was no time to teach that to you. All it would have taken would be one wizard to see her identity in your mind, and-”

  “And it’s dead we’d all have been,” Bahzell said grimly.

  “Dead, indeed,” Tothas agreed.

  “And when she found the dog brothers were after us? ” Brandark asked.

  “What could she do but go on? Tomanāk knows I’d die for her-I’ve been her personal armsman since she was a babe-but I’m not likely to live out the journey,” Tothas said, and Bahzell’s eyes softened. “She knows it as well as I, but she dared not leave me behind, nor would I have let her. Yet she needed you two, needed your guts and loyalty as much as your swords. And at least we knew the dog brothers hadn’t realized who she was, or they would have killed her first, while she was unguarded upstairs, before trying for Bahzell.”

  “Aye, that’s sense, but why the forged passport, Tothas? Why not be telling that border guard captain the truth and ask an escort home?”

  “Because My Lady’s asked after our escort in every village we’ve passed through, and no one she’s asked yet ever saw them. That means they never got this far, that whatever happened to them is still ahead somewhere. I knew those men, Bahzell. I’d’ve taken Sword Oath nothing could stop them-not all of them-but something did, and there’s no reason to think it wouldn’t have stopped another fifty men. Aye, or a hundred for all I know!”

  Bahzell nodded and leaned back in his too-small chair, ankles crossed and ears lowered in thought, and Tothas watched him in taut silence. He and Brandark could almost feel the intensity with which the Horse Stealer’s mind worked, and, finally, Bahzell gave a slow nod and straightened.

  “All right, Tothas. You’ve told it, and I’m thinking Lady Zarantha had the right of it all along. Yet something’s happened to her now, and it’s in my mind that means something was after changing here in Dunsahnta.”

  “Here?” Brandark asked. “Why not somewhere back along the road?”

  “Because whatever could take her from a locked room-aye, and half-kill Rekah in the way of it, without our hearing a sound-could have done the same thing in the night on a lonely road. No, something here gave her away.”

  “But what?” Tothas asked hopelessly.

  “Well, as to that, I’ve no certain knowledge, but were either of you after watching that greasy little landlord when he first arrived?”

  Bahzell eyed his companions keenly, and they shook their heads.

  “I was,” he said grimly, “and it was white as snow he went, even before that door came down.”

  “You think he set them on us?” Brandark asked in an ugly voice, and Bahzell shrugged.

  “It might be, and it might not, but what I am thinking is that he’d guessed what had happened from the start. And for that, he had to be knowing something .”

  “Ah?” Brandark murmured evilly, and Bahzell nodded.

  “Ah, indeed,” he agreed, and stood. He dragged on his aketon and scale mail and reached for his sword, and his face was bleak. “If yonder wee toad is after knowing a single thing, I’ll have it out of him one way or another, and when I’ve done, it may just be we’ll know where to start looking.”

  “But what can we do against sorcery?” Tothas asked, and Brandark smiled at him.

  “Tothas, we’re hradani. We know what wizards can do, but none of us would ever have made it to Norfressa without learning a trick or two.”

  “Wizardry?”

  “No wizardry,” Bahzell grunted, “but there’s precious little a wizard can be doing with a foot of steel in his guts, and no wizard ever born can control a hradani who’s given himself to the Rage. That was their mistake, d’you see, when they made us what we are. The only way they can stop us is to kill us, and a hradani, Tothas,” his eyes burned, and his voice was very, very soft, “takes a lot of killing with a wizard in reach of his blade.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Mail jingled and weapons harness creaked as Bahzell led Brandark and Tothas downstairs. The taproom was a wasteland of empty chairs and crooked tables, smelling of stale drink and smoke, and the two servants who should have been putting last night’s clutter to rights huddled in a corner, whispering urgently to one another.

  Their whispers chopped off with knife-sharp suddenness as the armed and armored trio appeared. The servants exchanged furtive, frightened glances, then one of them reached for his broom while the other cleared his throat, picked up a heavy tray of dirty tankards, and started to sidle out.

  “Not so fast, my lad,” a deep voice rumbled, and a tree-trunk arm blocked his way. Bahzell smiled, and the servant froze and licked his lips.

  “M-M-M’lord?” he quavered.

  “It’s a word with your master I want. Where might I be finding him?”

  “I-I’m sure I w-wouldn’t know, M’lord.”

  “Wouldn’t you, now?” Bahzell watched the man’s shoulders tighten. “I’d not like to think you a liar, so just you give me your best guess, and it’s grateful I’ll be.”

  The servant swallowed and darted an agonized look of appeal over his shoulder, but his fellow was busy sweeping up sawdust-a task which obviously occupied him to the exclusion of all else.

  The man with the tray looked back up at Bahzell. The hradani made no threatening gestures, but his eyes were cold, and someone his size required no theatrics. The servant swallowed again, then slumped.

  “I-In the kitchen, M’lord.”

  “There, now. You did have a notion, didn’t you? And it’s grateful I am.” Bahzell looked at Brandark. “Brandark, my lad, why don’t you find a seat and keep these fine fellows company for a bit.”

  “Certainly.” The Bloody Sword bowed to the servants and settled into a chair just inside the doorway.

  “Don’t be long,” he called after his departing friends. “I left my balalaika upstairs, and I can’t entertain properly without it.”

  ***

  The Brown Horse’s kitchens were none too clean, and Bahzell’s nose wrinkled at the smell of rancid grease and over-ripe garbage as he thrust the swinging door open.

  The landlord was in the middle of the kitchen, talking excitedly to another servant. This one was just fastening his cloak when Bahzell and Tothas entere
d, and he and his master froze like rabbits.

  The Horse Stealer hooked his thumbs in his belt and rocked gently, his smile almost genial, and the landlord’s face twitched.

  “Ah, that will be all, Lamach,” he said, and the servant started for a rear door, only to freeze again as Bahzell cleared his throat. He looked back over his shoulder, and the hradani cocked his head at him.

  “Now don’t you run off on our account, Lamach. You’d be after making me think you don’t like us.”

  He crooked a beckoning finger, and Lamach swallowed, but his feet moved as if against his will, carrying him back to the towering hradani.

  “That’s a good lad!” Bahzell looked at Tothas. “Why don’t you take Lamach outside there, Tothas? It’s only a word or two I need with his master, and if the two of you see to it we’re bothered by naught, why, Lamach can be on his way as soon as we’ve done. Unless, of course, there’s some reason his master should be reconsidering his errand.”

  Tothas nodded curtly and waved Lamach out into the hall. The doors swung shut, and Bahzell turned back to the pudgy, white-faced, sweating landlord, and folded his arms across his massive chest.

  “Now don’t you worry, friend,” he soothed. “I’ve no doubt you’ve been told all manner of tales about my folk, and dreadful they must have been, but you’ve my word they weren’t true. Why, we’re almost as civilized as your own folk these days, and as one civilized man to another, I’d not harm a hair on your head. Still,” his voice stayed just as soothing, but his eyes glittered, “I’m bound to admit there are things can cause any of us to backslide a mite. Like lies. Why, I’ve seen one of my folk rip both a man’s arms off for a lie. Dreadful sorry he was for it afterward, but-”

  He shrugged, and the landlord whimpered. Bahzell let him sweat for a long, frightened minute, then went on in a harder voice.

  “It’s in my mind you know more about this than you’re wishful to admit, friend.”

  “N-N-No!” the landlord gasped.

  “Ah!” Bahzell cocked his ears. “Was that a lie I heard?” He unfolded his arms, and the landlord flinched in terror, but the hradani merely scratched his chin thoughtfully. “No,” he said after a moment, “no, it’s certain I am you’d not lie, but you’d best speak more clearly, friend. For a moment there I was thinking you’d said ‘No’.”

  “I-I-I-” the pudgy man stuttered, and Bahzell frowned.

  “Look you here, now,” he said in a sterner voice. “You were after pissing yourself even before Brandark fetched you upstairs this morning. You knew something was wrong-aye, and you’d more than a suspicion what , too, I’m thinking-before ever that door went down. Come to that, I can’t but wonder just where you were sending Lamach in such a hurry. It’s enough to make a man think you meant to warn someone I might be hunting him. Now, I’m naught but a hradani, but to my mind a man as knows what’s happened to my friends and won’t tell me, he’s not so good a friend to me. And if he’s not my friend , well-”

  He shrugged, and the landlord sank to his knees on the greasy floor, round belly shaking like pudding, and clasped his hands before him.

  “Please!” he whispered. “Oh, please! I-I don’t know anything-truly I don’t! A-And if I were . . . were to say anything that wasn’t true, or . . . or if I don’t tell him you’re . . . you’re asking questions-”

  His voice broke piteously, but Bahzell only gazed down with flinty eyes, and something inside the landlord shriveled under their dreadful promise.

  “There’s a lass half-dead upstairs,” Bahzell said softly. “A good lass-not perfect, maybe, but a good person. If it should happen you’d aught to do with that, I just might take it into my head to carve out your liver and fry it in front of you.” The Horse Stealer’s voice was infinitely more terrifying for its matter-of-fact sincerity, and the innkeeper shuddered.

  “That’s bad enough, I’m thinking,” the hradani went on, “but there’s worse, for Lady Zarantha isn’t upstairs. Now, it’s possible she’s dead, but there’s no way I can know until I find her, and find her I will, one way or another. Alive or dead, I will find her, and if it should happen when I do that I’m after learning you did know something and kept it from me, or warned those as have her I was coming, I’ll be back.” The landlord looked up in dull terror, and Bahzell bared his teeth and spoke very, very softly.

  “You’d best be remembering every tale you ever heard about my folk, friend, because this I promise you. If Lady Zarantha dies and you’ve kept aught back from me, you’ll wish you’d died with her-however it was-before you do.”

  ***

  “-so that’s the whole of it, so far as he knows,” Bahzell told his friends grimly. The healer was still upstairs with Rekah, and they sat before the cold taproom hearth while he spoke quietly. “Mind, it’s not so certain I am he’s told me all he knows, but I’m thinking what he has said is true enough.”

  “Yes, and it makes sense, too,” Brandark muttered. The Bloody Sword’s dagger glittered as he carved patterns in the tabletop, and his ears were half-flattened. “Gods! No wonder the poor bastard’s scared to death. Black wizards less than a league away, and he can’t even tell the authorities because one of them is the authorities!”

  Tothas nodded, wasted face shocked, for despite all that had happened since he first set out for Axe Hollow with Zarantha, the possibility that wizards had infiltrated the Empire had been only a suspicion before.

  “Aye, well, I was listening hard to all he said,” Bahzell said, “and I’m thinking Baron Dunsahnta himself’s not so powerful a wizard as all that.”

  “But the landlord claims he’s their leader!” Tothas objected.

  “So he does, but think. The baron’s magistrate and landlord in one. That’s making him king frog in a tiny pond; if you were after being one of the tadpoles in his puddle, wouldn’t you think he had to be the one in charge?”

  The Spearman nodded after a moment, and Bahzell shrugged.

  “Well, then, think on this. It’s death to dabble in black sorcery and blood magic, so if you were after being a black wizard and you were wishful to move into an area, who would you look to recruit first of all?”

  “The most powerful noble in it,” Tothas said flatly. “Aye, they’d almost have to bring him in on their side-or kill him and put one of their own in his place.”

  “So they would. And I’m wondering about something else, as well. If magi can sense black wizards, can a wizard sense a mage?”

  Tothas screwed his forehead up in thought, then shook his head.

  “No. Oh, they can sense the mage talent , if it’s strong enough, but only if it’s used, and-”

  “And she was probably using it,” Brandark said grimly. Tothas frowned at him, and the Bloody Sword’s ears twitched. “Think, man. You say she can ‘confuse the eye’ into not noticing her, and she was pretending to be Rekah’s maid. Don’t you think she’d have been reinforcing that any way she could?”

  Tothas drew a deep breath and nodded unwillingly.

  “That was in my own mind,” Bahzell murmured. He drummed on the table for a long, silent moment while Brandark carved a fresh design, then glanced sideways at Tothas. “You were saying something this morning-something about their taking her ‘home’ to kill.” Tothas nodded, and Bahzell frowned. “How sure would you be of that? And why would they do it?”

  “I can’t be positive, but if they know who she is, not just what, it’s what they’ll do. Oh, they’ll kill her out of hand sooner than let her go, but if they can get her home and kill her on her own ground, they will.”

  “Why?” Bahzell repeated.

  “Because she’s heir to Jashân,” the armsman said, as if that explained everything.

  “And?” Brandark asked, and sighed at Tothas’ look of disbelief. “Tothas, what our people remember about wizards is how to kill them, not how they do whatever they do, and we didn’t spend years in Axe Hallow learning about them.”

  “Oh.” The Spearman digested that for a mom
ent, then shrugged. “Well, it has to do with the nature of blood magic. Mind you, My Lady knows far more about it than I do, but from what I’ve been told, no wizard produces his own power. Mage talent draws on the power of the mage’s own mind, but a wizard uses the energy that-well, that holds everything together , if you see what I mean.”

  Both hradani looked blank, and he sighed.

  “The magi say there’s power in everything, even a rock, but especially in living things. The white wizards-when there were any-were sworn never to use the energy of living things, especially people, unless someone chose to let them, and even then they were bound never to kill or injure the . . . the donor. Are you with me so far?”

  “Yessssss,” Brandark said slowly. “Or I think I am, anyway.”

  “All right, then. The trouble is, very few wizards can use the energy of un living things without years of study. It’s harder to work with for some reason. But life energy, now, that’s easy to work with, especially at the moment of death. When a living thing dies, its energy-its life force-flows back out to merge with all the energy about it, and if a wizard seizes it when it does, he can use it however he wants. That’s why blood wizards seem so powerful. They may actually be weak-compared to other wizards, anyway-but they have a stronger energy source to work with, you see.”

  Both hradani nodded this time, and Tothas leaned over the table.

  “Remember I got all this in bits and pieces, so I may have some of it wrong, but from what I understand, the more intelligent a creature, the greater its energy. That’s why the most powerful blood rituals use people, not animals. And, by the same token, a younger person has more energy than someone who’s old and closer to death . . . and a mage has more than almost anyone else.”