Oath of Swords wg-1

by David Weber

  ***

  Bahzell Bahnakson jerked to his feet as the first screams came out of the north. He stood among the trees for just a second, peering into the darkness, and knew he’d heard those sounds before-made them before. It wasn’t possible. Not this far south! Yet there could be no mistake, and then he heard bugles ringing over the hills and knew there was no time to waste on confusion or wonder.

  He slithered down into the ravine like an out-of-control boulder. He almost fell a dozen times, but somehow he kept his feet and staggered into the camp just as a soaking wet, stark naked Brandark erupted from the stream.

  “What-?!”

  “No time, man! No time! They’ll be on us in minutes!” Bahzell shouted back, and Brandark strangled his questions and dashed for the heap of his clothes and armor, ignoring shirt and trousers to drag on his arming doublet while Bahzell leapt to the picket line. He grabbed a pack saddle and pushed his way in among the stamping, suddenly panicked animals, but the cacophony of screams raced nearer like some huge, malevolent beast, and it was headed straight for them.

  He spun away from the horses and reached for his sword as he realized there wasn’t even time to saddle up. Brandark was still struggling with his haubergeon, and Bahzell backpedaled away from their mounts, putting himself between his friend and the lip of the ravine, as mounted men thundered into the woods above them with insane speed.

  Horses went down, shrieking as legs broke or they speared themselves on unseen branches, but a few of them somehow threaded the obstacle and hurtled down the slope with howling demons on their backs, and crimson-shot green fire blazed from Harnak’s sword as he took his mount into the ravine like a madman. His horse squatted back on its haunches, sliding and slithering, screaming in fear as the ground fell away before it, but somehow it held its feet, and the prince’s eyes were pits of madness.

  “Bahzell! ” he shrieked, and charged.

  Bahzell’s head twisted round at the sound of his name, and blue flame snapped down his own blade as the sword in Harnak’s hand hurled the prince at him. There was no more time for confusion-there was only the instant answer of his own Rage, and he leapt to meet his enemy.

  “Tomanāk! ” His bull-throated war cry battered through the high, mad shriek of Harnak’s hatred, and his sword streamed blue fire as it hissed forward. A blaze of bloody green steel answered, and the blades met in a terrible explosion of fury, bleaching the ravine with a glare of hate that blasted up like sheet lightning. The cursed sword howled like a living soul, and the shock of impact hurled Harnak from the saddle.

  The prince hit on his shoulder, yet the power bound into his blade possessed him, and he rolled back to his feet with deadly speed. His plunging mount blocked Bahzell just long enough for him to surge upright before the Horse Stealer could reach him, and he flung himself at Bahzell with elemental madness.

  Steel crashed and belled like the hammers of enraged giants, wrapped in hissing sheets of light that blazed hotter with every stroke. Bahzell felt the power of Harnak’s weapon, sensed its hatred and implacable purpose fueling the Navahkan’s Rage, and staggered back one stride, then another, as Harnak hewed at him. A livid emerald corona rose about the shrieking Navahkan, a vague shape that swirled and fought to take the shape of a huge, green scorpion. Its pincers spread wide, groping for Bahzell, and the Horse Stealer fell back again as a deadly stinger stabbed at him. Reeking steam hissed upward where that stinger’s poison spattered like deadly rain, but there was a presence behind Bahzell, as well. He sensed a vast shape rising about him, flickering with an azure glory to match Harnak’s poisonous green, and knew this was no longer a matter of Horse Stealer against Navahkan.

  A corner of his mind gibbered in panic-not of Harnak, but of what Tomanāk had said about the dangers when god met god in combat-as a warring confrontation of power seethed and frothed. It filled the ravine like a flood, spilling outward in the roil and flash of lightning, and he and Harnak stood at its heart, its focus and its avatars-the vessels that gave it purchase in the world of mortals. He heard more steel clash as Brandark fought for his life, but he dared not take his attention from Harnak. It wasn’t the prince he fought; it was the unspeakable foulness reaching for him from the prince’s blade, and that blade was shorter than his own, quicker and handier in close combat. He knew-somehow, he knew-the slightest wound would be death and worse than death, and it whistled in again and again, keening its hate.

  He blocked another deadly stroke and twisted his wrists, guiding it to the side. He spun on his left foot, pivoting as the force of Harnak’s blow carried him past, and his right foot lashed up into the prince’s spine so hard Harnak screamed in pain despite his Rage, but he didn’t fall. He staggered forward a dozen steps and whirled, bringing his sword around just in time, and fresh fire fountained up out of the ravine as steel met steel once more.

  ***

  Major Rathan swallowed as lightning flashed and glared somewhere ahead of him. It was silent with distance, yet its heat seemed to burn across the miles like bitter summer sun. What in all of Krahana’s hells had he and his men stumbled into? His charge had come apart in the darkness, just as he’d feared, and a hurricane of combat raged across the night-struck hills. A dozen hradani, possibly more, had died on his men’s lances without breaking through, but others had carried on into sword range, and no Purple Lord trooper was a fit match for a hradani in the grip of the Rage. Screams and shrieks and curses and the clash of steel and gurgle of dying men filled the darkness, but Rathan’s cavalry had the edge in numbers. Sections of three fought to stay together and engage each hradani, horses went down, taking their riders with them, and then a howling, dismounted hradani, streaming blood from a dozen wounds, came straight at him like a shape from a nightmare, and Rathan had no time to worry about lights on the horizon.

  ***

  Bahzell blocked another blow and brought his hilt up. His pommel crashed into Harnak’s face, and the prince screamed as his jaw shattered. He staggered back, cutting the air before him in a frenzy while the scorpion shape shrieked its own fury, and Bahzell stepped into him. His blade came down, ripping through chain mail, and blue-lit steel cut into Harnak’s upper arm, but the Navahkan twisted aside at the last moment and slashed out wildly. Bahzell leapt away from him again, and the prince lunged after him, yet for all its fury, his attack was wild and uncoordinated.

  Bahzell recognized the danger he faced, knew the driving power the Rage would have given Harnak even without whatever demon filled the blade he bore, yet Harnak fought with unthinking fury, and Bahzell’s mind was cold and clear. The Rage ruled Harnak, but Bahzell ruled the Rage, and he reached out to it, using it as he never had before, willing its power into his arms and shoulders. He waded into Harnak’s assault, smashing the Navahkan back step by frothing step, driving him now. The prince stumbled and almost fell, then staggered back again. He recovered his balance and charged once more, but this time he was just too slow.

  Bahzell’s dropped point flashed out in a deadly lunge, splitting chain mail like rotten cloth, and the crown prince of Navahk convulsed in agony as his own charge impaled him. A foot of gory steel stood out of his back, and blood sprayed from his mouth as he stared down at the sword in his guts.

  The light of that sword flared up into his misshapen face, etching it in a dreadful blue glare, and his arms fell to his sides. The tip of his own sword hissed as it touched the ground, and his scorpion shroud of light screamed. It writhed and twisted, still fighting to reach Bahzell, but its avatar had failed it. Harnak took one hand from his hilt and reached out, as if to pluck at the impaling steel, and then he raised his head. His eyes met Bahzell’s, filled with madness and the Rage but touched with the awareness of his own death, and the Horse Stealer stepped back. He yanked his sword free, and Harnak’s hand clutched weakly, uselessly, at the terrible, spouting wound in his belly, but his eyes never left Bahzell’s.

  He was still staring into the Horse Stealer’s eyes when Bahzell’s flaming sword swept i
n once more and struck his head from his shoulders.

  ***

  Rathan wrenched his sweating horse aside, and impact exploded up his arm as his sword bit into a neck. The charging hradani went down, and he whirled, looking for fresh foes, but the sound of battle was fading. Here and there hooves pounded as some, at least, of the hradani broke through their enemies and fled. Some of his men galloped in pursuit, others knelt over writhing, wounded fellows, and Rathan swallowed bile as he realized how many of his troopers were down.

  He turned his head once more, staring into the south, but light no longer flashed on the horizon. He tried desperately to imagine what it might have been, and part of him urged him to go find out. It must have been connected to his own battle, whatever it had been, and terrifying as the unknown was, he knew it must be investigated.

  But not now, he told himself. His command was harrowed and riven, its men scattered in pursuit of an unknown number of surviving hradani. Whatever that light had been, he had to reorganize and see to his wounded first.

  ***

  Bahzell spun away from Harnak’s corpse. There were three other bodies on the ravine floor, and Brandark was backed up against the picket line, fighting desperately as a fourth Navahkan pressed in upon him. The Bloody Sword’s left arm hung straight and useless from the shoulder, and there was blood on his face. He was weakening fast, and Bahzell leapt to his aid.

  Too late. Brandark went down as steel slammed into his thigh, and his attacker howled in triumph and raised his sword in both hands. It started down in the killing stroke, and then Bahzell’s blade smashed across his spine. He fell away, and Bahzell spun once more, straddling Brandark’s helpless body, as Harnak’s last two guardsmen came at him.

  One of them was a little in advance of the other, and his charge ended in the thud of dead meat as he ran headlong into Bahzell’s two-handed stroke. His companion got through, and Bahzell grunted as steel crashed into his side. His mail blunted the blow, but blood welled down his ribs, and his left arm flashed out. It snaked around his opponent’s sword arm and through his armpit, and Bahzell’s hand licked up behind the other’s shoulder. He heaved, and the Navahkan lost footing and sword alike. He smashed into the ground face-first, and Bahzell’s knee came down on his spine.

  The Horse Stealer dropped his own sword. His right hand darted down, found his enemy’s chin, cupped hard, and he straightened his back explosively.

  The crunching crack ! of vertebrae filled the ravine, and suddenly the night was still and dark once more.

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Bahzell finished making camp, such as it was, and let himself slide down beside Brandark’s bedroll with a groan of weary pain. Broken ribs throbbed dully under the rough, blood-stiff dressing on his left side, yet he was in far better shape than Brandark. The Bloody Sword was barely conscious, and Bahzell tasted the bitterness of guilt as he uncapped his water bottle.

  Brandark had faced no less than four Rage-maddened opponents-and killed three of them-while Bahzell dueled with Harnak. It was the sort of fight that made legends, but it had cost him the tip of his right ear and the last two fingers of his left hand, and those were the least of his hurts. The ugly cut in his left biceps had bled badly until Bahzell’s rough and ready stitches closed it, yet the wound in his right leg was far worse. Steel had cut to the bone, severing muscle and tendons; it would have crippled him for life . . . except that Bahzell knew enough field medicine to recognize the stench of gangrene.

  His friend was going to die, and it was Bahzell’s fault. He knew Brandark would disagree, that he’d say-truthfully-that he’d chosen to come despite Bahzell’s warnings, yet it was Bahzell who’d brought Harnak after them, and it was Bahzell’s insistence on aiding Malith’s villagers which had doomed Brandark. The Purple Lord cavalry would cut his throat instantly, not tend his wounds, if Bahzell left him behind, but dragging him along was only prolonging his torment, and Bahzell knew it.

  He held the water bottle to Brandark’s lips, and the Bloody Sword swallowed thirstily. He drank half the bottle, and his eyes slid open. They were cloudy with pain and fever, but he managed to smile.

  “Still with you, you see,” he husked in a parody of his usual tenor, and Bahzell soaked a rag in water and mopped his face.

  “Aye, so I do,” he replied, and somehow he kept his own voice steady as Brandark closed his eyes once more.

  He lay silent, breathing raggedly, and Bahzell cursed his powerlessness. He’d managed to stop the bleeding and get Brandark onto one of their horses, then thrown a pack saddle onto one of the mules and driven the other animals away before he broke south once more. He’d hoped the patrol which must have attacked Harnak’s men would decide the “brigands” had scattered and split up to chase riderless horses, and it seemed to have worked. No one had come straight after them, at any rate, but they were still hunting, and some of them, at least, were ahead of the hradani. He’d lain on the crest of a hill and watched a score of troopers sweep a shallow valley he and Brandark had yet to cross, and he knew they wouldn’t give up. Not after the losses they must have taken against Harnak’s guardsmen. It was only a matter of time until one of those patrols caught up with them, and when it did-

  “You know you’ve . . . got to leave me behind, don’t you?” Brandark whispered, and Bahzell looked down quickly. He opened his mouth, but Brandark shook his head with another of those tight smiles. “D’you think . . . I don’t know I’m dying?”

  “Hush, little man! There’s no need to talk of dying yet.”

  “Give me . . . a couple of days . . . and I won’t have to ‘talk’ about it.” Fever left Brandark’s weak voice hoarse and frayed, but it still held a trace of his usual tartness. “I know you’re . . . an idiot, but don’t . . . prove it. ’Thout me . . . to slow you, you might break through yet.”

  “And what sort of champion of Tomanāk goes about abandoning his friends, then?” Bahzell shot back, wiping the Bloody Sword’s face once more. “A fine way to act that’d be!”

  “Oh . . . hog turds.” Brandark’s strength was ebbing quickly, but he shook his head again. “Don’ han’ . . . me that,” he muttered. “Nev’r wanted . . . be a champion ’n th’ firs’ place, you . . . idio’ . . . .”

  He trailed off in incoherent mumbles, and Bahzell stared out into the night and bit his lip. He’d never felt so helpless, so useless. He rested one hand lightly on Brandark’s right shoulder for a long, silent moment, then rose and stumped across the fireless camp to the one pack of rations he’d hung on to. He started to open it, then stopped, and his ears flattened as he glared down at a long, cloth-wrapped bundle.

  It was Harnak’s sword, shrouded in the dead prince’s bloodstained cloak. Its fire had faded when Harnak died, yet Bahzell had sensed the power and hatred lying quiescent in it, waiting only for a hand to lift it once more. He’d dared not leave it behind-gods only knew what it would do to anyone mad enough to touch it!-but what was he supposed to do with it now?

  He straightened his aching spine and growled in bleak, exhausted bitterness. He hadn’t dared touch the thing with his bare hand, but he’d held it in a fold of Harnak’s cloak to examine it and found the scorpion etched into its guard. He would have liked to think that simply marked it as an assassin’s blade, but what he’d seen-and felt-it do in battle made that nonsense. No, he knew why it bore Sharna’s symbol . . . and that it proved things were even worse in Navahk than he’d believed. Gods! Did Churnazh even suspect what was using him as its opening wedge? It seemed impossible. Crude and brutal Churnazh was, but surely he had cunning enough to know what would happen if any of his neighbors came to suspect him of trafficking with Sharna! Yet if Sharna’s church could reach as high as Navahk’s crown prince, who knew who else it had reached? Or where?

  Bahzell scrubbed his face with his palms, feeling sick and exhausted and used up. He was the only one with proof of how far evil had reached into Navahk. That made it his job to do something about it, but he was so tired. So very,
very tired and sick at heart.

  “So,” he muttered bitterly into his palms, “why not be telling me what I should do now , Tomanāk?”

  “Do you really want to ask me that?”

  Bahzell snatched his hands down and stared around in shock, but the night was still and quiet, free of apparitions, and he swallowed, then drew a breath.

  “As to that,” he told the darkness, “it’s new at this championing I am. I’ve no real notion what it is I can or can’t be asking of you.”

  “You may ask anything you wish of me,” that deep voice murmured within him. “What I can give you, I will.”

  “Will you, now? And what of him? ” Bahzell cried in despair. “It was me brought him to this, and not a thing at all can I do for him now!”

  “I think we had this conversation once before,” Tomanāk said quietly, “and I told you then that I can heal through my champions.” Bahzell stiffened and sensed an unseen smile. “You’ve destroyed a nest of black wizards, rescued a mage, slain a demon, saved an entire village’s homes, and bested a servant of Sharna armed with a cursed blade far more powerful than you’ve guessed even yet, Bahzell. After all that, is it so hard to believe I’d help your friend if you asked it of me?”

  “You can heal him?” Bahzell demanded, disregarding the catalog of his own accomplishments.

  “We can heal him,” Tomanāk corrected, “if you serve as my channel, but it won’t be an instantaneous process. That would require too direct an intrusion on my part.”

  “I’m not caring about ‘instant,’ ” Bahzell shot back. “Just you be telling me what to do and how to go about it!”

  “You have a unique mode of prayer,” Tomanāk said so dryly Bahzell blushed, but then the god chuckled in his brain. “No matter. It’s the way you are, and difficult as you can be, I wouldn’t change you if I could.”