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"Put that way, it certainly sounds... less than just," Tellian admitted. "Yet it's the only solution I can see. I have to end this somehow, either with a victory won by force of arms or with a formal settlement to which my own honor is pledged. If I don't, the Court factions which most hate and fear your people may well force King Markhos to order me to take still stronger action. But if you surrender to me, then I will be honor bound to protect you as the terms of your surrender provide, and not even Erthan of South Riding will want to push too hard in that case."
"So you'd ask the Order of Tomanāk to surrender so as to be letting you 'protect' us, is it?" Bahzell rumbled in a dangerous voice. "Well let me be telling you this, Tellian of West Riding! The Order's no need of your 'protection,' and the one thing I've never learned at all, at all, is how to be yielding my sword to another! So if that's after being the only 'solution' you can see, you'd best be calling up your dogs and finding out how many of them can die with us!"
Tension crackled, and then, to the amazement of every man present, Hathan Shieldarm laughed. Not scornfully or bitterly, but with a deep, rolling belly laugh of pure amusement. All eyes swung to him, and he bent over his saddle bow, laughing still harder. It took several seconds for him to drag himself back under control, and when he did, he leaned forward and murmured something to his courser, then dismounted gracefully, despite the courser's height. He stood for a moment, raised left hand resting lovingly on the courser's shoulder, and then walked around to face Bahzell. He was a foot and more shorter than the hradani, and he craned his neck to look up at him.
"Well, Bahzell Bahnakson," he said, with a bubble of laughter still lurking in his voice, "if it's only a matter of your never having learned to do it, perhaps I can demonstrate how it's done!" His own companions watched him as if he'd run stark mad, but he only gri
It was Bahzell's turn to stare, and then he heard Tellian roar with laughter as delighted as Hathan's own.
"Of course!" the baron exclaimed. "All I need is a formal agreement—it doesn't matter who surrenders to whom!" He drew his own sword and leaned low from the saddle with a sweeping bow. "Milord Champion, I yield, and my men with me!"
"Here now!" Bahzell looked back and forth between Hathan and Tellian with a flustered confusion the prospect of a battle to the death had been unable to evoke. "Here now!" he protested again, and Wencit joined the laughter.
"I don't see the problem, Bahzell," the wizard told him between guffaws. "As Tellian says, what matters is that someone surrenders. And think what a glorious triumph it will be for the Order! Less than eighty of you taking four thousand trained Sothōii warriors prisoner!"
"Now just you be waiting one Phrobus-damned minute!" Bahzell snapped. "I'll not have the Order— I mean, it's not fitting that— Fiendark seize you, Brandark, will you stop that laughing before I'm after breaking your worthless neck!"
No one seemed to pay him the least attention, and, finally, the glare faded from his eyes and he began to chuckle as well. He shook his head helplessly, then waved both hands at Hathan and Tellian.
"Oh, put up your swords, the both of you! If you're so all-fired eager to be surrendering yourselves, then I suppose the least I can be doing is grant you parole!"
"Thank you, Milord," Tellian said with becoming seriousness. "Upon what terms will you grant it?"
"Well, I suppose we should be thrashing that out, now shouldn't we just?" Bahzell agreed. "It's honored I'd be to invite you into my tent to discuss it, Milord Baron—if I was after having a tent, that is."
"It just happens that I have quite a nice one which the former Lord Warden of Glanharrow brought with him," Tellian replied. "If you and your companions would consent to join me there, I'm sure we can work out the terms of my army's surrender—and parole—to our mutual satisfaction."