Oath of Swords

“Aye, well, that happens when the likes of you goes after a Horse Stealer, little man. You’ve not got the legs to catch him, any of you.” Bahzell’s tone was far lighter than his expression. “But why you should be wanting to is more than I can understand.”

“Someone has to keep you out of trouble.” Brandark dismounted, and his horse blew gratefully as his weight came off its back. Bahzell might call him “little;” few others would have, for if he was over a foot shorter than the Horse Stealer, his shoulders were just as broad. Now he straightened his embroidered jerkin and fluffed his lace cuffs with a fastidious air, and the strings of the balalaika on his back sang gently as he shrugged.

“Keep me out of trouble, is it? And what’s to be keeping you out of it, I wonder? This is none of your affair, but you’re like to lose that long nose of yours if you poke it into it, I’m thinking!”

“Oh, come now! It’s not that long,” Brandark protested.

“Long enough to be losing you your head,” Bahzell growled.

“That would have happened soon enough if I’d stayed home,” Brandark replied more soberly. “Churnazh never liked me, and he likes me less now.”

Bahzell grunted in unhappy understanding, and Brandark shrugged again.

“I won’t deny our friendship didn’t help, but don’t take all the credit. My time was ru

“Now why would that be, I wonder?” Bahzell snorted.

“I can’t imagine.” Full dark had fallen as they spoke, and Brandark looked around and shuddered. “I’m city bred,” he said plaintively. “Do you think we could make camp before we continue this discussion?”

Bahzell snorted again and took the lead for Brandark’s packhorse without further comment. Brandark gathered up the reins of both his saddle horses and followed him toward the willows, whistling softly, and Bahzell shook his head. He had no idea how Brandark had run him down so quickly, and he wished he hadn’t, but he was a bit surprised by how comforting the other’s presence was. And Brandark was right; his days in Navahk would have been numbered even if Bahzell had never visited the city.

The Horse Stealer glanced over his shoulder, and his mouth twitched. Anything less like a Bloody Sword hradani than Brandark Brandarkson was impossible to imagine-a thought, Bahzell was certain, which must have occurred to Brandark the Elder on more than one occasion, for he was a hradani of the old school. More successful than many at hanging on to his plunder and making it increase, perhaps, but more than a match for any of Churnazh’s bravos when it came to pure swagger and a readiness to let blood. He was more particular about his reasons for doing it, but not even Churnazh cared to push him too openly, and there must be more to the old man than met the eye, for he’d never disinherited his son.

Literacy was rare in Navahk, and Brandark was probably the only genuine scholar in Prince Churnazh’s whole wretched realm. He was entirely self-taught, yet Bahzell had been stu

Bahzell himself had never been a good student. Prince Bahnak had done his best to beat at least a little schooling into him, but getting him away from his arms masters had always been an uphill struggle. Yet Brandark, entirely on his own, had amassed more knowledge than any of the tutors Bahnak had paid-lavishly, by hradani standards-for their efforts to educate his sons, and he’d done it in Navahk.

It hadn’t come without consequences, of course. Churnazh’s contempt for Hurgrum was as nothing beside his contempt for a Bloody Sword who dabbled in the same degeneracy, and Brandark had done nothing to change his prince’s mind. He fancied himself a poet, though even Bahzell knew his verse was terrible. He also considered himself a bard, and there, at least, Bahzell had to side with Churnazh. The hradani language’s long, rolling cadences lent itself well to song-fortunately, since they’d been reduced to oral tradition in the centuries after the Fall and only their bards had kept any of their history alive-but Brandark couldn’t have carried a melody if it had handles. He had the instrumental skills of a bard, but not the voice. Never the voice, and his efforts to prove differently were painful even to his few friends.

Coupled with his choice of songs, that voice was enough to reduce Churnazh to frothing madness. Brandark favored ditties, many of his own composition, about the prince’s favorites (even he was careful to avoid any that attacked Churnazh directly), and only the tradition of bardic immunity and the fact that he’d inherited his father’s ability with a sword had kept him alive this long. He’d played his dangerous game for years, and even Bahzell often wondered how much of it was real and how much an affectation specifically designed to infuriate Churnazh. Or, for that matter, if Brandark himself still knew which parts of him were genuine and which assumed.

His thoughts had carried him to where he’d left his own horse, and he picketed Brandark’s pack animal in the same clump of willows and turned to help his friend with the other two. Brandark grunted his thanks, and they worked together to unsaddle them and rub them down.

“I’m thinking this isn’t the very brightest thing either of us ever did,” Bahzell said, breaking the companionable silence at last as they hung the saddles over a fallen tree.

“True, but no one ever said you were smart.” Brandark seated himself on the same fallen tree and adjusted his cuffs again. Part of his image was to be the closest any hradani could come to a dandy, and he took pains with it.

“There’s something in that,” Bahzell agreed, busying himself with flint and steel. Brandark hauled himself off the log and began gathering wood.

“Mind you,” he said over his shoulder, “you were luckier getting out of Navahk than I would have expected. I couldn’t believe you’d managed it without leaving a single body behind.”

“That wasn’t luck, it was pla

“Of course it was.” Brandark dumped an armload of wood beside the small blaze Bahzell had kindled and returned to collect more. “And did your pla

“I’d enough on my mind already without that,” Bahzell pointed out.

“That’s what I thought. Check my pack saddle.”

Bahzell opened the pack, and his stomach rumbled again-happily, this time-at its contents. He began laying out sausages, bread, and cheese beside the fire, then looked up as Brandark brought in another load of fuel.

“I’m thinking that’s enough wood. We’ve good cover here, but let’s not be building the fire up too high.”

“I bow to your experience.” Brandark dropped to sit cross-legged and gri

“Adventure.” Bahzell’s mouth twisted on the word. “There’s no such thing, my lad. Or, at least, anyone who’s had one would be doing his best to avoid another. What in Phrobus’ name d’you think you’re doing out here, Brandark?”

“I told you, keeping you out of trouble.” Bahzell snorted deep in his throat, and Brandark flipped his ears at him. “From what I’ve seen so far, you need all the help you can get,” he added, reaching for a sausage.

“I’ve kept my hide whole this long,” Bahzell pointed out.

“So you have. But if I could find you, so can Churnazh.”

“Aye, that’s so,” Bahzell conceded around a mouthful of cheese, then swallowed. “And if we’re speaking of finding me, just how was it a soft city lad like you managed it so neatly?”

“Ah, well, I had an advantage. I knew you were ru