Oath of Swords

Brandark made another turn, and Bahzell heaved a mental sigh of relief as they left the palatial avenues behind and the buildings changed quickly back into places of business. A short quarter-hour took them into an area of huge warehouses and shouting work gangs mixed with the grating roar of wagon wheels, and he felt himself relaxing still further. A man had to watch his toes or lose them to those rumbling wheels, perhaps, but there was too much activity and energy here for anyone to waste time staring at him bitterly.

There were more foreigners, as well. He heard at least a dozen languages chattering about him, and his ears pricked in surprise as a slender, gilt-haired man crossed the street ahead of him. He’d never seen an elf, but those delicately pointed ears and angular eyebrows couldn’t belong to a human, and now that he looked, he saw representatives of still other Races of Man.

He watched in fascination as a small cluster of halflings trotted busily down the street. They stood barely waist high to a human, reaching little more than to Bahzell’s thigh, and delicate ivory horns gleamed on their foreheads. They attracted their own share of distrustful looks, and he snorted in understanding. The histories said there’d been no halflings prior to the Wizard Wars. The same wars that had brought the Fall of Kontovar and afflicted his own kind with the Rage had produced the small, horned people of the youngest Race of Man, and that was enough to make them suspect to anyone else. Nor did their reputation help, though Bahzell had always taken such tales with a grain of salt. No doubt there was some truth to them-after all, there was some truth even to the tales about hradani-yet he couldn’t believe an entire race consisted solely of cowards and thieves. Besides, if he were such a wee, puny fellow as they, no doubt he’d be on the . . . cautious side, as well!

Brandark was watching signboards now, and suddenly he nodded and raised a hand.

“Here we are!” Bahzell suspected his friend’s satisfied tone owed at least a little to their having crossed the city without incident. City boy or not, even Brandark had to find this place on the overpowering side.

“Are we, now?” he rumbled. “And where might ‘here’ be?”

“With any luck, the place we’ll find someone to hire us. Follow me.”

Brandark led the way into a brick-paved courtyard surrounded on three sides by huge, blank-faced warehouses. A score of workmen labored about them, too busy to do more than glance their way, but a quartet of guards rose from a bench beside an office door. One of them-a tall, black-haired fellow in well-worn chain mail, leather breeches, and a cavalryman’s high boots-said something to his fellows and made his way across the courtyard towards the hradani with the rolling gait of a horseman. The saber scabbard at his side was as worn but well kept as his armor, and he cocked his head as he stopped in front of them.

“And what might I be able to do for you?” he growled in rough-edged Esganian. It wasn’t discourtesy; Bahzell had heard the same gruffness too often to mistake a voice worn to a rasp by the habit of command.

“I’m looking for an Axeman merchant,” Brandark replied.

“Aye? Would he have a name?”

“Well, yes.” For the first time since Bahzell had met him, Brandark sounded a bit embarrassed. “I’m, ah, not certain I can pronounce it properly,” he apologized, “and I wouldn’t care to offer insult by getting it wrong.”

“Aye?” The black-haired man’s dark eyes glinted with amusement. “Well, he’s not here just now, whoever he might be, so you just lean back and let her rip,” he said in Axeman that was much better than his Esganian.

“Very well.” Brandark replied in the same language and drew a breath. “I was told to ask for . . . Kilthandahknarthos of Clan Harkanath of the Silver Caverns.”

Bahzell turned his head to stare at his friend as the long, sonorous name fell from his tongue, but the black-haired man chuckled.

“Well, you didn’t do so badly, at that, but it’s ‘knarthas ’ there at the end.” He cocked his head the other way and squeezed his sword belt and rocked on his heels. “And might I ask your business with old Kilthan?”

“I’m hoping,” Brandark said, “that he might have jobs for us.”

“Jobs, is it?” The black-haired man sounded dubious. “What sort of job would that be?”

Brandark started to reply, but Bahzell touched his shoulder and looked down at the human.

“Your pardon, I’m sure, but I’m wondering what business of yours that might be?” he asked pleasantly, and the black-haired man nodded.

“That’s fair enough. My name is Rianthus, and I command Kilthan’s guardsmen. So, you see, it’s my business to wonder what a pair like you-no offense-might want with my employer.”

“A pair like us, hey?” Bahzell’s teeth glinted. “Aye, I can see you might be thinking we’d need watching, but we’d be right fools, the both of us, to be walking slap up to you if we’d anything clever in mind, now wouldn’t we?”

“The thought had crossed my mind,” Rianthus agreed. “On the other hand, you might be clever enough to expect me to think just that. It wouldn’t be very wise of you, but you might not know that yet, you see.”

“Aye, you’ve a point there,” Bahzell chuckled, then shrugged. “Well, if you’re after commanding his guards, then I’m thinking you’re the man we’re most needful to see.”

“Oh ho!” Rianthus nodded again, narrowed eyes glinting. “Looking to hire us your swords, are you?”

“Well, I’ve heard it’s either guard or raid for such as us,” Bahzell replied, “and I’ve no mind to take up brigands’ ways.”

“Well, that sounds honest enough,” Rianthus murmured, looking the immense Horse Stealer over from head to toe, “and no question you two could be useful. Assuming you haven’t taken up brigands’ ways already. We’ve had raiders try to put a man or two inside before, but it hasn’t helped ’em yet.”

“And a great relief to my mind that is,” Bahzell said politely, and Rianthus gave a crack of laughter.

“Aye, you’ll do-if you’re what you say.” He looked back at Brandark. “You’re the one with the name to drop, my lad, so suppose you tell me who might vouch for you?”

“I’m hoping Kilthan himself will.” Brandark’s reply raised the guard captain’s eyebrows, and the Bloody Sword shrugged. “My father and he have, um, done business a time or two in the past.” He tugged a ring off the forefinger of his left hand and held it out. “I think he’ll recognize this.”

“Will he, now?” Rianthus bounced the ring on his palm, then closed his fist around it with a grin. “You know, I’ve always suspected the old thief was just a tad less respectable than he claims. Wait here.”

He vanished into the office, and Bahzell glanced down at his friend.

“ ‘Done business,’ is it? And what sort of business might your revered father have been having with an Axeman dwarf?”

“Oh, a little of this and a little of that,” Brandark replied airily, then gri

He broke off as Rianthus reappeared in the doorway and beckoned. Bahzell raised a handful of reins at him, and the captain thumped one of his men on the shoulder and pointed. The guardsman-a shorter, chunky fellow-rose with ill grace and stumped over to the hradani. He took the reins with a surly grunt and stood holding them while Brandark and Bahzell moved to join Rianthus.

The door was a close fit for Bahzell, and the ceiling beyond was worse. Navahk had been bad enough for one of his stature, but at least it had been built to fit other hradani; the warehouse office hadn’t, and he fought a sense of claustrophobic enclosure as he hunched his shoulders and bent his neck to accommodate its cramped dimensions.