Oath of Swords

Supper was as delicious as it smelled, and no one seemed inclined to sit up afterward. They’d covered forty miles from Riverside, and all of them were fatigued, but the possibility that ni’Tarth might have sent someone after them only reinforced Bahzell’s inherent caution. No one argued his decision to set watches, but Tothas started to protest when Bahzell divided the task into thirds and asked Zarantha and Rekah to take the third watch without assigning him to one . . . until a single quiet sentence from Zarantha shut his mouth with a snap. Bahzell longed to know just what she’d said, but the fast, liquid sentence was in some dialect not even Brandark recognized. Whatever it was, it worked, and Tothas wrapped himself in his blankets without another word.

The night was uneventful-aside from the usual, chaotic dream fragments that tormented Bahzell-but a quiet, horrible rasping sound pulled the Horse Stealer awake with the dawn. He rolled over and sat up, and his ears lowered in shocked sympathy as he saw its source.

Tothas sat hunched in his bedroll, coughing as if to bring his lungs up while Rekah watched anxiously and Zarantha sat beside him. The Spearman fought his bitter, convulsive coughs, strangling his sounds against a white-knuckled fist, and Zarantha held his wasted body in her arms. One hand cupped the back of his head, urging his cheek against her shoulder, and quiet agony had replaced her usual smiling deviltry. Her hands were gentle as she murmured encouragement into his ear, and tears gleamed in her eyes as she met the Horse Stealer’s gaze. There was anger with the anguish in those eyes-not at Bahzell, but at whatever had wreaked such ruin on Tothas-and a silent plea, and the hradani gazed back at her in silence for a long moment. Then he nodded slowly, laid back down, and turned his back while Tothas fought his lonely battle.

The armsman coughed with wracking desperation for at least fifteen minutes before he could stop, but his face showed no sign of it when Bahzell stopped pretending to sleep twenty minutes later, and if he was a little slower as he saddled his horse the next morning, Bahzell didn’t begrudge the time. He couldn’t. Zarantha might play whatever role she pleased, but her devotion to her armsman disarmed his distrust. And his heart went out to Tothas’ gallantry when the Spearman finally mounted as if nothing at all had happened, with a refusal to ask for quarter any hradani could respect.

They stopped in Kor Keep for supplies.

They were too poor for the gouging hradani would invite, so Bahzell and Brandark sent the humans off with their skimpy funds, and Zarantha did far better than they’d dared hope. She returned with the pack mule loaded heavily enough to fold its ears resentfully back, and managed it for barely a third of the contents of Brandark’s purse. The Bloody Sword gave Bahzell one look, then handed the purse back to her and made her their official treasurer.

She’d managed to pick up a few extra blankets and enough sacked grain to eke out their animals’ grazing, as well, and Bahzell actually began to feel a bit optimistic. Nothing could keep the journey from being unpleasant, but it seemed there were advantages to traveling with a poverty-stricken noblewoman. At least she seemed to have learned to pinch kormaks until they squealed!

The weather remained clear for the next few days, but the nights grew steadily chillier, and Tothas was obviously in constant pain. Yet aside from an occasional coughing fit-few, mercifully, as terrible as that first one-he neither slowed them nor once complained, and Bahzell soon realized he’d never met a braver man. The Spearman’s illness was a more exhausting-and frightening-battle than the Horse Stealer had ever faced, yet Tothas fought it with unflinching courage, and Bahzell was startled by his own pride on the day he discovered he could call this man a friend.

It was easier than he’d expected when Zarantha first entrapped him. Tothas spoke seldom, but what he said made sense. More, his absolute devotion to Zarantha was the sort of loyalty hradani could appreciate, and his unwavering, uncomplaining gallantry won Brandark’s heart, as well as Bahzell’s.

Yet there was something more to Tothas, something in his attitude, and they were past Kor Keep on the way to the Duchy of Carchon before it dawned on the Horse Stealer what that something was. The Spearman had never looked at him and seen a hradani; he’d seen only a man, to be judged on his own merits, without prejudice or preconception.

It was the first time anyone-even Hartan-had done that since he’d left Navahk, and a small, ignoble part of him resented it, as if Tothas’ acceptance were a sort of secret condescension. That shamed him when he recognized it, for Tothas never condescended. Indeed, he held others to high standards-the same ones he held himself to-and his was no hasty judgment. He’d watched both hradani for days before he decided about them; once he had, he accepted Bahzell’s leadership with the same unwavering support, if not the same devotion, he gave Zarantha.

He trusted the two hradani, and that trust was a two-edged sword. When one was trusted, one must prove worthy of being trusted, and Bahzell knew Tothas’ trust had transformed an arrangement forced upon him by expediency into something far more constraining. But there was a curious satisfaction in the transformation, a sense of belonging, of doing something worth the doing because those doing it with him were good people.

And they were good people, despite whatever secret they hid.

However rough the road, however tired Zarantha might be, Bahzell had yet to hear her first complaint, and she and Brandark had joined forces to keep his own life from becoming boring. She was actually helping the Bloody Sword refine his accursed composition. The two of them shared their labors with the others most nights, but at least Brandark let her do the singing.

Rekah was more mercurial, and she had her bad days, especially as the nights grew colder. But she did her part and a bit more, and however grumpy she might be of an evening, she was always up early, always ready for the next day, be it ever so grueling.

And then there was Tothas-a man, Bahzell had realized, who knew he was dying in the saddle. That was the reason he described the roads ahead so carefully. He’d chosen the hradani as his successor, the man who would see Zarantha safely home if he himself could not, for he was a man who would do his duty to the end, whatever that end was, and that , Bahzell realized, was what truly drew him so strongly to the Spearman.

No wonder Zarantha was so fiercely devoted to her armsman. No wonder she held him in her arms when he woke coughing and watched him with hidden hurt as they rode. She might laugh at Brandark’s sallies or tease the others to hide her pain, but that, Bahzell knew, was because it would have shamed Tothas if she hadn’t-and understanding how deeply she cared for her armsman touched the Horse Stealer with fear whenever he tried to guess what drove her to lead a dying man she loved into the teeth of winter.

A cold wind moaned in the leafless scrub of the lonely Carchon Hills. They were near the top of the range; tomorrow they would start down to the border between Korwin and Carchon, and Bahzell hoped they’d find warmer weather when they did. The picketed horses and mules stood silent under frost-glazed blankets, cold stars glittered pitilessly, and he shivered as he returned to the fire to build it back up. He’d been colder than this, but that didn’t mean he liked it, and it was only going to get worse from here.

Flames crackled about the fresh wood, and he kept his head turned to preserve his night vision. He had no reason to anticipate trouble-they were well beyond ni’Tarth’s reach, and these hills were all but unpopulated-but trouble had a way of coming without sending word ahead, and he had no mind to be fire-dazzled if it did.