Oath of Swords

He resumed his slow walk around their perimeter. Brandark had found a boulder to use as a heat reflector and slept between it and the fire with only his beaky nose poked out of his blankets. Rekah and Zarantha had pooled their bedrolls and body heat beside him, and Tothas, by common consent, had the warmest spot of all, in the low hollow with the fire itself. It was lonely, out here in the moaning night while the others slept, but Bahzell was grateful he was awake, not sleeping himself and prey to his maddening dreams. Frost squeaked under his boots as he moved still further from the fire, eyes searching the dark, and his mind was busy.

The dreams refused to release him. They besieged him night after night, until he dreaded the moment his eyes closed. Familiarity had worn the jagged edge of terror smooth, but the terror hadn’t gone away. It couldn’t. It was the demon he fought as Tothas fought his hacking spasms, and he was tired of it. So very, very tired. He closed his mind to the dreams, rejected them, pushed them out of memory with all his strength, yet still they plagued him, laughing at his efforts to outrun them. There was no mercy in them . . . and nowhere he could hide from them.

He sighed heavily, then stiffened as a boot scuffed behind him. He whirled, reaching for his sword, then relaxed.

“I was thinking you were asleep,” he said.

“I was.” Tothas’ voice was raspy, as if he hovered on the brink of one of his coughing fits, but his face was calm in the starlight. He’d wrapped a blanket over his cloak, and he stepped past the hradani to sit on another boulder, drawing the blanket tighter about him, and shivered.

“A bitter night,” he said quietly. “Not much good for sleeping anyway, I suppose.”

“Aye, but not so bitter as we’ll be seeing soon enough,” Bahzell replied in a tone of quiet grimness.

“No, not that bitter.” Tothas gazed at the toes of his boots for a long, silent moment, then raised his eyes once more. “You’re troubled by your dreams, Bahzell,” he said in the soft voice of a man making a simple statement, and the hradani stiffened, ears half-flat, and looked down at him. A minute passed, then two, and Tothas only gazed back up at him and waited.

“Aye.” Bahzell cleared his throat. “Aye, I am that. I’d hoped you’d not notice.”

“I don’t think Rekah or Lady Zarantha have. I’m not sure about My Lady-she sees things others miss-but I don’t sleep so well these days.” Tothas allowed himself a small smile. Not bitter or resentful, but one of what might almost have been wry amusement. “I’ve heard you muttering in your sleep. I don’t speak your language, but I know trouble when I hear it, and I thought-”

He shrugged, but his invitation hovered, and Bahzell sighed and sat beside him. He placed himself to cut the wind that tugged at Tothas’ blanket without even realizing he had and rubbed his chin in thought, then sighed again.

“Aye, it’s trouble you’ve heard. No, let’s be honest; it’s fear,” he admitted, and it was amazingly easy to confess it to this man.

“Why?” Tothas asked simply, and Bahzell told him. He told him everything, even things he’d never told Brandark. Of course, Brandark was hradani. He’d understood the terror those dreams held without telling, but there were depths of fear Bahzell had never been able to expose to his friend. Not in so many words. Not with the honesty with which he revealed it to Tothas there in the windy blackness.

The Spearman heard him out without comment, other than a thoughtful frown as Bahzell described Jothan Tarlnasa’s appearance at Derm and a smothered chuckle at the way Tarlnasa had left the barge. But when the hradani ran out of words at last and sat staring down at his empty fists, Tothas cleared his throat and laid a hand on Bahzell’s knee.

“I understand your fear, Bahzell,” he said. “I don’t suppose I would have if you hadn’t explained it-you and Brandark are the first hradani I’ve ever met, and we in the South Weald know little about your people. The West Weald and Border Weald run up against the Broken Bone hradani; they may know more, but all most Spearmen know of them are the old tales of the Fall, and I’ve never heard them from the hradani side. What was done to you-what you call the Rage-” He shook his head, and his hand tightened on Bahzell’s knee. Then he released it with a pat and rose.

“We all lost in the Fall,” he said, standing with his back to the Horse Stealer, his voice frayed by the wind. “We were all betrayed, yet none, I think, so badly as you. So, yes, I understand your fear. But-” he turned back “-perhaps there’s no need for it. Dreams need not be evidence of fresh betrayal, and the fact that this Tarlnasa fellow is undoubtedly an idiot doesn’t make him a liar. It may truly be the gods speaking to you.”

“Aye.” Bahzell rose to stare out into the night beside him. “I’ve thought on that. I’ll not deny it was in my mind at first that it was some poxy wizard, but my folk remember a thing or two about wizards. Old wives’ tales maybe, but we’ve not forgotten what was done to us, and I’m thinking this thing’s lasted too long for such as that. Aye, and it’s grown no weaker, and it should have, with the leagues I’ve put behind me since it started. I suppose it’s grateful I should be if it’s not, but that’s not the way of it. The Dark Gods have brought naught but ruin to my folk, and as for the Gods of Light-”

He clenched his jaw, staring into the dark until his eyes ached, then looked down at the Spearman, and his voice was harsh and ugly.

“I’ve no use for gods, Tothas. Those of the Dark may torment my folk, but at least they’re honest about it! And what have the precious ‘good ’ gods ever done for me or mine? Did they help us? Or did they leave us to rot when the other Races of Man turned their backs to us for things we never chose to do? Evil-aye, that I can be understanding, but where’s the use in gods that prate of how ‘good’ they are yet do naught at all, at all, for those as need it, and why should I be giving a fart in Phrobus’ face for them?!”

Silence stretched out between them once more, and then Tothas sighed.

“A hard question,” he said, “and one I can’t answer. I’m no priest, only a warrior. I know what I believe, but I’m not you, not a hradani.”

The sorrow in his voice shamed Bahzell somehow. The Horse Stealer bit his lip and laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“Tell me what you believe,” he said so softly it surprised him.

“I believe there are gods worth following,” Tothas said simply. “I don’t understand all that happens in the world, but I know evil could never flourish without the Races of Man. It’s us , Bahzell-we’re the ones who turn to the Dark or the Light, choose which we’ll serve. Good people may do terrible things through fear or foolishness or stupidity-even spite-but what if there were no ‘good’ people? What if there were never anyone to take a stand, to say, ‘No, this is evil, and I will not allow it!’?”

“And who’s been saying that for my folk?” It should have come out bitter and filled with hate, but somehow it didn’t.

“No one.” Tothas sighed. “But perhaps that’s the reason for your dreams-had you thought of that? You say you’ve no use for gods, Bahzell. Aren’t there any you could think worthy of your service?”

“None.” Bahzell grunted. He cocked his head, looking down at the Spearman, and his tone softened once more. “You’re after being a good man, Tothas.” The Spearman flushed and started to shake his head, but the hradani’s voice stopped him. “Don’t be shaking your head at me-and don’t think it’s in my mind to flatter you. You’re no saint, and a dead pain in the arse a saint would be in the field, I’m thinking! But you’ve guts, and loyalty, and a readiness to understand, and those are things even a murdering hradani can value. But-” Bahzell’s deep voice rumbled even softer, gentle yet unflinching “-I’m knowing how sick you are, what it is that loyalty’s costing you. So tell me, Tothas-what god is it you serve, and why?”