Oath of Swords

“Please, M’lord!” Her raised hand shut his mouth with a snap. “The point is that you don’t have to leave together. All the servants know how you creep in and out to visit Lord Brandark.” His eyes widened, and she shook her head impatiently. “Of course they do! So if they see you, they’ll assume that’s all you’re doing and look the other way, as always. And the guards are less likely to challenge you if you’re by yourself, as well. True?”

“Aye, that’s true enough,” he admitted slowly.

“In that case, the thing to do is for you to go out through the back ways while Farmah walks right out the front gate, M’lord.”

“Are you daft?! They’ll never let her pass with that face, woman! And if they do, they’ll guess who marked her the moment someone finds Harnak!”

“Of course they will.” Tala glared up at his towering inches and shook her head. “M’lord,” she said with the patience of one addressing a small child, “they’ll guess that anyway when they find her missing, so where’s the sense in pretending otherwise when leaving separately gives you both the chance to pass unchallenged, at least as far as the city gate?”

“Aye,” Bahzell rubbed his chin once more, “there’s some sense in that. But look at her, Tala.” Farmah had sagged once more, leaning against the door frame for support. She stiffened and forced herself back upright, and he shook his head gently. “It’s nothing against you, Farmah, and none of your fault, but you’ll not make the length of the hall without help.”

“No, M’lord, she won’t . . . unless I go with her.” Bahzell gaped at the housekeeper, and Tala’s shrug was far calmer than her eyes. “It’s the only way. I’ll say I’m taking her to Yanahla-she’s not much of a healer, but she’s better than the horse leech they keep here for the servants!”

“And if they ask what’s happened to her?” Bahzell demanded.

“She fell.” Tala snorted once more, bitterly, at his expression. “It won’t be the first time a handsome servant wench or slave has ‘fallen’ in this place, M’lord. Especially a young one.” Her voice was grim, and Bahzell’s face tightened, but he shook his head once more.

“That may get you out, but it won’t be getting you back in, and when they miss Farmah-”

“They’ll miss me, too.” Tala met his gaze with a mix of desperation and pleading. “I have no one to keep me here since my son died, and I’ll try not to slow you outside the city, but-” Her voice broke, and she closed her eyes. “Please , M’lord. I’m . . . I’m not brave enough to run away by myself.”

“It’s no sure thing we’ll have the chance to run,” Bahzell pointed out. Her nod was sharp with fear but determined, and he winced inwardly. Fiendark knew Farmah alone was going to slow him, and if Tala was uninjured, she was no spry young maid. He started to refuse her offer, then frowned. True, two city women would be more than twice the burden of one, under normal circumstances, but these weren’t normal.

He studied her intently, measuring risk and her fear against capability and the determined set of her shoulders, and realized his decision was already made. He couldn’t leave her behind if she helped Farmah escape, and her aid would more than double their chance to get out of the palace. Besides, the girl would need all the nursing she could get, and if he could get the two of them to Chazdark, then he could-

His eyes brightened, and he nodded.

“Come along, then, if you’re minded to run with us. And I’ll not forget this, Tala.” She opened her eyes, and he smiled crookedly. “I’m thinking my thanks won’t matter much if they lay us by the heels, but if they don’t, I’m minded to send Farmah to my father. She’ll be safe there-and so will you.”

“Thank you, M’lord,” Tala whispered, and he wondered if he would ever have had the courage to trust anyone after so many years in Navahk. But then she shook herself with some of her old briskness and touched his arbalest with a faint smile. “You seemed none too happy to leave this behind, M’lord. Suppose I bundle it up in a bag of dirty linen and have one of the serving men carry it around to meet you outside the palace?”

“Can you trust them?” Bahzell asked, trying to hide his own eagerness, and her smile grew.

“Old Grumuk wanders in his mind, M’lord. He knows where the servants’ way comes out-he taught it to me himself, before his wits went-but he’ll ask no questions, and no one ever pays any heed to him. I think it’s safe enough. I’ll pass the word to him as we leave; by the time you can make your way out, he’ll be waiting for you.”

The creeping trip through the palace’s decaying core took forever. The slaves who used the passages to sneak in and out for what little enjoyment they might find elsewhere had marked them well, once a man knew what to look for, but Bahzell had never tried them armored and armed and they’d never been built for someone his size in the first place. There were a few tight spots, especially with the sword and rucksack on his back, and two moments of near disaster as teetering stone groaned and shifted, but it was the time that truly frightened him. Likely enough Harnak would never wake again, given that dent in his skull, but if he did, or if he was found, or if Tala and Farmah had been stopped after all-

Bahzell lowered his ears in frustration and made himself concentrate on his footing and how much he hated slinking about underground at the best of times. That was a more profitable line of thought; it gave him something to curse at besides his own stupidity for mixing in something like this. Fiendark only knew what his father would have to say! The world was a hard place where people got hurt, and the best a man could do was hope to look after his own. But even as he swore at himself, he knew he couldn’t have just walked away. The only thing that truly bothered him-aside from the probability that it would get him killed-was whether he’d done it to save Farmah or simply because of how much he hated Harnak. Either was reason enough, it was just that a man liked to feel certain about things like that.

He reached the last crumbling passage and brightened as he saw daylight ahead, but he also reached up to loosen his sword in its sheath before he crept the last few yards forward. If Tala had been stopped, there might already be a company and more of the Guard waiting up ahead.

There wasn’t. Steel clicked as he slid the blade back home, and the aged slave squatting against a moss-grown wall looked up with a toothless grin.

“And there ye be, after all!” Old Grumuk cackled. “Indeed, an’ Tala said ye would! How be ye, M’lord?”

“Fine, Grumuk. A mite muddy about the edges, but well enough else.” Bahzell made his deep, rumbling voice as gentle as he could. The old man was the butt of endless blows and nasty jokes, and his senile cheerfulness could vanish into whimpering, huddled defensiveness with no warning at all.

“Aye, them tu

He broke off, muttering to himself, and Bahzell stifled a groan. The old man could run on like this for hours, filling even the most patient (which, Bahzell admitted, did not include himself) with a maddening need to shake or beat some sense into him. But there was no longer any sense to be beaten, so he crouched and touched Grumuk’s shoulder, instead. The muttering mouth snapped instantly shut, and the cloudy old eyes peered up at him.

“D’ye have summat fer me, M’lord?” he wheedled, and Bahzell shook his head regretfully.

“Not this time, granther,” he apologized, “but I’m thinking it may be you have something for me?”

The old man’s face fell, for Bahzell knew how he hungered for the sweetmeats a child might crave and often carried them for him, but he only shook his head. His life was filled with disappointments, and he dragged out a huge, roughly woven sack. Bahzell’s eyes lit as he unwrapped the dirty clothing Tala had wadded around the arbalest and ran his fingers almost lovingly over the wooden stock and steel bow stave, and Grumuk cackled again.