Oath of Swords

“ ‘Resonate’?” Brandark repeated carefully, and Tothas nodded again.

“That’s the word Master Kreska used the one time he discussed it with me. You see, when someone follows another person, then a tiny bit of his energy is tied up with that person’s. It’s . . . well, it’s like a burning glass. Whenever you give allegiance to someone, that person is a focus for you, almost a part of you, and if you give allegiance willingly-because you trust or love them, not just because you must-the bond is stronger. D’you follow?”

Brandark and Bahzell nodded dubiously, and Tothas sighed.

“Well, when you’re a ruler-or a ruler’s heir-you’re the focus of a great many people’s energy. And when you’re a ruler like Duke Jashân-or Lady Zarantha-most of those people love and trust you. So if they can get her back onto Jashân land, back into range of all that energy, and then kill her-”

He broke off, biting his lip, and Bahzell squeezed his shoulder.

“All right,” the Horse Stealer said quietly. “From what you’ve said, I’m thinking you’re right. She’s alive so far, and they’ll be looking for a way to get her home, and that means we’ve still time to find her first.”

“Where do we start?” Brandark asked.

“Well, as to that, I’m minded to pay a little call on the baron,” Bahzell rumbled. “I’ve fair pumped that landlord dry, and from all he’s said, Dunsahnta can’t have above two score armsmen, and his ‘keep’s’ scarce more than a fortified manor house. Now wouldn’t it be a strange thing if such as we couldn’t get into a place like that if it so happened we’d a mind to?”

Neither of his companions seemed to find anything to object to in that statement, and he smiled.

“Now, it may be we’ll find Lady Zarantha clapped up in there somewhere, but, truth to tell, I’m thinking they’ll have started her off to the South Weald as soon as ever they could. They’ve no way to know what we’ll do, so they’ll try to get her home quick enough to outrun anything we might do.”

Tothas nodded unhappily, but Bahzell squeezed his shoulder again.

“Buck up, man. Unless they’ve some magical beastie to use for it, they’ve no choice but to move her by horse, wagon, or afoot. Just let me sniff out the way they’ve gone, and I’ll run them to ground before they make it.” Brandark nodded sharply, endorsing the Horse Stealer’s promise, and Bahzell’s eyes gleamed at Zarantha’s armsman.

“And, d’you know, Tothas, if I can but have a word with this Baron Dunsahnta-aye, or with one or two of his guardsmen-I’ll know exactly where to look for her.”

Chapter Twenty-three

A nail-paring moon floated in racing cloud wrack as Brandark and Tothas swung down from their horses under the leafless trees. Bahzell tied Zarantha’s mule to a branch and stood looking out from the woods at their objective, then turned his head as the other two stepped up beside him.

“You were right-it isn’t much of a keep,” Brandark murmured.

Bahzell grunted and returned his attention to Baron Dunsahnta’s home. Dunsahnta had never been a rich holding, despite its position on the main road north. The current baron’s father had won his title for service in the Spearman army that pushed the Empire’s borders up to the Blackwater River, but he’d never had the money to build a proper seat for his barony. Instead, he’d taken over the single fortified manor in the area and expanded it. In fairness to him, his military instincts had been sound, and his “keep” would have been a much nastier proposition if his son had maintained it properly.

The first baron had laid out an extended perimeter of earthen ramparts with angled bastions to let archers sweep the wall between them, and a deep ditch had been dug at the foot of the wall. He’d clearly never intended to hold that much wall solely with his own retainers; he’d built it to cover the entire population of Dunsahnta Village and all of his other subjects in time of war, and he would have expected them to help man the defenses.

His son, however, had let the earthworks crumble. Parts of them had eroded and slipped down into the ditch at their foot, providing breaches and bridges in one, and no one had brushed back the approaches in years. Some of the saplings out there were taller than Bahzell, and what should have been a clear killing zone for archery was waist high in undergrowth. It seemed the current baron had more important charges on his purse than sheltering his people against attack.

Still, he hadn’t totally neglected his security. The i

“There,” he said finally, pointing at the side gate.

“There?” Tothas sounded doubtful. “That’s a long way to go without being spotted, and you don’t really expect it to be unlocked, do you?”

“I can’t know till I’ve looked, now can I? And as for ‘a long way to go’-” Bahzell snorted. “I’ve crossed barer ground than yon against Sothōii sentries, Tothas! Against these lads, and with all that lovely brush, it’s after being no challenge at all, at all.”

“You’ve crossed?” Brandark asked sharply. “I don’t like the sound of that, Bahzell! You weren’t thinking of leaving us behind, were you?”

“So I was-and am.” Brandark started to protest, but Bahzell’s raised hand cut him off. “Hush, now! How’s a city boy like you to know his arse from his elbow when it comes to skulking in the shrubbery? Aye, and Tothas here’s naught but a great, thundering cavalryman! No, lads. This is a job for someone who knows how to move quick and quiet in the grass.”

Tothas started a protest, but he bit it back when Bahzell looked down at him. It would take only one of his harsh, strangling coughs to give them all away, and they both knew it, but Brandark was less easily silenced.

“Quick and quiet you may be, but there’s only one of you and forty of them. At least an extra pair of eyes could watch your back!”

“So they could, but it’s more useful the pair of you will be out here. It may just be I’ll be leaving a mite faster than I came, and if I am, there’s like enough to be someone following after. If there is, I’m thinking two men on horseback will seem at least a dozen in the dark.”

“Humpf!” Brandark brooded up at his friend, then sighed. “All right. All right! I don’t believe for a minute that’s your real reason, but go ahead. Hog all the fun!”

The grounds inside the earthworks weren’t quite as overgrown as those outside. Parts of the area, particularly around the manor’s front entrance, were actually landscaped, but less attention had been paid to its flanks, and Bahzell flowed from clump to clump of brush like winter fog.

He worked his way towards the side gate, but the sliver of moon broke from the clouds again as he started to slip out of the last underbrush. He dropped instantly back with a mental curse, but his curse became something else a moment later, for the faint moonlight glimmered on the dull steel of a helmet in the i