Oath of Swords

“Across Troll Garth and the Ghoul Moor,” Tharnatus confirmed. “The Scorpion will protect you, although,” he added thoughtfully, “it would certainly be wiser not to travel at night.”

“Tharnatus, I-” Harnak began, but a raised hand silenced him.

“The Scorpion requires this service,” the priest repeated, and Harnak sank back down into the pew while sweat beaded his brow. There was no recourse from that cold, inflexible demand, for if the Scorpion gave much, He could also demand much . . . and those of His servants who denied His demands would envy the sacrifices upon His altars before they died.

“Do not fear, My Prince,” Tharnatus said more gently. “The Scorpion’s sting shall be above you, and His pincers shall go on either hand. No creature of the Dark will dare defy his power.” He squeezed Harnak’s shoulder. “If there were more time, He would not send you into peril, even with His protection. Surely you must realize your value to Him, the hidden sting waiting at the heart of Navahk to destroy what His enemies like Bahnak would achieve here? But the upper Spear is frozen already; within weeks, the ice will reach as far south as the Lake of Storms, and should the greater servant fail, you must reach Bahzell and slay him quickly. The Horse Stealer must die, My Prince, both for your sake and the Scorpion’s, and His greater servants are but His pincers. You will be His sting, armed with His own power and mightier than any servant. He will see to it you reach Bahzell unharmed.”

“Of course.” Harnak summoned a smile. Even he knew how weak it was, but Tharnatus squeezed his shoulder again and nodded in approval.

“Good, My Prince! And remember the ritual to come. Yours may be a cold road, but at least we shall start you upon it warm and well fed.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

White flakes curtsied before Bahzell’s nose, then shot upward as a fist of wind snatched them away and plucked at his snow-clotted hood. He and Brandark had followed their targets into the fringes of the Darkwater Marshes, the vast stretch of hilly swamps stretching east from the river of the same name to the River of the Spear. The winter cold had hardened the ground and made their journey easier, for which he was grateful, but the clouds had thickened steadily through the three days since his . . . interview with Tomanāk, and now the iron-gray sky pressed down upon him like a bowl. It was only early afternoon, but the light was dim, and despite the occasional, moaning gusts, the air held a strange, furry stillness a northern hradani knew too well. The heavens were about to deluge them with snow, and he felt the relentless pressure of time, like a dire cat’s hot, damp breath on his neck.

But the tracks of Zarantha’s captors were clear enough for now-not that it was much comfort-and his breath steamed in a quiet, fervent curse as he knelt to examine the ground once more. Their enemies had snaked along ridge lines and hilltops through the swamp in a twisting, snakelike progress that slowed their pace still further, and the hradani had made up even more distance on them. But a second trail merged with the one they’d followed for so long, and the riders they were tracking had halted and dismounted here for some time before the newcomers joined them. The frozen surface soil had been kicked up in icy, snow-dusted clots, and Bahzell rose and shook his head as Brandark drew rein beside him.

“Well?”

“I’m thinking they’ve some way of sending word ahead of them after all,” Bahzell growled. “It’s clear enough they drew up here to wait on someone, and whoever it was never found them without knowing just where to be doing it.”

“How many, do you think?” Brandark asked, and Bahzell shook his head.

“I couldn’t be saying, not for certain, but it’s surprised I’ll be if they haven’t doubled their strength.”

“Phrobus!” Brandark swore, and Bahzell nodded, then scratched his chin.

“Still and all, Brandark, it might be worse.” His friend looked at him incredulously, and he shrugged. “There may be more of them, my lad, but they waited here long enough for us to be making up time. We’re no more than an hour-two at the outside-behind now.”

“Wonderful. When we catch them, you can take the twenty on the right while I take the twenty on the left . . . and hope those poxy wizards don’t turn us into cucumbers for our pains!”

“As to that, I’m thinking we’d best take whatever chance we get and hope,” Bahzell returned with a wave at the lazily spiraling flakes. “If we don’t hit them soon, we’ll have snow enough to hide an army’s tracks. They’re easy enough to follow now, but if snow once hides the trail and they’re after changing direction, we’ll be needing hours to find ’em again-if we ever do.”

“Better and better.” Brandark straightened in the saddle, sweeping the horizon through the slowly thickening veil of flakes, then sighed in glum agreement and looked back at the Horse Stealer.

“Any more sign of our friend?”

“Not since morning,” Bahzell replied, “but he was bound southwest, so I’m thinking he’s looped out around them again. He’s up ahead somewhere, waiting for them, though how he’s after doing it is more than I can guess.”

“Why should he make any more sense than the rest of this?” Brandark demanded, waving an arm at the hills and low-growing scrub that dotted the snowy, half-frozen marsh.

“Aye, you’ve a point there.” Bahzell stood absently picking clots of ice from his packhorse’s mane while he gazed ahead at the tracks before him. He and Brandark were within striking distance at last, but there were too many unknowns for him to be happy about it. Zarantha’s wizard captors had at least forty men with them now, and even if the hradani somehow took them totally by surprise, those were steep odds. Then there was the mystery rider who wasn’t a Sothōii, whatever he was mounted on. Tomanāk only knew what he was up to.

He snorted at his own choice of phrase. If Tomanāk was so all-fired anxious to secure his service, then why couldn’t he at least make himself useful by providing some of the information Bahzell lacked?

“Among other reasons,” a deep voice said in the recesses of his brain, “because you haven’t asked me.”

“Will you stop that?!” Bahzell snapped, and Brandark looked up in surprise, then swallowed and edged his horse carefully away. Bahzell saw him go, and the Bloody Sword’s painfully neutral expression made him still angrier. This wasn’t Tomanāk’s first communication since that night in the hollow, and Brandark had reacted far less calmly the first time Bahzell stopped dead to argue with empty air. It hadn’t taken him long to deduce who the Horse Stealer was really speaking to, yet he’d been very, very careful never to say a word about it. Bahzell supposed that was better than having his friend decide he was mad, but it didn’t feel that way.

“If you don’t want answers,” the deep, infuriatingly reasonable voice seemed to vibrate in his bones, “you shouldn’t ask questions.”

Bahzell drew a deep breath, exhaled half of it and held the rest, propped his hands on his hips, and glared up at the clouds.

“I wasn’t asking you a thing,” he said slowly and distinctly, “and it was in my mind as how you’d said you’d not plague me until I was after being ready to hear you?”

“I also said I’d be back,” Tomanāk’s silent voice pointed out, “and you did ask me a question, whether you realized it or not. As for being ready to hear, if you weren’t ready, you wouldn’t be able to.”

“D’you mean to say that any time one of your ‘champions’ is after even mentioning your name you come yammer in his ear?” Bahzell demanded, and a deep, echoing chuckle rolled through him.

“Not normally, no,” the god said after a moment. “Most mortal minds aren’t up to sustaining this sort of contact for long. Magi can handle more of it, but too much would burn out even one of them.”