Oath of Swords

“Ah,” Bahzell said again, and exchanged glances with Brandark before he looked back at Wencit. “I’m hoping you won’t take this wrongly,” he said politely, “but I’m thinking I see where you’re headed, and twenty-to-one might be just a mite heavy odds for us to be keeping off your back while you satisfy your principles, Wencit.”

“I know,” Wencit said cheerfully, “but with the right help, you won’t be facing twenty-to-one odds.”

“And here I was thinking you’d just said you couldn’t use sorcery against nonwizards.”

“Oh, but I won’t use a single spell on them ,” Wencit said, and something in his smile was as cold as the falling snow.

Chapter Twenty-nine

The sentry huddled in the lee of a patch of scrub, hugging himself under his cloak while cataracts of white roared past. Storms this fierce were rare in these southern plains, and he stamped his feet and peered uselessly into the whirling snow devils. Visibility was as much as thirty yards between wind gusts, but such intervals were rare, and he swore balefully. Posting guards was pointless on a night like this, but there’d been no use arguing, and he swore again, this time at himself for ever having taken service with the Church of Carnadosa.

Black wizards were perilous paymasters at any time, for the same penalties applied to a black wizard’s hirelings as to himself. That meant the money was good, of course, yet his employers were being less open than usual this time, and the presence of assassins made him almost as uneasy as his ignorance of what was on their track. Carnadosa and Sharna were never comfortable allies, and anything that could bring their followers into alliance was bound to be risky.

The sentry knew he was only a hired sword to the Church, yet this was the first time his masters had refused to explain anything . They’d simply sent him and twenty others out to meet two of their number-and the dog brothers-in the middle of this howling wilderness, and the palpable anxiety which possessed the people they’d met was enough to make anyone nervous. Whatever was back there, it had inspired the travelers to push their horses dangerously close to collapse and post guards even in the heart of a blizzard, and the sentry was uncomfortably certain it was all somehow due to the presence of their prisoner. He didn’t know who she was, either, and he didn’t want to. The senior of his employers-a priest of Carnadosa, as well as a wizard-had her under some sort of compulsion that turned her into a walking corpse, something that moved pliantly and obediently and ate whatever was put into its mouth, yet the sentry had seen her eyes-once-and there was nothing dead about them. They burned with fury and a sort of desperate horror that set his nerves on edge and made him wish he’d never taken the money.

But he had, and wizards were bad masters to betray or desert . . . even if there’d been anywhere to desert to in this godsforsaken wasteland. No, he was stuck, and-

He never completed the thought. A towering, snow-shrouded form blended silently from the swirling whiteness behind him, a hand yanked his head back, a dagger drove up under his chin into his brain, and he never even realized he was dead.

Bahzell let the corpse slither down and wiped his dagger on its cloak. He resheathed the blade and drew his sword as two horses appeared out of the roaring, white-streaked darkness like a pair of ghosts, and he felt the hair stir on the back of his neck once more. Wencit of Rūm had a pedigree not even hradani could question, but that made him no less unca

The Horse Stealer’s thoughts broke off as his companions reached him and drew rein. Wencit rose in the stirrups, thrusting his head above the low-growing trees’ cover and peering into the roaring wind as if he could actually see. He stayed there for several minutes, turning his head to sweep his gaze back and forth across something visible only to him, then settled back and wiped snow from his beard. He tucked up the skirt of his poncho to clear his well-worn sword hilt, and Bahzell told himself it was only the cold that made him shiver as those wildfire eyes moved back to him.

“There are four more sentries!” Wencit had to shout to make himself heard above the gale. “The closest is about fifty yards that way!” He gestured off to the left, then shrugged. “I imagine they’ll take to their heels when they realize what’s happening, but watch your backs!”

Both hradani nodded grimly, and Brandark drew his own sword. Wencit didn’t, but then, if all went well, the wizard would have no use for steel tonight.

If all went well.

“Remember! So far I haven’t done anything to draw attention to myself, but the instant the spell goes up, the wizards at least will know I’m here! Leave them to me, but get to Zarantha as quick as you can!”

Bahzell nodded again. The wizards might prefer to use Zarantha’s death to raise power, but if their main goal was to prevent the creation of Spearmen magi, their hirelings would have orders to kill her to prevent her rescue.

“Ready?” Wencit demanded. Two more nods answered, though a corner of Bahzell’s mind shouted at him to get the hell out of this. Too much of their plan depended on a man they’d met only hours before, and whatever his reputation, Wencit was a wizard. But this was no time for second thoughts, and he stepped out around the edge of the scrubby trees into the teeth of the wind.

Brandark followed at his shoulder, and they moved confidently forward despite the howling near invisibility. They were all but blind, but Wencit had briefed them well. Bahzell had felt acutely uneasy when the wizard produced the polished stone he called a “gramerhain” and peered into it. The heart-sized crystal had flared and flickered even more brightly than Wencit’s eyes, blinding the hradani if they glanced at it too closely, but Wencit had stared intently into it for long, studious moments. Then he’d put it away and drawn an impossibly detailed diagram of the enemy’s camp in the snow. The wind should have blotted it out in a moment, but it hadn’t, and he’d taken them patiently through it again and again, until they knew it as intimately as the backs of their own hands. Bahzell might be uncomfortable with the way the information for that diagram had been obtained, yet he had to admit there seemed to be advantages to having a wizard on his side.

Assuming of course that Wencit truly was on his side.

He shook his head sharply, castigating himself for his doubts, but Fiendark take it, the man was a wizard . Twelve centuries of instant, instinctive hatred couldn’t be set aside in an instant, and-

The nagging undercurrent of thought broke off, and he touched Brandark on the knee as the ground began to angle downward before them. They stood at the lip of the deep, sheltered hollow their enemies had selected for their camp, and it was time.

Bahzell looked up at his friend for just a moment, seeing the echo of his own doubts on the Bloody Sword’s face, then gri

Hooves thudded beside him as Brandark spurred forward, and the Bloody Sword’s high, fierce yell answered his own war cry. Their voices should have been lost without a trace on such a night, but they weren’t. They couldn’t be, for they were answered and echoed from all sides, and suddenly there weren’t just two hradani charging down the slope. There were thirty of them, mounted and afoot alike, bellowing their fury, and even though he’d known it was supposed to happen, superstitious dread stirred deep inside Bahzell Bahnakson.