Oath of Swords

“All right, then.” Brandark gave a satisfied nod. “Cast your illusion using us as the focus, but set it to vanish or dissipate or whatever the Phrobus it does after three days. When it does, they’ll realize we’ve split up, but they can’t be certain exactly when or where we did it. They’ll have to divide their efforts to look for both of us-and when they do, they’ll probably split back into factions. The ones who want you and Zarantha will pull out to hunt for you and leave us alone, and the ones who want Bahzell and me will go on chasing us and leave you alone.”

He gazed at his companions with an air of triumph, and Bahzell and Wencit blinked at one another as they realized he was right. The best they could hope for was to divide their enemies’ attention, and Brandark’s suggestion was clearly their best chance to do just that. Silence lingered about the campfire, broken only by the background howl of the storm, and then Wencit sighed.

“All right. I don’t like it, but I’ll do it.”

Chapter Thirty-one

The treeline along the southern horizon had first appeared early that morning; by the time Bahzell and Brandark stopped at midday, it was clearly defined and far darker.

“Think we’ll make the woods by nightfall?” Brandark asked as he dismounted and stood rubbing his posterior.

“Aye.” Bahzell was rummaging in a pack saddle, but he looked up to squint at the trees. Wencit had provided them (by means Bahzell preferred not to consider too deeply) with the finest maps he’d ever seen. Unless his reading of them was sadly mistaken, that was the Shipwood, straddling the Spearmen’s border with the Purple Lords, and he was relieved to see it. Four days had passed since they parted from Wencit and Zarantha, and he’d been privately certain they’d never make it this far without being overtaken by someone .

It helped that the snow had melted so quickly after the blizzard. Indeed, Bahzell’s northern-bred weather instincts were a bit affronted by how rapidly it had vanished, not that he meant to complain. The hard freeze had lasted long enough for them to get free of the marshes, and if the soggy, mucky sod of the plains made less than pleasant hiking, it was infinitely preferable to horse belly-deep snow.

He found the cheese and dried meat he’d hunted for and let the saddle flap fall. Brandark had already unslung the big skin of beer they’d liberated from their enemies, and the two of them hunkered down to eat while they watched their animals browse on the muddy, winter-killed grass.

It had been an eerie sensation, those first three days, to see Wencit and Zarantha riding alongside them. Knowing they weren’t really there at all had made Bahzell uneasy at first, but his initial discomfort had faded into fascination with the sheer perfection of the illusion. The false warriors Wencit had conjured up for the attack on the wizards’ camp had been exquisitely detailed, but he hadn’t had time to pay those details much heed. This time he did, and his instinctive hatred for wizardry had turned into something very like awe as he studied them.

Wencit, he’d decided, was as much artist as wizard. The false Zarantha and Wencit never spoke to either hradani, but they carried on conversations of their own, and every nuance of tone and gesture was perfect. The immaterial images had left illusory hoofprints in the snow until it melted, and cast shadows at precisely the right angle as the sun moved. They cared for their equally unreal horses at each halt, ate from nonexistent plates beside the campfire, even developed fresh travel stains as they splashed across the muddy plains. Wencit had explained that Bahzell’s and Brandark’s perceptions were part of the spell, feeding back into the illusion to maintain its integrity and update its details, yet even so it had been difficult at times to remember that Zarantha and the wizard weren’t really with them.

Until yesterday morning, that was, when the spell abruptly died.

Bahzell had been looking straight at “Wencit” when it happened, and the wizard’s sudden disappearance had hit him like a fist. He’d known it was coming, but the illusion had been so real, so solid. It was as if the real Wencit had been snuffed from existence, and the Horse Stealer had felt an icy chill. It had been almost like an omen, a premonition of disaster poised to strike their distant companions, and the thought had been hard to throw off. He’d managed it finally by remembering the real Zarantha’s tearful farewell and her fierce demand that he and Brandark promise to visit her in Jashân before returning home. He’d used that memory like a talisman, proof that the phantom Zarantha who’d vanished with Wencit hadn’t been the real one, yet he still caught himself worrying about her at odd moments.

Like now. He snorted at himself and shook the worry away. There was nothing he could do if she was in trouble, and anyone with Wencit of Rūm to look after her had more help than most mortals could imagine asking for. Besides, he and Brandark had their own worries.

He cocked an eye at the sun while he chewed iron-hard jerky. They should make the trees with an hour of daylight to spare, he thought, and he’d be glad to get under their cover. He felt naked out here, more exposed than he’d ever felt on the Wind Plain, for the Sothōii didn’t use wizards to hunt for hradani raiders. Still, if Brandark’s plan had worked, any ill-intentioned wizards were probably bending their efforts on finding Wencit and Zarantha by now, which meant the two hradani had only their own enemies to deal with.

And it was just possible that they’d reduced those enemies’ numbers a bit. Not likely, but possible. They’d left their prisoners the more exhausted of the captured horses-more out of kindness to the beasts than to their riders, Bahzell admitted-and supplies for two or three weeks, and he’d taken time to issue a blunt warning to the senior of the four surviving dog brothers.

“I’m not after being a patient man,” he’d said in a flat, cold voice, “and by rights I should be cutting your throat, for we’re both knowing what would happen if the boot was on the other foot.” He’d seen the fear flickering behind the assassin’s eyes and snorted. “Don’t be brooding on it, for I’ll not do it. Instead, I’ve a message for your precious guild.”

He’d paused, frowning at the assassin until the man could endure the silence no longer and swallowed hard. “A message?” he’d asked, and Bahzell had nodded.

“Aye, a message. By my count, you’ve spent nigh on sixty men in trying to take my ears, and not a bit of luck have you had. Well, I’m minded to call it even if you are, but call off your hounds while you can, dog brother. You’ll find your gold hard earned before you bring me down-and I’ll not be so reasonable if it should happen I see another of your kind on my heels.” He’d smiled coldly. “So far I’ve done naught but defend myself, but if it should happen you’re minded to keep up the hunt, then I’ll be having a little hunt of my own-aye, and a mortal lot of other Horse Stealers with me. I’m thinking your guild won’t be so very happy at all, at all, if that happens.”

He’d given the suddenly pale assassin one more glare, then stalked away, and now he gri

They made even better time than Bahzell had estimated. He and Brandark still had three good hours of daylight when they reached the Shipwood and plunged into it, and they were just as glad they did. The shade of the forest’s towering trees had choked out the underbrush that could make second-growth woodland a trackless tangle, but it was dark and empty, cold and unwelcoming in its winter bareness.