Oath of Swords

He raised an eyebrow, as if to ask if they followed him, and they nodded silently.

“But changes in living creatures are more complex. Life is ongoing, eternally changing and becoming, and when the dark wizards made your people fodder for their armies, they forced a change even more profound than they realized. They changed your basic matrix, the factors which control your heredity. That’s why the Rage has bred true among hradani . . . but it’s no longer the Rage they intended you to have.”

He fell silent, and Bahzell scratched the tip of one ear and frowned. He glanced at Brandark, who looked as puzzled as he felt, then back at Tomanāk.

“Begging your pardon, but I’m not understanding.”

“I know.” Tomanāk gazed down at the Horse Stealer, then raised one hand to gesture at the demon’s carcass. “The dark wizards intended you and your people to be no more than that demon was: ravening beasts with an unstoppable lust to kill. And, for a time-a very long one, as mortals reckon it-that was what the Rage made you. What it still makes some of you. But what happens when you give yourself to the Rage, Bahzell?”

The Horse Stealer flushed, recalling the shameful seduction of the Rage’s power and focused passion, but Tomanāk shook his head.

“No, Bahzell,” he said gently. “I know what you think happens, but the Rage doesn’t make you a killer when you embrace it . . . because it isn’t really ‘the Rage’ at all.”

Bahzell blinked, and Brandark jerked upright beside him.

“Not-?” the Horse Stealer began, and Tomanāk shook his head once more.

“No. It’s similar to the Rage, and it springs from the same changes wizardry wrought in you, but it’s quite different. Perhaps your people will think of another name for it in years to come, as you learn more about it and yourselves. You see, the Rage controls those it strikes without warning, but you control it when you summon it to you. It becomes a tool, something you can use at need, not something that uses you .”

Bahzell stiffened in shock, and Tomanāk nodded, but there was a warning note in his voice when he continued.

“Don’t mistake me. Even when you control it, the Rage remains a deadly danger. Just as wizardry, it’s the use to which it’s put which makes it ‘good’ or ‘evil.’ A man who knowingly summons the Rage to aid him in a crime is no less a criminal-indeed, he becomes a worse criminal than one whom the Rage maddens against his will-and the old Rage, the one the wizards intended, is far from dead among your people. It’s dying. In time, it will be no more than a memory, but that time lies many years from now, and there will always be those, like Churnazh and Harnak, who glory in destruction and use it to that end. But for the rest of your people, as you learn to control and use it-as you used it today, Bahzell-the Rage will become a gift, as well.”

Bahzell inhaled deeply. What Tomanāk had said seemed impossible. For as long as hradani could remember, the Rage had been their darkest shame, their most bitter curse. How could something which had cost them so much, made them monsters to be shu

Yet even as he thought that, his mind spun back over the handful of times he’d summoned the Rage, and the first, faint ghost of belief touched him. He’d never really thought about it, he realized. He’d been too ashamed, too frightened by it . . . and he’d never summoned it except in battle. It was too powerful a demon to be unchained unless his very survival left him no choice, and he’d always locked the chains back about it as quickly as he could.

And because he had, he’d never realized it wasn’t the destruction of the Rage that tempted him at all. It was the exaltation, the focus, the sense that in its grip he became all that he could possibly be. He’d simply never considered using that power and focus for anything other than warfare, and he sucked in a deep breath of total shock as he realized that he could. That it didn’t have to be used for destruction.

That his people held in their own hands the power to free themselves of their ancient curse at last.

“I-” He stopped and drew another breath. “I’m thinking I’ll need time, and not a little of it, to be understanding all you’ve said,” he said, and his voice was unwontedly hesitant. “Yet if it’s true . . .”

He trailed off, and Tomanāk nodded once more.

“It’s true, Bahzell, and it will be one of your tasks to teach your people that. Yes, and to remind them that swords have two edges, that they must evolve new laws to govern the use of the Rage and punish those who abuse it. As Ottovar once taught wizards to restrain their power, so your people must learn to restrain theirs, and the learning won’t be easy.”

“No,” Bahzell said softly. “No, I can be seeing that.”

“I know,” Tomanāk said gently. “It was one reason I chose you-and hoped you would choose me, in turn. And now,” the god’s voice turned brisker, “since it seems you have chosen me, are you prepared to swear Sword Oath to me, Bahzell Bahnakson?”

The sudden question wrenched the Horse Stealer’s mind from the stu

And so he gazed at the glowing shape before him, and nodded.

“Aye. I am that,” he said softly, and Tomanāk smiled and reached up over his shoulder and drew his own sword.

It was a plain, utilitarian weapon, its hilt devoid of gold or gems, its blade unmarked by inlay work, yet it needed none of those things. It was tall as Bahzell himself, and it turned every sword he’d ever seen into flawed, imperfect copies, as if its forging had included every essential element of the very concept of “sword”-and excluded every non essential. It was no prince’s plaything, no sword of state. It was a weapon, borne by a warrior and a leader of warriors.

Tomanāk’s nimbus glowed higher, licking out to touch the trunks and branches of the trees about the hill as he held the mirror-bright blade in his hands. He extended the hilt to Bahzell, and the hradani licked his lips and steeled himself to lay his own hands upon that plain, wire-bound pommel. Something crackled under his fingers, like a living heart of electricity, a leashed echo of the raw power he’d felt from his own blade as he charged the demon, and a patina of the god’s own light flickered about him as Tomanāk looked gravely down at him.

“Do you, Bahzell Bahnakson, swear fealty to me?”

“I do.” Bahzell said, and Brandark swallowed beside him, for his friend’s voice was a firm, quiet echo of the god’s subterranean rumble. There was a kinship between them, almost a fusion, and Brandark felt both awed and humbled and strangely excluded as he watched and listened.

“Will you honor and keep my Code? Will you bear true service to the Powers of Light, heeding the commands of your own heart and mind and striving always against the Dark as they require, even unto death?”

“I will.”

“Do you swear by my Sword and your own to render compassion to those in need, justice to those you may be set to command, loyalty to those you choose to serve, and punishment to those who knowingly serve the Dark?”

“I do.”

“Then I accept your oath, Bahzell Bahnakson, and bid you take up your blade once more. Bear it well in the cause to which you have been called.”