Oath of Swords

The wind died. All movement ceased, and silence hovered, like a pause in the heartbeat of eternity, and then Tomanāk smiled down upon his newest champion. He withdrew his sword from Bahzell’s hands, and the hradani blinked as if waking from sleep. He stood a moment, then smiled back up at the god who had become his deity, and stooped to pick up the sword Brandark had recovered from under the demon’s corpse. He lifted it easily, then paused with an arrested expression and looked down at it, for it felt different in his hands.

He raised the blade to examine it, and his ears pricked in surprise. It was the same weapon it had always been, yet it weighed more lightly in his hands. The blade which had been forged of good, serviceable steel glittered with a new, richer shine in the War God’s light, and Tomanāk’s crossed sword and mace were etched deep into it, just below the quillons. He felt no quiver of power, no sudden surge of strength, yet somehow it had been touched by the same elemental perfection that imbued the god’s own sword, and he raised wondering eyes to Tomanāk’s.

“My champion bears my Sword, as well as his own, Bahzell, so I’ve made a few changes in it.”

“Changes?” An echo of a hradani’s instinctive distrust of all things arcane echoed in Bahzell’s voice, and Tomanāk smiled wryly.

“Nothing I think you’ll object to,” he soothed, and Bahzell’s ears tilted back. He frowned, and the god laughed out loud. “Oh, Bahzell, Bahzell! Not even single combat with a demon can change you, can it?”

“I’m sure I wouldn’t be knowing about such as that,” Bahzell said politely, but a gleam of amusement lit his own eyes, and he flicked his ears impudently. “But you were saying as how you’d made some ‘changes’ in my blade?”

“Indeed. First, of course, it bears my sign now, so that others may recognize it as a champion’s blade and know you for what you claim to be.”

“Claim to be, is it?” Bahzell stiffened his spine and cocked his head. “I’m thinking I’m not so pleased to be needing proof of my own word!”

“Bahzell,” Tomanāk replied, “you’re a hradani . The first hradani to become my champion in over twelve hundred years. It may seem unfair to you, but don’t you think a certain amount of, ah, skepticism is inevitable?”

Bahzell made a sound deep in his throat, and Tomanāk sighed.

“Will it make you feel any better to know that all of my champions’ swords bear my sign? Or do you want to stand here and argue about it all night?”

Bahzell flushed and twitched his ears, and Tomanāk gri

“Thank you. Now, about the other changes. For one thing, this blade is now unbreakable. For another, you’ll never drop it or lose it in battle-and no one else can wield it. In fact, no one else can even pick it up unless you choose to hand it to them. I trust you find none of that objectionable?”

The god asked the question with a sort of teasing humor, and Bahzell managed a smile in reply as he shook his head.

“Good, because that’s about all I did to it-aside from one other tiny thing most champions’ swords don’t do, of course.”

“Other thing?” Bahzell’s ears cocked once more, and Tomanāk gri

“Yes. You see, it comes when you call it.”

“It what? ” Bahzell peered up like someone awaiting the joke’s punchline, and Tomanāk’s grin grew broader.

“It comes when you call it,” he repeated. “It is the symbol of what you’ve become, Bahzell, and while I value my champions’ independence, it can make them a bit . . . fractious, shall we say? As a hradani, you may need to prove your status to your fellows a bit more often and conclusively than most, so I’ve given you a means to do just that by summoning your blade to you.”

Bahzell blinked once more, and Tomanāk’s grin became a smile that looked oddly gentle and yet not out of place on that stern, warrior’s face.

“And with that, Bahzell, I bid you good night,” he said, and vanished like a wind-snuffed candle.

Chapter Thirty-three

Crown Prince Harnak stood by the rail and wrapped his cloak more tightly about him as wind whipped across the steel-gray Spear River. The air was chill, if far warmer than it would have been at home in Navahk, and the deck still felt alien and threatening underfoot, yet it was infinitely better than the icy journey across the Ghoul Moor and Troll Garth had been.

He shivered, and not with cold, at the memory of that nightmare ride. His father had made no more than a token protest at his choice of routes. Indeed, Harnak suspected Churnazh would shed no tears if his firstborn son failed to return-so long as no one could blame him for it-but Harnak’s retainers had been another matter. They knew the perils of his proposed path as well as he did, and they’d lacked any promise of safety from Sharna.

He’d been less than reassured by that promise himself and understood why men he couldn’t even tell about it had been terrified, but understanding hadn’t made him patient. He’d taken out his own fear on them, lashing them with his contempt, reminding them of their oaths, driving them with such fury that they’d feared him more than the journey, and it had worked. They’d been surly and frightened as their horses forged through the snow, but none had dared protest, and his stature with them had grown as no attacks came. There’d been a night or two on the Ghoul Moor when they’d huddled in their blankets like terrified children, refusing to look at the things moving in the icy moonlight beyond their campfires, yet the Scorpion’s promise had held, and the journey to Krelik had been accomplished without incident.

Harnak had been in two minds about that. His relief upon reaching Krelik to find the promised ship waiting had been enormous, but the trip had given him too much time to brood over his mission.

The ceremony which bound the demon to its task had been all he’d dreamed of. The sacrifice had been even stronger than Tharnatus had hoped. Her shrieks had become gurgling, animal sounds of torment long before the end, yet she’d survived it all, right up to the moment the demon appeared to rip out her still-living heart. The sense of power, the echoes of his own hunger which had washed over him from the rest of the congregation, amplified by his own awe and terror at the raw might they’d summoned, had filled him with a towering confidence that their purpose must succeed.

And there’d been another moment, almost sweeter yet, when Tharnatus presented the consecrated blade to him, charged with the sacrifice’s very soul. Harnak hadn’t known exactly how Tharnatus meant to prepare the sword for its task, yet he’d expected it to be an anticlimax. Surely nothing could equal the towering power of seeing that monstrous demon bow to their command!

He’d been wrong. The demon had devoured the sacrifice’s life energy as the price of its service, but Harnak knew now that there was more than simple energy to life, for Tharnatus had trapped their victim’s very soul. Snatched it up before it could flee, and bound it into the cold, hard-edged steel soaked in her life’s blood. Harnak had felt her soul shriek in terror and agony worse even than the torture of her body as something else-a tendril of Sharna’s very essence-reached out like gloating quicksand to suck her into its embrace. He’d sensed the terrible instant when that soul broke and shattered, smashed into slivers of raw torment in the brief, endless moment before it became something else.

A key. A . . . doorway into another place and the path to an unspeakable well of power. The power, he’d realized shakenly, of Sharna Himself. The Scorpion’s own presence had filled the blade, and he’d felt it tremble at his side, alive and humming with voracity, as Tharnatus solemnly belted it about his waist. He’d touched the hilt and sensed the weapon’s yearning, its implacable purpose. It was impatient, that blade, eager to drink Bahzell’s blood and soul, whispering promises of invincibility to him, and the shadow of its power had descended upon him like dark, impenetrable armor.