by David Weber
"A journey?" Brandark's voice sharpened. "You're supposed to go somewhere?"
"It's damned I'll be if I go anywhere for a sneaking, crawling dream I'm not even recalling!" Bahzell snapped, and Brandark raised a hand in quick apology.
"I didn't mean it that way. What I meant to ask was if the dream wants you to go somewhere?"
"Aye, that's it!" Bahzell's spine snapped straight and he planted his fists on his hips and turned to glare into the black and silver night. "The curst thing does want me to go somewhere."
"Where?" Brandark asked intently, and Bahzell growled in frustration.
"If I was knowing that, then I'd know what the damned thing is wanting of me when I get there!" he snarled, but then his rumbling voice went even deeper and his ears flattened. "And yet . . ."
He jerked his hands from his hips and began to prowl back and forth once more, pounding a fist into his palm while he stared at the grass. Brandark sat silently, letting him pace, feeling the intensity of his thought, and his stride gradually slowed. He came to a complete halt, rocking on his heels, then turned and looked sharply at the Bloody Sword.
"Wherever it is," he said flatly, "I'm on the road to it now."
"Phrobus!" Brandark whispered. "Are you certain of that?"
"Aye, that I am." Bahzell's voice was grim and stark, and Brandark swallowed. He'd never heard quite that note from his friend. It was like rock shattering into dust, and something inside him shuddered away from it in fear while silence hovered between them once more.
"What do you want to do?" he asked finally.
"I've no taste for destinies and such." Bahzell was still grim, but there was something else, as well. He'd recognized the foe, at least in part, and the elemental stubbornness of all hradanikind was rousing in defiance. "I've worries enough for a dozen men as it is, and `destinies' and `quests' will get a man killed quick as quick," he said harshly. "And if I spoke of gods, well, no god's done aught for our folk since the Fall, so there's no cause I can see to be doing aught for them."
Brandark nodded in heartfelt agreement, and square, strong teeth flashed in a fierce, moonlit grin as Bahzell returned the nod with interest.
"And if it's not some poxy god creeping round my dreams, then it's like enough some filthy wizard, and I'll see myself damned to Krahana's darkest hell before I raise hand or blade for any wizard ever born." There was a dreadful, iron tang in that, and Brandark nodded again.
"But how do you keep from doing what they want when you don't know what it is?" he asked slowly.
"Aye, there's the rub." Bahzell scrubbed his palms on his thighs, then shrugged. "Well, if it's on the road I am, then I'm thinking it's best I step aside."
"How?"
"By going where I'd never planned. If some cursed god or wizard's set himself on having me, then I'll just take myself somewhere he's not after expecting me to be."
"All of this means something?" Brandark asked with a trace of his normal tartness, and Bahzell chuckled nastily.
"So it does, my lad. So it does. Look you, all this time I've been heading west, with never a thought of going anywhere else. Soon or late I have to let Father know my whereabouts, but until I do, he can be telling Churnazh—aye, or anyone else who asks—he's no knowledge where I am. I've been minded to follow Kilthan clear to Manhome and see a wee bit of the Empire of the Axe before I get in touch with him again, but now I'm damned if I will."
"You can't just leave," Brandark objected, and Bahzell shook his head sharply.
"Old Kilthan's deserving better of me than that, but we've never told him we'd go clear to Manhome. No, I'm thinking I'll stay with him to Riverside. From there he'll be in the Kingdom of Angthyr, and that's an Axeman ally and safe enough for merchants, from all I hear. He'll have little need of my sword after that . . . and I'll be far enough from Navahk not to worry about steel in my back some dark night."
"In our backs, you mean."
Bahzell cocked his ears once more, studying his friend intently, then shook his head.
"I'm thinking you should stay clear of this," he said quietly. "It's one thing to be twisting Churnazh's nose—aye, and even to risk your neck for naught more than friendship. But this is none of your making, and it might just be your neck is the least thing you could be losing. Stay with Kilthan, Brandark. It's safer."
"Listen, I know you don't like my singing, but you don't have to go to such lengths to get rid of it."
"Leave off your jesting now! There's a time and a place for it, but not here. Not now! Against Churnazh and his lot—aye, or anything else we could feed steel till it choked—I'd take you at my side and be glad of it. But dreams and destinies . . ." Bahzell shook his head again. "Stay clear of it, Brandark. Stay clear and let it pass."
"Sorry, but I can't do that." Brandark stood and slapped his friend on the shoulder. "For all you know, I'm already caught up in it."
"Oh? And what have your dreams been like?" Bahzell demanded with awful irony, and the Bloody Sword laughed.
"I haven't had any—yet! But if you're busy running in the opposite direction, whatever it is might decide to pick on the single hradani who's still headed the right way, and then where would I be? If that's the case, then the safest place I could possibly be would be running right beside you."
"That," Bahzell said after a moment, "is most likely the most addlepated, clod-headed excuse for logic I've ever heard."
"Being rude won't help you. I thought it up, and I'll stick by it. You know how stubborn hradani are."
"Aye, so I do." Bahzell sighed. He gripped the smaller man by the upper arms and shook him—gently for a hradani. "You're a fool, Brandark Brandarkson. A fool to come after me from Navahk, and three times a fool if you dabble in this. It'll likely be the death of you, and not a pretty end!"
"Well, no one ever said you were smart," Brandark replied, "and, if the truth be known, I don't suppose anyone actually ever said I was."
"If they did, they lied." Bahzell gave him one last shake, then sighed again. "All right, if you're daft enough to be coming, then I suppose I'm daft enough to be glad for the company."
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The heavy wooden chair back flew apart. The stubs of its uprights stood like broken teeth, and then they, too, flew apart as the sword thundered down between them and split the seat. Splinters hissed, and Harnak of Navahk screamed a curse as he whirled to the chest beside the ruined chair.
He drove his sword into it like an axe, then wrenched the blade free and brought it down again and again and again, cursing with every blow. He hacked until he could hack no more, then hurled the blade across the room. It leapt back from the wall, ricocheting to the floor with a whining, iron clangor, and he glared down at it, gasping while spittle ran down his chin.
But then he closed his eyes. His wrist scrubbed across his mouth and chin, and he dragged in a deep, wracking breath as the Rage faded back from the brink of explosion. It was hard for him to beat it down, for he seldom chose to do so, but this time he had no choice.
He mastered it at last and shook himself, glaring about his chamber at the wreckage. Even the bedposts were splintered and gouged, and he clenched his jaw, feeling the gaps of missing teeth, as he wished with all his heart those same blows had landed upon Farmah or Bahzell Bahnakson.
He swore, with more weariness than passion now, and waded through the rubble to the window. He sat in the opening's stone throat, staring hot-eyed out over the roofs of Navahk, and rubbed the permanent depression in his forehead while he made himself think.
The bitch was alive—alive!—and that slut Tala with her, and the pair of them were in Hurgrum!
The nostrils of his misshapen nose flared. How? How had two women, one a mere girl and beaten half to death into the bargain, gotten clear to Hurgrum through his father's entire Guard? It wasn't possible!
Yet that whoreson Bahzell had contrived it anyway. He'd drawn virtually all the pursuit after him, and he and that bastard Brandark—and it had to be Brandark,
whatever the japester's father claimed!—had cut the single patrol to find them into dog meat. And while they'd done that, somehow the bitches had reached that sanctimonious dog-lover Bahnak's court. He'd actually taken them in, put them under his own protection in his very palace!
Harnak spat another curse, and fresh hatred rose as more spittle sprayed humiliatingly through his gap-toothed snarl. Bahnak had been careful to take no official note when Churnazh outlawed his son. He'd even restrained Farmah from accusing Harnak of the crime, for to contest the sentence Churnazh had imposed would commit him to a fresh war against Navahk. His own men would demand it—and his allies would slip away if he appeared too weak to launch it.
But, by the same token, Churnazh's allies would never support an attack on Hurgrum. If he were attacked, yes, they would come to his aid, for each feared the destruction of any one of them would be the opening wedge for Bahnak's conquest of them all. But they were too weakened—and frightened—by what Hurgrum had already done to carry a fresh war to Bahnak, which meant he had no need to refute the charges against his son. With Bahzell safely beyond Churnazh's reach, all Bahnak had to do was keep silent and let his allies—and Navahk's, curse them!—laugh.
And they were laughing. Harnak clenched his fists, choking on bile. Every bard in every city-state of the Bloody Swords and Horse Stealers alike seemed to be singing the tale of Bahzell Bahnakson's cunning. They'd made the puking bastard some sort of hero, and if they never mentioned Harnak's name, there was no need to. If Bahzell's father was sheltering Farmah and she was content to have it so, then Bahzell couldn't have raped her . . . and if he hadn't, everyone knew who must have. No one dared say so, but Harnak had seen it even in the eyes of the Guard, and he dared not show his face in public. Only the iron fist of his father's terror kept women from spitting on his shadow as he passed . . . and his father had five sons.
The crown prince glared down at his fists. He was the eldest son, his father's heir . . . while Churnazh lived. But what would happen when he died? Harnak knew his brothers. All of them, with the possible exception of that gutless wonder Arsham, had tumbled unwilling wenches, yet no one knew they had. Now everyone knew he had—yes, and believed he'd tried to kill the girl, too. Either of those crimes was more than enough to absolve any warrior of loyalty to him, and all it needed would be for one of his brothers—just one—to claim the throne to set the army of Navahk at its own throat . . . and Harnak's.
He couldn't let that happen. Yet how could he stop it?
He brooded down at his fists, the flame of his hatred smoldering down to smoking embers that would never quite die, and thought.
There were only two possibilities, he told himself at last. Either all his brothers must die, leaving no other claimant of the blood to challenge him, or else Bahzell, Farmah, and Tala must die.
Neither solution was perfect. If he had his brothers murdered, they must all die in the same hour, and his father with them, for only one person in Navahk could profit by their deaths, and Churnazh would know it. Yet even if all four of his brothers—yes, and his father, too—perished, too many who remembered how Churnazh himself had butchered his way to the throne might seek to emulate him. A crown prince rapist believed to have murdered his entire family would be too weak and tempting a target for someone to pass by.
But if he settled for killing Bahzell—assuming he could find the Sharna-cursed bastard—and the bitches, he would have to hope his father lived for a great many years. If Bahzell died, he would become one more dead enemy, not a taunting reminder of failure, and Navahk had been taught to respect men whose enemies were all dead. And if the sluts died, then the living symbol of his crime would die, as well. Passing time would erode the certainty of his guilt, give Churnazh's countercharges the chance to sink in, but it would take time. It would take years, more maddening years in which he would be denied his proper place, still crown prince and never ruler.
And he must have all three of them, for as long as any of them breathed, their very lives would keep the tale alive. All of his enemies must perish to put time on his side . . . and perhaps there was a way. One not even Churnazh guessed at. Nor would he, for if he should ever suspect what allies Harnak had taken, he would rip out his son's heart with his own bare hands.
Harnak nodded, ruined face twisted in an ugly smile, and looked back out the window. The sun was well into the west. Once darkness fell, he had a call to pay.
The single horseman trotted quietly down the brush-choked valley. There was no road here, only a trail of beaten earth, and his horse's hooves fell with a dull, muffled sound. The slopes to his left cut off the moon, drowning the narrow way in darkness, and something inside him basked in the black silence even as his horse snorted and tossed an uneasy head.
A mile fell away, then another, as he threaded his way into the twisting hills. Few came here, even in daylight, for the nameless hill range had an unchancy reputation. Of the few who came, fewer still departed, and even Harnak's carefully chosen bodyguards—clanless men, outcasts who owed all they were or ever could be to him—had muttered uneasily when they realized his destination. They always did, and he'd sensed their frightened relief when he ordered them to stop and await his return. None of them knew what he did on his rides into the hills, and none cared to know, for they'd seen him come this way with prisoners tied to their saddles, and he always returned alone.
The rough trail rounded a final hill and ended against a high, blank face of stone, and his nervous horse curvetted and fought the bit, flecked with the sweat of panic, as he drew rein. He snarled and leaned forward to slam his balled fist down between its ears, and the beast squealed and went still.
Harnak grunted in satisfaction, dismounted, and tethered it to one of the stunted trees that grew in this place. He drew a golden amulet from the neck of his tunic as he approached the featureless stone slab, then spat on the ground with an odd formality and folded his arms to wait.
Seconds dribbled past, then a full minute, and then his horse whinnied fearfully and jerked against its tight-tied reins. Sullen green light glowed within the stone, growing brighter, stronger, with the livid emerald glitter of poison. The rock seemed to waver and flow, wrapped in its unnatural translucence while the venomous light threw Harnak's shadow down the valley behind him like a distorted beast, and then, sudden as a falling blade, the light vanished—and took the barren stone hillside with it.
The opening before Harnak was . . . wrong. Its angles followed a subtly perverted geometry, none of them quite square, and the carved likeness of an enormous scorpion glared down from above it. Flickering red torchlight spilled out of the bowels of the hill, and a cowled figure stood framed against the glow, arms folded in the sleeves of its robe as it bowed.
"Welcome, My Prince." The deep voice was human, not hradani, yet Harnak returned its bow with a respect he showed no other mortal.
"I thank you, Tharnatus, and beg leave to enter your house." Not even the lisping sibilance of his missing teeth hid the deference—even fear—in the prince's voice, and Tharnatus straightened.
"Not my house, My Prince," he replied, as if completing a formal exchange, "but the House of the Scorpion." He stood aside with a gesture of invitation, and Harnak bowed once more and walked past him into the hill.
The passage drove deep into the earth, its stone walls dressed and smooth, far more finely finished than anything in Churnazh's palace. Arched side passages intersected it at intervals, and the faceted chips of mosaics glittered between them in the torchlight. Things of horror ruled those mosaics. Bat-winged nightmares stormed through screaming warriors, snatching them up, snapping off heads and limbs with chitinous jaws and pincers like battle-axes. Other shapes, more obscene still, slithered through opulent temples, hungry eyes afire as they crept and flowed and oozed toward altars where maidens fought their chains in shrieking terror. And above them all, half-hinted and half-seen like some hideous cloud, stalked the huge, flame-eyed scorpion, and on its back was a manlike shape th
at trailed horror like waves of smoke.
The central hall led onward to a larger chamber, circular and domed with natural rock polished to mirror brightness. Torchlight danced about them like a globe of swirling blood, and double doors, carved with the same images which had haunted the mosaics, loomed before them. Tharnatus thrust them open and went to his knees, then to his belly, as the sweet stench of incense rolled out over him, and Harnak fell to the floor behind him.
The prince lay motionless, disfigured face pressing the stone, until Tharnatus rose once more. The priest gazed down at him, then touched him with a booted toe between his shoulders, the gesture of an overlord to a servant.
"Rise, My Prince," he intoned. Harnak rose and bent to kiss the hand the priest extended, then straightened as Tharnatus gestured him into the inner sanctum that proved not all gods had chosen to ignore the hradani.
The sickly-sweet incense was stronger, drifting in thin, eddying clouds, and the Scorpion of Sharna, god of demons and patron of assassins, crouched above them. The enormous sculpture towered over a stone altar, carved with blood channels and crowned with blood-encrusted iron manacles that gaped empty . . . for now, and Tharnatus and Harnak knelt side by side to press their foreheads to that hideous stone before they rose once more.
"So, My Prince!" the priest said more briskly as they completed their obeisance. "How may the House of the Scorpion aid one of its own?"
"You've heard the stories, I suppose?" Harnak knew he sounded surly, and surliness towards a priest of Sharna was dangerous, but his shame goaded him. Tharnatus regarded him in expressionless silence for a long moment, then let it pass. Harnak was heir to the throne of Navahk; even Sharna's anointed could allow an occasional edge of disrespect when the Demon Lord had his pincers deep in a future ruler.
"I have, My Prince—assuming you refer to those concerning a certain palace servant and a prince of Hurgrum."
"I do." Harnak folded his arms, and his scarred and broken face was grim. "Between them, the slut and Bahzell—" he made the name a curse "—pose a threat to me and to my position. They must be eliminated."