Oath of Swords

by David Weber

  A cold wind moaned in the leafless scrub of the lonely Carchon Hills. They were near the top of the range; tomorrow they would start down to the border between Korwin and Carchon, and Bahzell hoped they'd find warmer weather when they did. The picketed horses and mules stood silent under frost-glazed blankets, cold stars glittered pitilessly, and he shivered as he returned to the fire to build it back up. He'd been colder than this, but that didn't mean he liked it, and it was only going to get worse from here.

  Flames crackled about the fresh wood, and he kept his head turned to preserve his night vision. He had no reason to anticipate trouble—they were well beyond ni'Tarth's reach, and these hills were all but unpopulated—but trouble had a way of coming without sending word ahead, and he had no mind to be fire-dazzled if it did.

  He resumed his slow walk around their perimeter. Brandark had found a boulder to use as a heat reflector and slept between it and the fire with only his beaky nose poked out of his blankets. Rekah and Zarantha had pooled their bedrolls and body heat beside him, and Tothas, by common consent, had the warmest spot of all, in the low hollow with the fire itself. It was lonely, out here in the moaning night while the others slept, but Bahzell was grateful he was awake, not sleeping himself and prey to his maddening dreams. Frost squeaked under his boots as he moved still further from the fire, eyes searching the dark, and his mind was busy.

  The dreams refused to release him. They besieged him night after night, until he dreaded the moment his eyes closed. Familiarity had worn the jagged edge of terror smooth, but the terror hadn't gone away. It couldn't. It was the demon he fought as Tothas fought his hacking spasms, and he was tired of it. So very, very tired. He closed his mind to the dreams, rejected them, pushed them out of memory with all his strength, yet still they plagued him, laughing at his efforts to outrun them. There was no mercy in them . . . and nowhere he could hide from them.

  He sighed heavily, then stiffened as a boot scuffed behind him. He whirled, reaching for his sword, then relaxed.

  "I was thinking you were asleep," he said.

  "I was." Tothas' voice was raspy, as if he hovered on the brink of one of his coughing fits, but his face was calm in the starlight. He'd wrapped a blanket over his cloak, and he stepped past the hradani to sit on another boulder, drawing the blanket tighter about him, and shivered.

  "A bitter night," he said quietly. "Not much good for sleeping anyway, I suppose."

  "Aye, but not so bitter as we'll be seeing soon enough," Bahzell replied in a tone of quiet grimness.

  "No, not that bitter." Tothas gazed at the toes of his boots for a long, silent moment, then raised his eyes once more. "You're troubled by your dreams, Bahzell," he said in the soft voice of a man making a simple statement, and the hradani stiffened, ears half-flat, and looked down at him. A minute passed, then two, and Tothas only gazed back up at him and waited.

  "Aye." Bahzell cleared his throat. "Aye, I am that. I'd hoped you'd not notice."

  "I don't think Rekah or Lady Zarantha have. I'm not sure about My Lady—she sees things others miss—but I don't sleep so well these days." Tothas allowed himself a small smile. Not bitter or resentful, but one of what might almost have been wry amusement. "I've heard you muttering in your sleep. I don't speak your language, but I know trouble when I hear it, and I thought—"

  He shrugged, but his invitation hovered, and Bahzell sighed and sat beside him. He placed himself to cut the wind that tugged at Tothas' blanket without even realizing he had and rubbed his chin in thought, then sighed again.

  "Aye, it's trouble you've heard. No, let's be honest; it's fear," he admitted, and it was amazingly easy to confess it to this man.

  "Why?" Tothas asked simply, and Bahzell told him. He told him everything, even things he'd never told Brandark. Of course, Brandark was hradani. He'd understood the terror those dreams held without telling, but there were depths of fear Bahzell had never been able to expose to his friend. Not in so many words. Not with the honesty with which he revealed it to Tothas there in the windy blackness.

  The Spearman heard him out without comment, other than a thoughtful frown as Bahzell described Jothan Tarlnasa's appearance at Derm and a smothered chuckle at the way Tarlnasa had left the barge. But when the hradani ran out of words at last and sat staring down at his empty fists, Tothas cleared his throat and laid a hand on Bahzell's knee.

  "I understand your fear, Bahzell," he said. "I don't suppose I would have if you hadn't explained it—you and Brandark are the first hradani I've ever met, and we in the South Weald know little about your people. The West Weald and Border Weald run up against the Broken Bone hradani; they may know more, but all most Spearmen know of them are the old tales of the Fall, and I've never heard them from the hradani side. What was done to you—what you call the Rage—" He shook his head, and his hand tightened on Bahzell's knee. Then he released it with a pat and rose.

  "We all lost in the Fall," he said, standing with his back to the Horse Stealer, his voice frayed by the wind. "We were all betrayed, yet none, I think, so badly as you. So, yes, I understand your fear. But—" he turned back "—perhaps there's no need for it. Dreams need not be evidence of fresh betrayal, and the fact that this Tarlnasa fellow is undoubtedly an idiot doesn't make him a liar. It may truly be the gods speaking to you."

  "Aye." Bahzell rose to stare out into the night beside him. "I've thought on that. I'll not deny it was in my mind at first that it was some poxy wizard, but my folk remember a thing or two about wizards. Old wives' tales maybe, but we've not forgotten what was done to us, and I'm thinking this thing's lasted too long for such as that. Aye, and it's grown no weaker, and it should have, with the leagues I've put behind me since it started. I suppose it's grateful I should be if it's not, but that's not the way of it. The Dark Gods have brought naught but ruin to my folk, and as for the Gods of Light—"

  He clenched his jaw, staring into the dark until his eyes ached, then looked down at the Spearman, and his voice was harsh and ugly.

  "I've no use for gods, Tothas. Those of the Dark may torment my folk, but at least they're honest about it! And what have the precious `good' gods ever done for me or mine? Did they help us? Or did they leave us to rot when the other Races of Man turned their backs to us for things we never chose to do? Evil—aye, that I can be understanding, but where's the use in gods that prate of how `good' they are yet do naught at all, at all, for those as need it, and why should I be giving a fart in Phrobus' face for them?!"

  Silence stretched out between them once more, and then Tothas sighed.

  "A hard question," he said, "and one I can't answer. I'm no priest, only a warrior. I know what I believe, but I'm not you, not a hradani."

  The sorrow in his voice shamed Bahzell somehow. The Horse Stealer bit his lip and laid a hand on his friend's shoulder.

  "Tell me what you believe," he said so softly it surprised him.

  "I believe there are gods worth following," Tothas said simply. "I don't understand all that happens in the world, but I know evil could never flourish without the Races of Man. It's us, Bahzell—we're the ones who turn to the Dark or the Light, choose which we'll serve. Good people may do terrible things through fear or foolishness or stupidity—even spite—but what if there were no `good' people? What if there were never anyone to take a stand, to say, `No, this is evil, and I will not allow it!'?"

  "And who's been saying that for my folk?" It should have come out bitter and filled with hate, but somehow it didn't.

  "No one." Tothas sighed. "But perhaps that's the reason for your dreams—had you thought of that? You say you've no use for gods, Bahzell. Aren't there any you could think worthy of your service?"

  "None." Bahzell grunted. He cocked his head, looking down at the Spearman, and his tone softened once more. "You're after being a good man, Tothas." The Spearman flushed and started to shake his head, but the hradani's voice stopped him. "Don't be shaking your head at me—and don't think it's in my mind to flatter you. You're no saint,
and a dead pain in the arse a saint would be in the field, I'm thinking! But you've guts, and loyalty, and a readiness to understand, and those are things even a murdering hradani can value. But—" Bahzell's deep voice rumbled even softer, gentle yet unflinching "—I'm knowing how sick you are, what it is that loyalty's costing you. So tell me, Tothas—what god is it you serve, and why?"

  "I serve the Gods of Light." Tothas' voice accepted the reference to his illness without a quaver, and he shrugged. "Oh, I'm sure others serve them better, but I do the best I can—when I'm not feeling sorry for myself." He smiled up at the towering hradani. "I thank Orr for wisdom, when it can get through my thick skull, and Silendros for beauty, when I have the eyes to see it. When I've time for it, I sit on a hill somewhere out in the plains of the South Weald and look at the trees and grass and the summer sky and thank Toragan for them. But I'm a warrior, Bahzell. It's my trade, the thing I do best, and its Tomanak I follow. The Sword God can be hard, but He's just, and He stands for the things I'd like to stand for. For skill in battle, for honor and courage in defeat, for decency in victory, and loyalty."

  "But why?" Bahzell pressed. "Oh, aye, I can respect those things, but why turn to a god for them? Why thank a god for wisdom when it comes out of your own head? Or for beauty, when it's your own eyes that have the seeing of it? Or for guts and loyalty, when those things come from in here—" his huge hand brushed Tothas' chest "—and not from out there?" The same hand rose and gestured at the skies.

  "You follow them, yet not one of them's reached down to you and said, `This is a good man, who's been after doing all I ask of him, and I take his illness from him.' Not one of them, Tothas, and still you follow!" He shook his head. "That's a thing no hradani would be understanding. It's not my folk's way to ask others for aught. We've learned the hard way that it won't be given, that there's no one and naught to count on but our own selves when all's said and done. What we have, we build or take for ourselves, and spit on `gods' who've no time for such as us. A man looks after his own in this world, Tothas, and it's lucky he is if he can do it, for no one else will!"

  Tothas smiled.

  "That sounds to me like a man who's angry at what he hears himself saying."

  "Whether I'm liking it or hating it won't change what is," Bahzell shot back. "It's the way of the world, and no one knows it better than hradani, for we've seen it too often. Aye, we've had a bellyful of it!"

  The Spearman looked up at him for another long moment, then cocked his head.

  "Why are you here, Bahzell?" he asked softly.

  "Eh?" Bahzell blinked down at the human.

  "Why are you here?" Tothas repeated. "In a world where a man looks after his own and Phrobus take the hindmost, why did you save Lady Zarantha in Riverside and why are you still here? Why didn't you leave us to fend for ourselves once we left the city?"

  "Because I've a head of solid rock," Bahzell said bitterly, and Tothas' laugh was soft.

  "I believe that. Oh, yes, I believe that, my friend! But if you believe that's the only reason, you know yourself less well than you think."

  "Now don't you be thinking I'm aught but what I am," Bahzell said uneasily. "Stupid, aye, and one who's yet to learn to think before he acts—that I'll grant you! And maybe I've a wee bit of guts, and a notion my word should be meaning something when I give it, but I'm no knight in shining armor. No, and I've no least desire to be one, either!"

  " `A knight in shining armor'?" There was a smile in Tothas' voice, and he slapped the hradani on the elbow. "No, you're certainly not that, Bahzell Bahnakson! The gods only know all that you may be, but I don't think even they could see you as that!"

  "Aye, and don't you be forgetting it!" Bahzell snorted.

  "I won't," Tothas reassured him. He gathered his blanket about him and shivered, then turned back towards the fire. "But while I'm remembering you aren't, you might ask yourself whoever said you should be? Or why in Tomanak's name the gods should need one?"

  Bahzell stared after him, ears at half-cock, and the Spearman chuckled as he picked his way back to his bedroll through the windy cold.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The rain started at dawn; by midday the racing spatter of drops had become a steady, bone-chilling downpour.

  Bahzell slogged through it, head bent against the wind while his cloak snapped about his knees like a living thing, and a weary litany of curses rolled through his mind at what the icy rain was doing to Tothas. The armsman rode in the center of the column, huddled deep in his cloak, and Zarantha and Rekah both rode upwind of him in a vain effort to shield him. It was a sign of his distress that he didn't even notice what they were trying to do, and the Horse Stealer gritted his teeth every time one of those terrible, strangling coughs twisted the Spearman.

  The sloping road was ankle-deep in watery mud that wore away at their strength and spirits, and the storm cut the already short day still shorter. Bahzell had started searching for a suitable campsite before midafternoon, but the hillsides were clothed in scrub, without sheltering trees. Even without the soaking rain, firewood would have been hard to find, and the thought of subjecting Tothas to a fireless camp in such weather tightened Bahzell's belly. But it was evening now; the light was going fast, they had to stop soon, and he was almost desperate when a flicker of movement caught the corner of his eye.

  He turned his head quickly, but whatever it was had vanished into a barren hillside. His raised hand halted the column, and he reached up under his cloak; it was an awkward way to draw a sword, but he managed it, and Brandark walked his horse up beside him.

  "What?" Even the Bloody Sword's tenor was worn and creaky, and Bahzell nodded at the hill.

  "I'm thinking I saw something yonder."

  "What?" Brandark repeated with a bit more interest.

  "Now that's what I'm none too sure of," the Horse Stealer admitted. "But whatever it was, it up and disappeared."

  "Up there?" Brandark eyed the rocky, water-running slope skeptically.

  "Aye." Bahzell studied the hillside for another moment, then shrugged. "Wait here," he said shortly, and started up the slope.

  It was hard going, and he couldn't have told Brandark why he was bothering, yet something poked at the corner of his brain. Chill water ran knee-deep as he waded up a gully towards the point where the movement had disappeared, and he was almost there when he heard a deep, angry squall.

  He rocked back on his heels as a tawny shape flowed out of the very ground. It was a dire cat—not the enormous predator that ruled the Eastwall Mountains, but the smaller cousin that roamed their foothills—and Bahzell's ears flattened as black lips wrinkled back from four-inch ivory fangs and the cat squalled again, furious at his intrusion.

  But dire cats were as intelligent as they were deadly, and the beast let out yet a third squall—this one of pure frustration—as it digested Bahzell's size and the menace of his sword. It hunkered down on the rock, tail lashing as if to pounce, then hissed in disgust and vanished into the rain in a single, prodigious leap.

  Bahzell released the deep, tense breath he hadn't realized he was holding, but even as he exhaled a suspicion as to why the cat had been so angry touched him. His eyes narrowed, and he moved forward again more eagerly.

  There! An out-thrust shoulder of rock had hidden it from below, but a narrow slit pierced the hillside. It was tall enough even for Bahzell, though it would be a tight fit for his shoulders, and he edged into it. He felt his way for several yards, rubbing against the rock, muscles taut and sword ready. No dire cat would have abandoned a regular lair without a fight, sword or no sword, but Bahzell wasn't about to assume anything, and if the cat had a mate—

  It didn't. Another ten feet, and gray light beckoned. The rock opened up, and he inched further forward, then came to a stop and smiled broadly.

  It was a cave, and large enough for all their mounts, at that. Runoff cascaded from an open cleft in the high roof into a churning pool which must have an underground outlet, since it hadn't
risen to flow out through the cave entrance. There was no fuel here, but he'd gathered a heavy load of kindling as soon as the rain started. The packhorse had tossed its head in protest when he'd added the wood to its load and covered it with a cloak, but it would be enough to dry whatever fuel he and Brandark could gather from the scrub at the base of the hill. All they had to do was get the beasts up here. That didn't promise to be easy, but Bahzell Bahnakson would cheerfully have tackled a far more difficult task to get out of the rain.

  He sheathed his sword and started back to tell the others.

  Something woke him, and, for a change, it wasn't a dream. He sat up, straining his ears as he wondered what it had been, but he detected no danger.

  Red and yellow light flowed over rock walls as the small fire crackled cheerfully, and the smell of horses and mules mingled with the smoke. The combined body heat of animals and people had helped the fire warm the cave, and his bedroll was almost dry. Taken all together, he was more comfortable than he'd had any right to expect after such a day, and he'd tumbled into his blankets in weary gratitude. But he was oddly wide awake now, and he stretched.

  Brandark sat cross-legged by the cave entrance, sheathed sword on his thighs. The rain must have eased, for the water no longer chattered and hissed into the pool. It fell gently, almost musically, soft enough for Brandark to hear Bahzell stir and turn his head.

  "What are you doing up?" he asked quietly as the Horse Stealer rose.

  "I've no idea," Bahzell replied, equally quietly. He yawned and stretched again, then shrugged and parked himself beside Brandark. "But it's up I am, so if you're minded to turn in—?"

  "It's my watch," Brandark disagreed with a little headshake.

  "In that case, I'll just be keeping you company for a bit—unless you've some objection?"