Oath of Swords

by David Weber

  He'd never been good with maps, and his notion of his whereabouts had become uncomfortably vague. In fact, the only things he was sure of was that he was far south of Sindark, floundering about in an unknown land where every hand was potentially hostile . . . and that Bahzell was somewhere ahead of him still.

  His survey of the countryside told him nothing. It was more of the gentle, sparsely wooded hills that stretched from the Shipwood to Bortalik Bay, without a village in sight. That was good—they'd nearly collided with some local lordling's retainers when they strayed too near a small town three nights ago—but the lack of any road or guidepost made him uneasy.

  Not that he was without any guides. He touched his sword hilt once more, almost against his will, and felt the pull that had first drawn him south, away from Sindark. There, he thought—to the southeast again. The hatred of the cursed blade sought the Horse Stealer like a lodestone . . . and it was growing stronger. Ten leagues, the archpriest had said; that was the range at which the sword could sense Bahzell. Judging by how fierce its pull had become, they were getting close, and Harnak spat on the ground as he released the hilt. The oppressive alienness of this land—his sense that he was far, far from home and riding further with every hour—made him edgy, and fear of what would happen when he and Bahzell finally met gnawed his belly like a worm of acid. Yet for all that, impatience goaded him on. His own hatred warred with his fear . . . and at least some of his troubles would be resolved, whatever happened, when he ran the Horse Stealer to ground at last.

  He settled himself in the saddle again, nodded irritably to Gharnash, and pushed his horse back up to a weary trot.

  "Are you sure it's really winter?" Brandark asked plaintively as he wiped his streaming face.

  "Aye—or what passes for it in these parts. And a fine one you are to be complaining, you with your horse under your arse!" Bahzell snorted.

  "I didn't complain; I only asked a question," Brandark said with dignity, and turned to gaze behind them. "Think they're still back there?"

  "As to that, you've as good a notion as I—but if they're not behind still, they've at least sent word ahead. You can lay to that, my lad."

  Brandark grunted unhappily, although both of them were aware they'd actually done very well . . . so far. There'd been one close call two days after Tomanak's last visit when a mounted patrol thudded urgently past their hide in a handy coppice. The patrol hadn't been following their tracks, yet neither of them had doubted what brought it this way. The Lands of the Purple Lords were a hotbed of semi-independent city-states, locked in bitter competition (mercantile and otherwise) despite their nominal allegiance to the Conclave of Lords at Bortalik. Population was sparse, for half-elves were less fertile than most of the Races of Man, and villages of their mostly human peasants tended to cluster around the larger cities, while vast, still unclaimed areas—luckily for fugitives—lay outside any petty prince's holding. The Conclave Army was charged with policing those areas but spent most of its time on the frontiers, and few things would bring thirty-five of its mounted troopers this far south. For that matter, most of the local lordlings would have fits if the army intruded upon their private domains . . . unless, of course, the officer commanding the intrusion had a good reason for his presence.

  "Where are we, anyway?" Brandark asked after a moment.

  "By my reckoning, we've come maybe a hundred fifty leagues from the Darkwater," Bahzell replied. "If that's so, we're naught but fifty leagues or so from the coast."

  "That close?" Brandark frowned and pulled on his nose. "What happens once we reach the coast, if you don't mind my asking? As you say, they must have sent word ahead of us to the ports. That means ships are out, and since I still can't swim and you can't walk on water, it might be time to consider what we're going to do next."

  Bahzell snorted in agreement and paused in the welcome shade of a small stand of trees. He mopped at his own face, then shrugged.

  "I'm thinking it's likely we have lost whoever was actually on our trail," he said finally. "We've not set so hard a pace we'd not have seen something of them by now else, and that rain the other day was hard enough to be taking out our tracks. If that's the way of it, then all we really need do is play least in sight and keep clear of roads."

  "And?"

  "From the map, there's precious few coast towns west of Bortalik. I'm minded to make it clean to the sea if we can, then turn west along the shore."

  "To where?"

  "As to that, we'll have to be making up our minds when we get there. We might strike for the Marfang Channel, find a way across, and take ship from Marfang itself. Or we might try northwest, amongst the Wild Wash Hradani, or cut north through the Leaf Dance Forest back up into the Empire of the Spear."

  "D'you have any idea how far that is?" Brandark demanded.

  "Aye, I do that—a better one than you, I'm thinking." Bahzell raised a foot and grimaced at the holes in the sole of his boot. "But if you've a better notion, it's pleased I'll be to hear it."

  "No, no. Far be it from me to interfere when you've done such a fine job of planning our excursion. What's a few hundred more leagues when we're having such fun?"

  "Well?" Rathan's voice was sharp as the scout trotted up to him. The major's elegant appearance had become sadly bedraggled over the last week of hard riding and frequent rain, but the toughness that elegance had cloaked had become more evident as it frayed, and the scout shifted uneasily. The major had been less than pleased when they lost the trail of his cousin's killers. His order to spread out and find it again had been curt, but the need to sweep every fold of rolling ground had slowed them badly, and he'd begun taking his frustration out on anyone who hadn't found the tracks he wanted.

  "I'm . . . not certain, sir," the scout said now.

  "Not certain?" Rathan repeated in a dangerous tone, and the scout swallowed.

  "Well, I've found a trail, Major. I'm just not certain it's the one we've been following."

  "Show me!" Rathan snapped.

  "Yes, sir."

  The scout turned his horse and led the way. He almost wished he'd kept his mouth shut, but if he hadn't reported it and someone else had, the consequences would have been even worse, he thought gloomily.

  Twenty minutes brought them to his find, and he dismounted beside the ashes of a fire.

  "Here, Major," he said.

  Rathan dismounted in turn, propped his hands on his hips, and turned in a complete circle. The camp was clearly recent, but the hradani they were tracking were trail-wise and canny. Their fires, when they made them at all, were smaller than this one, their camps selected with an eye to concealment, and they did a far better job than this of hiding the signs of their presence when they moved on.

  "And what," he asked with ominous quiet, "makes you think this was the bastards we want?"

  "I never said it was, sir," the scout said quickly, "but you wanted to know about any tracks we found, and we are hunting hradani."

  "So?" Rathan demanded.

  "This, sir." The scout pulled a bronze buckle from his belt pouch. "I found it when I first searched the camp."

  The major turned the buckle in his fingers and frowned at the jagged characters etched into the metal.

  "What is this?" he asked after a moment, his voice less irritated and more intent, and the scout hid his relief as he tapped the marks with a finger.

  "Those're hradani runes, sir. I've seen ones like them on captured Wild Wash equipment."

  Rathan's head jerked up, and he stared around the camp once more. There'd been more horses here, and heavier ones, than they'd been trailing, and the tracks slanted into the campsite from the wrong direction, which meant—

  "They've joined up with the rest of their filthy band!" he snapped, and twisted round to his second in command. "Halith!"

  "Sir!"

  "Get couriers out. Call in all the scouts, then send riders to the closest regular army posts. There are more of them than we thought, and I'll want every man wh
en we catch up with them. Go on, man! Get moving!"

  "Yes, sir!" Halith wheeled his horse, already calling out the names of his chosen messengers, and Rathan laughed. It wasn't a pleasant laugh, and his eyes glittered as he stared off to the southeast along the plainly marked tracks leading from the camp.

  "I've got you now, you murdering bastards!" he whispered, and dropped the buckle. It landed rune-side up, and as he turned to remount his horse, his heel came down on the sigil of Crown Prince Harnak's personal guard.

  The sun lay heavy on the western horizon when Bahzell called a halt. A stream flowed at the bottom of a deep, tree-lined ravine, and the grass along its banks was still green. The horses and mules would like that, and Bahzell liked the concealment the ravine offered.

  Brandark dismounted to lead his horse down the gully's steep northern face. The slope was acute enough to make getting their animals down it difficult, but the southern side was far lower, and the Bloody Sword nodded in appreciation. Bahzell had far better instincts for this sort of thing than he did—no doubt from the time he'd spent on the Wind Plain—but Brandark approved. If anyone stumbled over them, they'd probably come from the north, and the steepness on that side would slow them while the hradani broke south.

  "I see you've shown your usual fine eye for selecting first-class accommodations," he said. "What do you think about a fire?"

  "Best not," Bahzell replied. "It's warm enough without, and those who can't see flames can still smell smoke if the wind's wrong."

  "Um." Brandark pulled at his nose, then nodded. "You're probably right. Of course, by now we both stink enough they can probably smell us without smoke if they get within a league."

  "Well, yon stream's deep enough. Once we've the horses picketed, I'll be taking the first watch, if you've a mind to soak your delicate skin."

  "Done!" Brandark sighed. "Gods! Even cold water'll feel good by now!"

  Harnak cursed as his horse stumbled. All of their mounts were weary, and his men were straggling once more as the sun began to slip below the horizon, but the prince never considered stopping. He no longer even had to touch the hilt to feel his sword's hard, hating pull. That fiery hunger had bled into his own blood. It dragged him on despite exhausted horses and failing light, simmering in his soul until he hovered on the very brink of the Rage. He was here. The whoreson bastard was here, so close Harnak could smell him, and he snarled and struck his mount with his spurs.

  The horse squealed in surprised hurt, lunging so hard it almost unseated him. Exhaustion or no, there was no withstanding the goad of roweled steel, and it bounded ahead while Harnak's guardsmen swore under their breath and fought to match their prince's pace.

  Some of them couldn't, however they tried, and they tried hard. They'd feared this journey from the moment they heard of it, and, like Harnak himself, they felt adrift and lost in this strange, too warm place where anyone they met was likely to see them as brigands or invaders. They dreaded the thought of facing a roused and angry land so far from home, yet they'd begun to harbor even more fearful suspicions about their leader and the sword he wore. Harnak surrounded himself with hard and brutal men, and some of the cursed weapon's ravening hunger spilled over into them. It touched the dark spots in their own bloodstained souls like seductive black fire, hazing their thoughts, and when they realized what was happening, they were terrified.

  But it was growing harder for them to recognize the influence. It was becoming part of them, like a pale shadow of the furnace it had lit deep at Harnak's heart. It gripped them like a drug, blending with their fear of losing the column in this alien land, and goaded them on as Harnak's spurs goaded his horse. Yet try as they might, their weary mounts were unequal to their demands. More of them fell back, stringing out in a long, ragged line as the darkness came down.

  Harnak knew it was happening, and a corner of his mind demanded he slow, let the others catch up, bring them all in together to overwhelm Bahzell and Brandark when he found them. Yet it was only a corner, lost in the roiling blood taste, and he ignored it and drove on into the falling shadows.

  Rathan turned his head to glare at the western horizon as the last crimson rim of sun fumed amid the clouds. They were close to the bastards now. He knew it—he could feel it. Hradani needed big, heavy horses which could never match the pace and endurance of his men's lighter mounts, and enough detachments had come in to double his company's original hundred-man strength. He had men enough to deal with any band of brigands; all he needed was another two hours of daylight, and he didn't have them.

  He clenched his jaw and fought his own impatience. It didn't matter, he told himself. The sun would rise again, and, indeed, it might be wiser to wait until it did. A night battle was always confusing, at best; at worst, it could turn into disaster as friend turned on friend and the enemy escaped.

  He was just opening his mouth to order a halt when his lead scouts crested a low slope several hundred yards ahead of him. The last light burned like sullen blood on their helmets, and then, suddenly, they were snatching at slung bows and he heard the first shrill screams.

  Harnak jerked around in the saddle as a horse shrieked like a tortured woman. There was still light enough for him to see one of his rearmost men go down as a mortally wounded mount plunged head over crupper. The guardsman hit hard and lay still, and shouts of alarm and terror mixed with fresh cries of pain as arrows pelted his straggling rearguard.

  The prince stared in disbelief, and a flicker of motion even further behind him caught his eye. Dark, indistinct figures, blurry but gilded with sparks of sunset from helmets and chain mail, swirled on a low crest beyond his men, shooting as fast as they could pull their bows. The light was so bad they were firing almost blind, yet blind fire was as deadly as aimed when there was enough of it, and another of his men pitched from his saddle.

  Harnak had no idea who they were, but their abrupt, murderous appearance filled the tiny corner of his soul that still belonged to him with panic. He didn't know how many enemies were back there, but his men were too spread out for a fight, and their horses were too weary for flight. He knew, suddenly and beyond question, that he would never see Navahk again, that the Scorpion had sent him to his death after all, and terror mixed with the wild, overmastering hunger of the sword he bore—the hunger that had come to dominate all he was—and flashed over into the Rage.

  He howled like a mad animal, and a livid green glare flashed like poisoned lightning as he ripped his sword from its sheath. His men heard him, recognized his Rage and felt their own respond, and the wild, shrill scream of hradani fury rose, filling the newborn night as the last embers died on the horizon and Harnak's column came apart.

  Most of his men wheeled on their attackers, blazing with the need to rend and kill until they themselves were slain, but those closest to Harnak didn't. The instant their prince drew the cursed blade, its power reached out to them. The dark secrets of their own hearts made them easy prey, and it seized them by the throat, wrenching them back to the south with Harnak, for the one creature in all the world it had been forged to slay lay ahead, not behind. It hurled them onward while their fellows turned at bay, and they thundered blindly into the night behind their howling prince.

  "What in the names of all the gods—?!"

  Major Rathan blanched as the shrieks rose like demons. Darkness fell with deadly speed, washing away vision, but not before he saw the first huge figures explode into his scouts. The horse archers tried to scatter, but they'd never expected their enemies to wheel into the teeth of their fire, and the hradani's weary mounts had caught their riders' fury, burning out their last strength in a frantic surge of speed there was no time to evade. Most of the archers got their swords out before the charge smashed home, but it didn't matter. They went down like scythed wheat as their quarry turned upon them.

  "Form up! Form up!" Rathan shouted, and bugles blared as his stunned men responded. There was no time to dress ranks properly, and unit organization went by the board as the tr
oopers struggled to form front. It was all a mad swirl, a crazed delirium of plunging horses and shouts in the darkness, but somehow they formed a line.

  "Lances!" Rathan bellowed. The last light was gone, drowning the hills in darkness that would make any semblance of control impossible, but he dared not let his men be taken at a stand by charging enemies, and at least the hradani's shrieks of Rage told him roughly where they were.

  "Charge!" he screamed, and two hundred mounted men thundered forward into the night.

  Bahzell Bahnakson jerked to his feet as the first screams came out of the north. He stood among the trees for just a second, peering into the darkness, and knew he'd heard those sounds before—made them before. It wasn't possible. Not this far south! Yet there could be no mistake, and then he heard bugles ringing over the hills and knew there was no time to waste on confusion or wonder.

  He slithered down into the ravine like an out-of-control boulder. He almost fell a dozen times, but somehow he kept his feet and staggered into the camp just as a soaking wet, stark naked Brandark erupted from the stream.

  "What—?!"

  "No time, man! No time! They'll be on us in minutes!" Bahzell shouted back, and Brandark strangled his questions and dashed for the heap of his clothes and armor, ignoring shirt and trousers to drag on his arming doublet while Bahzell leapt to the picket line. He grabbed a pack saddle and pushed his way in among the stamping, suddenly panicked animals, but the cacophony of screams raced nearer like some huge, malevolent beast, and it was headed straight for them.

  He spun away from the horses and reached for his sword as he realized there wasn't even time to saddle up. Brandark was still struggling with his haubergeon, and Bahzell backpedaled away from their mounts, putting himself between his friend and the lip of the ravine, as mounted men thundered into the woods above them with insane speed.