Vows And Honor Book 1: The Oathbound

by The Oathbound [lit]

face was exhausted and bloodstreaked, one of her

  eyes was blackened and swelling shut and she had

  livid bruises all over her body. On top of that she

  was covered in dust, and filthy, sweat-lank locks of

  hair were straggling into her face. But despite all of

  that, her eyes still held a certain amusement. "In

  case you hadn't noticed, these little costumes of

  ours are real gold and gems. We happen to be wear-

  ing a small fortune in jewelry."

  "Warrior's Truth!" Tarma looked a good deal

  more closely at her scanty attire, and discovered

  her partner was right. She grinned with real satis-

  faction. "I guess I owe that damn blade of yours an

  apology."

  "Only," Kethry grinned back, "If we get back

  into our own clothing before dawn."

  "Why dawn?"

  "Because that's when the rightful owners of these

  trinkets are likely to wake up. I don't think they'd

  let us keep them when we're found here if they

  know we have them."

  "Good point—but why should we want anyone to

  know we're responsible for this mess?"

  "Because when the rest of the population scrapes

  up enough nerve to find out what happened, we're

  going to be heroines—or at least we will until they

  find out how many of their fathers and brothers

  and husbands were trapped here tonight. By then,

  we'll be long gone. Even if they don't reward us—

  and they might, for delivering the town from a

  demon—our reputation has just been made!"

  Tarma's jaw dropped as she realized the truth of

  that. "Shek," she said. "Turn me into a sheep!

  You're right!" She threw back her head and laughed

  into the morning sky. "Now all we need is the

  fortune and a king's blessing!"

  "Don't laugh, oathkin," Kethry replied with a

  grin. "We just might get those, and sooner than you

  think. After all, aren't we demon-slayers?"

  Eight

  Someone wrote a song about it—but that was

  later. Much later—when the dust and dirt were

  gone from the legend. When the sweat and blood

  were only memories, and the pain was less than

  that. And when the dead were all but forgotten

  except to their own.

  "Deep into the stony hills

  Miles from keep or hold,

  A troupe of guards comes riding

  With a lady and her gold.

  Riding in the center,

  Shrouded in her cloak of fur

  Companioned by a maiden

  And a toothless, aged cur."

  "And every packtrain we've sent out for the past

  two months has vanished without a trace—and with-

  out survivors," the silk merchant Grumio concluded,

  twisting an old iron ring on one finger. "Yet the

  decoy trains were allowed to reach their destina-

  tions unmolested. It's uncanny—and if it goes on

  much longer, we'll be ruined."

  In the silence that followed his words, he studied

  the odd pair of mercenaries before him. He knew

  very well that they knew he was doing so. Eventu-

  ally there would be no secrets in this room—even-

  tually. But he would parcel his out as if they were

  bits of his heart—and he knew they would do the

  same. It was all part of the bargaining process.

  Neither of the two women seemed in any great

  hurry to reply to his speech. The crackle of the fire

  behind him in this tiny private eating room sounded

  unnaturally loud in the absence of conversation.

  Equally loud were the steady whisking of a whet-

  stone on blade-edge, and the muted murmur of

  voices from the common room of the inn beyond

  their closed door.

  The whetstone was being wielded by the swords-

  woman, Tarma by name, who was keeping to her

  self-appointed task with an indifference to Grumio's

  words that might—or might not—be feigned. She

  sat across the table from him, straddling her bench

  in a position that left him mostly with a view of her

  back and the back of her head. What little he might

  have been able to see of her face was screened by

  her unruly shock of coarse black hair. He was just

  as glad of that; there was something about her cold,

  expressionless, hawklike face with its wintry blue

  eyes that sent shivers up his spine. "The eyes of a

  killer," whispered one part of him. "Or a fanatic."

  The other partner cleared her throat and he grate-

  fully turned his attention to her. Now there was a

  face a man could easily rest his eyes on! She faced

  him squarely, this sorceress called Kethry, leaning

  slightly forward on her folded arms, placing her

  weight on the table between them. The light from

  the fire and the oil lamp on their table fell fully on

  her. A less canny man than Grumio might be

  tempted to dismiss her as being very much the

  weaker, the less intelligent of the two; she was

  always soft of speech, her demeanor refined and

  gentle. She was very attractive; sweet-faced and

  quite conventionally pretty, with hair like the fin-

  est amber and eyes of beryl-green. It would have

  been very easy to assume that she was no more

  than the swordswoman's vapid tagalong. A lover

  perhaps—maybe one with the right to those mage-

  robes she wore, but surely of no account in the

  decision-making.

  That would have been the assessment of most

  men. But as he'd spoken, Grumio had now and

  then caught a disquieting glimmer in those calm

  green eyes. She had been listening quite carefully,

  and analyzing what she heard. He had not missed

  the fact that she, too, bore a sword. And not for the

  show of it, either—that blade had a well-worn scab-

  bard that spoke of frequent use. More than that,

  what he could see of the blade showed that it was

  well-cared-for.

  The presence of that blade in itself was an anom-

  aly; most sorcerers never wore more than an eating

  knife. They simply hadn't the time—or the incli-

  nation—to attempt studying the arts of the swords-

  man. To Grumio's eyes the sword looked very odd

  and quite out-of-place, slung over the plain, buff-

  colored, calf-length robe of a wandering sorceress.

  A puzzlement; altogether a puzzlement.

  "I presume," Kethry said when he turned to face

  her, "that the road patrols have been unable to

  find your bandits."

  She had in turn been studying the merchant; he

  interested her. In his own way he was as much of

  an anomaly as she and Tarma were. There was

  muscle beneath the fat of good living, and old sword-

  calluses on his hands. This was no born-and-bred

  merchant, not when he looked to be as much re-

  tired mercenary as trader. And unless she was wildly

  mistaken, there was also a sharp mind beneath that

  balding skull. He knew they didn't come cheaply;

  since the demon-god affair their reputation had

  spread, and their fees had become quite respectable.


  They were even able—like Ikan and Justin—to pick

  and choose to some extent. On the surface this busi-

  ness appeared far too simple a task—one would simply

  gather a short-term army and clean these brigands

  out. On the surface, this was no job for a specialized

  team like theirs—and Grumio surely knew that. It

  followed then that there was something more to

  this tale of banditry than he was telling.

  Kethry studied him further. Certain signs seemed

  to confirm this surmise; he looked as though he had

  not slept well of late, and there seemed to be a

  shadow of deeper sorrow upon him than the loss of

  mere goods would account for.

  She wondered how much he really knew of them,

  and she paid close attention to what his answer to

  her question would be.

  Grumio snorted his contempt for the road pa-

  trols. "They rode up and down for a few days,

  never venturing off the Trade Road, and naturally

  found nothing. Over-dressed, over-paid, under-

  worked arrogant idiots!"

  Kethry toyed with a fruit left from their supper,

  and glanced up at the hound-faced merchant through

  long lashes that veiled her eyes and her thoughts.

  The next move would be Tarma's.

  Tarma heard her cue, and made her move. "Then

  guard your packtrains, merchant, if guards keep

  these vermin hidden."

  He started; her voice was as harsh as a raven's,

  and startled those not used to hearing it. One cor-

  ner of Tarma's mouth twitched slightly at his reac-

  tion. She took a perverse pleasure in using that

  harshness as a kind of weapon. A Shin'a'in learned

  to fight with many weapons, words among them.

  Kal'enedral learned the finer use of those weapons.

  Grumio saw at once the negotiating ploy these

  two had evidently planned to use with him. The

  swordswoman was to be the antagonizer, the sor-

  ceress the sympathizer. His respect for them rose

  another notch. Most freelance mercenaries hadn't

  the brains to count their pay, much less use subtle

  bargaining tricks. Their reputation was plainly well-

  founded. He just wished he knew more of them

  than their reputation; he was woefully short a full

  hand in this game. Why, he didn't even know where

  the sorceress hailed from, or what her School was!

  Be that as it may, once he saw the trick, he had

  no intention of falling for it.

  "Swordlady," he said patiently, as though to a

  child, "to hire sufficient force requires we raise

  the price of goods above what people are willing to

  pay."

  As he studied them further, he noticed some-

  thing else about them that was distinctly odd. There

  was a current of communication and understanding

  running between these two that had him thoroughly

  puzzled. He dismissed without a second thought

  the notion that they might be lovers, the signals

  between them were all wrong for that. No, it was

  something else, something more complicated than

  that. Something that you wouldn't expect between

  a Shin'a'in swordswoman and an outClansman—

  something perhaps, that only someone like he was,

  with experience in dealing with Shin'a'in, would

  notice in the first place.

  Tarma shook her head impatiently at his reply.

  "Then cease your inter-house rivalries, kadessa, and

  send all your trains together under a single large

  force."

  A new ploy—now she was trying to anger him a

  little—to get him off-guard by insulting him. She

  had called him a kadessa, a little grasslands beast

  that only the Shin'a'in ever saw, a rodent so notori-

  ously greedy that it would, given food enough, eat

  itself to death; and one that was known for hoard-

  ing anything and everything it came across in its

  nest-tunnels.

  Well it wasn't going to work. He refused to allow

  the insult to distract him. There was too much at

  stake here. "Respect, Swordlady," he replied with

  a hint of reproachfulness, "but we tried that, too.

  The beasts of the train were driven off in the night,

  and the guards and traders were forced to return

  afoot. This is desert country, most of it, and all

  they dared burden themselves with was food and

  drink."

  "Leaving the goods behind to be scavenged. Huh.

  Your bandits are clever, merchant," the swords-

  woman replied thoughtfully. Grumio thought he

  could sense her indifference lifting.

  "You mentioned decoy trains?" Kethry interjected.

  "Yes, lady." Grumio's mind was still worrying

  away at the puzzle these two presented. "Only I

  and the men in the train knew which were the

  decoys and which were not, yet the bandits were

  never deceived, not once. We had taken extra care

  that all the men in the train were known to us,

  too."

  A glint of gold on the smallest finger of Kethry's

  left hand finally gave him the clue he needed, and

  the crescent scar on the palm of that hand con-

  firmed his surmise. He knew without looking that

  that swordswoman would have an identical scar

  and ring. These two had sword Shin'a'in blood-

  oath, the oath of she'enedran; the strongest bond

  known to that notoriously kin-conscious race. The

  blood-oath made them closer than sisters, closer

  than lovers—so close they sometimes would think

  as one. In fact, the word she'enedran was sometimes

  translated as "two-made-one."

  "So who was it that passed judgment on your

  estimable guards?" Tarma's voice was heavy with

  sarcasm.

  "I did, or my fellow merchants, or our own per-

  sonal guards. No one was allowed on the trains but

  those who had served us in the past or were known

  to those who had."

  He waited in silence for them to make reply.

  Tarma held her blade up to catch the firelight

  and examined her work with a critical eye. Evi-

  dently satisfied, she drove it home in the scabbard

  slung across her back with a fluid, unthinking grace,

  then swung one leg back over the bench to face him

  as her partner did. Grumio found the unflinching

  chill of her eyes disconcertingly hard to meet for

  long.

  In an effort to find something else to look at, he

  found his gaze caught by the pendant she wore, a

  thin silver crescent surrounding a tiny amber flame.

  That gave him the last bit of information he needed

  to make everything fall into place—although now

  he realized that her plain brown clothing should

  have tipped him off as well, since most Shin'a'in

  favored wildly-colored garments heavy with bright

  embroideries. Tarma was a Sworn One, Kal'enedral,

  pledged to the service of the Shin'a'in Warrior, the

  Goddess of the New Moon and the South Wind.

  Only three things were of any import to her at

  all—her Goddess, her people, and her
Clan (which,

  of course, would include her "sister" by blood-oath).

  The Sword Sworn were just as sexless and deadly

  as the weapons they wore.

  "So why come to us?" Tarma's expression indi-

  cated she thought their time was being wasted.

  "What makes you think that we can solve your

  bandit problem?"

  "You—have a certain reputation," he replied

  guardedly.

  A single bark of contemptuous laughter was

  Tarma's only reply.

  "If you know our reputation, then you also know

  that we only take those assignments that—shall we

  say—interest us," Kethry said, looking wide-eyed

  and innocent. "What is there about your problem

  that could possibly be of any interest to us?"

  Good—they were intrigued, at least a little. Now,

  for the sake of poor little Lena, was the time to

  hook them and bring them in. His eyes stung a

  little with tears he would not shed—not now—not

  in front of them. Not until she was avenged.

  "We have a custom, we small merchant houses.

  Our sons must remain with their fathers to learn

  the trade, and since there are seldom more than

  two or three houses in any town, there is little in

  the way of choice for them when it comes time for

  marriage. For that reason, we are given to exchang-

  ing daughters of the proper age with our trade

  allies in other towns, so that our young people can

  hopefully find mates to their liking." His voice

  almost broke at the memory of watching Lena wav-

  ing good-bye from the back of her little mare, but

  he regained control quickly. It was a poor merchant

  that could not school his emotions. "There were no

  less than a dozen sheltered, gently-reared maidens

  in the very first packtrain they took. One of them

  was my niece. My only heir, and all that was left of