by David Weber
There was no flinch, no effort to temporize, in that earthquake voice. There never had been, and Bahzell had never flinched from the iron fidelity of its truth. Nor did he flinch now. He only drew on his pipe for a moment, then blew out a thin, fragrant jet of smoke.
* * *
Kenhodan’s fingers caressed the wire wound hilt of the sword lying naked across his thighs and he looked across the taproom at his host.
If not for the smoke curling from Bahzell’s pipe, he would have been tempted to think the huge hradani was asleep. But thoughtful brown eyes gleamed in the light-flickers from the hearth, and Bahzell’s ears were half-cocked as if he were considering the pieces of a puzzle.
Or perhaps the piece of a puzzle.
If Kenhodan had been remotely tempted to doubt Wencit of Rūm’s word about Bahzell Bahnakson’s status as a champion of Tomanāk, he would have abandoned that doubt as Bahzell crisply—and ruthlessly—ordered the rest of the Iron Axe’s staff out of danger. They’d dispersed to other houses—and it said a great deal about Bahzell’s stature in Belhadan that those other houses had taken in hradani without even a murmur of protest—but Kenhodan suspected few of them would get much sleep this night. He’d needed no memory to understand the unwillingness with which they’d abandoned their chieftain and lady, and their reluctance had raised Bahzell and Leeana still higher in his esteem.
Now Kenhodan sat quietly, waiting, wondering what was about to happen. He’d had no armor to climb into as Bahzell had, and he eyed the great, two-handed sword propped beside the hradani with profound respect. Its five-foot blade and long hilt almost matched Kenhodan’s own height, and its hard edges were lovingly honed. The crossed mace and sword of the war god were etched below the quillons, and while Kenhodan would never have attempted to flourish so much steel about, Bahzell handled it like a cavalry saber.
The other defenders were spread about the building. Wencit sat alone in the kitchen, his own sword bare on the table while a tiny globe of witchfire danced slowly up and down it. The globe pulsed gently in time with his breathing, and his hooded eyes never left it.
A lamp glowed in a bedroom high under the eaves. It wasn’t Gwynna’s normal room, but it had no windows and only one door. Leeana, Kenhodan knew, sat in a chair between her daughter and the door, clad now in the traditional short, kiltlike chari and leather yathu of the war maids, and matching short swords hung at either hip while Blanchrach prowled the upper halls, long fangs gleaming in the lightning flashes the windows admitted. Gwynna was well protected, yet Kenhodan wished she’d been sent with the others. He suspected Wencit agreed with him, but there’d been little they could do. And perhaps Bahzell and Leeana were right. A child with her parents would do well to learn to share the risks and the love early.
The tavern felt like a huge beast around him, shoulders hunched in uneasy sleep while wind and rain pelted its flanks. The tranquility which always seemed to infuse a warm, snug roof while rain drummed upon it hovered in the corners, yet for all its peacefulness, Kenhodan felt the farthest thing in the world from soothed. He wondered what form the attack would take, but he never doubted it would come.
He snorted restlessly and shifted position.
In a sense, his life had begun this evening. He had no past, no knowledge of what he might have been or done or accomplished in those lost years, but now he was locked into a game whose rules were understood only by an enigmatic wizard with flaming eyes that radiated sincerity. It angered him to be so helpless, and the cold chill of ignorance simmered in his blood like sea ice.
He glanced back at Bahzell and smiled wryly. His harrowed and riven memory told him enough about the hradani tribes to know Bahzell’s position in the heart of Belhadan was virtually impossible, champion of Tomanāk or not. For that matter, the notion of a hradani champion of Tomanāk was even less likely than that. The hradani were masters of ambush and accomplished raiders who happened to be the Sothōii’s most bitter enemies. The hatred between them and the Sothōii—who just happened to be the Empire of the Axe’s most important allies—was cold, focused, and deeper than the sea, a thing of centuries filled with mutual slaughter. Yet Bahzell was not only a champion of Tomanāk but wedded to a war maid! The gods only knew how that pairing had occurred or how the ill-matched couple had found their way to Belhadan. He gathered Wencit had played no small part in their lives, and perhaps someday he’d learn how it all had happened. He hoped so; it promised to be a rare tale.
His thoughts returned to himself and his smile vanished. Who and what was he? One thing he’d already learned was that it cut across his grain to sit and await attack, especially when it endangered those who’d gone from strangers to friends in mere hours and of their own free will in time of peril. And he’d also learned that it galled him to take orders, even when he knew he must…and even from someone as powerful as Wencit of Rūm.
Not, he thought with another snort, that he had a choice. He was a chip in a millrace, careening into an unknown future from a forgotten past, and it was a journey he would not survive without the wizard. Much as he would have preferred to, he couldn’t doubt that truth anymore than he doubted that Wencit truly knew who he was. That truth, and Wencit’s knowledge, bound Kenhodan to him like a chain.
He straightened in the chair, pressing his spine against its back, inflating his lungs and tightening his arm muscles in a seated, joint-popping release of tension. He suppressed the need to run mental fingers over the raw wound of his forgotten past yet again and, instead, stroked the hilt of his sword and traced its razor edge. He found himself hoping the attackers would arrive soon. They’d be coming sooner or later anyway, and it might ease his frustration to cleave a few hostile skulls.
* * *
More shadows flitted through the rain, converging on a cloaked figure in the Street of Wharves. The shadows’ movements melded into a single, perfectly coordinated whole, yet no word was spoken. A bitter cold hovered about them like arctic mist, streaming through the rain with invisible menace. The dimly lit windows of a tavern were shuttered, squeezed squint-eyed and smiling into the night through the open louvers, and their reflection gleamed on the street’s streaming pavement. The shadows halted, clustered about the living human who’d summoned them, and menace flickered in the topaz raindrops as they stood just outside the spill of light in silent communion with their master.
* * *
Wencit’s eyes narrowed as his ball of witchlight blazed purple-red. He lifted his sword in a sparse, economic motion, and the blade whined softly, as though possessed of a life of its own in his sinewy hand. Blue light shimmered briefly down its edge, like a reflection of his fiery eyes, as he paused to throw a warning to the bedroom beneath the eaves before he turned to the taproom.
Leeana looked up at the touch of his magic, her green eyes calm. She stood, and his mind saw her garbed for war. Steel-fanged throwing stars glittered at her belt, and Wencit nodded approval as she loosened the restraining thongs on her sword hilts. Then he opened the taproom door.
Kenhodan rose on catlike feet as the wizard entered. The borrowed sword balanced expertly in his hand, ready to strike, and Wencit stood motionless until the red-haired man relaxed in recognition. Then he glanced across at Bahzell.
The big hradani cocked his head, mobile ears half-flattened, and took his pipe from his mouth.
“I’m thinking you’ve the look of a man as has a mission,” he rumbled calmly.
“I always knew you were smarter than you looked,” Wencit replied with an edged smile.
“It’s here they are, then?” Bahzell laid the pipe on a table at his elbow and rose, stretching his arms in a mighty yawn while his ears shifted back and forth, alert for any sound through the pound of rain.
“Outside.” Wencit jerked his head at the windows. “Something’s out there, anyway. Part of it’s easy enough to recognize, but there’s something strange, too. Dif
ficult to place.” He sounded almost meditative.
“What kind of attack do you expect?” Kenhodan asked tautly.
“Shadowmen, I think—and whatever else it is I sense.”
“Ahhhh!” Bahzell let out his breath in a sigh that mingled understanding with something very like anticipation. “At least your wizard friends’ve been good enough to send me something as I can get steel into.”
“So they have,” Wencit said grimly, “and one of them’s come himself—Alwith, I think. But remember: if you can get steel into them, they can do the same for you. And they’ll attack without fear, as well, so they’ve a good chance of doing it.”
“It’s been done,” Bahzell said simply, “but never twice by the same person.”
“Gods send me strength!” Wencit snapped in exasperation. “Tomanāk knows you’re almost as good as you think you are, but try to remember these aren’t mortal enemies!”
“But if I can be killing them, they aren’t after being immortal, either, are they now? And I’m thinking whatever it may be you’ve sensed out yonder in the rain, it’s not so very likely to be a demon or a devil. Not unless Wulfra’s run clean mad and decided as how she wants to see an Axeman army burning its way across Angthyr to take her head, any road.” He wiggled his ears and reached for the helmet lying on the table beside his pipe. “Taking the rough with the smooth, that’s not so very bad an outcome, Wencit!”
Wencit eyed him sourly and turned to Kenhodan.
“They’ll concentrate on you and me,” he warned.
“It’ll be a relief to have a problem I can deal with.” Kenhodan grinned, meeting Bahzell’s eyes in the dimness, and Wencit snorted.
“Solid bone between the ears, the pair of you! It’s to be hoped it at least makes your heads harder to split!” His voice was tart, but his hand squeezed Kenhodan’s forearm in approval.
“Leeana?” Bahzell had his helmet on and his enormous sword’s edges glittered in the fitful firelight. Now he moved to Kenhodan’s left, facing the windows while Wencit turned to the kitchen door and Kenhodan confronted the front door. They formed a hollow triangle of ready steel.
“She’s awake and ready,” Wencit murmured, “and Blanchrach’s in the hall. But I doubt she’ll see much of them compared to us.”
“Aye.” Bahzell shifted the great sword to his right hand and drew the hook knife with his left. “Well, as to that, they’ve business with us, tonight. And since they do, I’m thinking it’s only courteous to be giving them a belly full of commerce.” His smile was unpleasant.
“I approve,” Wencit said briefly. Kenhodan only grunted, his eyes sweeping the front of the tavern, swinging from the barred door to the corner of the windows. A flicker of light caught at the corner of his eye, and he glanced over to see red and gold runes dance quickly down Wencit’s sword, confusing the gaze that tried to follow them.
“Ready!” the wizard hissed.
* * *
Shadows conferred silently outside the tavern. Lightning whipped the clouds, shattering blue-white above their silent forms, and the spalling electricity etched two shapes which stood apart from the others. The human’s sodden cape lashed from his shoulders in the gusting wind, and the lightning leapt back from the ebon staff he bore. The other was a shadow, taller and somehow more solid than the others. A rod of polished steel or dull silver winked at the lightning from its left hand, its metallic glitter broken by patterns of jagged, deeply-carved runes from no alphabet ever used on Orfressa.
The human’s staff pointed at the tavern, his lips moving in unheard words, and the shadow’s black head bent. Its rod touched the staff, and a speck of eye-searing blackness leapt from the staff to the metal and vanished. Then the shadow turned and gestured to its fellows.
Lesser shadows moved to obey silent commands. Some flitted to the shutters and doors. Some lifted gently into the rainy night, borne by the wind to chimney openings and upper windows. Lightning cracked again, its jagged light vanishing into the shadow forms, and the taller shadow waited another moment, then stretched an arm to point at the tavern and its finger glowed dully.
* * *
Everything happened at once.
Kenhodan’s brain seized a brief image of the door as it flew inward in an explosion of splinters and broken bolts. An iron shard gashed his cheek, hissing past to bury its length in the wall. Windows and shutters cascaded inward in the same moment, showering the sawdust with diamond-bright glass. Broken bits of pane winked in the fire like rubies, ringing as they bounced over tabletops and benches. A shadow filled the doorway, and cold rolled from it like acid. A flash of brilliance washed his shoulder as Wencit muttered a semi-audible incantation and his blade pulsed with savage light in time with the words. The chill withdrew slightly, and Bahzell’s breath snorted, pluming like frost, as his huge sword swung up in a silvery arc, as if saluting his foes.
Then the shadows were upon them.
Despite his scars, this was in a very real sense Kenhodan’s first combat, yet there was time for him to realize that he felt no fear. Time for him to wonder what that said about the man he’d forgotten. And then a strange, consuming rage roused within him. It filled him with a fury which demanded blood, and it had an endless depth that staggered the mind. He had no idea where it had come from, and if there’d been time to think about it, its fiery strength would have terrified him. But now, at this moment, he was conscious only of his own burning hunger, and his lips drew back in a feral snarl as the shadows attacked.
“Tomanāk!” Bahzell’s bull-throated bellow roared through the taproom, and a shadow loomed close, a scimitar of blackness reaching for Kenhodan like an extrusion of its own substance. Instinct prompted and reaction obeyed. His own blade darted to engage the scimitar, driving it wide, then recovered in a straight backhand that raked the shadow from crotch to throat. He felt a fleeting resistance, and the shadow fell back with a thin, ear-hurting wail. It dissolved in streamers of noisome fog before it hit the floor.
Another eluded the sweep of Bahzell’s knife and charged Kenhodan from the left while the hradani’s sword engaged two more. Kenhodan’s blade flashed across his own vision as if he were a spectator. Black scimitar crashed on razor-blue steel. Wrist and arm throbbed, and his booted heel slammed into the shadow’s midsection as he heaved the scimitar away from his flesh. Acid cold stabbed as high as his thigh and burned in his hip with a pain that wrung an anguished gasp from him, but his sword whistled back against the shadowy neck. A half-seen head flew, and another high death wail pierced his ears.
Sorcerous they undoubtedly were, he thought grimly, but they were as killable as he was.
“Tomanāk! Tomanāk!”
Bahzell’s thunderous war cry rose over the clash of blades. Kenhodan leaned away from a slash and caught a glimpse of the hradani in the full, murderous action of a champion of the war god. His greatsword avalanched down in an overhand blow, propelled by the muscles of an arm as thick as Kenhodan’s thigh. It smashed clean through a scimitar to cleave a shadow in two, then whistled up in a perfect backhand, preposterously swift for a blade of its dimensions, that split another shadowy head. The hook knife darted, gutting a third while the first two fell away. Every move, every shift of weight, was perfect, like some choreographed exercise, with a deadly efficiency which had to be seen to be believed, and a bright yet half-imagined blue glitter wrapped itself around the towering hradani.
Kenhodan spared a thought for the old wizard, but the ring of blades and the odd wails of dying shadows came from his rear as well. It was reassuring evidence of Wencit’s condition, yet the moment of inattention was almost his own undoing. The brief break in the flow of his rage snapped his automatic reactions. His waking mind intruded on his trained body, and cold fire burned his shoulder, tracing a line of hot blood edged with ice. He staggered, momentarily convulsed by the awful cold pulsing through his body. But he dragged himself back on balance and his elbow smashed the attacking shadow. Another burst of cold slashed through hi
m, but this time he was prepared. He shook it off and shattered his foe’s head, recovered, and slid two feet of steel through another’s chest. That shadow, too, fell away, winning him the tiny moment he needed to beat the last cold shudders from his muscles. A shadow sprawled to his right rear, and Wencit’s blade burned with dangerous fire, consuming his foe as it struck.
There seemed no end to that first rush. Kenhodan lost track of the number he struck down in a wild flurry of blows, counter blows, and hairbreadth escapes. Yet there was a break in the attack wave at last. He smashed the guard of the final shadow and lunged through its throat, then stood back, panting, as the remaining shadows fell away.
They stood just beyond reach, like a circle of icebergs, their silence taunting him, and that fierce rage roared up within him. It gripped like bands of hot iron, and he leapt to the attack. But Bahzell dropped his knife. His hand darted out to fasten on his shoulder like a steel vise, and Kenhodan’s eyes flared at the immense strength which stopped his lunge as if he were a child.
“No, lad!” The hradani rasped, holding him effortlessly in the defensive triangle. “This one’s Wencit’s!”
Kenhodan froze, then nodded tightly, panting for breath as a single shadow glided over the sawdust. A metal rod glimmered sullenly in one hand, and a black scimitar burned in the other. A dim flow of light from half-guessed eyes mocked the wildfire of Wencit’s gaze, and Kenhodan shuddered to see it.
The defenders pivoted slowly, Kenhodan compelled by the hradani’s grasp, until Wencit faced the new threat. Bahzell paused just long enough to recover his hook knife, then faced the shattered door, content to leave the main fight in Wencit’s hands. Kenhodan knew he should echo the hradani’s detachment, but he found his attention split between the kitchen arch and the arcane confrontation of wizard and shadow.