Oath of Swords-ARC

by David Weber

  A palm-sized fire flickered at the heart of the hollow, and Bahzell sat at the depression's upper end, just his head rising above the crest of the low hill while Brandark slept behind him. His sword lay at his side, and he grimaced and wrapped his cloak a bit tighter as a few dry pellets of snow whipped at him on the teeth of the wind.

  Snow, he thought. Just what they needed. But at least the clouds were thinner than he'd feared—he could actually see a lighter patch where the moon ought to be—and so far the snow was no more than spits. It wouldn't be too bad if it held to flurries, yet Zarantha's captors were keeping to a more rapid pace than he'd expected. He and Brandark had closed the gap, but they were beginning to feel the pace themselves.

  Bahzell had only a vague notion of exactly where they were—somewhere in the Middle Weald, he thought. They'd crossed what passed for a Spearman highroad yesterday, which might have been the one between Midrancimb and Boracimb. If it had been, then they were little more than two hundred leagues from Alfroma, and if Zarantha's captors were able to keep pushing this hard, the hradani must catch them up soon or risk never catching them at all.

  He chewed that thought unhappily, and his mind turned as if by association to the mystery horseman. Bahzell had spent too much time on the Wind Plain not to recognize a Sothoii warhorse's stride when he saw one, but whoever was riding it wasn't Sothoii. The more he thought about it, the more certain of that he was, and not just because a Sothoii warrior had no business this far south. No, he rode like a Sothoii, and he tracked like one, but he didn't think like one—not even one who knew he was on the trail of wizards.

  The Sothoii horsebow was a deadly weapon in expert hands, and any Sothoii warrior was, by definition, expert. He was also both canny and patient as the grass itself. If a Sothoii knew what he was up against—and the evidence said this rider did—he'd scout the enemy, establish exactly who among them were the wizards and be certain his first two arrows went into them, then take the others one by one. It might take him a while, but he could have them all. If anyone knew that, a Horse Stealer did, and that was exactly why Bahzell was so convinced this fellow was something else.

  Yet what sort of something else baffled him, and one thing he didn't need was fresh puzzles. He had enough trouble trying to understand what in the names of all the gods and demons a pair of hradani were doing chasing wizards through winter weather in the middle of the Empire of the Spear without wondering why someone else was doing the same thing!

  He swore under his breath and shifted position. Brandark, he knew, was in this because of him. Oh, the Bloody Sword had his own reasons for helping Zarantha, but he wouldn't have been here in the first place if he hadn't followed Bahzell out of Navahk—and if Bahzell hadn't dragged Zarantha into his life in Riverside. But why was Bahzell in it? He knew what drove him to see Zarantha safe now, yet try as he might, he couldn't lay hands on how his life had gotten so tangled to begin with. Each step of the road made sense in and of itself, but why the Phrobus had he set out on it in the first place?

  As he'd told Tothas, he was no knight in shining armor—the very thought made him ill—nor did his friendship for Tothas and Rekah and Zarantha have anything in common with the revoltingly noble heroes who infested the romantic ballads. And it wasn't nobility that had driven him to help Farmah in Navahk, either. It had been anger and disgust and perhaps, little though he cared to admit it, pity—and look where it had landed him!

  His mind flickered back against his will to a firelit cave and the ripple of music, and he growled another curse. Whatever the Lady might say, he wasn't out here in the dark for any thrice-damned gods! He was out here because he'd been fool enough to stick his nose into other people's troubles . . . and because he was too softheaded—and hearted—to leave people he liked to their fates. The fact that he'd given his friendship and loyalty to strangers might prove he was stupid, yet at least he understood it. And at least it had been his own decision, his own choice. But as for anything more than that, any notion he had some sort of "destiny" or "task"—

  His thoughts broke off, and his head snapped up. Something had changed—something he couldn't see or hear, yet something that sparkled down his nerves and drove his ears flat to his skull. He snatched at his sword hilt, and steel rasped as he surged to his feet, but his shout to Brandark died stillborn as an impossibly deep voice spoke from behind him. A mountain might have spoken so, had some spell given it life, and its deep, resounding music sang in his bones and blood.

  "Good evening, Bahzell Bahnakson," it said. "I understand you've met my sister."

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Bahzell spun around, sword raised, and his eyes went huge.

  A man—or what looked like a man—stood in the hollow behind him, arms folded across his chest. He was at least ten feet tall, dark haired and dark eyed, with a strong, triangular face that shouted his kinship to the only deity Bahzell had ever seen. A light mace hung at his belt, a sword hilt showed at his left shoulder, and he wore chain mail under a green tabard. No special light of divinity shone about him . . . but he didn't need one.

  Tomânak Orfro, God of War and Judge of Princes, second in power only to his father Orr, stood there in the dark, brown hair stirring on the sharp breeze, and Bahzell lowered his sword almost mechanically. Stillness hovered, broken only by the sigh of the wind, and Tomânak 's sheer presence gripped Bahzell like an iron fist. Something deep inside urged him to his knees, but something deeper and even stronger kept him on his feet. He bent slowly, eyes never leaving the god, and lifted his baldric from the ground. He sheathed his blade and looped the baldric back over his shoulder, settling the sword on his back, and gave the War God look for look in stubborn silence.

  Tomânak 's eyes gleamed. "Shall we stand here all night?" Amusement danced in that earthquake-deep voice. "Or shall we discuss why I'm here?"

  "I'm thinking I know why you're here, and it's no part of it I want." Bahzell was astounded by how level his own voice sounded—and by his own temerity—but Tomânak only smiled.

  "You've made that plain enough," he said wryly. "Of all the mortals I've ever tried to contact, your skull must be the thickest."

  "Must it, now?" A sort of lunatic hilarity flickered inside Bahzell, and he folded his arms across his own chest and snorted. "I'm thinking that should be giving you a hint," he said, and Tomânak laughed out loud.

  It was a terrible sound—and a wonderful one. It sang in the bones of the earth and rang from the clouds, bright and delighted yet dreadful, its merriment undergirt with bugles, thundering hooves, and clashing steel. It shook Bahzell to the bone like a fierce summer wind, yet there was no menace in it.

  "Bahzell, Bahzell!" Tomânak shook his head, laughter still dancing in his eyes. "How many mortals do you think would dare say that to me?"

  "As to that, I've no way of knowing, I'm sure. But it might be more of my folk would do it than you'd think."

  "I doubt that." Tomânak 's nostrils flared as if to scent the wind. "No, I doubt that. Reject me, yes, but tell me to go away once they're face-to-face with me? Not even your people are that bold, Bahzell."

  Bahzell simply raised his eyebrows, and Tomânak shrugged.

  "Well, not most of them." Bahzell said nothing, and the War God nodded. "And that, my friend, is what makes you so important."

  "Important, is it?" Bahzell's lips thinned. "Twelve hundred years my folk have suffered and died, with never a bit of help from you or yours. Just what might be making me so all-fired 'important' to the likes of you?"

  "Nothing . . . except what you are. I need you, Bahzell." It seemed impossible for that mountainous voice to soften, but it did.

  "Ah, now! Isn't that just what I might have expected?" Bahzell bared his teeth. "You've no time to be helping them as need it, but let someone have something you want, and you plague him with nightmares and hunt him across half a continent! Well, it's little I know—and less I'm wishful to know—of gods. But this I do know: I've seen naught at all, at all, to make me
want to bow down and worship you. And, meaning no disrespect, I'd as soon have naught at all to do with you, if you take my meaning."

  "Oh, I understand you, Bahzell—perhaps better than you think." Tomânak shook his head once more. "But are you so certain it's what you truly mean? Didn't Chesmirsa tell you the decision to hear me must be your own?"

  "So she did. But, meaning no disrespect again, it's in my mind I'm not so wishful as all that to speak to you, so why should I believe her?" Tomânak frowned, but Bahzell met his eyes steadily—and hoped the god didn't realize just how hard that was. "My folk have had promises enough to choke on, and never a bit of good has it done us."

  "I see." Tomânak studied him a moment, then smiled sadly. "Do you know the real reason you're so angry with me, Bahzell?"

  "Angry?" It was Bahzell's turn to frown and shake his head. "It's not angry I am, but a man's too little time in this world to waste it on 'gods' that do naught when they're needed most!" He glared up, a corner of his soul shocked by his own effrontery. This was a god, a being who could crush him with a thought, but fear was the smallest part of what he felt.

  "And that," Tomânak 's earth-shaking voice was gentle, "is why you're angry. Because we've 'done nothing' for your people."

  "Because you've done naught at all," Bahzell returned hotly. "I'm but a man, but I'm thinking I know what to think of a man who saw someone hurt and did naught to help! If you're after being so all-fired concerned about 'good' and 'evil,' then why not do something about it and be done with it?!"

  "So that's what you want of me?" Tomânak rumbled. "To reach down my hand and root out all evil, destroy it wherever I find it?" Bahzell scowled in answer, and the god shook his head. "Even if I could, I wouldn't, but I can't. If I stretch out my hand, then the Gods of Darkness will do the same."

  "Will they now?" Bahzell snorted with scathing irony. "And here was I, thinking as how they'd already done just that!"

  "Then you thought wrongly," Tomânak said sternly. "Neither they nor we may tamper directly with the world of mortals, lest we destroy it utterly." Bahzell's lips drew back, and Tomânak frowned. "You think you know a great deal about evil, Bahzell Bahnakson, and so you do—by mortal standards. But it was I who cast Phrobus down, and the evil I have seen makes all any mortal can do but a shadow, an echo, of itself. If I fought that evil in your world, power-to-power and hand-to-hand, we would grind an entire universe to dust."

  "So where's the use in you, then?" Bahzell demanded.

  "Without us, there would be nothing to stop the Gods of Darkness. If we clash directly, we would destroy your world; without the fear of that, the Dark Gods wouldn't hesitate to meddle. They would do as they willed—not just with some mortals, but with all of you—and nothing could stop them."

  "Aye? And what's after making us so curst important to the both of you? It's long enough you've been squabbling over us, the way tales tell it!"

  "I could say we'd be just as angry to see evil take a single mortal as an entire world," Tomânak 's deep voice rumbled, "and that would be true. But it wouldn't be the entire truth. On the other hand, you couldn't understand the entire truth." Bahzell bristled, and Tomânak smiled sadly. "As you yourself said, meaning no disrespect, but the totality is a bit much even for gods to keep straight. Think of it this way, Bahzell. Yours is but one of more universes than you can imagine, and across all those universes, 'good' and 'evil' are eternally at war. Each universe is much like a single city in the total kingdom of existence; if one side triumphs there, then the weight of that universe—that city—is added to its armies. It grows a little stronger; its enemy grows a little weaker. In the end—if there is an end—the side which controls enough 'cities' will defeat the other. Remember, I'm offering you only an analogy, but it's close enough to serve."

  "So we're naught but sword fodder, are we?" Bahzell curled a lip. "Well, that's something hradani can understand clear enough!"

  "You are not simple 'sword fodder.'" Tomânak 's eyes flashed, and there was an edge of strained patience in the grumbling thunder of his voice. "Oh, that's what the Dark Gods would make you, and that gives them an edge. They don't care what happens to mortals, either individually or as a group; the Gods of Light do care, and that limits what we may do." Bahzell frowned, and Tomânak 's sigh seemed to shake the world. "Your father cares what happens to his people, Bahzell; Churnazh doesn't. Which of them is more free to do as he wills, when he wills, without thinking of others?"

  Bahzell's ears cocked. Then he nodded, almost against his will, and Tomânak shrugged.

  "We think well of your father. He's a hard man, and a bit too tempted by expedience at times, but he cares about the people he rules, not simply his power. Yet just as he can work only by degrees, we can't sweep away evil in a moment. And, to give you truth for truth, the Dark Gods won an immense victory in the Fall of Kontovar. What happened to your people is only a part of the evil stemming from that victory, yet it wasn't total. Their servants paid too high a price for it, too many of the free folk escaped to Norfressa, and the war goes on."

  "And now you're wanting me to sign on for it," Bahzell said shrewdly. Tomânak considered him for a moment, then nodded, and Bahzell snorted. "Well, I'm thinking it'll be a cold day in Krashnark's Hell first!"

  "After railing at me for doing nothing?" Tomânak uncrossed his arms and rested his huge right hand on the haft of his mace.

  "As to that, you're the god," Bahzell shot back. "I'm naught but what you see. Oh, no question but I'm stupid enough to land myself in messes like this one, yet it's damned I'll be if I join up in a war I never made! Stupid hradani may be, but not so stupid as to be forgetting what happened the last time we fought for gods or wizards!"

  "You truly are stubborn, aren't you?"

  "Aye. It's a lesson my folk were overlong in learning, but learn it we did. I've no notion how long twelve hundred years are to a god, but they've been mortal long and hard for us, and never a sign of you have we seen. You talk of wars, and struggles, and eternity, and that's as may be, but we've no use for 'eternity' when it's all we can do to be keeping our families alive from day to day! No, Tomânak ," Bahzell straightened, and his eyes flashed, "it's no use bidding me to bow down to worship you, for I'll not do it."

  "I haven't asked you to—and that's not what I want of you."

  Bahzell's jaw dropped. He gaped up at the god, and Tomânak smiled.

  "Don't misunderstand," he said. "Worship is a source of power, but it's a passive sort of power. Belief is something we can draw upon when we face another god or some task only a god can perform, but it's not very useful in the mortal world. Or, at least, not by itself. Did you think I wanted you to sit around in a temple and tell me how wonderful I am? To bribe me with incense and gifts? To get down on your knees and ask me to solve all your problems? Oh, no, Bahzell Bahnakson! I've too many 'worshipers' who do that already—and even if it was what I wanted from you, you'd be a poor hand at it!"

  Bahzell shook himself, and, for the first time, an unwilling grin twitched at the corners of his mouth.

  "So I would. And if we're both after agreeing to that, then why should I stand freezing my arse in this wind while you jaw away at me?" he demanded impudently, and Tomânak laughed once more, then sobered.

  "I don't want your worship, Bahzell, but I do want you to follow me."

  "Ah? And where's the difference, if you don't mind my asking?"

  "If I minded, I wouldn't be arguing with a rock-headed hradani while he freezes his arse off!" Bahzell blinked at the tartness in the god's deep voice, but Tomânak went on more seriously. "I said worship was a passive sort of power, and it is. In many ways, it's most useful to the Dark Gods, because they're prone to meddle so much more openly than we. They can't act directly, but they can use their worshipers as proxies and lend them some of their own power. Even worse, perhaps, they can use other creatures—servants in the same army, drawn from universes where that army has already triumphed—to act for them for a price, and their wor
shipers provide that price to them. Mortals call those servants demons and devils, though there are far more—and worse—that mortals have never given names to. We spend a great deal of the 'passive' power of our worshipers blocking the intrusion of those more terrible servants, but powerful as their lesser servants may be in mortal terms, they're so weak by other standards as to be . . . call it faint. They're difficult to see in the shadows, and they creep past us. Once they reach your world, we can no longer deal with them directly without imperiling that world's very existence. Do you understand that much?"

  "No," Bahzell said frankly, "but I've little choice but to be taking your word. Yet even if I do, what's that to me?"

  "This," Tomânak said very seriously. "Because we may not act directly against them—or against mortals who give themselves to evil—we need followers, not just worshipers. We require people—warriors—to fight against the Dark, not just people who sit about and ask us to."

  Bahzell looked unconvinced, and Tomânak cocked his head.