by David Weber
“Aye, I can see that,” he agreed, but then he fixed the captain with a quizzical eye. “I can see that, yet I can’t but be wondering how the rest of your lads will feel about having such as me watch over their pay?”
“What matters is how I feel about it.” Rianthus gave the hradani a look that boded ill for anyone who questioned his judgment-and suggested he had a shrewd notion who those individuals might be-then raised one hand in a palm up, throwing away gesture. “And while we’re speaking of how I feel, I may as well tell you that one reason I agreed with Kilthan about your hire is that your-situation, shall we say?-makes you more reliable, not less. You and your friend are hradani, and you can’t go home again. If you should be minded to play us false, finding you afterward wouldn’t be so very hard, now would it?”
“You’ve a point there,” Bahzell murmured. “Aye, you’ve quite a point, now I think on it. Not that I was minded to do any such thing, of course.”
“Of course.” Rianthus returned his grin, then pointed at the arbalest over his shoulder. “Not to change the subject, but one thing I’d like you to consider is trading that for a bow. I’ve seen crossbows enough to respect ’em, but they’re slow, and anything we fall into is likely to be fast and sharp.”
“I’ve neither hand nor eye for a bow,” Bahzell objected, “and gaining either takes time. If it comes to that, I’m doubting there’s a bow in Esgan made to my size, and gods know I’d look a right fool prancing about with one of those wee tiny bows your horse archers draw!”
“That’s true, but even one lighter than the heaviest you can pull would be nasty enough-and faster.”
“That’s as may be.” Bahzell glanced at the empty archery range, then stepped across the rail, waved politely for the other to follow, and unslung his arbalest. Rianthus raised an eyebrow, then hopped over the same rail, and his other eyebrow rose as Bahzell drew the goatsfoot from his belt and hooked it to the arbalest’s string.
“You span that thing with one hand? ”
“Well, it’s faster that way, d’you see,” Bahzell replied, and Rianthus folded his arms and watched with something like disbelief as the Horse Stealer cocked the weapon with a single mighty pull. He took the time to return the goatsfoot to his belt before he set a quarrel on the string, but then the arbalest rose with snake-quick speed, the string snapped, and the bolt hummed wickedly as it tore through the head of a man-shaped target over fifty yards away. Rianthus pursed his lips, but whatever he’d thought about saying died unspoken as Bahzell’s flashing hands respanned the arbalest and sent a second quarrel through the same straw-stuffed head in less than ten seconds.
The hradani lowered the weapon and cocked his ears inquiringly at his new commander, and Rianthus let out a slow, deep breath.
“I suppose,” he murmured after a moment, “that we might just let you keep that thing after all, Prince Bahzell.”
***
They left Esgfalas on schedule to the hour, and for all Rianthus’ disparaging remarks, the “rag and tag” merchants who’d attached themselves to Kilthan moved with almost the same military precision as the dwarf’s own men. But Rianthus had been right about one thing: there were over three hundred wagons, and the enormous column stretched out for almost four miles.
Bahzell had never imagined such an enormous, vulnerable, toothsome target. It was enough to make any man come all over greedy, he thought, yet the size of it made sense once he’d had a look at Kilthan’s maps.
The roads in Esgan might be as good as any in Hurgrum, but most merchants preferred to ship by water wherever possible. Unfortunately, the best river route of all-the mighty Spear River and its tributary, the Hangnysti, whose navigable waters ran clear from the Sothōii Wind Plain to the Purple Lords’ Bortalik Bay-was out of the question for Esganians. The Hangnysti would have taken them straight to the Spear in a relatively short hop . . . except that it flowed through the lands of both the Bloody Swords and Horse Stealers alike before it crossed the Ghoul Moor. No merchant would tempt hradani with such a prize, and even hradani avoided the Ghoul Moor.
That meant all the trade to Esgan, the Kingdom of Daranfel, and the Duchy of Moretz funneled down the roads (such as they were) to Derm, capital of the Barony of Ernos, on the Saram River. The Saram was riddled with shallows and waterfalls above Derm, but from that point south river barges could ferry them down the lower Saram, Morvan, and Bellwater to the Bay of Kolvania. And, as Rianthus had said, this was one of the last (and best-guarded) caravans of the year; anyone who possibly could had made certain his goods went with it.
None of which made the lot of Kilthan’s guards any easier. Rianthus had kept them training hard, but six weeks of camp living while they waited for the caravan to assemble had taken some of the edge off them, and the other merchants’ guards ranged from excellent to execrable. It would take Rianthus a few days to decide which were which; until he had, he was forced to assume they were all useless and deploy his own men accordingly, and the constant roving patrols he maintained along the column’s flanks, coupled with regular scouting forays whenever the road passed through unclaimed wilderness, took their toll. Men and horses alike grew weary and irritable, and aching muscles had a magnifying effect on even the most petty resentments.
Bahzell saw it coming. His own lot was tolerable enough-Hartan was a hard man, but one a hradani could respect, and his own assignment kept him with the column and not gallivanting about the countryside-but the mounted units were another matter, and Brandark was assigned to one of them. So was Shergahn, and the Daranfelian’s bitter dislike for all hradani found fertile, weary soil, especially when he began muttering about “spies” set on to scout the caravan’s weaknesses and report them to their brigand friends.
Shergahn’s bigotry didn’t make him or his cronies total idiots, however, and they’d decided to leave Bahzell well enough alone. None cared to try his luck unarmed against a giant who towered nine inches and then some over seven feet, and the prohibition against drawn steel precluded anything more lethal. Besides, they’d seen him at weapons drill with that monstrous sword. In fact, Rianthus-not by coincidence-had paired the worst of them off as his sparring partners to give them a closer look, and they wanted no part of it.
But Brandark was a foot and a half shorter and carried a sword of normal dimensions. Worse, his cultured grammar and dandified manner could be immensely annoying. They were also likely to provoke a fatal misjudgment, and Shergahn’s contempt for any so-called warrior who wore flower-embroidered jerkins, quoted poetry, and sat by the fire strumming a balalaika while he stared dreamily into the flames was almost as boundless as Prince Churnazh’s.
***
Bahzell sat cross-legged against a wagon wheel, fingers working on a broken harness strap while the smell of cooking stew drifted from the fires. He’d been surprised and pleased by how well Kilthan fed his men, but, then, he’d been surprised by a great many things since entering Esgan. He’d looked down on Churnazh and his Navahkans as crude barbarians, yet he’d been forced to the conclusion that Hurgrum was barbarian, as well. That didn’t blind him to his father’s achievements, but things others took for granted were still dreams for Prince Bahnak’s folk. Like the lightweight tin cooking pots Kilthan’s cooks used instead of the huge, clumsy iron kettles Hurgrum’s field cooks lugged about, for one. And, he thought, like the wagon against which he leaned, for another.
Hradani wagons were little more than carts, often with solid wooden wheels. Kilthan’s wagons were even better than those Bahzell had seen in Esganian hands; lightly but strongly built, with wheels padded in some tough, springy stuff he’d never seen before rather than rimmed in iron, and he hadn’t been able to believe how well sprung they were until he’d crawled under one of them with Kilthan’s chief wainwright to see the strange, fat cylinders that absorbed the shocks with his own eyes. They were a dwarvish design, and the wainwright insisted they had nothing inside them but air and plungers, yet they made Bahzell feel uneasily as if he’d stumbled
across some sorcerous art . . . and more than a bit like a bumpkin over his own unease.
And those wagons and lightweight kettles were only two of the wonders about him. Discovering what his people had been denied by their long isolation filled him with anger-and a burning desire to see and learn even more.
A soft, familiar sound plucked him from his thoughts, and he looked up from his repairs as Brandark stepped into the firelight. The balalaika slung on his back chimed faintly as he swung his saddle over a wagon tongue, then he straightened wearily, kneading his posterior with both hands, and Bahzell grinned. He’d heard about the confusion in orders that had sent Brandark’s platoon out on a scouting sweep . . . in the wrong direction. They’d needed three hard, extra hours in the saddle to catch back up, and the rest of their company been less than amused by how thin the absence of a third of its strength spread its remaining members.
Brandark nodded to his friend, but his long nose twitched even as he did so. He turned like a lodestone, seeking the source of that delicious aroma, gave his backside one last rub, and started for the cooking fires, when a deep, ugly voice spoke from the shadows behind him.
“So, there you are, you lazy bastard!” it grated. “You led the other lads a fine song and dance today, didn’t you?”
Bahzell’s hands stilled at Shergahn’s growled accusation, but he made no other move. The last thing he and Brandark needed was to make this a matter of human against hradani rather than a simple case of a troublemaker with an overlarge mouth.
Brandark paused in his beeline to the stew pot and cocked his ears.
“Should I take it you’re addressing me?” he asked in a mild tone, and Shergahn barked a laugh.
“Who else would I be calling a bastard, you smooth-tongued whoreson?”
“Oh, it’s you, Shergahn!” Brandark said brightly. “Now I understand your question.”
“Which question?” Shergahn sounded a bit taken aback by the lack of anger in the hradani’s voice.
“The one about bastards. I’d thought it must be someone else asking for you ,” Brandark said, and someone chuckled.
“Ha! Think you’re so damned smart, d’you?” Shergahn spat, and the Bloody Sword shook his head with a sigh.
“Only in comparison to some, Shergahn. Only in comparison to some.”
Bahzell grinned, and someone closer to the fires laughed out loud at the weary melancholy that infused Brandark’s tenor. A dozen others chuckled, and Shergahn spat a filthy oath. He erupted from the shadows, flinging himself at Brandark with his arms spread-and then flew forward, windmilling frantically at empty air, when the hradani stepped aside and hooked his ankles neatly from under him with a booted foot.
Brandark watched him hit hard on his belly, then shrugged and stepped over him, brushing dust from his sleeves as he resumed his journey to the food. A louder shout of laughter went up as Shergahn heaved himself to hands and knees, but there were a few ugly mutters, as well, and two of Shergahn’s cronies emerged from the same shadows to help him up. He stood for a moment, shaking his head like a baffled bull, and Brandark smiled at one of the cooks and took his long iron ladle from him. He ignored Shergahn to dip up a dollop from a simmering kettle and sniff appreciatively, and his lack of concern acted on the human like a slap. He bared his teeth, exchanged glances with one of his friends, and then the two of them charged Brandark from behind.
Bahzell closed his eyes in pity. An instant later, he heard two loud thuds, followed by matched falling sounds, and opened his eyes once more.
Shergahn and friend lay like poleaxed steers, and the Daranfelian’s greasy hair was thick with potatoes, carrots, gravy, and chunks of beef. His companion had less stew in his hair, but an equally large lump was rising fast, and Brandark flipped his improvised club into the air, caught it in proper dipping position, and filled it once more from the pot without even glancing at them. He raised the ladle to his nose, inhaled deeply, and glanced at the cook with an impudent twitch of his ears.
“Smells delicious,” he said while the laughter started up all around the fire. “I imagine a bellyful of this should help a hungry man sleep. Why, just look what a single ladle of it did for Shergahn!”
Chapter Nine
Icy rain soaked Bahzell’s cloak and ran down his face, and one of the wheel horses snorted miserably beside him as the pay wagon started up another hill. The muddy road was treacherous underfoot, and raindrops drummed on the wagon’s canvas covering. It was six days since Shergahn’s attack on Brandark, and the rain had started yesterday, just as the road began winding its way through the hills along the border between Esgan and Moretz.
He looked up as a mounted patrol splashed by, and Brandark nodded in passing. The Bloody Sword was just as soaked and cold as Bahzell, yet he looked almost cheerful. Shergahn had never been popular, and the rest of the guards admired Brandark’s style in dealing with him. Most were none too secretly pleased Rianthus had paid the troublemaker off and sent him packing, as well, and a couple had actually asked Brandark to sing for them. Which either said a great deal for how much they liked him or indicated they were all tone deaf.
Bahzell chuckled at the thought, and someone jabbed him in the back.
“You’ll be laughing from a slit throat if you let your wits wander around here, m’lad!” a sharp voice said, and he turned his head to look down at his own commander.
Hartan was another dwarf, some sort of kinsman of Kilthan’s. Only a dwarf could keep the various dwarven relationships straight, but Hartan hadn’t gotten his job through nepotism. Few dwarves had the length of leg for a horse, and he looked a little odd on the oversized hill pony he rode, but he was as hard and tough as his people’s mountains and the only person Bahzell had ever seen who could wield a battle-axe with equal adroitness on foot or mounted. He was also atypical, for a dwarf, in that he revered Tomanāk, not Torframos. Bahzell had little use for any god, and he knew some of Hartan’s own folk looked upon him askance for his choice of deity, but he understood it. If a man was daft enough to put his trust in gods at all, then the Sword God was a better patron for a warrior than old Stone Beard. Even a hradani could approve of Tomanāk’s Code-as Hartan practiced it, at least . . . except, perhaps, for that bit about always giving quarter if it was asked for.
The dwarf took people as he found them, which meant he treated anyone assigned to his outsized platoon with equally demanding impartiality. He considered his command the elite of Kilthan’s private army, and all he cared about was that his men meet his own standards in weapons craft, loyalty, and courage. If they did, he would face hell itself beside them; if they didn’t, he’d cut their throats himself, and his ready, if rough, approval of the hradani had gone far to ease Bahzell’s acceptance into the tight-knit world of Kilthan’s personal bodyguard.
Now the dwarf swept his battered axe in a one-handed arc at the steep, overgrown hillsides visible through the streaming rain, and frowned.
“This here’s a nasty bit at the best of times. We’re all strung out from here to Phrobus, the horses’re tired, Tomanāk only knows where all the valleys and gullies in these hills come out, and our bows’re all but useless in this damned rain Chemalka’s decided to drop on us! If I was a poxy brigand, this’s where I’d hit us, so keep sharp, you oversized lump of gristle!”
Bahzell glanced around at the terrain, then nodded.
“Aye, I will that,” he agreed, and stripped off his cloak and tossed it up into the wagon. The drover handling the team’s reins from his own sheltered perch caught it with a grin of mingled sympathy and rough amusement at another’s misfortune, and Bahzell grinned back. The cloak was soaked through anyway, and it had covered the hilt of his sword. Now he reached back to unsnap the strap across the quillons, and Hartan bestowed a sour smile of approval upon him. He touched a heel to his pony and cantered ahead, and Bahzell heard his flinty voice issuing the same warning to the man beside the next wagon.
Rain trickled from the end of Bahzell’s braid in an irrit
ating dribble and squelched in his boots with each step, and more water found its way under his scale mail. Long, miserable miles dragged past, marked off in beating rain, splashing hooves and feet, and the noise of turning wagon wheels and creaking harness. He was cold and wet, but he’d been both those things before. With luck, he would be again, and neither of them distracted his attention from the dripping underbrush and scrub trees of the hillsides. Hartan was right, he thought. If a man wanted to hit the train at its most vulnerable, these miserable, rain-soaked hills were the best spot he was likely to find.
Someone slipped and fell on the far side of the pay wagon. Someone else laughed at the splashing thud, and the unfortunate who’d fallen swore with weary venom as he climbed back to his feet. Bahzell’s mouth twitched in wry sympathy, but even as he started to turn his head and grin up at the driver, something flickered at the corner of his right eye.
His head snapped back around, ears cocked and eyes straining through the rain as he tried to pin down what had drawn his attention. A full three seconds passed, and then he realized. The sweep rider picking his way through the underbrush high above the road wasn’t there anymore . . . but his horse was, and its saddle was empty.
“Man down! Right flank!”
Bahzell’s hand flashed back over his left shoulder even as he bellowed the warning, and his fingers closed on the hilt of his sword as the muddy hillside suddenly vomited men.
The brigands came down the slope, howling to chill the blood, and he spared a moment to admire the skill with which they’d used the underbrush for cover. The missing sweep rider must have ridden straight into one of them without knowing. He’d no doubt paid for his inattention with his life, but Bahzell’s shout of warning had come before the raiders were fully in position. They had sixty yards of tangled, mud-slippery undergrowth to cross, and bugles began to sound. Their strident signals brought Rianthus’ outriders galloping through the rain to close on the column while the closest patrol wheeled towards the point of threat, and Bahzell heard hoarse breathing and splashing feet as Hartan’s platoon reacted. Every other man from the train’s left flank hurled himself around, over, or under the nearest wagon to slot in on the right side, deadbolts clattered and iron rang as hands wrenched open firing slits in the pay wagon’s high wooden sides, and the brigands’ howls took on another note-one of fury-as they found themselves facing not a spread-out file of surprised victims but a steady line. It was a thin line, with too few people in it, but it was unshaken and spined with steel.