Oath of Swords wg-1

by David Weber

  Bahzell and Brandark, immeasurably refreshed by their own hot baths, had left Zarantha and Rekah watching over him and repaired, at Zarantha’s insistence, to the taproom after supper.

  “You two have done your share and more,” she’d half scolded when Bahzell questioned the wisdom of wasting their scant funds on drink. “We can spend a few coppers on you. So go! Get out of here! Just don’t get into any brawls and break anything we’ll have to pay for!”

  The hradani had departed with alacrity, and they’d soon discovered that The Laughing God’s cellars matched its kitchen. The local wines were too thick and sweet, but they couldn’t really afford wine anyway, whatever Zarantha might say, and the ale was excellent.

  Now they sat before the hearth, listening to the pop of burning wood and the sizzling spit as an occasional raindrop came down the flue, and nursed two of The Laughing God’s biggest tankards. The other patrons had made room for them with a bit more haste than dignity, but they’d calmed down since, and Bahzell stretched his boots towards the fire while he savored his ale . . . and the surprised faces about him. Brandark’s finery had astounded everyone, and some of those who’d prudently withdrawn from his vicinity had been lured back when he uncased his balalaika and began strumming.

  It hadn’t taken long for someone a little braver than the others to ask for a song, and the Bloody Sword had obliged with a smile, though he’d asked-with uncommon tact, Bahzell thought-for someone else to provide the voice. By now he was in a huddle with two locals, fingering silent chords while one of them played something softly on a penny whistle. His head nodded as he followed the melody, and Bahzell suspected the trio would soon be shouting for someone to sing along with their joint efforts.

  The bouncer had kept an eye on them at first. Not hostilely, simply with a trace of wariness, but he, too, had relaxed when Brandark began to play. Taken all in all, it was the warmest reception two hradani were likely to find anywhere outside their native lands.

  It was being a good night for The Laughing God, too-due, perhaps, to the attraction of two “tame” hradani, Bahzell thought sardonically. Few had left, and enough newcomers had filtered in to fill the taproom. The landlord had assigned two more servants to help the harried barmaids and stood behind the bar in person, eyes smiling as he watched the briskness of his business. More people wandered in by twos or threes, finding room to sit where they could, and Bahzell raised his own tankard for a refill.

  One of the barmaids swung past on her way back to the bar and thunked it down on her already crowded tray, and he looked back at Brandark. The Bloody Sword was nodding vigorously now, one of the locals was beckoning to a deep-voiced fellow who’d already favored them with two songs, and-

  “Watch yourself, hradani! ”

  The shout cracked across the taproom, and surprise jerked Bahzell’s head around. He caught movement from the corner of his eye even as he turned, and pure instinct sent him lunging to his feet and away from it.

  The same shout had stopped the man who’d walked up behind the Horse Stealer. But only for a second; even as Bahzell moved, the stranger raised a clenched fist to his lips and blew.

  Something hummed past Bahzell’s ear on a pffffft! of expelled breath. It spanged off a polished copper pot above the hearth, and the hradani snarled. He was vaguely aware of other movement-of Brandark catapulting from his chair, the bouncer reaching back over the bar towards his brother, a wave of confusion and consternation-but his eyes were on the man who’d tried to kill him. The stranger’s clenched fist opened, throwing the small, hollow tube it had held into the fire, and his other hand went up under his cloak.

  A shortsword gleamed as he drew it, and Bahzell snatched out his dagger, but a wave of bodies erupted from the crowd before he could move. At least ten of them, foaming up from the tables and benches to join a concerted rush, and all of them were armed.

  Bahzell cursed and stepped back. His foot hooked under the trestle bench he’d been seated upon, and his lead attacker ducked frantically as its heavy wooden seat exploded upward. He managed to evade it, but three others went down, tangling their fellows, and Bahzell’s ears were flat to his skull as he went for the leader.

  He didn’t know who these people were, but each of them carried a shortsword-the longest weapon a man could expect to conceal under a tunic or smock-in one hand and a knife in the other, and they knew what to do with them. Neither hradani had expected trouble, and their armor and swords had been left in their room, but Bahzell’s dagger was as long as most human shortswords . . . and he, too, knew what he was doing.

  His would-be killer came at him in a strange, circling stance Bahzell had never seen before, sword advanced and knife held back at his hip, and the hradani’s empty left hand spread wide. He had no time for subtlety against so many enemies, and he took a chance and lunged.

  The sword darted out as he’d expected, engaging his dagger, and the knife drove forward for his belly, but his left hand struck like a serpent. Fingers of steel clamped the man’s wrist. They yanked him close, a tree-like knee rammed up between his legs, and Bahzell’s dagger slipped free of his sword as he convulsed in agony. The blade twisted in, driving up under his arm, and blood sprayed from his mouth as he went down with a gurgling scream.

  Steel clashed to Bahzell’s left as he kicked the dying man aside. Brandark had reacted almost as quickly as his friend, tossing his balalaika to one of his fellow musicians with one hand while the other went to his own dagger. The local caught the instrument in sheer reflex, then yelled in panic and scrambled for safety as the killers stormed forward.

  Customers scattered like quail, and someone shrieked and folded forward as Brandark opened his belly. The horrible sound died with chilling suddenness as the Bloody Sword drove his dagger into the nape of his victim’s neck like an ice pick, but three more attackers vaulted over the trio Bahzell’s bench had felled, and the Horse Stealer sprang back to get his back to the hearth.

  Brandark fell in beside him, as if summoned by telepathy, and a third would-be killer fell to writhe and scream in the sawdust as Bahzell ducked and hooked a vicious upward thrust into his groin. A sword hissed at the Horse Stealer’s face, and he was just too slow to dodge. It opened his cheek from eye to chin, but the man behind it paid with his life. He went down, momentarily entangling the man beside him, and Bahzell roared as he caught the encumbered man by the throat and drove his dagger up under his sternum.

  A wild, fierce war cry split the air beyond the attackers, and steel flashed in the lamplight as the bouncer brought down the broadsword his brother had tossed him from under the bar. It caught a man between neck and shoulder, and the dead man went down shrieking, but Bahzell had no time to see more than that. The innocent bystanders had disappeared through windows and doors or under tables; the taproom was clear now, and he’d been wrong about the numbers. At least a dozen men were still trying to kill him, and the world dissolved into a boil of confusion as they very nearly succeeded.

  Steel clashed, someone’s blood soaked his right arm to the elbow, he heard Brandark gasp at his side, the bouncer’s shrill war cries echoed in his ears, and even through that howling bedlam he heard the sharp, musical snap of a bowstring. A slash got through to his left arm, but he sensed it coming and managed to avoid the worst of it. It opened his forearm from wrist to elbow, but the messy cut was shallow, and even as the sword went back for another thrust, he brought his boot heel down on its wielder’s instep. Bone crunched, the attacker screamed and faltered, and Bahzell slashed his throat.

  Someone else disappeared from in front of him, and the bouncer leapt through the gap. He slotted into place between the two hradani, his broadsword trailing gory spray as he hacked down yet another attacker. The bowstring twanged again, and then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over.

  Bahzell braced his shoulders against the mantel, feeling the fire’s heat against his back, and breath rasped in his lungs as his eyes darted about in search of fresh threats. But there were none
. Sixteen bodies lay leaking blood into the sawdust, and he lowered his dagger slowly.

  The bouncer sighed beside him and lowered his own weapon, and the Horse Stealer gave him a quick look of thanks, then stepped past him as Brandark sat down very carefully. His left leg was soaked with blood, and Bahzell knelt to rip his trouser leg open, then sagged in relief. The cut was ugly, but it was in the meaty part of the thigh, just below the hip, and it hadn’t gotten deep enough to sever muscles or tendons.

  The Horse Stealer reached out to rip a bandage from a dead man’s tunic, but the bouncer shouldered him aside.

  “See to yourself, hradani,” he said gruffly, and Bahzell slumped back on his heels and looked bemusedly down at his own bleeding arm.

  Feet pattered down the stairs, and then strong, slender hands were ripping his sleeve apart. It was Zarantha, with Tothas’ quiver over her shoulder. The Spearman’s strung horsebow lay beside her in the sawdust as she muttered under her breath and probed the cut carefully, and Rekah came more slowly downstairs behind her with Tothas’ saber clutched in both hands.

  He hissed in pain as Zarantha turned his arm to get better access, then looked away while she wound a clean cloth-gods only knew where she’d gotten it-and knotted it tight. Four of the bodies, he noted with curious detachment, had arrows in their backs or chests. He started to comment on the fact, but Zarantha gripped his chin and turned his head to examine his freely bleeding cheek.

  “I thought,” she said between gritted teeth as she wiped blood from the wound, “that I told you two not to get into any brawls!”

  Chapter Nineteen

  The landlord astonished Bahzell. He summoned the Guard, but, despite the carnage, he didn’t even consider turning his unchancy guests out.

  Some of that might have been because of the bouncer. The brothers had a brisk discussion while they awaited the Guard’s arrival, and it turned even brisker when the bouncer bent and ripped open a dead man’s smock to bare his left shoulder. Bahzell watched them bend over the corpse while Zarantha set neat, painful stitches in his gashed cheek, then touched her gently on the shoulder and crossed the sawdust to them.

  “My thanks, friend,” he rumbled to the bouncer, and the man shrugged.

  “It’s my job to keep people from being murdered in the taproom.”

  “Aye, that may well be, but I’m thinking it was more than your job to get involved against those odds for folk you don’t know.” Bahzell clasped his forearm. “My name is Bahzell Bahnakson, of Hurgrum, and if there’s ever aught I or anyone from Hurgrum can be doing for you, be pleased to let me know it.”

  “I may just do that, friend Bahzell,” the bouncer said with a tight smile, “and while we’re naming names, I’m Talamar Ratherson, and this-” he jabbed a thumb at the landlord “-is my brother Alwith.”

  “It’s pleased I am to know you both.” Bahzell clasped Alwith’s arm in turn, and the landlord gripped back, but there was a worried light in his eyes.

  “I’d say you’ve an enemy somewhere,” Talamar went on, pointing to the body, and Bahzell’s ears flattened as he saw the scarlet scorpion tattoo.

  “Aye, it seems I have that,” he said softly, and his mind raced. Dog brothers set on to assassinate Kilthan might make some sort of sense, despite the risk, but why should they try to kill him now that he was no longer even in the dwarf’s employ? Unless . . .

  “What’s this?” Brandark had hobbled over and stood beside him, glowering down at the tattoo.

  “Now, I’m thinking you’re a clever enough lad to know that as well as I,” Bahzell murmured, kneading his wounded left arm, and his face was grim.

  “But why-?” Brandark paused with a frown. “Phrobus take it, were they after you the whole time?”

  “If you can be finding another reason for all this-” Bahzell waved at the carnage “-it’s more than happy I’ll be to hear it.”

  “Um.” Brandark pulled on his nose in thought, then shook his head. “It does make a sort of sense, you know. Everyone assumed they were after Kilthan, but you were with him each time they tried an ambush, and that fireship in Malgas would have fried your tripes right along with his.”

  “Aye, so I was, and so it would. And I’m thinking, Brandark my lad, that there’s only one reason to be sending dog brothers after me.”

  “Harnak,” Brandark agreed grimly.

  “Or Churnazh. Either of ’em would piss on my grave and be glad to do it. But how would one of them be knowing how to set dog brothers on me?”

  “A point,” Brandark murmured. “Definitely a point. Not even Churnazh would let Sharna’s get into Navahk-not when they might be used against him .”

  “True.” Bahzell stopped kneading his arm and glanced sideways at his friend. “Would you be thinking what I am? That that sick bastard Harnak might be a bit sicker even than we’d thought?”

  “I don’t like it, but it makes sense.” Brandark sighed. “Wonderful. Hundreds of leagues yet to go, and dog brothers on our track!”

  “Well, as to that, we may just end up costing them enough they decide to give over,” Bahzell rumbled with a bleak smile. “Sixteen here, fifteen in Saramfal . . . that’s after being a lot of dead men, Brandark. How many funerals d’you think Harnak has gold enough to pay for?”

  “I wouldn’t count on that, friend.” Talamar traced the sign of the War God’s mace, and the hradani winced at the reminder. “Tomanāk knows no decent man has any use for such as this,” Talamar’s toe prodded the body, “but this I will say: once the dog brothers take a man’s gold, they do the job. They have to, if they want their reputation to stand.”

  “They do it if they can ,” Bahzell corrected grimly, “and I’m thinking this time they’ve bitten off a mite more than they’ll like chewing.” He shook himself and looked at Alwith. “But be that as it may, we’d no notion of bringing trouble like this down on your house. It’s in my mind we should be gone before we bring you more grief.”

  The landlord looked like he wanted to agree but shook his head firmly, and his brother echoed the refusal.

  “You’ve paid your shot,” Talamar said. “You’re under the protection of our roof, and your friend’s too sick to be out on a night like this. Besides, Tomanāk wouldn’t like it if we threw you out.”

  “I’m not talking of throwing out,” Bahzell objected, “but of leaving of our own will.” He liked the thought of taking Tothas back out into the wet no more than Talamar did, yet this was his trouble, not the Angcarans’. There was no reason for them to mix in it-and he owed Talamar for saving his life. It would be poor gratitude to get him killed in thanks, and Talamar’s repeated references to Tomanāk only made it worse, for it felt like another “bribe,” and this was no empty cave. It was something that could cost lives.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Talamar said firmly. “The Sword God knows only one way to deal with scum like this, and it would dishonor us to let you face them alone with both of you hurt and a sick man on your hands to boot.”

  “Talamar’s right.” Alwith still looked unhappy, but his voice was just as firm, and Bahzell studied both brothers’ faces.

  It made no sense. He and Brandark had learned only too well how most of the world regarded hradani, and they’d brought the Assassins Guild down on The Laughing God. It was only Norfram’s own luck neither brother nor any of their patrons had been killed. Talamar’s warning had already saved his life-not to mention how the Angcaran had fought at his side-which was more than ample repayment for the cost of their food and lodging, and Bahzell was offering to leave. Yet they were arguing with him, the both of them, and they actually sounded as if they meant it.

  “Well, then,” he said finally, his deep voice soft, “if you’re daft enough to mean that, there’s naught for me to do but thank you once again.”

  ***

  The City Guard wasn’t happy when it finally arrived, for Angcar was an orderly place. The city fathers frowned on battles in a public inn at the best of times, and sixteen dead was a di
smaying body count, even when the Guard didn’t find two hradani in the midst of the carnage.

  By the time it arrived in the person of one Captain Deskhan, however, the patrons who hadn’t taken to their heels had reemerged from under the tables. The musician who’d caught up Brandark’s balalaika had returned it, and he and the Bloody Sword sat in a corner, with the Angcaran keeping time on a small hand drum while the hradani plucked out a melody. Alwith had ordered ale all round on the house, and the witnesses were prepared to wax vehement in the hradani’s defense. In fact, four or five of them illustrated every gory moment of the encounter in graphic pantomime, and the baffled Deskhan had no choice but to accept that whatever had happened, the hradani hadn’t started it.

  He departed at last with a wagonload of dead assassins and a grudging verdict of self-defense, and Talamar stood in the inn door and waved farewell with a cheeriness that astonished Bahzell.

  “I’m thinking that’s an unhappy man yonder. How likely is it he’ll be after making trouble for you out of this?”

  “Oh, not very.” Talamar shrugged. “He doesn’t like it, but he’ll cool off once you folk leave. Besides, he’s as little liking for dog brothers as the next man, and he can use this tale to astonish people for years.”

  The Angcaran cocked his head and grinned. “For that matter, so can Alwith and I. We’ll have more custom than we can handle for days-maybe weeks-once word of this gets around!”

  “And welcome to it,” Bahzell rumbled. “But, d’you know, I’m still wondering how you spotted them at the start like that?”

  “I didn’t.” Talamar closed the door and headed back to the taproom beside him. “To be honest, I was keeping an eye on you .” He shrugged with another grin. “The two of you seemed like peaceable fellows, but if someone got drunk enough, he might have taken it into his head to pick a quarrel with you. As for the dog brothers,” his grin became a frown, “they came in in ones and twos, so gradually I never noticed, and I should have, since they were all strangers. But there was something odd about the way that first fellow held his hand when he headed over your way, and I’ve seen those little blowguns before.”