by David Weber
“D’you think he really believed he could kill me with such as that and not be found out?”
“Bahzell, if he’d hit you with that dart, you’d never have known a thing about it,” Talamar said grimly. “Didn’t you see it?”
“Not clear,” the hradani rumbled, “and your Guard captain was after taking it with him when he left.”
“It was tipped with mindanwe sap. A scratch of that, and you’re gone in seconds. All anyone would think would be that your heart had burst-which it would have-and once you were down, he’d’ve bent over you to ‘help’ and picked the dart back out while he pretended to ‘examine’ you.”
A shiver rippled up Bahzell’s spine. Poison. The most loathsome weapon of a coward, but an effective one.
“Begging your pardon, and don’t take this wrongly, but it sounds as if you’ve experience of such,” he murmured.
“I do. Alwith and I served in a troop of freeswords up in Ferenmoss some years back. That civil war is a nightmare, but at least it offers steady work for mercenaries. Only our troop must have been a bit too good, because someone on the other side set the dog brothers on us. We lost half our officers in less than two weeks, and Alwith and I caught the bastard who killed our captain with one of those damned blowguns. He was a good man, Captain Vakhan, and any time I can get sword into the same kind of scum who murdered him-”
Talamar broke off with yet another shrug, almost an apologetic one, and Bahzell touched his shoulder.
“I’m sorry for your captain, but grateful you saw this coming.”
“I suppose some good comes of almost anything,” the Angcaran sighed, then gave himself a brisk shake. “In the meantime, I’ve put out the word, and a dozen mercs will be dropping by shortly. They’re good men-most of them were with us in Ferenmoss-and they’ve settled in to pass the winter here. When they hear about dog brothers in Angcar, they’ll be only too happy to spend a night or two drinking our ale, so you and your people get what sleep you can.”
“Aye, we’ll be doing that,” Bahzell agreed, and beckoned to Brandark to follow as he started up the stairs.
***
They did get some sleep, but not immediately. Zarantha was still up-not surprisingly-and insisted on rechecking the work she’d done on their wounds. And then, of course, Bahzell had to tell her what had happened and as much as they’d been able to guess about why. He did not mention any nocturnal visits by goddesses, but that was hardly relevant anyway.
Zarantha heard him out with remarkable calm, but her dark eyes were haunted when he finished. Rekah sat quietly beside Tothas’ bed, her oval face white, yet she said nothing, and Bahzell touched Zarantha’s knee gently.
“Lass,” he said, abandoning the “My Ladies” he usually remembered to use, “you’ve bought into more trouble with us than we’d any notion, either of us. I’m knowing you’ve need of help to get home, but it’s in my mind you might best be considering whether it’s our help you need.”
“Because of the dog brothers?”
“Of course because of the dog brothers! I’ve told you why Harnak wants me dead-aye, and his father, too-and a pair of hradani aren’t after being the hardest targets to spot. We’re like to bring them down on you again, and-” He paused, then sighed. “Lass, d’you think Brandark and I don’t know you’ve troubles of your own? We’re not wishful to make them worse.”
“After the way I trapped you into this?” Zarantha blinked damply, and Bahzell shrugged.
“As for that, I’ve no one to blame but myself for mixing in your troubles in the first place, and it was you kept me out of jail and away from ni’Tarth’s daggers. Aye, and so far as that goes, the dog brothers would’ve been more than pleased to have me penned up in a cell like a sheep on slaughtering day!”
“No one to blame but yourself,” Zarantha murmured. She swiped a hand across her eyes and smiled at him. “You’re not nearly so hard a man as you’d have people think, are you, Bahzell Bahnakson? First that girl in Navahk, then me. And do you think I haven’t seen the way you watch after Tothas?”
He looked away uncomfortably, and it was her turn to pat his knee.
“Tell me this, Bahzell. If I were able to find someone else to see us the rest of the way home, what would you and Brandark do?”
“Well, we couldn’t be staying here, for if one thing’s sure it’s that the dog brothers know our whereabouts.”
“So you’d be moving on anyway?”
“Aye, that we would.”
“In that case, if you’re still willing, I’d rather move on with you. As you say, I’ve troubles of my own, and-”
She broke off, almost against her will, and shook her head. The Horse Stealer looked closely at her, recognizing her temptation to tell him whatever she’d so far concealed, but he recognized her decision not to, as well. He felt disappointed, yet not truly resentful. Whatever it was, he’d already accepted its seriousness, and her willingness to continue in company with two hradani marked for death by the Assassins Guild only reinforced his sense of her desperation.
“All right, then,” he sighed. “If that’s the way of it, then we’ll be staying with you, and I’m only hoping it’s not a choice we’ll both regret.”
Chapter Twenty
They stayed three days at The Laughing God without further incident. The Guard dropped by at odd times on no set schedule, Talamar’s mercenary friends made the taproom their permanent headquarters, and if business was down, Alwith was almost cheerful when Bahzell apologized for it.
“Talamar’s right,” the landlord said, “once they’re not worried about getting caught in the middle, they’ll be spilling out the windows while they tell each other how brave they were. Half of ’em will be convinced they fought the dog brothers off while your lot just watched!”
It was windy and cold when they finally set out again-with the brothers Ratherson’s invitation to return in, um, more peaceable times-but it was also clear and dry, and the rest had done Tothas good. He was in far less pain, and his coughs, when they came, were ghosts of his previous terrible spasms. Even their animals seemed more cheerful; indeed, Zarantha had to stop her mule from biting Bahzell three times the first day out.
But clear weather or no, all of them felt wariness tingling in their blood like an extra layer of frost, and Tothas was no longer excused watch duty. He and the women between them took the first watch each night, before the full cold set in. Bahzell had the second watch, and when Tothas turned in at last, it was to find the hradani had gotten up early and tucked a heated stone into his blankets to take the chill off them.
It was as well he did, for the last leaves had vanished. By this time, Bahzell knew, Hurgrum was covered in snow; this far south, it was merely cold. Bitterly cold-far colder than he’d expected. Tothas assured him it was an unseasonal cold snap that would ease-for a time, at least-soon, but that was scant comfort as he watched his breath plume and felt the ground like iron under his feet.
Almost as worrisome as the weather, the road started getting worse from the moment they left Angcar; by the time they approached Angthyr’s border with the Empire of the Spear, it was no more than dirt. The upper inch or so was frozen, but Bahzell felt it give under his weight in low spots, and the slight, stiff flexing promised unfrozen water below. If they got the warmer weather Tothas predicted, it was going to turn into a bottomless bog.
The thought filled him with gloom, yet it was but one of many things he had to feel gloomy over. He no longer wore himself out with worry in his dreams; now he got to do it while he was awake, because he knew what the dreams had been about . And as if gods with missions weren’t enough, the dog brothers were after him, as well. Nor had Zarantha’s worries-whatever the Phrobus they were!-lightened. He’d suggested, once, that when they crossed into the empire she might find shelter while she sent word ahead to her father. After all, she’d be on her own ground then, no longer among foreigners, even if she was still a long way from home, but she’d answered with a single, a
lmost spastic headshake. A grim shadow in Tothas’ eyes had echoed her refusal, and Bahzell and Brandark had decided to concentrate on more immediate problems-like the weather, visiting gods, and the imminence of dog brother attack-and let the rest of the future take care of itself.
***
They crossed the Blackwater River into the Border Weald just after dawn on the fourth day out of Angcar. There was no bridge, but flat ferry-rafts winched their way across it on heavy cables, and icy, slate-gray water gurgled under a dull, pewter sky.
Zarantha was huddled deep into her coat once more. She made the crossing in silence and busied herself helping unload the ferry when they reached the small village on the empire’s bank, but Rekah simply walked off the raft. She tapped her toe and frowned at her mistress, pretty face eloquent with impatience, and Bahzell blinked in surprise when Tothas snapped a brusque order for Zarantha to “Get a move on, there!”
Her armsman watched her for a moment, then snorted and produced a document for the officer commanding the handful of soldiers who manned the border station at the ferry landing.
“That wench is as lazy as the day is long!” he sighed as the officer unfolded the parchment. “Unfortunately, she’s also my niece. I’m grateful My Lady saw fit to hire her on for the trip, but I’m going to have a few words with my brother when I get her home, let me tell you! I’d’ve taken a stick to her long ago if she were my daughter!”
The border guard grinned and turned the document to catch the light. His lips moved as he spelled his way slowly through it, then looked up at Tothas.
“That’d be this Mahrisa your passport lists?”
“Aye, that’s her. My second brother’s oldest girl, drat her!”
“And she’s maid to Lady Rekahna?”
“Just as it says, and I’m Lady Rekahna’s armsman.”
“And you’re on your way home to Howacimb?”
“Frethigar, actually. It’s a little place south of Howacimb.”
“I see.” The officer rubbed his upper lip with a gloved finger, then handed the parchment back. “This all seems in order, but-” he gestured to the two hradani “-who might these two be?”
“I picked them up in Kolvania.” Tothas shrugged. “Gods know it’s a bad time of year for one man alone with two women to watch after, but Lady Rekahna’s father’s not so plump in the pocket as I’d like these days.” He shrugged again. “I had to make do with what I could find.”
“Um.” The officer rocked back to study the hradani, and Bahzell concentrated on looking fierce but blank. No one had warned him about this-a point he intended to discuss with Zarantha at some length-but it had occurred to him that it would be much better if he couldn’t speak Spearman.
“The little one’s a sharp dresser for a hradani-reminds me of a pimp I used to know-but the big ’un looks a little slow,” the officer said at last.
“I didn’t hire him for his brains.” Tothas turned his head, hiding his face from the guards, to grin wickedly at Bahzell. “If I had, I’d’ve gotten a mighty poor bargain!”
“Are you sure you want to travel with them? They’ve no papers, so you’ll have to vouch for them, since they’re in your employ. If they cause any trouble, you’ll be the one liable for damages-or worse.”
“Oh, they’ll be all right. They came downriver to Kolva Keep with some Axeman merchant; he hadn’t had any trouble out of them, and they’ve behaved so far. Besides, neither of them speaks a word of Spearman. Even their Axeman is pretty terrible, and I doubt they’ll risk anything that might cause me to cut ’em adrift where they can’t even talk to people. They’re stupid, but they’re not that stupid.”
Bahzell maintained his blank expression, but his ears twitched, and his eyes slid sideways to meet an equally fulminating glance from Brandark.
“Well, just remember-you’re responsible for them, so keep ’em in order,” the officer grunted. He gave the hradani another long, hard look, then waved his men back into the warmth of their guard post, and Bahzell looked down at Tothas while Brandark and Zarantha led the last two mules off the ferry.
“Stupid, is it, now?” Brandark murmured in Axeman.
“I had to say something ,” Tothas murmured back in the same language. “And at least it kept him from asking you any questions.”
“Aye, it did that,” Bahzell admitted as the Spearman swung up onto his horse, “and the two of us kept him from looking very close at ‘Lady Rekahna’s’ maid, now didn’t we just?”
“True,” Tothas agreed. He watched Brandark help “Lady Rekahna” into her saddle while Zarantha scrambled up onto her own mule with far less than her usual grace, then glanced back down at Bahzell, and his grin had vanished. “And truth to tell, my friend, that was the most important thing of all.”
The Horse Stealer simply nodded and led off down the road once more, but a corner of his mind wondered just where-and when-Tothas had gotten that “passport.” It hadn’t occurred to Bahzell that such documentation would be needed, but Zarantha had clearly known. More, she’d felt compelled to hide behind false papers, and he suspected procuring them had been expensive. The way the officer had labored to read them suggested he was barely literate, yet she couldn’t have counted on that, and even a total illiterate might have recognized a poor forgery. So why-and how-had an “indigent” noblewoman secured a good forgery?
He strode along the frozen road, and the foothills of the North Blood Mountains rose slowly before him as he chewed that thought in silence.
***
They made another forty miles before the cold snap broke as Tothas had promised. And, just as Bahzell had feared, the road turned promptly into thick, clinging soup. The weather, though warmer, was still chill, and it was also damper, which aggravated Tothas’ cough once more . . . and gave the Horse Stealer one more worry to cope with.
The road rose as they slogged on into the foothills of the Blood Mountains, but if the drainage improved, the steady climb compensated for that, and winding turns added long, weary miles to their journey. They’d passed an occasional village or prosperous-looking steading between the river and the hills; now they moved through lonely wilderness, and as Bahzell peered out into each frosty, fog-drenched morning, he understood exactly why that was. Only a madman would live in such a place if he could help it.
And then the rain started again. Cold and slow, falling with infinitely patient, soaking malice. They kept Tothas as warm and dry as they could, and the armsman no longer tried to pretend he didn’t need it. He husbanded his strength whenever he could-and felt the rough side of Zarantha’s tongue anytime he forgot to-yet his face took on that wan, pinched look once more, and his gloved hands shook on his reins. But at least there was no sign of assassins (who, Bahzell thought, probably had better sense than to be out in such weather), and seven days after crossing the Blackwater, they finally emerged on the far side of the hills.
The Horse Stealer stood at the head of their soaked, mud-spattered party and peered down the final slope. Evening was coming on fast, there was a hint of sleet in the rain, the beasts steamed in the icy wet, and he could feel the sagging weariness of his friends, but his ears twitched under his hood as lights glimmered ahead. It looked like a good-sized village or small town, and he touched Tothas on the knee, then pointed at the lights.
“Would you be knowing what that might be?” Even his deep, rumbling voice was hoarse with fatigue, and the Spearman blinked for a moment before his mind churned back to life.
“I think-” He pursed his lips, then nodded wearily. “That would be Dunsahnta,” he said wearily. “We passed through it when we took My Lady north.”
“What sort of place is it after being?”
“It’s a village-good sized, but much like any other.” Tothas frowned. “There’s an inn, and Baron Dunsahnta has a keep of sorts to the northeast, I think.” He shrugged. “He wasn’t home when we came through.”
“Did you stay at the inn?” Bahzell pressed. Tothas blinked again, and the Hor
se Stealer sighed. “Tothas, it’s a right dummy I’d be-aye, nigh on as stupid as you were after telling that border guard-not to’ve guessed you and Lady Zarantha are hiding. So tell me-d’you think there’s any down there as might remember her from your last trip through?”
Tothas flushed, but then he shook his head. “I doubt it. We didn’t stop on the way north. We came through in the morning and kept right on going.”
“Ah.” Bahzell patted his knee again and slogged back to Zarantha. Her mule looked as weary as the hradani felt-it didn’t even try a nip-and sleety water crusted Zarantha’s coat. “You’ve the purse, such as it is,” he rumbled. “Will it stretch enough to get Tothas under a roof?”
“Where are we?” Zarantha countered, and nodded when Bahzell repeated what Tothas had told him. “Yes, I remember the place. And he’s right, we didn’t stop.” She bit her lip for a moment, then nodded again, more firmly. “Yes. We can cover two or even three days’ lodging, I think.”
“Good.” Bahzell sighed, and led off into the gloom once more.
Chapter Twenty-one
Dunsahnta did, indeed, boast an inn, but The Brown Horse was a poor exchange for The Laughing God, and the pudgy, nervous little landlord looked acutely unhappy when he found a dripping wet Horse Stealer on his doorstep.
At least Tothas was able to speak for them this time, and the innkeeper seemed to take courage from the armsman’s accent. He continued to eye Bahzell askance-especially when Brandark came in from the stables as well-but he finally admitted he had available rooms. Zarantha was back in her persona as “Lady Rekahna’s” maid, and Tothas scolded her for her sloth as he paid the landlord, then chivvied her up the stairs while Bahzell and Brandark followed as impassively and menacingly as possible.