by David Weber
He started to speak, then stopped himself and let Tothas’ horse stand ground-hitched while he dug out the picket pins and began driving them into the ground. Bahzell dragged a boot toe through the earth covering the fire, then thrust his ungloved hand into the ashes, grunted, and rose once more, and Brandark looked up from his picket pins in question.
“Cold,” the Horse Stealer said, beginning to remove saddles from their weary animals. “Last night, at least, I’m thinking.”
“Was it theirs?”
“That it wasn’t. They’re after building bigger fires. Besides, there’s been only one horse here.”
“Just one, hey?” Brandark chewed on that while he finished driving in the picket pins, and Bahzell nodded as he led the first horse over.
“Just the one. And whoever he may be, he’s an eye for the land-aye, and one fine horse under him, too.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I’ve spied his tracks twice today, and there’s a fine, long stride on him. That’s a horse bred to cover ground, and he’s Sothōii war shoes on his feet.”
“Sothōii?! ” Brandark looked up sharply, and Bahzell frowned.
“Aye, and what he’s doing so far south is more than I can say. But whatever it is, the fellow on his back seems all-fired interested in the same folk we’re following. He’s a Sothōii’s own eye for the trail, too-and I’d not be so very surprised if he’s not having a shrewd notion where they’re bound.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because he’s on them like a lodestone on steel.” Bahzell led a second horse over and paused, frowning as he patted the beast’s shoulder. “It’s not just their trail he’s following, Brandark. He’s swung wide of it, not simply come down it as we have, and it’s in my mind he’s cut across more than one loop of it to make up time on them. Either he’s a fiendishly good nose for shortcuts, or else he’s after knowing where they’re headed.”
“But how could he know? And why should anyone else follow them?”
“As for that, you’ve as good a chance of guessing as I do.” Both hradani busied themselves removing pack saddles from the mules in the windy dark, but Bahzell’s ears shifted in thought as he worked. “No, I’ve no notion why he’s following them,” he said at last, “but he is. It’s certain I am of that, yet that’s what has me puzzled. I’m thinking they’re no more than a day ahead of us now, and that fire of his is a day old, at least. So if he’s following, why not catch them up and be done with it?”
“Maybe he has and we just don’t know it yet,” Brandark suggested as he ladled out grain for the animals, but Bahzell shook his head.
“No. If he camped here last night, then he could have caught them up yesterday, so why didn’t he? Why be waiting?”
“Maybe he doesn’t want to take on twenty men by himself.”
“Aye, there’s something in that,” Bahzell agreed, but he sounded dissatisfied. Brandark frowned in question, and he shrugged. “This lad moves like a Sothōii, and unless I’m badly mistaken, it’s a Sothōii warhorse he’s riding. Not a courser, no, but still Sothōii. And if you put a Sothōii on horseback with a bow against such as we’re following-” He shrugged.
“Against twenty men?” Brandark said skeptically.
“Or twice that.” Brandark blinked in disbelief, and Bahzell smiled coldly. “If our lad is Sothōii, this country is just the sort he’d like. He’d be on ’em before they knew it, empty a dozen saddles in a minute, then break off, and that horse of his would ride any three of theirs under if they tried to run him down after. Two or three passes, and he’d have them cut to pieces, and there’s not a way in the world they could be stopping him.”
“Not even with wizards to help them?”
“Well, now,” Bahzell murmured, “there is that, isn’t there? But I’m thinking not even a wizard could have stopped him from taking two or three before he died, and we’ve seen no bodies at all, at all. Which makes me wonder, Brandark, if he’s not knowing exactly what it is he’s after?”
“Um.” Brandark frowned. “D’you think we’ve picked up an ally?”
Bahzell snorted. “Oh, he’s on their trail, right enough, but we’ve no notion of why , and any Sothōii’s likely to be putting an arrow in our gizzards the instant he sees a pair of hradani. And even if he’s not, he’s ahead of us. It’s likely enough he knows what it is he’s following, but how’s he to know who’s following him? ”
“You do have a gift for seeing the bright side, don’t you?” Brandark grumbled, and Bahzell laughed and headed for the trees with his axe.
***
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 Sothōii warhorse’s stride when he saw one, but whoever was riding it wasn’t Sothōii. The more he thought about it, the more certain of that he was, and not just because a Sothōii warrior had no business this far south. No, he rode like a Sothōii, 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 Sothōii horsebow was a deadly weapon in expert hands, and any Sothōii warrior was, by definition, expert. He was also both canny and patient as the grass itself. If a Sothōii 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 thoug
h 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.
Tomanāk 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 Tomanāk’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.
Tomanāk’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 Tomanāk 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 Tomanāk 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!” Tomanāk 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.” Tomanāk’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 Tomanāk 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.” Tomanāk 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?” Tomanāk 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.” Tomanāk 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,” Tomanāk’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?” Tomanāk 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,” Tomanāk 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 Tomanāk 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,” Tomanāk’s deep voice rumbled, “and that would be true. But it wouldn’t be the entire truth. On the other hand, you could
n’t understand the entire truth.” Bahzell bristled, and Tomanāk 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.’” Tomanāk’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 Tomanāk’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 Tomanāk 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.”