Oath of Swords wg-1

by David Weber

  “And now you’re wanting me to sign on for it,” Bahzell said shrewdly. Tomanāk 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?” Tomanāk 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, Tomanāk,” 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 Tomanāk 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 Tomanāk 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 Tomanāk 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 worshipers 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,” Tomanāk 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 Tomanāk cocked his head.

  “Do you worship your father, Bahzell?” The hradani gawked at him for a moment, then snorted derisively at the very thought, and Tomanāk smiled again. “Of course you don’t, but you do follow him. You share his beliefs and values and act accordingly. Well, I ask no more of you than that.”

  “Aye, with you telling me what to be thinking and doing!”

  “No, with your own heart and mind telling you what to think and do. Puppets are useless, Bahzell, and if I simply commanded and you simply obeyed, then a puppet would be all you were. I am the god and patron of warriors, Bahzell Bahnakson. Loyalty, yes, as you would give any captain-that much I ask of you. But not unthinking worship. Not the surrender of your will to mine. Subservience is what the Dark Gods crave, for warriors who never question will do terrible things and claim they were ‘only following orders.’ If I stripped your will from you, you would become no more than a slave . . . and I would become no better than Phrobus.”

  “Would I, now?” Bahzell murmured. He tugged on the end of his nose, considering the god’s words, then frowned. “It may be there’s something in that,” he said finally, slowly, not noticing the change in his own voice, “but true or no, it only tells what you want of me. So tell me this: why should I be following you? What’s after being in it for me? ”

  For the first time, Tomanāk actually looked nonplused, and Bahzell crossed his arms once more and gazed up at him.

  “I’ve heard your oath,” he said derisively. “How your ‘followers’ are after swearing always to give quarter if it’s asked for and never to rape or loot or pillage!”

  “But you already don’t do those things!” Tomanāk said almost plaintively. “I never asked my followers not to claim legitimate prizes of war, only that they not plunder the helpless and innocent while they’re about it. And aside from a few, ah, acquisitions on raids against the Sothōii, you’ve never looted or pillaged in your life. As for rape-!” Tomanāk threw up his hands as if to indicate the winter-barren wilderness about them and how Bahzell had come to be here, but the hradani shook his head stubbornly.

  “That’s as may be, but I’ve never promised I wouldn’t,” he shot back. Tomanāk refolded his arms with another of those world-shaking sighs, and Bahzell shifted uneasily under his stern gaze, like a little boy who knows perfectly well he’s raised a pointless objection out of sheer petulance, but then he shook himself and glared back up at the god.

  “Aye, well, that’s as may be,” he repeated, “but it’s often enough now I’ve seen what else serving such as you can cost. Zarantha, now. She swore Mage Oath to Semkirk, and never a bit of good it did her when Baron Dunsahnta and his scummy friends took her. No, nor Rekah, now I think on it. And what of Tothas? He’s after being a good man-a better man than me , I’m thinking-and it’s yourself he ‘follows.’ But did you save him and his men in Riverside? Did you once reach down your hand to him when he was after coughing his lungs up?”

  Silence hovered for a long, fragile moment before Tomanāk spoke once more.

  “Tothas,” he said, “is not a better man than you are. Oh, he’s a good man, and one I value highly, but he lacks something you have.” Bahzell’s ears twitched in disbelief, and the War God smiled crookedly. “Do you really think Tothas would argue with me this way, Bahzell? By all the Powers of Light, I haven’t met a mortal as stubborn as you in millennia! You ignore my dreams, force me to resort to dolts like that idiot in Derm-even argue with my sister and me face-to-face! Can’t you get it through your thick skull that it’s your very stubbornness, your refusal to do anything you don’t believe is right, that makes you so important?!”

  “As to that, I’ve no way to know. How could I?” Bahzell shot back. “But is it only a man’s value makes him worth helping? Tothas may be less iron-pated than I, but that’s not making him one bit less worthy!”

  “No, it doesn’t, but Tothas never asked me for healing.” Bahz
ell blinked in fresh disbelief, and the god cocked his head. “There would have been little I could have done for him if he had asked,” he admitted, “just as I can’t crook my finger and put Zarantha safe home in her bed. I’ve already explained why I dare not meddle directly, and it would have taken direct intervention to save Tothas from the dog brothers’ original attack. Nor, for the same reasons, can I make the attack as if it never happened. No god-Light or Dark-dares change the past. You can have no idea of all the possible consequences if we once started doing that, but a little thought should suggest at least some of them to you.”

  He held Bahzell’s eyes until the hradani was forced to nod once more, then went on.

  “By the same token, Tothas is an excellent example-a small one, perhaps, on the scale of universes, but nonetheless worthy-of how mortals can accomplish things even gods cannot. Zarantha’s done all mortal healing can do for him. Without the healing talent, not even she could have saved him; as it is, you and she between you did just that. She arrested the poison and began his healing; when you compelled him to remain in Dunsahnta, you gave him the time and rest he needs to complete his recovery. But all Tothas ever asked me for were the very things you yourself told him he already had: the heart and courage to endure what he must to fulfill his sworn word to his lady.”

  “But you should have done more than that, whether he asked or no!” Bahzell cried, shaken by a sudden, terrible anger, and Tomanāk sighed.

  “I should have, and had he encountered one of my champions, perhaps I could have. I can heal, through my priests or champions. Those are my swords in the mortal world, but my priesthood is smaller than most, Bahzell, and I give you fair warning-few of my champions die in bed. I can strengthen and aid them, but they’re made for the shock of battle, and warriors fall in battle.”

  “So that’s what you’re wanting of me,” Bahzell said bitterly. “You’re after making me one of your ‘champions.’ Would Tothas have been my price, then? His healing for my service?”

  “No,” Tomanāk said more sternly than ever. “Had you been my champion, then, yes, you might have healed him, but I buy no man’s service! If you would follow me, then follow me because you believe it’s right , not for what it can buy you or others. The Dark Gods bribe and corrupt; the only reward I offer is the knowledge that you’ve chosen to do what you believed to be right!”

  The anger in that boulder-crushing voice could have annihilated Bahzell on the spot, yet it wasn’t directed at him. It seemed to split and flow about him, and he stood unshaken in the eye of the hurricane until the final echoes rumbled into silence.

  “Then just what is it you’re offering me?” he asked finally. “If it’s so all-fired wonderful I am, where’s the need to recruit me for what I’d do of my own stubbornness?”

  “I’m trying to offer you my help!” Tomanāk said with pronounced asperity. “I can’t interfere directly in mortal affairs, but I can strengthen and aid mortals against the Dark Gods’ servants . . . if they’ll let me! Your head may be solid stone, Bahzell, but even you must realize by now that you’re as made for battle as a sword-and that you’ve no stomach for fighting on the wrong side! By my Mace, just what do you think you’re doing out here chasing twenty-odd men and a pair of wizards?!” He glared down, eyes flashing like bare swords in the dawn, and his voice shook the clouds. “Well, if you want to fight on the right side, do it under my banner. I’ll show you foes worthy of all the steel in you, and give you a keener edge than you ever knew you could have.”

  “Humpf.” Bahzell lowered his gaze from the god’s flashing eyes and chewed his lip. He sensed the power in that plea, and deep inside he knew how much more compelling it could have been. That Tomanāk truly sought to convince, not to command or usurp his will. But too much had come at him too quickly this night. He knew himself too well to believe he had the makings of some god-chosen champion, and all of a hradani’s bone-deep distrust for the promises of those who would use them questioned every word the god had said. That elemental core of stubbornness dug in its heels and hunched its head obstinately against the force of Tomanāk’s appeal, and, at last, he shook his head.

  “No.” It took more strength than he’d ever suspected he had to get the word out, but he raised his eyes once more to the god’s face. “I’m not saying you’d lie to me, but it’s in my mind that I can’t know that. And even if I knew every word was true, it’s not a thing for a man to be saying aye or nay to all in one night.” Tomanāk said nothing, and Bahzell raised his right hand, palm cupped as if to hold something.

  “It’s not much the world’s left my people, but this much we have; when we give our word, it means something, so I’ll not swear any oath before I’m sure in my own mind of what I’m doing.”

  “Of course not,” Tomanāk said quietly. “Nor would I ask you to. I ask only that you keep an open mind-that you do think about it before you say no.”

  “And you’ll not plague my dreams in the meantime?” Bahzell demanded.

  “No, I won’t ‘plague your dreams,’ ” Tomanāk promised with a smile.

  “Well, then.” Bahzell looked up at the towering War God and nodded briskly, and Tomanāk’s smile grew even broader.

  “Such a cavalier dismissal,” he murmured, and, for the third time, his laugh shook the earth beneath Bahzell’s feet. Then he faded from view-slowly, not with the suddenness of his sister’s departure in the cave-and his deep voice spoke silently in the back of Bahzell’s brain.

  “Very well, I’ll go, Bahzell. But I’ll be back,” it said.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Incense drifted once more about Crown Prince Harnak, and he forced himself not to pace. It was hard. Harnak was always nervous when High Priest Tharnatus summoned him; even the Scorpion’s messengers could stumble and betray themselves-or Harnak. But this summons had been no less curt for the polite formulae in which it was couched, and the prince gnawed his lower lip with his remaining teeth while he waited.

  A foot sounded behind him, and he turned quickly from the altar. He flushed at the evidence of his anxiety, but Tharnatus smiled.

  “I thank you for coming so promptly, My Prince, especially on so bitter a night.”

  Harnak simply nodded, though “bitter” was a weak word for the night beyond the temple. The snow had been belly-deep on his horse, and he’d passed two drifts high as a mounted man’s head. Only Tharnatus could have gotten him out on such a night, and the thought of how the priest must relish the power to do just that touched him with resentment.

  Tharnatus’ eyes gleamed as if he’d read the prince’s thoughts, but he only waved for Harnak to sit in one of the front pews and folded his own hands in the sleeves of his robe as he faced him.

  “I would not have requested your presence, My Prince, had the matter been less than urgent. I understand things remain . . . difficult at court?”

  “You understand aright.” Harnak didn’t-quite-snarl, and Tharnatus smiled gently. “Those bitches are practically members of Bahnak’s own family by now, and he’s using the damned bards to keep the tale alive.” Harnak’s molars ground together. “Even my brothers have taken to laughing behind my back, curse them, and the winter only makes it worse! With so much time indoors and nothing to do but drink and listen to tales-”

  He clenched his fists, and Tharnatus nodded in grave sympathy.

  “I regret hearing that, My Prince-and even more that I must tell you the dog brothers have . . . encountered difficulties.”

  “Difficulties?” Harnak’s head snapped up, and Tharnatus shrugged.

  “The Guild has never been the most reliable of the Scorpion’s servants, My Prince. True, I believed they should have sufficed for this simple a task, but the Guild Master has written to inform me otherwise. To date, the dog brothers have lost upward of forty men trying to kill Bahzell.”

  “Forty?! ” Harnak repeated. The priest nodded, and the prince swallowed. How could even Bahzell have-?

  “In fairness to the dog b
rothers,” Tharnatus said gravely, “Bahzell seems to have had far more luck than he should have. Apparently he took service with an Axeman merchant as far as Morvan, and the other guards shielded him from the Guild’s initial attacks. He has left that protection since, yet he seems unusually difficult to track. Even the Scorpion’s lesser servants can find him only with difficulty in the wilderness, and the dog brothers seem able to find him only when he enters their net in a town or city. They almost had him twice in Morvan itself-once in a tavern where he was working as a bouncer-” Harnak’s eyes glowed, even in his disappointment, at the thought of Bahzell’s finding himself so reduced “-and again in an alley. Unfortunately, he survived both attacks, as well as a third in Angthyr. By now, he knows the Guild has marked him, which will only make him harder to kill. The Guild Master hasn’t abandoned all hope, but it seems we set them a more difficult task than we realized, My Prince.”

  The priest’s voice trailed off suggestively. Harnak looked at him, but Tharnatus only looked back impassively.

  “And?” the prince prompted harshly when he could stand the silence no longer, and Tharnatus surprised him. The priest pursed his lips and rocked slightly on his toes for several moments, then shrugged.

  “There are more ways than the dog brothers to our goal, My Prince.”

  “Such as?” Harnak made himself speak calmly, but disbelief and hope warred in him. Could it be after all that Tharnatus meant to suggest-?

  “It seems Bahzell is more important than we guessed,” the priest said at last. “You need not know all of them-indeed, not even I know them all-but his death has become important to the Scorpion for many reasons. The entire Church has been mobilized against him, with all its resources, and we have the aid of certain servants of Carnadosa in this, as well.”