David Weber - Oath of Swords

The hooves came closer, and Bahzell rose to his knees, keeping his head below the level of the grass. It would be awkward to respan an arbalest from a prone position, even for him, but he’d chosen his position with care. His targets should be silhouetted against the still-bright western sky while he himself faded into the dimness of the eastern horizon, with time to vanish back into the grass before they even realized they were under attack. Of course, if they chose to stand, they were almost bound to spot him when he popped back up to take the second man, so there’d be no time for a third shot. But he’d take his chances against a single Bloody Sword hand-to-hand any day, and-

His thoughts broke off as the hooves stopped suddenly.

“I know you’re out there,” a tenor voice called, “but it’s getting dark, and mistakes can happen in the dark. Why don’t you come out before you shoot someone we’d both rather you didn’t?”

“ Brandark?! ” Bahzell shot up out of the grass in disbelief, and the single horseman turned in his saddle.

“So there you are,” he said blandly, then shook his head and waved an arm at the line of willows two hundred yards ahead. “I’m glad I went ahead and called out! I thought you were still in front of me.”

“Fiendark’s Furies, man!” Bahzell unloaded the arbalest and released the string with a snap while he waded through the grass. “What in the names of all the gods and demons d’you think you’re doing out here?!”

“Catching up with you before any of Churnazh’s patrols do,” Brandark said dryly, and leaned from his saddle to clasp forearms as Bahzell reached him. “Not that it’s been easy, you understand. I’ve just about ridden these poor horses out.”

“Aye, well, that happens when the likes of you goes after a Horse Stealer, little man. You’ve not got the legs to catch him, any of you.” Bahzell’s tone was far lighter than his expression. “But why you should be wanting to is more than I can understand.”

“Someone has to keep you out of trouble.” Brandark dismounted, and his horse blew gratefully as his weight came off its back. Bahzell might call him “little;” few others would have, for if he was over a foot shorter than the Horse Stealer, his shoulders were just as broad. Now he straightened his embroidered jerkin and fluffed his lace cuffs with a fastidious air, and the strings of the balalaika on his back sang gently as he shrugged.

“Keep me out of trouble, is it? And what’s to be keeping you out of it, I wonder? This is none of your affair, but you’re like to lose that long nose of yours if you poke it into it, I’m thinking!”

“Oh, come now! It’s not that long,” Brandark protested.

“Long enough to be losing you your head,” Bahzell growled.

“That would have happened soon enough if I’d stayed home,” Brandark replied more soberly. “Churnazh never liked me, and he likes me less now.”

Bahzell grunted in unhappy understanding, and Brandark shrugged again.

“I won’t deny our friendship didn’t help, but don’t take all the credit. My time was running out before you ever came to Navahk.” He grinned suddenly. “I think I made him uncomfortable for some reason.”

“Now why would that be, I wonder?” Bahzell snorted.

“I can’t imagine.” Full dark had fallen as they spoke, and Brandark looked around and shuddered. “I’m city bred,” he said plaintively. “Do you think we could make camp before we continue this discussion?”

Bahzell snorted again and took the lead for Brandark’s packhorse without further comment. Brandark gathered up the reins of both his saddle horses and followed him toward the willows, whistling softly, and Bahzell shook his head. He had no idea how Brandark had run him down so quickly, and he wished he hadn’t, but he was a bit surprised by how comforting the other’s presence was. And Brandark was right; his days in Navahk would have been numbered even if Bahzell had never visited the city.

The Horse Stealer glanced over his shoulder, and his mouth twitched. Anything less like a Bloody Sword hradani than Brandark Brandarkson was impossible to imagine-a thought, Bahzell was certain, which must have occurred to Brandark the Elder on more than one occasion, for he was a hradani of the old school. More successful than many at hanging on to his plunder and making it increase, perhaps, but more than a match for any of Churnazh’s bravos when it came to pure swagger and a readiness to let blood. He was more particular about his reasons for doing it, but not even Churnazh cared to push him too openly, and there must be more to the old man than met the eye, for he’d never disinherited his son.

Literacy was rare in Navahk, and Brandark was probably the only genuine scholar in Prince Churnazh’s whole wretched realm. He was entirely self-taught, yet Bahzell had been stunned by the library his friend had managed to assemble. It was all bits and pieces-books were fiendishly hard to come by, even in Hurgrum-but finding it in Navahk had been more than simply a shock, and Bahzell often wished his father could have seen Brandark’s collection.

Bahzell himself had never been a good student. Prince Bahnak had done his best to beat at least a little schooling into him, but getting him away from his arms masters had always been an uphill struggle. Yet Brandark, entirely on his own, had amassed more knowledge than any of the tutors Bahnak had paid-lavishly, by hradani standards-for their efforts to educate his sons, and he’d done it in Navahk.

It hadn’t come without consequences, of course. Churnazh’s contempt for Hurgrum was as nothing beside his contempt for a Bloody Sword who dabbled in the same degeneracy, and Brandark had done nothing to change his prince’s mind. He fancied himself a poet, though even Bahzell knew his verse was terrible. He also considered himself a bard, and there, at least, Bahzell had to side with Churnazh. The hradani language’s long, rolling cadences lent itself well to song-fortunately, since they’d been reduced to oral tradition in the centuries after the Fall and only their bards had kept any of their history alive-but Brandark couldn’t have carried a melody if it had handles. He had the instrumental skills of a bard, but not the voice. Never the voice, and his efforts to prove differently were painful even to his few friends.

Coupled with his choice of songs, that voice was enough to reduce Churnazh to frothing madness. Brandark favored ditties, many of his own composition, about the prince’s favorites (even he was careful to avoid any that attacked Churnazh directly), and only the tradition of bardic immunity and the fact that he’d inherited his father’s ability with a sword had kept him alive this long. He’d played his dangerous game for years, and even Bahzell often wondered how much of it was real and how much an affectation specifically designed to infuriate Churnazh. Or, for that matter, if Brandark himself still knew which parts of him were genuine and which assumed.

His thoughts had carried him to where he’d left his own horse, and he picketed Brandark’s pack animal in the same clump of willows and turned to help his friend with the other two. Brandark grunted his thanks, and they worked together to unsaddle them and rub them down.

“I’m thinking this isn’t the very brightest thing either of us ever did,” Bahzell said, breaking the companionable silence at last as they hung the saddles over a fallen tree.

“True, but no one ever said you were smart.” Brandark seated himself on the same fallen tree and adjusted his cuffs again. Part of his image was to be the closest any hradani could come to a dandy, and he took pains with it.

“There’s something in that,” Bahzell agreed, busying himself with flint and steel. Brandark hauled himself off the log and began gathering wood.