David Weber - Oath of Swords

His ears twitched as they picked up the whispered comments of the humans making their way past him. Judging by their content, most of the speakers believed he couldn’t hear them, or that he wouldn’t understand if he did, and he chose to pretend they were right. In fact, his Esganian was much better than it had been, for, like most of the human tongues of central and northern Norfressa, it was a variant of Axeman, and Prince Bahnak had insisted all of his sons must speak that fluently. The Empire of the Axe seldom impinged upon the distant lands of the eastern hradani, but its might and influence were so great no ruler could afford not to speak its tongue any more than he could not speak that of the Empire of the Spear, its single true rival, and constant exposure to Esganian had helped him master the differences.

Brandark finished speaking to the guard, and the two of them made their way into the city. As always, people tended to clear their path, pushing rudely back against their neighbors when necessary, and Bahzell smiled sourly as even beggars gave them a wide berth. There were some advantages to being a brutal, murdering hradani after all, it seemed.

The sounds and smells and colors of the city made it hard to maintain his impassivity. The streets shifted with no apparent rhyme or reason from flagstone to cobbles to brick and back again, and not one of them went more than fifty yards before it bent like a serpent. He wondered how much of that was by chance and how much by design. This warren would be a nightmare for any commander, but if a defender knew the streets and an attacker didn’t . . .

Some of the serpentine quality faded as they neared the center of town. The streets grew broader, too, lined with solid structures of brick, stone, and wood and no longer overhung by encroaching upper stories. Taverns and shops stood shoulder-to-shoulder with carpet stalls, cutlers, and street-side grills that gave off delicious smells, but that, too, faded as Brandark turned down a wide avenue. Houses replaced them-enormous houses, by Bahzell’s standards-set in manicured grounds. He knew the smell of wealth when he met it, yet even here, the houses clustered tightly, for there simply wasn’t room for spacious estates in this packed city.

Some of the well-kept homes boasted their own guards, who stood by closed entry gates, often with hands near their weapons as the hradani passed, and Bahzell wondered what he and Brandark were doing here. This was no place to find the sort of employment they sought, and the palpable suspicion of those guards left him feeling like a scout walking knowingly into an ambush, but he could only trust Brandark knew what he was about.

He pulled his attention back from the watching eyes and made himself pay more attention to the city’s quality and less to its sheer size. Vast and crowded Esgfalas might be, but it was infinitely better kept than Navahk. Even the poorer streets were as clean as anything in Hurgrum; these broad, residential avenues actually sparkled under the sun, and the gutters along their sides were deep but clean, obviously for drainage and not simply a convenient place to shove refuse. He hated the feeling of being closed in, denied long sight lines and space, yet there was a safe, solid feel to this place . . . or would have been, if the people who lived here hadn’t hated him.

Brandark made another turn, and Bahzell heaved a mental sigh of relief as they left the palatial avenues behind and the buildings changed quickly back into places of business. A short quarter-hour took them into an area of huge warehouses and shouting work gangs mixed with the grating roar of wagon wheels, and he felt himself relaxing still further. A man had to watch his toes or lose them to those rumbling wheels, perhaps, but there was too much activity and energy here for anyone to waste time staring at him bitterly.

There were more foreigners, as well. He heard at least a dozen languages chattering about him, and his ears pricked in surprise as a slender, gilt-haired man crossed the street ahead of him. He’d never seen an elf, but those delicately pointed ears and angular eyebrows couldn’t belong to a human, and now that he looked, he saw representatives of still other Races of Man.

He watched in fascination as a small cluster of halflings trotted busily down the street. They stood barely waist high to a human, reaching little more than to Bahzell’s thigh, and delicate ivory horns gleamed on their foreheads. They attracted their own share of distrustful looks, and he snorted in understanding. The histories said there’d been no halflings prior to the Wizard Wars. The same wars that had brought the Fall of Kontovar and afflicted his own kind with the Rage had produced the small, horned people of the youngest Race of Man, and that was enough to make them suspect to anyone else. Nor did their reputation help, though Bahzell had always taken such tales with a grain of salt. No doubt there was some truth to them-after all, there was some truth even to the tales about hradani-yet he couldn’t believe an entire race consisted solely of cowards and thieves. Besides, if he were such a wee, puny fellow as they, no doubt he’d be on the . . . cautious side, as well!

Brandark was watching signboards now, and suddenly he nodded and raised a hand.

“Here we are!” Bahzell suspected his friend’s satisfied tone owed at least a little to their having crossed the city without incident. City boy or not, even Brandark had to find this place on the overpowering side.

“Are we, now?” he rumbled. “And where might ‘here’ be?”

“With any luck, the place we’ll find someone to hire us. Follow me.”

Brandark led the way into a brick-paved courtyard surrounded on three sides by huge, blank-faced warehouses. A score of workmen labored about them, too busy to do more than glance their way, but a quartet of guards rose from a bench beside an office door. One of them-a tall, black-haired fellow in well-worn chain mail, leather breeches, and a cavalryman’s high boots-said something to his fellows and made his way across the courtyard towards the hradani with the rolling gait of a horseman. The saber scabbard at his side was as worn but well kept as his armor, and he cocked his head as he stopped in front of them.

“And what might I be able to do for you?” he growled in rough-edged Esganian. It wasn’t discourtesy; Bahzell had heard the same gruffness too often to mistake a voice worn to a rasp by the habit of command.

“I’m looking for an Axeman merchant,” Brandark replied.

“Aye? Would he have a name?”

“Well, yes.” For the first time since Bahzell had met him, Brandark sounded a bit embarrassed. “I’m, ah, not certain I can pronounce it properly,” he apologized, “and I wouldn’t care to offer insult by getting it wrong.”

“Aye?” The black-haired man’s dark eyes glinted with amusement. “Well, he’s not here just now, whoever he might be, so you just lean back and let her rip,” he said in Axeman that was much better than his Esganian.

“Very well.” Brandark replied in the same language and drew a breath. “I was told to ask for . . . Kilthandahknarthos of Clan Harkanath of the Silver Caverns.”

Bahzell turned his head to stare at his friend as the long, sonorous name fell from his tongue, but the black-haired man chuckled.

“Well, you didn’t do so badly, at that, but it’s ‘knar thas ’ there at the end.” He cocked his head the other way and squeezed his sword belt and rocked on his heels. “And might I ask your business with old Kilthan?”

“I’m hoping,” Brandark said, “that he might have jobs for us.”

“Jobs, is it?” The black-haired man sounded dubious. “What sort of job would that be?”