David Weber - Oath of Swords

“But why? ” Bahzell pressed. “Oh, aye, I can respect those things, but why turn to a god for them? Why thank a god for wisdom when it comes out of your own head? Or for beauty, when it’s your own eyes that have the seeing of it? Or for guts and loyalty, when those things come from in here -” his huge hand brushed Tothas’ chest “-and not from out there?” The same hand rose and gestured at the skies.

“You follow them, yet not one of them’s reached down to you and said, ‘This is a good man, who’s been after doing all I ask of him, and I take his illness from him.’ Not one of them, Tothas, and still you follow!” He shook his head. “That’s a thing no hradani would be understanding. It’s not my folk’s way to ask others for aught. We’ve learned the hard way that it won’t be given, that there’s no one and naught to count on but our own selves when all’s said and done. What we have, we build or take for ourselves, and spit on ‘gods’ who’ve no time for such as us. A man looks after his own in this world, Tothas, and it’s lucky he is if he can do it, for no one else will!”

Tothas smiled.

“That sounds to me like a man who’s angry at what he hears himself saying.”

“Whether I’m liking it or hating it won’t change what is ,” Bahzell shot back. “It’s the way of the world, and no one knows it better than hradani, for we’ve seen it too often. Aye, we’ve had a bellyful of it!”

The Spearman looked up at him for another long moment, then cocked his head.

“Why are you here, Bahzell?” he asked softly.

“Eh?” Bahzell blinked down at the human.

“Why are you here?” Tothas repeated. “In a world where a man looks after his own and Phrobus take the hindmost, why did you save Lady Zarantha in Riverside and why are you still here? Why didn’t you leave us to fend for ourselves once we left the city?”

“Because I’ve a head of solid rock,” Bahzell said bitterly, and Tothas’ laugh was soft.

“I believe that. Oh, yes, I believe that, my friend! But if you believe that’s the only reason, you know yourself less well than you think.”

“Now don’t you be thinking I’m aught but what I am,” Bahzell said uneasily. “Stupid, aye, and one who’s yet to learn to think before he acts-that I’ll grant you! And maybe I’ve a wee bit of guts, and a notion my word should be meaning something when I give it, but I’m no knight in shining armor. No, and I’ve no least desire to be one, either!”

“ ‘A knight in shining armor’?” There was a smile in Tothas’ voice, and he slapped the hradani on the elbow. “No, you’re certainly not that , Bahzell Bahnakson! The gods only know all that you may be, but I don’t think even they could see you as that!”

“Aye, and don’t you be forgetting it!” Bahzell snorted.

“I won’t,” Tothas reassured him. He gathered his blanket about him and shivered, then turned back towards the fire. “But while I’m remembering you aren’t, you might ask yourself whoever said you should be? Or why in Tomanāk’s name the gods should need one?”

Bahzell stared after him, ears at half-cock, and the Spearman chuckled as he picked his way back to his bedroll through the windy cold.

The rain started at dawn; by midday the racing spatter of drops had become a steady, bone-chilling downpour.

Bahzell slogged through it, head bent against the wind while his cloak snapped about his knees like a living thing, and a weary litany of curses rolled through his mind at what the icy rain was doing to Tothas. The armsman rode in the center of the column, huddled deep in his cloak, and Zarantha and Rekah both rode upwind of him in a vain effort to shield him. It was a sign of his distress that he didn’t even notice what they were trying to do, and the Horse Stealer gritted his teeth every time one of those terrible, strangling coughs twisted the Spearman.

The sloping road was ankle-deep in watery mud that wore away at their strength and spirits, and the storm cut the already short day still shorter. Bahzell had started searching for a suitable campsite before midafternoon, but the hillsides were clothed in scrub, without sheltering trees. Even without the soaking rain, firewood would have been hard to find, and the thought of subjecting Tothas to a fireless camp in such weather tightened Bahzell’s belly. But it was evening now; the light was going fast, they had to stop soon, and he was almost desperate when a flicker of movement caught the corner of his eye.

He turned his head quickly, but whatever it was had vanished into a barren hillside. His raised hand halted the column, and he reached up under his cloak; it was an awkward way to draw a sword, but he managed it, and Brandark walked his horse up beside him.

“What?” Even the Bloody Sword’s tenor was worn and creaky, and Bahzell nodded at the hill.

“I’m thinking I saw something yonder.”

“What?” Brandark repeated with a bit more interest.

“Now that’s what I’m none too sure of,” the Horse Stealer admitted. “But whatever it was, it up and disappeared.”

“Up there?” Brandark eyed the rocky, water-running slope skeptically.

“Aye.” Bahzell studied the hillside for another moment, then shrugged. “Wait here,” he said shortly, and started up the slope.

It was hard going, and he couldn’t have told Brandark why he was bothering, yet something poked at the corner of his brain. Chill water ran knee-deep as he waded up a gully towards the point where the movement had disappeared, and he was almost there when he heard a deep, angry squall.

He rocked back on his heels as a tawny shape flowed out of the very ground. It was a dire cat-not the enormous predator that ruled the Eastwall Mountains, but the smaller cousin that roamed their foothills-and Bahzell’s ears flattened as black lips wrinkled back from four-inch ivory fangs and the cat squalled again, furious at his intrusion.

But dire cats were as intelligent as they were deadly, and the beast let out yet a third squall-this one of pure frustration-as it digested Bahzell’s size and the menace of his sword. It hunkered down on the rock, tail lashing as if to pounce, then hissed in disgust and vanished into the rain in a single, prodigious leap.

Bahzell released the deep, tense breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, but even as he exhaled a suspicion as to why the cat had been so angry touched him. His eyes narrowed, and he moved forward again more eagerly.

There! An out-thrust shoulder of rock had hidden it from below, but a narrow slit pierced the hillside. It was tall enough even for Bahzell, though it would be a tight fit for his shoulders, and he edged into it. He felt his way for several yards, rubbing against the rock, muscles taut and sword ready. No dire cat would have abandoned a regular lair without a fight, sword or no sword, but Bahzell wasn’t about to assume anything, and if the cat had a mate-

It didn’t. Another ten feet, and gray light beckoned. The rock opened up, and he inched further forward, then came to a stop and smiled broadly.

It was a cave, and large enough for all their mounts, at that. Runoff cascaded from an open cleft in the high roof into a churning pool which must have an underground outlet, since it hadn’t risen to flow out through the cave entrance. There was no fuel here, but he’d gathered a heavy load of kindling as soon as the rain started. The packhorse had tossed its head in protest when he’d added the wood to its load and covered it with a cloak, but it would be enough to dry whatever fuel he and Brandark could gather from the scrub at the base of the hill. All they had to do was get the beasts up here. That didn’t promise to be easy, but Bahzell Bahnakson would cheerfully have tackled a far more difficult task to get out of the rain.