David Weber - Oath of Swords

He sheathed his sword and started back to tell the others.

Something woke him, and, for a change, it wasn’t a dream. He sat up, straining his ears as he wondered what it had been, but he detected no danger.

Red and yellow light flowed over rock walls as the small fire crackled cheerfully, and the smell of horses and mules mingled with the smoke. The combined body heat of animals and people had helped the fire warm the cave, and his bedroll was almost dry. Taken all together, he was more comfortable than he’d had any right to expect after such a day, and he’d tumbled into his blankets in weary gratitude. But he was oddly wide awake now, and he stretched.

Brandark sat cross-legged by the cave entrance, sheathed sword on his thighs. The rain must have eased, for the water no longer chattered and hissed into the pool. It fell gently, almost musically, soft enough for Brandark to hear Bahzell stir and turn his head.

“What are you doing up?” he asked quietly as the Horse Stealer rose.

“I’ve no idea,” Bahzell replied, equally quietly. He yawned and stretched again, then shrugged and parked himself beside Brandark. “But it’s up I am, so if you’re minded to turn in-?”

“It’s my watch,” Brandark disagreed with a little headshake.

“In that case, I’ll just be keeping you company for a bit-unless you’ve some objection?”

Brandark chuckled and shook his head again, and Bahzell looked over his shoulder to survey the others. Tothas looked much better than he had when they half-carried him into the cave, and Zarantha and Rekah were curled up like kittens under the blankets they shared. The soft, steady sound of breathing carried through the musical patter of water and the crackle of the fire, and an odd sense of safety-of comfort-seemed to fill the cave.

He turned back to join Brandark in watching the cave’s narrow stone throat, and a companionable silence enveloped them. They’d have to move on in the morning, and the fact that the rain had eased for now was no guarantee tomorrow wouldn’t be still worse, but all that mattered just now was the peace of the moment, and he savored it almost sensually.

He didn’t know how long he’d sat there when he heard the abrupt scuff of a boot on stone. He stiffened, ears rising, and felt Brandark tense beside him, but neither said anything. They just sat there, staring down the narrow passageway, and the boot scuffed again. And then, suddenly, a small, slender, brown-haired woman in a rain-beaded cloak turned a bend and stopped dead.

Bahzell’s ears went straight up in astonishment as the woman found herself face-to-face with two hradani and simply stood there. She didn’t yelp in panic, didn’t turn to flee-didn’t even stiffen in surprise. She only gazed at them with grave brown eyes, then shrugged and walked calmly forward.

“Good evening,” she said in a soft, husky contralto, and Bahzell blinked. He turned a look of disbelief on Brandark, and the same expression looked back at him. Then the two of them turned as one to the newcomer, and Bahzell cleared his throat.

“Ah, and a good evening to yourself.”

“Would you mind dreadfully if I shared your cave?” she asked in that same calm voice, as unruffled as if things like this happened to her every day. “It’s rather wet outside,” she added with a small smile, and Bahzell shook his head in bemusement. “Thank you,” she said, and untied her cloak.

She must, the Horse Stealer thought, be insane. She had to have seen the light of their fire before she ever started up the entry passage, but not only had she walked slap up to them and refused to turn a hair when she found a pair of hradani, she wasn’t even armed-not with so much as a dagger!

She seemed totally unconcerned as she stepped forward, draped her cloak near the fire, and unslung the small harp case she’d worn on her back beneath it. She settled down beside the fire and cocked her head as she regarded them with those huge brown eyes.

“Something smells good,” she announced.

“Ah, help yourself,” Brandark invited, and gestured at the covered pot of beans and salt pork left over from supper.

“Thank you,” she said again, and reached into her belt pouch. The knife she produced would have been as useless for self-defense as the fork and spoon that came with it, but gems glittered in their handles, and Bahzell’s eyes narrowed. Those eating utensils would have been at home on a duke’s table; no one in his right mind flashed something that valuable before two unknown warriors of any stripe, much less two with the reputation of hradani. He watched her select a tin bowl and ladle food into it, then cleared his throat.

“Don’t be taking me wrongly,” he said carefully, “but are you after being in the habit of walking up to strange camps like this?”

“Like what?”

“Like what?!” Bahzell blinked and glanced at Brankdark again. “What I mean to be saying, ah, Lady, is that, well, not everyone’s exactly- I mean-”

He broke off in unaccustomed confusion, and she smiled at him. It was quite a lovely smile, he thought, watching it light her triangular, spritelike face, and felt himself smile back for no good reason.

“Thank you for your concern, but I’ll be all right. I’m only a wandering bard, after all. No one would hurt me.”

“Begging your pardon,” Brandark said, “but I wouldn’t count on that. What my friend means is that one of these days you’re likely to run into someone who will hurt you-or worse.”

“Well, you two won’t, will you?” Amusement flickered in her grave eyes, and the hradani found themselves shaking their heads in unison. “There, you see?” She swallowed a mouthful of food and sighed. “Ummm! Delicious. I miss good, simple cooking like this.”

“Uh, yes,” Brandark said helplessly. Someone should lock this lunatic up in a nice, safe cage, but her simple confidence in her own safety was a shield that baffled him. He knew she was insane, and so did Bahzell, but how did they tell her that?

She smiled at them and returned to her food with slow, obvious relish. She cleaned the bowl of the last morsel, chasing the final bean around and around it with almost childish delight, then sighed once more.

“Oh, that was nice! ” She closed her eyes as if to savor some special treat, then opened them with another smile. “Thank you for your generosity.”

“It was only a bowl of beans,” Brandark protested, and she shrugged.

“Perhaps. But it was all you had, and you shared it with a stranger. How can I repay you?”

“Brandark’s the right of it,” Bahzell said uncomfortably. “It was naught but a bowl of beans, and it’s welcome to it you were.”

“Oh, I insist on paying something ,” she said with yet another of those lovely smiles, and reached for her harp. “If you won’t accept anything else, perhaps I could sing for my supper?”

Eyebrows arched above brilliant eyes, and the hradani nodded like puppets as she uncased her harp. A corner of Bahzell’s brain said something very strange was happening, but the thought was tiny, lost and unimportant.

She drew out her harp, and air hissed between Brandark’s teeth. The strings shone silver in a frame of midnight ebony, and faceted gems flashed back the fire from the tuning pegs. The forearm was a woman, draped in a flowing, archaic gown, mouth open in song, and the Bloody Sword blinked as the bard tucked the instrument against her shoulder, for the carved face matched her own. He started to speak, but then her fingers stroked the strings and he froze, mouth hanging open, as music filled the cave.

No one could wring that rich, rippling purity from a harp that small! It wasn’t the sound of a single harp at all-he knew it wasn’t. Viols and lutes sounded in the background, laughing dulcimers wove in and out between the harp notes, bassoons and oboes crooned to violins and the deep, sweet voice of cellos, and he knew it couldn’t happen even as it did. But then she opened her mouth, and he forgot the music, forgot the smell of horses and smoke and wet cloth and the rock he sat upon. He forgot everything, for there was nothing-nothing but that voice.