David Weber - Oath of Swords

Too late. Brandark went down as steel slammed into his thigh, and his attacker howled in triumph and raised his sword in both hands. It started down in the killing stroke, and then Bahzell’s blade smashed across his spine. He fell away, and Bahzell spun once more, straddling Brandark’s helpless body, as Harnak’s last two guardsmen came at him.

One of them was a little in advance of the other, and his charge ended in the thud of dead meat as he ran headlong into Bahzell’s two-handed stroke. His companion got through, and Bahzell grunted as steel crashed into his side. His mail blunted the blow, but blood welled down his ribs, and his left arm flashed out. It snaked around his opponent’s sword arm and through his armpit, and Bahzell’s hand licked up behind the other’s shoulder. He heaved, and the Navahkan lost footing and sword alike. He smashed into the ground face-first, and Bahzell’s knee came down on his spine.

The Horse Stealer dropped his own sword. His right hand darted down, found his enemy’s chin, cupped hard, and he straightened his back explosively.

The crunching crack ! of vertebrae filled the ravine, and suddenly the night was still and dark once more.

Bahzell finished making camp, such as it was, and let himself slide down beside Brandark’s bedroll with a groan of weary pain. Broken ribs throbbed dully under the rough, blood-stiff dressing on his left side, yet he was in far better shape than Brandark. The Bloody Sword was barely conscious, and Bahzell tasted the bitterness of guilt as he uncapped his water bottle.

Brandark had faced no less than four Rage-maddened opponents-and killed three of them-while Bahzell dueled with Harnak. It was the sort of fight that made legends, but it had cost him the tip of his right ear and the last two fingers of his left hand, and those were the least of his hurts. The ugly cut in his left biceps had bled badly until Bahzell’s rough and ready stitches closed it, yet the wound in his right leg was far worse. Steel had cut to the bone, severing muscle and tendons; it would have crippled him for life . . . except that Bahzell knew enough field medicine to recognize the stench of gangrene.

His friend was going to die, and it was Bahzell’s fault. He knew Brandark would disagree, that he’d say-truthfully-that he’d chosen to come despite Bahzell’s warnings, yet it was Bahzell who’d brought Harnak after them, and it was Bahzell’s insistence on aiding Malith’s villagers which had doomed Brandark. The Purple Lord cavalry would cut his throat instantly, not tend his wounds, if Bahzell left him behind, but dragging him along was only prolonging his torment, and Bahzell knew it.

He held the water bottle to Brandark’s lips, and the Bloody Sword swallowed thirstily. He drank half the bottle, and his eyes slid open. They were cloudy with pain and fever, but he managed to smile.

“Still with you, you see,” he husked in a parody of his usual tenor, and Bahzell soaked a rag in water and mopped his face.

“Aye, so I do,” he replied, and somehow he kept his own voice steady as Brandark closed his eyes once more.

He lay silent, breathing raggedly, and Bahzell cursed his powerlessness. He’d managed to stop the bleeding and get Brandark onto one of their horses, then thrown a pack saddle onto one of the mules and driven the other animals away before he broke south once more. He’d hoped the patrol which must have attacked Harnak’s men would decide the “brigands” had scattered and split up to chase riderless horses, and it seemed to have worked. No one had come straight after them, at any rate, but they were still hunting, and some of them, at least, were ahead of the hradani. He’d lain on the crest of a hill and watched a score of troopers sweep a shallow valley he and Brandark had yet to cross, and he knew they wouldn’t give up. Not after the losses they must have taken against Harnak’s guardsmen. It was only a matter of time until one of those patrols caught up with them, and when it did-

“You know you’ve . . . got to leave me behind, don’t you?” Brandark whispered, and Bahzell looked down quickly. He opened his mouth, but Brandark shook his head with another of those tight smiles. “D’you think . . . I don’t know I’m dying?”

“Hush, little man! There’s no need to talk of dying yet.”

“Give me . . . a couple of days . . . and I won’t have to ‘talk’ about it.” Fever left Brandark’s weak voice hoarse and frayed, but it still held a trace of his usual tartness. “I know you’re . . . an idiot, but don’t . . . prove it. ’Thout me . . . to slow you, you might break through yet.”

“And what sort of champion of Tomanāk goes about abandoning his friends, then?” Bahzell shot back, wiping the Bloody Sword’s face once more. “A fine way to act that’d be!”

“Oh . . . hog turds.” Brandark’s strength was ebbing quickly, but he shook his head again. “Don’ han’ . . . me that,” he muttered. “Nev’r wanted . . . be a champion ’n th’ firs’ place, you . . . idio’ . . . .”

He trailed off in incoherent mumbles, and Bahzell stared out into the night and bit his lip. He’d never felt so helpless, so useless. He rested one hand lightly on Brandark’s right shoulder for a long, silent moment, then rose and stumped across the fireless camp to the one pack of rations he’d hung on to. He started to open it, then stopped, and his ears flattened as he glared down at a long, cloth-wrapped bundle.

It was Harnak’s sword, shrouded in the dead prince’s bloodstained cloak. Its fire had faded when Harnak died, yet Bahzell had sensed the power and hatred lying quiescent in it, waiting only for a hand to lift it once more. He’d dared not leave it behind-gods only knew what it would do to anyone mad enough to touch it!-but what was he supposed to do with it now?

He straightened his aching spine and growled in bleak, exhausted bitterness. He hadn’t dared touch the thing with his bare hand, but he’d held it in a fold of Harnak’s cloak to examine it and found the scorpion etched into its guard. He would have liked to think that simply marked it as an assassin’s blade, but what he’d seen-and felt-it do in battle made that nonsense. No, he knew why it bore Sharna’s symbol . . . and that it proved things were even worse in Navahk than he’d believed. Gods! Did Churnazh even suspect what was using him as its opening wedge? It seemed impossible. Crude and brutal Churnazh was, but surely he had cunning enough to know what would happen if any of his neighbors came to suspect him of trafficking with Sharna! Yet if Sharna’s church could reach as high as Navahk’s crown prince, who knew who else it had reached? Or where?

Bahzell scrubbed his face with his palms, feeling sick and exhausted and used up. He was the only one with proof of how far evil had reached into Navahk. That made it his job to do something about it, but he was so tired. So very, very tired and sick at heart.

“So,” he muttered bitterly into his palms, “why not be telling me what I should do now , Tomanāk?”

“Do you really want to ask me that?”

Bahzell snatched his hands down and stared around in shock, but the night was still and quiet, free of apparitions, and he swallowed, then drew a breath.

“As to that,” he told the darkness, “it’s new at this championing I am. I’ve no real notion what it is I can or can’t be asking of you.”

“You may ask anything you wish of me,” that deep voice murmured within him. “What I can give you, I will.”

“Will you, now? And what of him? ” Bahzell cried in despair. “It was me brought him to this, and not a thing at all can I do for him now!”