"So you're sure about this, are you?"
Kilthan's sharp topaz eyes considered the two hradani as they stood at dockside. The city of Riverside was grimy and unkempt, and it had a name as a rough place. The Kingdom of Morvan was one of the Border Kingdoms—the small states nestled along the Empire of the Axe's frontier—but it was more lawless than most. And less concerned with keeping the Axemen happy, for the Forest of Sharmi covered its southern flank. No one went into the Sharmi willingly, not even armies of the expansionist Empire of the Spear, which left the Morvanians with a smaller sense of dependence upon Axeman protection.
"Aye, you are," the dwarf sighed, and shook his head. "I'll be honest, you lads have worked out better than I'd expected, and Riverside is no place for a pair of hradani all on their own. I'll keep you both on—as sergeants over the winter, and with your own platoons come spring."
"We appreciate the offer." Brandark still acted as their spokesman more often than not, but Bahzell nodded in agreement. "Truly we do. But under the circumstances—" He shrugged, and Kilthan frowned up at Bahzell.
"You're remembering that idiot in Derm, aren't you?" His cocked head demanded answer, and the Horse Stealer nodded again. "Well, I don't know as I blame you, but I doubt Norfressa's big enough to outrun the gods—assuming a lunatic in a fancy bed gown would know a message from them if it bit him on the arse!"
"That's as may be, but I'm minded to try. And, truth to tell, I'd sooner whatever it is not splash on you and yours if I can't outrun it, Kilthan."
"Hmmmmm. You know, there might just be something in that," Kilthan agreed with a slow smile, then shook himself. "All right. You've more than pulled your weight, so here's your pay—and I've decided to absorb your bonds with the Guild." He tossed over a purse that clinked satisfyingly when Brandark caught it, and grinned at their expressions. "Don't let it get around. Hirahim knows I don't need a reputation as a curst soft touch!"
"Somehow I doubt that's going to happen," Brandark assured him.
"No more it should," Kilthan agreed, drawing an unsealed parchment letter from his tunic and handing it to Brandark as well. "You'd best take this, too. Gods know you louts will have trouble enough without me to vouch for you, but this may help." Brandark cocked his ears—his eyebrows were growing back, but remained too wispy for suitable expressiveness—and Kilthan snorted. "It's a letter of introduction. Won't do a damned bit of good if the guard decides to clap you up, and don't expect it to help much with local tradesmen, but it should carry weight with anyone from the Guild who's looking for reliable men. I perjured my immortal soul in it, but if they believe half the lies I've told, it should get you a job with someone reputable who's headed east—assuming there is anyone headed east this time of year!"
"We're thanking you, Kilthan," Bahzell said softly. He reached down to clasp forearms with the dwarf. "It's a good friend you've been to us, and I'll not forget. I've written my father, as well. If any of your factors are ever after finding their way to Hurgrum, you'll find the markets open to you."
"Think I didn't know that, you overgrown lump of rock?" Kilthan rose on his toes to punch the Horse Stealer in the chest. "Why else d'you think I'm sending you off with that letter? Keep your eye on the main chance and invest carefully, boy, and don't you ever forget it!"
"Aye, that would be it, of course," Bahzell agreed with a smile, and Kilthan waved both hands at them.
"All right, all right! I've things to do, and I can't be standing around all day, so be gone with you now!"
He marched briskly away, and the two hradani smiled at each other behind him. They gathered their gear and started away from dockside, only to pause as Rianthus and Hartan appeared in front of them. The human led two horses, one an excellent medium warhorse and the other a sturdy pack animal, and Hartan shook his head as he glared up at the hradani.
"Tomanāk! All this time with us, and they still haven't learned to think ahead," he snorted to Rianthus.
"Aye, well, no one ever said they were smart," Rianthus agreed, grinning at Brandark.
"And to what—other than a desire to perfect your rudeness—do we owe this visit?" Brandark inquired politely.
"Well, it occurred to some of the lads that you two had to sell your horses back in Derm," Rianthus said casually, "so the lot of us went in to buy you a pair of replacements. Not as good as you could, ah, liberate from a bunch of Navahkan Bloody Swords, maybe, but passable, I think."
"Passable, is it?" Bahzell ran an appreciative eye over the horses. "Aye, you might be calling them that!"
"Here—take 'em!" Rianthus stuck out the reins, then caught Bahzell's forearm as he took them. "And watch yourselves, you two! Gods know you're not the brightest pair I've ever seen, but we're fond of you."
"Speak for yourself, high-pockets," Hartan grunted, but he, too, clasped arms with them both. Then the two captains nodded brusquely and turned back to their business, and Bahzell and Brandark walked slowly into the streets of Riverside.
* * *
They soon found Kilthan's warnings well founded. They were no longer a wealthy merchant's guards, and Riverside had its share and more of prejudice. Like most of the Border Kingdoms, Morvan was a land of mixed races, but no hradani were numbered among them, and if their people's fearsome reputation meant no one cared to push a quarrel to the point of drawn steel, neither were they welcome. There was a mysterious lack of room in the better inns, and they ended up lodging above a miserable tavern on the wrong side of the city.
Their quarters were wretched enough, but the bad side of Riverside was worse than most, and the tavern's location brought them face-to-face with half the city's would-be bravos with predictable results. Word soon got around that it was wiser to leave them in peace, however, and Bahzell hardly had to break more than an arm or two to bring it about. It took a bit more effort on Brandark's part—his balalaika and dandified air made him less elementally threatening—but after the night four burly longshoremen took flight through a second-story window, their fellows decided to leave him alone, too.
None of that was calculated to endear them to the City Guard, and the unpleasant aura of official displeasure added itself to their other problems. All in all, Riverside was not a place either of them cared for, yet finding a way to leave was far from simple.
Their pay from Kilthan, coupled with what remained of Bahzell's original purse, was enough to carry them for a time, especially at the prices their cheerless lodgings could command, but it would never last clear through the winter. Nor would it take them very far along the road. In the long run, if they wanted to eat they needed work, and there was little of that in Riverside for hradani, even with Kilthan's letter. Not, at least, on the right side of the law, and the local underworld quickly gave up on recruiting either of them.
Had an opportunity offered, they would gladly have used that same letter to hire on with another caravan, but autumn had caught up with them once more. Norfressa looked forward to winter, and no one willingly took to the road in winter, which lent added point to the necessity of finding some means of earning their way through the icy months to come. But as days turned into a week, then into two weeks, and then into three, and the nights grew steadily colder, it began to seem they had no choice. If there was nothing for them here, they must move on soon and trust to fortune. Besides, Bahzell's dreams were back. His memories of them were as fragmented and confusing as ever, but even more disturbing, and the Horse Stealer's feet itched to be leaving.
* * *
The moonless night was windy and cold. Thin clouds, just thick enough to hide the stars without cutting the chill, pressed down on Riverside like a hand, filling the frosty shadows with a darker, more solid blackness. There were no streetlights on this side of town; only the occasional privately maintained flambeaux outside some gambling den or brothel broke the dark, and Bahzell muttered balefully to himself as he moved down the mean little street. He'd found a few days' work, of a sort, as a bouncer, but that was at an end now. He didn't know who the Krahana-cursed idiot was or why he'd tried to stick a knife in Bahzell's back, and no one ever would know now. The Guard seldom ventured into the Broken Bucket, and no one had seemed inclined to summon them when his attacker landed in the sawdust with a broken spine, but the bar's halfling owner had decided he could manage without Bahzell's services after all. So here he was, picking his way back home to Brandark with no more than a few miserable silvers in his pouch, and—
He paused in one of the many shadows, ears cocking as a sound came from in front of him, and his jaw clenched.
His ears went slowly flat in the blackness, and a vast sense of ill-use suffused him as he heard snarling male voices and a lighter, more breathless female one that tried to hide its fear. They came from an alley ahead of him, and he raised his head to glare at the low clouds.
"Why me, damn it?" he demanded. "Why in the name of all of Fiendark's Furies is it always being me?!"
The clouds returned no answer, and he snarled at their silence. The voices grew louder, and then there was a sudden scream of pain—a man's, not a woman's—and the male voices were abruptly uglier and far more vicious. The Horse Stealer lowered his eyes from the clouds and swore vilely. This wasn't even Navahk, and he'd spent long enough among the other Races of Man now to know rape was a far more common crime among "civilized" people than any hradani clan would tolerate. If they didn't want to stop it, it was certainly none of his business—and the woman was probably no more than one of the whores who worked these wretched streets, anyway!
He wrestled with himself, and as he did, he heard the sudden patter of light, quick feet fleeing while heavier feet thundered in pursuit. Another scream split the night—this one female—and Bahzell Bahnakson spat one last, despairing oath at his own invincible stupidity, and charged.
Someone looked up with a startled cry as the huge hradani appeared out of the night. Dim bands of light spilled through a shuttered window high in one wall, patching the alley's shadows with bleary illumination, and Bahzell swore again as he realized there were at least a dozen of them. Probably more, and three of them had hold of a kicking, scratching, hissing wildcat below the window. Cloth tore, a soprano voice spat a curse, and hoarse laughter answered it even as he turned the corner, and he wasted no time on words.
The closest man had time for one, strangled cry as an enormous hand reached for him. Then he thudded headfirst against the alley wall and oozed down it while his companions whirled in astonishment. Knives glinted, but Bahzell wore his scale mail, and he was in no mind to make this any more of a killing matter than he could help. Gods knew the authorities were more likely to hang a hradani than thank him for saving some whore's problematical virtue, he told himself bitterly, and smashed a fist into the nearest face.
His target flew backward, taking two of its fellows down with it, and someone else dashed at him. Perhaps he meant only to dart past the hradani and flee, or perhaps he hadn't realized how large Bahzell was when he started, but his feet skidded as he suddenly found himself all alone and tried too late to change his mind. Bahzell caught his right wrist and twisted, a knife rang as it fell to the paving, and the man screamed—first in pain, then in raw panic—as he was plucked off the ground by his wrist. But a scale mail-armored elbow drove up into his jaw from below, bone crunched audibly, the scream was cut off as if by an axe, and Bahzell dropped him and reached for another one.
A knife slashed the back of his hand, but the cut was shallow, and he bellowed as his other fist came down on top of the knife-wielder's head like a maul. Another body slithered to the paving, and a bass-voiced curse turned into a falsetto scream on the far side of the crowd. Bahzell had no time to wonder why, for a knife grated on his mail from behind, then withdrew and came up from below. The stiletto-thin blade was narrow enough to find a gap between scales, but it hung for just a second, and he reached back for a handful of cloth and heaved. His assailant cried out as he flew forward, but then he hit the alley on the back of his neck and flopped with the total inertness of a dead man, and Bahzell stepped over the body as another knife thrust at him.
He caught two more men by the fronts of their tunics, slammed their heads together, and tossed them aside as a figure tried to dash past him in the confusion. An out-thrust boot brought the would-be escapee to the ground, and a savage kick bounced him off a wall and left him curled in a sobbing knot around splintered ribs. Three of his fellows threw themselves on the hradani, swinging desperately with loaded truncheons, and Bahzell roared in fury. He caught one of them up and used him to smash the other two to the ground before he hurled his makeshift bludgeon into the alley wall. There was another scream and a torrent of curses from the crowd ahead of him, and the entire alley dissolved into a frantic confusion of shouts, thudding blows, and grunts of pain.
Bahzell's enemies outnumbered him, but the quarters were too close for them to mob him. They could come at him only in twos and threes, and if they had knives, he was bigger than any two of them and armored to boot, and a wild glee filled him. It wasn't the Rage, but a sort of fierce delight in paying back all the slights and insults he and Brandark had endured in Riverside, and suddenly he was roaring with laughter as he waded through them.
The last few toughs heard that bellowing laughter as their fellows flew away from the hulking titan, and they turned as one. They abandoned their plans for the night's entertainment and took to their heels, praying the alley had an open end . . . and that they could reach it before he reached them.
Bahzell heard them go and opened his left hand. The man he'd been punching with his bleeding right fist sagged bonelessly to the pavement, and he looked around quickly for the whore.
No, he corrected himself, not a whore. The woman with her back to the greasy alley wall was too plainly dressed for that. A whore would have shown more flesh, even on a night this cold, and she wore none of the cheap trinkets of the prostitute. He heard her fearful breathing and saw the gleam of her wide eyes, but she held a short dagger as if she knew which end was sharp. More to the point, there was blood on the blade and two dead men at her feet.
His own chest heaved, and his ears pricked in surprise as he studied her. Her clothing was drab, and her heavy skirt was badly ripped under her cheap cloak, yet it was also painfully clean. She was a small thing, even for a human, and young, but there was a lean, poised readiness about her. She looked like a peasant, but she didn't stand like one, and she was neither a half-starved waif of the streets nor a fine lady.
He frowned as he tried to decide just what it was she was, and then she lowered the dagger with a taut smile and nodded to him.
"My thanks, friend," she said in accented Axeman. "Lillinara knows I never expected anyone to come running in a place like this—and a hradani to boot!—but . . . many thanks."
"Aye, well, I couldn't just be walking on by," he said uncomfortably in the same language.
"Most people around here could have, and would." She gave him another flickering smile and stooped to clean her dagger on a cloak. Then the blade vanished somewhere about her clothing, and she tugged at her torn skirt in a futile effort to straighten it.
"My name is Zarantha," she said, abandoning her efforts. Her accent gave her Axeman a strange, musical lilt, and she held out her hand.
"Bahzell," Bahzell muttered, bemused by her composure, and his eyebrows rose as he felt his forearm gripped in a warrior's clasp. "Bahzell Bahnakson, of the Horse Stealers."
"Horse Stealers?" It was Zarantha's turn to raise her eyebrows. "You're a long way from home, Bahzell Bahnakson."
"That I am," Bahzell agreed. She released his arm and he stood back, ankle-deep in bodies—unconscious and otherwise—and his mouth twitched in wry amusement. "And so, I'm thinking, are you, from your accent."
"True enough. I'm from Sherhan, near Alfroma in the South Weald."
"A Spearman, are you? Or should I be saying a Spearwoman?" Bahzell asked in Spearman, and she laughed out loud.
"Spearmen is what they call us, man, woman, and child," she replied in the same language. "And what does a Horse Stealer hradani know of us? You're—what, from up near Sothōii lands?"
"Well, as to that, we're thinking the Sothōii are from up near Horse Stealer lands," he said, and she laughed again.
"Good for you! But what, if you'll pardon my asking, are you doing in Riverside? Not that I'm ungrateful for whatever it is!"
"Naught but traveling through. And yourself?"
"I'm trying to get home."
"Home, is it?" Bahzell looked down at her, and something in the way she'd said "get home" urged him to bid her a courteous good evening and vanish. The racket they'd raised might bring the Guard down on them, even in this part of town, and even if it didn't, this Zarantha and her problems were none of his affair. But something else had control of his voice, and he cocked his head and frowned at her. "And what's to stop you from getting there, then?"
"One thing after another," she said tartly. "My family's well enough off, in a modest sort of way—we're connected to the Sh,loans, one way or another—and my father sent me off to school in the Empire of the Axe. But when I started home again—"
She broke off as one of the thugs groaned and pushed up on his hands. He wavered there, then struggled to his knees, and Bahzell brought a fist down on the top of his head without even thinking about it. The man grunted and thudded back to the paving, and the hradani nodded politely to Zarantha.
"You were saying you're after being connected to the Sh,loans?" She nodded back, and he frowned. "And what might a Sh,loan be?"
"What?!" Zarantha blinked at him, then laughed again. It was a nice laugh, Bahzell thought, throaty and almost purring. "That's right, you wouldn't know. Well, Grand Duke Sh,loan is Warden of the South Weald."
"Ah." He eyed her plain, cheap clothing again and cleared his throat. "And would the Duke know you're in difficulties?"
"I didn't say it was a close connection," she said wryly. "Not but what my family isn't better off than appearances might suggest. I was on my way home when my armsmen came down with a fever here in Riverside." Her face tightened, and her voice fell. "Two of them died," she said more softly, "and poor Tothas was too sick to defend even himself when my maid and I were robbed. We barely had enough left to put a roof over our heads—not that it's much of one—while we nursed him back to health."
Bahzell nodded again, slowly, tempted, despite the absurdity of what she claimed to be, to believe her. He also felt a stir of sympathy and stepped on it hard. The last thing he and Brandark needed was to get involved with an indigent noblewoman, however minor. Especially a foreign one.
"Well, it's happy I am to have been of service, Lady Zarantha," he said, "but I've a friend waiting for me, and I'd best be going, so—"
"Wait!" She held out her hand again, and Bahzell felt a sharper stab of foreboding. "If you're just traveling through, won't you help us? Tothas is still weak, and I'm sure if you—and your friend, if he's willing—help us get home, my father will see you rewarded for it!"
Bahzell's jaw clenched, and he swore at himself for not having made his escape in time.
"I've no doubt he would," he began, "but I'm thinking there's better than such as us to be helping you home. It's like enough he'd be none too happy to see you trailing a pair of hradani with you, and—"
Another thug raised a bleary head, peered about him, and began crawling down the alley, and Bahzell reached down and caught him by the cloak. He jerked the unfortunate up and bounced his head off the wall—harder than was strictly necessary in his frustration—and let him slither back.
"As I was saying—" he began again, when a loud voice spoke from behind him.
"Here, now!" it said sharply. "What's all this, then?"
Bahzell shut his mouth and turned slowly. He wore no sword—the Riverside Guard frowned on them—but he was careful to keep his hand well away from his dagger hilt, as well.
It was, perhaps, as well he had, for ten of the Guard stood in the alley mouth with torches, peering at the carnage. The sergeant at their head removed his steel cap and tucked it under his left arm to scratch his head, and more steel rasped quietly behind him as someone loosened a sword in its sheath.
"Well?" the sergeant said after a moment, gazing up at Bahzell, and the hradani opened his mouth, but Zarantha stepped past him before he could speak.
"I," she said, and Bahzell blinked at her suddenly regal tone, "am the Lady Zarantha HÞr,ka, of Clan HÞr,ka, sept to Sh,loan of the South Weald."
"Ah?" The sergeant rocked back on his heels with a smile, but the smile faded as Zarantha faced him. She should have looked ridiculous in her cheap, drab garments, torn and streaked with the alley's filth, but she didn't. Bahzell could see only her back, but there was a dangerous tilt to her head, and the sergeant cleared his throat.
"I, uh, I see . . . My Lady," he said finally. "Ah, I don't suppose you could, um, explain what's happened here?"
"Certainly, Sergeant," she replied with that same regality. "I was on my way to my lodging when I was set upon by these . . . persons." A distasteful wave encompassed the bodies about Bahzell's feet. "No doubt they intended to rob me—or worse—and would have, but for this gentleman." A much more graceful wave indicated Bahzell, and the sergeant blinked again.
"He helped you?"
"He certainly did, and most efficiently, too."
"I see." The sergeant bent to roll one of the bodies onto its back, and his frown deepened. He waved a corporal forward to join him, and the corporal whistled through his teeth.
"That's Shainhard, sure as Phrobus, Sarge," he muttered, and the sergeant nodded and straightened.
"Well . . . My Lady," he said slowly, "I'm glad he did, I suppose, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to take him in for disturbing the peace."
"Disturbing the peace, is it?" One or two guardsmen flinched at the quiet anger in Bahzell's deep voice. "And I suppose you're thinking I should have just walked on past and let them do as they willed?"
"I didn't say that," the sergeant replied sharply, "but I've heard the reports, and this isn't the first brawl for you or your friend. I don't say they were your fault," he added as Bahzell stiffened, "for I doubt they were, but we know there's been trouble, and this looks like more, and worse, of the same. Best to get you safely in cells while we decide what happened."
"And if I'm not minded to go?" Bahzell asked in a perilously quiet voice, but the sergeant faced up to him without flinching.
"I don't think that would be very smart of you," he said flatly. "You're a stranger in town, and—no offense—you're also a hradani with no means of support. When you add that to who this lot—" he gestured at the bodies "—work for, well, there's going to be questions, like it or no."
"Questions?" Bahzell began dangerously, but Zarantha raised a hand, and the gesture was so imperious it cut him off in midbreath.
"Excuse me, Sergeant, but you're in error," she said crisply.
"I'm what?" The guardsman blinked at her.
"I said you were in error," she repeated, her voice even crisper. "You said this man has no means of support."
"Well, no more does he!"
"Yes, he does. In fact, he's been retained by Clan HÞr,ka as my personal armsman, and he was acting in that capacity when I was attacked. Surely you don't question the propriety of defending his employer?"
The sergeant sucked his teeth and peered up at Bahzell, and it was all the Horse Stealer could do to keep his own mouth closed. He knew how deep was the trouble in which he stood, but his eyes narrowed as he glared down at the top of Zarantha's head, and he suddenly found himself wondering if a Riverside cell would be all that bad a place to spend the night, after all.
"Your . . . armsman," the sergeant repeated at length. "I see. And just what might you and your, ah, armsman be doing in Riverside, My Lady?"
"I was forced to stop here when one of my servants fell ill," Zarantha said coldly. "Now that he's recovered, I intend to return to my home in the South Weald. May I ask what concern that is of yours, Sergeant?"
"Well, since you ask, My Lady, I'll tell you," the guardsman said with a certain air of satisfaction. "These aren't just any street scum. This one—" he pointed at the man he and the corporal had examined "—is named Shainhard, and he's a senior lieutenant to one Molos ni'Tarth. Now, it may be none of my concern, but ni'Tarth's a nasty customer. We know he runs most of the southside drinking sties and sells protection down at the docks, and we think he's had dealings with the dog brothers. But the point, Lady Zarantha," he allowed himself to use the title with withering irony this time, "is that Shainhard is important to ni'Tarth's operations, and he doesn't look so very good right at the moment. In fact, I don't believe he's breathing anymore."
Bahzell felt his stomach sinking steadily, and the smile the sergeant gave him was a strange mix of satisfaction and sympathy.
"Now the thing is, My Lady, that ni'Tarth won't take kindly to this, not at all, at all. In fact, he'll probably try to cut your new armsman's throat—or ask his dog brother friends to do it for him. Come to that, he won't be too pleased by your part in this, either."
"I see." Bahzell felt an unwilling admiration for Zarantha's calm, despite what he saw coming. Her voice didn't even quaver at the mention of dog brothers, and she shrugged. "I imagine it would be better not to tempt him to be foolish, then, wouldn't it?"
"That it would, My Lady. That it certainly would." The sergeant beckoned to his corporal again. "Go down to the Needle Street station and bring back a couple more men and a wagon to collect the trash, Rahlath," he said.
"Aye!" The corporal trotted off, boots clattering on the uneven cobbles, and the sergeant looked back at Zarantha.
"Now, the way I see it, 'My Lady,' I really should take your armsman in—and maybe you, too, for all I know. But it's a busy night, and I've got a lot on my mind already. If it should happen that the two of you were to, ah, wander off before Corporal Rahlath gets back here, why, I'd probably be too occupied to look for you. And if you keep right on wandering fast enough, ni'Tarth might not even realize where he ought to look for you . . . and your 'armsman,' of course, if you take my meaning?"
"I do, Sergeant." Zarantha looked up over her shoulder at Bahzell. "I believe you said you were on your way to your friend?" she suggested.
"Aye, but—"
"In that case, I think we should be going," she interrupted, and his mouth closed with a click. The ground seemed to be slipping away beneath his feet, and try as he might, he couldn't make it hold still. "Yes, I definitely think we should be on our way," she said firmly, and he nodded.
There was nothing else he could do.