Tala stumbled again, and this time she lost her balance completely in the darkness. She fell hard, with a muffled cry of pain, and Bahzell bit back any word of encouragement as she struggled back up. Part of him wanted to rant at her for her clumsiness; most of him was astonished by how well she'd borne up . . . and sensed her bitter shame that she'd done no better. That was foolish of her, of course; no city woman of her age could hope to match the pace of a trained warrior of half her years, which was the very reason he'd hesitated to bring her along in the first place.
But foolish or no, he respected her determination and courage . . . which, in a strange way, was what forbade soothing words they both would know as lies. Bahzell had been trained in a school whose demands were brutally simple and in which weakness was the unforgivable sin. It wasn't enough that a man had "done his best" when defeat meant death, not just for himself but for his fellows. If his "best" wasn't enough, he must be driven—goaded—until it was; if he couldn't be driven, then he must be discarded. Yet this woman had somehow clung to courage and self-respect despite all her world had done to her, and she knew without being told that she was slowing him. He might not fully understand his compassion, if such it was, for her, but he knew nothing he said or did could drive her to greater efforts, and he refused to shame her with platitudes that treated her as less than she was.
None of which changed her desperate need for rest. He inhaled deeply, deliberately letting her hear the weariness in the sound, and squatted to slide Farmah from his shoulder. He eased her limp body to the ground in the shadowy underbrush, and Tala sagged back on her haunches, gasping for breath and huddling in her cloak as the night's chill probed at her sweat-soaked garments.
He let her see him wipe matching sweat from his own forehead, and the gesture was less for her sake than he would have liked. Two years penned within hostile walls had taken their toll.
He shook himself and looked around. Hradani night vision was more acute than that of most of the Races of Man, and Bahzell's was superior to the average hradani's. It had better be, at any rate. The path they'd forced through the undergrowth seemed dismayingly obvious as he peered back down the slope, but perhaps it would be less so to mounted men pursuing them along the road they'd left a league back.
He hoped it would, anyway, and cradled his arbalest across his thighs while he glared into the darkness and made himself think.
A few he'd known would be praying to every god they could think of by now, but most hradani had little use for gods and prayers, and a distressing number of those who did gave their devotion to one or another of the dark gods. Theirs was a harsh world, and a god who rewarded his (or her) worshipers with immediate, tangible power, whatever its price, was at least something they could understand. Of all the gods, Krashnark undoubtedly boasted the largest following among hradani. Lord of devils and ambitious war he might be, but whatever the Black Swordsman's other failings, he was reputed to be a god of his word, not an innate treacher like his brothers Sharnā and Fiendark, and far less . . . hungry than his sister Krahana.
For the most part, however, the only use hradani had for deities was the laying of curses. Bahzell himself had no use at all for the dark gods, and precious little more for those of the light; black or white, no god had done his people any favors he knew of in the last ten or twelve centuries, and he saw little point hoping one of them might suddenly change his mind for Bahzell Bahnakson's sake. Demons, now. A good, nasty demon, suitably propitiated, could have been a help—assuming he'd had either the means or the stomach for bargaining with one of them.
He hid the motion of his arm from Tala with his body as he touched Farmah's throat. Her pulse throbbed against his fingers, more racing than he would have liked yet steadier than he'd feared. She'd done her dogged best, but she'd collapsed less than a mile from East Gate. She'd begged them to leave her and save themselves, but Bahzell had only snorted and given his rucksack to Tala so he could sling the girl over his shoulder, and her protests had died as exhaustion and pain dragged her under.
He sighed and withdrew his fingers from her throat to stroke her hair. It wasn't something he would have done if anyone could see—pity was dangerous; once revealed, it could never be hidden again, and enemies would be quick to use it against you—but his heart twisted within him as he looked down upon her. So young, he thought. So young to have suffered so much, packed so much loss into so few years. Bahzell was thirty-eight, barely into the start of young manhood for a hradani, but Farmah was less than half his age, and he bared his teeth in a snarl of self-disgust at having let consideration of political consequences stay his hand while Harnak lay helpless at his feet.
A soft sound drifted through the night, and he froze, foxlike ears swiveling to track the noise. It came again, and his spine relaxed as he realized it came from the far side of the small hill on which they crouched, not from behind them.
He reached out and grasped Tala's shoulder. The housekeeper jumped, but he'd found time to instruct her in at least the rudiments of how to conduct herself in the field, and she swallowed her gasp of surprise and kept her mouth shut as he drew her towards him.
"Horses," he breathed in her ear. Her muscles snapped tighter, and he gave a quick headshake. "Not following us; ahead, over the hill."
Tala's ear twitched, and she inhaled sharply, but her relief was far from total. He approved of her taut wariness, yet if those horse sounds meant what they might—
"Wait here," he whispered, and slipped away into the darkness.
The housekeeper watched him vanish, astonished afresh at how silently so huge a warrior moved. He was thrice her size and more, yet he'd seemed like a ghost as darkness fell, moving, despite his armor and the burden of Farmah's limp weight, with a quiet Tala couldn't even hope to match. Now he disappeared into the underbrush with no more than the soft whisper of a single branch against his scale shirt, and the night closed in about her.
Wind sighed—the coldest, loneliest sound she'd ever heard—and she shivered again, trying to imagine a warrior of Navahk who wouldn't simply keep going into the dark. No one could have blamed Lord Bahzell for abandoning them. He'd already risked far more for two women of his clan's enemies than he ever should have, yet she could no more imagine his leaving them behind than she could believe a Navahkan would have returned for them.
She settled Farmah's head in her lap, spreading her cloak to share her own warmth with that cruelly battered body, and her eyes were cold with a hate that more than matched her fear. She was glad she'd helped Lord Bahzell, whatever came of it. He was different, like Fraidahn, her long dead husband had been—like her son had been before Churnazh took him off to war and left him there, only stronger. And kinder. Gentler. It was hard for a mother to admit that, yet it was true, however he sought to hide it. But perhaps if some god had let Durgaz grow up free of Navahk . . .
She closed her eyes, hugging the dead memories of the only people she'd ever made the mistake of allowing herself to love, and moistened a cloth from Lord Bahzell's water bottle to wipe Farmah's unconscious brow.
* * *
The underbrush slowed Bahzell, but there'd been times on the Wind Plain when he would have given an arm—well, two or three fingers from his off hand—for cover to match it. He reached the crest of the hill and raised his head above the bushes, and his eyes glittered as he saw what he'd hoped for.
No wonder there was so much underbrush and the few trees were all second growth. The moon was full enough, even without the odd chink of light streaming through the shutters of the three cottages which were still occupied, for him to tell the farm below him had known better days. Half the outbuildings were abandoned, judging by their caved-in thatch, but the overgrown hills about the farm had almost certainly been logged off in those better, pre-Churnazh days. They'd gone back to wilderness for lack of hands to work the land, yet someone still fought to save his steading from total ruin. The garden plots closer in to the buildings looked well maintained in the moonlight, clusters of sheep and goats dotted the pastures . . . and a paddock held a dozen horses.
Bahzell chuckled and let his eyes sweep patiently back and forth. Farms usually had dogs, and there was probably someone on watch, as well. Now where would he have put a sentry . . . ?
His ears rose in respect as he caught the faint glint of moonlight on steel. It wasn't on the ground after all, for a sort of eaves-high walkway had been erected around the roof of the tallest barn. It gave a commanding view over the approaches to the farm, and there wasn't a single watchman; there were two of them, each marching half the walkway's circuit.
He settled down on his belly, resting his chin on the hands clasped under his jaw, and pondered. Those would be no fine saddle beasts down there, but any horse was better than the pace Tala could manage afoot. Yet how to lay hands on them? What would have been child's play with two or three other Horse Stealers to help became far more problematical on his own—especially when he had no wish to hurt any of those farmers if he could avoid it. Anyone who could maintain even this much prosperity so close to Churnazh deserved better than to be killed by someone running from that same Churnazh, so—
He pursed his lips with a sour snort as he watched the sentries. It was hardly the proper way for a Horse Stealer to go about things, but he was in a hurry. Besides, if he was lucky, no one would ever learn of his lapse.
He rose quietly and headed back to tell Tala what he intended.
* * *
There were dogs. A chorus of rumbling snarls warned him as they came out of the dark, and he reached back to his sword hilt, ready to draw at need. But there was no need. No doubt there would have been if he'd come in across the fields, which was why he'd been careful to stick to the center of the track leading to the farm, and his open approach held them to a snarling challenge while the pack leader set up a howl to summon their master.
Bahzell stopped where he was, resting his palm on his pommel, and admired the dogs' training while he waited. It wasn't a long wait. Half a dozen sturdy hradani, all shorter than he, but well muscled from hard work and better food than most Navahkan city-dwellers ever saw, tumbled out of cottage doors. Bare steel gleamed in moonlight as they spread out about him, and Bahzell couldn't fault their cautious hostility.
"Who be ye?" a strident voice challenged. "And what d'ye want, a-botherin' decent folk in the middle o' the night?!"
"It's sorry I am to disturb you," Bahzell replied calmly. "I'm but a traveler in need of your help."
"Hey? What's that? In need o' help?" The voice barked a laugh. "You, wi' a great, whackin' sword at yer side an' a shirt o' mail on yer back, need our help?" The spokesman laughed again. "Ye've a wit fer a dirty, sneakin' thief—I'll say that fer ye!"
"It's no thief I am tonight," Bahzell said in that same mild voice, deliberately emphasizing his Hurgrum accent, "though I've naught against splitting a few skulls if you're caring to call me so again."
The spokesman rocked back on his heels, lowering his spear to peer at the intruder, and Bahzell gave back look for look.
"Yer not from around here, are ye?" the farmer said slowly, and it was Bahzell's turn to snort a laugh.
"You might be saying that."
"So I might." The farmer cocked his head up at Bahzell's towering inches. "In fact, ye've the look o' one o' them Horse Stealers. Be ye so?"
"That I am. Bahzell, son of Bahnak, Prince of Hurgrum."
"Arrr! Tell us another 'un!" someone hooted, but the spokesman shook his head and held up a hand.
"Now, lads, let's not be hasty. I've heard summat o' this Bahzell. 'Tis said he's tall as a hill, like all them Horse Stealers, an' danged if this 'un isn't."
Bahzell folded his arms and looked down on them. The tallest was barely five or six inches over six feet, and he saw ears moving and eyes widening in surprise as they peered back up at him.
"But that Bahzell, he's a hostage up t' Navahk an' all," a voice objected.
"Aye, that's true," someone else agreed. "Leastways, he's s'posed t' be." A note of avarice crept into his voice. "Reckon they'd pay t' get 'im back agin, Turl?"
"Not s'much as tryin' t' lay him by the heels 'ud cost us, Wulgaz," the spokesman said dryly, "an' I've few enough t' work the land wi'out his spilling yer guts in the dirt."
Bahzell's teeth gleamed in a moonlit smile, and the one called Wulgaz shuffled quickly back beside his fellows.
"Mind ye, though, stranger," Turl said sharply, "there's enough o' us t' spill yer guts, too, if it comes t' that!"
"I'm thinking the same thing," Bahzell agreed equably, "and if it's all the same to you, I'd sooner I kept mine and you kept yours, friend."
"Would you, now?" Turl gave a gravel-voiced chuckle and grounded the butt of his spear so he could lean on it. "Well then, Lord Bahzell—if that's truly who ye be—what brings ye here?"
"Well, as to that, I'd half a mind to be stealing some of your horses, till I spied those lads of yours up on the roof."
"Did ye, though?" Turl cocked his head the other way. " 'Tis a strange way ye have o' provin' ye mean no harm!"
"Why? Because I'd a mind to take what I need? Or because I decided to buy, instead?"
"Buy?" Turl snapped upright. "D'ye mean t' say buy, M'lord? Cash money?"
"Aye. Mind you, I'm thinking it would have been more fun to steal them," Bahzell admitted, "but it's a bit of a hurry I'm in."
Turl gaped at him, then laughed out loud. "Well, M'lord, if its fun ye want, just go back down th' track and me an' the lads can step back inside an' let ye try agin. Course, the dogs'll be on ye quick as spit, but if that's yer notion o' fun—" He shrugged, and Bahzell joined him in his laughter.
"No, thank you kindly. It may be I'll take you up on that another day, but I've scant time for such tonight. So if you're minded to sell, I'll buy three of them from you, and tack to go with them, if you have it."
"Yer serious, ain't ye?" Turl said slowly, rubbing his chin. "'Twouldn't be ye've need t' be elsewhere, would it, M'lord?"
"It would, friend, and the sooner the better."
"Um." Turl looked at his fellows for a long, silent moment, then back at Bahzell. "Horses are hard come by in these parts, M'lord," he said bluntly, "an' harder t' replace. 'Specially when partin' wi' 'em seems like t' bring th' Black Prince an' his scum down on ye."
"Aye, I've little doubt of that," Bahzell agreed, "and I'd not be wishing that on anyone, but I've a thought on that."
"Do ye?" Turl squatted on his heels, waving the others to do the same when Bahzell followed suit. "Tell me, then, M'lord. How does an honest farmer sell his horses t' the likes o' you wi'out Black Churnazh stretchin' his neck fer his troubles?"
"As to that, friend Turl, I'm thinking there's always a way, when a man's looking hard enough." Bahzell shook his purse, letting them hear the jingle of coins, and cocked his head. "Now, as for how it works, why—"
* * *
Tala looked up nervously as hooves thudded on the dirt track. She parted the screen of branches, peering out of the clump of brush Bahzell had hidden her and Farmah in, and her ears twitched in silent relief as she recognized the huge, dark shape leading the horses.
Bahzell stopped them with a soft, soothing sound, and Tala helped Farmah to her feet. The girl had regained a little strength during Bahzell's absence, and she clung to Tala as the housekeeper half-led and half-carried her out of the brush.
"I never thought you could do it, M'lord. Never," Tala breathed. "How did you ever get them to agree without—?" Her eyes cut to his sword hilt, and he chuckled.
"As to that, it wasn't so hard a thing. Mind, that farmer's missed his calling, for he's one could make money selling stones to Purple Lords." He shook his head and looked at the three unprepossessing animals behind him. "My folk wouldn't be wasting pot space on two of these, and the third's no courser! I've no mind at all to hear what old Hardak or Kulgar would be saying if they knew I'd paid for nags like these!" He shook his head again, trying to imagine the expressions of the two captains who'd led a very young Bahzell on his first raid against the vast Sothōii herds if they could see him now. Imagination failed, and he was just as glad it did.
"But how did you talk them into it?" Tala pressed, and he shrugged.
"I'd a heavy purse, and it's a lighter one now. They took every Navahkan coin I had, and the lot of us spent ten minutes breaking down paddock fences and scuffing the ground." He shrugged again. "If any of Churnazh's men track us back to them, why, they've proof enough how hard they tried to stop my stealing these miserable racks of—that's to say, these noble beasts." He sounded so wry Tala chuckled, despite her exhaustion and fear, and he grinned.
"There's the spirit! Now let's be getting Farmah in the saddle."
Neither woman had ever ridden a horse. Tala, at least, had ridden muleback a time or two before she fell into Churnazh's service, but Farmah had no experience at all, and she was in no fit state for lessons. She bit her lip, wide skirt bunched clumsily high, clutching at the high cantle of the saddle and trying not to flinch as the stolid horse shifted under her, and Bahzell patted her shoulder encouragingly. It wasn't hard to reach. Even mounted, her head was little higher than his.
"Don't be fretting, lass," he told her. "These are war saddles," his palm smacked leather loudly, "and you'll not fall out."
She nodded uncertainly as he buckled a strap around her waist, snapped it to rings on the saddle, and grinned at her.
"I'm thinking friend Turl—the son of Hirahim who parted with these nags—wasn't always a farmer. Not with these in his barn." He bent to adjust the stirrups to her shorter legs and went on speaking. "But however he came by them, it's grateful I am he had them. Wounded stay with the column or die in war, lass; that's why they've straps to hold a hurt man in the saddle."
She nodded nervously, and he gave her shoulder another pat and turned to Tala. The housekeeper had split her skirts down the middle and bound the shredded halves tightly about her legs; now she scrambled up into the second saddle without assistance. Fortunately, the plow horse under it was staid enough not to shy at her clumsy, if determined, style, and Bahzell nodded in approval and showed her how to adjust the straps. She had the reins in her hands, and he managed not to wince as he rearranged her grip, then tied the lead from Farmah's horse to the back of her saddle.
"But . . . what about you, M'lord?" Tala asked as she glanced at the third horse. It had no saddle, only a pack frame.
"Now wouldn't it be a cruel thing to be putting the likes of me on a horse's back?" Bahzell replied, slinging his rucksack to the frame. "I've yet to meet the beast that can carry me more than a league—or outpace me over the same distance, for that matter."
"But I thought—" Tala broke off as he looked at her, then shrugged. "They do call you 'Horse Stealers,' M'lord," she said apologetically.
"And so we are, but that's for the cooking pot."
"You eat them?!" Tala looked down at the huge animal under her, and Bahzell chuckled.
"Aye, but don't be saying so too loudly. You'll fret the poor beasties, and no Horse Stealer would be eating anything this bony." Tala blinked, and Bahzell lowered his ears more seriously.
"Now pay me heed, Tala. Churnazh will be after us soon—if he's not already—and I'm thinking there's no way the three of us can show them our heels." One ear flicked at Farmah, drooping in the saddle, her small store of recovered energy already spent, and Tala nodded silently.
"Well, then. When you can't outrun them, it's time to outthink them. That's why I've gone west, not east for Hurgrum as they might expect. But when they miss us on the east road, even the likes of Churnazh will think to sweep this way, as well."
He paused, ears cocked, until Tala nodded again.
"I'd a few words with Turl," he went on then, "and there's one lad as wants us caught no more than we do, not with the questions they'll be asking when they see saddles on the horses I 'stole'! From the way he tells it, there's a village—Fir Hollow, he called it—two leagues northeast of here. Do you know it?"
"Fir Hollow?" Tala repeated the name and furrowed her brow, then shook her head. "I'm afraid not, M'lord," she apologized, and Bahzell shrugged.
"No reason you should, but here's what I'm thinking. The road forks there, and the right fork—the eastern one—hooks north towards Chazdark."
"Oh!" Tala nodded sharply. "I know that town, M'lord. Fraidahn and I were there once, before—" She broke off, pushing the painful memory aside, and Bahzell squeezed her forearm.
"Good. We'll be heading cross-country a while longer, then cut back to reach the road between Fir Hollow and Chazdark, and I'll find a place for the two of you to lie close during the day. Tomorrow night, you'll be back on your way to Chazdark, and I'm thinking you'll reach it before dawn."
"We'll be on our way, M'lord?" Tala asked sharply. "What about you?"
"I'll not be with you," he said, and she sat very straight in the saddle and stared at him. He pulled a ring off his finger, and she took it, too stunned even to argue as he dug a scrap of parchment from his pouch and passed it over, as well.
"It's sorry I am to be leaving so much to you, Tala," he said quietly, "but a blind man couldn't miss the three of us together, and even ahorse, Farmah can't move fast enough. They'll run us down in a day at the best pace we can make if they spy us in the open, so we'll not get Farmah to Hurgrum without showing them another hare to chase."
"What do you mean, M'lord?" she asked tautly.
"Get off the horses when you near Chazdark. Tether them in the woods somewhere you're certain you can be describing to someone else and leave Farmah with them. Then take this—" he touched the parchment "—to the city square, and ask for a merchant called Ludahk." He repeated the name several times and made her repeat it back to him three times before he was satisfied. "Show him the parchment and the ring and tell him I sent you. Tell him where to be finding Farmah and the horses, and that I said he's to take you to my father." He held her eyes in the moonlight, face grim. "Tell him one last task pays for all—and that I'll be looking for him if it should happen he fails in it."
"W-Who is this Ludahk?" Tala asked in a tiny voice.
"Best know no more than you must. He'll not be happy to see you any road; if he thinks you know more than that he's a merchant who trades with Hurgrum—aye, and maybe does a little smuggling on the side—he might be thinking he should take his chance Churnazh can lay me by the heels and cut your throats himself."
Tala paled and swallowed hard, and Bahzell grinned at her.
"Hush, now! Ludahk knows I'm not so easy taken as that, and he'll not want the least chance that I might come hunting him, for he knows I won't come alone if I do. He'll see you safe to Hurgrum—just don't you be looking about you at anything you shouldn't be seeing. Understand?"
"Yes, M'lord." He nodded and started to turn away, but she caught his shoulder, and he turned back with ears at half-cock. "I understand, M'lord, but what I don't understand is why you don't come with us. If this Ludahk can get us to Hurgrum, why can't he get you there?"
"Well, now," Bahzell said slowly, "I'm a mite bigger and harder to hide than you are."
"That's not the reason!" she said sharply, and he shrugged.
"Well, if you'll have it out of me, I've a mind to head on west and see to it Churnazh thinks you and Farmah are with me still."
"But . . . but they'll catch you, M'lord!" she protested. "Come with us, instead. Please, M'lord!"
"Now that I can't," he said gently. "If Churnazh is minded to see it so, I've already broken hostage bond, and I can't be taking that home with me unless I'm wanting to start the war all over, so there's no sense in trying. And as long as they're hunting west for the three of us, they'll not be checking merchant wagons moving east, I'm thinking."
"But they'll catch you!" she repeated desperately.
"Ah, now. Maybe they will, and maybe they won't," he said with an outrageous twitch of his ears, "and the day a pack of Bloody Swords can catch a Horse Stealer with a fair start in the open, why that's the day they're welcome to take his ears—if they can!"