The War God's Own wg-2 Page 4

  He forced himself to straighten and cleared his throat, gloved hand still locked on the hilt of his own sword. It was remotely possible that the blade he'd been shown was a wizard-wrought forgery, but Sir Charrow would be the best judge of that. For now, his own duty was clear, and he made himself look the hradani squarely in the eye.

  "Pray pardon me for questioning your identity… Sir Bahzell," he got out.

  "As to that, I've no doubt I'd be a mite surprised in your boots my own self," Bahzell replied. "Which, come to think, is the reason himself was after giving me this sword. He said I'd have need of proof." His sudden grin showed square, white teeth that looked strong enough to bite Wind Dancer's hawsers in half. "And I've no need for 'sirs,' my lad. Just plain Bahzell will be serving well enough for the likes of me."

  "But-" Vaijon began, then chopped himself off and managed a nod. "As you will, S- Bahzell. As I've said, Sir Charrow Malahkai, Knight-Captain and Master of the Belhadan Chapter of the Order of Tomanāk and Constable of Fradonia in the King-Emperor's name, sends greeting through me and begs you to accompany me to the chapter house that he and your brothers of the Sword may greet you properly and welcome you to their fellowship."

  He knew there was a sour edge to his voice, hard though he tried to keep it out, and Bahzell cocked his head, twitching his ears thoughtfully back and forth as he gazed down at him. A handful of seconds trickled past, and then the Horse Stealer reached back over his shoulder to sheath his sword and nodded agreeably.

  "That's after being the friendliest welcome I've had this whole trip," he observed, with just enough irony to make Vaijon flush anew, "and it's happy I'll be to accept it. Assuming, of course, that it's meant to include my friend here," he added, indicating Brandark with a flick of his ears.

  Vaijon hesitated in fresh consternation. Bad enough to invite a hradani who might be a champion into the chapter house without inviting one who most certainly was not. But assuming that this Bahzell was who and what he claimed, he had the right to extend guest right to anyone he chose… and there was that sword… .

  "Of course," Vaijon said with a sigh he couldn't quite hide. "Will you have your baggage sent after you to the chapter house?"

  "I'm not after being so feeble as all that just yet," Bahzell said genially. He hung a leather rucksack over one shoulder, picked up the steel-bowed arbalest which had lain beside it on the deck, and beamed at his guide while Brandark gathered up his own pack. "We'll just be taking it with us as we go," he told Vaijon. The knight-probationer started to make another comment, then hesitated and visibly changed his mind.

  "If you and your… companion will follow me, then," he said instead, and led the way back up the springy gangplank. Bahzell and Brandark paused only to exchange farewells with Wind Dancer's grinning crew, then followed docilely in his wake.

  * * *

  Neither hradani spoke as Vaijon led them through Belhadan's streets, and he was just as glad. It freed him to think, which was in many ways a mixed blessing, but at least it also gave him a chance to consider the conclusions which his brain persisted in drawing however much he would have preferred not to.

  It was certainly possible Sir Charrow had known no more about this "champion's" identity than Vaijon had, but Vaijon didn't believe it for a moment. Especially in light of the master's frequent, gentle admonitions on the perils of pride in self, his selection of a guide back to the chapter house was too pointed to be coincidental, and Vaijon clamped his jaw tight on resentment as he reflected upon that unpalatable fact.

  He longed to cling to the belief that "just plain Bahzell" was, in fact, an impostor, but he knew better, and it was no part of a gentleman's conduct to lie to himself. Yet admitting that knowledge to himself didn't make things any better. Champions were chosen directly by the God Himself. They were His true Swords, the exalted few who bore the full brunt of battle against the Dark Gods in the Light's name, and there were probably fewer than twenty of them in all Norfressa at any given moment. How could Tomanāk have wasted such honor as that upon an ignorant, bloodthirsty, barbarian hradani?

  His soul cried out in protest at the very thought, yet even as it did, another part of him writhed in self-contempt. He had no right to dispute the choices of the god he served. Worse, the part of him Sir Charrow had worked so hard to reach-the tiny, buried part which had heard the summons of the God of Justice even through the pride of House Almerhas-knew protest was stupid. That the Order itself taught that neither birth nor blood nor family made a true knight. That the only cause which truly counted was the cause of justice, the only true treasure was the treasure of truth, and the heart of a true knight's strength must come from within. And if all those things were true of the knights of the Order, how much more must they be true for the God's own champions?

  That small, inner voice would give Vaijon no peace as it whispered in the back of his brain, castigating him for his own blindness. Yet it was only a whisper, and youth and pride muffled it. He truly tried to work through his confusion and lay hands on understanding, but his own strength and stubborn will were turned against him in the struggle, and resentment and confusion boiled just beneath the false surface of courtesy his childhood training still presented to the world.

  * * *

  Brandark glanced at their guide's pike-straight back, then looked at Bahzell and rolled his eyes, flattening his ears for emphasis. His wicked expression warned the Horse Stealer that he'd just thought of a way to twit Vaijon, and a part of Bahzell wanted to sit back and watch it happen. But only a part, and Brandark shrugged when he shook his head quellingly. The Bloody Sword flipped his left hand in a small gesture, resigning responsibility for whatever happened, and turned his bright-eyed attention to the city about them, instead.

  It was worth looking at, for if the Purple Lords' Bortalik was queen of the southern coast, Belhadan ruled the far north… and she was a more impressive monarch. Worse still, from the Purple Lords' perspective, she was only the second city of the Empire, as outclassed by the royal and imperial capital at Axe Hallow as she outclassed Bortalik.

  The Purple Lords' festering resentment for the Empire and all its works was probably inevitable. Both the Empire's wealth and the ingenuity of its artisans and craftsmen mocked their efforts to imitate its achievements, and they hated it for that. It was bad enough to be overshadowed by anyone, but what truly stuck in the Purple Lords' craws was to find themselves so outclassed, and with such apparent lack of effort, by the "mongrelized" Axemen. It was a fundamental article of faith for any Purple Lord that his half-elvish blood made him superior to all of the other Races of Man. After all, his people's elvish heritage meant they lived as much as four hundred years, while the pragmatism of their human blood kept them focused in the real, everyday world as no dreamy elf lord could ever be. To be sure, they were less fertile than humans or dwarves, but quantity was no match for quality. Even dwarves were fortunate to live more than two and a half centuries, and if Purple Lords bore few children, their city-states boasted more than sufficient human peasants and serfs to serve their needs. From their viewpoint, their cultural and racial superiority were obvious, and they went to enormous lengths to maintain the purity of both. All of which made their persistent failure to match the Empire's achievements far worse than merely infuriating, for Axemen embraced precisely the opposite attitude. Worse, they regarded the Purple Lords' unceasing efforts to wrest away the Empire's undeserved preeminence as a source of amusement, not a threat.

  Not that anything better could have been expected from them, for the Empire of the Axe had grown out of the even more ancient Kingdom of the Axe, and the Kingdom of the Axe had been the land to which three quarters of the refugees from the Fall of Kontovar had come. The traditional insularity which most of the Races of Man had practiced in Kontovar-and which had reemerged in many of Norfressa's younger kingdoms-had crumbled in the Kingdom of the Axe. It was difficult to see how anything else could have happened, given the desperate straits to which the Fall's survivors
had been reduced, but the House of Kormak had taken pains to nurture what necessity had created over the centuries which followed.

  As a race, dwarves were probably the finest engineers ever born-certainly their people took the deepest pleasure in working with earth and stone and iron, for it was in their blood. Historically, however, they had always been the most insular of the Races of Man, tending to keep themselves (and their secrets) to themselves. Few among them had truly valued-or even understood-the elves' soul-deep love for the beauty of poetry, art, and music or humans' restless energy and hunger for experimentation and change. But the fusion of peoples which had created the Empire of the Axe had made dwarf, elf, and human partners as never before, bringing all those qualities together in the "mongrelization" the Purple Lords so despised… and had never been able to equal.

  And however contemptible the Purple Lords found the Empire's half-breed pedigree, the fruit of the Axemen's labors were obvious to Bahzell and Brandark as they gazed out over Belhadan on a cold winter's day. The deep bay which served the city was smaller than Bortalik Bay, but it was vast enough. There was room and to spare for twice a hundred ships on its sun-streaked, wave-wrinkled cobalt, and the city spread up the sheer mountains above it like some enormous flower petaled with steep-pitched roofs of slate and tile. It showed the unmistakable impress of dwarvish engineers, and not just in the massive breakwaters which joined the islands off the bay's mouth to protect its moorings even in the wildest weather, yet human and elvish influence was equally obvious.

  No other race understood stone as dwarves did, and Belhadan was unquestionably the work of their hands. But dwarves had always favored straight lines and soaring heights fused with functionality, and their love of stone had never blunted their urge to master it and make it conform to their desires. In many ways, they were at least as intractable as their beloved rock and iron, and their solution to a problem was generally to tackle it head-on. If a hillside or mountain blocked the path of a roadway, a dwarvish engineer went straight through the obstacle. He was quite capable of going around it, instead; it was simply that the idea of detouring would never enter his head unless someone else put it there.

  Clearly, someone had done just that for Belhadan's architects, for the city was intimately entwined with the mountains in which it had been planted. Rather than subdue those mountains, it embraced them and followed their contours with streets and small, intimate plazas, brick-paved squares and terraced courts. But it also shaped those contours, utilizing them with a subtle efficiency which allowed them to be themselves yet bent them to the service of Belhadan's citizens, as if a "normal" city had been divided into portions and inserted with loving care into mountains untouched by mortal hands. Natural cliffs and steep slopes furred with evergreens loomed above broad squares and avenues designed for commerce, trade, and places of government. Satellites of homes and shops swept up those slopes, like surf spouting up through fissures and flues, while residential avenues trickled down to meet the wide roadways required by freight wagons and merchant caravans. Regularly placed street lamps-not the torches most cities Bahzell had seen used for street lighting (if they used any at all) but big, square lanterns on green-painted pillars-stood like sentries, joined by waist-high chains which separated the streets from wide, flagged sidewalks, and the thought of how they must look from a distance at night as they traced the arteries of the city through the darkness like Silendros' own stars touched Bahzell with a wondering awe. And under the surface, tunnels and galleries sliced through those same cliffs, burrowing deep into their foundations to provide streets, taverns, warehouses, ropeworks, ship chandlers, and a hundred different kinds of businesses-all carved deep into living rock without disturbing the mountains' rough-spined beauty.

  Nor had Belhadan's builders neglected its defense. Walls as mighty as those the Purple Lords had raised to protect Bortalik reared behind the busy wharves and docks; the huge Royal and Imperial naval base, enclosed within its own walls; and the winter-idled shipyards. A raiding fleet might ravage the docks, if it could strike with numbers enough, but no seaborne force could breach those walls so long as the defenders had strength to man them, and the landward fortifications were even more imposing. The impress of dwarvish engineers was most obvious there, for military considerations had been foremost in their design. Yet in an odd way, the harsh, uncompromising lines of wall and tower only emphasized the love with which Belhadan had been fitted into its surroundings. Entire slopes had been quarried away into man-made cliffs, many pierced with the slits of tunneled archers' galleries. Their bare stone rose to the walls and towers which crowned them, impregnable, and yet less like fortification against outside foes than like dikes, holding in the greenery and life of the city.

  Bahzell and Brandark had seen wonders few of their kindred could have imagined in the months since they'd fled Navahk. They'd passed through Esgfalas, Derm, even fabled Saramfel, where elven lords who remembered the Fall itself ruled, yet Belhadan touched them as none of those other cities had. It was larger than any of them, older than Derm yet far younger than Saramfel, and it had a strength-a sense of itself and a bright, confident vitality-wholly and uniquely its own. They felt it singing in the ice-cold air as they followed Vaijon through the rousing bustle of morning streets, the early cries of vendors, the laughter of apprentices sweeping and shoveling the night's snow from streets and walks. It took all their self-discipline not to gawk like the yokels Sir Vaijon obviously considered them, yet a part of them pitied the people about them, for Belhadan's citizens were too close to the wonder the hradani perceived so clearly to recognize how remarkable their city truly was. This was their home. They took it-and themselves-for granted as they got on with their lives, and perhaps only barbarians who knew from grim experience how thin a line stood between peaceful prosperity and ruin could truly appreciate the wondrous thing which had been created here.

  Bahzell shook his head as the wish that his father could see this slid through his thoughts. Prince Bahnak would have grasped the wonder of a people so secure in the safety of their city that it never even occurred to them to think about it. He might not have fully understood something so foreign to his own experience, yet it was the end towards which he worked, the reason he had imposed his will on the other clans of the Horse Stealers. Oh, Bahzell knew his father too well to see him as a saint, and he knew how much Prince Bahnak enjoyed the game, how he relished the conflict and competition of building an empire where there had been only anarchy. Yet he also knew there were depths within Bahnak, hopes his father might never have fully defined even for himself, and he recognized the millennium-old heart-hunger of his people for the chance to be like the people bustling through Belhadan's streets, clapping their hands together against the chill, huddling into coats and cloaks for warmth, hurrying about their business and eddying aside as they suddenly recognized the hradani in their midst and gave them a wide berth.

  For the chance, Bahzell realized, simply to be, and to let others be, without warlords and the constant need to watch and ward. That was what his father wanted to bring to the northern hradani, whether or not he'd ever put it into so many words, and Bahzell felt suddenly humbled and ashamed for all the years in which he hadn't understood. But he understood now, and in understanding that, he also understood why the Dark Gods opposed Bahnak. The Dark fed on suffering and despair, for it was those who saw no other hope of saving themselves or those they loved who turned their backs upon the Light. It was those conscious only of their helplessness who would make any bargain with anyone who promised them strength, and who could blame them if they did?

  That was why the Dark Gods hated Bahnak: because he would take that sense of helplessness, that despair, from his people if he succeeded in his efforts.

  It was odd, Bahzell reflected, to see it all so clearly three hundred leagues from home among the people of a city who regarded all hradani as blood-drinking barbarians, but perhaps he'd had to come here to see it. Perhaps it was only the combination of all
he'd seen and experienced since leaving Navahk which made the vision so clear. But none of that truly mattered. What mattered was that he had seen it and, in the seeing, understood yet another reason Tomanāk Orfro had chosen a hradani champion at last.

  "Ah! There you are, Prince Bahzell!"

  The ill-assorted trio had just turned up the steep slope still called Tannery Hill (although the city fathers had banished all tanneries and their stench from Belhadan proper to share quarters with the fishery sheds decades ago) when someone called to them. It took Vaijon a moment to realize the voice was addressed to them, for they were halfway to the chapter house and his mind had been busy with how he was going to explain two hradani to the door wardens, but then he stopped and turned to see the speaker… only to blink in fresh astonishment.

  The man striding briskly towards them wore a knee-length coat. That wasn't uncommon in Belhadan, where most people preferred such garments for winter wear. They were less fashionable than cloaks, and they almost always made Vaijon think of bankers and merchants and moneylenders, but they were also warmer and more practical. And he felt no temptation to curl a mental lip in disdain this time, for this coat was darkest midnight blue, trimmed in white. Those were the colors of the magi, and the golden scepter of Semkirk glittering on its right breast said the man who wore them held high rank in the mage academies. He was of no more than middle years, though snow-white streaks shone like burnished silver in his thick brown hair and neatly trimmed beard. He wore a huge smile and carried the traditional polished white staff of a mage, and Vaijon inhaled sharply as he recognized him.

  Bahzell had also stopped, and his ears cocked in question as the newcomer walked up to them.

  "And a good morning to you, too," the Horse Stealer said politely, then tilted his head to one side. "I'm hoping you'll forgive the asking, but should I be knowing you?"