We were old warriors. That sound spoke eloquently of battles beyond the dawn. I drew my sword...
I had taken the gold. I was Lord Hammer's man.
VI
A metallic symphony played as stones sharpened swords and spearheads. Men tested bowstrings and thumped weathered shields. Old greaves clanked. Leather armor, too long unoiled, squeaked.
Lord Hammer stepped from his tent. His mask bore no paint now. Only chance flickers of firelight revealed the existence of anything within his cowl.
When his gaze met mine I felt I was looking at a man who was smiling.
Chenyth fidgeted with his gear. Then, "I'm going to see what Jamal's doing."
He sheathed the battered sword I had given him and wandered off. He didn't cut much of a figure as a warrior. He was just a skinny blond kid who looked like a gust of wind would blow him away, or a willing woman turn him to jelly.
Eyes followed him. Pain filled some. We had all been there once. Now we were here.
He was our talisman against our mortality.
I started wondering what the Harish were up to myself. I followed Chenyth. They were almost civil while he was around.
They were ships without compasses, those four, more lost than the rest of us. They were religious fanatics who had sworn themselves to a dead cause. They were El Murid's Chosen Ones, his most devoted followers, a dedicated cult of assassins. The Great Eastern Wars had thrown their master into eclipse. His once vast empire had collapsed. Now, according to rumor, El Murid was nothing but a fat, decrepit opium addict commanding a few bandits in the south desert hills of Hammad al Nakir. He spent his days pulling on his pipe and dreaming about an impossible restoration. These four brother assassins were refugees from the vengeance of the new order...
Defeat had left them with nothing but one another and their blades. About what victory had given us.
Harish took no wives. They devoted themselves totally to the mysteries of their brotherhood, and to fulfilling the commands of their master.
No one gave them orders anymore. Yet they had sworn to devote their lives to their master's needs.
They were waiting. And while they waited, they survived by selling what they had given El Murid freely.
Like the rest of us, they were what history had made them. Bladesmen.
They formed a cross, facing their fire. Chenyth knelt beside Jamal. They talked in low tones. The others watched with stony faces partially concealed by thin veils and long, heavy black beards. Foud, the oldest, dyed his to keep the color. They were all solid, tough men. Killers unfamiliar with remorse.
All four held ornate silver daggers.
I stopped, amazed.
They were permitting Chenyth to watch the consecration of Harish kill-daggers. It was one of the high mysteries of their cult.
They sensed my presence, but went on removing the enameled names of their last victims from amidst the engraved symbols on the flats of their blades. Those blades were a quarter inch thick near the hilt. The flat ran half the twelve inch length. Each blade was an inch wide at its base.
They seemed heavy, clumsy, but the Harish used them with terrifying efficiency.
One by one, oldest to youngest, they thrust their daggers into the fire to extinguish the last gossamer of past victims' souls still clinging to the deadly engraving. Then they laid their blades across their hearts, beneath the palms of their left hand. Foud spoke a word.
Chenyth later told me the ritual was coached in the language of ancient Ilkazar. It was an odd tongue they used, like nothing else I've heard.
Foud chanted. The others answered.
Fifteen minutes passed. When they finished even a dullard like myself could feel the Power hovering round the Harish fire.
Lord Hammer came out of his tent. He peered our way briefly, then returned.
The four plunged their blades into the fire again.
Then they joined the ritual everyone else had been pursuing. They produced their whetstones.
I considered Foud's blade. Nearly two inches were missing from its length. It had been honed till it had narrowed a quarter. The engraving was almost invisible. He had served El Murid long and effectively.
His gaze met mine. For an instant a smile flickered behind his veil.
That was the first any of them had even admitted my existence.
A moment later Jamal said something to Chenyth. The younger Harish was the only one who admitted to understanding Itaskian, though we all knew the others did too. Chenyth nodded and rose.
"They're going to name their daggers. We have to go."
Times change. Only a few years ago men like these had tried to kill Ravelin's Queen. Now we were allies.
The glint in Foud's eye told me that things might be different now if he had been the man sent then.
The Harish believed. In their master, in themselves. Every assassin who consecrated blade was as sure of himself as was Foud.
"What're they doing here?" I muttered at Chenyth. I knew. The same as me. Doing what they knew. Surviving the only way they knew. Still,.. The Harish revered their Cause, even though it was lost.
They wanted to bring The Disciple's salvation to the whole world, using every means at their disposal.
Toamas was awake and chipper when we got back. "I ever tell about the time I was with King Bragi, during the El Murid Wars, when he was just another blank shield? It was a town in Altea..."
I guess that kept us going, too. Maybe one mercenary in fifty thousand made it big. I guess we all had some core of hope, or belief in ourselves, too.
VII
"All right, you goat-lovers! Drag your dead asses out. We got some hiking to do today."
Fetch had a way with words like no lady I've ever known. I slithered out of my blankets, scuttled to the fire, tumbled some wood on, and slid back into the wool. That circle may have been springish, but there was a nip in the air.
Chenyth rolled over. He muttered something about eyes in the night.
"Come on. Roll out. We got a long walk ahead."
Chenyth sat up. "Phew! One of these days we've got to take time off for baths. Hey. Toamas. Wake up." He shook the old man. "Oh!"
"What's the matter?"
"I think he's dead, Will."
"Toamas? Nah. He just don't want to get up." I shook him.
Chenyth was right.
I jumped out of there so fast I knocked the tent down on Chenyth. "Fetch. The old man's dead. Toamas."
She kicked a foot sticking out of another tent, gave me a puzzled look. Then she scurried into the black tent.
I tried to get a look inside. But there were inside flaps too.
Lord Hammer appeared a moment later. His mask was paintless. His gaze swept the horizon, then the camp. Fetch popped out as he started toward our tent.
Chenyth came up cussing. "Damnit, Will, what the hell you..." His jaw drooped. He scrambled out of Lord Hammer's path.
Fetch whipped past and started hauling tent away. Lord Hammer knelt, hand over Toamas's heart. He moved it to the grass. Then he walked to the gap we thought of as a gate.
"What's he doing?" Chenyth asked.
"Wait," Fetch told him.
Lord Hammer halted, faced left, began pacing the perimeter. He paused several times. We resumed our morning chores. Brandy cussed the gods both on Toamas's behalf and because he faced another miserable breakfast. You couldn't tell which mattered more to him. Brandy bitched about everything equally.