“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!”
Chapter Four
Bahzell moved quickly through brush-dotted, waist-high grass while the shadows lengthened behind him. His packhorse had given up trying to hold to a pace it found comfortable, though its eyes reproached him whenever he made one of his infrequent halts.
Bahzell grinned at the thought, amused despite the nagging sensation between his shoulder blades that said someone was on his trail. Seen in daylight, the gelding was less the nag he’d told Tala; indeed, there was a faint hint of Sothōii breeding, though untrained eyes might not have noticed, and he’d kept it because it was the best of the lot. If desperation forced him to mount, it could bear him faster-and longer-than either of the others. Not that any normal horse could carry him far, at the best of times. Despite their well-earned name, nothing short of a Sothōii courser could carry an armored Horse Stealer, and trying to steal one of the sorcery-born coursers, far less mount one, was more than any hradani’s life was worth.
He paused, turning his back to the setting sun to squint back into the east, and gnawed his lip. He wanted Churnazh’s men to follow him instead of the women, but a blind man couldn’t miss the trail he’d left forging through the tall grass, and, unlike himself, the Bloody Swords were small enough to make mounted troops. Bahzell would back his own speed against anything short of Sothōii cavalry over the long haul, but a troop with enough remounts could run him down if they set their minds to it.
The thought gave added point to the itch between his shoulders, and his ears worked slowly as he studied his back trail. His stomach rumbled, but he ignored it. He’d left Tala and Farmah most of the food Turl had been able to provide, for no one had ever trained them to live off the country. He took a moment to hope they’d reached Ludahk safely, then pushed that thought aside, too. Their fate was out of his hands now, and he had his own to worry about.
He snorted at the thought, then stiffened, ears suddenly flat, as three black dots crested a hill well behind him. He strained his eyes, wishing he had a glass, but it didn’t really matter. He could count them well enough, and there was only one reason for anyone to follow directly along his trail.
He looked back into the west, and his ears rose slowly. An irregular line of willows marked the meandering course of a stream a mile or so ahead, and he nodded. If those lads back there wanted to catch him, why, it would only be common courtesy to let them.
The sun had vanished, but evening light lingered along a horizon of coals and dark blue ash, and Bahzell’s smile was grim as he heard approaching hooves at last.
He lay flat in the high grass with his arbalest. Few hradani were archers-their size and disposition alike were better suited to the shock of melee-but the Horse Stealers of northern Hurgrum had become something of an exception. Their raids into the Wind Plain pitted them against the matchless Sothōii cavalry’s horse archery more often than against their fellow hradani, and one of Prince Bahnak’s first priorities had been to find an answer to it.
Nothing Hurgrum had could equal the combined speed and power of the Sothōii composite bow, but the Sothōii had learned to respect Horse Stealer crossbows. A Horse Stealer could use a goatsfoot to span a crossbow, or even an arbalest, which would have demanded a windlass of any human arm. They might be slower than bowmen, but they were faster than any other crossbowmen, their quarrels had enormous shock and stopping power, and a warheaded arbalest bolt could pierce even a Wind Rider’s plate at close range.
More to the present point, those same crossbows, coupled with the pikes and halberds Bahnak’s infantry had adopted to break mounted charges, had wreaked havoc against Navahk and Prince Churnazh’s allies . . . just as Bahzell intended to do against whoever had been rash enough to overtake him.
The hooves came closer, and Bahzell rose to his knees, keeping his head below the level of the grass. It would be awkward to respan an arbalest from a prone position, even for him, but he’d chosen his position with care. His targets should be silhouetted against the still-bright western sky while he himself faded into the dimness of the eastern horizon, with time to vanish back into the grass before they even realized they were under attack. Of course, if they chose to stand, they were almost bound to spot him when he popped back up to take the second man, so there’d be no time for a third shot. But he’d take his chances against a single Bloody Sword hand-to-hand any day, and-
His thoughts broke off as the hooves stopped suddenly.
“I know you’re out there,” a tenor voice called, “but it’s getting dark, and mistakes can happen in the dark. Why don’t you come out before you shoot someone we’d both rather you didn’t?”
“Brandark?! ” Bahzell shot up out of the grass in disbelief, and the single horseman turned in his saddle.
“So there you are,” he said blandly, then shook his head and waved an arm at the line of willows two hundred yards ahead. “I’m glad I went ahead and called out! I thought you were still in front of me.”