The splendor of that moment, its transcendent glory and aliveness , haunted him. He could thrust it aside by day, but it poisoned his dreams by night, calling to him and pleading with him to unlock the chains he’d bound about it.
Yet that, at least, he understood, for this wasn’t the first time he’d faced the Rage down and whipped it back to its kennel. It was the other dreams which truly disturbed him, the ones he could never quite recall when he woke sweating and gasping in his blankets. Those dreams terrified him, and he couldn’t even say why, for he couldn’t remember , however hard he tried. There were only bits and pieces, a face he couldn’t quite recall, a voice he’d never heard with waking ears, and a sense of-
Of what? He didn’t know, yet it haunted him like the memory of the Rage. It was as if some purpose or cause or compulsion walked his dreaming mind, and a fear more dreadful than any he’d ever known followed in its footsteps, for he was hradani. His people knew in their very bones and blood what it was to be used and compelled. They’d been used and compelled, and the terrible things done to them during the Fall of Kontovar-the horrible things they’d been driven to do by the black wizards who’d turned them into ravening tools-haunted his people’s souls. That wizardry had left them with the Rage, and the thought of being used so again was the dark terror that horrified even their strongest, whether they would admit it or not . . . and the reason that voice he couldn’t remember and had never heard struck ice into Bahzell Bahnakson’s heart.
The dwarvish singer came to the end of his song, and Brandark let the last note linger, then stilled the strings with a gentle palm. There was a moment of total silence that died in applause, and he and Yahnath rose beside the fire to bow. Someone clapped harder, and Brandark slapped the stocky, bearded dwarf with the golden voice on the shoulder and grinned, trying to hide his envy even from himself as he accepted his share of the acclaim.
The moonlit night was cool, almost chill, clear, spangled with stars, and no longer soaked with rain. They were free of the hills, barely a day’s journey from Hildarth, capital of the Duchy of Moretz, and the men were relaxed, less tense. The easier going, coupled with the dearth of raiders and the easing of their duties as Rianthus integrated the more reliable of the independent guard detachments into his operations, meant there was energy for songs and tales now . . . and enough singers to spare them Brandark’s voice.
The Bloody Sword didn’t blame them. At least they’d been polite, and they still valued his playing, but it had needed only two or three performances for them to reach the same judgment Navahk had reached. And, listening to Yahnath, he could agree with them, however much he longed not to. So he gave one last sweeping bow, slung his balalaika, adjusted his embroidered jerkin, and began picking his way towards the tent he shared with Bahzell.
Familiar, bittersweet amusement at his own foolish ambitions filled him, and he stopped for a long moment, gazing up at the brilliant moon while his throat ached with the need to praise that loveliness, express the deep, complex longing it woke within him.
And he couldn’t. He knew how horrible his verse was. He longed for the rolling beauty of the written word, the cadenced purity, the exact, perfect word to express the very essence of a thought or emotion, and he produced . . . doggerel. Sometimes amusing or even witty doggerel, but doggerel, and everyone knew about his voice. He supposed it was funny, in a cruel way, that a barbaric hradani-and a Navahkan Bloody Sword, to boot-should spend nights staring into his lamp, begging the Singer of Light to touch him with her fire, lend him just a single spark from her glorious flame. But Chesmirsa had never answered him, any more than any god ever answered his people.
He closed his eyes in all too familiar pain, then shook himself and resumed his careful progress across the camp. There were birds and fish, he told himself, just as there were those who were meant to be bards and those who weren’t. Birds drowned, and fish couldn’t fly, but he knew something inside him would demand he go on trying, like a salmon perpetually hurling itself into the air in a desperate bid to become a hawk. Which was more stubborn than intelligent, perhaps, but what could one expect from a hradani? He grinned at the comfortable tartness of the thought, yet he knew his need to touch the true heart of the bard’s art was far less a part of his affectations-and far more important to him-than he’d ever realized in Navahk. That might not change reality, and, after all these years, surely anyone but a hradani should be able to accept that, and yet-
His grin vanished, and his ears flicked. No one else in Kilthan’s train would have recognized that sound, and even he couldn’t make out the restless, muttering words from here, but he knew Hurgrumese when he heard it.
He moved more quickly, head swiveling as he scanned the moonstruck dark. None of the tents were lit, and he saw no one moving, heard only that muttering babble, all but buried in the sounds of deep, even breathing and snores. The men in this section would be going on night watch in another few hours; they needed their sleep, hence the distance between them and the wakefulness about the fire, and Brandark was glad of it as he went to his knees at the open fly of his tent.
Bahzell twisted and jerked, kicked half out of his bedroll, and sweat beaded his face. His massive hands clutched the blankets, wrestling with them as if they were constricting serpents, and Brandark’s ears went flat as the terror in his friend’s meaningless, fragmented mutters sank home. The Bloody Sword had known fear enough in Navahk not to despise it in another, but this was more than fear. The raw, agonized torment in it glazed his skin with ice, and he reached out to touch Bahzell’s shoulder.
“Haaahhhhhhh! ” Bahzell gasped, and a hand caught Brandark’s wrist like a vise, fit to shatter any human arm, so powerful even Brandark hissed in anguish. But then the Horse Stealer’s eyes flared open. Recognition flickered in their clouded depths, and his grip relaxed as quickly as it had closed.
“Brandark?” His mutter was thick, and he shook his head drunkenly. He shoved up on the elbow of the hand still gripping Brandark’s wrist, scrubbing at his face with his other hand. “What?” he asked more clearly. “What is it?”
“I . . . was going to ask you that.” Brandark kept his voice low and twisted his wrist gently. Bahzell looked down, ears twitching as he realized he held it, and his hand opened completely. He stared at his own fingers for a moment, then clenched them into a fist and sucked in a deep breath.
“So, it’s muttering in my sleep I was, is it?” he said softly, and his jaw clenched when Brandark nodded. He opened and closed his fist a few times, then sighed and thrust himself into a sitting position. “A blooded warrior with a score of raids into the Wind Plain,” he murmured in a quiet, bitter whisper, “and he’s whimpering in his nightmares like a child! Pah!”
He spat in disgust, then looked up with a jerk as Brandark touched his shoulder again.