Harnak simply nodded, though “bitter” was a weak word for the night beyond the temple. The snow had been belly-deep on his horse, and he’d passed two drifts high as a mounted man’s head. Only Tharnatus could have gotten him out on such a night, and the thought of how the priest must relish the power to do just that touched him with resentment.
Tharnatus’ eyes gleamed as if he’d read the prince’s thoughts, but he only waved for Harnak to sit in one of the front pews and folded his own hands in the sleeves of his robe as he faced him.
“I would not have requested your presence, My Prince, had the matter been less than urgent. I understand things remain . . . difficult at court?”
“You understand aright.” Harnak didn’t-quite-snarl, and Tharnatus smiled gently. “Those bitches are practically members of Bahnak’s own family by now, and he’s using the damned bards to keep the tale alive.” Harnak’s molars ground together. “Even my brothers have taken to laughing behind my back, curse them, and the winter only makes it worse! With so much time indoors and nothing to do but drink and listen to tales-”
He clenched his fists, and Tharnatus nodded in grave sympathy.
“I regret hearing that, My Prince-and even more that I must tell you the dog brothers have . . . encountered difficulties.”
“Difficulties?” Harnak’s head snapped up, and Tharnatus shrugged.
“The Guild has never been the most reliable of the Scorpion’s servants, My Prince. True, I believed they should have sufficed for this simple a task, but the Guild Master has written to inform me otherwise. To date, the dog brothers have lost upward of forty men trying to kill Bahzell.”
“Forty?! ” Harnak repeated. The priest nodded, and the prince swallowed. How could even Bahzell have-?
“In fairness to the dog brothers,” Tharnatus said gravely, “Bahzell seems to have had far more luck than he should have. Apparently he took service with an Axeman merchant as far as Morvan, and the other guards shielded him from the Guild’s initial attacks. He has left that protection since, yet he seems unusually difficult to track. Even the Scorpion’s lesser servants can find him only with difficulty in the wilderness, and the dog brothers seem able to find him only when he enters their net in a town or city. They almost had him twice in Morvan itself-once in a tavern where he was working as a bouncer-” Harnak’s eyes glowed, even in his disappointment, at the thought of Bahzell’s finding himself so reduced “-and again in an alley. Unfortunately, he survived both attacks, as well as a third in Angthyr. By now, he knows the Guild has marked him, which will only make him harder to kill. The Guild Master hasn’t abandoned all hope, but it seems we set them a more difficult task than we realized, My Prince.”
The priest’s voice trailed off suggestively. Harnak looked at him, but Tharnatus only looked back impassively.
“And?” the prince prompted harshly when he could stand the silence no longer, and Tharnatus surprised him. The priest pursed his lips and rocked slightly on his toes for several moments, then shrugged.
“There are more ways than the dog brothers to our goal, My Prince.”
“Such as?” Harnak made himself speak calmly, but disbelief and hope warred in him. Could it be after all that Tharnatus meant to suggest-?
“It seems Bahzell is more important than we guessed,” the priest said at last. “You need not know all of them-indeed, not even I know them all-but his death has become important to the Scorpion for many reasons. The entire Church has been mobilized against him, with all its resources, and we have the aid of certain servants of Carnadosa in this, as well.”
“We do?” Harnak sat back in astonishment. The dark churches seldom cooperated. That, little though any of them cared to admit it, was their greatest weakness; they, like their deities, were too jealous of their own power and individual strategies to join forces as their enemies did, and mutual suspicion worked against them when they did. What in Sharna’s name could make that whoreson Bahzell important enough to produce such cooperation?!
“We do,” Tharnatus confirmed calmly. “Yet we can count on little from them, at least for the immediate future, for their own power is even weaker than our own in the Empire of the Spear.”
“The Empire of the Spear?” Harnak blinked again. “Bahzell is in the Empire of the Spear?” Tharnatus nodded, and Harnak’s eyebrows rose. “Why?”
“I’m not certain, My Prince,” the priest admitted. “Something, I suspect, to do with the Carnadosans, since they’ve offered us their assistance, but not even they seem to know precisely where he is at the moment. The dog brothers have also lost track of him, I fear, though he must surface again somewhere. In the meantime, however, the time has come for us to make an end of him, and it is for that reason I requested you to visit me tonight.”
“What can I do?” Harnak’s earlier resentment had vanished at the thought of bringing Bahzell down once and for all, and Tharnatus smiled.
“The Scorpion has decided to commit a greater servant to the task.” His smile turned as hungry as Harnak’s, but there was fear in it, as well, and the prince understood why even before the priest continued. “Since Bahzell first transgressed against the Scorpion in Navahk, it is only fitting his death should come from here, and the great dark of the moon falls four nights hence. On that night, we shall summon one of the greater servants and bind it to Bahzell’s destruction, and we look to you to provide the sacrifice.”
“Of course,” Harnak said instantly. “Tell me what you require.”
“As this will be one of the more powerful of the greater servants, My Prince, the ritual requires a sacrifice of special value. I shall need a virgin of childbearing age, fit and strong. It would be best if she has been handfasted so that we may bind her betrothed through her, as well. Ah, and intelligence is important. Can you find such in the time we have?”
“Um.” Harnak rubbed the permanent dent in his forehead in the nervous gesture he’d acquired, and frowned. “I think so. It won’t be easy-we can’t use peasant scum for this, and the girl I’m thinking of comes of a powerful family. I may need the Church’s help to take her without trace.”
“Are you certain of her virginity?”
“Who can be certain?” Harnak chuckled coarsely, but the priest didn’t join him, and his look banished the amusement from Harnak’s face. “I believe she is,” he said more defensively, “but I can hardly ask her!”
“No, I suppose not.” Tharnatus frowned and rubbed his chin, then sighed. “Very well, the Church will help take her, but it would be best to choose two, just in case. This sacrifice must go to the knife virgin; best to be on the safe side, and we can always make use of the other later.”
“Of course,” Harnak agreed.
“Good! But after the binding, My Prince, the Scorpion has a special task for you, as well.”
“For me?” Harnak’s voice was more cautious, and Tharnatus nodded.
“For you. The servant may fail. It seems unlikely, yet something seems to have protected Bahzell so far. But even if something has, it will be no aid-whatever it may be-against a blade consecrated in the sacrifice’s blood. Yet there must be a hand to wield the blade, and you, as the follower of the Scorpion most personally affronted by Bahzell, must bear it.”
“I must bear it?” Harnak stared at Tharnatus in horror.
“You, My Prince. It is your destiny, for you and Bahzell have become counterweights in a struggle even greater than that between Navahk and Hurgrum. Both of you are princes, and the war to which you are called has greater implications than even I had realized. You stand in the Scorpion’s own stead in that war, and it is only through you that His greatest power may be unleashed.”