“Well, now.” Brandark stared at him a moment longer, then began to grin. “That will upset Churnazh, won’t it?”
“A mite,” Bahzell agreed. “Which brings me back to how it was you caught me up so quickly. As you say, if you can find me, there’s no reason Churnazh’s lads can’t be doing it, too.”
“Well, they won’t have started until Harnak woke up-or didn’t, as the case may be. And they don’t know you as well as I do. I’d guess they’ll have wasted a day or two thinking you really did go east.”
“Aye, you’d know I’d do no such thing, wouldn’t you?”
“True. I also knew you’d start out that direction, though, so I headed straight to Chazdark, then came back west. I knew I was on the right track when I reached Fir Hollow.” Brandark shook his head. “I also knew you’d gotten rid of the women by then.”
“Did you, now?”
“Of course. What did you do with them, anyway? Hide them somewhere?”
“No. I sent them on to Chazdark. There’s a man I know there who’ll get them safe to my father.”
“Ah. I wondered about that, but as soon as that healer you spoke to told me you’d asked for supplies to care for an injured woman and then left by the west road, I knew you’d done something with them.”
“Aren’t you the clever one?” Bahzell finished his cheese and leaned back to let it settle before he started on a sausage.
“Well, not even you would be stupid enough to visit a healer openly if they were still with you. In fact, no one in Fir Hollow would have seen you at all . . . unless you meant to draw the pursuit.” Brandark shook his head. “I imagine it’ll work well enough against Churnazh and his lot, but it’s exactly what I would have expected from you. Not too smart, but direct.”
“It’s best a man know his own limits and act accordingly,” Bahzell agreed in a dangerously affable tone. Brandark laughed, and the Horse Stealer went on more seriously. “But much as it pains me to say I’m glad to see you, I’m thinking you’ve gotten yourself into more trouble than friendship’s worth, Brandark. Aye, and your father, too, for aught I know.”
“Father will be fine,” Brandark assured him. “By now he’s disinherited me and sent the law after me-to the east, I’m sure-for stealing three of his best horses.”
“D’you think that will fool the likes of Churnazh?”
“No, not really, but Father’s too tough a nut for Churnazh to crack.” Bahzell grunted skeptically, and Brandark shrugged. “He’d have done something about Father years ago, even without me, if Father didn’t have enough men to make him think twice. He’s pulled down too many of the old families already; the ones who’re left have joined forces to keep him from gutting them all, and he knows it. With his losses against Hurgrum and how restive his ‘allies’ have been since the war, he’ll choose to let it pass.”
“I’m hoping you’re right, but there’s still the matter of what may happen to you if he’s laying us by the heels.”
“So there is-if he lays us by the heels.”
“None of which would matter if you hadn’t been after poking your nose in where there was no need,” Bahzell pointed out.
“Well,” Brandark finished his sausage and wiped his hands, “I’ve always wanted to see the world. Where are you headed, anyway?”
“West,” Bahzell growled.
“ ‘West’ is a large place,” Brandark remarked. “Did you have some particular part of it in mind?” Bahzell gave him a glare, and he sighed. “That’s what I thought. I hope your father plans his campaigns better than you do, or Churnazh may end up ruling Hurgrum after all.”
“D’you know,” Bahzell said meditatively, “I’m thinking you must be even better with a sword than I’d thought. You’ve a true gift for making friends happy to see you.”
“So I’ve been told. But in the meantime, it might not be amiss to think about how you’ll earn your way. You can’t go home, and there’s little welcome for hradani elsewhere, unless you want to turn brigand.”
“I’ve no taste for such as that,” Bahzell growled, and Brandark nodded.
“In that case, we’d best make certain we stay on the right side of the law, and that won’t be easy. They don’t much like hradani most places.”
“Then they’d best be keeping their opinions to themselves!”
“You truly do need someone to keep you out of trouble.” Brandark sighed. He thought for a moment, then shrugged. “Esgan,” he said.
“Esgan?”
“The Grand Duchy of Esgan. Navahk trades with the Esganians, after a fashion. Father’s sent me there now and then to dispose of the odd bit of plunder, and Esgfalas is about as far east as the big merchant caravans normally come.”
“And what’s that to do with us?”
“Well, if we’re not going to turn brigand, then we’d best do the exact opposite and be certain we can prove we have. And our best chance to do that is to make our way to the capital and hire on as guards with one of those caravans, if they’ll have us.”
“Caravan guards.” Bahzell shook his head in disgust, and Brandark snorted.
“It’s one or the other for hradani, from all I’ve heard. And at least it’s a trade we know, assuming we can convince anyone to hire us.”
“Aye,” Bahzell agreed sourly.
“And, of course,” Brandark added cheerfully as he began untying his rolled sleeping blankets, “assuming we get there alive.”
Chapter Five
“Ahhhh! Careful, you dung-faced bitch!”
Crown Prince Harnak of Navahk snarled and clenched his fist, and the slave flinched back to the full reach of her arms as she retied the bandages. Her fingers were as nervous as her eyes, and the prince gasped again, despite her terrified care. Two smashed ribs had poked splintered ends through his skin, and getting at them to renew the dressings was a painful business.
The trembling slave finished and stepped quickly back as Harnak swung his legs off the bed and groaned up into a sitting position. His right eye remained a purple and crimson clot of swollen pain, and his lips were a split and puffy mass. Nine of his teeth had been left behind when he dragged his brutally beaten body out into the palace’s more traveled hallways; his father’s surgeon had removed four more that had snapped off in jagged stumps; his broken nose would never be the same again; and a huge, purple lump, skin split across its apex, disfigured his forehead.
He looked up and saw the slave staring at him, her eyes huge with fear, and shame and fury snarled within him.
“Get out, sow!” he hissed. “Get out before I have the whip to you!”
“Yes, master!”
The slave ducked her head and vanished with all the speed fear could impart, and Harnak dragged himself to his feet, no longer fighting his whimpers since there were no ears to hear them. He staggered to the window slit and leaned against the wall, panting in pain and wincing as breathing stirred his broken ribs, and his hate welled up like lava.
There was fear in that hate. More than fear, there was panic, and not just because Bahzell had wreaked such carnage upon him with nothing more than his bare hands, for there was no sign of Farmah. She and that slut Tala-and that whoreson Bahzell, curse him!-had disappeared like smoke. They were on foot, and that should have made them easy meat, despite their head start, yet none of the men Churnazh could fully trust had found a trace of them. Now he’d been forced to send out formal patrols, including men he couldn’t rely upon simply to slit their throats the moment they were found, and that was bad. If Farmah told her side of the tale, if any of the Guard heard it and believed-
Harnak cut that thought off. Badly as he was hurt, he knew he’d hurt the bitch almost equally badly before Bahzell burst in on him, and she was only a slut, not a hardened warrior. She couldn’t move fast or far, and the odds were good she’d kill herself trying, for she knew what would happen if she fell into his hands once more, curse her! It was all her fault! Demons knew the bitch was beautiful-or had been, he amended with a vicious smile-but she’d forgotten she’d become only another palace slut and refused to be schooled. The price she’d paid-so far-was little enough for refusing a prince of the blood, and his good eye closed in silent prayer to Sharna. Let someone reliable find her, he prayed. Let them find her alive and return her to Navahk so he could finish her lesson, and her heart would be offered up still steaming as thanks when he was done. Aye, and Tala’s screaming soul could go with it!