The hradani lowered the weapon and cocked his ears inquiringly at his new commander, and Rianthus let out a slow, deep breath.
“I suppose,” he murmured after a moment, “that we might just let you keep that thing after all, Prince Bahzell.”
They left Esgfalas on schedule to the hour, and for all Rianthus’ disparaging remarks, the “rag and tag” merchants who’d attached themselves to Kilthan moved with almost the same military precision as the dwarf’s own men. But Rianthus had been right about one thing: there were over three hundred wagons, and the enormous column stretched out for almost four miles.
Bahzell had never imagined such an enormous, vulnerable, toothsome target. It was enough to make any man come all over greedy, he thought, yet the size of it made sense once he’d had a look at Kilthan’s maps.
The roads in Esgan might be as good as any in Hurgrum, but most merchants preferred to ship by water wherever possible. Unfortunately, the best river route of all-the mighty Spear River and its tributary, the Hangnysti, whose navigable waters ran clear from the Sothōii Wind Plain to the Purple Lords’ Bortalik Bay-was out of the question for Esganians. The Hangnysti would have taken them straight to the Spear in a relatively short hop . . . except that it flowed through the lands of both the Bloody Swords and Horse Stealers alike before it crossed the Ghoul Moor. No merchant would tempt hradani with such a prize, and even hradani avoided the Ghoul Moor.
That meant all the trade to Esgan, the Kingdom of Daranfel, and the Duchy of Moretz funneled down the roads (such as they were) to Derm, capital of the Barony of Ernos, on the Saram River. The Saram was riddled with shallows and waterfalls above Derm, but from that point south river barges could ferry them down the lower Saram, Morvan, and Bellwater to the Bay of Kolvania. And, as Rianthus had said, this was one of the last (and best-guarded) caravans of the year; anyone who possibly could had made certain his goods went with it.
None of which made the lot of Kilthan’s guards any easier. Rianthus had kept them training hard, but six weeks of camp living while they waited for the caravan to assemble had taken some of the edge off them, and the other merchants’ guards ranged from excellent to execrable. It would take Rianthus a few days to decide which were which; until he had, he was forced to assume they were all useless and deploy his own men accordingly, and the constant roving patrols he maintained along the column’s flanks, coupled with regular scouting forays whenever the road passed through unclaimed wilderness, took their toll. Men and horses alike grew weary and irritable, and aching muscles had a magnifying effect on even the most petty resentments.
Bahzell saw it coming. His own lot was tolerable enough-Hartan was a hard man, but one a hradani could respect, and his own assignment kept him with the column and not gallivanting about the countryside-but the mounted units were another matter, and Brandark was assigned to one of them. So was Shergahn, and the Daranfelian’s bitter dislike for all hradani found fertile, weary soil, especially when he began muttering about “spies” set on to scout the caravan’s weaknesses and report them to their brigand friends.
Shergahn’s bigotry didn’t make him or his cronies total idiots, however, and they’d decided to leave Bahzell well enough alone. None cared to try his luck unarmed against a giant who towered nine inches and then some over seven feet, and the prohibition against drawn steel precluded anything more lethal. Besides, they’d seen him at weapons drill with that monstrous sword. In fact, Rianthus-not by coincidence-had paired the worst of them off as his sparring partners to give them a closer look, and they wanted no part of it.
But Brandark was a foot and a half shorter and carried a sword of normal dimensions. Worse, his cultured grammar and dandified manner could be immensely annoying. They were also likely to provoke a fatal misjudgment, and Shergahn’s contempt for any so-called warrior who wore flower-embroidered jerkins, quoted poetry, and sat by the fire strumming a balalaika while he stared dreamily into the flames was almost as boundless as Prince Churnazh’s.
Bahzell sat cross-legged against a wagon wheel, fingers working on a broken harness strap while the smell of cooking stew drifted from the fires. He’d been surprised and pleased by how well Kilthan fed his men, but, then, he’d been surprised by a great many things since entering Esgan. He’d looked down on Churnazh and his Navahkans as crude barbarians, yet he’d been forced to the conclusion that Hurgrum was barbarian, as well. That didn’t blind him to his father’s achievements, but things others took for granted were still dreams for Prince Bahnak’s folk. Like the lightweight tin cooking pots Kilthan’s cooks used instead of the huge, clumsy iron kettles Hurgrum’s field cooks lugged about, for one. And, he thought, like the wagon against which he leaned, for another.
Hradani wagons were little more than carts, often with solid wooden wheels. Kilthan’s wagons were even better than those Bahzell had seen in Esganian hands; lightly but strongly built, with wheels padded in some tough, springy stuff he’d never seen before rather than rimmed in iron, and he hadn’t been able to believe how well sprung they were until he’d crawled under one of them with Kilthan’s chief wainwright to see the strange, fat cylinders that absorbed the shocks with his own eyes. They were a dwarvish design, and the wainwright insisted they had nothing inside them but air and plungers, yet they made Bahzell feel uneasily as if he’d stumbled across some sorcerous art . . . and more than a bit like a bumpkin over his own unease.
And those wagons and lightweight kettles were only two of the wonders about him. Discovering what his people had been denied by their long isolation filled him with anger-and a burning desire to see and learn even more.
A soft, familiar sound plucked him from his thoughts, and he looked up from his repairs as Brandark stepped into the firelight. The balalaika slung on his back chimed faintly as he swung his saddle over a wagon tongue, then he straightened wearily, kneading his posterior with both hands, and Bahzell grinned. He’d heard about the confusion in orders that had sent Brandark’s platoon out on a scouting sweep . . . in the wrong direction. They’d needed three hard, extra hours in the saddle to catch back up, and the rest of their company been less than amused by how thin the absence of a third of its strength spread its remaining members.
Brandark nodded to his friend, but his long nose twitched even as he did so. He turned like a lodestone, seeking the source of that delicious aroma, gave his backside one last rub, and started for the cooking fires, when a deep, ugly voice spoke from the shadows behind him.
“So, there you are, you lazy bastard!” it grated. “You led the other lads a fine song and dance today, didn’t you?”
Bahzell’s hands stilled at Shergahn’s growled accusation, but he made no other move. The last thing he and Brandark needed was to make this a matter of human against hradani rather than a simple case of a troublemaker with an overlarge mouth.
Brandark paused in his beeline to the stew pot and cocked his ears.
“Should I take it you’re addressing me?” he asked in a mild tone, and Shergahn barked a laugh.
“Who else would I be calling a bastard, you smooth-tongued whoreson?”
“Oh, it’s you, Shergahn!” Brandark said brightly. “Now I understand your question.”
“Which question?” Shergahn sounded a bit taken aback by the lack of anger in the hradani’s voice.
“The one about bastards. I’d thought it must be someone else asking for you ,” Brandark said, and someone chuckled.
“Ha! Think you’re so damned smart, d’you?” Shergahn spat, and the Bloody Sword shook his head with a sigh.