“I didn’t mean it that way. What I meant to ask was if the dream wants you to go somewhere?”
“Aye, that’s it!” Bahzell’s spine snapped straight and he planted his fists on his hips and turned to glare into the black and silver night. “The curst thing does want me to go somewhere.”
“Where?” Brandark asked intently, and Bahzell growled in frustration.
“If I was knowing that, then I’d know what the damned thing is wanting of me when I get there!” he snarled, but then his rumbling voice went even deeper and his ears flattened. “And yet . . .”
He jerked his hands from his hips and began to prowl back and forth once more, pounding a fist into his palm while he stared at the grass. Brandark sat silently, letting him pace, feeling the intensity of his thought, and his stride gradually slowed. He came to a complete halt, rocking on his heels, then turned and looked sharply at the Bloody Sword.
“Wherever it is,” he said flatly, “I’m on the road to it now.”
“Phrobus!” Brandark whispered. “Are you certain of that?”
“Aye, that I am.” Bahzell’s voice was grim and stark, and Brandark swallowed. He’d never heard quite that note from his friend. It was like rock shattering into dust, and something inside him shuddered away from it in fear while silence hovered between them once more.
“What do you want to do?” he asked finally.
“I’ve no taste for destinies and such.” Bahzell was still grim, but there was something else, as well. He’d recognized the foe, at least in part, and the elemental stubbornness of all hradanikind was rousing in defiance. “I’ve worries enough for a dozen men as it is, and ‘destinies’ and ‘quests’ will get a man killed quick as quick,” he said harshly. “And if I spoke of gods, well, no god’s done aught for our folk since the Fall, so there’s no cause I can see to be doing aught for them .”
Brandark nodded in heartfelt agreement, and square, strong teeth flashed in a fierce, moonlit grin as Bahzell returned the nod with interest.
“And if it’s not some poxy god creeping round my dreams, then it’s like enough some filthy wizard, and I’ll see myself damned to Krahana’s darkest hell before I raise hand or blade for any wizard ever born.” There was a dreadful, iron tang in that, and Brandark nodded again.
“But how do you keep from doing what they want when you don’t know what it is?” he asked slowly.
“Aye, there’s the rub.” Bahzell scrubbed his palms on his thighs, then shrugged. “Well, if it’s on the road I am, then I’m thinking it’s best I step aside.”
“How?”
“By going where I’d never planned. If some cursed god or wizard’s set himself on having me, then I’ll just take myself somewhere he’s not after expecting me to be.”
“All of this means something?” Brandark asked with a trace of his normal tartness, and Bahzell chuckled nastily.
“So it does, my lad. So it does. Look you, all this time I’ve been heading west, with never a thought of going anywhere else. Soon or late I have to let Father know my whereabouts, but until I do, he can be telling Churnazh-aye, or anyone else who asks-he’s no knowledge where I am. I’ve been minded to follow Kilthan clear to Manhome and see a wee bit of the Empire of the Axe before I get in touch with him again, but now I’m damned if I will.”
“You can’t just leave,” Brandark objected, and Bahzell shook his head sharply.
“Old Kilthan’s deserving better of me than that, but we’ve never told him we’d go clear to Manhome. No, I’m thinking I’ll stay with him to Riverside. From there he’ll be in the Kingdom of Angthyr, and that’s an Axeman ally and safe enough for merchants, from all I hear. He’ll have little need of my sword after that . . . and I’ll be far enough from Navahk not to worry about steel in my back some dark night.”
“In our backs, you mean.”
Bahzell cocked his ears once more, studying his friend intently, then shook his head.
“I’m thinking you should stay clear of this,” he said quietly. “It’s one thing to be twisting Churnazh’s nose-aye, and even to risk your neck for naught more than friendship. But this is none of your making, and it might just be your neck is the least thing you could be losing. Stay with Kilthan, Brandark. It’s safer.”
“Listen, I know you don’t like my singing, but you don’t have to go to such lengths to get rid of it.”
“Leave off your jesting now! There’s a time and a place for it, but not here. Not now! Against Churnazh and his lot-aye, or anything else we could feed steel till it choked-I’d take you at my side and be glad of it. But dreams and destinies . . .” Bahzell shook his head again. “Stay clear of it, Brandark. Stay clear and let it pass.”
“Sorry, but I can’t do that.” Brandark stood and slapped his friend on the shoulder. “For all you know, I’m already caught up in it.”
“Oh? And what have your dreams been like?” Bahzell demanded with awful irony, and the Bloody Sword laughed.
“I haven’t had any-yet! But if you’re busy running in the opposite direction, whatever it is might decide to pick on the single hradani who’s still headed the right way, and then where would I be? If that’s the case, then the safest place I could possibly be would be running right beside you.”
“That,” Bahzell said after a moment, “is most likely the most addlepated, clod-headed excuse for logic I’ve ever heard.”
“Being rude won’t help you. I thought it up, and I’ll stick by it. You know how stubborn hradani are.”
“Aye, so I do.” Bahzell sighed. He gripped the smaller man by the upper arms and shook him-gently for a hradani. “You’re a fool, Brandark Brandarkson. A fool to come after me from Navahk, and three times a fool if you dabble in this. It’ll likely be the death of you, and not a pretty end!”
“Well, no one ever said you were smart,” Brandark replied, “and, if the truth be known, I don’t suppose anyone actually ever said I was.”
“If they did, they lied.” Bahzell gave him one last shake, then sighed again. “All right, if you’re daft enough to be coming, then I suppose I’m daft enough to be glad for the company.”
Chapter Eleven
The heavy wooden chair back flew apart. The stubs of its uprights stood like broken teeth, and then they, too, flew apart as the sword thundered down between them and split the seat. Splinters hissed, and Harnak of Navahk screamed a curse as he whirled to the chest beside the ruined chair.
He drove his sword into it like an axe, then wrenched the blade free and brought it down again and again and again, cursing with every blow. He hacked until he could hack no more, then hurled the blade across the room. It leapt back from the wall, ricocheting to the floor with a whining, iron clangor, and he glared down at it, gasping while spittle ran down his chin.
But then he closed his eyes. His wrist scrubbed across his mouth and chin, and he dragged in a deep, wracking breath as the Rage faded back from the brink of explosion. It was hard for him to beat it down, for he seldom chose to do so, but this time he had no choice.
He mastered it at last and shook himself, glaring about his chamber at the wreckage. Even the bedposts were splintered and gouged, and he clenched his jaw, feeling the gaps of missing teeth, as he wished with all his heart those same blows had landed upon Farmah or Bahzell Bahnakson.
He swore, with more weariness than passion now, and waded through the rubble to the window. He sat in the opening’s stone throat, staring hot-eyed out over the roofs of Navahk, and rubbed the permanent depression in his forehead while he made himself think.
The bitch was alive-alive! -and that slut Tala with her, and the pair of them were in Hurgrum!
The nostrils of his misshapen nose flared. How? How had two women, one a mere girl and beaten half to death into the bargain, gotten clear to Hurgrum through his father’s entire Guard? It wasn’t possible!