Yet that whoreson Bahzell had contrived it anyway. He’d drawn virtually all the pursuit after him, and he and that bastard Brandark-and it had to be Brandark, whatever the japester’s father claimed!-had cut the single patrol to find them into dog meat. And while they’d done that , somehow the bitches had reached that sanctimonious dog-lover Bahnak’s court. He’d actually taken them in, put them under his own protection in his very palace!
Harnak spat another curse, and fresh hatred rose as more spittle sprayed humiliatingly through his gap-toothed snarl. Bahnak had been careful to take no official note when Churnazh outlawed his son. He’d even restrained Farmah from accusing Harnak of the crime, for to contest the sentence Churnazh had imposed would commit him to a fresh war against Navahk. His own men would demand it-and his allies would slip away if he appeared too weak to launch it.
But, by the same token, Churnazh’s allies would never support an attack on Hurgrum. If he were attacked , yes, they would come to his aid, for each feared the destruction of any one of them would be the opening wedge for Bahnak’s conquest of them all. But they were too weakened-and frightened-by what Hurgrum had already done to carry a fresh war to Bahnak, which meant he had no need to refute the charges against his son. With Bahzell safely beyond Churnazh’s reach, all Bahnak had to do was keep silent and let his allies-and Navahk’s, curse them!-laugh.
And they were laughing. Harnak clenched his fists, choking on bile. Every bard in every city-state of the Bloody Swords and Horse Stealers alike seemed to be singing the tale of Bahzell Bahnakson’s cunning. They’d made the puking bastard some sort of hero, and if they never mentioned Harnak’s name, there was no need to. If Bahzell’s father was sheltering Farmah and she was content to have it so, then Bahzell couldn’t have raped her . . . and if he hadn’t, everyone knew who must have. No one dared say so, but Harnak had seen it even in the eyes of the Guard, and he dared not show his face in public. Only the iron fist of his father’s terror kept women from spitting on his shadow as he passed . . . and his father had five sons.
The crown prince glared down at his fists. He was the eldest son, his father’s heir . . . while Churnazh lived. But what would happen when he died? Harnak knew his brothers. All of them, with the possible exception of that gutless wonder Arsham, had tumbled unwilling wenches, yet no one knew they had. Now everyone knew he had-yes, and believed he’d tried to kill the girl, too. Either of those crimes was more than enough to absolve any warrior of loyalty to him, and all it needed would be for one of his brothers-just one-to claim the throne to set the army of Navahk at its own throat . . . and Harnak’s.
He couldn’t let that happen. Yet how could he stop it?
He brooded down at his fists, the flame of his hatred smoldering down to smoking embers that would never quite die, and thought.
There were only two possibilities, he told himself at last. Either all his brothers must die, leaving no other claimant of the blood to challenge him, or else Bahzell, Farmah, and Tala must die.
Neither solution was perfect. If he had his brothers murdered, they must all die in the same hour, and his father with them, for only one person in Navahk could profit by their deaths, and Churnazh would know it. Yet even if all four of his brothers-yes, and his father, too-perished, too many who remembered how Churnazh himself had butchered his way to the throne might seek to emulate him. A crown prince rapist believed to have murdered his entire family would be too weak and tempting a target for someone to pass by.
But if he settled for killing Bahzell-assuming he could find the Sharna-cursed bastard-and the bitches, he would have to hope his father lived for a great many years. If Bahzell died, he would become one more dead enemy, not a taunting reminder of failure, and Navahk had been taught to respect men whose enemies were all dead. And if the sluts died, then the living symbol of his crime would die, as well. Passing time would erode the certainty of his guilt, give Churnazh’s countercharges the chance to sink in, but it would take time. It would take years, more maddening years in which he would be denied his proper place, still crown prince and never ruler.
And he must have all three of them, for as long as any of them breathed, their very lives would keep the tale alive. All of his enemies must perish to put time on his side . . . and perhaps there was a way. One not even Churnazh guessed at. Nor would he, for if he should ever suspect what allies Harnak had taken, he would rip out his son’s heart with his own bare hands.
Harnak nodded, ruined face twisted in an ugly smile, and looked back out the window. The sun was well into the west. Once darkness fell, he had a call to pay.
The single horseman trotted quietly down the brush-choked valley. There was no road here, only a trail of beaten earth, and his horse’s hooves fell with a dull, muffled sound. The slopes to his left cut off the moon, drowning the narrow way in darkness, and something inside him basked in the black silence even as his horse snorted and tossed an uneasy head.
A mile fell away, then another, as he threaded his way into the twisting hills. Few came here, even in daylight, for the nameless hill range had an unchancy reputation. Of the few who came, fewer still departed, and even Harnak’s carefully chosen bodyguards-clanless men, outcasts who owed all they were or ever could be to him-had muttered uneasily when they realized his destination. They always did, and he’d sensed their frightened relief when he ordered them to stop and await his return. None of them knew what he did on his rides into the hills, and none cared to know, for they’d seen him come this way with prisoners tied to their saddles, and he always returned alone.
The rough trail rounded a final hill and ended against a high, blank face of stone, and his nervous horse curvetted and fought the bit, flecked with the sweat of panic, as he drew rein. He snarled and leaned forward to slam his balled fist down between its ears, and the beast squealed and went still.
Harnak grunted in satisfaction, dismounted, and tethered it to one of the stunted trees that grew in this place. He drew a golden amulet from the neck of his tunic as he approached the featureless stone slab, then spat on the ground with an odd formality and folded his arms to wait.
Seconds dribbled past, then a full minute, and then his horse whinnied fearfully and jerked against its tight-tied reins. Sullen green light glowed within the stone, growing brighter, stronger, with the livid emerald glitter of poison. The rock seemed to waver and flow, wrapped in its unnatural translucence while the venomous light threw Harnak’s shadow down the valley behind him like a distorted beast, and then, sudden as a falling blade, the light vanished-and took the barren stone hillside with it.
The opening before Harnak was . . . wrong. Its angles followed a subtly perverted geometry, none of them quite square, and the carved likeness of an enormous scorpion glared down from above it. Flickering red torchlight spilled out of the bowels of the hill, and a cowled figure stood framed against the glow, arms folded in the sleeves of its robe as it bowed.
“Welcome, My Prince.” The deep voice was human, not hradani, yet Harnak returned its bow with a respect he showed no other mortal.
“I thank you, Tharnatus, and beg leave to enter your house.” Not even the lisping sibilance of his missing teeth hid the deference-even fear-in the prince’s voice, and Tharnatus straightened.
“Not my house, My Prince,” he replied, as if completing a formal exchange, “but the House of the Scorpion.” He stood aside with a gesture of invitation, and Harnak bowed once more and walked past him into the hill.