The rooms were bigger than The Laughing God’s, but no fires had been laid, there were no hot baths, and meals cost two coppers apiece. Yet they were out of the rain, though it occurred to Bahzell, as he considered their rooms, that the landlord had hardly given them his best chambers. They were on the second floor, off a stubby, blind hallway, with the smaller room squeezed into an awkward space between the inn’s upper storerooms and the attached stables.
Bahzell assigned that one to Zarantha and Rekah the instant he saw it. The only way to it led past the room he and Brandark shared with Tothas, and, for all its shortcomings, The Brown Horse offered stout doors. With their own door open and the hradani taking watch and watch about, no one could get to Zarantha or Rekah unchallenged.
Tothas nodded approval of Bahzell’s arrangements, and this time he raised no argument over leaving the guard duty to the hradani. Indeed, he crawled into one of the beds the instant he finished supper, and Bahzell looked at Brandark and pointed to the other.
“I’ll be waking you in four hours,” he rumbled, “so you’d best not lie awake thinking of more verses for your curst song!”
Morning came noisily. None of The Brown Horse’s servants had ever heard of tiptoes, and Bahzell groaned in protest as a waiter barged in with a can of hot water. The servant dropped it beside the wash basin with an appalling bang, then trooped out like an entire company of heavy infantry, and the Horse Stealer sat up with another groan.
“My, aren’t we grumpy in the morning?” Brandark sat with his chair tipped back on two legs. “You really should cultivate a sunnier disposition,” he went on in a severe tone. “I know! I finished two fresh verses to Bahzell Bloody-Hand last night! Why don’t I sing them f-ummpphh! ”
The thrown pillow hit hard enough to knock his chair over with a crash, and Tothas shoved up on an elbow and dragged hair out of his eyes.
“Must you two be so cheerful this early?” He cocked his head at Brandark, then glanced at Bahzell as the Bloody Sword dragged the pillow out of his face. “What’s he doing on the floor?”
“Penance,” Bahzell growled, and threw back his own blankets.
He stretched enormously, crossed to the washstand, and poured hot water into the basin, then frowned. There was no steam, and he shoved a finger into the basin and sighed. The “hot” water was barely lukewarm.
He grimaced, but it was all there was, and at least his people’s lack of facial hair meant that, unlike Tothas, he wouldn’t have to shave with it. He washed his face, rinsed and emptied the basin into the chamber pot, then checked the clothing he’d hung before the fire overnight. It was dry, and he climbed into it with only a trace of wistfulness for The Laughing God’s baths.
Brandark followed him to the basin, and Bahzell peered out the window. The rain had pulled back to blowing spatters, but a raw, gusting wind shook leafless branches like swords. It looked thoroughly miserable out there, and he hoped Zarantha was right about how long they could stay here, poor service or no.
A maid walked past their open door with another can of so-called hot water as if his thoughts of Zarantha had summoned her. She knocked much more gently than Bahzell would have anticipated and stood waiting a moment, then knocked again, harder. And then again, harder still.
Bahzell’s ears cocked as the maid knocked yet a fourth time. He knew how light a sleeper Zarantha was, and he stepped into the hall with a frown.
The maid looked back over her shoulder and squeaked as she saw him. She couldn’t have been more than fourteen, and this was her first sight of him, and she pressed her back against the closed door, hugging the water can before her like some sort of shield, her eyes huge.
“Oh, be still, girl!” he rumbled in her language, and wiggled his ears at her. “I gave over eating little girls for breakfast years ago!”
She jerked and tried to press her back through the door for just an instant, then smiled timidly at the rough humor in his voice.
“That’s better,” he encouraged. “Now what’s the to-do?”
“The lady won’t answer the door, sir,” the maid said in a tiny voice, obviously still more than a little uncertain about him.
“She won’t, hey?” Bahzell waved her aside and knocked himself. No one answered, and his amusement at the maid’s reaction vanished. He pounded again, loud enough to wake the dead, and Brandark came out into the hall behind him.
“What’s going on?”
“If I was knowing that, I wouldn’t be after pounding on this damned door!” Bahzell hammered so hard the door leapt against the bar, but still no one answered. “Fetch the landlord, Brandark. I’m not liking this one tiny bit!”
The Bloody Sword jerked a nod and thundered down the stairs while Tothas took his place in the hall. The Spearman took one look at Bahzell, then at the door, and his face went paper-white. He shoved the hradani aside and beat on the door with both fists.
“My Lady!” he shouted. “Lady Zarantha!” Silence answered, and he looked desperately up at Bahzell. “Break it down!”
“So I’m thinking myself, but best we get the landlord up here first.”
“No! She might-she might be dying in there!”
“Calm now, Tothas,” Bahzell said as gently as his own fear allowed, and drew Tothas back from the door with compassionately implacable strength, despite the armsman’s struggles. “No one got past us last night, you’ve my word for that, but if aught’s wrong with Zarantha, then it must be so with Rekah, as well, for they’re neither of them answering. And if that’s so, I’m thinking there’s no point in haste.”
Tothas gave one more futile wrench against his grip, eyes full of agony in his wasted face, then slumped and patted the Horse Stealer’s wrist.
“Aye,” he whispered. “Aye, you’re right. Would to Tomanāk you weren’t, but you are.”
He sagged against the wall, hands scrubbing his face, and Bahzell turned as Brandark clattered back with the landlord. The pudgy little man looked both indignant and frightened in his ridiculous nightgown, and he was badly out of breath from the ruthless haste with which the Bloody Sword had dragged him from his bed.
“What’s the meaning of this?!” he tried to snap, but it came out in a nervous quaver, and Bahzell frowned down at him.
“Little man,” he said, “we’ve people behind yonder door, and they’re not after answering.” The landlord jerked as if he’d been struck. His eyes darted to the door, and he paled, then swallowed.
“M-Maybe they’re just a-asleep,” he stuttered.
“Then it’s the soundest sleep I’ve ever heard of,” Bahzell rumbled.
“Well, I can’t help that! What do you want me to do about it?”
“Just you stand right there,” the Horse Stealer told him grimly. “I’m after opening this door, one way or another, and I’m wanting you to know why I’ve done it when I do.”
“You mean-?” The landlord stiffened as the hradani backed up four paces. “No, wait! You can’t just-!”
Bahzell ignored him and charged. The human-sized hall was too cramped for him to build much speed, but, as Harnak had learned in Navahk, the door that could stop Bahzell Bahnakson was a very rare door indeed. The crash shook the inn to its foundations, the bar ripped its brackets from the wall with an ear-piercing screech, and the door itself flew clear across the room.
The Horse Stealer stumbled two more paces forward to regain his balance, but his eyes were already sweeping the room, and a snarl rose in his throat. The single small window hung wide to the rain, and the furnishings were smashed and splintered, as if a madman had run amok with an axe. One bed was empty, but a bloody oval face hung over the side of the other slashed and tattered mattress in a tangle of golden hair.
The hradani crossed the room in one enormous stride, and his hands were gentle as he touched Rekah’s throat. Her neck was ringed in brutal purple bruises too long and thin to have come from any mortal hand, and blood streaked the bedpost where her attacker had slammed her face into it again and again while he choked her, but a faint pulse fluttered against his fingertips.