“Wizardry?”
“No wizardry,” Bahzell grunted, “but there’s precious little a wizard can be doing with a foot of steel in his guts, and no wizard ever born can control a hradani who’s given himself to the Rage. That was their mistake, d’you see, when they made us what we are. The only way they can stop us is to kill us, and a hradani, Tothas,” his eyes burned, and his voice was very, very soft, “takes a lot of killing with a wizard in reach of his blade.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Mail jingled and weapons harness creaked as Bahzell led Brandark and Tothas downstairs. The taproom was a wasteland of empty chairs and crooked tables, smelling of stale drink and smoke, and the two servants who should have been putting last night’s clutter to rights huddled in a corner, whispering urgently to one another.
Their whispers chopped off with knife-sharp suddenness as the armed and armored trio appeared. The servants exchanged furtive, frightened glances, then one of them reached for his broom while the other cleared his throat, picked up a heavy tray of dirty tankards, and started to sidle out.
“Not so fast, my lad,” a deep voice rumbled, and a tree-trunk arm blocked his way. Bahzell smiled, and the servant froze and licked his lips.
“M-M-M’lord?” he quavered.
“It’s a word with your master I want. Where might I be finding him?”
“I-I’m sure I w-wouldn’t know, M’lord.”
“Wouldn’t you, now?” Bahzell watched the man’s shoulders tighten. “I’d not like to think you a liar, so just you give me your best guess, and it’s grateful I’ll be.”
The servant swallowed and darted an agonized look of appeal over his shoulder, but his fellow was busy sweeping up sawdust-a task which obviously occupied him to the exclusion of all else.
The man with the tray looked back up at Bahzell. The hradani made no threatening gestures, but his eyes were cold, and someone his size required no theatrics. The servant swallowed again, then slumped.
“I-In the kitchen, M’lord.”
“There, now. You did have a notion, didn’t you? And it’s grateful I am.” Bahzell looked at Brandark. “Brandark, my lad, why don’t you find a seat and keep these fine fellows company for a bit.”
“Certainly.” The Bloody Sword bowed to the servants and settled into a chair just inside the doorway.
“Don’t be long,” he called after his departing friends. “I left my balalaika upstairs, and I can’t entertain properly without it.”
The Brown Horse’s kitchens were none too clean, and Bahzell’s nose wrinkled at the smell of rancid grease and over-ripe garbage as he thrust the swinging door open.
The landlord was in the middle of the kitchen, talking excitedly to another servant. This one was just fastening his cloak when Bahzell and Tothas entered, and he and his master froze like rabbits.
The Horse Stealer hooked his thumbs in his belt and rocked gently, his smile almost genial, and the landlord’s face twitched.
“Ah, that will be all, Lamach,” he said, and the servant started for a rear door, only to freeze again as Bahzell cleared his throat. He looked back over his shoulder, and the hradani cocked his head at him.
“Now don’t you run off on our account, Lamach. You’d be after making me think you don’t like us.”
He crooked a beckoning finger, and Lamach swallowed, but his feet moved as if against his will, carrying him back to the towering hradani.
“That’s a good lad!” Bahzell looked at Tothas. “Why don’t you take Lamach outside there, Tothas? It’s only a word or two I need with his master, and if the two of you see to it we’re bothered by naught, why, Lamach can be on his way as soon as we’ve done. Unless, of course, there’s some reason his master should be reconsidering his errand.”
Tothas nodded curtly and waved Lamach out into the hall. The doors swung shut, and Bahzell turned back to the pudgy, white-faced, sweating landlord, and folded his arms across his massive chest.
“Now don’t you worry, friend,” he soothed. “I’ve no doubt you’ve been told all manner of tales about my folk, and dreadful they must have been, but you’ve my word they weren’t true. Why, we’re almost as civilized as your own folk these days, and as one civilized man to another, I’d not harm a hair on your head. Still,” his voice stayed just as soothing, but his eyes glittered, “I’m bound to admit there are things can cause any of us to backslide a mite. Like lies. Why, I’ve seen one of my folk rip both a man’s arms off for a lie. Dreadful sorry he was for it afterward, but-”
He shrugged, and the landlord whimpered. Bahzell let him sweat for a long, frightened minute, then went on in a harder voice.
“It’s in my mind you know more about this than you’re wishful to admit, friend.”
“N-N-No!” the landlord gasped.
“Ah!” Bahzell cocked his ears. “Was that a lie I heard?” He unfolded his arms, and the landlord flinched in terror, but the hradani merely scratched his chin thoughtfully. “No,” he said after a moment, “no, it’s certain I am you’d not lie, but you’d best speak more clearly, friend. For a moment there I was thinking you’d said ‘No’.”
“I-I-I-” the pudgy man stuttered, and Bahzell frowned.
“Look you here, now,” he said in a sterner voice. “You were after pissing yourself even before Brandark fetched you upstairs this morning. You knew something was wrong-aye, and you’d more than a suspicion what , too, I’m thinking-before ever that door went down. Come to that, I can’t but wonder just where you were sending Lamach in such a hurry. It’s enough to make a man think you meant to warn someone I might be hunting him. Now, I’m naught but a hradani, but to my mind a man as knows what’s happened to my friends and won’t tell me, he’s not so good a friend to me. And if he’s not my friend , well-”
He shrugged, and the landlord sank to his knees on the greasy floor, round belly shaking like pudding, and clasped his hands before him.
“Please!” he whispered. “Oh, please! I-I don’t know anything-truly I don’t! A-And if I were . . . were to say anything that wasn’t true, or . . . or if I don’t tell him you’re . . . you’re asking questions-”
His voice broke piteously, but Bahzell only gazed down with flinty eyes, and something inside the landlord shriveled under their dreadful promise.
“There’s a lass half-dead upstairs,” Bahzell said softly. “A good lass-not perfect, maybe, but a good person. If it should happen you’d aught to do with that, I just might take it into my head to carve out your liver and fry it in front of you.” The Horse Stealer’s voice was infinitely more terrifying for its matter-of-fact sincerity, and the innkeeper shuddered.
“That’s bad enough, I’m thinking,” the hradani went on, “but there’s worse, for Lady Zarantha isn’t upstairs. Now, it’s possible she’s dead, but there’s no way I can know until I find her, and find her I will, one way or another. Alive or dead, I will find her, and if it should happen when I do that I’m after learning you did know something and kept it from me, or warned those as have her I was coming, I’ll be back.” The landlord looked up in dull terror, and Bahzell bared his teeth and spoke very, very softly.
“You’d best be remembering every tale you ever heard about my folk, friend, because this I promise you. If Lady Zarantha dies and you’ve kept aught back from me, you’ll wish you’d died with her-however it was-before you do.”
“-so that’s the whole of it, so far as he knows,” Bahzell told his friends grimly. The healer was still upstairs with Rekah, and they sat before the cold taproom hearth while he spoke quietly. “Mind, it’s not so certain I am he’s told me all he knows, but I’m thinking what he has said is true enough.”