Vaijon of Almerhas was accustomed to looking even the tallest human in the eye, but he felt the strain in the back of his neck as he glared up at the hradani. He expected to see a mocking expression, but the brown eyes that met his were almost gentle-twinkling with amusement, yes, but oddly sympathetic. Which only made it worse, of course. Bad enough to be mocked by a halfling without having some unwashed barbarian sympathize with him for being made the butt of someone else's bad joke!
"I beg your pardon?" he got out through gritted teeth. "Were you addressing me?"
"Aye, I do believe I was," the hradani agreed in that rustically-accented subterranean bass.
"When I require your advice, sir, I will inform you!" Vaijon said with freezing hauteur.
"No doubt," the hradani replied easily. "But the problem with that, I'm thinking, is that most often by the time a man's realized he's after needing advice, he's past the time when it might have been doing him some good." Vaijon's teeth ground audibly, but the hradani went on calmly.
"Take this very moment, for example," he suggested. "There you stand, thinking as how Evark here is after making light of you, when he's done naught at all, at all, but answer your questions. It's best you be thinking over the answers before you've the doing of something you'll not be so happy about after."
Vaijon's nostrils flared and white-hot fury pulsed in his veins. Yet much as he hated admitting it, the hradani had a point. No doubt he thought it was amusing to mock a knight of the Order, but his very mockery had reminded Vaijon of who and what he was. He had a responsibility to protect the Order's honor from public insult and ridicule, but much as he longed to punish Evark's insolent excuse for a sense of humor, thrashing someone as much smaller than he as a halfling, however badly he deserved it, was hardly the act of a true knight.
"I shall take your advice under consideration," he told the hradani after two or three incandescent seconds, but his eyes were back on the halfling. "In the meantime, however, I would advise you to direct me to the person I'm here to meet!" he said coldly.
The halfling only shook his head with a curious mixture of amusement, derision, and sympathy, then looked up at the hradani.
"I've my ship to look after," he said, "and this un's one of Scale-Balancer's lot, gods help us all. You deal with it." Then he turned and stalked off, leaving a stupefied Vaijon staring at his back.
"I- How dare- Come back here!" he spluttered, and started to charge off in pursuit. But a huge hand closed on his mailed shoulder, stopping him, and he felt himself being turned as easily as if he were a child.
He found himself staring up at the hradani once more and reached for the hand which gripped him. That hand's wrist was as broad as his own biceps, and a strange little shiver of disbelief went through him as he realized how powerful it truly was, but his eyes flamed.
"Gently, now!" the hradani said, and his voice was sharper than before, edged with command. "I told you to be thinking over Evark's answers, Sir Vaijon of Almerhas, and you should have done it."
"What d'you-?" Vaijon began, and the hradani shook his head.
"I'm thinking I've begun to see why himself wasn't after warning you, my lad," he said. "You've a way of going at things without thinking at all, at all, don't you just?" Vaijon opened his mouth again, but the hradani gave him a gentle shake.
"Stop now, and take it slow," he advised. "I've no doubt the notion comes as a shock, but old Evark told you true, you see."
"Told me-?" Vaijon froze, and the hradani nodded.
"Aye," he said almost compassionately. "It's sorry I am to be telling you this, Vaijon of Almerhas, but my name is Bahzell, son of Bahnak, Lord of Clan Iron Axe of the Horse Stealer hradani and Prince of Hurgrum, and it's me you're after meeting."
"Y-you're a-a cham-?" Vaijon couldn't force the words out of his mouth as he stared in horrified disbelief, all color draining out of his face, and the enormous hradani nodded gently.
Chapter Two
It couldn't be true. Vaijon knew it couldn't, yet something in the hradani's eyes, something in the timbre of his voice, whispered otherwise. But that had to be Vaijon's imagination. Tomanāk had no hradani champions. The very idea was… was… It was blasphemous, that was what it was!
He started to stay so, then stopped and fought to think his way through the impossibility. As a knight of the Order, he was honor bound to challenge any who falsely claimed membership in it, and the thought of matching himself against the hradani didn't worry him particularly, despite the other's size. He worked out daily with the Belhadan chapter's best trainers, even in midwinter; none had ever bested him, and big as the hradani was, he had to be slow, especially with any weapon as ponderous as the two-handed sword he wore across his back. But Vaijon couldn't issue challenge without proof the other had lied, and until he had that proof, his own honor required him to treat the hradani with the same courtesy he would show an honest man.
"Forgive me, sir," he said finally, "but since the master of my chapter house was unable to give me either the name or the description of the one I was sent to meet, I must seek some proof of identity."
He was rather pleased by how close to normally that had come out, but the hradani's unflustered nod puzzled him. There was no defensiveness in it, and he held his empty right hand out in front of him. Vaijon felt his eyebrows rise in confusion as the other flexed his fingers, and then that earthquake voice uttered a single word.
"Come," it said quietly, almost coaxingly, and Vaijon of Almerhas jumped straight backward in astonishment as five feet of burnished steel leapt into existence. One instant the hradani's hand was empty; the next the sword which had been on his back was in his grip, flashing with razor-edged wickedness in the morning light.
Vaijon's backwards stumble ended with him half-crouched, eyes huge while a panic no opponent had ever waked pulsed within him. But the hradani only looked at him with those same compassionate eyes and lowered his blade until its tip touched the deck before him, then turned it so Vaijon could see it clearly. The knight quivered, still lingering on the edge of that totally unexpected panic, but then he sucked in air and forced himself back under control. He was a knight of the Order of Tomanāk , and whatever else he might be, he was no coward. And so he reexerted his self-mastery and looked at the sword, then leaned abruptly forward, blue eyes wide once more as he stared at the crossed mace and sword etched deep into the blade below the quillons.
A profound silence stretched out. Vaijon had never actually seen a Sword of Tomanāk . Such a blade was the ultimate emblem of the Order, a weapon only the mightiest of champions might bear and the symbol of the obedience every member of the Order owed to its bearer. Even among champions such blades were vanishingly rare, for they came only from the hands of Tomanāk Himself, and He bestowed them only upon those who had proven themselves worthy to stand at His own side in battle. But rare though they might be, every servant of the Order, down to the rawest squire, knew each was imbued with its own special powers, and what the hradani had just done combined with the burnished, unmarred and unmarrable perfection of the sword's blade and those perfectly formed emblems of Tomanāk to tell Vaijon exactly what he looked upon.
For an instant, he looked whiter than the snow behind him, despite his weathered complexion, but then the color came back in a scalding flood of scarlet. It was still impossible. His emotions insisted that this hradani couldn't possibly be a champion of Tomanāk . Yet his intellect knew better… and that he'd made a colossal fool of himself into the bargain.