"Bahzell and I actually met Chesmirsa, you know," Brandark went on, and the lingering sorrow vanished as his eyes glowed. "It was... . I don't begin to have the words for what it was like, Marglyth. The most wonderful night of my life—the night I truly realized for the first time how much magic there is in the world. Not just what wizards and gods can do, but in here." He tapped his chest. "Inside us. She showed me that, and even when She told me I would never be a bard, She promised She would always be with me. That I would always be at least partly Hers."
He fell silent once more, fingers caressing his instrument, and Marglyth sat very still, listening to the wistful, yearning beauty he coaxed from it. Then he inhaled deeply.
"At any rate, she told me then that I was 'too much Her brother's to be fully Hers. At the time, I assumed she was speaking of Tomanāk , and perhaps she was, in part. But somehow—" He frowned, then shook his head. "Somehow that's not... quite... right. There's something more to it. I just haven't figured out what."
"But they've every one of them accepted you as one of their own," Marglyth said.
"That they have—even if I am a Bloody Sword. But that's between us. Between them and me, not Tomanāk and me."
"So will you be staying with us, then? After the war, I mean?"
"After the war," Brandark murmured, and the balalaika's soft notes were suddenly dark and discordant. He gazed back out over the exercise field, but Marglyth doubted that he actually saw it, and he shook his head slowly, his eyes sad.
"I don't know," he said finally. "I just don't know. You've made me as welcome as Bahzell himself—not just the Order, but your family, as well—but I'm not a Horse Stealer. I'm a Bloody Sword, and when the fighting starts, my father and my brothers and my cousins will be on the other side. I can't fight for a bastard like Churnazh, but they haven't got a choice. So the only way to avoid the risk of finding myself facing one of them across a sword is to not fight against Churnazh, either. Yet I can't just walk away. I have to be here, to know what's happening. So the only place I truly have is with the Order, because Tomanāk Himself has ordered them to remain neutral. But afterward?"
He took his gaze from the exercise field and looked at her levelly.
"I love your brother, Marglyth," he said in a quiet voice. "I won't tell him that, but I imagine he knows. And I respect and admire your father. I agree with what he wants for our people—all our people, not just you Horse Stealers—and he's the only alternative I see to an unending succession of Churnazhes. But if Prince Bahnak wins the war, then my people have to lose it, and however justified I was not to fight alongside them, some of them will never forget—or forgive—the fact that I didn't. And I don't think I can stay here if that's the case. As much as I hate what Churnazh has made of my clan and my city, I'm still Raven Talon, and I'm still Navahkan, and I don't think I can handle being this close to them and... estranged. Do you understand that?"
"Aye, Brandark." She reached out and laid a hand gently on his elbow, and her eyes were soft. "Aye, I can be seeing that, and so will Bahzell, I'm thinking. But do you be remembering this, Brandark Brandarkson. Raven Talon you may be, and Bloody Sword, aye, and even Navahkan, but you're ours now, too, and you've brothers and sisters here in Hurgrum. You go on, if you've a need to, but never be forgetting us, for we'll not forget you, whatever chances."
Chapter Twenty-Eight
"And I'm after telling you that it won't work!"
Hurthang Tharakson slammed a massive fist on the table and glared at his cousin. Other conversations paused as the tankards on the table danced and clattered, and the other members of the chapter broke off their own discussions and turned to watch Hurthang and Bahzell match glares. They sat across from each other in the main hall of the Hurgrum chapter's new chapter house, and their expressions were not cheerful.
"And a useless thing it is to be telling me it won't, too, and no mistake," Bahzell rumbled back in only slightly milder tones. "There's too much Horse Stealer and not enough Tomanāk in your head yet, Hurthang! It's not a matter of will it or won't it, but how best to be making it work!"
"You're daft, man! Stark, staring mad! You're talking Bloody Swords—and Raven Talons to boot!" Hurthang snapped, then had the grace to look embarrassed. He glanced around the big room quickly and heaved a sigh of relief. None of the novice members were present, and Prince Bahnak had asked Brandark to join him to discuss Marglyth's spies' latest information from Navahk. Which was undoubtedly just as well, he reflected, only to have his attention drawn back to Bahzell as his cousin snorted magnificently.
"Fiendark seize me, but the man's been after figuring out a part of it, anyway! Aye, it is Bloody Swords I'm talking of right enough, you rock-pated lump of gristle, and not just Raven Talons! There's Dire Claws and Stone Daggers—aye, and Bone Fists, too! And if you're thinking I'm daft, then I can't but wonder where you'd left those hairy ears of yours when himself was amongst us!"
Hurthang glowered. Bahzell's last sentence had hit home, but it was clear he didn't want it to have, and he was Bahzell's cousin, with a determination to match. He gathered himself once more, shoulders hunching, and leaned forward into the argument once more.
"But—" he began, only to be cut off by a mild tenor.
"You're not going to win, Hurthang," it remarked, and he turned his head sharply. Vaijon gave him a crooked smile and shrugged. "You're a stubborn man, but not as stubborn as Bahzell," Tomanāk's newest champion told him. "No one else is that hardheaded. Besides, this time he's right. The Order must be open to any who feel the call to serve the War God... wherever they come from."
"But—" Hurthang tried again, and Vaijon laughed.
"Give it up," he advised, not unkindly. His Hurgrumese had gotten much better, but he still had to revert to Axeman to make his points most clearly, and here and there other members of the fledgling chapter leaned towards friends to translate.
"Trust me," he went on, "it'll be easier that way. Tomanāk has a way of making His points, especially to people who only continue to argue out of sheer bloody-mindedness. And the stubborner you get, the more... interesting the lesson is when it finally arrives. Believe me, I speak from painful personal experience. You can't possibly be more upset by this than I was at the notion of accepting any hradani as a member of the Order, and look where I wound up!"
He waved a hand at the hall about them, and a rumble of laughter answered the gesture. Hurthang glowered at him for another instant, but the wicked smile Vaijon gave him was too much to resist, and his own lips quirked as the worst of his fury faded.
"Aye, well, it's all very well to be making us laugh, Vaijon," he said much more calmly, "but you've yet to answer my worries. I've no doubt at all, at all, that Himself means for us to be doing just as you say—aye, and Bahzell, too, even if he is stubborn as a pasture full of mules! But there's a war coming, and it's coming on fast. And whatever you may be thinking, or me—or even Bahzell!—there no way to be knowing as how everyone as says he's been called by the Sword God truly has. D'you think for a moment the likes of Churnazh or Halâshu would be turning up their noses at the thought of slipping their spies inside Uncle Bahnak's court by pretending to join the Order?"
"I don't know," Vaijon admitted. He walked across to sit at the same table, and Bahzell leaned back comfortably, content to leave the main burden of the argument to the human. "Of course, right this minute I don't believe we're talking about any 'spies,' either," Vaijon went on thoughtfully, lifting the beer pitcher to pour a mug of his own. "You've met all of the Bloody Sword recruits, Hurthang. D'you think any of them are lying about their desire to join the Order?"
"As to that, no," Hurthang admitted grudgingly. "But they're naught but the first wave, I'm thinking. Aye, and we've not let any of 'em swear Sword Oath, yet, either."