"You can't bluff us, hradani!" Haladhan spat. "I don't know where you found this traitor," he sneered at Vaijon, "but you're no more the Order of Tomanāk than I am!"
"Now that's where you're wrong, friend," Bahzell said softly, "and you'd best take me seriously. Aye, we're hradani right enough, the most of us—and Horse Stealers, for the most part, too. But we're also after being the Order of Tomanāk , sword sworn to him when he was after appearing himself in Hurgrum this month past."
"Nonsense!" Haladhan shot back, but there was just the tiniest edge of uncertainty in his tone.
"I'd ask you not to be questioning my word, truce flag or no." Bahzell's voice was mild enough, but his eyes weren't, and Haladhan shifted uneasily and stepped back a half pace without even realizing it. "I've no doubt you're finding that a mite hard to be taking in, yet it's true enough. And it's as a champion of Tomanāk I stand here, Sir Haladhan, to ask you and your Lord Warden by what right you're after bringing war and destruction to those as haven't attacked you... and who you've not declared war upon, either."
"I don't bel—" Haladhan began, then stopped. "You claim to be a champion of Tomanāk ," he went on in a slightly less caustic tone. "I... find that difficult to believe. And even if it were true, you have no right to question Sir Mathian's actions."
"I'm having every right there is," Bahzell told him flatly. "Both as a hradani, who's after seeing a hostile army marching against his folk; and as a son of Prince Bahnak of Hurgrum, who's a duty to guard his people; and most of all, as a champion of Tomanāk sworn to protect the weak and the helpless from those as think there's honor in murdering women and children while their own warriors are away."
Haladhan flushed, and his eyes fell for the first time. But he shook the moment off and summoned up a fresh glare.
"That sounds very fine, hradani, but Sothōii women and children have been murdered by hradani in their time!"
"So they have, and if you're minded to be keeping the slaughter going, you're a fool," Bahzell said dispassionately.
"Oh, no." Haladhan's voice was cold. "We have no intention at all of keeping the slaughter going. We mean to end it, once and for all!"
"Ah?" Bahzell cocked his head, eyes cold. "So this is what the Sothōii are after coming to, is it now? A pack of cowards and murderers—brave enough to be burning down farms and towns and butchering them as can't fight back, but only when those as might have protected them are safe out of their way!"
"How dare you talk to—" Haladhan began furiously, but Bahzell slashed a hand through the air, cutting him short.
"It's not after sounding so pretty put that way, is it now?" he asked softly. "It may be you'd not thought of it in just those words, Sir Haladhan Deepcrag, but just you be thinking on them now, for that's the truth of it. You may not believe me a champion of Tomanāk , but be that how it may, just you be asking yourself what Tomanāk would be saying to such as you and your precious Lord Warden are having in mind to do here."
"I—" Haladhan stopped himself, glaring at Bahzell, then spat on the ground. "That for you—and for Tomanāk , too!" he snarled. " 'Women and children,' is it? Well, nits make lice, hradani, and we've suffered your kind too long as it is!"
"I see." Bahzell gazed down at the furious young knight, then swept his companions with his eyes. "Hear me now, all of you," he said finally, his deep voice flat, "for I'll say this only the once. The lot of you can be turning around and marching back up the Gullet, and no harm done. Or you can be staying right where you are, and again, no harm done. But you'll not go another furlong down this trail without you come through us, and whether you're minded to admit it or no, we are the Order of Tomanāk . I've no doubt you can kill us all, for we're but his servants, and mortal enough, the lot of us. But you'll not find it so easy as you may be thinking, and himself—and the rest of the Order—won't be so very pleased to hear as how you've done it. Go back and show you've the sense to turn around, Sir Haladhan... or come ahead and see how many of your own will be dying with us."
He turned and stalked back to Charhan's Despair without another word.
"Well that was a masterpiece of diplomacy," Brandark remarked as Bahzell climbed down the inside of the wall. The Horse Stealer cocked an ear at him, and he shrugged. "Your voice does tend to carry, Bahzell. Tell me, do you think there was any incentive to slaughter us that you didn't give him?"
"As to that, I doubt he'd any need of incentive I might have been giving him," Bahzell replied. "And it was plain enough he'd no interest at all, at all, in talking his way to anything else. But he's not after being the commander of those lads, either, and he wasn't alone. I'm thinking as how that older fellow will be one as makes sure whoever is in command is after getting the whole tale. But if they're so set on slaughtering hradani they're minded to take on the Order to do it, then there's not an argument in all the world that I could be making as would stop them, now is there?"
"I suppose not," Brandark admitted. He stood gazing out over the wall, rubbing the tip of his cropped ear while the sun sank still lower and the shadows deepened. "I do wish I could hear how their commander reacts to your version of diplomacy when he hears it, though," he said finally.
"Those bastards! Those thieving, murderous, lying, Phrobus-damned bastards!" Sir Mathian slammed his gauntleted fist against the hilt of his sabre, and his face was twisted with rage. "How dare they threaten me—us!"
Sir Festian glanced sideways at Sir Kelthys. The facts in Haladhan's version of the parley had been accurate enough, but the marshal had allowed contempt and hatred to color his report. In his turn, Festian had tried to soften the more vitriolic of Haladhan's remarks. He'd had to proceed carefully, though, and while he was confident he'd recounted the entire conversation accurately, he hadn't been at all sure Mathian had bothered to listen to him.
Now he was sure the Lord Warden hadn't. He knew the signs, and his stomach tightened as he watched Mathian working himself up into a towering fury.
"I'll kill them all!" he shouted. "I'll kill every murderous one of the bastards, and then I'll burn their stinking towns to the ground! I'll—"
"A moment, Milord." Kelthys' voice was so calm that Mathian's mouth snapped shut in astonishment. He wheeled to face the wind rider, interrupted in mid-tirade, and Kelthys shrugged. "I understand your anger, Milord, just as I understand why you wish to insure the hradani are never able to threaten the Kingdom. But even so, I think it behooves us to at least consider the possibility that this Bahzell is telling the truth."
"The truth? You think a hradani could be telling the truth when he claims to be a champion of Tomanāk ?"
"I think all things are possible—theoretically, at least, Milord," Kelthys said serenely. "The priests and philosophers would have us believe so, at any rate. Some are more probable than others, no doubt, and I must confess that, as you, I find the thought of a hradani champion less likely than most. But I also doubt that many men would make such a claim falsely. If Toman?k failed to punish them directly for it, no doubt His Order would do so as soon as it heard."
"The whorseon is lying to stop us from hitting his gods-damned kind while their warriors are away," Mathian said flatly. "Phrobus, Kelthys! He's got no more than two hundred warriors down there. He knows he can't stop us from killing all of them any time we choose to, so of course he's lying! It's a bluff, and nothing more!"
"With all due respect, Milord, I don't think it is," Kelthys said, and now his voice was flat... and loud enough for the other officers clustered around to hear. "I believe we should at least consider the possibility that he's telling us the truth. At the very least, we should not risk arousing the justified anger of the Order of Tomanāk —to which, I remind you, the King's own brother Yurokhas has sworn Sword Oath—without first consulting with Baron Tellian, in whose name we are acting."
Mathian stared at the wind rider, his face bone white, and Festian held his breath. The Lord Warden of Glanharrow ground his teeth, and then he spat on the ground.