He shouldn't have taken the shortcut.
Bahzell Bahnakson realized that the instant he heard the
sounds drifting down the inky-dark cross corridor. He'd
had to keep to the back ways used only by the palace
servants-and far more numerous slaves-if he wanted to
visit Brandark without the Guard's knowledge, for he was
too visible to come and go openly without being seen. But
he shouldn't have risked the shortcut just to avoid the
more treacherous passages of the old keep.
He stood in an ill-lit hall heavy with the stink of its
sparse torches (the expensive oil lamps were saved for
Churnazh and his "courtiers"), and his mobile, foxlike
ears strained at the faint noises. Then they flattened in
recognition, and he cursed. Such sounds were none of his
business, he told himself, and keeping clear of trouble
was. Besides, they were far from the first screams he'd
heard in Navahk... and there'd been nothing a prince of
rival Hurgrum could do about the others, either.
He squeezed his dagger hilt, and his jaw clenched with the
anger he dared not show his "hosts." Bahzell had never
considered himself squeamish, even for a hradani, but that
was before his father sent him here as an envoy. As a
hostage, really, Bahzell admitted grimly. Prince Bahnak's
army had crushed Navahk and its allies, yet Hurgrum was
only a single city-state. She lacked the manpower to
occupy her enemies' territories, though many a hradani
chieftain would have let his own realm go to ruin by
trying to add the others to it.
But Bahnak was no ordinary chieftain. He knew there could
be no lasting peace while Churnazh lived, yet he was wise
enough to know what would happen if he dispersed his
strength in piecemeal garrisons, each too weak to stand
alone. He could defeat Navahk and its allies in battle; to
conquer them he needed time to bind the allies his present
victories had attracted to him, and he'd bought that time
by tying Churnazh and his cronies up in a tangle of treaty
promises, mutual defense clauses, and contingencies a
Purple Lord would have been hard put to unravel. Half a
dozen mutually suspicious hradani warlords found the task
all but impossible, and to make certain they kept trying
rather than resorting to more direct (and traditional)
means of resolution, Bahnak had insisted on an exchange of
hostages. It was simply Bahzell's ill fortune that Navahk,
as the most powerful of Hurgrum's opponents, was entitled
to a hostage from Hurgrum's royal family.
Bahzell understood, but he wished, just this once, that he
could have avoided the consequences of being Bahnak's son.
Bad enough that he was a Horse Stealer, towering head and
shoulders above the tallest of the Bloody Sword tribes and
instantly identifiable as an outsider. Worse that
Hurgrum's crushing victories had humiliated Navahk, which
made him an instantly hated outsider. Yet both of those
things were only to be expected, and Bahzell could have
lived with them, if only Navahk weren't ruled by Prince
Churnazh, who not only hated Prince Bahnak (and his son),
but despised them as degenerate, over-civilized weaklings,
as well. His cronies and hangers-on aped their prince's
attitude and, predictably, each vied with the other to
prove his contempt was deeper than any of his fellows'.
So far, Bahzell's hostage status had kept daggers out of
his back and his own sword sheathed, but no hradani was
truly suited to the role of diplomat, and Bahzell had come
to suspect he was even less suited than most. It might
have been different somewhere else, but holding himself in
check when Bloody Swords tossed out insults that would
have cost a fellow Horse Stealer blood had worn his temper
thin. He wondered, sometimes, if Churnazh secretly wanted
him to lose control, wanted to drive Bahzell into
succumbing to the Rage in order to free himself from the
humiliating treaties? Or was it possible Churnazh truly
believed his sneer that the Rage had gone out of Hurgrum,
leaving her warriors gutless as water? It was hard to be
sure of anything where the Navahkan was concerned, but two
things were certain as death. He hated and despised Prince
Bahnak, and his contempt for the changes Bahnak had
wrought in Hurgrum was boundless.
That Bahzell understood, after a fashion, for he, too, was
hradani. He understood the craving for battle, the
terrible hot hunger of the Rage, and he shared his
people's disdain for weakness. But he had no use for blind
stupidity, either, and what he couldn't understand was how
Churnazh could continue to think Bahnak a fool. Churnazh
might sneer at Hurgrum as a city of shopkeepers who'd
forgotten how to be warriors, but surely even he didn't
think it had been pure luck that Hurgrum had won every
battle!
Of course, as a lad Bahzell himself had questioned some of
his father's more peculiar notions. What need did a
warrior have of reading and writing or arithmetic? Why
worry about tradesmen and artisans or silly things like
laws governing money-lending or property rights? Where was
the honor in learning to hold formation instead of
charging forward to carve your own glory from the enemy's
ranks? And-despite himself, Bahzell smiled a little in
memory, even now-surely bathing every single week would
ruin a man's constitution!
But he questioned no more. Hurgrum's army hadn't simply
defeated five times its own numbers; it had slaughtered
them and driven their survivors from the field in a
rabble, and it had done so because it fought as a
disciplined unit. Because its maps were accurate and the
commanders of its fast-marching contingents, or at least
their aides, could read the orders their prince sent them
and close in upon their enemies in coordinated attacks.
And because it was uniformly trained, because its warriors
did keep formation and were equipped with weapons of its
own city's manufacture from the hands and forges of
the "shopkeepers" Churnazh despised.
That was a lesson even other Horse Stealers could
appreciate, which explained the new allies Hurgrum was
gathering in, but since seeing Navahk, Bahzell had come to
recognize an even more enduring side of his father's
accomplishments. Prince Bahnak's native city had been bad
enough before he came to power, yet Navahk was worse than
Hurgrum had ever been. Far worse. It was a place of
noisome streets cluttered with garbage, night soil, and
small dead animals, heavy with the stench of unwashed
people and waiting pestilence, all presided over by
swaggering bullies in the colors of the prince who was
supposed to rule his people, not plunder them himself!
But, then, Churnazh had been a common brigand before he
joined the Navahkan army, rose through the ranks, and
seized the throne, and he was proud of the brute strength
that proved his right to rule. Strength Bahzell could
appreciate; weakness was beneath contempt, and he knew his
father couldn't have held his own throne if his warriors
thought for one moment that he was a weakling. But in
Churnazh's eyes, "strength" rested upon terror. His
endless wars had made Navahk the most feared of all the
Bloody Sword cities, yet Navahk herself was terrified of
him... and his five sons were even worse than he.
All of which explained why the last thing a hostage from
Hurgrum had any business doing was standing in this hall
listening to screams and even considering intervening.
Besides, whoever was screaming was only another Bloody
Sword, and, with the noteworthy exception of Brandark,
there wasn't a Bloody Sword worth the time to send him to
Phrobus, much less risk his own life for.
Bahzell told himself that with all the hardheaded
pragmatism he could summon... then swore vilely and
started down the unlit corridor.
Crown Prince Harnak grinned as he smashed his fist into
Farmah's face yet again. Her gagged scream was weaker and
less satisfying than it had been, but his metal-reinforced
gauntlet cut fresh, bleeding gashes, and he felt a sensual
thrill of power even greater than he'd felt when he raped
her.
He let her slip to the floor, let her try to crawl away
with her arms bound behind her, then kicked her in the
ribs. The shredded chemise wadded into her mouth muffled
her gurgling shriek as his boot smashed her into the stone
wall, and he laughed. The bitch. Thought she was too good
for a prince of the blood, did she? Well, she'd learned
better now, hadn't she?
He watched her curl in a beaten ball and savored her
hopeless terror. Rape was the one crime that might turn
even his father's men against him, but no one would ever
know who'd had this slut. When they found her body and saw
all the things he'd done-and still looked forward to doing-
they'd assume exactly what he wanted: that someone taken
by the Rage's blood frenzy had slaughtered her like a sow,
and-
An abrupt explosion of rending wood shattered his hungry
anticipation and snatched him around in shock. The long
abandoned sleeping chamber's locked door was thick, as
stout and well built as any door in Navahk was likely to
be, but its latch simply disappeared in a cloud of
splinters, and the door itself slammed back against the
wall so hard one iron hinge snapped. Harnak jumped back in
instant panic, mind already racing for a way to bribe or
threaten his way out of the consequences of discovery, but
then his eyes widened as he saw who stood in the opening.
That towering figure could not be mistaken for anyone
else, but it was alone, and Harnak snarled in contemptuous
relief as the intruder glanced at the naked, battered girl
huddled against the wall. Big he might be, but Bahzell of
Hurgrum was no threat. The puling, puking coward had
hidden behind his "hostage" status for over two years,
swallowing insults no warrior would let pass... and he was
armed only with a dagger, while Harnak's sword lay ready
on the rotting bed. Bahzell would never raise his hand to
the heir to Navahk's throne-especially if it meant
matching eighteen inches of steel against forty!-and even
if he carried the tale to others, no one in Navahk would
dare take his word over that of a prince of the blood.
Particularly if Harnak saw to it that Farmah had vanished
before the Horse Stealer could get back with help. He
straightened his back with an automatic, arrogant snarl,
gathering his scattered wits to order the intruder out,
but the words died unspoken as Bahzell's eyes moved back
to him. There was something in them Harnak had never seen
before... and Bahzell wasn't stopping in the doorway.
A ball of ice froze in Harnak's belly. He had time to feel
one sudden stab of terror, to abandon his swaggering
posture and leap desperately for his sword, and then an
iron clamp seized him by the throat. Shouting for help
would have done him no good-he'd chosen this spot so no
one would hear his victim's screams-but he never got the
chance to try, for his cry died in a wheezing gurgle as
the clamp lifted his toes from the floor. He writhed and
choked, beating at Bahzell's wrist with his gauntleted
hands, and then another hand-not a clamp, this one, but a
spiked mace-crashed into his belly.
Harnak screamed as three ribs snapped. The sound was faint
and strangled... and dwarfed by the sound he made when a
knee like a tree trunk smashed up between his legs.
His world vanished in agony so great he hardly noticed the
mace crashing into his belly again. And then again and
again and again. But he retained enough awareness to
realize what was happening as Bahzell released his throat
at last. The choking hand clasped the nape of his neck
instead. Another hand caught his belt, and Crown Prince
Harnak of Navahk screamed in terror... until he smashed
face-first into the dirty little chamber's wall and the
impact cut his shriek off like a knife.
He oozed down the stone, smearing it with red, and Bahzell
snarled and started forward to finish the job. The Horse
Stealer's muscles quivered as fury snapped and sputtered
through them, but sanity still flickered, and he made
himself stop. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply,
fighting back the red haze. It wasn't easy, but the
killing madness ebbed without quite passing over into the
Rage, and he shook himself. He opened his eyes once more
and looked down, grimacing at the knuckles he'd split on
his enemy's metal-studded leather jerkin, then turned to
Harnak's latest victim.
She writhed away in terror, too battered and beaten to
realize he wasn't Harnak, but then she felt the gentleness
of his touch and whimpered.
"There, lass. There," he murmured, bitterly aware of how
useless the soothing sounds were yet making them anyway,
and her frantic struggles eased. One eye opened, staring
fearfully up at him, but the other was swollen shut, and
the cheek below it was clearly broken.
He touched her hair gently, and disgust filled him as he
recognized her cut and bloody face. Farmah. Who but Harnak-
or his brothers-would rape a mere girl supposedly under
his own father's protection?
He lifted her, and bleak hate filled his eyes at her pain
sound when broken ribs shifted. Her hands were bound
behind her, and fresh contempt snarled through him as he
recalled Harnak's swaggering bluster about courage and
hardihood. Courage, it seemed, required a "warrior" to
bind a teenaged girl half his size to be certain she was
helpless before he raped her and beat her bloody!
He eased her into a sitting position on a battered old
chest against the wall. It was filthy, but the only other
furnishing was the bed Harnak had raped her upon. She
shuddered in terror and pain, yet she leaned forward to
help as he cut the cord that had flayed her wrists raw and
plucked the wad of cloth from her mouth. Returning
intelligence flickered in her good eye. "Thank you,
M'lord," she whispered. "Thank you!"
Her hand rose and squeezed his wrist with surprising
strength. Or perhaps not so surprising, for she, too, was
hradani, however slim and delicate she might be compared
to Bahzell.
"Hush, girl. Don't be thanking me," Bahzell rumbled, and
looked away from her nakedness in sudden embarrassment. He
spied Harnak's discarded cloak and scooped it up, averting
his eyes as he held it out to her, and her sound as she
took it was trapped between a sob of pain and shame and a
strange, twisted ghost of a laugh.
It snarled deep inside Bahzell, that sound, striking fresh
sparks of fury. He bought a few moments to reassert
control by ripping a length of cloth from Harnak's none
too clean shirt and wrapping it around his bleeding
knuckles, but the delay was little help, and his hand
itched for his dagger once more as he glared down at
Harnak. Rape. The one crime not even the Rage could
excuse, even in Navahk.