But then Bahzell closed his eyes, shook himself, and exhaled noisily. When he looked back at Brandark once more the sick, hungry fury of the Rage had been banished from his eyes, and he took his hand from his dagger. Brandark said nothing, but the Horse Stealer needed no words to read the thoughts behind his eyes, and he chuckled harshly.
"Aye, it was after being 'specific,' right enough," he agreed, "and the fool not even guessing how close he'd come to seeing his guts spilled on the floor before him, either!" He bared his strong, white teeth. "It was near as near, Brandark—that close—" he raised his hand, holding index finger and thumb a bare quarter-inch apart "and but for himself, I'm thinking I'd've—"
He stopped himself and shook his head.
"No, let's be honest amongst ourselves. But for himself I'd not've stopped myself. I'd've killed the sanctimonious, smiling bastard and laughed... and wouldn't that have been proving as how they'd all been right to think us savages?"
"Don't blame yourself too much," Brandark said quietly, his voice for once devoid of humor. "The Rage can take even the best of us, Bahzell. You know that as well as I."
"Aye, aye." Bahzell turned his eyes back to the hearth and shrugged, but his voice was low. "Yet I'd hoped when himself told us how it was changing I'd not have to be facing it again—not in the old way. Yet there it was, like red murder in my soul, and the hunger of it. The need just to be reaching out and taking him by the neck and—"
He shuddered again, then stood completely motionless for almost a minute. Then he tossed his head and turned to his friend once more, and this time his smile was almost natural.
"Still and all, himself was never after promising us it would be easy, was he now? And I'm thinking he was also after warning us the old Rage lingers yet, so like as not it was naught but foolish pride made me think as how it might not be waiting for me these days, hey? And while I'd sooner not come any closer to it than I've done already, it's in my mind that himself is after thinking up something for me to be doing here, which means I can't be off before I've done it... whatever it is. On the other hand, cursed if I know what it is. And himself's not after making so very free with his little 'visits,' either," he added wryly, then chuckled. "Now there's a thing I'd not thought myself likely to be missing!"
"I feel sure he'll get back around to confiding in you," Brandark said dryly, as relieved as his friend by the change of topic.
"Oh, like enough," Bahzell agreed, turning back to the table and seating himself once more. "The problem is I'm not so very comfortable in my mind about waiting for the boot to fall, you see. I've the notion that when it does, there's someone as won't like it overmuch, and experience has a nasty way of suggesting the someone's me, like enough."
"Good!" Brandark said, and grinned as his friend looked up quickly. "I'm working on another verse for The Lay of Bahzell Bloody-Hand," the Bloody Sword explained, "and the interesting things that happen to you always provide plenty of inspiration."
"Now just you be holding up there! I thought you'd given over on that curst song!"
"Oh, I meant to, Bahzell. I truly meant to. But then we got here and I saw how your own brethren in the Order have failed to appreciate your towering nobility. Surely you see that it's my duty to repair that dreadful injustice." Brandark struck a rousing chord on his balalaika, grinning devilishly, and Bahzell glowered at him.
"What I'm seeing," the Horse Stealer said grimly, "is that I've waited overlong in wringing your scrawny neck! Not," he added, "but what that can't be seen to easy enough still some dark night."
"Why, Bahzell! What would Sir Charrow think if he could hear you now?" Brandark demanded with a gurgle of laughter.
"He'll cheer me on, like as not, if you've been after spreading that song of yours about," Bahzell shot back, then stabbed the Bloody Sword with suddenly suspicious eyes. "You have been spreading it about, haven't you?" he demanded.
"Well, it has proved quite popular down at the Seaman's Rest," Brandark admitted. "And at the Anchor and Trident. And, now that I think of it, I do believe they asked for an encore at the Flying Lady night before last, and Estervald—he's the resident harpist at the Jeweled Horse—wants to know when the new verse will be finished."
"I have waited overlong." Bahzell groaned, and Brandark laughed again. However dreadful his singing voice or the doggerel his efforts at verse normally produced, even his worst enemies—perhaps especially his enemies—would admit he had a gift for satire, and The Lay of Bahzell Bloody-Hand was his personal gift to his towering friend. Unfortunately, from Bahzell's viewpoint, he'd chosen to set it to the melody of a much beloved and depressingly easy to remember drinking song.
"I don't really see your problem, Bahzell," he said now, his tone insufferably prim. "It's not as if the song insults you in any way!"
"No, and if one tenth of what it claims was after being true, I'd be the biggest ninny on the face of Norfressa!"
"Why, Bahzell! How can you say that? I'll have you know that no one could possibly doubt that you're a very perfect paladin after hearing my song! Your nobility of character, your selfless determination to rescue maidens, your fearless resolve when facing demons or devils, your—"
"One more word—one more!—and I'll crack your skull this minute!" Bahzell told him, and Brandark shut his mouth with a grin.
Sir Vaijon of Almerhas stalked into the chapter house in a black, bleak fury so deep that the door warden physically flinched away from him. In his defense, Vaijon had no idea his rage showed, which was, of course, yet another sign of its seething power. But he knew it was there, and the reasonable part of his mind told him he should take it to Sir Charrow, or perhaps to Sir Ferrik, the chapter's senior priest.
Only he couldn't. He'd done that too often in the last two weeks, and each time, they'd looked at him with that same reproach. Neither had berated him, yet it was obvious both felt the problem was his. That some failing within him created the terrible pressure boiling in his heart and mind whenever he faced the intolerable thought of a hradani champion.
Vaijon had tried. He'd truly tried, spending endless hours watching beside his armor and sword when he should have been asleep, begging the God to help him deal with this insult to the Order. To help him accept the inclusion of a hradani among His brightest blades. He knew other members of the Order were humbly born. Sir Charrow's father had been a brick mason, for Tomanāk's sake! But a hradani? An uncouth barbarian who spoke like a barbarian? Who refused even to allow the Order to knight him in order to regain at least some of the respect it was bound to lose when it became known he was one of its champions? A barbarian who didn't even appear to realize the tremendous honor Sir Charrow had offered to bestow upon him and spoke of the God Himself with such casual disrespect?
And now this! Vaijon's face flushed afresh, and his teeth grated audibly as the song replayed itself in his mind. He hadn't meant to visit the tavern. Such places were for the low born—for seamen and tradesmen and the like—but he and Sir Yorhus had been returning from an errand to Captain Hardian, who commanded the cruisers the Order maintained here in Belhadan, when he'd heard the name "Bahzell Bloody-Hand" in the snatch of song floating out the briefly opened doors and known he had no choice. He and Sir Yorhus had stepped into the establishment, wrapping themselves in their cloaks and hoping no one would note the Order's arms on their surcoats, and stood in the back to listen—first with astonishment, then with incredulity, and finally with horror and outrage.
It mocked the Order! It mocked everything the Order stood for, and all in the name of that uncivilized dolt. Saving serving girls from the "foul attentions" of "ill-favored overlords," indeed! And that business about rescuing noblewomen disguised as peasants—as if things like that truly happened! And fighting demons and evil princes with cursed swords, for Tomanāk's sake! Why, the Empire hadn't seen a proved demon sighting in over forty years! It would have been bad enough, Phrobus take it, if the song had treated it all with proper dignity, but this—! One of the bards at his father's high table might have sung such mythic deeds properly, to teach and inspire, even though all who heard his song would know it was myth. But this... this... this ditty had the sheer effrontery to suggest such things had really happened, to give Bahzell credit for them by name, and to do it all as if it were some sort of game! As if someone who claimed to be a champion of Tomanāk were no more than a topic for sport!