“I thought,” she said between gritted teeth as she wiped blood from the wound, “that I told you two not to get into any brawls!”

Chapter Nineteen

The landlord astonished Bahzell. He summoned the Guard, but, despite the carnage, he didn’t even consider turning his unchancy guests out.

Some of that might have been because of the bouncer. The brothers had a brisk discussion while they awaited the Guard’s arrival, and it turned even brisker when the bouncer bent and ripped open a dead man’s smock to bare his left shoulder. Bahzell watched them bend over the corpse while Zarantha set neat, painful stitches in his gashed cheek, then touched her gently on the shoulder and crossed the sawdust to them.

“My thanks, friend,” he rumbled to the bouncer, and the man shrugged.

“It’s my job to keep people from being murdered in the taproom.”

“Aye, that may well be, but I’m thinking it was more than your job to get involved against those odds for folk you don’t know.” Bahzell clasped his forearm. “My name is Bahzell Bahnakson, of Hurgrum, and if there’s ever aught I or anyone from Hurgrum can be doing for you, be pleased to let me know it.”

“I may just do that, friend Bahzell,” the bouncer said with a tight smile, “and while we’re naming names, I’m Talamar Ratherson, and this-” he jabbed a thumb at the landlord “-is my brother Alwith.”

“It’s pleased I am to know you both.” Bahzell clasped Alwith’s arm in turn, and the landlord gripped back, but there was a worried light in his eyes.

“I’d say you’ve an enemy somewhere,” Talamar went on, pointing to the body, and Bahzell’s ears flattened as he saw the scarlet scorpion tattoo.

“Aye, it seems I have that,” he said softly, and his mind raced. Dog brothers set on to assassinate Kilthan might make some sort of sense, despite the risk, but why should they try to kill him now that he was no longer even in the dwarf’s employ? Unless . . .

“What’s this?” Brandark had hobbled over and stood beside him, glowering down at the tattoo.

“Now, I’m thinking you’re a clever enough lad to know that as well as I,” Bahzell murmured, kneading his wounded left arm, and his face was grim.

“But why-?” Brandark paused with a frown. “Phrobus take it, were they after you the whole time?”

“If you can be finding another reason for all this-” Bahzell waved at the carnage “-it’s more than happy I’ll be to hear it.”

“Um.” Brandark pulled on his nose in thought, then shook his head. “It does make a sort of sense, you know. Everyone assumed they were after Kilthan, but you were with him each time they tried an ambush, and that fireship in Malgas would have fried your tripes right along with his.”

“Aye, so I was, and so it would. And I’m thinking, Brandark my lad, that there’s only one reason to be sending dog brothers after me.”

“Harnak,” Brandark agreed grimly.

“Or Churnazh. Either of ’em would piss on my grave and be glad to do it. But how would one of them be knowing how to set dog brothers on me?”

“A point,” Brandark murmured. “Definitely a point. Not even Churnazh would let Sharna’s get into Navahk-not when they might be used against him .”

“True.” Bahzell stopped kneading his arm and glanced sideways at his friend. “Would you be thinking what I am? That that sick bastard Harnak might be a bit sicker even than we’d thought?”

“I don’t like it, but it makes sense.” Brandark sighed. “Wonderful. Hundreds of leagues yet to go, and dog brothers on our track!”

“Well, as to that, we may just end up costing them enough they decide to give over,” Bahzell rumbled with a bleak smile. “Sixteen here, fifteen in Saramfal . . . that’s after being a lot of dead men, Brandark. How many funerals d’you think Harnak has gold enough to pay for?”

“I wouldn’t count on that, friend.” Talamar traced the sign of the War God’s mace, and the hradani winced at the reminder. “Tomanāk knows no decent man has any use for such as this,” Talamar’s toe prodded the body, “but this I will say: once the dog brothers take a man’s gold, they do the job. They have to, if they want their reputation to stand.”

“They do it if they can ,” Bahzell corrected grimly, “and I’m thinking this time they’ve bitten off a mite more than they’ll like chewing.” He shook himself and looked at Alwith. “But be that as it may, we’d no notion of bringing trouble like this down on your house. It’s in my mind we should be gone before we bring you more grief.”

The landlord looked like he wanted to agree but shook his head firmly, and his brother echoed the refusal.

“You’ve paid your shot,” Talamar said. “You’re under the protection of our roof, and your friend’s too sick to be out on a night like this. Besides, Tomanāk wouldn’t like it if we threw you out.”

“I’m not talking of throwing out,” Bahzell objected, “but of leaving of our own will.” He liked the thought of taking Tothas back out into the wet no more than Talamar did, yet this was his trouble, not the Angcarans’. There was no reason for them to mix in it-and he owed Talamar for saving his life. It would be poor gratitude to get him killed in thanks, and Talamar’s repeated references to Tomanāk only made it worse, for it felt like another “bribe,” and this was no empty cave. It was something that could cost lives.

“It doesn’t matter,” Talamar said firmly. “The Sword God knows only one way to deal with scum like this, and it would dishonor us to let you face them alone with both of you hurt and a sick man on your hands to boot.”

“Talamar’s right.” Alwith still looked unhappy, but his voice was just as firm, and Bahzell studied both brothers’ faces.

It made no sense. He and Brandark had learned only too well how most of the world regarded hradani, and they’d brought the Assassins Guild down on The Laughing God. It was only Norfram’s own luck neither brother nor any of their patrons had been killed. Talamar’s warning had already saved his life-not to mention how the Angcaran had fought at his side-which was more than ample repayment for the cost of their food and lodging, and Bahzell was offering to leave. Yet they were arguing with him, the both of them, and they actually sounded as if they meant it.

“Well, then,” he said finally, his deep voice soft, “if you’re daft enough to mean that, there’s naught for me to do but thank you once again.”

The City Guard wasn’t happy when it finally arrived, for Angcar was an orderly place. The city fathers frowned on battles in a public inn at the best of times, and sixteen dead was a dismaying body count, even when the Guard didn’t find two hradani in the midst of the carnage.

By the time it arrived in the person of one Captain Deskhan, however, the patrons who hadn’t taken to their heels had reemerged from under the tables. The musician who’d caught up Brandark’s balalaika had returned it, and he and the Bloody Sword sat in a corner, with the Angcaran keeping time on a small hand drum while the hradani plucked out a melody. Alwith had ordered ale all round on the house, and the witnesses were prepared to wax vehement in the hradani’s defense. In fact, four or five of them illustrated every gory moment of the encounter in graphic pantomime, and the baffled Deskhan had no choice but to accept that whatever had happened, the hradani hadn’t started it.

He departed at last with a wagonload of dead assassins and a grudging verdict of self-defense, and Talamar stood in the inn door and waved farewell with a cheeriness that astonished Bahzell.

“I’m thinking that’s an unhappy man yonder. How likely is it he’ll be after making trouble for you out of this?”

“Oh, not very.” Talamar shrugged. “He doesn’t like it, but he’ll cool off once you folk leave. Besides, he’s as little liking for dog brothers as the next man, and he can use this tale to astonish people for years.”