"Then Chavâk is wrong, and I see indeed why Tomanāk was seeking you, Bahzell Bahnakson," he said, the words deeply formal despite the emotion that choked his voice, "and I owe you more than ever man could hope to repay. For first you saved my Farmah's life, and then you sent her here for me to meet and love, and then you slew the black-hearted bastard who hurt her, and now you've bidden me join you to take vengeance on the like of him, and for that alone would I owe you my life. But for this—" He drew a deep, shuddering breath. "For telling my people this, I owe you more than life, and I beg that you will be taking me as your charkanahd , in the ancient way of our folk."

Someone drew a hissing breath. The oath of charkanahd was the most solemn any hradani could swear. Some foreign scholars, who thought the ancient word was purely hradani, translated it simply as "armsman," but they were wrong. Other scholars, more familiar with the dead languages of fallen Kontovar, could have told them that it meant literally "death sworn," but only the hradani still remembered what it had once implied. What it still implied and meant to them.

Hurthang had just offered Bahzell all he was—all he could ever be. Not simply his service, and not even simply his sword in battle. Those things came with the oath of charkanahd , but they were the easy part, the reason "scholars" who knew no better used "armsman" as its equivalent. True charkanahd cut far deeper, for it superseded all other oaths, all other loyalties. It renounced any other claim upon the loyalty of the man who swore it, and he gave his liege lord his very life. More than that, he gave his lord the moment of his own death—the right and power to choose the place and time at which he would lay down the life which no longer belonged to him, without question or hesitation.

But Bahzell only rested a hand gently on his cousin's bowed head and shook his own.

"No, Hurthang," he said softly. "You're not owing me a single thing, for whatever I did, I did because I chose to, and because I couldn't just be turning away and pretending I didn't know what was needful to do, and I've no need for charkanahd . But I do need sword brothers, and if I can't be taking your oath, I know someone as can."

Hurthang looked up, and his eyes went huge, for a corona of blue brilliance crackled about Bahzell. It clung to him, outlining him in azure lightning, and his voice was no longer his alone. There was another timbre to it, deeper even than his own, and powerful, like the beat of heavy cavalry charging through a battle dawn. All around the map room, men sank to their knees before the majesty flowing out of him, and even as they knelt, they knew it was not truly Bahzell Bahnakson they beheld. Or, rather, that it was not solely him. And as that realization ran through them, they also realized that all he had told them—about Sharnā, about his own ability to sense the Dark God's lair and seek it out, and above all about the Rage—was true. Bone-deep, unquestionably true. As Hurthang, they recognized in that instant the enormity of the gift Bahzell—and Tomanāk —had given them. Of the vast change which had come into their lives, and the fact that nothing would ever be the same again.

"I'm thinking I see another reason himself was sending me here now," Bahzell said, still in that voice which was his and yet was not. "I'll not take your oaths for myself, Sword Brothers, but it's in my mind that any chapter of Tomanāk's Order has to be starting somewhere." He smiled, and a ripple of laughter like joyous trumpets seemed to shiver and dance behind his words. "No doubt there's many a fine lord will be a mite upset when he learns as how himself's been and created an entire chapter of blood-thirsty barbarian hradani, Brothers, but they'd best be getting over it as quick as ever they can, for I've the strangest notion there's worse to come for 'em than that!"

Laughter answered him from the kneeling warriors, breathless and yet somehow reverent, and he looked out over them.

"Will you swear Sword Oath to Tomanāk , as his warriors and members of his Order, Brothers?" he asked, and steel whispered and sang throughout the map room as every Horse Stealer warrior in it drew sword or axe and held it up before him.