Unfortunately, Bahzell clearly wanted Brandark along, and the smaller hradani equally obviously saw no reason why he shouldn't come. And so, yet again, Vaijon found himself doing something he was positive he ought not to do at the unspoken behest of the totally unsuitable creature Tomanāk had seen fit to choose as His champion.

That thought carried him into the library, where Sir Charrow sat beside a crackling coal fire. Despite the large chamber's lofty dimensions, the hot air flowing from furnaces in the cellar through the vents of the hypocaust hidden under the stone floor and buried in the walls went far to drive off the chill. But the fire on the hearth was still welcome, particularly to Sir Charrow. The Belhadan master remained fit enough to hold his own in the field at need, yet there was no denying that he'd slowed with age, and he felt the cold more keenly than once he had.

Now he looked up from the tongs he held in one scarred, sinewy hand, and the fresh coal he'd positioned in the flames crackled wildly as he smiled at his guests.

"Thank you for coming, my lords," he said. "Please—be seated."

The library's walls were lined with high bookshelves, and a second-floor-level balcony ran around them to give access to still more shelf space. As a result, the ceiling was far higher than that of Sir Charrow's study, and it was obvious he'd used the intervening hour to make some preparations of his own. The chair to which he waved Brandark was no different from the one in which he himself sat, although the Bloody Sword filled a seat which made most humans look undersized just about to capacity. But no one in Belhadan had ever built a chair to Bahzell Bahnakson's stature, and so Charrow had ordered a cushioned, high-backed bench brought in to replace the chairs on the other side of the polished table by the library's diamond-paned windows. It was a little low for the Horse Stealer's long legs, but it had been built for several pages to sit abreast while awaiting the summons to duty, so at least it didn't squeeze in on him from the sides.

"We're pleased to be asked," Bahzell replied as he took his seat, "but if it's all the same to you, I'm thinking Brandark is as wishful as I that you'd be after leaving aside the 'sirs' and 'my lords.' "

"But I—" Charrow began, then stopped. "Very well, my friends. If that's truly how you prefer to be addressed, it's certainly not my place to argue with you. Besides—" he chuckled dryly "—traditionally, champions of Tomanāk are noted for their... um, determination."

"You mean rock-headed, stiff-necked, bloody-minded obstinacy, don't you, Sir Charrow?" Brandark asked politely, and the white-haired knight-captain laughed.

"Of course not, Mi— Brandark. It would be most improper for me to say such things about a champion!"

"I see." Brandark's eyes laughed at Bahzell, and he tilted his ears impudently. "Fortunately, it's not at all 'improper' for me to describe him accurately."

"That's as may be, little man," Bahzell rumbled, "but just you be thinking about all the nasty accidents as might befall a man too busy working his mouth to watch where he's walking."

"Oh, I will. I will," Brandark promised with a laugh, then looked back to Charrow. "But I believe you'd invited us to join you so that you could explain the Order of Tomanāk to this anointed lout of yours?"

Beside Charrow, Vaijon felt his hands close into fists behind him. He didn't care at all for the mocking levity with which these two addressed Sir Charrow, even if Sir Charrow did seem perfectly comfortable with it. And despite his own doubts about hradani champions—or perhaps because of them—hearing Brandark describe Bahzell as "this anointed lout" was infuriating. Yet no one but him seemed to care, and he forced himself to stand calmly erect beside the chapter master's chair.

"So I did." Charrow leaned forward to pour wine into wrought silver goblets and passed one to each hradani, then poured a third for himself and leaned back in his chair.

"If you will, Bahzell," he went on, sounding almost comfortable using the bare name without honorifics this time, "I thought it would be wise to give you a quick, brief description of the Order. I'm sure you'll have questions about the details, but I'd like to lay a broad foundation for them first. Does that sound acceptable to you?"

"Aye," Bahzell said. The single word came out just a bit shortly, as if he found the older man's continual deference an uncomfortable fit.

"Very well, then. Essentially, the Order was established shortly after the Fall—initially in the old Kingdom of the Axe, at Manhome, though we now have chapters in many lands—as the secular arm of the Church. There are, in fact, suggestions in our earliest records that the Order had existed in Kontovar for thousands of years before the Fall, but as with so many other institutions, the Church lost by far the greater part of its written history during the flight to Norfressa. We cannot be sure if the 'Brothers of the Sword' which historians tell us held the Anvil of Tomanāk in Kontovar to the very end were, in fact, members of the Order which we still serve. We would like to believe that they were, but we have no proof."

He paused for a moment to sip wine and gaze into the flames seething on the hearth, then shrugged.

"Be that as it may, the organization—or re organization—of the Order in Norfressa took many years. There was enormous confusion in those early days, of course, with refugees flooding in from Kontovar and Duke Kormak trying frantically to find places just to put them all."

"Aye, so I've been told," Bahzell rumbled, and his deep voice was dark, almost cold. Charrow looked up quickly, and the hradani shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "Ah, don't be fretting yourself," he said. "It's just that hradani have little enough use for your Duke Kormak. I've no doubt at all, at all, that he was a good man, after doing the best he could, but never a single thing did he do for our folk. Saving, of course, to order our throats slit if we were after washing up on his coast."

"Bahzell, I—" Charrow began in a troubled tone, but the hradani waved a hand.

"Don't fret yourself, I said, and meant it," he said in a more normal voice. "What happened twelve hundred years and more ago bears small enough weight today. Aye, and truth to tell, I was no more there then than you or Kormak's heirs. Let the past be burying the past."

"I— All right." Charrow paused a moment longer, then resumed. "At any rate, it took us quite some time to get organized, and, as I say, the Manhome chapter, as the first founded, is the Mother Chapter even today, although our administrative headquarters were transferred to Axe Hallow when the royal and imperial capital moved there. We're not the largest chivalric order in the Empire, but we are the oldest, and, unlike most of the others, our membership is open to anyone who hears the God's voice and proves worthy to serve Him. Which, as a rule—" he darted a sudden, eagle-eyed glance at the Horse Stealer "—includes His champions."

"Ah?" Bahzell asked mildly.

"Ah, indeed," Charrow replied in dust-dry tones. "There have been a handful of exceptions, over the centuries, but for the most part, the God chooses His champions from within the Order. Nothing requires Him to restrict His choices to our membership, of course. He's a god, and we serve Him . We certainly don't sit around telling Him what to do! Nonetheless, we're always taken a little aback on those rare occasions when He selects someone from outside the Order. Like you."

"Why is it I'm thinking himself was after going just a mite further 'outside the Order' than usual when he decided to go pestering me into signing on?" Bahzell murmured.

Pestered? Vaijon thought indignantly. Did he just say the God pestered him into accepting the greatest honor a man could possibly receive?!

"Ah, yes, I suppose you could put it that way," Charrow agreed through pursed lips. "Which creates something of a problem, I'm afraid. Some of our members—" the chapter master's eyes might have flitted sideways at Vaijon, but Bahzell couldn't have sworn to it "—are going to find the idea of a hradani champion just a trifle difficult to deal with."

"I'm not wishful to be upsetting anyone," Bahzell said seriously. "Mind, I'm not after apologizing for who or what I am, either, but I've no mind to be putting myself forward or sticking my spoon into someone else's stew. If there's those as wish me elsewhere, well, I've been wished elsewhere before, and will be again, no doubt."

"No," Charrow said so flatly the hradani blinked. "It doesn't work that way," the human went on in firm tones. "Champions are rare, Bahzell. You may not realize just how rare, but according to the Order's rolls, there are currently, not counting you, only seventeen living champions in all of Norfressa. Only seventeen —eighteen with you—and the entire purpose of the Order is to support your work in the world."

"My work?" Bahzell stared at him, ears flat in astonishment, and the old knight nodded.

"Precisely. Oh, I have no idea at all what your particular task is. That's between you and Tomanāk , and the qualities which make it something between you and Him are the same ones which made you a champion in the first place. You and those like you truly are Tomanāk's Swords. It is your task to lead, and ours to follow you. Not blindly, but as we would follow any captain set in command of us by our liege lord." The human's voice rang with iron pride—not arrogance, but the fierce determination of the warrior he was. "We are not forged of the same steel as His champions, but it is we of the Order who hold the frontiers they conquer, Bahzell Bahnakson. As He commands you, so you may command us—any of us—for we were created as your shield arm, and however high you may fly in His service, wherever you may go under His command, there we will be also."

"Here now!" Bahzell tried to bring the protest out quickly, lightly, but the old man's sincerity hushed his voice. "Himself was never after saying all that! I've no mind to command any man to follow me—no, nor to fight my battles for me, either!"

"Of course you don't. If you did, you wouldn't be a champion. But that doesn't mean you can escape it, either. Oh, you can try to run from us. Others have, on occasion, but the Order has a way of finding His champions sooner or later. Yet I don't think you're the type who would run," Charrow added thoughtfully. "Not once you've thought it over. You're not so proud or arrogant—or cowardly—as to turn your back on the aid you may need to do whatever it is He's called you to do."