been

arms? You did break them, after all."

Chapter Six
"Don't you get just a little tired of all that?" Brandark asked in a voice just too soft for anyone else to hear, and grinned at the deadly look Bahzell gave him. The two lay-brothers who had stepped aside with bows of profound respect to let the two hradani pass fell behind, and the Horse Stealer leaned close to his friend.
"Aye, I do get a mite worn out with it," he said equally quietly, "and I'm thinking as how I'd just as soon be working out my frustrations on someone."
"Oh? Did you have a specific someone in mind?"
"No, that I didn't . . . until just now."
Brandark chuckled but let the opening pass. He was reasonably certain Bahzell was only joking, but the Horse Stealer's exasperation was real, and there were times it was more prudent not to prove or disprove a theory.
The deference the lay-brothers had just shown had become the norm over the last two days, and Bahzell found it even more difficult to deal with, in a very different way, than the hostility which had preceded it. Hostility was something any hradani had no choice but to learn how to cope with if he meant to travel among the other Races of Man. Admiration, awe, and near deification were something else entirely, and very few hradani had ever been offered the opportunity to deal with them.
Yet there was no avoiding them now. The knights of Tomanāk knew all champions were directly and personally chosen by their god. In Bahzell's case, however, that was no mere intellectual awareness. Tomanāk Himself had