Wind Rider's Oath wg-3
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He put that thought aside, too, with a mental curse for the way it proved how his mind wandered under the influence of the accursed sun even here, under fifty feet of solid earth and stone.
He knew what he had to do, and he knew what powerful weapons the Queen of the Damned had gifted him with. But despite that, and despite the fact that his enemies were coming to him on ground of his choosing and preparation, he felt what a mortal man would have called a shiver of fear as he contemplated his mission.
It would have been so much better if he’d dared to attack Warm Springs, to swoop down upon the manor with the shardohns and slaughter every living thing in it. But his mistress’ plans had forbidden the shardohns to carry through against the manor after the initial attack on the courser herd. Warm Springs, as much as the attack on the coursers who wintered there, had been the bait in the trap which would close upon Baron Tellian. In the end, Lord Edinghas’ entire holding would be taken and devoured slowly, lovingly. But not until after Tellian had been drawn in so that he might be included in the feast.
Only … Tellian hadn’t come. He’d been sucked away to Kalatha, instead, lured away from Krahana and into the Spider’s web. Jerghar wasn’t supposed to know the details of what Dahlaha and her mistress intended to happen, but he knew many things he wasn’t supposed to. If Varnaythus was too confident of Jerghar’s stupidity to realize his attempts to prevent that had failed miserably before one who commanded his lady’s resources, so much the worse for him.
Yet the substitution of Bahzell Bahnakson for Baron Tellian threatened to disorder even Her plans, and it was Jerghar’s responsibility to make certain it did not. He’d been gravely tempted to proceed with the attack on Warm Springs which had always been part of the original plan, but the speed with which Bahzell and his companions had reached Lord Edinghas from Balthar had taken him by surprise. Bahzell had already arrived and healed the coursers of the shardohns’ lingering venom—something Jerghar hadn’t believed would be possible, even for a champion of Tomanak—almost a full day before Jerghar had anticipated his arrival. By the time Jerghar himself had assumed direct command of the shardohns and the additional Servants awaiting him and gotten his forces properly organized, Bahzell had done far more than simply heal the coursers. He’d also been given one full priceless day of sunlight in which to recover from that ordeal, and he’d used his respite well.
Jerghar had required only the gentlest probe by one of his fellow Servants to know that the accursed hradani had erected a defensive perimeter impossible to cross. In fact, the sheer strength of the barrier Bahzell had managed to throw up was more than merely frightening. The Horse Stealer had been a champion for less than one year, yet the seamless, impenetrable power of that barrier—blazing incandescently with the terrifying blue light of Tomanak for those with the eyes to see it—surpassed anything Jerghar had ever encountered. Thank the Lady he couldn’t bring that fixed, focused rampart with him! It must have cost him hours of concentration to erect it in the first place, and he had to have anchored it in the very soil of the Warm Springs home manor.
But it appeared that the hradani was confident enough to come out from behind its protection at last. Which was either a very good thing … or the very worst thing that could possibly have happened. And if the shardohn’s report was correct, Jerghar should discover which it was this very night.
Chapter Forty
This time, the deep, rolling voice echoing through Bahzell’s mind wasn’t a courser’s. It was the voice of Tomanak Orfro, God of War and Chief Captain of the Gods of Light.
Bahzell didn’t even blink, but his mobile ears twitched, moving in perfect parallel with Walsharno’s to point forward. The hradani felt the courser’s reaction like an echo of his own, yet Walsharno took the cascading, musical thunder of that voice far more calmly than Bahzell had taken his own first conversation with Tomanak. There was a flavor of intense respect to his emotions, a touch of wonder and delight, but not one of awe.
Walsharno didn’t share the apprehension bordering on horror which Bahzell’s tart exchanges with his god tended to evoke in two-legged audiences. He continued to trot briskly forward, swishing his tail to discourage a particularly irritating fly, and looked on with amused interest, perched like another viewpoint in Bahzell’s mind.
Tomanak said seriously.
Bahzell frowned, intrigued almost despite himself. A portion of his awareness remained firmly focused on the movement of Walsharno’s muscles under him, the caress of the late afternoon breeze as the day wound towards twilight, the jingle of mail and weapons harnesses, the creak of saddle leather, and the slightly dusty smell of grass crushed under the hooves of coursers and warhorses alike. But most of his attention was focused on the question it had never occurred to him to ask and on the answer he would never have anticipated, if he had asked.
There was no disrespect or challenge in the courser’s question. He accepted what Tomanak had said, as a yearling accepted the decrees and explanations of his herd stallion. He was simply seeking explanation, not demanding that Tomanak justify what he had already said.
He obviously recognized Bahzell’s and Walsharno’s confusion, for he went on.
Bahzell and Walsharno were silent, stunned by the immensity of the concept Tomanak had just laid before them. The idea that there were an infinite number of Bahzells paired with an infinite number of Walsharnos, each fusion experiencing its own outcomes, fighting its own battles and meeting its own fate, might have made them feel small, and insignificant. No more than two single grains of sand upon an endless beach. Yet they were anything but small and insignificant. The exercise of their free will would determine their fates, and their fates would be not grains of sand on a beach, but stones in an avalanche thundering to a grand conclusion which would determine the fate of all universes and of every creature who had ever lived … or ever would.
The complex linkage between hradani, courser, and deity trembled with the force of his protest.
the courser’s voice rang in the vaults of Bahzell’s mind. A part of the hradani wanted desperately to forbid it, to prevent Walsharno from binding himself so inescapably to whatever fate awaited Bahzell himself. But another part recognized that it was too late to prevent that. That from the moment Walsharno willingly linked himself to him, their fates had been joined. And another part of him recognized that he had no right to forbid Walsharno this. That it was the courser’s—his brother’s—right to make the choice for himself.
Walsharno’s “voice” was as deep, as measured, as that of Tomanak himself, filled with all the certainty and power of his mighty heart.