by David Weber
He'd never seen, never imagined, such perfect balance and heart, such a splendor of matchless strength and indomitable spirit, in any living creature, and he reached out to it. He wrapped it in that silently seething hurricane of light, and as he did, something flowed through him. It was like a braided cable of lightning, reaching through him as he became a conduit for the touch of Tomanâk Himself. And yet, there was more even then godhood in that outpouring. There was also Bahzell Bahnakson, his own spirit, his own will, a giving of himself—of all that he was and knew and believed and hoped to become. It joined the tide of power, taking with it that essence of the filly, demanding that it be restored to her, making it real.
The vision snapped into perfect, impossibly intense focus in his heart and mind, and for just an instant, he, the filly, and Tomanâk were one.
It was an instant that could not last. No mortal—not even a courser, or a champion of Tomanâk—could endure that intensity more than momentarily. They fused . . . and then they flashed apart once more, severed into their separate selves, shaken and grieving for the splendor that had been, and yet joyous as they recognized the strength they had shared and the differences which made each of them unique and in his or her own way equally magnificent.
Bahzell staggered back a half-pace and stared at the filly. Not even that cascade of healing energy could undo all the damage she'd suffered. The eye she had lost, was lost. The ear she had lost would never return. But the gaping wounds, the suppurating gouges—those had vanished. Torn muscle was whole once more, rent hide was restored . . . and the poison corrupting from within had vanished.
They stared at one another, no longer joined, yet both aware that so deep a fusion could never be fully sundered, either. The filly gazed wonderingly upon the enemy who had given her back life, and more than life, and Bahzell met her gaze with a mind full of memories of thundering hoofs, of muscles bunching and springing, of manes and tails streaming in the wind, and the high, wild passion of the gallop. He reached out, touching her muzzle, feeling the warmth and the rough, silken softness, and she leaned forward, pressing her nose gently, so very gently, against his chest.
"Well done, Bahzell." The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. It rumbled with the hoofs of a thousand coursers thundering across the Wind Plain, and it throbbed with the rolling crash of distant thunder exploding across autumn skies, and yet it was soft, almost gentle.
"Well done, My Sword," the voice of Tomanâk repeated, and throughout the stable, men went to their knees, staring in awe at the champion and courser. "Now you know the cure," Tomanâk continued. "But the cure is not the only answer. Be ready, Bahzell, and be warned. This foe is no mere demon. This foe can slay not simply your body, but your soul. Are you prepared to face that threat to prevent what happened to Storm Daughter's herd from claiming still more victims?"
Bahzell heard the warning and tasted its truth. His god was the God of Justice and of Truth, as well as the God of War, and He did not lie. And the choice of whether or not to face that danger was his own. It was Bahzell Bahnakson's. And because it was, and because of who Bahzell Bahnakson was, it was really no choice at all.
He looked once more into the filly's—into Storm Daughter's—single eye, and let his deity's question roll through him until its echoes had settled into his bones. And then he answered it.
"Aye," he said, in a voice of quiet, hammered iron, "I am that."
Chapter Twenty-Four
Garlahna, Leeana decided, had a pronounced gift for apt description.
"Lots worse" than Erlis had made it sound was exactly how her first day had been.
The thought took almost more energy than she had as she dragged herself out of the kitchen. The sun had set over an hour ago, but she'd been up since at least an hour before dawn. And she didn't believe she'd sat down for more than five minutes in a row all day long. Well, maybe with Lanitha. But it still didn't feel as if she had.
Yesterday had been bad enough, but today had set a new record.
Garlahna had led Leeana about Kalatha yesterday afternoon like some sort of fresh exhibit in a freak show. Not that the older war maid had treated her like a freak or done anything but her very best to make Leeana feel welcome. Yet that hadn't kept Leeana from realizing that it wasn't just her imagination when she thought that other eyes watched closely. She and Garlahna had found themselves in a bubble of moving silence, surrounded by people—almost all of them women, though no more than half of them wore the chari and yathu—who watched them with almost frightening intensity.
Leeana knew where it had come from, of course. Mayor Yalith had put it into words during their interview, but she hadn't really needed the mayor to do so. Of course her very presence here in Kalatha had to be seen as a threat. She might be certain that the parents and family she'd fled wouldn't hold her actions against the war maids in general or Kalatha in particular, but there was no way the other inhabitants of Kalatha could share her assurance. They had to be wondering how her choice to come here would affect Baron Tellian's decisions if it finally came to a showdown between them and one of his vassals. And at least some of them had to be wondering what could possibly have possessed the daughter of the man who was arguably the most powerful noble of the entire Kingdom to flee to join them. Why would she have given up the wealth, the prestige? The power of a father whose rank would have protected her from the things which had driven them into flight? What had he done to her to make her flee from him? What could have made her hate him that much?
She'd wanted to turn around and scream at them. To tell them they were wrong to worry about her father's reaction and fools to believe for one instant that he'd ever hurt her. To shout that she'd run away from Hill Guard not because she hated her parents, but because she loved them so much. But that would only have made things worse—or convinced them she was insane. And so, like Garlahna, she'd pretended not to notice the way they stared or their whispered speculations.
She doubted that she'd fooled very many of them.
She certainly hadn't fooled Garlahna. Her mentor had never commented directly upon the watching eyes, but she'd taken the opportunity to raise her voice in conversation with Leeana from time to time and "let slip" a few, pithy observations about small-minded, small-town gossip-mongers and people with nothing better to do with their time than make idiots out of themselves by gawking at other perfectly ordinary people or events. At least some of the watchers had taken Garlahna's none-too-subtle hints and gone off to find other things to do. Most of them hadn't, but Leeana had appreciated the other young woman's efforts.
Their first stop had been Administration, located in the Town Hall, on the opposite side of the building from Mayor Yalith's office. Leeana had been a bit surprised by the quiet, orderly efficiency of the office. She shouldn't have been, she told herself, but it appeared that, despite herself, she'd absorbed more of the traditional prejudice against the war maids on a subconscious level than she'd thought. The sight of the orderly rows of filing cabinets, each drawer neatly tabbed and filled with folders or note cards, had astounded her.
Baron Tellian was one of the most progressive members of the Sothōii nobility, and he had only begun the transition from the old, cumbersome scrolls on which all important documents had "traditionally" been stored. It was an awkward proposition for him, given how many of his riding's original documents were on those same old-fashioned scrolls, but he was determined to change over as much of his record-keeping and administration as possible. The original idea had come from the Empire of the Axe, like so many administrative reforms, but he'd recognized its manifold advantages as soon as he saw them.
Yet Kalatha must have completed the same process he was only just beginning at least several years ago. Leeana had never expected that. On the other hand, she'd reminded herself, Kalatha had many fewer records and carried far less of an administrative burden than her father's responsibilities entailed. No doubt it had been enormously easier for such a small town, with such a minuscule jurisdic
tion, to make the transition.
She'd been just a bit shocked at how spitefully she'd told herself that. The strength of her need to "defend" her father by denigrating anyone who'd accomplished a similar task sooner than he had astonished her. It had also made her feel more than a little bit ashamed of herself , but she'd managed to shake that emotion off by the time Garlahna hauled her in front of Dalthys Hallafressa, the Town Administrator.
"No, not the Mayor," Dalthys had informed her gruffly. Leeana had blinked, surprised by the Administrator's response to the question she hadn't asked. Dalthys, a heavyset woman in her late thirties or early forties, with graying brown hair, had given her a weary yet somehow conspiratorial smile.
"Mayor Yalith has the honor and dubious pleasure of governing Kalatha," Dalthys explained. "I only run it. You might think of it as if she were, oh, a baron, say, and I were her seneschal." Her brown eyes had glinted with amusement at Leeana's expression. "Put another way, she has to take all the political headaches, and I get to get on with the everyday business of executing policy. Does that make sense?"
"Uh, yes—yes, Ma'am, it does."
"No need for 'ma'ams,' my girl," Dalthys had told her with a slight frown. "We don't talk to each other that way, and we don't bow and scrape, either. Job titles or given names—or military ranks, for the Guard—work just fine for any war maid," she'd half-growled.
"Yes, Ma—" Leeana had blushed, but she'd also managed to stop herself in time, and Dalthys had snorted.
"Not trying to bite your head off, Leeana," she'd said more gently. "As a matter of fact, the fact that you—" meaning, Leeana had realized, "someone from your background," although Dalthys had been too tactful to put it into so many words "—feel that we incorrigible war maids deserve to be addressed courteously just indicates that you were well brought up. But it's best to get into the proper habits of thought from the outset, don't you think?"
"Yes, Administrator Dalthys."
"Good! I can always spot the smart ones. They're the ones who agree with me!" Dalthys had chuckled, and Leeana had smiled at her.
"All right, all right," Dalthys had said then, opening a huge ledger and frowning at the pages. "We need to find you a room."
"Excuse me, Dalthys," Garlahna had said.
"Yes?" Dalthys had looked up, over the top edge of the ledger, to fix Garlahna with her sharp eyes.
"At least for now, Erlis would like Leeana to room near me. I'm her assigned mentor, and since she's here on a probationary basis, well—"
She'd shrugged, and Dalthys had nodded, slowly at first, then more rapidly.
"That makes sense," she'd agreed, and looked back down at her ledger, flipping pages. Then she'd stopped and studied a column of entries. "I have one room—it's technically a double, but there's no one else assigned to it right now—three doors down the hall from yours, Garlahna," she'd said after a moment. "Is that close enough?"
"That will be fine!" Garlahna had agreed, and Dalthys had looked back at Leeana.
"Most of the people in Kalatha own their own homes, or rent, just like in any other town," she'd explained, "but any war maid is entitled under the charter to one full year of free housing and meals when she first joins us. For someone like you, Leeana, who has to serve a probationary period first, that's extended to a year and a half. And we also try to look after our own people if they find themselves unable to pay their own way through no fault of their own, of course." She'd shrugged. "At any rate, the town owns several dormitories where that free housing is provided. In addition, we rent rooms in the dormitories at what I like to think are very reasonable rates for war maids who've used up their free months. That's what Garlahna's been doing for several years now."
Leeana had nodded her thanks for the explanation, and Dalthys had chuckled.
"Don't get to feeling too grateful for your room till you see it," the administrator advised her. "It's adequate, but not all that huge. Although, now that I think about it, the fact that we're giving you a double with no roommate will tend to offset that somewhat. But however 'free' it may technically be, I assure you that you'll do more than enough work to compensate us for our generosity."
"I understand . . . Dalthys," Leeana had said with a wry smile.
"Well," Dalthys had said with a slow smile, "if you don't now, you will after your first night working in the dining hall!"
She'd chuckled again, then found the key to Leeana's new room and shooed both young women out of her office.
The next stop had been Housekeeping.
Ermath Balcarafressa, who held the title of Housekeeper, was like no "housekeeper" Leeana had ever met. Leeana rather doubted that Ermath had done any manual labor in years, because hers was an administrative title, like Dalthys'. "Housekeeping" was apparently one of Kalatha's larger municipal divisions, with responsibility for a wide range of maintenance, cleaning, and service duties—including the dining hall.
It had been apparent that Ermath discharged her duties efficiently, but Leeana had been unable to warm to her as she had to Dalthys. Physically, Ermath was the antithesis of the Town Administrator in many ways. She was much older, with hair so white it was probably painful to the eye in direct sunlight, and thin as a rail. She was also sharp featured, and had a tongue to match, with little of Dalthys' lurking humor.
"So, you're the one," she'd said as soon as Garlahna delivered Leeana to her office.
Leeana had obviously looked more taken aback then she'd meant to, and Ermath had laughed. It sounded more like a cackle than a laugh, especially compared to Dalthys' warm chuckle.
"The one all the fuss is over, girl!" the Housekeeper had told her. "Lillinara! There hasn't been this much excitement over a new candidate in— Well, in as long as I can remember!" She'd cackled again. "This' ll hit that bastard Trisu right where he lives. Don't you think for a minute it won't!"
Leeana hadn't had any notion of how to react, so she'd watched Garlahna from the corner of her eye and taken her cue from her mentor's lack of expression. Since she was the one actually talking to Ermath (or, at least, being talked to by Ermath), she'd settled for nodding pleasantly and saying as little as a she possibly could in response to the Housekeeper's comments and questions. It hadn't actually taken very long, but it had seemed much longer, before they got out of Ermath's office with the required vouchers for bed linens, towels, washcloths, and the one year's worth of clothing the charter required the town to provide to any new war maid.
At least Leeana had grown up accustomed to being measured, poked, and prodded by dressmakers and seamstresses. That had helped at their next stop, when Garlahna delivered her into the hands Johlana Ermathfressa.
Johlana's face would have made it obvious she was the Housekeeper's daughter even without her war maid matronym. But she was no more than half her mother's age, and the bright, humorous intelligence behind her eyes softened her sharp features remarkably. Leeana had been grateful for the difference between mother and daughter as Johlana discussed her wardrobe needs with a cheerfully earthy pragmatism that carried over into things like monthly cycle choices, and from there to homilies about sex, contraceptive techniques, and young women away from watchful families for the first time, even as she measured busily away. She'd seemed mightily amused by Leeana's obvious reservations about the chari and yathu she was expected to wear, but she'd also taken pity upon her.
"Oh, for Lillinara's sake—you won't be expected to wear them all the time, Leeana!" she'd scolded. "I know. I know! Scandalous—simply scandalous!—until you get used to them. But you'll find they're more practical than you might think just yet. And, when you're not 'in uniform' for physical training or some sort of heavy labor, you can wear whatever you want. In fact, we'll actually provide you with a couple of pairs of trousers and shirts or smocks in the colors you'd prefer. And once you find a way to earn a kormak here or there—and all of our girls do that eventually, don't they, Garlahna?—you can spend them on whatever you want. Including something nice to wear. We may be
war maids, but we're still females, too. Trust me, there's always a market for pretties of one sort or another here in Kalatha!"
Garlahna had nodded in enthusiastic agreement, and Leeana had smiled. Then Johlana had gathered up her jotted-down notes on Leeana's measurements and needs.
"You're a tall thing," she'd observed. "Good thing charis and yathus are fairly easy to fit!" She'd shaken her head. "The biggest problem's going to be lacing a yathu tight enough until you fill out, girl! At least holding the chari up won't be a problem. Good breeders run in your family?"
Leeana had turned an interesting shade of red—again—at about that point, and Johlana had laughed.
"Don't pay me any attention, Leeana—no one else does, that's for sure! Just run along now. I'll have something for you to face Erlis in tomorrow morning."
She'd made waving motions with both hands, and Garlahna and Leeana had made a hasty escape.
Leeana had been astonished as they emerged from Johlana's office to discover that the sun had already set. But her surprise had faded quickly as she realized just how tired she was. She and Kaeritha had ridden hard all morning to reach Kalatha, and she hadn't really stopped moving from the moment she dismounted here. None of which even considered the sheer emotional stress of all she'd been through in the last twelve hours or so. "Worn out" was a pale way to describe her physical condition, and she'd wanted to weep in sheer exhaustion as she realized she and Garlahna still had to drag her bed linens to her assigned room and make up her bed before she could tumble into it.
She'd concluded later that Garlahna had known exactly how she felt, but her mentor had allowed no sign of that awareness to color her voice or her manner. She'd moved briskly along, simply assuming that Leeana would keep trotting along at her side, and because Garlahna had assumed that, Leeana had discovered she had no choice but to meet her mentor's expectations.
Somehow, she'd managed—with a lot more help from Garlahna than she suspected a "mentor" was supposed to provide—to get her room more or less ready for occupancy. But then Garlahna had refused to allow her to collapse across the thin, hard mattress of the narrowest bed she had ever contemplated sleeping in. Instead, she'd marched a staggeringly tired Leeana to the meal hall, sat her down on one of the benches, and bullied one of the kitchen workers into providing a huge bowl of thick, delicious vegetable soup despite the lateness of the hour. Leeana had never tasted anything so wonderful in her entire life . . . she only wished she'd been awake enough to remember it later.