Wind Rider's Oath

by David Weber

  "Not as if what isn't going to come out?" Lanitha asked, emboldened by Kaeritha's last sentence.

  "There's a definite discrepancy between the original documents here and Trisu's so-called copies," Kaeritha told her. "I have to say that when I first saw his copy, I was astonished. It didn't seem possible that anyone could have produced such a perfect-looking forgery. But, obviously, the only way his copies could be that different from the originals has to involve a deliberate substitution or forgery."

  "Lillinara!" Lanitha said softly, signing the Mother's full moon. "I knew Trisu hated all war maids, but I never imagined he'd try something like that, Milady! How could he possibly expect it to pass muster? He must know that sooner or later someone would do what you've just done and compare the forgery to the original!"

  "One thing I learned years ago, Lanitha," Kaeritha said wearily as she watched the archivist carefully returning the land grant to its case, "is that criminals always think they can 'get away with it.' If their minds didn't work that way, they wouldn't be criminals in the first place!"

  "I suppose not." Lanitha sighed and shook her head. "It just seems so silly—and sad—when you come down to it."

  "You're wrong, you know," Kaeritha said quietly, her voice so flat that Lanitha looked quickly back over her shoulder at her.

  "Wrong, Milady?"

  "It isn't silly, or sad," Kaeritha told her. "Whatever the original motivation may have been, this sort of conflict between the documents here and those at Thalar is going to play right into the hands of everyone else like Trisu. It isn't the sort of minor discrepancy that can be explained away as clerical error. It's a deliberate forgery, and there are altogether too many people out there who are already prepared to think the worst about you war maids. It won't matter to them that you have the originals, while he has only copies. What will matter is that they'll assume you must have made the alterations."

  "Then I suppose it's a good thing a champion of Tomanâk is on the spot, isn't it, Milady? Even the most prejudiced person would have to take your word for it that Trisu or someone working for him is the forger."

  "Yes, Lanitha," Kaeritha said grimly. "They certainly would."

  * * *

  The sentry's report had assured that Tellian Bowmaster was waiting in the courtyard of Hill Guard Castle when Bahzell rode in on Walsharno. He didn't look as if he believed what he was seeing.

  Bahzell smiled grimly at the baron's expression as he listened to the sound of heavy hooves on the courtyard's stone paving. The sound of came not simply from Walsharno but from the hooves of no less than twenty-one other coursers . . . only ten of them with riders.

  "Welcome back, Milord Champion," Tellian said with an odd note of formality as Walsharno halted beside the wind rider's mounting block.

  "Thank you." Bahzell swung out of the saddle and stepped down onto the mounting block. He reached out to clasp Tellian's forearm firmly, and the baron's eyes searched his face intently, with more than a hint of anxiety.

  "Brandark?" he asked quietly, and Bahzell gave him a small, quick smile.

  "The little man's after being well enough," he said. "He was a mite nibbled upon about the edges, but hradani are tough, and there was naught wrong with him that couldn't be healed. But however well, or willing, he might be, there was no way at all, at all, as how his warhorse could be after keeping up on the ride here."

  "Is that why Gharnal and Hurthang aren't with you?" Tellian asked, and Bahzell's smile vanished.

  "No," he said quietly. "Hurthang will be after arriving in a week or so, but not Gharnal. And not Farchach, nor Yourmak, nor Tharchanal or Shulhârch."

  "Dead, all of them?" Tellian asked softly, and Bahzell nodded.

  "Aye," he said, his voice flat with pain. "We were after being the head of the spear. Not one of the Order's lads but Hurthang survived, and him half-dead before I was after reaching him. They're every one of them gone, Tellian . . . and five wind riders and eight more coursers, with them."

  "Tomanâk." Tellian's right hand moved in the sign of Tomanâk's Sword. "May Isvaria keep them as her own," he added.

  "She will that," Bahzell said, and drew a deep breath. "If there's ever a soul she'll be keeping, it's theirs. It was Krahana's get that was after attacking the coursers. And but for the lads as died watching my back, I'm thinking as how she'd have had us all."

  "But she didn't," Tellian said firmly, reaching out to lay his hand on Bahzell's forearm. "And you wouldn't be back here if you hadn't dealt with the situation."

  "No, that I wouldn't," he agreed, and produced a crooked smile. "I'm not after being quite as certain positive of that as I might be wishful, so I left Hurthang and Brandark to keep an eye on things. Still and all, I'd not be here without I felt confident as I'd finished pissing on that particular grass fire. Not but what I've not got enough other problems to be going on with."

  "Well, in that case, I suppose you'd best come inside and tell me how I can help."

  * * *

  " . . . so by the time we got to Glanharrow, Trianal, Yarran, and Lord Festian had already dealt with matters," Tellian said, leaning back in his chair and quaffed deeply from his tankard of dark beer. His voice was light, but his eyes were intent as he watched Bahzell's weary face. Hanatha sat with them, sipping more moderately from a delicate, silver-chased tankard of her own, and her eyes, too, were on Bahzell.

  "I suspect the matter is going to turn even uglier in the next few months,"Tellian continued, "but not because the raiding's going to continue. We took enough prisoners to prove the entire force that attacked Trianal was in Saratic's service, although by the strangest turn of fate, his field commander wound up dead with what appears to be a Horse Stealer quarrel in his back . . . fired from a Dwarvenhame arbalest we found lying about out there."

  His acid smile could have been used to etch steel.

  "Still and all, we have enough other prisoners—with enough incentive to talk to us to avoid the rope or the block—that we should be able to prove whose colors they should have been wearing. And I think it's only a matter of time before we demonstrate that Erathian was up to his eyebrows in it, as well. Once we do, I'll take care of Erathian myself, and I take a certain amount of pleasure in contemplating what's going through his head while he waits for the axe to fall."

  He smiled again, even more nastily.

  "In the meantime, I've already dispatched a messenger to the King to petition for an investigation under Crown authority. Under the circumstances, I would've been justified in moving against Saratic myself, immediately, but I chose instead to appeal to the Crown, and I was very patient about it all in the petition, too. King Markhos and Prince Yurokhas should be very impressed by my forbearance—they'll certainly play it up for all it's worth when they have to deal with Cassan, at any rate. Whatever the King may think of my efforts to improve relations with your father, Prince Bahzell, he is not going to be amused by the discovery that one of his barons has been instigating open warfare against another one. We had enough of that during the Troubles, thank you. And however well Cassan may have covered his tracks, I don't think there's going to be any question in His Majesty's mind that that's exactly what's happened here. So I expect Cassan is going to discover that he's just incurred a certain degree of royal disfavor which is going to cost him dearly in the long run. Meanwhile, Trianal is doing just fine sitting there in Glanharrow as a pointed suggestion to Erathian and Saratic that this would be a very bad time to push the matter any further."

  Bahzell nodded slowly, his eyes thoughtful, and took a long pull from the tankard in his own fist. Tellian drank a little more beer himself, then leaned forward and set his tankard down on the table.

  "And that's enough about Festian and Trianal, Milord Champion," he said firmly. Bahzell arched an eyebrow, and his ears cocked. Tellian saw it and snorted. "It was as plain as the nose on Brandark's face when I clapped eyes on you that you were worn to the bone, hradani or not, Bahzell. And, if you'll pardon my saying so, that more ev
en than grief for the people you lost is weighing on you. So Hanatha and I have chattered away for the last half-hour, bringing you up-to-date on everything from Leeana to Trianal and the King's approval of our petition to adopt him as our heir. Now that you've had a chance to settle down a bit, suppose you tell us what it is that brings the first hradani wind rider in history, ten other wind riders and their coursers, and eleven coursers with no riders at all here to Balthar."

  "Well," Bahzell said after a moment, "I'm thinking as how it's going to take longer than we're like to have if I'm to explain all that was after happening in Warm Springs. For now, let's just be saying that Walsharno's after having peculiar taste in riders. Oh, and while I'm speaking of Walsharno, that big filly out in your stable's guest quarters is after being his sister and a special friend of mine, as you might be saying."

  Tellian blinked, then looked at his wife before returning his attention to their guest.

  "I trust that you realize that all you've done is to suggest still more questions to us," he observed.

  "Aye." Bahzell smiled wearily. "But truth be told, I've no business at all, at all, sitting on my backside drinking your beer. Mind you, even a hradani can be getting just a mite tuckered, and I'll not deny that all of us—riders and coursers alike—are after needing a breather. But I've no time to waste."

  "That much we'd already guessed," Tellian said with a slight edge of patience. "It's obvious that you've ridden from Warm Springs as if Fiendark's Furies were on your heels. Why?" he finished bluntly.

  "Because Kerry's after being in trouble," Bahzell said, equally bluntly.

  "How?" Tellian leaned forward in his chair once more, resting his elbows on his knees, his expression intent.

  "As to that, I've no way of knowing for certain," Bahzell admitted. He drank more beer, his eyes unhappy, then lowered the tankard again. "All in the world I have to be going on is fragments from a Servant of Krahana and this." He tapped his temple with an index finger. "If it were only the Servant, then I'd do not be quite so worried. But this . . ."

  He shook his head, ears half-flattened, and his expression was bleak as his finger tapped again.

  "So you're headed to help her, Bahzell," Hanatha said, her tone making the statement half a question.

  "Aye." His expression eased a bit, and he chuckled. "And not alone, either. I've no least idea how the rest of my folk would be reacting to the company I'm after keeping these days! But after we'd dealt with Krahana's lot, not a single one of those wind riders as had ridden with us but was bound and determined as how he and his courser would be after riding along for this, too. And then Gayrfressa—Walsharno's sister—was after insisting she and the Bear River stallions who'd lived would be doing the same."

  "The wind riders I can understand, Bahzell," Tellian said soberly. "Those of us who are wind borne seem to absorb some of our courser brothers' herd sense. Whenever we see another wind brother with a trouble, we all get this itch we can't quite scratch until we pitch in to help solve it."

  "So I'd noticed," Bahzell snorted.

  "Yes, but what I don't quite understand is why the other coursers came along."

  "Well, as to that, it's after being Gayrfressa's fault," Bahzell said with a crooked grin. "She's this strange notion that the coursers are after owing me a little favor or two. So after she'd put her head together with the other coursers, the stallions all agreed as how they'd come along and—just this once, mind—see if there were after being a few more of our lads from the Order as they could be carrying along with me."

  "They what?" Tellian came half out of his chair in astonishment, and Hanatha set her beer abruptly back down on the table. Bahzell only smiled at them again, and Tellian settled back slowly. He shook his head.

  "Bahzell," he said, "I don't believe there have been more than three times in the entire history of the Kingdom when coursers have agreed to carry anyone other than their own chosen wind riders. And I know that they've never, ever, agreed to carry hradani. And you're telling me they've agreed to carry Horse Stealer hradani?"

  "Aye." Bahzell took another sip of his beer with elaborate enjoyment, looking as if he'd just said the most reasonable thing in the world. Tellian stared at him, then leaned all the way back in his chair.

  "There is," he observed, "a particularly nasty fate reserved for people who get too full of themselves, Milord Champion."

  "Aye?" Bahzell cocked his ears impudently at his host, then sobered. "That's all after being very well, yet I've still the little problem of knowing just where it is they're to be carrying us. I'm thinking as how the best I could be doing would be to ride to Kalatha and see what I could be finding out there. Yet there's this—" he tapped his temple yet again "— as is insisting that wherever it may be her trouble lies, it's not Kalatha." He grimaced in obvious frustration. "It's a maddening thing to know as how there's not so very much time, yet not to be knowing where in Tomanâk's name she is."

  "Well, Bahzell," Hanatha said, with a slow smile, "you really don't deserve this, after teasing Tellian that way about the coursers, but it just so happens that I'm fairly sure that I know where you need to go."

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The road to Quaysar ran almost due east from Kalatha, and the morning sun shone brightly into Kaeritha's face as Cloudy trotted briskly along it two days after her appointment with Lanitha. Birds soared and dipped overhead, calling to one another against the impossibly blue sky as they rode the brawny wind gusting out of the northwest, and the endless sea of young grass rippled and hissed musically as the stiff gusts pushed waves across it. The morning was still cool, but there was a sense of life and energy wrapped up in the wind and the high, beautiful cries of the birds, and Kaeritha drew that energy deep into her lungs.

  It was tempting to abandon herself to the sensual enjoyment of the new day, but the dark suspicion which had first whispered to her in Trisu's library had hardened into something even darker which cast its own ominous shadow across the morning.

  She still had altogether too many questions and far too few answers, she reminded herself. Yet even as she conscientiously bore that in mind, she knew which way the facts she'd been able to test all pointed. What she didn't begin to know was how all this could have happened, or why Lillinara and Tomanâk seemed to have agreed that it was her job to deal with it.

  Not that she was tempted even for a moment to pretend it wasn't her job. This was exactly the sort of task which had attracted her to Tomanâk's service in the first place. The fact that she wished with all her heart that someone like the war maids had been available to her mother—or to her—when she was a child only stiffened her resolve still further. She had no clear idea exactly what she was going to encounter at Quaysar, yet there was a stink of Darkness about this entire business. It was only too probable that she was riding directly into that Dark, but it was one of a champion of Tomanâk's functions to carry Light into even the deepest Darkness.

  Of course, sometimes the Light failed.

  Dame Kaeritha Seldansdaughter knew that, just as she knew how few of Tomanâk's champions ever died in bed. But if that was the price to hold off the Dark which had claimed fallen Kontovar, it was one she would pay. And if worse came to worst, the letter she had dispatched to Bahzell under Sword Seal contained all of her suspicions, discoveries, and deductions. If it should happen that this time she was fated to fail, she knew with absolute certainty that her brother would avenge her and complete her task as surely as she would have done that for him.

  She smiled warmly at the thought, then shook off her dark musings and raised her head, turning her face more fully to the sun and luxuriating in its warmth.

  * * *

  Quaysar was impressive.

  The temple's original architects had found one of the few genuine hilltops the Wind Plain offered. It was obvious as Kaeritha approached that the upthrust knob upon which the temple and the town which supported it stood was basically a solid plug or dome of granite. It was nowhere near as towering
as it had seemed at first glance, she realized as she drew closer. But it didn't have to be, either. The low, rolling flatlands of the Wind Plain stretched away in every direction, as far as the eye could see, and even Quaysar's relatively low perch allowed it to command its surroundings effortlessly.

  The old town of Quaysar, which had been folded into the temple community, was surrounded by a low but defensible wall. Newer buildings and outlying farms spread out from the old town along the arms of the crossroads which met beside the sizable pond or small lake at the base of the granite pedestal which supported the temple, and Kaeritha saw workers in the fields as Cloudy trotted past them.

  The temple itself had its own wall, which was actually higher than that of the old town and rose sheer from the very lip of the temple's stony perch. That sort of security feature was no part of the temples of Lillinara in the Empire of the Axe, but the Empire was the oldest, most settled realm of Norfressa. Things had been far less orderly on the Wind Plain when Quaysar was first constructed. For that matter, they still were, she supposed. Or they had the potential to be, at any rate; the Time of Troubles wasn't that far in the past. Given that history, she didn't blame the original builders for seeing to it that their temple was not simply located in the most defensible position available but well fortified, to boot.

  She couldn't see much of the temple buildings with the wall in the way, but the three traditional towers of any temple of Lillinara rose above them. The Tower of the Mother, with its round, alabaster full moon, was flanked by the slightly lower crescent moon-crowned Tower of the Maiden and the Tower of the Crone, with its matching globe of obsidian. The added height of the prominence upon which the entire temple stood lifted them even higher against the blue sky and high-piled, snow-white clouds to the south, and Kaeritha felt her imagination stir as she realized how they must look against the night heavens when the silver-white glow of Lillinara touched their stonework. Quaysar was far from the largest temple of Lillinara Kaeritha had ever seen, but its location and special significance gave it a majesty and a sense of presence she'd seldom seen equaled.