Wind Rider's Oath

It wasn’t the first time since becoming a champion of Tomanak that Bahzell had experienced that sort of response. And, he admitted, this time there was more excuse for it than usual. Unlike all too many he’d met in the Empire of the Axe and the human-dominated Border Kingdoms along its frontiers, the Sothoii—and coursers—had an actual history of mutual slaughter with the hradani. He could handle and allow for hatred better when there was some basis besides ignorant bigotry behind it.

And, fortunately, there was another difference this time, as well—Walsharno, his sister, and the other surviving Warm Springs coursers.

Wind riders, Bahzell had discovered, could be just as stubborn and just as determined to deny an unpalatable reality, as any other humans (or hradani). He suspected that coursers could be even more stubborn, but they did it in different ways. Perhaps the differences had something to do with their herd orientation. He didn’t know about that—not yet—but he’d already discovered that when one courser told another something was true, that settled matters. As far as he could tell from his efforts to date discussing it with Walsharno, the concept of lying, or even simply exaggerating, to another courser was completely incomprehensible to them. They simply didn’t do that—didn’t even know how to do it. They might be mistaken about something, and they might not always agree on how to interpret an event or an idea, but they did not fabricate.

Bahzell could already foresee some potentially uncomfortable consequences of that invincible candor, but it did have its advantages. The coursers’ riders might doubt his champion’s status, or question his fitness as a wind rider; the coursers themselves did not. And as Luthyr Battlehorn’s sudden change of expression indicated, a courser’s patience with his rider was not unlimited.

Not that it seemed likely to change Battlehorn’s mind any time soon. Indeed, the dark-haired, burly wind rider couldn’t seem to make up his mind which concept he found more offensive—hradani wind riders, hradani champions, or an entire hradani chapter of the Order of Tomanak. If his courser, Sir Kelthys, and at least three more of his fellow wind riders hadn’t ganged up to twist his arm, he probably would have been still sitting in a corner somewhere in Lord Edinghas’ manor house and sulking.

Which, Bahzell admitted, somewhat to his own chagrin, would have suited him clear down to the ground. Battlehorn had not made himself one of the Horse Stealer’s favorite people.

“Well,” Kelthys said, “if I imported additional idiots, it was only because I needed to find people you’d have something in common with, Milord Champion.”

“That’s probably after being fair enough,” Bahzell acknowledged with a smile. “But even if it’s not, I’ve still no more plan than I was after having last night.”

“Should we send out scouts?” That was blond-haired, dark-eyed Shalsan Warlamp, another of the recently arrived wind riders, and one who’d done a better job than most of accepting Bahzell for who and what he was.

“Against another foe, aye,” Bahzell replied. “Against this one —?” He shook his head, ears half-flattened. “I’ve all the ’scouts’ we should be needing right here.” He tapped his forehead. “And I’ll not have any of our people out in front where such as we’re hunting could be taking them down one at a time.”

Warlamp looked skeptical, but before he could say anything else, Brandark spoke up. The Bloody Sword’s normal insouciance was absent, and his voice was very serious.

“Bahzell’s right, Shalsan,” he said. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’ve seen this before, when he went hunting for Sharna . If Bahzell Bahnakson tells you he knows where to find the Dark, take his word for it. He does.”

“Well,” Warlamp said after a moment, “I suppose that’s an end to the matter, then.” He rolled his shoulders, like a man feeling a chill breeze explore his spine, then shrugged. “It’s just that it doesn’t feel right to not have scouts out when we know the enemy’s waiting up ahead somewhere.”

“No more it does,” Bahzell agreed. “But this isn’t the sort of enemy as you’re after being used to hunting, Shalsan.”

“They come, Master.”

The being who had once been a man named Jerghar Sholdan opened his eyes and sat up at the sound of the servile voice. He hadn’t really been asleep, of course—he hadn’t needed sleep in a long, long time—but it took him a moment to brush aside the memory of the dark, windy void where he had drifted amid tongues of invisible black flame on the wings of a roaring tempest. There was a Presence somewhere beyond those walls of icy fire, a Name lost in the bellow of the battering wind. He knew both of them, and worshiped them, yet the very thought of them simultaneously filled him with hatred and fear.

But that, too, had been true for a very long time, he reminded himself, the tip of his tongue teasing gently at the razor-sharp canines which were the outward indication of what he had become. And hatred and fear, like the knowledge of his own enslavement, were paltry prices to pay for immortality and the power that sustained it.

Although, he admitted to himself, very quietly, in the most deeply hidden recesses of his mind, there were times… .

“Where?” he demanded harshly.

“Still south,” the creature which had roused him said obsequiously. “Far south, but coming!”

It rubbed its misshapen paws together, bobbing its head and fawning before him, silhouetted against the sunlight outside the cave. Jerghar regarded it with contempt, yet there was more than a trace of fear under the contempt. Not of the creature, but of the similarity, the parallel, between them which all his denial could not erase.

The shardohn’s long, slick tongue flicked out like a wet, black serpent to lick its piglike tusks, and it crouched still lower as it felt his eyes upon it.

“Please, Master,” it whined, and he reached down and cuffed it viciously as his edge of fear spawned anger. That blow would have shattered human bone, but the shardohn only squealed—in fear, more than in pain—and fell onto its side, raising its wings to cover its head. Jerghar drew back his hand to strike it again, then let his arm fall to his side.

“Get up,” he snarled, and the shardohn scrambled to its feet and stood hunched into a crouch before him, staring down and refusing to meet his eyes.

“Where ’south’ are they?” he growled, and the creature seemed to fold in on itself. It whimpered, and Jerghar forced himself not to cuff it yet again. It was hard, but he reminded himself of its limitations. Night and darkness were the province of Krahana and her creatures. Jerghar himself could tolerate the light, although direct sunlight was painful and remained mildly disorienting, despite the charm Varnaythus had provided to protect him against that weakness and prevent others from noticing his oddly elongated teeth. But the shardohns were far more strongly affected than he, and even when they were shielded from the sun itself, daylight made them clumsy and slow … and stupid.

“Tell me the place at which they are located now,” he said, speaking very slowly and distinctly, and the shardohn visibly perked up, as if the question had finally been rendered down into words it could understand.

“Perhaps one league south of where we feasted on horses, Master,” it said eagerly, reaching out one taloned paw as if to touch his knee. It thought better of the familiarity and jerked its hand back, and Jerghar grunted in grudging approval.

“Very well,” he said after a moment. “Rejoin your pack. I’ll summon you when I require you.”

“Yes, Master—yes!” the shardohn babbled, bobbing and bowing, and then scurried off, scuttling deeper into the shadows of the cave. Jerghar watched it go, then settled down on an outthrust of rock to think.