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“I—” He began, then paused and shook himself. “For that much, at least, I most truly apologize, Prince Bahzell,” he said stiffly. “It was my grief and anger speaking. That ca
“We’ll say no more about it.” Bahzell’s voice was as chill as Vonderland ice, but then he inhaled deeply and continued in a more nearly normal tone. “The reason I was after asking about the body is that I’m thinking as how these coursers are after suffering from more than physical wounds. There’s a poison working in them, one as attacks the heart and the soul as much or more than the body. And I’m not so very sure as it’s after stopping when the body dies.”
Hahnal and his father stared at Bahzell, Edinghas’ lingering anger at his son in abatement as the sense of what Bahzell was saying registered. Hahnal started to protest, than stopped himself. It was obvious to Bahzell that he wanted to disbelieve that what he was hearing was possible, but the sick light in his eyes said that however much he’d wanted to, he’d failed.
“Toragan!“ Lord Edinghas whispered, his face pale with horror. His hands tightened on his wide sword belt with enough force to squeeze the heavy leather almost double, and he stared at the injured, shivering coursers. Then he wrenched his gaze back to Bahzell.
“What can we do?” he asked, and the raw appeal in his hoarse voice submerged any lingering doubts as to who and what Bahzell was. It wasn’t because his intellect had overcome them, Bahzell realized. It was because of his desperate need to believe that someone—anyone—could avert or undo this nightmare.
“As to that, I’m not so very sure,” Bahzell admitted heavily. Edinghas stared at him, and the hradani flicked his ears in the equivalent of a shrug. “I’m thinking as how the only thing I could be trying would be to heal them,” he said. “I’ve never yet tried to heal aught but those of the Races of Man, and I’ve no least notion whether or not it’s even possible for me to be after healing coursers. Yet it’s in my mind that I’ve no choice but to try.”
“Heal them?” Edinghas tried to keep his incredulity out of his voice, and he almost succeeded.
“Aye. But the thing is, I’m thinking there’s scant time to waste. I’d hoped as how Sir Kelthys and Walasfro would be here to be introducing me to these coursers. Yet if we’re after waiting for them to reach us, we’ll be losing at least some of them.”
“Then you have to try now!” Hahnal burst out.
“Aye, and so I’m saying my own self,” Bahzell said shortly. “Yet without Walasfro to be telling them who I am, they’re not so very likely to be letting me come next or nigh them. And frightened and confused as they are, it’s like enough they’ll be lashing out at any threat.”
Understanding filled Hahnal’s expression.
“We could tether them …” he began, slowly and manifestly against his will.
“No.” Bahzell shook his head. “They’re naught but one small slip from madness as it is, and they’re none too clear in their minds. And they’re after being coursers, Milord. They’ve known neither halter nor bridle all their lives long. If you’re after trying to tie them now, in their state, no matter what your reason, they’ll be panicking, and then—”
He shrugged.
“Forgive me, Prince Bahzell,” Edinghas said, “but I’ve never seen a champion heal. Am I correct in believing that you have to actually touch the one you intend to heal?”
“Aye, that I must,” Bahzell said grimly.
“Then it’s out of the question.” The lord warden spoke firmly, despite the despair washing across his face. “Weakened they may be, but they’re coursers. They’ll die on their feet rather than yield to man, demon, or god. And in their state, and with you a hradani …”
He shook his head heavily, but Bahzell surprised him with a sound that was halfway between a grunt and a snort. He looked back up at the towering hradani quickly, and Bahzell gave him a taut, crooked grin.
“Lord Edinghas, a champion of Tomanak is one as does what needs doing. Himself isn’t after promising we’ll always like what comes of it, or even that we’ll be surviving.”
“But—”
“It’s grateful I’ll be if you all be standing back,” Bahzell said, and before anyone else could reply, he walked forward towards the coursers.
He kept his eyes on the wounded filly, ignoring Edinghas’ half-stifled cry of protest. He had to begin somewhere, see if it was even possible for him to heal the evil consuming them, and she was the one. Her dreadful wounds made her a logical enough place to begin, but that wasn’t all that drew him towards her like a filing to a lodestone. It was her, he thought. He didn’t know how he knew, but she was the key, the one who could somehow tell them what they needed to know, if only she lived.
The filly’s maimed head came up as he approached her. She turned, moving until she could see him with her remaining eye, and bared her teeth. One forehoof pawed at the stable floor, thudding on earth and straw bedding like a mace, and she gave a harsh, ugly sound of challenge.
Bahzell never paused. He continued to move towards her at that slow, steady pace, careful to remain on the side where she could see him. The adult coursers shifted and flowed behind her, whistling and trumpeting their own challenges as they realized one of the hated hradani had somehow penetrated the frail security of the stable’s walls.
“All right, Tomanak,” he murmured very softly. “I’m hoping I’ve understood all this aright, and it’s grateful I’ll be if you can be after convincing these fine folk not to be trampling me into mud.”
Then he looked at the filly, meeting the terrified challenge and hatred in her wildly rolling eye with a steady brown gaze.
“Now, then, Milady,” he said gently. “I’ll not blame you for distrusting such as me. But I’ve no least notion of doing you or yours hurt. I’m naught but a friend, whatever it may be you’re thinking.”
The filly whistled shrilly, the sound deafening inside the stable, and reared. Large as the stable was, there was scant room for so huge a creature to rear, but she towered above the hradani, dwarfing even his mountainous stature, forehooves pawing the air, and her raging terror and poison-corrupted madness shook the stable like a storm. The other adults caught her fury, and all seven of them started forward. Bahzell heard human voices raised behind him, crying out in warning, but he scarcely needed them to tell him he was about to be trampled under by nine or ten tons of hoofed rage.
He didn’t stop. He didn’t even think. He simply continued towards them, and his right hand rose. The screams of equine rage completely overwhelmed the merely human voices behind him, but then, suddenly, his raised hand flared with a blinding burst of brilliant blue light. It was like an azure sunrise trapped inside the building, illuminating every knothole, every wisp of straw—every drifting dust mote. It was as if Chemalka’s lightning had crackled down from the very heavens and exploded in palm of a hradani’s hand, and a mighty wind not quite of this world seemed to sweep the length of the stable, like a hurricane that was sensed rather than felt.
And then, through the tumult and the trumpeting of the terrified coursers, Bahzell Bahnakson’s voice rumbled with impossible clarity.
“Still,” he said.
It was only a single word, yet it echoed in the bones and blood of every man in that stable. It went through them like an earthquake, impossible to ignore or disobey or evade. It caught them like some huge, unseen set of pincers and nailed them where they stood, unable to move, or protest, or scarcely even to breathe.
Yet that was only the echo, the backwash, of that single command’s unstoppable force. The rearing filly’s forehooves thudded back to earth, and she froze, staring one-eyed at the hradani and the god-light blazing from his open palm. Behind her, six more coursers stilled, as well. They stood trembling, all of their defiance and rage frozen inside an unbreakable crystal cocoon that streamed over them from Bahzell.