Wind Rider's Oath

“I know,” Kelthys responded after a moment. “And it probably says something we’d rather not hear about us that we’re so surprised by his actions. Whatever else he may be, Lord Hahnal, he’s also a champion of Tomanak. Somehow I doubt that Tomanak is in the habit of taking champions, whatever their race, who are anything except extraordinary people.”

He was speaking to Walasfro, and the Bear River stallion Hahnal was tending to, as much as to the heir of Warm Springs. And Walasfro’s presence in the back of his mind told him that the courser understood that perfectly.

“Aye, Milord,” Hahnal nodded soberly, “and that’s exactly what he and those other hradani from the Order are—people. Alfar was right about them when he told my father how hard they’d driven themselves to get here. And I don’t think any of us will ever forget seeing Prince Bahzell heal the coursers.”

“No, I don’t suppose you will,” Kelthys agreed, and looked up as Walasfro turned his head to meet his gaze. “And neither will the coursers, I suspect,” the wind rider said.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Sir Kelthys looked up from the bridle in his lap as Bahzell walked into the stable. The wind rider nodded companionably to the hradani, then returned his attention to the bridle, setting small, neat stitches into the noseband. He sensed Bahzell settling onto a three-legged stool beside him, but he continued to concentrate on repairing the bridle.

“I was thinking,” Bahzell rumbled after a moment, “as how wind riders weren’t after using bridles.”

“We don’t,” Kelthys agreed. He set another stitch and studied it critically, then flipped the jointed curb bit with a fingertip. “Walasfro would take my arm off at the elbow—and rightly so—if I tried to put something like this into his mouth, Prince Bahzell.” He shrugged. “As a matter of fact, they only wear hackamores to give us someplace to wear their decorations.”

“Aye?”

“Of course.” Kelthys chuckled. “Coursers are incredibly vain, you know. Almost as bad as your friend Brandark! That’s why all of us go in for those big silver conches on our ’formal wear’ saddles. Their hackamores are only an excuse for more silver studding—although some of them, like Walasfro, like to hang bells on them, as well. But we’d never dream of putting reins on them! As a matter of fact, that’s one of the things that drives other cavalry crazy the first time they run up against wind riders.”

He chuckled again, this time with a nastier edge.

“Our coursers know what they’re doing as well as we do, and they think with us in battle. We don’t even need to tell each other what we have in mind in words. And the fact that we’ve no use at all for reins just happens to leave both of our hands free for doing … unpleasant things to the other side.”

“Aye, I can be seeing that,” Bahzell told him with an answering laugh. Then he lapsed into silence, and Kelthys returned his attention to the piece of tack he was repairing for Lord Edinghas. Like many Sothoii, he was naturally on the laconic side. But this time there was another reason for his companionable silence. Bahzell had something on his mind, and Kelthys had no pressing engagements. If the champion needed time to get around to whatever was bothering him, that was fine with him.

Bahzell leaned back against the stable wall, crossing his arms across his massive chest, and gazed out the open stable door. The early afternoon sun was bright, but the stable was dimly lit and cool. It was like looking out of a cave, and he allowed himself to savor the sense of calm that it evoked.

Yet that calm was deceptive, and he knew it. He still didn’t know everything about what had happened to the Warm Springs herd, but he knew enough. In that moment when he and Gayrfressa had fused, he’d actually seen what she had seen, heard what she had heard … and felt what she had felt. And Tomanak had been at least a little more forthcoming than usual. He’d tucked away more information in handy corners of Bahzell’s brain than the Horse Stealer had expected. He certainly possessed a far better idea of what was waiting out there than he’d had when he and Brandark and Hurthang had led to the Hurgrum Chapter into Navahk to destroy Sharna ’s temple.

None of which made to deciding exactly what to do about it any easier. And then there was Gayrfressa … .

“Sir Kelthys,” he began after a moment.

“Yes, Milord?” the wind rider replied courteously, his nimble fingers still working on the bridle.

“You’re after being a wind rider, and you’ve been such for over twenty years, I’m thinking?”

“Yes, I have,” Kelthys agreed.

“Well, it’s in my mind as how it’s likely you’ve been after learning a mite more about coursers during that time than ever I have.”

“I’d certainly like to think I have,” Kelthys agreed again, this time with a slight smile. “Why?”

“It’s Gayrfressa,” Bahzell admitted after a moment, then paused.

“What about her?” Kelthys pressed gently.

“Well,” Bahzell said slowly, “when Himself and I were after healing her, there was a moment when everything was after flowing together, as you might say.” He grimaced, mobile ears twitching with frustration as he sought unsuccessfully for the exact words he needed. “There was after being a moment—naught but a heartbeat or two, mind you—when she and I were after … merging. As if there was naught but the one of us.” He turned and looked at the wind rider. “Would it happen as how you’ve felt such as that, or know someone else as has?”

“I … don’t think so,” Kelthys said, picking his own words as slowly and carefully as Bahzell had. “There’s a moment for most wind riders—not all of us, but most—when we first bond with our brothers when we see each other. When we know all there is to know about one another. When we can actually almost see the other one’s thoughts. But we don’t fuse, or merge. Not really, although we throw those words around sometimes. We remain separate. Closer than to our own siblings, or even our lovers, but still separate. And that doesn’t sound to me like what you’re describing.”

“Nor to me,” Bahzell agreed, and sighed.

“Was it all that terrible an experience?” Kelthys inquired, with a note of gentle teasing, and Bahzell snorted.

“Terrible?” He shook his head. “Not by a long chalk, Sir Kelthys. Mind you, I’d not be wishful as to be doing such as that again any time soon! No, and I’d not wish for any other courser to be experiencing what these have.”

His voice had darkened with the last sentence, but then he gave himself a shake.

“Still and all, though, I’ve no choice but to say as how it’s probably after being one of the two or three most wonderful experiences of my life. They’re truly after being the gods’ own creatures, aren’t they just?”

“I think so,” Kelthys agreed quietly.

“Aye. But you’re after being Sothoii, d’you see, whereas I’m hradani. And there’s not a courser ever born as was so very fond of hradani. So you might be saying as how that’s after being the relationship as we’re both most comfortable with.”

Kelthys quirked a quizzical eyebrow, and the huge hradani shrugged, looking almost embarrassed.

“Gayrfressa and I,” he said. “We’re not after being so very comfortable, anymore. I’ll not go so far as to say what’s betwixt us is after being the same as betwixt you and Walasfro, but it’s not anything as ever existed betwixt another courser and hradani, you can lay to that! I—”

“Forgive me, Prince Bahzell,” Kelthys asked gently, “but is it really so difficult for you to admit that the two of you love one another?” Bahzell gave him a sharp look, and Kelthys waved one hand in the air. “I doubt very much that anyone besides a wind rider has ever experienced anything remotely like what you’ve described to me, Milord Champion. But it’s not at all unheard of for coursers to form deep, intensive friendships with humans who aren’t wind riders—to love them, Prince Bahzell. Think of Dathgar and Baroness Hanatha, or Lady Leeana. Those who don’t know them well tend to forget, if they ever truly realize it in the first place, that coursers are at least as intelligent as any of the Races of Man. And they have far, far greater hearts than most of us have.”