Sword Brother

"Because we're the good fellows, and they're the bad fellows," Bahzell said lightly. "Still and all," he reached up, unhooked a case of oiled leather from his saddle, and extracted the deadly horsebow of a windrider, "I'm thinking as how it's not so very likely we'll be creeping into yonder 'miserable little burrow' without someone noticing."

He strung the bow smoothly and easily. It had taken his fellow wind riders a long time to convince him to give up his steel-bowed arbalest, and he still wasn't as good an archer as most of them were. They, after all, had literally grown up in the saddle, bows in hand. Bahzell had been doing other things-like raiding the Sothōii himself-at a comparable point in his own life. Still, the horsebow's rate of fire was far higher than even a Horse Stealer crossbowman could manage, and if Bahzell was a bit less accurate, he could pull a bow far heavier than any mere human. In the final analysis, the sheer, incredible power of his weapon made up for quite a lot.

*Do try to avoid shooting yourself-or me-in the foot with that thing, would you?*

"And aren't you just the fu

*I try, at any rate. I promised Brandark I'd keep you from getting too full of yourself.*

"Remind me to be thanking him the next time I see him."

*I imagine you'll remember all on your own,* Walsharno reassured him.

Bahzell snorted, then turned to study the hillside above them.

Most people would never have realized there was anything there, but Bahzell and Walsharno weren't most people. Both of them could sense the dark miasma hiding in the heart of the hill, and the cloaking power of Sharnā which should have hidden the tu

Bahzell bared his teeth as he saw the loathsome image of Sharnā's scorpion, carved into the keystone of the outer arch, and he remembered the first time he'd seen that same image. What he didn't see was anything remotely like a sentry, and that worried him.

"I'm thinking as how they must know we're out here," he said.

*After what happened at the village?* Walsharno snorted yet again, this time in emphatic agreement.

"Then wouldn't you think it's just a mite overconfident they're being with no one posted to be keeping an eye out for us?"

Walsharno nodded, and Bahzell's frown deepened. Although Sharnā couldn't hide the entrance from him or Walsharno by arcane means, things could still be physically concealed, and there was an uncomfortable crawling sensation between Bahzell's shoulder blades.

"Well," he sighed, "I'm thinking there's only one way to be finding out what it is they've got in mind."

It was remarkable how quiet something the size of a Sothōii courser could be when it put its mind to it. Walsharno's ability to move almost soundlessly, even through underbrush, had always impressed Bahzell. He himself had spent years honing his ability to do the same thing, and he was far smaller than the stallion, with only two feet, to boot. Despite that, Walsharno made little more noise than he would have made by himself, and what sounds they did make were lost in the sigh of the steadily strengthening night wind.

Thunder mutter-grumbled, and lightning flickered blue-white against the clouds far to the east. It was coming closer, and there was something almost soothing about the natural power of the oncoming storm.

No windrider would have dreamed of using reins, and no courser would have tolerated such an impertinence if he had. Nor was anything so crude required. Walsharno was linked with Bahzell, their thoughts flickering back and forth almost as if they were a single being. There was no need for Bahzell to tell Walsharno where to go, or for Walsharno to tell Bahzell where they were going.

Which, Bahzell reflected as he nocked an arrow, also left both of his hands free for other purposes.

Walsharno emerged from the last few feet of the undergrowth fringing the streambed and started up the slope just as quietly and cautiously. The sense of the evil flowing out of the tu

*Now, Brother?*

"Not quite," Bahzell murmured back. "Let's be getting as close as we can before-"

The night suddenly shattered as something even darker and blacker than it was, and almost as enormous, exploded from the tu

"Tomanâk!" Bahzell bellowed in reply, and heard Walsharno's defiant challenge echoing deep inside him. The clean blue corona of Tomanâk snapped into sudden, glittering existence about them both, and Bahzell reached out. It was as if he stretched one hand to Tomanâk and the other to Walsharno, and a stuttering electrical shock exploded through him as their hands reached back.

"Tomanâk!" he shouted once more, drawing that shared strength and support deep into him even as he called the Rage's transcendent power to him.

His bow sang with a musical, chirping snap. A steel-headed war arrow howled from the string, and the azure power of Tomanâk touched it. It flashed across the night like a blue meteor, and the demon shrieked again-this time in as much pain as fury-as the meteor slammed into its long, sinuous neck. It struck just below the head, and blinding light exploded from the point of impact.

The hideous creature flailed its head in obvious anguish, but its charge barely hesitated, and Walsharno wheeled on his haunches, then sprang into a full gallop with a speed only another courser could possibly have matched.

The days when Bahzell had sat the saddle like an abandoned sack of meal were long past. He and his courser were one being, and his right hand flashed down to the quiver at his belt. Another arrow fitted itself flawlessly, perfectly, to the string, and he sighted, drew, and released in one flowing motion.

Another blue-flaming arrow shrieked across the night, but this time the demon wasn't taken by surprise. Mere arrows had never posed a threat to it in the past. They'd rattled uselessly, harmlessly, off its hard scales and thick carapace, but these arrows were a very different matter, indeed. Not only could they drill effortlessly through its armor, but they exploded deep within its u

The demon staggered, howling in fresh pain and fury, but it didn't go down. Instead, it gathered its feet under it once again, wings beating for balance, and lunged. The wind from those flailing wings buffeted Bahzell and Walsharno like some foul-smelling hurricane, and there wasn't time for another shot. Bahzell dropped his bow and raised his hands, summoning his blade, and five feet of burnished steel glared with the blue furnace-fury of the war god.