since their bonding that Gayrfressa had truly loosed the incomparable speed and endurance of her kind. They’d touched moments of such swiftness, yet until this moment, not even Leeana-a wind rider herself, wife and daughter of wind riders-had truly grasped what it would be like. Now she knew…and as she rode the tornado named Gayrfressa, she and her hoofed sister merged on an even deeper, even more complete level.
Dimly, in the back of her mind where her own thoughts resided separately from this driving charge across the Wind Plain, she understood that part of the magic was her own love of running. Her delight in the speed of her merely human feet, of the deep breaths pulsing in and out of her lungs, of the steady, elevated beat of her heart. She knew that love for herself, and so she truly shared Gayrfressa’s passion to outrace the wind and give herself to the thunder of her hooves-to gallop until even she could gallop no more. And as that thought wended its way through her own mind, she felt Gayrfressa touch it with her and sensed the mare’s agreement, exalted and joyous despite the gravity of their mission.
She raised her head, green eyes slitted against the wind, gazing ahead. Few creatures on earth could match a courser’s sense of direction. Gayrfressa knew exactly where they were headed, and she burned her way across open fields, vaulted dry stream beds and small creeks, slowed just enough to maintain her footing as she forged across a broader watercourse, carrying both of them arrow-straight toward their goal. Leeana knew the land around Chergor well, if not so intimately as the terrain around Kalatha, yet she could never have picked out the shortest path to her father’s hunting lodge as Gayrfressa had. She wondered how the courser had done it, yet that was something not even Gayrfressa could have explained to her. The huge chestnut mare simply knew where her destination lay, and no power on earth could have deflected her from her course.
Now Leeana blinked on tears, and her heart rose as she recognized known landmarks. They were no more than a quarter-hour from their goal, the way a courser galloped, and she lowered her head once more, lying forward along Gayrfressa’s neck, cheeks whipped by the courser’s mane, and laid her palms against her sister’s shoulders and the bunchy, explosive power of her deltoideus muscles. She flattened herself, molded herself to the courser, and they and the wind were one.
Tellian stroked his beard, looking down upon a chessboard which had done nothing but grow progressively (and inevitably) worse from his perspective.
“Mate in three, I believe,” the King said genially, and the baron snorted.
“I believe you’re correct, Your Majesty. And in the interests of moving on to allow you to do something more worthwhile with your time-”
He reached out and tipped his king over, conceding the game.
“I won’t pretend I’m not savoring this moment,” Markhos told him with a smile, beginning to reset the pieces. “Of course, I’m sure you would never be so undutiful as to point out that I’d need to do this no more than…oh, another couple of hundred times to pull even with you.”
“I don’t think it’s quite that bad, Your Majesty,” Tellian corrected with a smile of his own. “It couldn’t be more than a few score games-certainly not hundreds.”
“You’re making it ever so much better, Milord.” Markhos’ blue eyes glinted with amusement.
“It’s not that I don’t-”
Tellian cut off abruptly, jerking upright in his chair. The King looked up quickly, his eyebrows rising in surprise, but the baron didn’t even see him. His eyes were unfocused, his expression that of a man listening to a voice only he could hear. And as King Markhos watched, that expression transformed itself from one of sheer astonishment to something far, far darker.
The ornamental wall barely topped the fruit trees Baroness Hanatha had had planted along the wall’s foot as Gayrfressa slowed her hurtling pace at last. The trees of Chergor Forest rose beyond the lodge, climbing the gently rolling hills between its eastern wall (such as it was) and the northernmost reaches of the Spear River. Leeana had always loved the vast, leafy hunting preserve, and the graceful, airy architecture of the timbered lodge itself, with its leaded windows, breezy verandas, and steeply pitched roof had offered a far younger Leeana a wonderful contrast from the grim, indomitable battlements and turrets of Hill Guard Castle. But as she watched that low, purely decorative wall show itself above the apple trees, she found herself wishing fervently that it was twice as tall and three times as thick.
‹ At least Dathgar and Gayrhalan heard me,› Gayrfressa pointed out, and Leeana nodded.
“I know, dearheart,” she agreed, catching the glint of a lookout’s polished steel helmet from the top of that damnably low wall. “I know. But I wish-”
She cut herself off with a grimace. She knew how she wanted the King’s Guard to react, but there was no sign they were doing anything of the sort.
I don’t suppose I should be all that surprised they aren’t, either, when all they have to go on is the word of a war maid, even if she is a wind rider, she thought.
‹ From what Dathgar’s had to say, I don’t think that’s the only reason they’re not already headed for Balthar,› Gayrfressa said grimly in the back of her brain. ‹ I wish you two-foots were just a little more like us, sometimes!›
“Unfortunately, we’re not,” Leeana replied even more grimly. “We don’t always think of the rest of the herd first, and you can always count on someone to argue, no matter how sensible your suggestion might be. And,” she conceded unwillingly, “this has all come at them completely unexpected. It’s not too surprising that there might be a certain amount of…disagreement on the best way to respond, I suppose.”
Gayrfressa snorted, slowing still further, to the fast, smooth walk of a courser, as the two of them approached the open gate in the outer wall. It wasn’t much more of a gate than the wall was of a wall, Leeana reflected. It had seemed much more substantial when she’d been younger, and she wished fervently that her childhood memories could have changed the reality.
A knot of men stood waiting as the courser swept through the gateway, ducking her lordly head to clear its intricately carved and painted lintel, and came to a graceful stop. Even she was sweating heavily after her driving run, but she stood tall and proud as Leeana swung quickly down from the saddle and bowed deeply to the redhaired man at the center of the small cluster.
One or two of his companions-predictably-looked more than a little contemptuous as she gave her monarch a “man’s” greeting, though just how they expected her to curtsy in riding breeches was beyond her.
“Your Majesty,” she said. “I apologize for intruding without an invitation.”
“Indeed?” Markhos’ tone was cool but courteous, and she raised her head to meet his eyes. “Given the news your companion sent ahead and the message you bear, invitations would seem to be the least of our concerns.”
“I’m afraid so, Your Majesty,” she agreed, and reached into her belt pouch. One of the armsmen at the King’s back stiffened as her hand disappeared into the pouch, but he relaxed again-slightly-as it emerged again with nothing more threatening than a piece of paper. “From Lord Warden Lorham, Your Majesty,” she said quietly.
The King accepted the hastily written message with a small nod, broke the seal, and scanned it rapidly. Then he handed it to Sir Jerhas Macebearer. The Prime Councilor read it as quickly as the King had, his face tightening, then passed it across to Tellian, in turn. Leeana watched from the corner of her eye as her father read it, but she’d never moved her own gaze from King Markhos’. The King’s blue eyes were intent, narrowed with concentration as he looked back at her measuringly.
“It would seem Lord Lorham confirms everything your courser already relayed to Baron Tellian’s brother,” he said, ignoring-as law and custom alike demanded-the fact that “Baron Tellian” was also her father. “He says, however, that you were the one who found Master Brayahs?”
“That’s so, Your Majesty,” Leeana confirmed. “Gayrfressa”-she reached up to lay one hand on the mare’s shoulder-“smelled the smoke, and we went to investigate.” She shrugged ever so slightly. “We found him, but it was Arm Shahana who healed him. I think he might very well have died without her, and he would never have regained consciousness in time to warn us if she hadn’t been there.”
“How fortunate she was there, then,” a slender, golden-haired man of perhaps thirty-five said. He was richly
