Wind Rider's Oath

'So,' Bahzell whispered. 'Sooooo . . .'

He reached the filly. Despite her youth, she was bigger and more powerful than the largest draft horse Bahzell had ever seen. Even he had to reach up to touch her head, and his right hand, no longer aflame with power, was gentle on the velvety softness of her nose. She flinched ever so slightly at the touch, then stood quiescent, her eye drooping half closed, and he stroked her forehead with his other hand, his eyes dark with compassion as he saw her dreadful wounds so close at hand.

'Now, Milady,' he murmured, and held out his right hand, still gently stroking with the left. He never took his eyes from the courser as he flexed his fingers, and then whispered a single word.

'Come,' he breathed, and a chorus of gasps echoed through the unnatural silence of the stable as a huge, gleaming sword materialized in his hand. The crossed Sword and Mace of Tomanak were etched into the shining steel of that superb blade, and they flashed in the stable's dimness, damasked in a faery tracery of blue and golden light.

Bahzell reversed it in his hand, holding the hilt up between him and the strangely frozen filly, and a corona of blue light grew about him. It was faint, at first. Little more than a glimmer, more guessed at than seen. But it grew in both brightness and strength. It seemed to flow outward from Bahzell, conforming to the shape of his body, yet pressing ever outward and upward. Huge as he was, that bright, brilliant blue was huger. It stretched to the rafters and spread from stall to stall, reaching out until it completely enveloped the filly, as well.

Hradani and courser stood there, face-to-face, in an impossible tableau not a single Sothoii in that stable would have believed could ever exist. The light wrapped about them grew brighter, and brighter still. Hands rose to shield their eyes, and they turned away, unable to bear the intensity of that cascading brilliance.

And in the heart of that silently roaring inferno, Bahzell Bahnakson threw all of his faith, and all of his stubborn will-his inability to admit defeat, and his unstoppable drive to do what duty required of him-against the strangling shroud of the poison consuming the filly from within. It was unlike any healing he had ever attempted, for the poison he faced was not physical. The wounds themselves, the torn flesh, the shredded hide, those were enemies he'd come to know well. But the poison was something different, something that tore at the filly's spirit and soul, devouring them, turning them into something else-something unspeakably foul and unclean.

He threw himself at it, turning his will and his own spirit-his very self-into a sword blade of light. In a way he knew he would never be able to describe he found himself locked in combat, parrying and thrusting, meeting the poison's attack on the courser and taking it upon the armor of himself and his link to Tomanak. He thrust himself between it and its victim, prying at it, chopping at it, forcing it back, back. Slowly, steadily, with every ounce of elemental hradani stubbornness. Inch by inch, he clawed at its smothering shroud and peeled it back.

And as he did, as it slowly and spitefully yielded to his attack, he became aware of something else. He felt the filly. There was no other way to describe it. The courser was there, in the hollow of his mind's eye, like some exquisite equestrian sculpture emerging perfect and unflawed from a thick, noisome fog. It was the filly as she would have been-should have been-in all the glory of her maturity. Unscarred, unwounded, powerful and magnificent, with the wind itself in her hoovess and the power of the Wind Plain's summer thunder in her heart.

He'd never seen, never imagined, such perfect balance and heart, such a splendor of matchless strength and indomitable spirit, in any living creature, and he reached out to it. He wrapped it in that silently seething hurricane of light, and as he did, something flowed through him. It was like a braided cable of lightning, reaching through him as he became a conduit for the touch of Tomanak Himself. And yet, there was more even then godhood in that outpouring. There was also Bahzell Bahnakson, his own spirit, his own will, a giving of himself-of all that he was and knew and believed and hoped to become. It joined the tide of power, taking with it that essence of the filly, demanding that it be restored to her, making it real.

The vision snapped into perfect, impossibly intense focus in his heart and mind, and for just an instant, he, the filly, and Tomanak were one.

It was an instant that could not last. No mortal-not even a courser, or a champion of Tomanak-could endure that intensity more than momentarily. They fused . . . and then they flashed apart once more, severed into their separate selves, shaken and grieving for the splendor that had been, and yet joyous as they recognized the strength they had shared and the differences which made each of them unique and in his or her own way equally magnificent.

Bahzell staggered back a half-pace and stared at the filly. Not even that cascade of healing energy could undo all the damage she'd suffered. The eye she had lost, was lost. The ear she had lost would never return. But the gaping wounds, the suppurating gouges-those had vanished. Torn muscle was whole once more, rent hide was restored . . . and the poison corrupting from within had vanished.

They stared at one another, no longer joined, yet both aware that so deep a fusion could never be fully sundered, either. The filly gazed wonderingly upon the enemy who had given her back life, and more than life, and Bahzell met her gaze with a mind full of memories of thundering hoofs, of muscles bunching and springing, of manes and tails streaming in the wind, and the high, wild passion of the gallop. He reached out, touching her muzzle, feeling the warmth and the rough, silken softness, and she leaned forward, pressing her nose gently, so very gently, against his chest.

'Well done, Bahzell.' The voice came from everywhere and nowhere. It rumbled with the hoofs of a thousand coursers thundering across the Wind Plain, and it throbbed with the rolling crash of distant thunder exploding across autumn skies, and yet it was soft, almost gentle.

'Well done, My Sword,' the voice of Tomanak repeated, and throughout the stable, men went to their knees, staring in awe at the champion and courser. 'Now you know the cure,' Tomanak continued. 'But the cure is not the only answer. Be ready, Bahzell, and be warned. This foe is no mere demon. This foe can slay not simply your body, but your soul. Are you prepared to face that threat to prevent what happened to Storm Daughter's herd from claiming still more victims?'

Bahzell heard the warning and tasted its truth. His god was the God of Justice and of Truth, as well as the God of War, and He did not lie. And the choice of whether or not to face that danger was his own. It was Bahzell Bahnakson's. And because it was, and because of who Bahzell Bahnakson was, it was really no choice at all.

He looked once more into the filly's-into Storm Daughter's-single eye, and let his deity's question roll through him until its echoes had settled into his bones. And then he answered it.

'Aye,' he said, in a voice of quiet, hammered iron, 'I am that.'

Chapter Twenty-Four

Garlahna, Leeana decided, had a pronounced gift for apt description.

'Lots worse' than Erlis had made it sound was exactly how her first day had been.

The thought took almost more energy than she had as she dragged herself out of the kitchen. The sun had set over an hour ago, but she'd been up since at least an hour before dawn. And she didn't believe she'd sat down for more than five minutes in a row all day long. Well, maybe with Lanitha. But it still didn't feel as if she had.

Yesterday had been bad enough, but today had set a new record.

Garlahna had led Leeana about Kalatha yesterday afternoon like some sort of fresh exhibit in a freak show. Not that the older war maid had treated her like a freak or done anything but her very best to make Leeana feel welcome. Yet that hadn't kept Leeana from realizing that it wasn't just her imagination when she thought that other eyes watched closely. She and Garlahna had found themselves in a bubble of moving silence, surrounded by people-almost all of them women, though no more than half of them wore the chari and yathu-who watched them with almost frightening intensity.

Leeana knew where it had come from, of course. Mayor Yalith had put it into words during their interview, but she hadn't really needed the mayor to do so. Of course her very presence here in Kalatha had to be seen as a threat. She might be certain that the parents and family she'd fled wouldn't hold her actions against the war maids in general or Kalatha in particular, but there was no way the other inhabitants of Kalatha could share her assurance. They had to be wondering how her choice to come here would affect Baron Tellian's decisions if it