Wind Rider's Oath

'You will serve Me, and in the serving you will find such power as even you have never before dreamed might be yours,' Krahana Phrofressa, Lady of the Damned, promised her Servants, and she smiled.

* * *

'Is your information certain, Darnas?'

Baron Cassan leaned forward in his chair, his handsome face intent. His study's lamplight picked out the gems on his ringed fingers and gleamed on his golden hair, and the bouillon embroidery of his black velvet tunic flickered in the mellow glow when he shifted position. The man before him had dark, thinning hair, brown eyes, and a weathered complexion. In contrast to his lord's elegance, his clothing was plain, durable and practical, but cheap. Indeed, he was almost as nondescript as Varnaythus, but unlike the wizard-priest, Darnas Warshoe had been in Cassan's service for almost nine years. At the moment, he looked rather the worse for wear, unshaven and tired, his boots spattered with mud.

'Aye, Milord Baron,' he said wearily. 'No one made any great secret of it, and I confirmed the stories myself.' He gave his liege lord a tired smile. 'I've not forgotten how to mend riding tack, Milord, and there's always need for a few extra sets of hands this time of year. That got me into Hill Guard, and there was plenty of gossip amongst the castle's garrison.'

'So Tellian sent Trianal to Festian,' Cassan mused aloud, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs. He waved Darnas towards the sideboard, with its wine bottles and gleaming decanters, and his henchman accepted the silent invitation with alacrity. Cassan was never niggardly with those who served him well, and Darnas unhesitatingly poured himself a snifter of outrageously expensive Saramanthan brandy. All the same, Cassan noted with dry amusement, it was a rather small snifter.

The baron didn't care. As far as he was concerned, Darnas' report entitled the man to the entire decanter. Of course, precisely what Cassan was going to do with that information remained to be seen.

He gazed into the fire-kindled more for custom and emotional comfort than for need, now that spring was moving steadily towards warmer days and nights-and thought hard.

He'd always anticipated that Tellian would send some sort of assistance to Festian. He almost had to, given the pressure Saratic, Garthan, and Erathian were exerting. But Cassan hadn't really considered the possibility that he might send a youngster like Trianal as his proxy. In some ways, it was a most shrewd move on Tellian's part, but in others . . .

Trianal was young, very young, for such a responsibility. The Bowmasters had a tradition of testing members of their clan young, and from all of Cassan's reports, the cub had acquitted himself well in the face of the opportunities which had already arisen. Yet despite all that, he had a young man's judgment and experience. It would be much easier for a youngster his age, especially one eager to make a good impression and justify his uncle's faith in him, to let enthusiasm or overconfidence lead him into disaster an older, wiser head might have avoided.

Cassan had hoped Tellian might have been concerned enough to personally lead a contingent of his troops to Glanharrow. Or, failing that, that he might have sent that infernal, interfering busybody 'Prince Bahzell' as his proxy, given the Gullet's proximity to the area of Erathian's raids. In either of those cases, Darnas' expertise with bow and arbalest might have proven most useful.

In the end, not even Saratic would willingly have launched a personal attack upon the Baron of Balthar. Accidents might have happened, had Tellian insisted (as was his wont) upon leading his men in person, but no mere lord warden would be prepared to risk the killing of one of the Kingdom's four barons. The penalty for an 'accident' like that would be . . . extreme, and it was almost certain that King Markhos would dispatch his Crown investigators to look into the death of a great magnate like Tellian.

But that was the reason Cassan had infiltrated Darnas into Saratic's employ. The Lord Warden of Golden Vale thought Darnas was only one more skilled scout. He had no way of knowing that before a certain unfortunate lapse in judgment had led to his fall from grace, Sergeant Warshoe had been an instructor in the King's Own Regiment. Darnas could thread a needle with a horsebow at two hundred yards, and he was almost equally skilled with a steel-bowed arbalest. More importantly, Darnas had no qualms whatsoever about putting a yard-long arrow, or a steel-pointed arbalest quarrel, through any baron ever born if Cassan told him to.

It would have been so neat, Cassan thought wistfully. Everyone would have suspected, accurately enough, that Saratic was the primary instigator of the attacks upon Festian's lord wardenship. But everyone who knew him would also have known he would never intentionally kill Tellian. So the only reasonable conclusion would have been that it truly was an accident. In that case, Cassan's protection of his vassal would probably have been enough to preserve Saratic from fatal consequences. And if that protection had proved inadequate, Saratic would not have been an irreplaceable loss, however useful he might have proved if he survived. Indeed, Cassan would cheerfully have cut the man's throat himself if that was what it took to bring about Tellian's death.

Killing Tellian in what was obviously little more than a border squabble between minor feuding lord wardens would have decapitated the opposing faction on the Royal Council in a way which could never have pointed the finger of suspicion at Cassan. Even better, Tellian's death would have provoked the very succession crisis in Balthar about which Cassan's proxies and cat's-paws on the Council had been warning everyone for years. And when that happened, those same proxies would be prepared to urge the King to give his royal stamp of approval to Rulth Blackhill's offer for Leeana Bowmaster's hand. Under the circumstances, Cassan had estimated that there were at least three chances in four that Markhos would have agreed to marry the girl off to the Lord Warden of Transhar rather than risk seeing the Balthar succession collapse into uncertainty.

The chances of getting Tellian into the open and killing him there had always been problematical, but the prize was certainly worth making the attempt. And if he couldn't kill Tellian, he'd hoped that Darnas would at least manage to get a clear shot at 'Prince Bahzell.' Killing him off would put an end to the entire grotesque sham created by Tellian's shameful and humiliating 'surrender' to the horse-murdering barbarians. It would also prove once and for all that no hradani could truly be a champion of Tomanak, no matter who Bahzell and Wencit had managed to fool and manipulate into accepting such a blasphemous absurdity. And with just a little bit of luck, Bahzell's death might very well have provoked the war Tellian's gutless 'surrender' had postponed. It might not be as satisfying as removing Tellian and marrying Balthar's heir conveyant off to one of Cassan's kinsmen and allies-especially one who would be as . . . demanding as Rulth. But ending all threat of a united hradani Kingdom on the flank of the Wind Plain before Prince Bahnak was firmly in control was certainly a worthy goal in its own right.

Yet now it seemed neither of those targets was about to come within range of Darnas' bow or arbalest. Cassan wondered if Tellian had been cunning enough to suspect the full depth of his enemy's plans and hopes. Had he been clever enough to send Trianal on the theory that the youngster would have so much less priority as a target that he would be, in effect, protected? Or, conversely, was Tellian cold-blooded enough to send the young man off expecting him to be targeted? Trianal was his nephew, yet any military commander worth his salt knew there were times when a diversion was necessary. And for a diversion to succeed, it had to be tempting enough that it might well draw an attack, which meant that sometimes one had to risk-or even knowingly and deliberately accept-that diversion's sacrifice.

'Tell me, Darnas,' Cassan said, emerging from his reverie at last, 'what do Tellian's armsmen and minor lords think of Trianal?'

'Well, Milord,' Warshoe began with slow, obvious thoughtfulness, 'I'd say they think well of him. He's handled himself well enough in the field, given how few chances he's had. And although he's young, most of Tellian's people think he's a shrewd and level head on his shoulders. They certainly prefer him to either of his brothers! Indeed, Milord, and bearing in mind Lord Transhar's offer for Lady Leeana, there's quite a few of Tellian's armsmen who think he ought to have settled the succession question by arranging a marriage between Trianal and his daughter.'

'The Council would never have stood for it,' Cassan said dismissively. 'There's much too close a degree of consanguinity.'

'I know that, Milord. And so do Tellian's armsmen. But you asked what they thought of him, and I'd say that wishing Tellian could arrange that marriage is a fair indication that they think pretty highly of him.'

'Um.' Cassan rubbed his lower lip, frowning, then nodded. 'You're right,' he conceded. 'And, truth to tell, if I