Wind Rider's Oath

were Tellian, I might be tempted in the same direction, if I thought for a minute the Council might stand for it. Everything I'd heard suggested that Trianal's a likely lad-what you've just said only confirms it.'

He thought some more. As he'd told Darnas, there was no way even Tellian's closest allies on the Council would have supported a marriage between Trianal and Leeana. But if anything happened to Leeana, and the gods knew illness and accident were no respecters of rank or birth, then Tellian might very well select Trianal as his heir adoptive. That would be well within the accepted framework of law and custom. And an heir adoptive that well thought of by Tellian's vassals would make a formidable opponent. Especially if Tellian had another ten or twenty years in which to train him.

'You've spoken with Lord Saratic and Lord Garthan more recently than I,' he said aloud after another lengthy moment of consideration. 'How willing to you think they would be to risk a little more escalation?'

'You mean over and beyond what you've discussed with them, Milord? Or over and beyond what you've discussed with me?'

'Beyond what you and I have discussed,' Cassan replied.

'Well, Milord, I'd say Lord Garthan would have second thoughts, or even third thoughts. Not to put too fine a point upon it, Garthan's not only smarter than Saratic, but he's in it only for what he can do to strengthen his own position. Saratic, on the other hand . . .' Darnas shook his head. 'That's a man who's being eaten up inside by hate. He wants Festian dead, and even more than that, he wants 'Prince Bahzell' dead. Truth to tell, I doubt he would have been at all upset, whatever he might have said openly, if I'd had the opportunity for the archery practice we discussed. With Tellian not even there to suffer an accident, I think Saratic would be willing enough to risk killing young Trianal.'

'Willing enough to commit some of his own armsmen to the 'raids' on Festian's herds and farms?'

'If they were the right men, Milord-men he could trust both for their ability and for their loyalty and ability to keep their mouths closed-then, yes, I think he would.'

'And Erathian?'

'There, I'm not so sure, Milord,' Darnas confessed with the ability to admit honest ignorance which made him so valuable. 'I've not spoken directly to Lord Erathian, and I can't really say I know him at all. If you want my best guess, Milord, I'd say he hates Festian enough to be willing to let someone else across his holding to launch an attack on Festian, or even Trianal, directly. He'd not be willing to risk committing his own men to it, but he'd probably go as far as providing guides through the Bogs for someone else's men.' The spy-assassin shrugged. 'As I say, that's my best guess, Milord, but it's only a guess. I'd not want to think you were basing all your plans on something no more positive than that.'

'I understand.' Cassan nodded, and wished he had two or three more men whose judgment and ability-and, most importantly, loyalty-he could trust as he trusted Darnas'. But he didn't.

'Very well,' he said finally. 'Get some rest. I'm afraid I'm putting you back on the road tomorrow-early. I'll be sending written messages to Saratic in our private cipher, but the important ones will be making the trip in your brain, not on paper.'

'Understood, Milord.' It was Darnas' turn to nod.

'Good. And one other thing, Darnas.'

'Aye, Milord?'

'Don't forget to take your bow with you.'

Chapter Twenty-Six

Sir Kelthys Lancebearer eased himself in the saddle as Walasfro's steady, inexorable gallop brought them over the final rise and they paused, with the home manor of Warm Springs spread out before them at last. The sun was barely above the eastern horizon, shining down across the towering height of Hope's Bane Glacier far to the north, while morning mist hovered like blue fog across the fields and pastures and the white steam of the springs which gave the manor its name rose in motionless, argent plumes.

Walasfro stood for a moment with his head high, breathing deeply. Not even a courser could maintain the pace he'd set without eventually wearing himself out, and Kelthys could feel the stallion's weariness . . . and his own. Indeed, although Walasfro had been doing all the galloping, Kelthys suspected that he felt more fatigued than the courser did. Unlike Walasfro, no one had done any sorcerous improvement of his ancestors; he was merely a mortal human being, like any other. Being chosen as a wind rider didn't change that, and he ached as if his entire body had been beaten with cudgels after their long, exhausting ride. They'd traveled over fifty leagues since receiving the horrifying message from Bahzell and Sir Jahlahan, not including a sixty-mile detour to take the same message to the manor of Bear River. Kelthys had begrudged the extra time, but he could never have justified not spending it, for he'd known that the Bear River courser herd had left its winter pastures and stables earlier that week. Only another courser-like Walasfro-could have located the Bear River herd stallion in the immensity of the Wind Plain and taken him warning.

And, he admitted, looking over his shoulder at the fourteen riderless stallions who had paused behind him and Walasfro, nostrils flaring as they blew and tossed their heads, the reinforcements were welcome. Or, he hoped so, at any rate.

Almost half the Bear River adult stallions-including all of the herd's bachelors-had chosen to accompany them to Warm Springs. He'd expected that they would, and under normal circumstances, such a powerful reinforcement would have been priceless. But although the details in Bahzell's and Jahlahan's message had been sketchy, it was obvious that the Warm Springs herd had been unable to resist whatever had attacked it. Which meant he and Walasfro might have brought the other coursers along only to expose them to a danger they could not match. It was virtually impossible for Kelthys to imagine such a threat, but what had already happened seemed grimly sufficient proof that it could exist.

Yet despite that, he'd known he would never be able to justify not giving them the choice of facing it. That was part of what it meant to be a wind rider. No courser had ever answered to the demand of whip or spur, and there were no reins connected to the ornamental hackamore Walasfro wore. Coursers decided where they would go, and when, as they chose, and those privileged to share their lives had no choice but to accept that they had the same right as any human to choose what dangers they would face, what sacrifices they would make, as well.

Kelthys had been a wind rider for over twenty years, and there were times-like today-when he still found it difficult to believe he had ever won Walasfro's brotherhood and love. It was not given to everyone, he knew, to experience the fierce exaltation of galloping across open plains on the back of a Sothoii warhorse. To feel the mighty muscles bunching and exploding with energy, the wind whipping into one's face, the stretch and grace of four hoofs at the moment all of them were off the ground at once. To feel one's own muscles merging with the movement, weaving into that wild, exhilarating dance. To know that one was hurtling across the face of Toragan's own realm at speeds as high as thirty miles an hour, or even more.

It was those magical moments when man and horse melded, when they fused into one racing being, which truly created the character of the Sothoii. It accounted for their sense of self-sufficiency, their trust in their own capability-their arrogance, if one wanted to put it that way. For the truth was that the Sothoii knew, beyond any possibility of contradiction, that there were no finer, more deadly cavalry than they in the entire world. And in those moments when their mounts' hooves spurned the earth itself, they experienced a freedom and an exaltation that was almost like a taste of godhood.

Yet even those blessed to know the capabilities of the Wind Plain's superb warhorses could only imagine, and that but dimly, the glory of saddling the wind itself. Of feeling a ton and a half or more of muscle, bone, and wild, unquenchable spirit thundering beneath one. Of knowing that not even a warhorse could out sprint the magnificent, four-legged being who had chosen one as his brother. Or of experiencing that same, wild exhilaration not for the fleeting minutes of a warhorse's endurance, but literally for hours at a time. Of being able to actually touch the thoughts of another living, breathing being, and to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would die at your side, defending you as you would defend him.

No creature born solely of nature could have matched that incredible performance, but the coursers could, and as many as one in ten of them might bond with a human rider. And those wind riders were the elite of the Sothoii