Wind Rider's Oath

'You're walking better than I expected,' Brandark said with a smile as Bahzell stepped out onto the manor house's veranda in the gathering dusk.

'And aren't you after being just the most humorous little man in the world?' Bahzell rumbled, easing himself down to sit-gingerly-on the veranda's wide rail.

'If I'm not, it's not because of lack of effort or native talent,' Brandark replied, his smile slipping over into a grin as Bahzell grimaced in evident discomfort. 'Is your backside very sore, Milord Champion?'

'Well, as to that, it's not so much my arse as my legs.' Bahzell snorted, and then rotated his left shoulder with obvious caution. 'And I'll not deny as how that last tumble wasn't after being the very most pleasant experience a man might have enjoyed.'

'No, I could see that,'Brandark said, gazing at him judiciously. 'On the other hand, I don't believe I've ever seen anyone attempt to pack a six-month course of riding lessons into less than a week before, either. Especially not a Horse Stealer.' He tilted his prominent nose upward and sniffed audibly. 'Unlike us compact and skilled Bloody Swords, you poor, oversized amateurs look like sacks of dried horse dung in the saddle. You don't think you and Walsharno might be overdoing things just a bit, given your native disadvantages, do you?'

'It's not as if we were after having much choice about it,' Bahzell pointed out, his tone far more serious than Brandark's had been. 'If we're to be honest about it, we've spent too long on it already.'

'You promised Kelthys,' Brandark riposted.

'Aye, that I did,' Bahzell acknowledged, his subterranean bass voice heavy. He rose and walked across to the outer edge of the veranda, his footsteps heavier than usual in the new riding boots Lord Edinghas' cobbler had finished only the day before. He gazed up at the stars, and they gleamed back down at him with distant, emotionless beauty while the thin crescent of the Maiden's fragile new moon hung low on the horizon.

'I did promise,' he said, his eyes on the stars, 'yet I'm thinking it might have been best if I'd not listened to him. There's a foulness here, Brandark-one such as you and I have never faced yet, not even in Sharnа 's temple. I've no least business taking others into such a stench of evil as this. There's death in it, and worse than death could ever be.'

'I know,' Brandark said very quietly, his voice for once untouched by any hint of levity.

Bahzell turned to look at him, ears cocked and eyebrows arched, and the Bloody Sword shrugged.

'Chesmirsa may have told me I'll never be a bard, Bahzell, but I spent all those years studying every ballad, every lay, every epic poem I could get my hands on. And, with all due modesty, I think I've demonstrated that I'm a fair hand as a researcher. As soon as Tomanak warned you-warned all of us, really-about what's out there, I knew what he was talking about. Did you think I didn't?'

'No,' Bahzell admitted, and shook his head. 'No, little man. I might be after wishing you hadn't, but there was never the least tiniest chance you wouldn't. But that's not to say as how I'm eager to be seeing you in the midst of such as this.'

'I suppose that sort of thing happens to people foolish enough to hang about with champions of Tomanak,' Brandark replied lightly. Then he cocked his head, ears half-forward curiously. 'All the same, I have to admit that I'm just a bit surprised that if it is Krahana-' a chill breeze seemed to blow across the verandah as the name was spoken at last '-she hasn't already put in an appearance here. I'd think that for someone like her, this whole place-' he jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the manor house's lamplit windows '- would be like one huge cookie jar she could hardly wait to get her claws into.

'Well, as to that,' Bahzell said, 'it's in my mind that it's not so very likely she's after being here herself. Or, at least, not that she'll be feeling all that eager to draw himself into meeting her personally.' He smiled, a thin smile, remarkably devoid of humor. 'Krahana isn't after being the very smartest of the Dark Gods. She's nowhere near the brain of Carnadosa, for example. But she's not so stupid as some, and she's seen what was after happening to Sharnа when he crossed swords, in a manner of speaking, with Himself.

'I'll not say she's not after being willing to risk a bit of a confrontation, but it will be in her mind as how it will be on her terms, not Himself's. So I'm thinking as how what we're most likely to be after seeing will be her Servants. What you might be calling her 'champions.' And they're not so very likely to be attacking us here.'

'And just why aren't they?' Brandark asked.

'Because I've asked Himself to see to it that they can't,' Bahzell said simply, and Brandark blinked at him.

'You can do that?' he asked.

'Aye,' Bahzell said dryly. 'It's after being called prayer, I'm thinking.'

'Prayer!' Brandark snorted. 'Bahzell, even Kaeritha has to admit that you have your own, thankfully unique way of speaking to Tomanak. For that matter, I've seen-and heard-it myself, you know. And I'm not so sure that anyone except you would ever describe it as 'prayer.' '

'It's good enough for Himself and me to be going on with,' Bahzell informed him. 'And after I'd seen what Gayrfressa and her folk had been after enduring, I asked Himself if He'd be so very kind as to see to it as how those as attacked them wouldn't be doing it again here. And after I'd asked, He showed me how to be seeing to it myself.'

He shrugged, and Brandark's eyebrows rose.

'He showed you how to do it?'

'Oh, aye,' Bahzell said in a casual, offhand sort of tone belied by the twinkle in his eye. 'It's not so very difficult, once you've been shown the way of it.'

'Which is?' Brandark was practically quivering with the burning curiosity of a scholar, and Bahzell smiled.

'Little man, your nose is all a-twitch with questions, and isn't that just a frightening thing to see when a man's so proud and fine a nose to twitch about?'

Brandark shook a fist ferociously and took a stride towards him, and the Horse Stealer held up his hands in mock terror.

'Now, don't you be after offering violence to a mild-mannered fellow like myself!' he scolded. Brandark growled something under his breath, and Bahzell laughed.

'Aren't you after being just the most predictable fellow in the world when a man's after knowing the right lever to pull?' he asked with a smile. 'But I'd not like you to burst, or do yourself a mischief, so, in answer to your question, it's not so very different from healing a wound or an illness.'

'You mean you act as Tomanak's channel?'

'In a manner of speaking. It's not just Himself-there's after being a mite of me in there, as well-but that's the bones of it. It's like . . . like healing a place, not a person. I'll not say as how it's a protection strong enough to be after standing against all the forces of hell, but it's set a circle about Lord Edinghas' home manor as nothing short of Krahana herself is going to want to be crossing. Yet it's not something I can be taking with us when we go, Brandark. And it won't be after lasting forever once I leave.'

'So that's why you were willing to promise Kelthys you'd wait,' Brandark said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

'Aye.' Bahzell agreed. 'It was in my mind as how Krahana's lot would be after coming here, to be finishing what they'd once begun. And, truth to tell, I was minded to meet them here, with the other lads from the Order and Himself's protections in place to be giving us an edge. But now I'm thinking that if they'd been minded to be coming this way, we'd already have been after seeing them.' He shrugged, then frowned. 'And since it seems they'll not be coming here, then it's no choice I have but to be going there.'

'And once we ride out of Warm Springs, we'll be leaving its protection behind us,' Brandark said, nodding slowly. 'That's why you're so unhappy you didn't try to stop Kelthys from calling in his wind riders after all.'

'Aye, for it's not just a matter of the protections here that we'll be leaving behind,' Bahzell said somberly. 'I've no way of knowing just what sort of 'champion' Krahana may have been after sending here. For aught I know whoever-or whatever-he is, he may have been after summoning up his own version of a protected a circle from her. And if that's the way of it, Brandark, then I've no way at all, at all, of knowing what those as try to cross it may find themselves facing.'

'I understand that, Bahzell,' Brandark said quietly. 'But you have to understand that there's not a one of us-not me, not the Order's lads, and not Kelthys and his wind riders-who hasn't thought long and hard about this. You may not know what we'll find, and we certainly can't know, until we've done it. But it's not as if all of us don't know that going in.'