The War God's Own

women there were in the Order as a whole. I also knew she still had problems with some of the order's other members, despite the fact that she'd been the Morfintan chapter's senior weapons master for almost ten years. Besides, the Sisterhood of Lillinara seemed more suited to my needs.'

She smiled once more, and this time the flash of white teeth was like an icy wind that sent a chill through Bahzell's bones. He saw the remembered bleakness in her dark eyes, still and blue as deep ocean water in that moment, and he understood. Lillinara was the patron of all women-the laughing maiden, the loving mother… and the avenger.

'But then I realized something,' Kaeritha said softly. 'Something Seldan and Marja and Mistress Sherath and Dame Chaerwyn had been trying to teach me for almost six years.' She leaned back in her chair and looked not at Bahzell, but at Sir Yorhus.

'Vengeance is a poison,' she said in that same soft voice, 'and vengeance was what I wanted from the Sisterhood. I wanted the Silver Lady to accept my sword so that I could use that sword on the men who'd turned my mother into a whore and tried to do the same to me, and it didn't matter at all that those men were all back in Moretz. Any man who transgressed in any way against any woman would have done for me, because I didn't want justice. I wanted an excuse.'

Yorhus twitched, and then his eyes fell, as if unable to bear her gaze. She continued to look at him for several moments, then shrugged and turned back to Bahzell.

'I realized that even if the Sisterhood had been willing to accept my oath-and I'm not at all sure they would have-I would have given it for the wrong reasons. Yet I also knew that what had happened to my father, my mother, my sister and my brother-and to me-would happen to others, again and again. That it would go right on happening until someone made it stop, and that was what should truly be important to me: making it stop whenever and wherever I could. Not avenging myself on men who hadn't had a thing to do with what happened to me, whatever they might have done to someone else, but keeping those same things from happening to others and in administering justice, not vengeance, when they did. And when I realized that-' she shrugged '-there was only one place to take my sword.'

'I'm thinking Dame Chaerwyn must have been pleased by that,' Bahzell said after a moment.

'Oh, indeed she was!' Sir Terrian said before Kaeritha could reply. Blue eyes glinted at him dangerously, but he only shook his head with a smile. 'But I don't think she was quite prepared for what she got. You see, no sooner had Kerry completed the required vigil over her arms and been knighted than Tomanak Himself appeared and promoted her directly from knight-probationer to champion.'

'It wasn't quite that simple,' Kaeritha said tartly.

'No? Well, it came close enough,' Terrian returned, unabashed by her tone, 'and I have Chaerwyn's dispatch describing the entire affair in my files if you'd care to see it, Kerry, so don't think you can intimidate me into changing my story.'

'You're absolutely hopeless, Terrian. Do you know that?' Kaeritha demanded.

'It's been said,' the knight-general replied comfortably, and Bahzell laughed.

'Aye, and with reason, I'm sure,' he observed, setting his empty cider tankard aside, and smiled at Kaeritha.

'It's grateful I am for the tale, sword sister, and honored you'd tell it to me,' he told her, 'but I'm also a mite curious about something else. From what Sir Charrow was telling me, there's but eighteen champions in all Norfressa.' He cocked his ears questioningly, and Kaeritha nodded in confirmation. 'Well, in that case, I can't help wondering why it is that two of us are after sitting in front of the self-same fire drinking cider while Wencit of Rum just 'happens' to be in the same room at the same time. No doubt it's naught but the suspicious barbarian in me, but I've the oddest notion there's a reason for it.'

'Well, of course there is,' Kaeritha agreed cheerfully. 'You and Brandark and Vaijon are on your way home to Hurgrum, and Wencit has business of his own in the area, so he thought he might just travel along with you.'

'Oh, he did, did he?' Bahzell gave the wild wizard a withering look, but Wencit only smiled benignly. 'And yourself?' the hradani said, returning to Kaeritha.

'Well, I have a little job of my own to see to,' she told him.

'Amongst hradani?' Bahzell couldn't keep the doubt out of his tone, but she only laughed and shook her head. 'Well, if not with my folk, then with who? There's naught where we're bound but hradani and Soth-'

He stopped, staring at her in sudden speculation, and she gave him a sunny smile. She had to be joking, he thought. If Spearmen were hostile to the notion of woman warriors, the Sothoii were infinitely worse. Despite all the honor they officially showed the war maids, most Sothoii-men and women alike- privately considered them beyond the pale. They weren't truly 'women' at all, for every one of them had renounced the ties of blood and family in order to become war maids, and that acutely unnatural act could never have been committed by any properly reared woman. The fact that the windriders regarded the war maids as invaluable allies and their only true peers meant little against that sort of bone-deep prejudice, and a female knight of Tomanak would be only marginally more welcome than a Horse Stealer invasion. Not to mention the fact that Bahzell's father might be less than thrilled by the notion of having one of his son's companions wander off to hobnob with the Horse Stealers' most implacabale foes.

But as he looked into Dame Kaeritha Seldansdaughter's eyes, he knew she was completely serious. One might almost have said dead serious, he reflected, and shuddered at the thought.

Chapter Ten

Sir Yorhus wasn't with them when they left Axe Hallow two days later. Somewhat to Bahzell's surprise-he still hadn't quite come to terms with the authority a champion wielded-Terrian hadn't even questioned his decision to send Yorhus south. In fact, the knight-general had seemed downright relieved by the notion.

'If you think this Tothas has a chance to get through Yorhus' skull, then of course we should send Yorhus to find him,' Terrian had said firmly.

'Even though Spearmen aren't so very fond of Axemen as all that?'

'First of all, the Spearmen's dislike for Axemen-and vice versa-is more a tradition than a burning hatred,' Terrian had replied. 'It's not like, oh, the way the Purple Lords feel about us. Second, the Order has quite a strong presence in the Empire of the Spear. We may be headquartered in Axe Hallow, and our charter may have been confirmed originally by Kormak I, but our loyalty is to Tomanak -who, you may recall, is also 'Judge of Princes.' That means we don't take sides in wars unless one party or the other has clearly violated Tomanak's Code. And-' he smiled faintly '-since everyone knows that, most reasonably sane rulers go to considerable lengths to avoid open violations. But the point is that Spearmen don't automatically think of us as an Axeman organization or of our knights as spies for the King-Emperor.'

'Um.' Bahzell had leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin, ears half-flattened. Terrian was probably right, he reflected. The Empire of the Spear's hostility towards Axemen sprang from the fact that the Empire of the Axe was the true bar to the Spearmen's unbridled expansion. They resented the fact that the Axemen's matchless power was committed to blocking all efforts to push their borders further north. Still, they understood that the King-Emperor had treaty obligations to protect the Border Kingdoms' sovereignty, and they also knew the Axemen had no objection to their expanding into the vast, unclaimed lands east of the Spear River. Besides, as Terrian had said, the Order of Tomanak was neutral in the empires' rivalry… and its role as administrator of Tomanak's justice served the rulers of both well.

'Besides,' Terrian had gone on while the Horse Stealer pondered, 'whatever his other failings, Yorhus is as energetic, competent, and determined a field commander as you're ever likely to find. As a matter of fact, he's much too valuable for us to make a desk man out of or demote to subordinate duties unless we absolutely have to. The problem is keeping him away from positions in which his particular brand of piety might shape the Order's policies… or convince those outside the Order that it has. That means that sending him to Jashan will let us kill two birds with one stone, as it were.'