by David Weber
“Aye,” Bahzell agreed, standing on Glamhandro’s far side to look up at the same branch-laced sky. “And it’s not so very much farther till we’ll be breaking out of the trees. I’ll not pretend that’s something as strikes me as a bad idea.”
“Actually, it strikes me as a very good idea,” Wencit put in. The wizard had climbed back into the courser’s saddle. Now he looked down at Kenhodan—and across at Bahzell—and twitched his head down the trail ahead of them. “Once we’re free of the trees, we can at least graze them at the roadside. And unless memory fails me, there are these people called ‘farmers’ here and there along the road to Sindor.” He smiled briefly. “As Fradenhelm implied in Korun, a fat purse can carry you a long way under the right circumstances, and I’m willing to invest in feeding these fellows. It’s not their fault they fell into bad company.”
“No, it isn’t,” Kenhodan agreed, swinging up into his own saddle.
Glamhandro snorted, as if amused by the two-foots’ nattering, and tossed his head. He and the courser seemed to be thriving, despite their shorter rations, and the red-haired man leaned forward in the saddle to pat the big gray stallion’s shoulder.
“Of course,” he continued, “they’ve fallen into better company now.”
“I’d like to be thinking that’s the case,” Bahzell said, but he sounded a bit distracted. In fact, now that Kenhodan thought about it, the hradani had seemed a little…distant all day. Now, as he moved back towards the head of their much enlarged cavalcade, he was gazing along the trail in front of them with his ears pricked as if listening for something no one else could hear.
“Are you all right, Bahzell?” Kenhodan asked.
“Eh?” Bahzell shook himself and turned to look over his shoulder. “What’s that?” His ears shifted back to a more normal angle. “Oh! Well, as to that, I’ve a mite on my mind. I’m after…expecting something, as you might be saying.”
“Expecting something? Out here?” Kenhodan looked around at the cool, breezy, wind-sighing forest. “Bahzell, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re still stuck in the middle of the woods. And unless I’m mistaken, the last ‘something’ we had to deal with—you remember, the assassins who were chasing us?—is busy fertilizing those selfsame woods behind us. That doesn’t exactly make me delighted by the prospect of another unanticipated encounter. So don’t you think that if you’re ‘expecting something’ it might be a good idea to—oh, I don’t know, share that minor fact with us?”
“What?” Bahzell grinned. “And be spoiling the surprise?”
“So far most of the ‘surprises’ of this little jaunt of Wencit’s have been less than pleasant,” Kenhodan pointed out. “Personally, I’ve discovered I’m a great fan of boredom.”
“Well, as to that, I’m not one as would deny as how boredom’s a certain appeal,” Bahzell conceded. “But in this case—”
He stopped in midsentence, turning to gaze back along the trail once more, and Wencit’s courser looked up. His ears pricked as sharply as the hradani’s as he stared in the same direction. Then he tossed his head with a high, somehow jubilant cry, and Glamhandro raised his own head with an echoing trumpet in almost the same instant. The packhorses and the assassins’ captured mounts looked back and forth between him and the courser with suddenly sharpened alertness, and Kenhodan blinked, wondering what could possibly have gotten into all of them.
“What’s—” he began, then stopped as something moved ahead of them.
It took him a moment to realize what he was seeing…and another, longer moment to believe he was seeing it.
Wencit’s courser companion stood twenty hands at the shoulder, the next best thing to seven feet. The enormous blood-red roan cantering—not walking or trotting, but cantering—along that narrow, slick, treacherous trail towards them was at least five hands taller than that. Kenhodan had never imagined any horse-shaped creature that huge, and if he had, his imagination couldn’t possibly have matched the grace and balance of the reality forging towards them in a steady, rolling splatter of mud.
He started to say something to Bahzell, but the hradani was already in motion himself. He raced down the trail, arms spread wide, then reached high to wrap them around the roan stallion’s mighty neck and buried his face against the winter-rough coat.
“Well, I see what he meant about surprises,” Kenhodan said after a moment. “Should I assume this is the mysterious Walsharno?”
* * *
“Aye? And when, if you’d be so very kind to tell me, was the last time as you and I were after doing anything the way we’d planned?” Bahzell demanded, reaching up to scratch Walsharno’s cheek gently.
“Well, I’m thinking that’s most likely because we’ve what you might be calling a delicate situation here,” Bahzell said more soberly, his voice low enough only Walsharno could hear him, and twitched his head slightly in the direction of his human companions. “Tell me, is that lad on the gray after reminding you of anyone?”
Walsharno raised his head, looking over Bahzell’s shoulder, and his ears pricked forward.
“Aye, and himself’s as good as said he’s one as Sergeant Houghton might’ve been after becoming in another world. But he’s not the least idea—or memory—of who and what it might happen he is in this world. And Wencit’s after being his same old pain-in-the-arse self about his precious secrets. Still and all, himself’s all but told me we’re to follow Wencit’s guide in this, and I’m thinking he’d not’ve been nearly so forthcoming if this wasn’t after being something as we’d best take deadly serious, Brother.”
“Aye,” he said simply, and felt the same cold thrill of mingled anticipation and dread go through them both.
“There’s that,” Bahzell agreed with grim satisfaction. “I’m only wishing Kaeritha was after being here to join us.”
* * *
Kenhodan watched Bahzell and the enormous roan exchange greetings, then glanced across at Wencit.
“You failed to mention anything about another courser. Something that just…slipped your mind, was it?”
“Kenhodan, you heard Bahzell tell Fradenhelm he was a wind rider himself. It didn’t occur to you that a wind rider has to have a courser before he’s a wind rider?”
“I’m under the impression that Bahzell’s been just about everything at some point in his life,” Kenhodan replied tartly. “And I don’t recall anyone telling me he was currently a wind rider. Of course, I was also under the impression until very recently—or, at least, I assume I was under the impression until very recently; I seem to have a few blank spots in my memory, you understand—that coursers hated hradani with a blinding passion. Obviously, I’d already fi
gured out that wasn’t the case, at least where Bahzell’s concerned. But it still seems…odd.”
“You mean odder than the fact that Bahzell’s a champion of Tomanāk, married to a war maid, and running a tavern in Belhadan?” Wencit asked brightly, and Kenhodan snorted.
“Point taken,” he conceded.
“Actually,” Wencit said more seriously, his own wildfire eyes watching Bahzell and Walsharno, “the coursers and the hradani have always had far more in common than either of them realized. The same thing that makes the coursers so powerful, gives them such speed and endurance, is what allows hradani to heal so quickly and gives Bahzell the endurance to run any other horse ever born into the ground. They’re both directly linked to the energy that binds the universe together, Kenhodan. They draw on it, and it sustains them in ways no one else can match. Bahzell was right that assassins use poisoned steel, but unless there’s enough of it to kill a hradani instantly, he’ll usually not simply survive but recover fully. The same thing’s true for the coursers, which says some interesting things about whatever Chernion apparently used on this fellow—” he patted the courser’s neck “—in Korun.”
“I see,” Kenhodan said slowly, digesting the fresh information, and Wencit chuckled. The red-haired man looked at him sharply, and the wizard smiled.
“You begin to see,” he said. “For instance, Walsharno’s the next best thing to a hundred years old, and so is his sister, Gayrfressa. And, no, coursers don’t normally live anywhere near that long. Despite which, Walsharno doesn’t look particularly decrepit, wouldn’t you say?”
“No, I wouldn’t call him that.” Kenhodan gazed at the sleekly powerful roan courser with a frown, remembering a conversation with Brandark. “Is this the same sort of thing that applies to Leeana?”
“It certainly seems to be, doesn’t it? And right off the top of my head, I can’t recall another time anything like that ‘same sort of thing’ has ever happened. Which, given the fact that Walsharno is also a champion of Tomanāk, gives one furiously to think.”
“Wait a minute.” Kenhodan looked back Wencit quickly. “Walsharno’s a champion of Tomanāk?!”
“Why, yes,” Wencit said innocently, then chuckled again, louder, at Kenhodan’s expression. “It only makes sense, doesn’t it?” he went on as Bahzell and Walsharno started back along the trail towards them. “Bahzell’s the first hradani champion since the Fall. Who else would be paired with the first courser champion ever?”
* * *
“Kenhodan, be known to Walsharno, my Wind Brother,” Bahzell said with unwonted formality. “It’s my life he’s saved a time or three, and I suppose if truth be told, I’ve been after saving his once or twice, as well.”
Walsharno had touched noses lightly with the black stallion. Now he turned his head to regard Kenhodan from huge, intelligent golden eyes and nodded slightly.
“Good morning, Milord Champion,” Kenhodan said and saw Walsharno’s ears flick in what certainly looked like amusement as the stallion shot a mildly accusatory glance at Wencit. “Yes,” Kenhodan went on, “someone did get around—finally—to filling in a few more blanks.” He shot a glance of his own, considerably harder than Walsharno’s, at Bahzell. “I can’t imagine why it took him this long.”
“Well, as to that, I’m thinking it never actually came up,” Bahzell responded equably. “Come to that, I’d hoped to be meeting him not so far outside Korun and making the introductions there.” He shrugged. “Still and all, as we’ve just been after pointing out to each other, plans are a thing as seem to be a mite…elastic where such as Wencit of Rūm are involved.”
“Don’t change the subject from your own transgressions, Bahzell,” Wencit replied. “And for that matter, you can’t fairly blame me for the dog brothers.”
“Oh, and can’t I just?” Bahzell glowered across at the wizard. “It’s in my mind Fradenhelm said as how Chernion was after hunting you, not me, Wencit! Aye, and it’s not the first solitary word he had to be saying about young Kenhodan, either.”
“Don’t tell me you’re actually going to apply logic to this,” Wencit retorted.
“Well, if pressed I’d have to be admitting logic’s not so much a thing as hradani come by naturally,” Bahzell conceded. “Not but what I’ve not been forced to be taking on quite a few things as most hradani don’t over the years. The most of them, now I think on it, because of dealings with you.”
“There you go again!” Wencit scolded. “That’s really very tiresome of you. Especially since, now that Walsharno’s joined us, we have someone who can interpret and give us Milord Courser’s name.”
“Aye, so we do,” Bahzell said much more seriously, “and in fact he’s been after sharing that with me already. Wencit, Kenhodan—be known to Byrchalka of the Stone Valley herd.”
The black stallion—Byrchalka—raised his head in acknowledgment of the invitation and Kenhodan and Wencit both bowed formally from the saddle to him. Kenhodan rolled the name through his thoughts and found it fitting, for it meant “Black Thunderbolt,” which certainly suited what he’d seen of the courser so far.
“Byrchalka’s fallen brother was Tairsal Lancebearer,” Bahzell went on more grimly, and Wencit’s eyes narrowed. “Aye,” Bahzell nodded sadly. “He was after being one of Sir Kelthys’ grandnephews, and that’s after having made him oath sworn to Balthar. It’s glad I am we can tell Baron Chardahn as how Chernion’s already paid for young Tairsal’s blood. I’d sooner not see him and his in blood feud with the entire Assassins Guild and well you know that’s exactly what he’d be doing when he heard.”
“No doubt,” Wencit said somberly, leaning forward in the saddle to lay one palm on Byrchalka’s shoulder. “I know no one will ever be able to replace your Wind Brother, Byrchalka, but I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your willingness to bear me on this journey.”
The black stallion turned his head, looking back at the wizard, then snorted and nodded in obvious acceptance of Wencit’s words.
“And if Walsharno’s here,” Wencit continued after a moment, turning back to Bahzell and Walsharno, “may I ask where Gayrfressa is?”
“As to that, I’ve no doubt she’s reached Belhadan by now, or soon will have,” Bahzell said. “Walsharno says as how himself was after getting both of them on the road back from the Wind Plain about the same time as a drowned rat washed up in the Iron Axe’s taproom with as disreputable an old trickster as ever I’ve known trailing behind. Walsharno was after leaving first, though. Herself had a few things to be looking after at Hill Guard.”
Wencit chuckled, but Kenhodan pursed his lips in a silent whistle as he contemplated the incredible distance Walsharno had covered since that night. It certainly put all of the legends about the coursers’ speed and endurance into sharp perspective!
“Well, now that he’s here, I suppose we should be getting back on the road,” Wencit said, as if the accomplishment of such monumental journeys was a mere commonplace. Which, Kenhodan reflected after a moment, they very probably were for Wencit of Rūm.
“Let me just be rigging a saddle,” Bahzell replied. “Walsharno’s firm notions about where a wind rider’s arse is best placed, and since Chernion was so very kind as to be gifting us with so many saddles, it’s in my mind as how I should be after coming up with something as will work.”
* * *
Night had found them still several miles inside the Forest of Hev, and firelight danced in gold and black shadows off the trunks of the towering trees. The packhorses and the mounts which had served the assassins were picketed on a line between two of those trees, but Walsharno, Byrchalka, and Glamhandro stood in a companionable knot on the edge of the firelight, eyes gleaming to the flickering jubilance of the flames.
hradani’s nimble fingers were repairing a weak spot on one of the pack horses’ halter while he smoked his pipe.
Bahzell chuckled, and Byrchalka snorted in matching amusement. The black couldn’t speak directly to Bahzell the way Walsharno could, but for the first time since his rider’s murder he could at least communicate with someone, and coursers shared many of the “lesser cousins’” attributes. They were creatures of the herd, accustomed to—indeed, they needed—sharing the mind-to-mind flow of thoughts with their fellows.
Bahzell looked up from his leatherwork, glancing over his shoulder in Walsharno’s direction, and cocked his ears. As he’d told Kenhodan in Korun, it wasn’t entirely unheard of for the coursers’ bloodlines to cross with those of lesser horses, but it happened very, very seldom, and it wasn’t something coursers often discussed, even with their riders. All coursers were protective where their lesser cousins were concerned, and Sothōii warhorses were the most intelligent horses in the world, but they still weren’t coursers. The smartest of them were the equivalent of very, very young foals compared to any courser, and coursers mated for life. So far as Bahzell knew, no courser had ever life-mated with anything but another courser, and the sort of casual dalliance which might have produced a courser-warhorse by-blow was something of which the courser herds strongly disapproved.
