David Weber - Wind Rider's Oath

"Not as if what isn't going to come out?" Lanitha asked, emboldened by Kaeritha's last sentence.

"There's a definite discrepancy between the original documents here and Trisu's so-called copies," Kaeritha told her. "I have to say that when I first saw his copy, I was astonished. It didn't seem possible that anyone could have produced such a perfect-looking forgery. But, obviously, the only way his copies could be that different from the originals has to involve a deliberate substitution or forgery."

"Lillinara!" Lanitha said softly, signing the Mother's full moon. "I knew Trisu hated all war maids, but I never imagined he'd try something like that, Milady! How could he possibly expect it to pass muster? He must know that sooner or later someone would do what you've just done and compare the forgery to the original!"

"One thing I learned years ago, Lanitha," Kaeritha said wearily as she watched the archivist carefully returning the land grant to its case, "is that criminals always think they can 'get away with it.' If their minds didn't work that way, they wouldn't be criminals in the first place!"

"I suppose not." Lanitha sighed and shook her head. "It just seems so silly-and sad-when you come down to it."

"You're wrong, you know," Kaeritha said quietly, her voice so flat that Lanitha looked quickly back over her shoulder at her.

"Wrong, Milady?"

"It isn't silly, or sad," Kaeritha told her. "Whatever the original motivation may have been, this sort of conflict between the documents here and those at Thalar is going to play right into the hands of everyone else like Trisu. It isn't the sort of minor discrepancy that can be explained away as clerical error. It's a deliberate forgery, and there are altogether too many people out there who are already prepared to think the worst about you war maids. It won't matter to them that you have the originals, while he has only copies. What will matter is that they'll assume you must have made the alterations."

"Then I suppose it's a good thing a champion of Tomanâk is on the spot, isn't it, Milady? Even the most prejudiced person would have to take your word for it that Trisu or someone working for him is the forger."

"Yes, Lanitha," Kaeritha said grimly. "They certainly would."

The sentry's report had assured that Tellian Bowmaster was waiting in the courtyard of Hill Guard Castle when Bahzell rode in on Walsharno. He didn't look as if he believed what he was seeing.

Bahzell smiled grimly at the baron's expression as he listened to the sound of heavy hooves on the courtyard's stone paving. The sound of came not simply from Walsharno but from the hooves of no less than twenty-one other coursers . . . only ten of them with riders.

"Welcome back, Milord Champion," Tellian said with an odd note of formality as Walsharno halted beside the wind rider's mounting block.

"Thank you." Bahzell swung out of the saddle and stepped down onto the mounting block. He reached out to clasp Tellian's forearm firmly, and the baron's eyes searched his face intently, with more than a hint of anxiety.

"Brandark?" he asked quietly, and Bahzell gave him a small, quick smile.

"The little man's after being well enough," he said. "He was a mite nibbled upon about the edges, but hradani are tough, and there was naught wrong with him that couldn't be healed. But however well, or willing, he might be, there was no way at all, at all, as how his warhorse could be after keeping up on the ride here."

"Is that why Gharnal and Hurthang aren't with you?" Tellian asked, and Bahzell's smile vanished.

"No," he said quietly. "Hurthang will be after arriving in a week or so, but not Gharnal. And not Farchach, nor Yourmak, nor Tharchanal or Shulhârch."

"Dead, all of them?" Tellian asked softly, and Bahzell nodded.

"Aye," he said, his voice flat with pain. "We were after being the head of the spear. Not one of the Order's lads but Hurthang survived, and him half-dead before I was after reaching him. They're every one of them gone, Tellian . . . and five wind riders and eight more coursers, with them."

"Tomanâk." Tellian's right hand moved in the sign of Tomanâk's Sword. "May Isvaria keep them as her own," he added.

"She will that," Bahzell said, and drew a deep breath. "If there's ever a soul she'll be keeping, it's theirs. It was Krahana's get that was after attacking the coursers. And but for the lads as died watching my back, I'm thinking as how she'd have had us all."

"But she didn't," Tellian said firmly, reaching out to lay his hand on Bahzell's forearm. "And you wouldn't be back here if you hadn't dealt with the situation."

"No, that I wouldn't," he agreed, and produced a crooked smile. "I'm not after being quite as certain positive of that as I might be wishful, so I left Hurthang and Brandark to keep an eye on things. Still and all, I'd not be here without I felt confident as I'd finished pissing on that particular grass fire. Not but what I've not got enough other problems to be going on with."

"Well, in that case, I suppose you'd best come inside and tell me how I can help."

" . . . so by the time we got to Glanharrow, Trianal, Yarran, and Lord Festian had already dealt with matters," Tellian said, leaning back in his chair and quaffed deeply from his tankard of dark beer. His voice was light, but his eyes were intent as he watched Bahzell's weary face. Hanatha sat with them, sipping more moderately from a delicate, silver-chased tankard of her own, and her eyes, too, were on Bahzell.

"I suspect the matter is going to turn even uglier in the next few months,"Tellian continued, "but not because the raiding's going to continue. We took enough prisoners to prove the entire force that attacked Trianal was in Saratic's service, although by the strangest turn of fate, his field commander wound up dead with what appears to be a Horse Stealer quarrel in his back . . . fired from a Dwarvenhame arbalest we found lying about out there."

His acid smile could have been used to etch steel.

"Still and all, we have enough other prisoners-with enough incentive to talk to us to avoid the rope or the block-that we should be able to prove whose colors they should have been wearing. And I think it's only a matter of time before we demonstrate that Erathian was up to his eyebrows in it, as well. Once we do, I'll take care of Erathian myself, and I take a certain amount of pleasure in contemplating what's going through his head while he waits for the axe to fall."

He smiled again, even more nastily.

"In the meantime, I've already dispatched a messenger to the King to petition for an investigation under Crown authority. Under the circumstances, I would've been justified in moving against Saratic myself, immediately, but I chose instead to appeal to the Crown, and I was very patient about it all in the petition, too. King Markhos and Prince Yurokhas should be very impressed by my forbearance-they'll certainly play it up for all it's worth when they have to deal with Cassan, at any rate. Whatever the King may think of my efforts to improve relations with your father, Prince Bahzell, he is not going to be amused by the discovery that one of his barons has been instigating open warfare against another one. We had enough of that during the Troubles, thank you. And however well Cassan may have covered his tracks, I don't think there's going to be any question in His Majesty's mind that that's exactly what's happened here. So I expect Cassan is going to discover that he's just incurred a certain degree of royal disfavor which is going to cost him dearly in the long run. Meanwhile, Trianal is doing just fine sitting there in Glanharrow as a pointed suggestion to Erathian and Saratic that this would be a very bad time to push the matter any further."