David Weber - Wind Rider's Oath

"So she is," the tall woman agreed. She turned away from the wall and leaned her back against it while she looked at Varnaythus with an expression which mingled confidence, contempt, and something else. Hunger, Varnaythus decided. Or perhaps not hunger-perhaps eagerness .

"You do remember that you weren't supposed to be seeing any champions-and especially not any champions of Tomanâk-here at Quaysar, don't you?" he asked in a tone of the withering irony.

"No, we weren't," she agreed. "On the other hand, it's not something I haven't made preparations for. The Spider knew what She was doing when She recruited me, Varnaythus. With all due modesty, I'm the best there is. I'll take care of your little champion for you."

Varnaythus stared at her in disbelief.

"Are you insane?" he asked flatly, and anger flickered in her eyes. Her hand twitched near the hilt of her sword, and her upper lip curled back from her teeth. She opened her mouth to speak, but the index finger jabbed in her face stopped her.

"Don't you say a word," he hissed in a voice like silk sliding on a dagger's blade. "Not one word."

She closed her mouth again, with an almost audible click, and the wizard-priest drew a deep, deep breath and forced his anger back under control.

"Now you will listen to me," he told her, each word chopped off like a separate chip of ice. "Cassan's plan to weaken Tellian is busy ending in what looks like unmitigated disaster. Jerghar and every one of his fellow Servants have been destroyed. And Tellian, Bahzell, and Brandark are all still alive. The entire plan, with the exception of this one, single aspect, has already failed. If your overconfidence causes this part of it to miscarry as the other parts already have, you had better pray that you die here in Quaysar. Because if you don't, They will make you wish you had for the rest of eternity."

A shadow of fear crossed the tall woman's face, but there was as much resentment as fear in her expression, and her nostrils flared.

"I won't fail," she said flatly. "No, we weren't supposed to see a champion of Tomanâk here. I'll grant that. But Her plans always provided for the possibility that we might lose our foothold here in Quaysar. Indeed, they depended on our losing it at a time and in the fashion of our own choosing." She shrugged. "Perhaps that time is here, and perhaps it isn't. We'll soon see. But I tell you this, Varnaythus, you and Jerghar and your precious Baron Cassan may have failed, but we won't. And even if every other aspect of the plan's failed-for now, at least- this is the most important one, and you know it. You and Dahlaha told me at the outset that you wanted the Troubles back. Well, you'll have them, damn you! We'll take this terrifying little champion of yours, and the Spider will suck the life and soul out of her and make her serve our ends."

"Our record of successes against champions of Tomanâk doesn't exactly inspire me with unbounded faith in your confidence, Paratha," Varnaythus said coldly. "And you might want to consider this, too. A year ago, there were seventeen champions of Tomanâk in all of Norfressa. Now there are twenty, and four of them- four , Paratha; twenty percent of the total-are here on the Wind Plain or in Hurgrum. Do you think that's just some sort of minor coincidence? Or do you think there might just be a reason? Because I don't think it's an accident, and I do think there's a reason our track record against them has been an unmitigated disaster."

"Oh, no, Varnaythus-not our record, but yours. And, in fairness to Jerghar, he had to deal with the Bloody Hand. And, or so the Spider tells us, with a second champion. A courser champion, no less." She shook her head. "Against someone as powerful as the Bloody Hand, anything might be possible. And if Jerghar had no reason to expect that he faced not one, but two champions, then small wonder he lost. But we face only one, and the weakest of the three." She snorted and spat contemptuously over the wall. "This one is a lawyer at heart, Varnaythus. She craves to serve Justice , to look after the 'little people.' If it were the Bloody Hand, then I might worry, for he, at least, is a foe to respect. But this one-this Kaeritha-!" She barked a harsh laugh of scorn. "This one we'll eat , and use the leftover meat to feed the very flames we set out to ignite."

Varnaythus looked at her for several long, silent seconds, then shrugged.

"Very well. I hope you're right. But whether you are or not, the responsibility is yours, Paratha-yours and Dahlaha's. I've warned you, as I warned her. I hope your preparations are adequate."

"They are," she said with flat assurance.

"I'm delighted to hear it," he said. "But in the meantime, I've done everything I can. From here on, you're on your own. If your confidence is justified, I'll see you again in a few days."

Paratha opened her mouth again, but before she could speak, he was gone. She stood on the battlements, glaring at the empty flagstones on which he'd stood, then growled a curse under her breath and turned to look back out at the road from Kalatha once more.

The trotting rider was much closer now, and Paratha gazed at her for two long minutes with a dark, hungry smile. Then she laughed once, a sound like a frozen branch shattering under the weight of winter ice, and turned away.

"Of course, Dame Kaeritha! Come in, come in! We've been expecting you."

The officer in command of the temple's largely ceremonial gate guard bowed deeply and swept his arm at the open gate in a welcoming gesture. He straightened to find Kaeritha gazing down at him from Cloudy's saddle with a quizzical expression and frowned ever so slightly, as if surprised she hadn't ridden straight past at his invitation.

"Expecting me?" she said, and he cleared his throat.

"Uh, yes, Milady." He shook himself. "The Voice warned us several days ago that you would be coming to visit us," he said in a less flustered tone.

"I see." Kaeritha filed that information away along with the officer's strong Sothōii accent and the warmth which had infused his own voice as he mentioned the Voice. It was uncommon for a temple of Lillinara in the Empire of the Axe to have its gate guard commanded by a man. It wasn't precisely unheard of, even there, however, given the small percentage of Axewomen who followed the profession of arms, and she supposed it made even more sense here in the Kingdom of the Sothōii, where even fewer women were warriors. Yet she also saw two war maids in chari and yathu standing behind him, with swords at their hips, crossed bandoliers of throwing stars, and the traditional war maid garrottes wound around their heads like leather headbands. Given the special significance Quaysar held for all war maids, she found it . . . interesting that the temple's entire guard force didn't consist solely of them.

The way the guard commander had spoken of the Voice was almost equally interesting, especially from a native Sothōii. He seemed completely comfortable in the service of a temple not simply dedicated to the goddess of women but intimately associated with the creation of all those "unnatural" war maids. Granted, anyone who would have accepted the position in the first place must be more enlightened than most of his fellow Sothōii males, but there was more than simple acceptance or even approval in his tone. It came far closer to something which might almost have been called . . . obeisance. For that matter, Kaeritha didn't much care for the look in his eyes, although she would have been hard put to pin down what it was about it that bothered her.