David Weber - Wind Rider's Oath

"Five mares and two fillies . . . and eight foals," Alfar Axeblade said grimly. "And two of the mares are bachelors. So five of the foals who got back alive-so far -" there was inexpressible bitterness in the qualifier "- are orphans."

"Phrobus take it, man, there were over forty adult coursers in that herd! Where are all the others?" Edinghas knew there was no way Axeblade could answer his question, but his horror, grief, and fury goaded it out of him anyway.

"Fiendark seize it, Milord, what in Phrobus' name makes you think I know?" Alfar spat back, his own voice riven and harrowed by the same emotions. He glared at his liege lord, shaken to his core by the enormity of the disaster, and Lord Edinghas closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. The lord warden's nostrils flared, and he shook his head, as if trying to shake off the paralysis afflicting his thoughts. Then he opened his eyes again and looked back at Alfar.

"You don't, of course. Not any more than I do," he said heavily. He reached out, resting one hand on the taller man's shoulder, and squeezed. "Forgive me, Alfar. It's my own fear."

"There's naught to forgive, Milord," Alfar replied. He turned his head, looking away from his liege to watch the others work, and his face might have been hammered from cold iron.

"I've had longer to think about it than you have, Milord," he continued after a few seconds, his voice dark and heavy. "There's nothing I know-nothing in nature, leastwise-that could have done this. Those look like bite marks, the sort of thing wolves might have done, but there's no wolf ever born could do that to coursers! And there's not a single stallion-not one . So whatever it was, it pulled them all down-eighteen of them . . . and fifteen mares, seven colts and fillies, and nine foals, as well." He shook his head. "It's not possible, Milord. It can't happen ."

"But it has, Alfar." Edinghas voice was cold and empty, a thing ribbed with grief and despair, but somewhere in its iron belly hatred and rage met and a furnace heat flickered.

"I know it," Alfar grated, then clenched his fists in frustration. "Gods, how I wish we had a wind rider here-just one! Maybe he and his courser could tell us what in all of Fiendark's hells happened out there."

Lord Warden Edinghas nodded, his eyes once again on the tattered, wounded, exhausted survivors of the herd which had departed from Warm Springs barely four days ago. The mares and shivering fillies stood spraddle-legged, heads hanging, as they stared desperately through eyes dark with the echoes of hell at the handful of foals they had somehow gotten back. They watched the humans' ministrations with frantic intensity, yet Edinghas could feel their dreadful exhaustion, sense the hideous battle they'd fought to save even this handful of their children.

He'd never before seen a courser exhausted, he realized. Not in fifty-three years of life and eighteen years as Lord Warden of Warm Springs. Not once. That was bad enough, but he also saw the remembered terror in their eyes, and he knew there was nothing on this earth that could terrify a courser. If only the trembling mares could speak to him!

Alfar was right. They needed a wind rider, and they needed him quickly. And even if they hadn't, this had to be reported. Because, he thought while fresh fear wrapped an icy hand about his throat, if whatever had happened here could happen to one courser herd, then it could happen to others . Or, perhaps even worse, whatever had ravaged them out there on the Wind Plain might follow them here. Might seek to complete the herd's destruction. Whatever it had been, it had been no natural attacker. That much was obvious, but what else could it have been? What monster, what hideous wizardry, could have done this? With no idea of how to answer that question, he had no idea how to fight or stop whatever it was. He didn't even know if it could be stopped from hunting down and killing every victim who had somehow escaped it. But one thing he did know-before Edinghas of Warm Springs saw that happen, he and every armsman he commanded would lie dead, sabers and bows in hand, in a ring around this stable.

"Relhardan!" he snapped, summoning his chief armsman to his side.

"Yes, Milord!"

"Turn out your men. Every one of them, armed and in full armor! I want the walls manned, and I want a cordon around this stable. Nothing gets into it. Nothing-" his voice wavered, and he made himself inhale once again to steady at. "Nothing gets to them ," he said then, his wavering voice hammered into ice-cold steel, as he waved at the trembling, half-dead coursers. " Nothing! " he hissed.

"Aye, Milord," Sir Relhardan said flatly. "I'll see to it. You've my word for it."

"I know I do," Edinghas said in a voice which was more nearly normal. He clasped arms with Relhardan, and then the armsman was jogging purposefully away, shouting for his subordinates as he went, and Edinghas turned back to Alfar.

"I know you're exhausted, and your horse is, too," he said. "But we must send word to Baron Tellian. Choose the best horse we have-even my own mount. And then ride, Alfar. Ride as you've never ridden before, and tell the Baron everything you've seen."

"Yes, Milord. And you?"

"I'll be right here, in this stable, when you return," Edinghas promised him. "One way or another, I'll be right here."

This time the collision really was an accident.

Bahzell was walking slowly towards his own quarters, cutting across the passage outside Tellian's library, while he considered the baron's response to Sir Yarran's message from Lord Festian. Tellian had spent three days deciding his course of action, and Bahzell hoped it would do the trick, although he had to admit that he still cherished a few reservations. If people like this Lord Warden Saratic were sufficiently determined to undermine Lord Festian's wardenship, they might not take the hint Tellian was about to send their way. Especially not if Baron Cassan was as deeply involved as all the evidence seemed to suggest. In which case, Tellian's decision to dispatch two hundred of his own men, commanded by his nephew, could end up provoking the very confrontation it was intended to prevent.

The fact that Tellian had selected Trianal to command the reinforcements left Bahzell feeling a bit in two minds. The youngster possessed a disposition as fiery as might be anticipated from someone that young. Yet he'd been better blooded than most his age during the previous year's royal expedition against the Ghoul Moor. He hadn't been in command then, but he'd seen the reality of battle and bloodshed, and for all his native impulsiveness, he had a level head. And if he still nursed any reservations about what Bahzell and his uncle were attempting to accomplish, he wouldn't let them get in the way. Trianal's devotion to Tellian was obvious, and he'd amply demonstrated his basic intelligence. More to the point, perhaps, he'd had it explained to him in detail that he was to defer to the judgment of Lord Festian and Sir Yarran, and he was smart enough to do it.

Still, it was enough to make a man nervous, which probably explained why Bahzell wasn't paying as much attention as he might have as he started up the stair outside the library. If he had been, he might have noticed the sound of the light, quick footsteps pattering down it in his direction before the actual moment of impact.

Unfortunately, he didn't, and the shock of the collision was enough to jar his teeth.

His right hand flashed out as Leeana caromed off of him. She'd been moving at something much closer to a run than a walk, and he caught her elbow just before she tumbled headlong off the stair. He didn't have time to be gentle about it, and she gasped in as much unanticipated hurt as surprise as his fingers snapped tight.