David Weber - Wind Rider's Oath

"It's grateful we are," Bahzell rumbled, and turned to follow Alfar towards the fortified manor house that was the closest Warm Springs had to a proper keep.

Lady Sofalla Bardiche was a sturdy, attractively plain woman whose chestnut hair was well stranded with silver. Instead of the gown a more higher ranked Sothōii noblewoman might have worn, she wore serviceable (although subtly feminine) trousers under a long, brightly embroidered tunic. The embroidery was a bit finer and more fanciful than a prosperous farmer's wife might have boasted, but it certainly wasn't the silks and satins, pearls and semiprecious gems of a great noble house. She also had a brisk, no-nonsense manner that reminded Bahzell strongly of Tala, and she took the sudden arrival of her husband's henchman with eight hradani in tow far more calmly than might have been expected.

"Well," she said after Alfar had completed his hasty explanation, "I can't say I ever expected to be entertaining hradani, Prince Bahzell. Or not, at least, on this side of the manor wall!" She smiled as she said it, and he smiled back. "But if Lord Edinghas wants you put up in guest quarters, that's good enough for me. I'm afraid you'll find things a bit less fine here at Warm Springs than at Balthar, though!"

"Milady," Bahzell replied, "we're after being hradani. A roof as doesn't leak more than a few bucketfuls each night will be doing us well enough."

"Oh, I think we can manage a little better than that," she assured him, and turned to the small gaggle of housemaids huddled behind her and gazing apprehensively at the hradani whose stature dwarfed the manor house's entry hall.

"Stop gawking like ninnies!" Sofalla scolded. "Ratha," she continued, singling out one of the older, more levelheaded-looking maids, "go and tell Gohlan that we'll be putting Prince Bahzell and his people into the south wing."

Lord Edinghas' armsmen still looked less than delighted with the situation when Alfar escorted Bahzell back to the stable an hour and a half later, but at least the most overt hostility seemed to have eased. Bahzell didn't know exactly what Sir Jahlahan had included in his letter, or how Edinghas had explained the situation to his wary retainers, but it seemed to have taken. Bahzell wasn't surprised-not after watching Lady Sofalla deal with the household staff. If her husband possessed even half her strength of personality, it would take a braver man than Bahzell to argue with him!

The reflection made Bahzell chuckle as he and Alfar crossed to where Edinghas stood in one of the stable doors.

"Again, welcome, Milord Champion," the lord warden said, and this time extended his right hand. Bahzell clasped forearms with him, and Edinghas produced a much more natural smile.

"I won't apologize again for my first greeting," he said. "I've read Lord Swordspinner's letter, now, and he told me you'd probably understand if we seemed a bit . . . put off, just at first. Doesn't make it any better-I know that-but if you're willing to forgive me for it, I'll try to see it doesn't happen again."

"There's naught to forgive," Bahzell replied with a shrug. "That's not to be saying we'd not all have been happier to've been being greeted with open arms and glad hosannas, but I'm thinking as a man should be keeping his hopes to what's possible, when all's said."

He smiled, and Edinghas smiled back. Then the lord warden's expression sobered.

"Sir Jahlahan wrote that you'd see it that way, Milord. And I'm glad. But I'd also be happier if there'd never been need for a champion of Tomanâk to come to Warm Springs. And especially not for a reason like this."

"Aye, I'll not disagree with you there," Bahzell said somberly.

"Well, I suppose we should get to it, then," Edinghas sighed. "I warn you, Milord, I've no idea how they'll react when they meet you. We've still no idea what happened to them out there, but whatever it was, it's marked them more than just physically." His jaw tightened. "I've never seen coursers frightened, Milord. Not before this. But now-"

He sighed again and turned to lead the way into the stable.

Warm Springs' stables had been built to a much larger scale than those of most manors because of the holding's long association with the Warm Springs coursers. The main stable was a high, airy structure, with huge, open-fronted stalls that were well kept and spotlessly clean. And, in spite of everything, Bahzell was unprepared for what he found inside it.

He'd asked Brandark to remain outside, with the other members of the Order. The last thing they needed was to overwhelm the injured coursers with the presence of so many hradani. He knew that, but no amount of logic could keep him from feeling alone and isolated among so many humans, none of whom knew him, and all of whom were his people's hereditary enemies.

He faced that thought, and then put it firmly behind him. He couldn't afford it now, he told himself, and turned his attention to the coursers he'd come to see.

Despite his people's name and reputation, he'd had quite a bit of experience with horses. He'd actually ridden (if not particularly well, and only for fairly brief periods) on several occasions, and the Horse Stealers' traditional enmity with the Sothōii more or less required them to be familiar with cavalry and its capabilities. No Horse Stealer was ever going to be a cavalryman himself, given his people's sheer size, so most of his personal experience had been with draft animals, but like any Horse Stealer, he had an expert eye when it came to evaluating quality horseflesh.

For all of that, he had never come within a mile of any courser until he encountered Baron Tellian and Dathgar and Hathan and Gayrhalan in the Gullet. To a large extent, that was because his father had outlawed raids on the Wind Plain less than five years after Bahzell had earned his warrior's braid. To an even larger extent, though, it had been because it was more than any hradani's life was worth to come within what any courser stallion might consider threatening range of his herd . . . which equated to coming within the stallion's line of sight. The reservations Gayrhalan continued to nourish where Bahzell was concerned even now only underscored the wisdom of remaining safely out of reach of any courser's battleaxe jaws and piledriver hoofs.

Dathgar had become rather more comfortable with Bahzell, but even Tellian's companion remained . . . uneasy in close proximity to him. Still, coursers were at least as intelligent as most of the Races of Man, and both Dathgar and Gayrhalan, like Sir Kelthys' Walasfro, had been wise enough to recognize that Bahzell was not the slavering hradani stereotype for which the coursers had cherished such hatred for so long.

Nonetheless, he recognized that it behooved him to approach these coursers cautiously. None of them had ever met him; Sir Kelthys had not yet arrived, so there was no wind rider and his companion to vouch for Bahzell; and these were the brutally traumatized survivors of a merciless massacre. They were unlikely, to say the least, to take the sudden appearance of eight hradani well.

But when he stepped into the stable and saw the condition of those survivors, it was hard-even harder than he had anticipated-to remember the need for caution and distance.

The seven adults were bad enough. Even now, they shivered uncontrollably, as if with an ague, rolling their eyes and flinching away from any unexpected sound or movement. Seeing horses in such a state of terror would have sufficed to break any heart. Seeing coursers reduced to such straits was the stuff of nightmare, and not just for Sothōii like Alfar or Edinghas.

Not one of the terrified survivors had escaped unwounded, and one of the fillies had lost her right ear and eye and bore an ugly, ragged, wound that ran from the point of her left hip forward almost to her shoulder. She must have been almost four years old, and it was obvious that her technically "juvenile" status had not kept her out of the heart of her herd's battle. Her right knee was lacerated, with a deep tear extending downward along the cannon. It seemed impossible that it could have missed the extensor tendons, but although she obviously favored the leg, it was still taking her weight.