The Sword of the South - eARC (23 page)

“Never fear,” Wencit said, reaching for his purse. “He’s a noble beast, and you’re right—we
are
in haste. Name your price.”

“Forty gold kormaks,” Fradenhelm said promptly.

“Gods!” Bahzell exclaimed. “A noble beast, fair enough, but he’s not after being made of gold! Give him twenty, Wencit.”

“Thirty-five?” Fradenhelm suggested. “You won’t find a finer horse this side of the Wind Plain, Bahzell, and well you know it! He’ll carry the young sir all day on a handful of grain, and not hold Walsharno back while he does it. No need for a spare mount with
this
fellow!”

“Hirahim was after leaving a son in
your
father’s bed!” Bahzell snorted. “I’d not give thirty-five for a purebred Sothōii warhorse! Still, you’re not so very wrong about its quality.” The last sentence came out grudgingly, and the hradani reached up to run a huge hand down the stallion’s proudly arched neck. “Throw in his saddle, and it might be we’d give you twenty-five.”

“Saddle, bridle, saddlebags, and blanket—and not one copper less than thirty kormaks!” Fradenhelm replied indignantly.

“Well…”

Bahzell examined the horse thoroughly, skilled hands searching the shaggy coat for hidden infirmities. He peered into the stallion’s mouth and examined each hoof and shoe minutely.

“It’s robbery without a weapon,” he muttered, “but not so much more than he’d be after fetching if it should happen his papers would stand in court! Take it, Wencit.”

“Very well: thirty gold kormaks.”

Wencit counted the money into Fradenhelm’s hand while Bahzell selected suitable equipment from the tack room just inside the stable’s entrance and handed the gear to Kenhodan with a grin. Thirty gold kormaks was a princely sum…and ludicrously low for such a beast, if he’d been honestly come by.

Kenhodan had become accustomed to finding hidden talents within himself, but it was especially pleasing to learn horsemanship was among them. His hands were gentle as he worked, whispering softly, and a velvet nose pressed his shoulder. The stallion blew gently, and his ears were as expressive as Bahzell’s as he and Kenhodan felt one another out.

Wencit and Fradenhelm soon reached agreement on two more horses to serve as pack animals. Both were well above average, but Kenhodan noted smugly that the stable master had spoken no more than the truth when he said neither of them was the equal of his own new beauty. Under normal circumstances, he would have been more than satisfied to accept either of them, however, and he found himself wondering once again what sort of mount the mysterious Walsharno intended to provide Bahzell if they needed an even better horse to go under Wencit’s saddle.

Fradenhelm provided two pack frames for a modest fee, and Bahzell and Kenhodan quickly packed their gear onto the horses. In the event, they needn’t have hurried, however, for there was no immediate sign of Refram’s return, and Bahzell paced slowly, smoking his pipe and stopping occasionally to examine the shaggy-coated stallion. The horse stood behind Kenhodan, resting his jaw on the red-haired man’s shoulder with his eyes half-closed as he luxuriated in the fingers reaching up to caress the half-lowered ears.

“I’m thinking you’ve made a friend,” the hradani said.

“And who wouldn’t want a friend like this one?” Kenhodan asked cheerfully.

“No one as I’d care to know. Would it be you’ve a thought about what to call him?”

“I’ve been thinking about that, but I haven’t come up with anything suitable. Why? Do you have a suggestion?”

“As to that, it might be I do. It’s after being a Sothōii-ish sort of a name, but I’m thinking it’s one as fits. Look at that coat; see how it’s after shifting under the light and melting into the shadows like mist? I’m thinking he’ll show gray under the sun, but I’ll swear to silver under the moon. And if he’s not one as outruns the wind, my name’s not Bahzell Bahnakson…which would be something of a shock to Leeana, I’m thinking!” He chuckled, then turned serious. “Aye, I think I’ve a name. How would ‘Glamhandro’ strike your fancy?”

“Glamhandro.” Kenhodan tried it slowly, savoring the sound on his tongue. Like “Walsharno” it was Old Kontovaran, and it meant “gray wind of autumn.”

“I like it,” he said. He whispered the name in the stallion’s ear, and the horse flicked his head as if in agreement. “I swear he understands every word I say!” Kenhodan chuckled delightedly.

“Why, as to that, I’m thinking it’s not so unlikely as he does.”

Kenhodan eyed Bahzell suspiciously, then glanced at the wizard. Wencit grinned and settled on a bale of hay, settling his poncho about him, and Kenhodan looked back at Bahzell.

“What do you mean?”

“Any fool could be seeing as he’s Sothōii blood, and there’s no faster, smarter horse ever bred than a Sothōii warhorse. Mind you, I’m thinking this lad is after being something special, however it might be Fradenhelm laid hands on him. He’s warhorse blood, sure as death, but I’m thinking as there’s more than that to him. It’s not so very often a courser and one of what they’re after calling ‘the lesser cousins’ mate, but it’s not something as
never
happens, either, and it’s in my mind as how there might just be a wee drop of courser blood in this lad’s family tree. And any wind rider knows any courser’s after understanding us ‘two-foots’ when it happens we speak to one of them.”

“Like Blanchrach?” Kenhodan asked, seeing a sudden light.

“Eh?” Bahzell’s ears flicked. “No! Coursers are after understanding
anyone
, Kenhodan, though it’s true enough that it’s only their own wind brothers as can hear them reply.”

Kenhodan bit off a sigh. It was frustrating to think he saw a door crack of light only to have it vanish, and that seemed to happen a lot in his case. Gwynna and the direcat confused him, and he longed to understand the child’s relationship with the enormous predator. But he refused to pry if Bahzell didn’t volunteer information. Still, the hradani’s explanation of the coursers left much to be desired, as well.

“So do you mean the coursers read minds?”

“No, I mean they’re after understanding two-foots’ language. Now, it might be fair to be saying they read their riders’ minds—and t’other way about, come to that—but that’s not the same thing.

“You know the Sothōii well, don’t you?” Kenhodan asked curiously, remembering Brandark’s explanation of Bahzell’s past.

“Aye, you might be saying that,” Bahzell acknowledged, and Wencit laughed.

“And you might be saying the Western Sea’s a little damp,” the wizard said. “Mind you, there was a time—before that unfortunate business in Navahk and his introduction to Tomanāk—when young Bahzell Bahnakson was one of the most accomplished horse thieves in all of Norfressa. Of course, that was before his father put an end to Iron Axe raids on the Sothōii herds. Although I
do
seem to remember that there was that one raid after that, wasn’t there, Bahzell? That little business with Lord Warden Resak’s prize stud, wasn’t it?”

Bahzell ignored him and busied himself tamping the tobacco in his pipe and relighting it from one of the stable lanterns, and Wencit chuckled.

“I’ve often thought Prince Bahnak had more than one reason for picking young Bahzell as his hostage to Navahk,” he said. “Just getting him away from temptation on the Wind Plain probably would’ve been enough to convince him all by itself. Of course, then Bahzell wandered off and got himself enlisted by Tomanāk, which was a horrid shock to any hradani’s system, as I’m sure you can imagine. When he came home again, butter wouldn’t have melted in his mouth.”

Kenhodan snorted in amusement, trying—and failing spectacularly—to imagine Bahzell as a prim and proper reformed horse thief.

“I’m thinking,” Bahzell said to no one in particular, gazing up at the rafters, “as those who’re after opening their mouths too wide are like to be finding a boot stuck in it. Aye, and sometimes it’s even their own and not someone else’s.”

“I believe Brandark did mention something about surrenders and paroles,” Kenhodan said. “I didn’t get much detail, though.”

“That’s a pity,” Wencit replied. “It’s worth telling in full, and if we had time, I would. The heart of the matter, though, was that some of Tellian of Balthar’s vassals had taken it upon themselves to launch an unauthorized invasion of Hurgrum while Prince Bahnak was occupied fighting the Bloody Swords. Since no one else was available, Bahzell and a few score Horse Stealers who’d taken Tomanāk’s service took it upon themselves to block the only good route from the West Riding to Hurgrum and…argue the point with them. Rather pointedly, in fact.”

The wizard’s humor settled into something rather more serious, and he shook his head.

“The fellow leading the Sothōii was an insufferable young hothead, the sort who thinks with his spurs and his sword instead of his brain—and doesn’t have much brain even if he should miraculously try to use if, for that matter—and he got a lot of his supporters killed when he tried to rush the hradani’s position. He was getting ready for another try when Tellian arrived. He’d hoped to overtake the idiots before they actually crossed swords with the hradani, and when he realized he was too late for that—that the war he’d been trying to stop had already well and truly started without him—he was sorely tempted to follow through with the attack himself. He had a lot more men with him, as well, and getting the first blow in quick and hard might have made that war a lot shorter, after all. And there’s no doubt he could have done just that, although the price tag would’ve been steep. I happened to have ridden along with him, however—just to do my own bit to prevent the normal sort of Sothōii-hradani ‘negotiations’—and I decided the foolishness had gone far enough, so I gave them a little history lesson.”

“History lesson?” Kenhodan repeated in a careful tone, and Bahzell snorted thunderously.

“Aye, you might be calling it that. He was after standing the Sothōii’s understanding of how the war betwixt us first started on its head.”

“He did?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Wencit acknowledged. “And once Tellian understood that it truly had been the
Sothōii
who’d started all those centuries of mutual bloodletting, he found himself in a bit of a quandary.”

“Don’t you be making light of Tellian, Wencit.” Bahzell’s tone was dry, but something very like a warning gleamed in his eyes. “It’s a good man he was, one of the finest ever I’ve known.”

“Yes. Yes, he was,” Wencit agreed. “Unfortunately, the only way anyone could see to bring the confrontation to a close without major bloodshed was for one side to surrender to the other. Logically—although I realize we’re talking about Sothōii and hradani here—Bahzell ought to have surrendered to Tellian, given the enormous imbalance in their numbers. I doubt he and his lads were outnumbered by any more than—eighty or ninety to one, would you say, Bahzell?”

The hradani only grunted, and Wencit chuckled softly.

“The problem was that our Bahzell, as you may have noticed, is sometimes a bit on the impulsive side, and it was much worse then. You may not believe it, Kenhodan, but he’s actually mellowed quite a bit over the years I’ve known him. At the time, however, that mellowing process hadn’t really taken hold yet, I’m afraid. So he basically he informed Tellian that no one had ever taught him how to surrender. Hradani can be a bit stubborn, you know.”

Kenhodan felt his lips quiver but managed to restrain the smile as Bahzell snorted in disgust and busied himself unnecessarily adjusting one of the pack horses’ load.

“So what…what happened?” Kenhodan asked just a bit unsteadily.

“Well, Tellian was a wind rider, you know, and so was his sword companion, Hathan Shieldarm. Now,
there
was a stubborn man!”

“And as fine a man as Tellian,” Bahzell said over his shoulder. He never looked away from the pack horse, but his voice was dead serious, and Wencit nodded.

“Indeed he was,” he said. “Up to that moment, though, Hathan had probably been as staunch a dyed-in-the-wool anti-hradani bigot as you could hope to find. He was as honest as he was stubborn, though, and he climbed down from his courser and told Bahzell that if he didn’t know how to surrender, he’d teach him. Which he did…by surrendering to
Bahzell
. At which point Tellian surrendered his entire force to Bahzell, as well.”

“He did what?” Kenhodan blinked. Brandark’s description hadn’t included all of those details, and he looked at Bahzell in disbelief. “At eighty-to-one odds?!” Wencit nodded solemnly, and Kenhodan shook his head. “And how did the rest of his men take it?”

“Some of them were a bit…irked,” Wencit said with the air of a man seeking exactly the right verb. “Mind you, they got over it eventually. In fact, most of them decided—in the end, not immediately—that it was hilarious. They’re all mad, you know.”

“Mad they may be,” Bahzell growled, “but they’re also after being the finest horsemen as the gods ever put on earth!”

“And that they truly are,” Wencit agreed. “As Bahzell has better reason than most to know. Their regular warhorses are the finest light and medium cavalry mounts in the world, and no mere horse can compare to a courser.”

“I was under the impression that coursers
are
horses,” Kenhodan said.

“Aye?” Bahzell turned and cocked his ears at the red-haired man. “And would you be saying Blanchrach and yonder tabby—” he flicked his head at the ragamuffin cat in charge of ridding Fradenhelm’s stable of rats “—are both cats?”

“Well…”

“He’s right about that, Kenhodan,” Wencit said. “Coursers are every bit as intelligent as any of the Races of Man. That’s something most non-Sothōii seem to find it a bit difficult to grasp, but every Sothōii ever born knows the truth down deep in his bones, and the wind riders are the elite of the Sothōii cavalry.”

“How does someone become a wind rider?” Kenhodan asked curiously, and Bahzell snorted again, very softly this time.

“If a courser’s after choosing to bear you, then it’s a wind rider you are, lad. And if the coursers
don’t
choose to bear you, there’s no power on earth as could make you one.”

There was something about the hradani’s tone, something that spoke to the heart, even if Kenhodan didn’t understand the message.