War Maid's Choice-ARC (20 page)

It didn’t last. It
couldn’t
last for longer than one heartbeat, or perhaps two. Yet it lasted long enough, and Bahzell felt Tellian’s chest heave convulsively under his palm. The baron sucked in a deep, wracking breath, then coughed convulsively. His faltering, flickering heart surged within his chest, and his eyelids fluttered. Then they rose, gray eyes unfocused, the blood from his nostrils clotting his mustache.

“Dathgar,” he whispered, and Bahzell sagged back on his heels, every muscle drained, filled with the joyous, wondering exhaustion of being allowed to be a bearer of life, not death.

Something snorted beside him, and he looked down, then smiled as Dathgar’s ears shifted, pricking forward. The hradani looked up, saw the same joyful exhaustion in Walsharno’s eyes, and let the hand Walsharno didn’t have rest on Dathgar’s neck.

“There, now,” he told the courser. “Don’t you be doing anything hasty. It’s work enough Tomanāk and I had putting him back together, so just you bide a bit. Let’s not be breaking him all over again getting off of him!”

Chapter Nine

Well,
that’s
disappointing, and in more ways than one,
Master Varnaythus thought glumly, gazing into his gramerhain as a huge, bloodstained bay courser rolled very, very cautiously off of Tellian Bowmaster.

The courser took three tries to make it back to his feet, and two more coursers moved in on either side, leaning their shoulders against him to help him stay there. It was obvious he needed the help, but he stood there stubbornly, refusing to move until Tellian had been helped back to his feet, as well. The baron was pale, clearly at least as shaky as his courser and just as soaked with blood, but he leaned on Bahzell Bahnakson’s arm and reached up to caress the courser’s ears.

Dathgar lowered his head, resting his nose gently, gently on his rider’s shoulder, and Tellian threw both arms around his neck, leaning into him. It was all very touching, Varnaythus thought with a sour expression, but it would have been ever so much more satisfactory if at least one of them had been standing disconsolately over the other’s dead body.

And we came so close to getting
both
of them, that’s what really pisses me off.
He shook his head.
I’d almost rather have missed them completely than to have come that close and fallen short! Damn it, I thought Salgahn was better than that!

He wasn’t really being fair, and he knew it. He also didn’t care. He sat back, arms folded, glowering at the gramerhain as Bahzell left Tellian to Dathgar while he joined Vaijon in seeing to the other wounded. Without Salghan, Arthnar Fire Oar’s assassins would never have come as near to successes they had, and he knew it. For that matter, he hadn’t
really
expected he and the dog brother would be able to talk the River Brigands’ warlord into even making the attempt! It had been worth suggesting to both him and Cassan, though, and no doubt the sizable bag of gold which had passed from the South Riding to Krelik had quite a bit to do with the fact that Arthnar had been willing to run the risk.

Well, that and the fact that he’d been able to hire his killers without their ever realizing who was actually paying them.

That was deft of him,
Varnaythus acknowledged grudgingly.
And he thought of that part without even any prompting from Salgahn. Of course,
Cassan
may not think it was all that clever once Bahzell gets around to interrogating his prisoners
.

The wizard had presented Salgahn to Fire Oar as a Sothōii renegade who’d been sufficiently familiar with Tellian’s movements and habits to provide the sort of inside information that might make a successful assassination possible. As he’d hoped, that had inspired Arthnar to use Salgahn to organize the attempt itself, but he hadn’t expected the twist Arthnar had come up with. Arthnar himself had retained his anonymity as their ultimate employer, since it would have struck any interrogater as highly suspicious, in the unfortunately probable event that any of the assassins were taken alive, if the assassins’ ultimate paymaster
hadn’t
concealed his identity. But he’d instructed Salgahn to emphasize his Sothōii accent when he recruited them...and to casually “let fall” the fact that he was in the service of an undisclosed Sothōii noble. Salgahn had never actually said he was working for Cassan or Yeraghor, of course, but assuming Tellian followed up on what the surviving would-be assassins could tell him, there wasn’t much question who he was going to end up blaming for it. And Cassan could hardly argue that it had been Fire Oar, not him, without facing the embarrassing question of just how he
knew
it had been Fire Oar.

Not too shabby,
Varnaythus admitted.
Get paid by someone to be his deniable assassin, then avoid drawing suspicion yourself by arranging things so that the fellow who paid you is the one people are most likely to suspect! I think I may have to revise my estimate of Arthnar’s capabilities upward. And however pissed off I am, I also have to admit he came closer to getting Tellian than anyone
else
has! Of course, a lot of that was due to Salgahn. Too bad he won’t be around to make any other attempts.
He shook his head.
I’m beginning to understand why the dog brothers are so reluctant to go after Bahzell, given how uniformly fatal their failures have been so far.
Who would have thought even
Bahzell
could throw a dagger that far and that accurately with his off hand? But, damn it, I really thought
this
time he was going to pull it off!

The truth was, the wizard thought, blanking his gramerhain with an impatient wave, that if it hadn’t been for the presence of not simply one, but no less than three champions of Tomanāk, either Tellian or Dathgar
would
definitely be dead. And if one of Salgahn’s men had managed to get an arrow or two into Bahzell or Vaijon—or even Bahzell’s Phrobus-damned courser!—Varnaythus would have counted the operation a resounding success, despite the dog brother’s spectacular demise.

But they hadn’t, and it wasn’t, which turned the attempt into an equally resounding failure. Although, now that he thought about it, increasing Tellian’s suspicions of Cassan would probably be worthwhile in its own right. After all, it wasn’t that the Dark Gods actually needed Cassan to win; they only needed him to destroy the Kingdom’s cohesion
trying
to win. In fact, it would actually suit them even better to see the entire Kingdom dissolve into something like that interminable bloodletting in Ferenmoss. Twenty or thirty years of civil war, preferably with enough attention diverted to break up Prince Bahnak’s experiment in hradani unity, would be just about perfect from his Lady’s perspective.

Well, since you never expected them to succeed in the first place, at least the fact that they didn’t hasn’t dislocated any of your own plans,
he told himself as philosophically as he could.
And you should probably make sure Cassan finds out about this as soon as you can do it without raising any suspicions about just how you learned about Arthnar’s failure that quickly. Not that a little delay couldn’t be useful
. He smiled unpleasantly.
After all, it’ll give you more time to decide exactly how you want to let Cassan know about Arthnar’s...misdirection. It never hurts to add a bit of salt to the wound when it comes to sowing dissension, now does it?

* * *

<
So there you are...at last,
> Walsharno said as Bahzell Bahnakson stepped out of the village inn’s back door. A cool, still dawn drifted under the towering oak which shaded the inn, and the hradani stretched hugely, foxlike ears half-flattened while he yawned, as the courser ambled over to greet him.

“And a good morning to you, too,” Bahzell said, recovering from his yawn and reaching out to rub Walsharno’s nose. “I’m hoping you had a restful evening?”

<
It’s a hard, hard life,
> Walsharno said mournfully, raising his head to lip playfully at the hradani’s ears. <
Some people get nice, snug roofs overhead, and other people get left out in the freezing cold all night long
.>

“Freezing is it, now?”

Sunlight was already slanting golden shafts through the leaves overhead, promising plenty of warmth to come, and Bahzell chuckled and patted the side of Walsharno’s neck.

<
Well, it
could
have been. In fact, it could have been raining or snowing for all
you’d
know about it, and if it had, I still would’ve been outside in it!
> Walsharno returned with spirit. <
It’s not like I would’ve fitted into that wretched little stable, at any rate!
>

“And no more did I fit into that ‘wretched little’ bed,” Bahzell pointed out. “It’s a hard floor that bedchamber has!”

He reached back to knead the small of his back, and someone laughed behind him. He turned his head, looking over his shoulder, and smiled as Hathan Shieldarm joined him and Walsharno.

“Making you feel guilty, is he?” Hathan asked.

“Oh, not so much as all that,” Bahzell demurred with a grin.

“But not for lack of trying. Is that what you mean?”

<
Tell him a champion of Tomanāk doesn’t resort to trickery to get what he wants,
> Walsharno said.

“Now that I won’t.” Bahzell shook his head with a laugh. “First, because it’s a fearful lie it would be, and, second, because he’d not believe a word of it.”

Walsharno snorted and shoved hard enough with his nose to stagger even the massive hradani, and Hathan laughed. He obviously didn’t need to actually hear what Walsharno had said to make a pretty shrewd guess about its content. He started to say something else, then paused and turned his head, shading his eyes with one hand as another courser—this one an iron gray, smaller (though
no
courser would ever actually be called “small”) than Walsharno and obviously at least a few years older—came drifting over.

“Good morning, Gayrhalan,” Bahzell said courteously, and the newcomer snorted with a very horselike head shake before he nodded to the hradani.

There’d been a time when Bahzell Bahnakson had not been Gayrhalan’s favorite person in the world. Those days were long gone, but Hathan’s courser had been well named. “Storm Souled”—that was what Gayrhalan meant—and the gray’s temper was as stormy as his name suggested.

Despite which, he whinnied like a child’s pony in delight as Hathan reached into his belt pouch and extracted a large lump of maple sugar.

“Greedy!” the Sothōii said as Gayrhalan lipped the sugar delicately from his palm. The courser ignored the charge with lordly hauteur...and crunched the sugar loudly.

<
It’s nice to see that
some
wind riders actually
appreciate
their brothers,
> Walsharno observed.

“Ha!” Bahzell shook his head. “‘Appreciate,’ is it, now? More a matter of who’s after being under whose hoof,
I’m
thinking!”

“That sort of honest evaluation isn’t going to make you any friends, Milord Champion,” Hathan said.

“Aye,” Bahzell sighed and shook his head again, his expression mournful. “It’s a hard lot, this being an honest man. There’s never an end to the trouble it can be landing a fellow in! If I’d the least notion then where it would be taking me, I’d not have fallen so easy for Himself’s little invitation. I mean, when it comes to the sticking point, what’s one wee little demon one way or the other compared to a man’s spending his whole life long speaking naught but the truth? And me a hradani, to boot.”

Hathan laughed. But then he gave Gayrhalan’s neck one last pat and turned to face Bahzell fully, and his expression was far more serious than it had been.

“Gayrhalan says Dathgar’s strength is coming back nicely. Has Walsharno spoken with him this morning?”

<
Yes, I have,
> Walsharno replied, and from the strength of his mental voice Bahzell knew he was speaking simultaneously to Gayrhalan, as well. <
I think he’s almost fully recovered, although I’m none too enthusiastic about putting that to the test just yet.
> He shook his mane and blew heavily. <
He’s not so young as he used to be, and I don’t think it would hurt a thing for him to have another day or so of rest before we head on to Sothōfalas
.>

Hathan’s eyes had narrowed as he listened to Gayrhalan relaying Walsharno’s comments. Now he smiled and nodded his head vigorously, but his expression was quizzical.

“I don’t know that
I’d
like to be the one suggesting to Dathgar that he might be getting a bit past it,” he said, regarding Walsharno with a raised eyebrow. “In fact, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t, even if I were a somewhat younger fellow than him and a champion of Tomanāk. Having said that, though, I agree there’s no need to rush getting back on the road. And not just for Dathgar’s sake, either.”

“Well, I’ll not deny it’s easier I’d be in my own mind if it so happened we could convince Tellian of the same thing,” Bahzell acknowledged. “Mind, champion of Tomanāk or no, I’ve no mind to be suggesting to
him
as how he’s ‘getting a bit past it, either,’ if it’s all the same to you.”

“I think that would be an
excellent
thing to avoid doing,” Hathan agreed fervently. “In fact, I can’t think of anything you could possibly say that would be more likely to inspire him to insist on leaving before breakfast!”

<
There’s no need to do anything of the sort.
> Walsharno flipped his ears in the courser equivalent of a shrug when Bahzell and Hathan looked at him. <
We’ll just suggest to Dathgar that it would be better for Tellian to rest for another day or two—and, of course, that we don’t want anyone telling Tellian that, given how stubborn he is. And then we’ll suggest exactly the same thing to
Tellian
about Dathgar
.> He flipped his ears again. <
They’ll both jump for it the same way Gayrhalan jumps for sugar
.>

“Sure, and a sad thing it is to see such deceitfulness so early in the morning,” Bahzell sighed.

<
Oh?
> Walsharno cocked his head, examining his wind brother with one skeptical eye. <
And do
you
have a better idea?
>