swords at the ready, while alarm bells continued to clangor throughout the temple complex."And what will you do when the other guards come, little champion?" Paratha"s voice mocked. "All they will see is you and me, surrounded by the butchered bodies of their precious priestesses. Will you slay them, as well, when I order them to take you for the murderer you are?"
Kaeritha didn"t reply. She only moved forward, lightly, poised on the b.a.l.l.s of her feet. Paratha backed away from her, eyes lit with the glitter of h.e.l.l light watching cautiously, alertly, seeking any opening as intently as Kaeritha"s own.
Kaeritha"s gaze never wavered from Paratha, yet a corner of her attention stood guard. She"d always had what her first arms instructor had called good "situational awareness," and she had honed that awareness for years. And so, although she never looked away from her opponent, she was aware of the remaining unwounded priestess creeping ever so cautiously around behind her.
Paratha gave no sign that she was aware of anything except Kaeritha, but Kaeritha had almost allowed herself to be fooled once. Now she knew better. And she also knew she had only one opportunity to end this fight before the guards Paratha had spoken of arrived.
Paratha slowed, letting Kaeritha close gradually with her. Her saber danced and wove before her, its deadly, glowing tip leaving a twisting crawl of ugly yellow-green light in its wake, and Kaeritha"s nerves tightened. The priestess with her poisoned dagger was close behind her, now, and Paratha"s glittering
eyes narrowed ever so slightly. If it was going to happen, Kaeritha thought, then it would happen- Now!
The priestess sprang forward, teeth bared in a silent, snarling rictus, dagger thrusting viciously at Kaeritha"s unguarded back. And in the same sliver of infinity, with the perfect coordination possible only when a single ent.i.ty controlled both bodies, Paratha executed her own, deadly attack in a full-extension lunge.
It almost worked. It should have worked. But as Tomanak had told Shigu, his champion was the equal of anything the Spider might bring against her. Kaeritha had known what was coming, and she"d spent half her life honing the skills she called upon that day. Perfectly as Paratha-or Shigu-had orchestrated the attack, Kaeritha"s response was equally perfect . . . and began a tiny fraction of a second before Paratha"s.
She twisted lithely, turning her torso through ninety degrees, and lunged at Paratha in a consummately executed stop-thrust. Her left-hand blade met the longer saber, twisting it aside in another of those terrible explosions of light and fury, then slid down its glaring length in a deadly extension that punched the blue-caparisoned short sword through Paratha"s breastplate as if its tempered steel had been so much cobweb. And even as she lunged towards Paratha, her right-hand sword snapped out behind her, and the priestess who had flung herself at Kaeritha"s back shrieked as her own charge impaled her upon that lethal blade.
For one instant, Kaeritha stood between her opponents, both arms at full extension in opposite directions, her sapphire eyes locked with Paratha"s h.e.l.l-lit eyes of brown. The other woman"s mouth opened in shocked disbelief, and her saber wavered, then fell to the floor with a crackling explosion. Her left hand groped towards the cross guard of the sword buried in her chest and blood poured from her mouth.
And then the instant pa.s.sed. Kaeritha twisted both wrists in unison, then straightened, withdrawing both her blades in one, crisp movement, and the bodies of both her opponents crumpled to the floor.
* * * The alarm bells continued to sound, and Kaeritha turned from her fallen enemies to face the audience chamber"s double doors. Foul-smelling smoke drifted and eddied, and small fires burned where the reflected bursts of contending powers had set furniture and wall hangings alight. The walls, ceilings, and polished floors were pitted and scorched, and the windows along the eastern wall had been shattered and blown out of their frames. Bodies-several as seared as the chamber"s furnishings-sprawled everywhere amid pools of blood and the sewer stench of ruptured organs.
The blue corona of Tomanak continued to envelop her, and she knew that any priestess who saw it-and who was prepared to think about it-would recognize it for what it was. Unfortunately, it was unlikely that most of the temple"s regular guards would do the same. Worse, she knew that although Shigu"s avatar had been vanquished, the Spider G.o.ddess" residual evil remained. Shigu might have been considerate enough to concentrate most of her more powerful Servants here in the Voice"s chambers for the attack on Kaeritha. But she hadn"t concentrated all of them, and even if her remaining Servants hadn"t hungered for revenge, they must know that their only chance of escaping retribution lay in killing or at least diverting Kaeritha.
Her jaw tightened. She knew what she"d do, if she"d been one of Shigu"s tools faced by a champion of Tomanak. She would feed the uncorrupted members of Quaysar"s guard force straight into the champion"s blades, and the chaos and confusion and the fact that none of the innocents knew what was really happening would let them do exactly that. Any champion would do all she could to avoid slaying men and women who were only doing their sworn duty, with no trace of corruption upon their souls. And if, despite all she could do, that champion found herself forced to kill those men and women in self-defense, the Dark would count that a far from minor victory in its own right.
But Kaeritha had plans of her own, and her sapphire eyes were grim as she kicked the chamber"s doors wide and stalked through them, swords blazing blue in her hands. The bells were louder in the corridor outside the Voice"s quarters, and Kaeritha heard sharp shouts of command and the clatter of booted feet. The first group of guards-a dozen war maids and half that many guardsmen in Lillinara"s moon-badged livery-came around the bend at a run, and Kaeritha gathered her will. She reached out, in a way she could never have described to someone who was not also a champion, and seized a portion of the power Tomanak had poured into her. She shaped it to suit her needs, then threw it out before her in a fan-shaped battering ram.
Shouted orders turned into shouts of confusion as Kaeritha"s G.o.d-reinforced will swept down the corridor like some immense, unseen broom. It gathered up those who were responding to what they thought was an unprovoked attack upon the temple and its Voice and simply pushed them out of the way. Under other circ.u.mstances, Kaeritha might have found the sight amusing as their feet slid across the temple"s floor as if its stone were polished ice. Some of them beat at the invisible wall shoving them out of Kaeritha"s path with their fists. A few actually hewed at it with their weapons. But however they sought to resist, it was useless. They were shunted aside, roughly enough to leave bruises and contusions in some cases, but remarkably gently under the circ.u.mstances.
Yet some of the responding guards were not pushed out of Kaeritha"s way. It took them precious seconds to realize that they hadn"t been, and even that fleeting a delay proved fatal. Kaeritha was upon them, her blue eyes blazing with another, brighter blue, before they could react, for there was a reason her bow wave hadn"t shunted them aside. Unlike the other guards, these were no innocent dupes of the corruption which had poisoned and befouled their temple. They knew who-or what-they truly served, and their faces twisted with panic as they found themselves singled out from their innocent fellows . . . within blade"s reach of a champion of Tomanak.
"Tomanak!" Kaeritha hurled her war cry into their teeth, and her swords were right behind it. There was no way to avoid her in the corridor"s confines, nor was there room or time for finesse. Kaeritha crunched into them, blazing swords moving with the merciless precision of some dwarvish killing machine made of wires and wheels.
Those trapped in front of the others lashed out with the fury of despair as they saw death come for them in the pitiless glitter of her eyes. It did them no good. No more than three of them could face her simultaneously, and all of them together would have been no match for her.
Those in the rear realized it. They tried to turn and flee, only to discover that the same energy which had pushed aside their fellows caught them like a tide of glue. They couldn"t run; which meant all they could do was face her and die.
Kaeritha cut them down and stepped across their bodies. She continued her steady progress through the temple"s corridors, retracing her path towards the Chapel of the Crone, and sweat beaded her brow. Another group of guards came charging down an intersecting pa.s.sageway from her left, and once more her battering ram broom reached out. Most of the newcomers gawked in disbelief and confusion as they were shunted firmly aside . . . and those who were not gawked in terror as Kaeritha stalked into their midst like death incarnate, brushing aside their efforts to defend themselves and visiting Tomanak"s
judgment upon them in the flash of glowing blades and the spatter of traitors" blood.
She resumed her progress towards the chapel, and felt a fatigue which was far more than merely physical gathering within her. Forming and shaping raw power the way that she was was only marginally less demanding than channeling Tomanak"s presence to heal wounds or sickness. It required immense concentration, and the drain upon her own energy was enormous. She couldn"t keep it up long, and every innocent she pushed out of her way only increased her growing exhaustion. But she couldn"t stop, either. Not unless she wanted to slaughter-or to be slaughtered by-those same innocents.
Her advance slowed as her fatigue grew. Every ounce of willpower was focused on the next section of hall or waiting archway between her and her destination. She was vaguely aware of other bells-deeper, louder bells, even more urgent than the ones which had summoned the guards to the false Voice"s defense-but she dared not spare the attention to wonder why they were sounding or what they signified. She could only continue, fighting her way through the seemingly endless members of Quaysar"s Guard who had been corrupted.
And then, suddenly, she entered the Chapel of the Crone, and there were no more enemies. Even the innocent guards she had been pushing out of her way had disappeared, and the clangor of alarm bells had been cut short as though by a knife. There was only stillness, and the abrupt, shocking cessation of combat.
She stopped, suddenly aware that she was soaked with sweat and gasping for breath. She lowered her blades slowly, wondering what had happened, where her enemies had gone. The sounds of her own boots seemed deafening as she made her way slowly, cautiously, down the chapel"s center aisle. And then, without warning, the chapel"s huge doors swung wide just as she reached them.
The bright morning sunlight beyond was almost blinding after the interior dimness through which she had clawed and fought her way, and she blinked. Then her vision cleared, and her eyes widened as she saw a sight she was quite certain no one had ever seen before.
She watched the immense wind rider dismount from the blue roan courser. He wore the same green surcoat she wore, and the huge sword in his right hand blazed with the same blue light. She stared at him, her battle-numbed mind trying to come to grips with his sudden, totally unantic.i.p.ated appearance, and his left hand swept off his helmet. Foxlike ears shifted gently, c.o.c.king themselves in her direction, and a deep voice rumbled like welcome thunder.
"So, Kerry, is this after being only for those with formal invitations, or can just anyone be dropping in?"
She shook her head, unable to make herself quite believe what she was seeing, and stepped out through the chapel doors two of the Quaysar war maids had swung wide. The temple courtyard seemed impossibly crowded by the score or so of coursers and wind riders behind Bahzell. Most of the wind riders were still mounted, interposing with their coursers between the remainder of the Quaysar Guards
and the chapel. Two of them weren"t. Baron Tellian of Balthar and his wind-brother Hathan had dismounted behind Bahzell, and Kaeritha shook her head in disbelief.
"Bahzell," she said in a voice which even she recognized was far too calm and remote from the carnage
behind her, "what are you doing here? And what are you-or any hradani-doing with a courser, for Tomanak"s sake?""Well," he replied, brown eyes gleaming with wicked amus.e.m.e.nt, "it"s all after being the letter"s fault.""Letter?" She shook her head again. "That"s ridiculous. My letter won"t even arrive at Balthar for another day or two!""And who," he asked amiably, "said a thing at all, at all, about your letter?" It was his turn to shake his head, ears tilted impudently. "It wasn"t from you, being as how it"s clear as the nose on Brandark"s face that you"ve not got the sense to be asking for help before you need it. No, this one was after coming from Leeana.""Leeana?" Kaeritha parroted."Aye," Bahzell said a bit more somberly. "She"d suspicions enough all on her own before ever you came back to Kalatha from Thalar. She"d written a bit about them to her mother, but it was only after you and she spoke that she was sending the lot of her worries to Tellian and me. As soon as ever I read her letter, it was pike-staff clear as how I"d best be on my way to Quaysar. I"m hoping you won"t be taking this wrongly, Kerry, but charging in here all alone, without so much as me or Brandark to watch your back, was a d.a.m.ned-fool hradani sort of thing to be doing."
"It was my job," she said, looking around for something to wipe her blades on. Tellian silently extended what looked like it had once been part of a temple guard"s surcoat. She decided not to ask what had happened to its owner. Instead, she simply nodded her thanks and used it to clean her swords while she continued to gaze up at Bahzell.
"And I never once said as how it wasn"t," he replied. "But I"m thinking you"d be carving bits and pieces off of my hide if I"d gone off to deal with such as this without asking if you"d care to be coming along.
Now wouldn"t you just?"
"That"s different," she began, and broke off, recognizing the weakness of her own tone as Bahzell and
Tellian both began to laugh."And just how is it different, Kerry?" another, even deeper voice inquired, and Kaeritha turned to face the speaker.
Tomanak Himself stood in the courtyard, and all around her people were going to their knees as His presence washed over them. Wind riders slid from their saddles to join them, and even the coursers bent their proud heads. Only Kaeritha and Bahzell remained standing, facing their G.o.d, and He smiled upon them.
"I"m still waiting to hear how it"s different," He reminded her in gently teasing tones, and she drew a deep breath as His power withdrew from her. It left quickly, yet gently, flowing back through her like a caress or the shoulder slap of a war captain for a warrior who had done all that was expected of her and more. There was a moment of regret, a sense of loss, as that glorious tide flowed back to the One from Whom it had come, yet her contact with Him was not severed. It remained, glowing between them, and as He reclaimed the power He had lent her, she found herself refreshed, filled with energy and life, as if she had just arisen on a fresh day and not come from a deadly battle for her very life and soul.
"Well, maybe it"s not," she said after a moment or two and with a fulminating sideways glower for
Bahzell. "But it still wasn"t Leeana"s place to be telling you that I needed help!""No more did she," Bahzell said. "All she wrote was what she suspected-not that it was after taking any geniuses to know what such as you were likely to be doing about it if it should happen as how she was right." He shrugged.
"All right," Kaeritha said after another pregnant moment. "But that still leaves my other question."
"And which other question would that be?" Tomanak asked.
"The one about him and him," she snapped, jabbing an index finger first at Bahzell and then at the huge stallion who stood regarding her over her fellow champion"s shoulder with what could only be described as an expression of mild interest. "What"s a hradani-any hradani, but especially a Horse Stealerhradani-doing with a courser? I thought they, um, didn"t like one another very much."
"Ah, now, I don"t think it"s my business to be telling that particular tale," Tomanak told her with a slow smile. He chuckled at the disgusted look she gave Him, then turned his head, gazing about the temple courtyard. There were dozens of bodies lying about, Kaeritha realized-all that was left of the corrupted members of the Quaysar Guard who had tried to prevent Bahzell and his wind brothers from fighting their way to her aid. Tomanak gazed at them for several seconds, then shook His head with a sad sigh.
"You"ve done well, Kaeritha. You and Bahzell alike, as I knew you would. I believe this temple will recover from Shigu"s interference, although you"ll still have your work cut out for you in Kalatha. My Sister will be sending two or three of her Servants to aid you in that work, but this is still a matter of Justice, and so falls under your responsibility."
"I understand," she said quietly, and he nodded.
"I know you do. And I know I can count upon you and Bahzell to complete all the tasks you"ve been called to a.s.sume. But for today, my Blades, enjoy your victory. Celebrate the triumph of the Light you"ve brought to pa.s.s. And while you do," He began to fade from their sight, His face wreathed in a
huge smile, "perhaps you can get Bahzell to tell you how a Horse Stealer became a wind rider. It"s well worth hearing!" He finished, and then He was gone."Well?" Kaeritha turned to her towering sword brother and folded her arms."Well what?" he asked innocently."Well you know perfectly well what!""Oh," Bahzell said. "That "well." " He grinned toothily at her. "Now that"s after being a mite of a long story. For now, let"s just leave it that while you"ve been off enjoying your little vacation in Kalatha and
Thalar, there"s some of us as have been doing some honest work a bit closer to home.""Work?" Kaeritha repeated. "Work? Why, you hairy-eared, overgrown, under-brained, miserable excuse for a champion! I"ll give you work, Milord Champion! And when I"m done with you, you"ll wish you"d never-"
She advanced upon him with fell intent, and Bahzell Bahnakson demonstrated once again the sagacity
and tactical wisdom which were the hallmarks of any champion of Tomanak.
He took to his heels instantly, and despite the carnage all about them, Baron Tellian and the other wind riders burst into laughter as Kaeritha paused beside a planter only long enough to s.n.a.t.c.h out a handful of ornamental river stones suitable for throwing at him before she went speeding off in pursuit.
THE END.