<I?> Walsharno came to a sudden halt, his ears straight up and his eyes wide. <I, a champion? I’m no such thing!>
<But—> Bahzell began.
The complex linkage between hradani, courser, and deity trembled with the force of his protest.
<Peace, Brother,> Walsharno said, shaking off his own shock at Tomanak’s calm announcement as he recognized the pain—and guilt—suffusing Bahzell’s mental cry of denial. <You will never drag me anywhere against my will. When I chose you, I chose knowing you were a champion, knowing where that might lead. I was surprised, but He’s right, and if you think upon it, you’ll see that He is. I willingly and gladly chose to partake of whatever fate awaits you—whatever fate we make for ourselves—in the full knowledge that you were a champion … and that few champions perish in peace, surrounded by those who love them. It simply never occurred to me that in doing so I might have stepped so close to the power of the Light myself.>
<I will,> the courser’s voice rang in the vaults of Bahzell’s mind. A part of the hradani wanted desperately to forbid it, to prevent Walsharno from binding himself so inescapably to whatever fate awaited Bahzell himself. But another part recognized that it was too late to prevent that. That from the moment Walsharno willingly linked himself to him, their fates had been joined. And another part of him recognized that he had no right to forbid Walsharno this. That it was the courser’s—his brother’s—right to make the choice for himself.
<I do.> Walsharno’s “voice” was as deep, as measured, as that of Tomanak himself, filled with all the certainty and power of his mighty heart.
A deep, resonant bell rang somewhere deep in the depths of Bahzell Bahnakson’s soul. A single musical note enveloped him, wrapped itself about him and Walsharno, and as it sang like the voice of the universe itself, Walsharno’s presence blazed beside him like the very Sun of Battle for which he was named. The power and essence of Tomanak himself was infused into that glorious heart of flame, and Bahzell felt all of the myriad connections between the three of them. It was unlike anything he had ever felt before, even in that moment when he and Kaeritha had felt and experienced with Vaijon the moment that Tomanak accepted his sword oath.
<Done—and well done!> The deep voice sang through the depths of their joined souls, deep and triumphant, joyously welcoming and shrouded in the thunder of coming battle. <Tremble, 0, Darkness! Tremble before the coming of these, my Swords!>
Chapter Forty-One
“The Mistress was right—they are fools!”
Treharm Haltharu, who looked as human as Jerghar Sholdan—and was—exposed razor-sharp teeth in a vicious smile. Stars twinkled overhead, their jewellike beauty uncaring, and the crescent new-moon hung low on the eastern horizon. He stood beside Jerghar atop the low hill over the cave in which they had spent the daylight hours, and his eyes glittered with the deadly green light of his true nature.
“Of course the Mistress was right,” Jerghar replied harshly, “but She never called them fools.”
“Of course She did!” Treharm snarled. “Are you as big a fool as they? Are your mind and memory failing like a shardohn’s? Or do you call me a liar?”
He glared at Jerghar, fingers flexing, and raw fury hovered between them. Then Jerghar’s right hand came up and across in a terrible, crashing blow. The sound of the impact was like a tree shattering in an icy forest, and Treharm’s head snapped to the side as its savage force flung him bodily from his feet. He flew backward for almost ten feet before he hit the grassy hilltop and skidded, and his high-pitched shriek of rage tore the night like the very dagger of the damned.
He bounded back up with the impossible speed and agility of what he had become, but even that unnatural quickness was too little and too late. Jerghar had already moved, and the fingers of his right hand tangled in Treharm’s hair. He fell to one knee and heaved brutally, yanking the other Servant’s spine into a straining bow across the bridge of his other thigh, and Treharm’s scream of rage turned into something more frantic, dark with fear, as Jerghar’s left arm pinned his own flailing arms. And then even that whimpered into silence as Jerghar’s fangs flashed scant inches from his arched and straining throat.