And, he admitted, looking over his shoulder at the fourteen riderless stallions who had paused behind him and Walasfro, nostrils flaring as they blew and tossed their heads, the reinforcements were welcome. Or, he hoped so, at any rate.
Almost half the Bear River adult stallions-including all of the herd's bachelors-had chosen to accompany them to Warm Springs. He'd expected that they would, and under normal circumstances, such a powerful reinforcement would have been priceless. But although the details in Bahzell's and Jahlahan's message had been sketchy, it was obvious that the Warm Springs herd had been unable to resist whatever had attacked it. Which meant he and Walasfro might have brought the other coursers along only to expose them to a danger they could not match. It was virtually impossible for Kelthys to imagine such a threat, but what had already happened seemed grimly sufficient proof that it could exist.
Yet despite that, he'd known he would never be able to justify not giving them the choice of facing it. That was part of what it meant to be a wind rider. No courser had ever answered to the demand of whip or spur, and there were no reins connected to the ornamental hackamore Walasfro wore. Coursers decided where they would go, and when, as they chose, and those privileged to share their lives had no choice but to accept that they had the same right as any human to choose what dangers they would face, what sacrifices they would make, as well.
Kelthys had been a wind rider for over twenty years, and there were times-like today-when he still found it difficult to believe he had ever won Walasfro's brotherhood and love. It was not given to everyone, he knew, to experience the fierce exaltation of galloping across open plains on the back of a Sothōii warhorse. To feel the mighty muscles bunching and exploding with energy, the wind whipping into one's face, the stretch and grace of four hoofs at the moment all of them were off the ground at once. To feel one's own muscles merging with the movement, weaving into that wild, exhilarating dance. To know that one was hurtling across the face of Toragan's own realm at speeds as high as thirty miles an hour, or even more.
It was those magical moments when man and horse melded, when they fused into one racing being, which truly created the character of the Sothōii. It accounted for their sense of self-sufficiency, their trust in their own capability-their arrogance, if one wanted to put it that way. For the truth was that the Sothōii knew, beyond any possibility of contradiction, that there were no finer, more deadly cavalry than they in the entire world. And in those moments when their mounts' hooves spurned the earth itself, they experienced a freedom and an exaltation that was almost like a taste of godhood.
Yet even those blessed to know the capabilities of the Wind Plain's superb warhorses could only imagine, and that but dimly, the glory of saddling the wind itself. Of feeling a ton and a half or more of muscle, bone, and wild, unquenchable spirit thundering beneath one. Of knowing that not even a warhorse could out sprint the magnificent, four-legged being who had chosen one as his brother. Or of experiencing that same, wild exhilaration not for the fleeting minutes of a warhorse's endurance, but literally for hours at a time. Of being able to actually touch the thoughts of another living, breathing being, and to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he would die at your side, defending you as you would defend him.
No creature born solely of nature could have matched that incredible performance, but the coursers could, and as many as one in ten of them might bond with a human rider. And those wind riders were the elite of the Sothōii cavalry-paired mounts and riders who truly fused into single beings, faster, smarter, more powerful and infinitely more deadly than any mere horseman could ever hope to be.
That was the reason the coursers and the Sothōii existed in an almost symbiotic relationship. Only a very small percentage of Sothōii would ever sit astride a courser, but all Sothōii felt the awe which the coursers' sheer majesty and beauty evoked in any who saw it. And in a way which no other people in Norfressa would ever truly understand, the coursers were as much citizens of the Kingdom of the Sothōii as any human. They lived on the same land. They defended that land against the same enemies. They died with their chosen riders to preserve it. In return for the human hands they required to do what they could not, they offered their incomparable speed and strength and endurance in the service of their common homeland.
That was why what had happened to the Warm Springs coursers filled any Sothōii's blood with icy fear . . . and his heart with fiery rage. No one-no one, mortal, demon, or devil-could commit such an atrocity and escape retribution. And if Kelthys felt that way, then how much more did the Bear River coursers feel the same fury . . . and fear? That was why he'd had to tell them. And it was also why, as he looked back over his shoulder at those huge, beautiful creatures behind him and Walasfro, for one of the very few times in his life, Sir Kelthys Lancebearer's apprehension and outright fear fully matched his joy in his courser brother's speeding majesty.
�Do you think we're in time?�
The question in Kelthys' mind was fretful, filled with as much guilt, despite the speed with which they had outraced the wind itself, as with anxiety. Only coursers who had bonded-and then only with their own riders-had the ability to form thoughts into actual words, but their mental "voices" were as expressive as any human speech could hope to be.
"Your guess is as good as mine," Kelthys replied, as Walasfro sprang back into motion-not a gallop, this time, but a distance-devouring canter that was faster than many a horse's full gallop-with the Bear River stallions on his heels. "But if we're not, it's not your fault, my heart."
He knew not even a courser could have physically heard him over the sound of hoofs and wind, but he almost always spoke aloud to Walasfro.
�They should not have gone without a wind brother. What was their herd stallion thinking?�
Kelthys recognized a rhetorical question, and the gnawing acid of fear which spawned it, when he heard one, and he made no answer.
�Tellian or Hathan should have come. They're wind chosen, and Dathgar and Gayrhalan could have brought them here already. And they would have known what to do when they got here,� the stallion continued, worrying his fears like a dog with a bone, and Kelthys tasted the lingering wariness, hovering on the brink of distrust, in that querulous insistence. The courser had seen as much evidence of Bahzell's champion's status as Kelthys, but he found it even harder than his rider to overcome the fact of Bahzell's hradaniness.
"They weren't there," and Kelthys said firmly. "Walasfro, you know that as well as I do. Just as you know how lucky we are that a champion of Tomanâk was there."