Komees Hari sank his chin upon his breastplate, and bis steel-cased body shook to his grief.
Red Death snorted weakly. “Why weeps my brother? All creatures must go to Wind, soon or late, and Red Death has known near twenty-four summers, long and long for a war-horse. Shortly, my brother, Ahlbehrt, will take up the little axe of that good two-legs and end Red Death’s pain. Then he will be one with Mighty Wind. He will gallop the endless plains of the Home of Wind . . . mayhap, he will find his brother, Alin, there___”
The dying stallion mindcalled, and two younger stallions hesitantly paced from the surrounding forest. Though one was a steel gray and the other a dark chestnut, their noble paternity was clearly etched into every line of their splendid bodies-heavy, rolling muscles; large but fine heads; deep chests; and proud, spirited bearings.
“Brother Hari and get of my brother, these are two of my own get. They call themselves Arrowswift”-the chestnut nodded his head, snorting-“and Swordsheen”-the gray stamped a hoof lightly.
“Red Death has taught them all that he has learned, and, as they are both intelligent and good mindspeakers, they should make good warhorses even without the refinements of proper training.
“Brother and get of my brother, you ride to battle now. Red Death-cannot share your joys as he would like, but his loyal sons can. Will not you both ride to the good fight on Arrowswift and Swordsheen?”
Blinking his eyes rapidly against the sting of his unshed tears, Vaskos rose and strode over to the young stallions, a hand outstretched to each. When he had a palm on each of their foreheads, he mindspoke them. “This is as you would wish, my brothers? You would be the war steeds of my father and me?”
“Yes, brother,” replied both together, the gray adding, “Red Death avers that no other way can a stallion prove himself fit to breed.”
“This is true, brothers,” agreed Vaskos. “And the strength and bravery of the noble Red Death be rich heritage indeed. It must continue to flow in the veins of Daiviz foals.”
So it was that while Vaskos and Gaib and the sergeant transferred the saddles and armor and gear from the two horses lent them by Thoheeks Bili to the waiting gray and chestnut, Hari bid his last farewell to his beloved Red Deatft. Beyond the screen of brush, Vaskos saw the brief, metallic glint of sun on steel, followed immediately by a meaty tchunk. A butcher sound.
The old komees walked out of the glade, moving slowly, heavily, his reddened eyes filled with a frustrated fury which Vaskos had never before seen in his father. He shuddered strongly, thinking that he would hate to be the very next man against whom the grief-ravaged nobleman swung his sword.
But Komees Hari’s sense of direction and knowledge of these oft-hunted woods were unaffected by his sorrow and anger, and they had ridden onward a bare half-mile when, at a lightning-scarred tree which seemed no different to Vaskos than many a similar one seen on this trek, his father led the column east. Soon, almost imperceptibly, the forest began to thin, with here and there vine-grown stumps, marks of axe and saw showing through the brush. Then they chanced on the camp.
It had clearly been such. Though no trace was found of any attempt to lay a fire, a good number of folk had lived within its raggedly cleared confines for many days to judge by the scatterings of refuse and dung.
While Vaskos refilled water bottles at a crystal-clear spring whose gentle gurgling fed a tiny rill dividing the camp, his father and several Freefighters wandered about the area, examining oddments left behind by its former occupants-who, without a doubt, had decamped suddenly, and not too long ago.
Freefighter Lieutenant Bohreegahd Hohguhn ambled up to the nobleman with a crudely made spear-just a knifeblade bound into the end of five feet of sapling, with the bark still on.
“It ain’t no warcamp, my lord,” the mercenary averred fa his nasal, mountain dialect. “Ain’t no rhyme nor no reason to these here lean-tos. But they ain’t entirely peaceable neither, else they wouldn’t of been a-makin’ this here sad excuse for a spear. Outlaws, you reckun, my lord?”