*Some of them at least tried to fight,* Walsharno said, and Bahzell nodded grimly.
"Aye, that they did," he agreed, gazing at the torn and mutilated bodies. It was clear none of the village's defenders had had time to don armor-assuming any of them had possessed it-but it obviously wouldn't have mattered very much if they had. The claw marks and half-devoured state of the bodies were all the proof Bahzell or Walsharno would ever need about what had happened here, even without the familiar stench of evil and horror which no champion of Tomanâk could possibly misinterpret.
Then Walsharno halted. They'd passed the bodies of several men and women, all of them brutally mutilated and torn, but they'd been scattered about the village's muddy streets. Clearly, they'd been pulled down by ones and twos, but that had changed abruptly.
The ruined foundations of a much more substantial building smoldered before them, and the bodies of at least thirty men and women lay obscenely heaped about it. It was hard to be certain of the number, for not a single body Bahzell could see was intact. Most were so hideously torn, their bits and pieces so scattered, that it was difficult even to tell which had been male and which female. A pathetic handful of swords lay strewn in the blood-soaked mud amidst the carnage, but most of these people had been armed, if that was the word, with nothing more sophisticated than woodsman's axes, pitchforks, or other crude agricultural tools.
*So this was where they made their stand,* Walsharno said heavily.
"Aye." A cold fire glowed in Bahzell Bahnakson's brown eyes. "Their town hall, I'm thinking."
*And are you thinking the same thing I am about why they did it?* "That I am." Bahzell's voice was harsh. "I've not seen a single child. Not one," he said, and felt Walsharno's cold, bleak agreement deep in his own mind.
The hradani looked down at where the village's adults had died to the last man or woman, facing their impossible foes in what they must have known was the hopeless defense of their children, and his face might have been hammered out of old iron.
*Why did they want children, do you think?* Walsharno asked.
"I can be thinking of two or three reasons," Bahzell replied. "Old Demon Breath's fond enough of children's souls, after all. But I've the feeling it's not so simple as that this time." He gazed at the mangled bodies once more, and shook his head. "Whoever it is we're chasing wasn't after letting their cursed pet feed, Walsharno. Not really. There'd not be so many bodies, or bits of bodies, lying about if they had."
*You think they know we're on their heels?*
"Either that, or else they've some other pressing need to be someplace else. Someplace they're after looking to meet up with friends of theirs, I'm thinking."
*And they're taking the children to those "friends."* Walsharno considered the thought for a moment, then tossed his head. *I suppose the real question is whether they're going to "meet up" with other worshipers of Sharnā or someone else entirely.*
"As to that, we've no way of knowing. Still and all, it's happier I'd be in my own mind to know as how we were dealing with Demon Breath and no one else."
Walsharno tossed his head in agreement once more, and Bahzell drew a deep breath. Child sacrifices were always acceptable to any of the Dark Gods, but Sharnā's church usually preferred older ones. Victims with just enough experience to fully appreciate the horrific, lingering deaths Sharnā's worshipers dealt out, especially to summon or control their foul patron's demons. It was unlikely that those who served the Scorpion would have bothered to attack the village just to steal away its children.
But other Dark churches had different preferences. Carnadosa, for example. The lady of black sorcery did not delight in cruelty for cruelty's sake the way Sharnā and some of the others did. But in many ways, her total amorality, her total indifference to cruelty or atrocity so long as its outcome served her needs, was almost worse. And all of her senior priests were also wizards, and children were prized when it came to the rites of blood magic.
*Sharnā and Carnadosa don't like one another very much,* Walsharno pointed out, following his bonded rider's thoughts with the ease of long familiarity. *For that matter, none of the Dark Gods like one another all that much.*
"Aye, so I've heard," Bahzell said. "Still and all, for all folk keep telling me such as that, it's in my mind that you and I have been seeing them working hand in hand more often than not."
*Perhaps we're just lucky.*
The irony in Walsharno's mental tone was only a frail mask for the icy fury burning at the courser's heart. Had he not bonded with Bahzell and become a champion of Tomanâk himself, Walsharno would almost certainly have eventually become a herd stallion, and the coursers didn't really think the way the Races of Man did. Each courser was an individual, true, but they saw themselves also collectively, as members of the herd. And, as members of the herd, each was responsible for the protection of all. Especially the herd stallions, who led and governed their herds . . . and who died to defend them.
Bahzell understood that, better even than another wind rider might have, for unlike most wind riders, he shared the coursers' herd sense. Even if he hadn't, any champion of Tomanâk would have shared the cold, bleak hatred burning like ice in Walsharno's heart.
"Well," the hradani said quietly, "I've no notion as to how lucky or unlucky you and I may be after being, Walsharno. But I'm thinking as how the scum as did this-" his mobile ears flattened as he swept one hand in an arc indicating the devastated village "- are after deserving a wee bit of ill luck all their very own."
*Indeed they do,* Walsharno agreed.
"Then let's you and I be bringing it to them," Bahzell said. "But first . . . "
The hradani held out his right hand.
"Come," he said softly, and five feet of gleaming steel materialized in his fist as he summoned the sword which normally rode sheathed across his back.
He gripped it just below the quillons, holding it up hilt-first as the symbol of the god he served, and felt Walsharno joining with him, heart, mind, and soul.
"I'm thinking as how these folk fell in the service of Light," he said, speaking to the night and to their deity for both of them. "Any man or woman who dies defending children is one as I'm proud to call brother or sister. And I'll not leave my brothers or sisters to wolves and carrion-eaters."
*Are you certain about this, Bahzell?* an earthquake-deep voice asked in the back of his brain. *Only their bodies remain with you.*
"Aye, it's certain I am-we are," Bahzell replied, knowing he spoke for Walsharno, and not at all surprised to hear Tomanâk's voice.
*Their souls already sit at Isvaria's table,* Tomanâk's deep voice said. *As you say, there's a special place reservedfor those who die defending children, and my sister and I know our own.*
"I've no doubt of that," Bahzell said. "And it's happy I'll be to meet them someday. But until that day comes, Walsharno and I will be doing what we must, and we'll not leave them."
"You realize that if you do this, the ones you're pursuingwill know where you are, how close you are."