Storm Warning - Mercedes Lackey [23]
The skirmishing had become all-out war, with Karse very much the weaker of the two. Not even the Black-robe Priests and their magic could counter Ancar, his army, and his mages.
Solaris had predicted this. Very few had believed her. Now, with her star in the ascendant, she made the most unprecedented move of all.
She recruited a new ally; one not even Ulrich could have predicted.
Valdemar. Valdemar, home of the White Demons and their Hellhorses. Valdemar, land of Hellspawn, land that had given shelter to the heretic Holderkin, sworn enemies of Vkandis and all he stood for.
And once again, Vkandis showed by signs that could not be counterfeited that He approved.
Suddenly, by decree of Solaris and Vkandis Himself, Valdemar had become the abode of the slightly misguided, but noble-minded allies of Karse. It was nothing short of a miracle that Solaris managed to get just enough cooperation out of her own folk to rush the alliance through. It was just in time, just barely in time to keep Ancar of Hardorn from squashing Solaris and Selenay like a couple of insects, and their lands and peoples with them.
As Ulrich’s secretary, Karal had been in the midst of everything, from the initial plan to the complex negotiations to the investiture of a woman from Valdemar as a Vkandis Priest. It left him breathless, and so bewildered before it was all over that all he could do was to hold onto his sanity with both hands and watch with wide and often confused eyes. Now, with the advent of peace, it was harder than ever to encompass the notion that the Evil Ones were now to be Karse’s best friends....
“I believe our escort is here,” Ulrich said, breaking into Karal’s thoughts.
He looked up, shading his eyes with his hand, staring past the gate and the two Guards to the roadway beyond. For a moment, he saw nothing against the glare of the sun on the dust of the road. Then he caught a glimpse of movement; his focus sharpened, and he spotted a rider coming around a far-off bend in the road.
The man could hardly be missed even against the sun glare; he was clad all in white, with a horse as white as the clouds in the sky above him.
This was no ordinary traveler; the quality of his clothing was very high—white garments were expensive to keep pristine. The garments he wore had the feeling of a uniform about them; Karal knew that the colors of Valdemar were silver, blue, and white. Was this Royal livery of some sort? As the man drew nearer still, Karal noted the extreme quality of his tack, specially dyed and constructed, of the same colors of silver and blue that the Guards wore. The Guards themselves were waiting for the man with a deference they had not shown the two Karsites, which in itself was interesting. Did this mean their escort was of higher rank than an envoy, or did it mean that no one had told these two Guards anything at all about Ulrich and his young secretary, not even that they were Solaris’ envoys?
Well, it probably didn’t matter at this point.
The man paused at the Gate, but he did not dismount; instead, he leaned over the neck of his mount to talk to the two Guards. Now Karal stole a moment to admire the horse he rode. The head was quite broad across the forehead, which argued for high intelligence. Aside from that—which some might consider a flaw, though Karal would not agree with them—the beast was breathtakingly beautiful. He had never seen a horse so perfectly white as this one, which gleamed as if someone had just washed it—and how on earth did the Valdemaran manage to get that silver sheen to the horse’s hooves? Not paint, surely—paint would damage the hoof and deform it. No one but a fool would paint the hooves of a horse