Then they were at a complete break in the forest: trees ceased, and starlight fell clearly across a wide plain. Something else glowed there, the glare of fires spangled across the open. Where they stood there was wood hewn, trees felled, their wounds stark in the faint light. The harilpointed to those, to the camp, and signed at him, at him,accusingly.
No,he signed back. Whatever it wanted or suspected that had to do with himself and that camp, the answer was no. Morgaine and the others overtook them now, and harilimwere all about them. He looked up at her, and she gazed at the campfires of the enemy.
"This is not their main strength," she whispered for Lellin's benefit; and that was true, for the camp was not nearly large enough-nor would Roh or Hetharu likely give up possession of the Gate of Azeroth's center.
"This is what the harilimbrought us to see," Lellin said. "They, are angry… for the trees, for the killing. They blame us that this has been allowed."
"Vanye," Morgaine said softly. 'Try; mount up quickly."
He moved, without prelude or hesitation, flung himself for Mai's side and scrambled into the saddle. There was a stir among the harilim,but none moved to stop him. He remembered the poisoned weapons and sat the nervous horse with his heart pounding against his ribs.
Morgaine turned Siptah slowly, to regain the shelter of the woods. Harilimstood gathered in the way, stick-like arms uplifted, refusing them passage.
"We are not wanted here," Lellin said. "They will not harm us, but they do not want us in the area."
"Will they cast us out onto the plains?"
"That seems their intent."
"Liyo,"Vanye said for of a sudden he read her mind and liked not what he read. "Please. If we strike at them, then we will not ride far in the forest before there are others. These creatures are too apt to ambushes."
"Lellin," she said, "why have not your people been hereabouts? Where are the arrhendimwho should have warned us of this intrusion of enemies?"
"The harilimprobably forced them out… as they mean to do with us. We do not dispute passage with the dark folk. Lady, I fear for Mirrind and Carrhend. I fear greatly. That is surely where the other arrhendimhave retreated, to protect and warn those places with all haste; they would not have come this far when they knew the dark folk were here. Lady, forgive me. I have failed miserably in my charge. I led you into this and I do not see a way out. None of the arrhendimhereabouts had reason to suspect there were those who would ride past their warning-signals. They gave them, but we rode through. I thought only of sirrindim,that we could resist. I did not reckon that the harilimhad taken possession here. Lady, it may be that the keepers of Nehmin have stirred them up."
"The arrha?"
"There is rumor that the keepers of Nehmin can call them. It is possible that they are part of Nehmin's defense, summoned against that.If that is so, then I myself would be surprised; they are as difficult to reason with as the trees themselves; and they hate both Men and qhal."
"But if it is true, then it is possible that Nehmin itself is under attack."
"It is possible, lady, that this is so."
She said nothing for a moment. Vanye felt it too, the sense that beneath the peace of Shathan, which had wrapped them securely thus far, things had been going dangerously, utterly amiss.
"Beware, all of you," she said, and slipped Changelingfrom her shoulder to her hip. Holding one palm aloft, in a gesture which somewhat stilled the harilim'schittering apprehension, she unhooked the sheath.
Then, two-handed, she drew it slowly, and the opal light of the blade swirled softly in the dark. The light glittered in the dark eyes of the harilim,and grew as she drew it forth. Suddenly it blazed full, and the well of darkness at the tip burst into being. The harilimdrew back, their large eyes reflecting it, red mirrors of that cold light. The wind of otherwhere stirred the trees and whipped at their hair. The harilimcovered their faces with spidery hands and backed and bowed at that howling sound.
She sheathed it then. Lellin and Sezar slid from their horses and came and bowed at Siptah's hooves. The harilimkept their distance, chittering softly in fear.
"Now do you understand me?" she asked.
Lellin looked up, his pale face stark with dread. "Lady, do not-do not loose that thing. I understand you. I am your servant. I was given to be, and I must be. But has my lord Merir knowledge of that thing?"
"Perhaps he suspects. He gave you for my guide, Lellin Erin-hen, and he did not forbid my seeking Nehmin. Tell the harilimwe will go through their forest and see what their mind is now."
Lellin rose and did so, signing quickly; the harilimmelted backward into the trees.
"They will not stay us," he said.
"Get to horse."
The arrhendimremounted, and slowly Morgaine urged Siptah forward. The gray horse threw his head and snorted his displeasure at the harilim,but they passed freely back into the forest, while the harilimstayed with them like shadows.
"Now I know the grief that is on you," Sezar whispered as they came near in the dark. Vanye looked at him, and at Lellin, and a weight sat at his heart, for it was true that the arrhendimbegan to understand them, who carried Changeling ,.. recognized the evil of it, and the danger.
But they served it, as he did.
Chapter Seven
The harilimmoved about them still, shadows in the first fading of the stars. They rode as quickly as they could in the tangled wood, and the harilimdid not hinder, but neither did they help; while Lellin and Sezar, beyond the woods that they knew, could only guess at the quickest way.
Then at the very last of the night the forest gave way before them, and dark waters glistened between the trees.
"The Narn," Lellin said as they drew rein within that last fringe of trees. "Nehmin lies beyond it."
Morgaine stood in the stirrups and leaned on the saddlebow, stretching. "Where can we cross?"
"There is supposedly a ford," Sezar said, "halfway between the Marrhan and the plain."
"An island," said Lellin. "We have never ridden this far east, but we have heard so. It should be only a little distance north."
"Day is coming on us," Morgaine said. "The riverside is exposed. Our enemies are likely near at hand. We cannot afford errors in judgment, Lellin… nor can we linger over-long and risk being cut off from Nehmin."
"If they have hit Mirrind and Carrhend," Vanye reasoned, "they will have learned which way we rode, and some of them would not be long at all in understanding the meaning of that." He saw Sezar's stricken face as he said it; the khemeisknew well his meaning and understood the danger his people were in. "Can we find an answer of the harilim,whether the strangers have crossed the Narn?"
Lellin looked about; there was nothing behind them, not a breath, not a whisper of leaves… no sign, suddenly, of their shadowy companions.
Morgaine swore softly. "Perhaps they do not like the coming daylight; or perhaps they know something we do not. You lead, Lellin. Let us come to this crossing as quickly as we can, and if there is night enough left, we will try it."
Lellin eased his horse into the lead northward, trying to keep within the trees as they rode, but there were washes and flood-felled trees that made their progress slow. At times they must go down onto the bank, exposing themselves to view of any watchers on the far side. At others they must withdraw far into the forest, almost losing sight of the river.
And they were tired, the better part of the night without sleep, constantly tried by obstacles, the branches cf the trees tearing at them, the horses stumbling often over impossible ground, or exhausting themselves in climbs up and down tributary washes. Dawn began, almost enough that they could see color on the forest's edge.
Yet in that first coloring they came to their islet, a long bar, bearing a crown of brush, with logs piled up at the upstream end.
They hesitated. Morgaine sent Siptah forward, down that slope toward the crossing. Vanye put the spurs to Mai and followed, little caring whether Lellin and Sezar stayed with them or
no; but he heard them coming. Morgaine hastened: the fever was on her now… enemies behind, the thing which they sought ahead of them; in any doubt, he knew what she would choose, and that was to go, to make ground while they could, nothing hesitating.
The horses slowed as they hit the water, fighting current which rose about their knees. Siptah hit a hole, struggled out of it; Vanye rode around it, with the arrhendimin his wake. The horses waded breast-deep now, the water dark and strong. Mai slipped often, struggling after Siptah… shouldered into Sezar's horse. Almost Vanye dismounted then, but she found firmer footing, and the water fell briefly as they passed the halfway mark, the point of the isle. Siptah kept going, strongest of their mounts, and in anxiety Vanye used the spurs to force the mare into the second half of the crossing, cursing Morgaine's stubbornness. Soon the gray horse began to rise from the water a second time, coming out on the bank. Morgaine reined about to look back at them.
Something flew, hissing, and hit; she went over, flung nearly out of the saddle. Siptah shied wildly, and Vanye cried out and rammed spurs into the mare. Somehow, by desperate strength, Morgaine was still ahorse, clinging by the mane and by one heel across the saddle, her pale hair a wild banner against the shadow, a white-feathered arrow driven somewhere the armor was not. Siptah spun once, confused, then ran, arrows hailing faster. Vanye bent low and drove the mare in desperate flight down the bank after her… somehow Morgaine pulled herself back into the saddle,enough to hold on.
"Riders!" Sezar shouted behind him.
He did not turn to look. His eyes were only for Morgaine, who slumped now across Siptah's neck, and the sand over which the mare's hooves flew was spotted with dark drops.
The mare slowed, faltered, froth spattering her and him. Sezar and Lellin overtook him-passed him now as the mare broke stride. Sezar started to draw back for him. "No!" Lellin cried, and Sezar whipped the horse on to stay with Lellin. Further and further the distance widened between him and arrhendim.
"Get her to safety!" Vanye screamed after them. To do that, they had come within reach, he would have cast one of them from the saddle and thrown him to the enemy. Perhaps Lellin sensed it, and would not delay in his reach. "Help her!"
Mai was done, staggering badly. In desperation he turned for the trees up the incline of the bank, drove her for that, to dismount and run for cover afoot.
But she betrayed him at the last. Her strength failed in the loose sand and she went down nose-first while they were still on the flat. He sprawled, and she heaved down on him before he cleared the saddle, rolled as dead weight, neck broken, limp.
He twisted round as he heard the riders bearing down on him-grimaced, for his leg was pinned and he could not drag it free nor get leverage against Mai's heavy body.
He had no hope of anything further, even that all would give up the chase and delay for him; they did not. Most of them thundered past, spraying him with sand and gravel, but four reined back to deal with him. He had his sword still, and managed to get it into his hand, reckoning even so that it was futile, that they would put an arrow into him at safe distance and end it.
They were not halfling Shiua, but Men. He recognized them as they left their horses and came to him, and he cursed as they grinned in triumph, making a half-ring about him, out of his reach.
Myya Fihar i Myya… Mija Fwar, a Hiua accent made the name: there was no mistaking that face, scarred and twisted about the lips with a knife-mark. Fwar had been Morgaine's lieutenant once, before their ways parted in violence. The others were Fwar's kinfolk, all Myya, all with blood-debt against him.
They laughed at his plight, and he bided quietly, no longer anticipating the arrow, hoping that Fwar in particular would come within reach. "Bring that branch over here," Fwar ordered one of his cousins, Minur. The man brought it, a sandy length of still-sound wood, tall as a Hiua and thick as a man's wrist.
Not for levering, that; they were wiser. Vanye saw the intent in Fwar's eyes and tucked down as the blow came… clutched the sword against him, but blow after blow to his helmed skull stunned him, and finally they rammed the end of the branch at him and broke his grip on the sword. They were on him then; he tried for the dagger, and though he had it from sheath and put a wound on at least one of them, they pinned him and wrested it from him. Then they found cords and tried to bind his hands back; but he fought that wildly, and twice they had to daze him before that was done.
Then he was finished, and knew it… lay still with his face against the dry sand, gathering his forces for whatever came next. One kicked him in the belly for good measure, and he doubled reflexively, not even focusing his eyes to look at them. They were Myya, of a cold and vengeful clan, which had hated him in Kursh and sworn his death there. But these descendants of the proud Kurshin Myya, lost in Gates a thousand years and more… knew nothing of honor, despised it as they despised everything beyond themselves. Fwar hated him with a burning and personal hatred.
They levered Mai off him finally. He had thought that the leg might be broken where she had fallen on him, but the sand had saved him from that. He had some hope then; but the knee gave with a stab of blinding pain when they seized him up and expected him to stand, and not all their blows and curses could amend that. Then he gave up all hope of winning free of them.
"Put him on a horse," Fwar said. "There might be friends of his hereabouts… and we want time to pay you your due, Nhi Vanye i Chya, for all my brothers and our kinfolk that you killed."
Vanye spat at him. It was all the recourse he had left, and that too failed of the mark. Fwar's eyes raked him over and calculated… not stupid, this man: Morgaine would not have had a dull-witted man in her service. "He would like us to stay near here as long as possible, I suppose. But the khal-lords will see to her,and we can deal with them later. We had better take our prize downriver a ways."
One of them brought a horse near. Vanye kneed the hapless beast in the flank and sent it screaming and plunging away from him; but the Hiua had an answer for that took and bound his ankles and flung him over another saddle belly down, lashed him in place so that he could not further delay them. The helm fell; one of them gathered it up and set it mockingly on his own head.
Then they started off down the riverside, moving rapidly, and from that head-down jolting Vanye began to slip from consciousness… now wholly unaware, but there were long darknesses in which he found no refuge.
And worse than other pain was the thought of Morgaine, whether the Shiua riders had overtaken her or whether she had fallen to her wound… he recalled the blood on the sand, sick at heart. But he must live, then. If she were alive, she needed him. If she were dead, he still must contrive to live; he had sworn so.
He had not been reckoning of that when he had fought the Hiua, trying to win of them a quick death and honest; but when he had had time to think of what she had set on him by oath, he gave up fighting his enemies and gathered his strength for another and longer fight, in which there was no honor at all.
The Hiua stopped at mid-morning. Vanye was aware of the horse slowing, but of little else until they freed him of the saddle and flung him roughly to the sand. There he lay still and ignored them, staring at the dark waters of the Narn which flowed a stone's throw away… a black thread that still bound this place to that where she was: the sight of it comforted him, that they were not yet lost, one from the other.
One of the Hiua seized hold of him and lifted his head, put a flask to his lips: water. He drank what they would give him; they poured more of it on his face and struck him, trying to restore him. He reacted little to either, although he was aware enough.
Fwar came, seized him by the hair, shook at him until his eyes fixed on him. "Ger, Awan," he named his dead brothers, "and Efwy. And Terrin and Ejan and Prafwy and Ras, Minor's kin here; and Eran, that was Hul's brother; and Sithan and Ulwy that were Trin's…"
"And our wives and our children and all those that died before that," said Eran. Vanye looked at him, reading there a hate which equalle
d Fwar's. He had killed Fwar's brothers with his own hand. Perhaps he had killed the others they named too: many had died in pursuit of them. The women and children had died with their dead hold, no doing of his… but that made no difference in their minds. He was a hate they could seize upon, an enemy they had in hand, and for all the grief they had ever suffered, for Morgaine who had led their ancestors to grief in Irien and tried to bind them in drowning Shiuan-for her too they had such burning hate: but he was Morgaine's, and he was in hand.
He gave them no answer; none would serve. Trin hit him a dazing blow, and Vanye twisted over and spat blood on him, with more accuracy than before. Trin hit him a second time but Fwar stopped him from a third.
"We have all day, and all night and after that."
They looked pleased at that thought, and the talk afterward was foul and ugly, at which Vanye simply set his jaw and stared at the river, ignoring their attempts to bait him. A great deal of their threatening was wasted on him, for they spoke a rough sort of Kurshin well-laden with qhalurand marshlands borrowings, much changed from his own tongue… and he had learned Hiua of a young woman whose speech was gentler. He could guess at enough of it.
He was angry. That fact dully amazed him, in the far distance to which his thinking mind had retreated… that he would feel more rage than terror. He had never been a brave man. He had come to every grief that had driven him from home and hold and honor because he imagined pain too vividly and came undone at his kinsmen's slow tormenting… a boy's misery: he had been all too vulnerable then, loving them more than he had understood.
He had no love for these, these scourings of Hiuaj's Barrow-hills, these fallen Myya. He seethed with anger that of all the enemies he had, he had fallen to them… to Fwar, whose worthless life he had spared, being too much Nhi to kill a downed enemy. Now he had his reward of that mercy. Morgaine too they attacked with their foul laughter, and he had to bear it, still hoping that somewhere in their confidence they would make the mistake of freeing his hands with Fwar in reach.
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