Fires of Azeroth com-3

by C. J. Cherryh

  "You take nothing of me, Nhi bastard."

  His mouth worked. He swallowed down another burst of anger, seeing how this one had served him, and went away to his pallet. He lay down there, too distraught for sleep.

  The others sought their rest; the fire burned to ash; the watch passed from Perrin to Vis.

  Roh lay near him, staring at the heavens, his face set and still angry, and when Roh slept, if ever that night, he did not know it.

  The camp came to slow life in the daylight, the arrhendimbeginning to pack up and saddle the horses. Vanye rose among the first, began to put on his armor, and Roh saw him and did likewise, both silent, neither looking openly toward the other. Merir was last to rise, and insisted on breaking their fast. They did so; and quietly, at the end of the meal, Merir ordered their weapons returned to them both.

  "So you do not break the peace again," Merir cautioned them.

  "I do not seek my cousin's life," Vanye said in a faint voice, only for Merir and Roh.

  Roh said nothing, but slipped into his sword harness, and rammed the Honor-blade into place at his belt, stalking off to attend to his horse.

  Vanye stared after him, bowed courtesy to Merir empty reflex… and went after him.

  There were no words. Roh would not look at him but with anger, making speech impossible, and he turned instead to saddling his horse.

  Roh finished; he did, and started to lead his horse into line with the others that were mounting up. And on a last and bitter impulse he stopped by Roh's side and waited for him.

  Roh swung to the saddle; he did the same. They rode together into line, and the column started moving.

  "Roh," he said finally, "are we beyond reasoning?"

  Roh turned a cold eye on him. "You are worried, are you?" he asked in the language of Andur. "How much did they learn of you,cousin?"

  "Probably what they did of you," he said. "Roh, Merir is armed. As she is."

  Roh had not known. The comprehension dawned on him slowly. "So that is what unnerved you." He spat painfully to the other side. "And there is something here, then, that could oppose her. Thatis why you are so desperate. It was a bad mistake to set me at your throat; that is what you least need. You should not have told me. That is your second mistake."

  "He would have told you when he wished; now I know that you know."

  Roh was silent a time. "I do not know why I do not pay you what you have deserved of me. I suppose it is the novelty of hearing a Nhi say he was wrong." His voice broke; his shoulders sagged. "I told you that I was tired. Peace, cousin, peace. Someday we shall have to kill one another. But not… not without knowing why."

  "Stay with me. I will speak for you. I said that I would, and I still mean it."

  "Doubtless." Roh spat again to the side, wiped his mouth and swore with a shake of his head. "You loosened two of my teeth. Let it wipe out other debts. Aye, we will see how things stand… see whether sheknows the meaning of reason, or whether these folk do. I have a fancy for an Andurin burial; or if things turn out otherwise, I know the Kurshin rite."

  "Avert," he murmured, and crossed himself fervently.

  Roh laughed bitterly, and bowed his head. The trail narrowed thereafter, and they rode no more together.

  Larrel and Kessun returned; they were simply standing in the way as they rode around a bending of the trail, and met and talked with Merir.

  "We have ridden as far as the Laur," Larrel said, and both the arrhendimand their horses looked weary. "Word is relayed up from Merrind: no trouble; nothing stirs."

  "This is a strange silence," Merir said, leaning on his saddle and casting a look back. "So many thousands-and nothing stirs."

  "I do not know," said Vanye, for that look shot directly at him. "I would have expected immediate attack." Then another thought came to him. "Fwar's men. If any who fell behind were not killed-"

  "Aye," Roh said. "They might have given warning what that forest is, if any came out again; or Shien might. And perhaps others of Fwar's folk could do us harm enough by talking."

  "Knowledge where sheis to be sought?"

  "All the Shiua know where she was lost. And having lost us. .."

  "Her," Merir concluded, taut-lipped. "An attack near Nehmin."

  The sword was drawn, Vanye recalled, two nights ago. There was time enough for the horde to have veered to Narn-side. A fine sweat broke out on him, cold in the forest shadow. "I pray you haste."

  "We are near the harilim'swoods," Merir said, "and there is no reckless haste, not for our lives' sake."

  But they kept moving, the weary arrhendimfalling in with them, and they rested as seldom as the horses could bear, save that they stopped at midafternoon and rested until twilight; then they saddled up again, and set out into a deeper, older part of the woods.

  Dark fell on them more quickly under these monstrous old trees; and now and again came small chitterings in the brush that frightened the horses.

  Then from the fore of their party flared an opal shimmer that made Merir's horse shy the more, horse and rider for a moment like an image under water. The flare died.

  For a moment the forest was utterly quiet. Then the harilimcame, stalking, rapid shapes. The first gave a chirring sound, and the horses threw their heads and fought the bits, dancing this way and that in a frenzy to run.

  Then Merir led them forward, and their strange guides went about them, melting away into shadow after a time until there were only three left, which walked with Merir, chittering softly the while. It was clear that the master of Shathan had safe-passage where he would, even of these: they reverenced the power of the Fires which Merir held in his naked hand, and yielded to that, although the arrhendimthemselves seemed afraid. Of a sudden Vanye realized what his chances had truly been, trifling with these creatures, and he shuddered recalling his passage among them: they served the Fires in some strange fashion, perhaps worshipped them. In his ignorance he had sought a passage in which even the lord of Shathan moved carefully and with dread… and one of them at least must have recalled him as companion to another who carried the Fires. Surely that was why he and Roh lived: the harilimhad recalled Morgaine.

  His heart beat faster as he scanned the dark, heron-like shapes ahead of him on the trail. They may know,he thought any living know where she is, they may know.He entertained a wild hope that they might lead them to her this night, and wished that there were some way that a human tongue could shape their speech or human ears understand them. Even Merir was unable to do that; when he did consult with them, it was entirely with signs.

  The hope faded. It was not to any secret place that the harilimled them, but only through; they broke upon the Narn at the last of the night… black and wide it showed through the trees, but there was a place which might be a crossing, sandbars humped against the current. The harilnearest pointed, made a sign of passing, and as suddenly began to leave them.

  Vanye leaped down from his horse, caught his balance against a tree and tried to stop one of them. Three persons,he signed to the creature. Where?Perhaps it understood something. The vast dark eyes flickered in the starlight. It lingered, made a sign with spidery fingers spread, hand rising. And it pointed riverward. The third gesture fluttered the fingers. And then it turned and stalked away, leaving him helpless in his frustration.

  "The Fires," said Sharrn. "The river. Many."

  He looked at the q hal.

  "You took a chance," said Sharrn. "It might have killed you. Do not touch them."

  "We could learn no more of them," said Merir, and started the white mare down the bank toward the water.

  The harilimwere gone. The oppression of their presence lifted suddenly and the arrhendimmoved quickly to follow Merir. Vanye swung up to the saddle and came last but for Roh and Vis. The anxiety that gnawed at him was the keener for the scant information the creature had passed. And when they went down to water's edge he looked this way and that, for although it was not the place they had been ambushed, it was the same situation and
as likely a trap. The only difference was that the harilimhad guided them right up to the brink, and perhaps still stood guard over them in the coming of the light.

  There was need of care for another reason in crossing at such a place, for quicksands were well possible. Larrel gave his horse into Kessun's keeping and waded it first; at one place he did meet with trouble, and fell sidelong, working out of it, but the rest of the crossing went more easily. Then Kessun rode the way that he had walked, and Dev followed, and Sharrn and Merir and the rest of them, the women last as usual. On the other side the young arrhenLarrel was soaked to the skin, shivering with the cold and with the exhaustion of his far-riding and his battle with the sands. Qhalthat he was, he looked worn to the bone, thinner and paler than was natural. Kessun wrapped him in his dry cloak and fretted about fevers, but Larrel climbed back into the saddle and clung there.

  "We must get away from this place," Larrel said amid his shivering. "Crossings are too easily guarded."

  There was no argument from any of them in that; Merir turned them south now, and they rode until the horses could do no more.

  They rested at last at noon ,and took a meal which they had neglected in their haste of the morning. No one spoke; even the prideful qhalsat slumped in exhaustion. Roh flung himself down on the sun-warmed earth, the only patch of sun in the cover they had found in the forest's edge, and lay like the dead; Vanye did likewise, and although the fever he had carried for days seemed gone, he felt that the marrow had melted from his bones and the strength that moved them was dried up from the heat. His hand lying before his face looked strange to him, the bones more evident than they had been, the wrist scabbed with wounds. His armor was loose on his body-sun-heated misery at the moment where it touched him; he was too weary even to turn over and spare himself the discomfort.

  Something startled the horses.

  He moved; the arrhendimsprang up; and Roh.. A whistle sounded, brief and questioning. Merir stood forth to be seen, and Sharrn answered the signal in such complexity of trills and runs that Vanye's acquaintance with the system could make no sense of it. An answer came back, no less complex.

  "We are advised," Merir said after it fell silent, "of threat to Nehmin. Sirrindim…the Shiua you fled… have come up the Narn in great numbers."

  "And Morgaine?" Vanye asked.

  "Of Morgaine, of Lellin, of Sezar… nothing. It is as if a veil has been drawn over their very existence. Alive or dead, their presence is not felt in Shathan, or the arrhendimthis side could tell us. They cannot. Something isgreatly amiss."

  His heart fell then. He was almost out of hopes.

  "Come," said Merir. "We have no time to waste."

  Chapter Fourteen

  The trouble was not long in showing itself. Movement startled birds from cover in the thickets of the Narn's other bank, and soon there were riders in sight, but the broad Narn divided them from the enemy and there was no ford to give either side access to the other.

  The enemy saw them too, and halted in consternation. It was a khalurcompany, demon-helmed, scale armored, on the smallish Shiua horses. Their weapons were pikes; but they carried more than those . .. ugly opponents. And the leader, whose white mane flowed evident in the wind of his riding when he led them forward to the water's edge: the arrhendimwere appalled at the sight of him, one like themselves, and different… fantastical in his armor, the old-dream elaborations of khalurworkmanship.

  "Shien!" Vanye hissed, for there was no one in the Shiua host with that arrogant bearing save Hetharu himself. The khalchallenged them, rode his horse to the knees in water before he was willing to heed his men-at-arms and draw back.

  Their own company kept moving, opposite to the direction of the Sotharra band; but Shien and his riders wheeled about and paced them, with the broad black waters of the Narn between. Arrows flew from the Sotharra side, most falling into the water, a few rattling on the stones of the shore.

  The qhalPerrin reined out to the river's very brink and shot one swiftly aimed shaft from her bow. A demon-helmed khalscreamed and pitched in the saddle, and his comrades caught him. A cry of rage went up from that side, audible across the water. And Vis raced her horse to the brink and shot another that sped true.

  "'Lend me your bow," Vanye asked then of Roh. "If you will not use it, I will."

  "Shien? No. For all the grudge you bear him-he is Hetharu's enemy, and the best of that breed."

  It was already too late. The Shiua lagged back of them, out of bowshot of the arrheindim,having learned the limits of their own shafts and the deadly accuracy of the Shathana. They followed at a distance on that other side, and there was no way to reach them and no time to stop. Perrin and Vis unstrung their bows as they rode, and the arrhendimkept tight formation about Merir, scanning apprehensively the woods on their own side of the river. It was speed they sought now, which ran them hard over the river shore, with nothing but an occasional wash of brushheap to deter them.

  Then Vanye chanced to look back. Smoke rose as a white plume on the Shiua side.

  Perrin and Vis saw the fix of his eyes and looked, and their faces came about rigid with anger.

  "Fire!" Perrin exclaimed as it were a curse, and others looked back.

  "Shiua signal," said Roh. "They are telling their comrades downriver we are here."

  "We have no love for large fires," Sharrn said darkly. "If they are wise, they will clear the reach of that woods before night comes on them."

  Vanye looked back again, at the course of the Narn which slashed through Shathan, a gap in the armor, a highroad for Men and fire and axes… and the harlimslept, helpless by day. He saw the dark shadow of distant riders, the wink of metal in the sun. Shien had done his mischief and was following again.

  Again they rested, and the horses were slicked with sweat Vanye spent his time attending this one and the other, for kindly as the arrhendimwere with their mounts, and anxious as they were to care for them, they were foresters and the horses had come from elsewhere into their hands: they had not a Kurshin's knowledge of them.

  "Lord," he said at last, casting himself down before Merir, "forest is one thing; open ground is another. We must not press the last out of the horses, not when we may need it suddenly. If the Shiua have gotten into the forest on our side and press us toward the river, the horses will not have it left in them to carry us."

  "I do not fear that."

  "You will kill the horses," Vanye said in despair, and left off trying to advise the old lord. He departed with an absent caress of the white mare's shoulder, a touch on the offered nose, and cast himself down by Roh, head bowed against his knees.

  In a few moments more they were bidden back to the saddle, but for all Merir's seeming indifference to advice, they went more slowly.

  Like Morgaine,he thought bitterly, proud and stubborn.And then he thought of her, and it was like a knife moving in a wound. He rode slumped in the saddle, cast a look back once, where Shien and his men still paced them, out of range. He shook his head in despair and knew what that was for: that they were apt to meet a force on their side of the Narn up by the next crossing, and Shien meant to be there to seal them up.

  Roh rode close to him, so that the horses jostled one another and he looked up. Roh urged one of the arrhendim'sjourneycakes on him. "You did not eat at the stop."

  He had had no appetite, nor did now, but he knew the sense of Roh's concern, and took it and washed it down with water, though it lay like lead in his stomach. Small dark Vis rode up on his other side and offered another flask to him.

  "Take," she said.

  He drank, expecting fire by the smell of it, and it was, enough to make his eyes sting. He took several more swallows, and gave it back to Vis, whose dark eyes were young in her aging face, and kindly. "You grieve," she said. "We all understand, we that are khemeis,we that are arrhen.So we would grieve too." She pressed fee flask back into his hand. 'Take it. It is from my village. Perrin and I can get more."

  He could not answer her; s
he nodded, understanding that too, and dropped behind. He hung the flask to his saddle, and then thought to offer some to Roh, which Roh accepted, and passed it back to him.

  Night-shadow began to touch the sky. The sun burned over the dark rim of Shathan across the river, and from the east there was silence, no comforting whistles out of the dark woods, nothing.

  They kept moving while there was still twilight to guide them, and bent into the forest itself, for a river barred their way, flowing into the Narn.

  It was not a great river; quickly it dwindled until the trees that grew on its margin almost sufficed to span it.

  And suddenly about them stealthy shadows moved, and a chittering warned them of harlim.

  One waited on the riverside, like some large, ungainly bird standing at the water's shallow edge. It chirred at them as that kind would in perplexity, and backed when Merir would have approached it on horseback. Then it beckoned.

  "We cannot go another such journey," Sharra protested. "Lord, youcannot."

  "Slowly," said Merir, and turned the white mare in the direction that the creature would have them go: breast-high she waded, but the current was very weak, and all of them followed, up the other bank, into wilder places.

  The harilwanted haste: they could not. The horses stumbled on stones, faltered going up the slopes of ravines. The trees were old here, and the place beneath them much overgrown with brush. Harilimmoved all about them, finding passage that the horses could not.

  And suddenly there was a white shape before them in the dark, an arrhen,or like unto one, afoot and clothed in white, not forest green. His hair was loose, his whole aspect like and unlike one of the arrhendim,seeming more wraith than flesh in the starlight.

  Lellin.

  The youth lifted his hand. "Grandfather," he saluted Merir, softly. He came and took Merir's offered hand, reaching up to the saddle. Solid he was, yet there was a change on him, a sad quiet utterly unlike the youth they knew. "Ah, Grandfather, youshould not have come."

  "Why should I not?" Merir answered him. The old lord looked frightened. "What madness has taken you? Why this look on you? Why did you not send the message you promised?"