Fires of Azeroth com-3

by C. J. Cherryh

  Here Morgaine drew rein and slid down, leaving Siptah to stand. The rest dismounted and tied their horses among the aged trees, and followed her.

  Vanye looked back; the last of them rode in, Roh, who left his horse too, and came. Roh might have fled. Do so,Vanye wished him with part of his heart; but that which loved the man knew why he had stayed, and what he sought, that was his soul.

  But he did not wait for Roh; what battle Roh fought was his own, and he feared to intervene in it. He turned instead and followed after Sharrn and Dev, up among the rocks.

  The hill gave them view across the open meadow, higher than it had seemed, for it overtopped most of the trees at this one point, which upthrust broken fingers of stone. Slabs stood like standing stones on this crest, no work of qhal,but of nature. Morgaine and Merir stood between two of them, sheltered there, with the others of their company.

  Vanye moved up carefully past Dev to the very brink next Morgaine, and gained a view which spanned the river and showed far across into the harilim'swoods, so subtly did the ground hereabouts slope. Trees extended into gray-green haze on all sides of this place, on this side of the river and the other, and even part of the curve of a clearing was visible.

  And nearer… ugliness moved. It was as Lellin had said, like a new forest grown upon the shores of the Nara, a surging mass bristling with metal-tipped pikes and lances of wood, dark and foul. Occasionally there showed a small khalurband, conspicuous in the sunlight glancing off their armor… most of those were horsemen. The horde filled all the shore and surged up the throat of the low place that led to the meadow, moving steadily and in no haste. Their voices roared as if from a common throat.

  "They are so many," breathed Vis. "purely there are not so many arrhendimin all Shathan. We cannot find that many arrows."

  "Or time to fire them," said Larrel.

  Morgaine stepped closer to the edge. Vanye seized her arm, anxious, although the distance was far and the chance was small of being seen in this sheltered point against the rocks. She regarded his warning and stopped. "This place," she said, "is impossible to hold, even if we would. The slope on the other side is too wide. This height would become a trap for us. But the enemy's circle is not yet closed. If the arrhendimcould be brought… before they start to work at us with fire and axe, and if we could keep the horde from breaching Nehmin's gates…"

  "It can be done," said Lellin. "Grandfather, it must."

  "We cannot fight," said Merir, "not after their fashion, armored and with horses. We are not like them, of one mind and one voice."

  "Yet we must have help," Morgaine said, "of whatever fashion."

  "Do not trust-" Roh said, edging forward; Vanye whipped out his dagger and Roh stopped still a distance from Morgaine, leaning against the slanting rock. "Listen to me. Do not trust appearances with the Shiua. I taught them. Hetharu took the whole north of Shiuan in a matter of days. He is a student more apt than his teacher."

  "What do you reckon of them?"

  Roh looked toward the river, grimacing into the wind and the light. "Eight, ten thousands there, if they extend much beyond that point of the trees. What they have coming in on the other side of Nehmin… three times that many. Probably more coming up that little river north of here, until they have us framed. Any riders of ours who try to escape this wedge of land now will be cut down. They are screened in brush and on every side of us. This– show-is to distract us."

  "And the higher crossings of the Nara? How many are we dealing with?"

  "Believe that Shiua will have reckoned first of those crossings. Every possible escape will be held. And the whole number of the horde… that is uncounted; even the khaldo not know. But they reckon a hundred thousands-all fighters, killers. Even the young ones. They plundered their own land and killed their own kind to come here into this one. A man who falls even to the children will be cut to pieces. Murder is common among them; murder, and theft, and every crime. They will fight; they do that well when they think their enemy helpless."

  "Shall we," asked Merir, "believe that advice this one gives?"

  Morgaine nodded. "Believe," she said softly, "that this man wishes you well, my lord Merir. His own land was such as Shathan, even more so in the age before him, which he may remember-in his better dreams. Is it not so?"

  Roh looked at her, shaken, and reached forth a hand to the rocks, leaning there.

  "My lord," said Morgaine, "I do not think even the arrhendimcould fight with more love of the land than this man."

  A moment Merir looked on him. Roh bowed his head, looked up with eyes glittering with tears.

  "Aye," Merir said, "aye, I do think so."

  The voices from the lower meadow chanted the louder. The sound began to strike them with immediacy, reminder of their danger.

  "We cannot stay here," Vanye said. "Liyo-"

  She stepped back; but Merir lingered, and unslung the horn which he carried… silver-bound and old and much cracked.

  "Best you get to horse," said the old lord. "We are bound to attract notice. It is a strange law we have, stranger-friends,… that no horn shall ever be blown in Shathan. And yet we do keep them, silent though they have been these fifteen hundred years. You asked the arrhendimbe summoned. Get you to horse."

  She looked beyond him, to the horde which swarmed toward the hill. Then she nodded, started back quickly with the others. Only Lellin and Sezar stayed.

  "We shall not leave them," said Sharrn.

  "No," Morgaine agreed. "We shall not. Ready their horses for them; I think we shall have a hard ride leaving this place."

  They reached the horses and mounted up in haste.

  And of a sudden came a low wailing that grew to the bright, clear peal of a horn. Vanye looked back. On the height they had quitted Merir stood, and sent forth a blast which rang out over the meadow… exhausted, he ceased, and gave the horn to Lellin, who lifted it to his lips. Uncertain the sound was at first, in the raging shout of the horde who took it for challenge. Then it rang out louder than all the voices of the enemy, woke echoes from the rocks, and sounded again and again and again.

  There was silence for a moment; even the voices of the horde were stilled by that.

  Then from far away came another horn-call, faint as the wind in leaves. A howl from the enemy drowned it, but the faces of the arrhendimwere wild with joy.

  "Come!" Morgaine shouted at the three, and now they left the high rocks, Lellin and Sezar helping the old lord.

  Vanye led the white mare across their path, gave Merir the reins as the two youths helped him into the saddle; then Lellin and Sezar ran for their own horses as Morgaine turned them all for the trail off the hill.

  They ran, weaving in and out the trees of the grove, around the rocks; and sudden and chilling came a howl on their right, on the gentle slope of the hill. Shiua were pouring up it toward them.

  "Angharan!"the cry went up, Angharanl Angharan!–That to them was Death.

  A bolt of red fire came from Morgaine's hand, a single arrow from Perrin's bow. Several of the horde fell, but Morgaine did not stay for more, and Vanye spurred his horse between her and them, bent low for the hazard of branches and answering fire. The down-trail was before them. They hurtled down that winding chute, the horses twisting and turning at all the speed they could manage.

  The enemy had not yet reached the point of the hill; at the bottom of the trail Morgaine bent low and headed Siptah for the forest and the path concealed there, and in that moment Vanye cast a look over his left shoulder. There were Shiua aplenty running up the slope of the meadow, foot and riders, demon-helms with barbed pikes and lances.

  Sharrn and Dev, Perrin and Vis and Roh: they rode rearguard, and sent a few arrows back. Larrel and Kessun were with Merir, guard to him, for Lellin and Sezar bore no weapons… all too vulnerable they were, with three of their number unarmed. But into that arrow-fire which shielded them the Shiua were less than willing to ride.

  Vanye had his sword in hand: vanguard, he and M
orgaine, and there was no use for his bow in head-to-head meeting. Morgaine would pull ahead of him… insisted so, for fear of taking him as she had taken one of their comrades: the black weapon and the sword needed freedom for their effective use; and in ilin'splace at his lord's left hand, shield-side. Vanye kept there now, as best he could, while they rode a mad course through land that demanded more caution. Branches raked them; horses jostled one another avoiding obstacles or making the turns. But the khalurriders, less skilled, hampered with their barbed lances and half-blinding helms, could not follow so swiftly here, and in time the sounds of pursuit faded into distance behind them.

  There was a flash of white in the woods; they rounded a curve in the trail and Morgaine drew up suddenly, for there stood two of the arrha,young women.

  The arrhawaved them past.

  "No," Morgaine said. "You waste yourselves. Even the force of the jewels cannot hold back what is behind us."

  "Obey her," Merir said. "Climb up with us. We have need of you."

  It was Lellin and Sezar who took them up, being unarmed and least likely to involve them in fighting. The arrhatook their hands and scrambled lightly to the rear of the saddles. Morgaine started off again, at reckless pace as they crossed the small clearing, quickly slowed by undergrowth as they veered aside from the aisle of stones and the dome.

  "This way!" It was the only time that Vanye had ever heard an arrhaspeak; but the young qhalurwoman behind Sezar pointed them another direction, and Morgaine reined instantly off upon that track.

  Swiftly it became a broad way among the trees of an aged grove, cleared ground where their horses could find easy passage, without brush to hinder.

  They ran then, weaving when they must, until the horses were blowing with the effort and the trees, darkening their way, grew wider spaced. The Shiua seemed now to have lost their trail. They walked for a time to rest the horses, ran again, slowed again, making what time they could without completely winding the horses.

  And suddenly they burst through upon cleared ground, a vast open space, and Vanye forgot all their haste in that instant. Two hills upthrust, the farther of incredible steepness, although all the clearing else was naked and flat, hazy with distance and the westering sun. A vast hold sat atop that high place, dominating all the land round about, looking down on clearing and on forest, square, a cube such as the great holds of power tended to be.

  Nehmin.

  And before them on the flat of the vast clearing was mustered the host of Shiuan, the glitter of arms ascending the side of the rock of the fortress, shining motes, rare in the dark tide of Men, all misty with afternoon haze.

  Morgaine had drawn rein yet within the cover of the woods. Dismay seldom touched her face, but it did now. The number of those about Nehmin seemed that of the stones at Narnside. They stretched as a gray surging mass across the floor of the clearing in the far distance, stretched up the farther hill like the waves of Shiuan's eroding seas beating at the rock, tendrils of humanity which straggled among the rough spires and wound constantly higher toward the stronghold.

  "Liyo,"Vanye said, "let us work round the side of this place. To be caught between that and what already pursues us… little appeals to me."

  She reined Siptah about so that her back was to the clearing and her face toward the woods from which they had come. There was audible again the distant sound of pursuit. 'They haveus between," she said. "There is ambush everywhere; they have come in by all three rivers. Days– days-before the arrhendcan match this kind of force."

  Merir's face was grim. "We will never match it We cannot fight but singly. In time, each will come, each fight."

  "And singly die," Vanye said in despair. "That is madness, to go by twos against that force."

  "Never alldie," said Sharrn. "Not while Shathan stands. But it will take time to deal with that out there. The first to oppose them will surely die, ourselves surely among them… and thousands may die, in days after. But this is our land. We will not let it fall to the like of these."

  "But Nehmin may fall," said Morgaine. "Enough force, enough weight of bodies and doors will yield and even the jewel-force cannot long stop them. Their ignorance-let loose in Nehmin-amid the powers itholds--no. No, we do not wait here for that to happen. Where, lord, is the access to Nehmin?"

  "There are three hills, not apparent from this view: there is the Lesser Horn, there to the side of the greatest hill, a fortress over the road itself: gates within it face this way and the far side… that is the way up. Then the road winds high to the Dark Horn, which you cannot see from here, and then to the very doors of Nehmin. We cannot hope to reach more than this nearest and least, the White Hill, before they come on us."

  "Come," she said. "At least we shall not be waiting here for them. We shall try. Better that then sitting still."

  "They will know that horse of yours, even at distance," Roh said. "There is none such in their company, yours or Lord Merir's."

  Morgaine shrugged. "Then they will know me," she said. There was distrust in her look suddenly, as if she had sudden reckoned that Roh, armed, was at her back in a situation where none could prevent him.

  But the sound of pursuit was almost upon them, and she touched the spurs to Siptah and led them forward, circling within the fringe of trees, riding the bow of the clearing.

  She meant a run with the White Hill between her and Nehmin, Vanye realized; it was what he would have done, running at the horde on the flat from an angle such that they had cover for at least a portion of their ride.

  "They are on us!" Kessun cried; they looked back and the foremost of their pursuers had broken through, riders stringing out in wild disorder, cutting across the open to head them off while they still rode the arc.

  But at the same moment Morgaine veered out into the open, and meant to lead them from under the face of that charge, riding for the White Hill.

  "Go!" she shouted. "Lellin, Sezar, Merir, ride while you can. We will shake these from our heels and overtake you. The rest of you, stay by me."

  Well-done,Vanye thought; the unarmed five of their party had cover enough in which to gain ground; the nine armed had cover in which to deal with these rash pursuers. He disdained the bow: he had no skill at firing from horseback. He was Nhi when he fought, and whipped out the Shiua longsword, at Morgaine's left. Perrin and Vis, Roh, Sharrn, Dev, Larrel and Kessun: their arrows flew and riders went down; and Morgaine's lesser weapon laced red fire across the front of the charge which met them. Horses and riders went down, screaming, and even so a handful broke through, demon-helms, their barbed lances lowered, with a straggling horde of marshlands foot panting behind.

  The charge reached them: Vanye fell to the side Nhi-style, simply not there when the lance passed, and the good horse held steady as he came thrusting up again, blade aimed for that rider. The khalsaw it coming, horrified, for the lance point was beyond and his sword inside the defense. Then his point drove into the undefended throat and the khalpitched over his horse's rump, carried on the force of it.

  "Hail"he heard at his side, and there was Roh, longsword flashing through khalurdefense-no plains-fighter, the Chya lord, but there was an empty saddle where there had been a khalabout to skewer him.

  Others came on them; one rider pitched from the saddle short of them, a red streak of fire for his undoing. Vanye trusted to Morgaine's aim and took the gift, aiming for the rider hard behind, whose half-helmed face registered horror to find an enemy on him before he expected and his own guard breached. Vanye cut him down and found himself and Roh enmeshed in marshlands rabble. That dissolved in terror at what fire Morgaine sent across their mass, cutting down men indiscriminately, so that dying fell on dead. Grass was burning. The trampling of feet put it out as the horde turned in panic. Arrhendurarrows and Morgaine's bolts pursued them without mercy, cutting down the hindmost in windrows of dead and dying.

  Vanye wheeled to turn back, chanced to look on Roh's face, which was pale and grim and satisfied. And he turned farther and
saw Larrel on the ground with Kessun bending over him. From the amount of blood that covered him and Kessun there was no hope he could live; a khalurlance had taken the young qhalin the belly.

  Even as he watched, Kessun sprang up with bow in hand and sent three shafts in succession after the retreating Shiua. Whether they hit he did not see; the khemeis'face ran with tears.

  "Horses!" Morgaine shouted. "Khemeis-get to horse! Your lord needs you!"

  Kessun hesitated, his young face twisted with grief and indecision. Then Sharrn ordered him the same, and he sprang to the saddle, leaving his arrhenamong the Shiua dead. The shock had not yet hit Kessun. Vanye hurt for him, and remembered at the same time that they had two horseless members of their company… one, now: Perrin had caught Larrel's.

  And Roh came up leading one of the Shiua mounts, even as they started to move. They struck a gallop and held it, and Kessun rode ever and again looking back.

  The White Hill lay before them, and their party neared it Morgaine gave Siptah his head and the gray stretched out and ran with a speed which none of the arrhendimhorses could match. Vanye dropped back in despair, but he looked on that craggy hill which rose so strangely out of the flat and of a sudden chill hit him as he considered how it seemed to stand sentinel to this approach.

  Morgaine wanted the others stopped short of arrowflight of that hill; Merir's group was nearly there, moving at the best speed they could make with two horses carrying double, but she and the gray horse closed on them rapidly, the while they behind labored to stay with her. And she had their attention; the five waited at the last, seeing her desperate to overtake them, and in moments they all closed ranks, out of breath.

  "Larrel," Merir mourned, seeing who it was who had fallen. Vanye recalled what Merir had said of a qhaldying young, and grieved for that; but he grieved more for the stricken khemeiswho sat his horse with his hands braced on the saddle and his head bowed in tears.