Exile's Gate

by C. J. Cherryh

  Himself, he gave himself up to Arrhan's gait and slept, in what stretches he could, between the pain of burns and stiff muscles and the ache of his shoulders and back, and the peculiar unpleasantness of the unshielded stone which rode close against his throat, as Chei had tied it, a sense of gate-force which reached a mind-numbing pitch and stayed there, never abating.

  When Morgaine needed him to do something she would signal him. He had no doubt she would do it in some fashion—perhaps through the stone itself, if it would not likewise advise their enemy.

  Beyond that he did not try to think, except where the qhal themselves afforded him something to wonder on. To think what the end of this might be, or to think how he had wandered into this, was too deadly a sink, a place in which he could lose himself. This much he had learned of Morgaine, to deal with the moment and keep his mind flowing with it—like swordplay, like that intricate art in which there was no time to spare for forever.

  He waited, that was all.

  And by afternoon another man pitched from the saddle.

  There were outcries, there was shouting—some men broke and ran and the whole company did, stringing out in disorder.

  Two riders veered far off toward the northwest, and kept going.

  "They are cowards!" Chei yelled at the rest. "Likeliest they are dead men. Stay with the column."

  "Let him go!" one of the qhal shouted back. "Let him go, let us ride back to Morund!"

  "Silence!" Chei bade him. "Do you think any of us would live out the hour?"

  "No one would prevent you," Vanye said. "Go home. It is your high lords who use the gates—this one is spending your lives to no—"

  He ducked his head and put his shoulder in the way of Chei's sheathed sword as it came whistling round for him, ducked again from the second blow, and as Arrhan shied, drove his heels in.

  The mare jerked and bolted, hitting the reins with all her weight and throwing the other horse into a wild stagger after balance. For a moment he kept her circling and shying up under the impacts of his heels.

  Then other riders closed in about him and seized reins and bridles to stop her.

  Chei was one. Chei shoved the sheathed sword under his chin when all was done and jerked his head up.

  "Tonight," Chei told him. "Tonight."

  No one spoke, except Chei bade them put a rope to Arrhan's halter and use that as well as the reins.

  They gave him neither food nor water, nor any other consideration for his comfort, so that the ride became one long misery of heat and ache—no rest for him at the times they would stop to rest the horses. They drank at a stream and afforded Arrhan water, but none for him.

  It was petty vengeance.

  Only once, there was an outcry from the rear of their column, and Chei gave furious orders that sent men thundering back along the road toward a rider that appeared like a ghost and vanished again in the tricks of the rolling land.

  He held his breath then. He could not but worry.

  But the rider left the road before they came that far.

  And within the hour a man pitched dead from the saddle.

  "Damn you!" Chei shouted to the hills. "Damn you!"

  The hills echoed him. That was all.

  Vanye did not meet his eyes then. He kept his head bowed amid the murmuring of the others.

  They were thirty-three.

  Close to him, for some little time, Chei and the captain argued in muted fury, concerning a place for a camp, concerning the hazard of leaving the road for the hills.

  "It is him she wants," the captain asserted finally, in hushed violence. "Put a sword in him, take the jewel, and leave him in the road. She will stop for him. No horse for him and a wounded man on her hands—then the balance shifts. Then we become the hunters. More of this is madness."

  It was only too reasonable a course. Vanye listened with a sinking heart, and braced himself to cause them what trouble he could.

  But: "No!" Chei said.

  "It is your ambition," the captain said. "Your damnable ambition, Qhiverin! No waiting on Mante—no chance of anyone but yourself dealing with it—You will listen to me, or the high lord will when I bear the report to him—"

  "You will obey orders, captain, or I will bear reports of my own of your insubordination, of your obstructing me, damn you! I am my lord, and Qhiverin is gone, captain, with all his disfavor, Gault is dead, what is more, and you do not know me, captain, you do not know me in the least and you do not know the enemy you are dealing with and you do not know the weapon you are dealing with. That stone around his neck keeps us alive, captain. Around yours, much as I would like to see it, it would be no more than an encouragement—it cannot take that weapon of hers, need I shout the matter aloud? Whoever holds the stone will go like a leaf in the wind, and that accursed sword will stand fast in this world—that is what prevents her, nothing more."

  "Her lover bleeding in the dirt will prevent her." The captain ripped his sword from its sheath. "And I will carry the stone, my lord, and deliver the stone to Mante, my lord!"

  Vanye drove his left heel into Arrhan's side and she wheeled, jerking hard at the reins, clear of his reach as Chei's sword came out and rang loud in the turning of that blade, a mirror-bright flash of sun, a wheeling cut and the hiss of other steel drawn, on all sides.

  A thunder of hooves and a second man came at him; he drove with his heels and ducked, flat in the saddle, as the stroke grated off his armor, as the man leading his horse swung round and an arc of steel flashed over his head in the other direction, ringing off the rebel's blade close by his ear. Horses shoved and shied and Arrhan struggled in the press: there was nothing he could do but lie flat as he could against Arrhan and the heaving rump of his defender's horse for an instant as the blades rang above him, as blood spattered over him and one or the other fell—

  He drove his heels in and fought for balance with an effort that tore muscles in his stomach, with steel still ringing over his head, then let go entirely and landed in a space between the horses, to scramble up again, hands bound, and run.

  A shout, a rumbling behind him—riders on either side of him, and a horse shouldered him and sent him rolling; up to his feet again and a second dash for the rocks that he could see—

  If Morgaine were near enough, if she could give him cover—

  A horse thundered down at him. There was nothing he could do but run, and veer, spinning aside at the last moment as the horse rushed past.

  But the second horse he could not evade, and fell, his helm saving his head and rolling free as he hit on his bound arms and struggled after wind and purchase to rise.

  A horseman overshadowed him. An extended lance slammed against his armor and pushed him back, the point hovering an unstable distance from the pit of his throat.

  He did not know which side had won until Chei's voice bade the rider back away, and men got down to gather up him and his helmet and take him back to his horse.

  There were bodies on the road. The captain was one, with his skull split. There were two other qhal who might have been all the captain's and might have been, some of them, Chei's. They left them for the scavengers as they had left the others, and they put him on Arrhan's back again.

  He slumped over such as he could to rest then, and to avoid Chei's attention.

  There was no more dissent. It was a while more of riding, and very little of speaking at all, until they came into a stony place between two hills, where the Road had cut deep, and where a stream had cut deeper still into the hills beside it.

  It was a sheltered place. It was a slit between the rocks where an overhang provided cover against attack, a natural fortification, and when they rode into it, and passed within that shadow, Vanye's heart sank in him as hope had trembled on the edge this last and terrible hour.

  They were twenty-six as he counted them again—three dead on the road and four vanished, deserted, he thought, when the fight began to go against them. But the qhal had done this to themselves, and th
e noise of the fight ought to have reached Morgaine through the hills. There had been a real chance she might have been there when he fled, or after—at the most, that commotion should have drawn her close again, and she might have dealt them damage—might have taken some good position among the rocks and taken out man after man, giving him the chance he needed to run, on foot, if he must—beneath her covering fire.

  But she had not been there. There had been nothing at all from her since early afternoon; and Chei had sent men out to hunt her.

  She is hurt, he thought. Something has happened to her or she would have come in—she would have come, she would have come—

  Now they drew into this place shadowed with premature twilight, close among rocks, where he knew that she could not reach; and that shadow closed over him, his enemies laid hands on him and pulled him off his horse and struck him once in earnest of what else they might do, and for the first time since last night he felt a cold despair.

  They bound his feet and let him lie while they had their supper: for him there was not so much as a cup of water, and when in desperation he rolled over to the streamside close by him, they ignored that. It was all they would do for him, until after, that a few of the human servants came and unbound him, and then his hands were so swollen and his arms so lifeless there was little he could do for himself. They gave him leave to relieve himself, that was the sole mercy; and when he turned about again they laid hands on him and bound him and hauled him over to where the qhal-lords sat, the pale and the human-seeming both by the little fire they had made under the overhang; and Chei centermost among them, their faces and their eyes reflecting the white shining of the jewel he wore.

  He sank down there on his knees, his head reeling from hunger and exhaustion, and the gate-force humming in his bones. He waited to hear what they would do, and heard the small shifts of the men at his back, the men who gathered close about him, yet more than a score of them.

  "Did I make you a promise?" Chei asked him.

  "Aye," he murmured, to stay Chei's madness. Aye to anything.

  Something has happened to her, he reasoned to himself. She is not dead, they would have reported that. But hurt, somehow held, pinned down in ambush—O God, or out there, late, perhaps ahead of us, perhaps that is where she is—

  They will want to draw her in, they will want me to draw her—

  I must not do that, whatever they do, no outcry this time—

  No sound, he told himself over and over, when Chei gave the order that they should take the armor off him.

  But: "My lord," one of the qhal said. "No. He is our safety. He is all the safety we have. My lord, we stayed by you—"

  Chei said nothing for a long moment. Then: "Do you intend to ride off too?"

  There was silence.

  "Then go, curse you, go, ride out into the dark and take your chances! Or do what I tell you. Take him!"

  The servants hesitated. Of a sudden one of them bolted and ran, and another fled, and the rest after them, afoot, toward the road. One of the qhal gave pursuit.

  And fell.

  Chei sprang and Vanye rolled and resisted him as best he could, tried to get his legs to bear for a kick, but Chei caught him in his arms and held him fast against him, one arm nigh choking him while shouts and alarm rang about him.

  Alive, Vanye thought; and: "Be careful," he shouted out before Chei's fingers pressed at either side of his throat and began to take his consciousness. "Liyo,—"

  As one and another of the qhal fell and such as were left huddled close within that shelter.

  They were six, Vanye saw when the night grew quiet again and consciousness came back to him, as he lay still in Chei's tight grip. Mostly there were bodies strewn out across the open; and one of the qhal by them called a name and crept out to reach a friend, against his lord's advice.

  "Get out of here," Vanye said to that man, for a man who would take that risk seemed better to him than the rest of them. "Get on your horse and ride out of here. She will not stop you."

  But it was that man who came back and seized him out of Chei's hands and battered and half-choked him before the others pulled him off.

  He lay silent after that, dazed and relieved of some of the pain, so close he was to unconsciousness. But the qhal stirred forth, and saddled their horses in the dark, and led them close by the rock where they sheltered, horses enough for them and a relief mount for each, but Arrhan was not among them.

  Then they hauled him up and put him ahorse, and they rode breakneck up the narrow way they had gotten into this place.

  When day came, there were only the six of them, and himself, and they pushed the horses, changing from one to the other

  But another of them died, at one such change. It was the man, Vanye thought, who had beaten him. He regarded the man in a kind of numbness when he sprawled almost under his horse's hooves, with a black spot on his forehead and a dazed expression on his face. He was not glad of it, except he lifted his eyes toward the low hills and felt as if his liege, unseen, were looking at him this moment.

  "It is that cursed stone," one of the qhal said, as others had muttered. "She can see it."

  "Wrap that cursed thing," Chei said then, and one of them drew him close and dragged him down off the horse while others got down and lengthened the cord on the stone, and tucked it under his armor at his neck, against his bare skin.

  The gate-sense was worse then.

  It was worse yet when they had crested a long rise and suddenly found the land dropping away below them across a wide rolling plain; and the crags which had long hung rootless in morning light, faced them across this gulf.

  Then the world reeled about him in a mad confusion of blue sky and golden distances and the crags of yellow rock about them. The horse moved again, and his vision cleared, but there still seemed a distance between him and the world—less of pain, but greater unease, gate-sense that crawled up and down his nerves and prickled the hair on his body.

  There, he thought, lifting his face toward the high crags. Mante-gate is up there—-

  Without question, as he knew the whereabouts of other powers, close by it, like small pools beside an ocean, and that ocean raging with storms and like to swallow up the lives that came near it.

  It wanted this stone that he wore, wanted the bearer, wanted all creation, and that was not enough to fill it.

  O my God, he thought, my God, if they bring me nearer this thing, if they bring me too close—

  He rode, he did not know how. He heard their voices sharp in argument. "You can feel that thing," one said, and he knew what thing they meant: it was all about them, it was in their nerves; it made the horses skittish and fractious.

  But it was nothing to them who did not hold it against their bare skin.

  No more died—for whatever reason, there were no more ambushes, as they shifted horses and kept a pace that even gray Siptah could not match unaided, in this place where the qhalur road broke down into eroded stone traces, and the riders found a course not straight, but recklessly direct, down toward the valley.

  She is left behind, he thought. These crags and this rough land has forced her back to the road and she has fallen behind. They have won, in my case. Somewhere I could have done better than this. Somehow I could have done something better.

  It was the first thought he had allowed himself, of might-have and could-have, and of how he had fallen to them and the things they had done, and might do. Well enough, he thought, fool, twice fool—and reviewed every move he had made on that hillside, every sign he might have missed, every chance he had had, until the pain was all that took his mind from his inward misery.

  Then: fool, he thought. She has taken the odds down.

  It would cost, he thought. Time would cost very dear. And chances were hard come by.

  The qhal shared rations at midday. "We had best feed him," one said, "or he will faint." And when Chei consented, one came and fed him a strip of jerky and gave him a drink as they rode, the
water splashing down his chin and front and onto the saddle, to dry again in the sun. After that his stomach was queasy, and cramped, and the pounding gait put the taste of blood in his mouth. He wished that he might fall off and simply break his neck and be done, except he was Kurshin, and his body kept the rhythm it had known from childhood, no matter how much he swayed; and the same fool who had fallen into their trap, still thought that there was a hope of delaying them, if he could find the means.

  Then he put the matter together and at their next stop, when they were changing horses, as he was about to mount, brought his knee up in his horse's flank and flung himself out of the way as it went hopping and pitching and throwing the horse it was tied to into a wildly swinging panic.

  The men grabbed after those and he went for the three a single man was holding, startling those with a wild yell and a shove of his shoulder before someone overhauled him from behind.

  He fell, with a man atop him and one of their horses having slipped its bridle and racing off wildly across the road, one of the riders having to free his horse of his relief mount to run it down.

  It was a little victory, a little one. The man who had overhauled him dragged him over onto his back and stared at him as though murder was too mild a vengeance.

  Vanye brought his knee up with all the strength in him.

  Two more of them pinned him to the ground and one of them paid him in kind. After that he lost sense of where he was for the moment, until he felt the weight go off him and heard a shout, and came to with Chei's blade at his throat and a dead man at his side.

  And the sound of a rider coming, at full gallop.

  Chapter 14

  The gray horse became clear, and its rider, and Vanye took in his breath, held as he was against Chei's knee, Chei's sword across his throat. And one of the two qhal with him had taken up his bow, and nocked an arrow.

  Vanye swung his leg around in an attempt to strike the bowman. He could not. The blade stung along his neck, taking up what room he had for breathing. "Look out!" he yelled. But Morgaine was drawing to a halt well down the road. She slid down, and started walking, through the tall grass.