Exiles Gate

Chapter Fifteen

The enemy found cover on the rock-studded, scrub-thicketed hill, and targets were fewer. Vanye wiped sweat with the back of his arm, and laid out his last four arrows, with care for their fletchings.

Morgaine left her vantage and climbed to another, a black-clad, white-haired figure in the gathering dawn, whose safety he watched over with an arrow nocked and ready for any move on the slope.

One tried. He quickly lifted the bow and fired, dissuading the archer, but the wind carried the shaft amiss.

Three arrows remaining.

Morgaine reached her perch and sent a few shots to places that provoked shifts in the enemy's positions, and afforded him a target he did not miss.

"We are too close here," Morgaine shouted across at him—meaning what he already understood, that Changeling was hazardous in the extreme in this confinement of loose boulders and brush, with the horses herded together in that narrow slot among the rocks and close to panic. "I am going for the horses! Stay where you are and give me cover!"

He drew in his breath and picked up his next to last shaft, his heart trying to come up his throat. He did not like what she proposed, riding out alone, with Changeling under Mante's warped touch.

He did not like, either, their chances if the enemy came up on them, and if they waited too late to gain room for the sword; and of the two of them, Morgaine knew the weapon. There was nothing to do but hold fast and spend his two remaining arrows to afford her the room she needed.

She edged outward on the rock and onto the slope that would lead her down to the horses.

And an arrow whisked past his position and shattered on the rock a hair's-breadth from her.

He whirled and sought a target among the crags over their heads, desperate. Morgaine's fire glowed red on stone as she fired past him and up at the cliffs.

"Get down!" she cried at him. "Get down!"

"Get to the horses!" he yelled. "Go!"

As an arrow hit the rock by his foot.

An arrow flew from another quarter, crosswise streak of black on pale rock, high up the ledges.

Not at them. At the hidden archer. An outcry said that it had hit. Other arrows followed, arcing downslope this time, into enemy positions, starting enemies from cover, as Morgaine turned on her slab of rock and fired again and again at targets suddenly visible.

A dark spot moved in the edge of Vanye's vision: he whirled and fired at a man coming up the throat of their little shelter, near the horses.

That man sprawled backward, his armor of no avail against an arrhendur bow at that range; and screamed as he slid down the slope, while Vanye nocked his last arrow with a deliberate effort at steadiness, as shafts sped unexplained over their heads, as the enemy broke and fled, offering their backs to the arrows and the red glow that flashed on a man and doomed him.

There were, perhaps, two or three who made it off that field. When quiet came the very air seemed numb. He still had the one arrow left. He refused to spend it on a retreating enemy. He slid off his rock and lost his footing in the landing, gathered himself up with his bow in one hand and the last arrow still nocked, and struggled through the brush to the tumbled mass Morgaine was descending.

"My lady Morgaine!" a shout came down from the heights.

He crossed the last distance with a desperate effort, to steady Morgaine as she jumped the last distance and to thrust her back where there was at least scant cover.

"No gratitude?" The mocking voice drifted down from that place of vantage. "No word of thanks?"

"Chei," Vanye muttered between his teeth, and pressed his body against Morgaine as some large object hurtled off the heights to land close by them, with a sickening impact of bone and flesh.

A helmet rolled and clanged down the rocks. Arrows scattered and rattled; and a qhalur body lay broken on the stone.

He bent the bow, aimed upward, hoping for a target.

"There is my gift," Chei called down to them, never showing himself. "One of Skarrin's pets, none of mine. An appeasement. Do I hear yet thanks?"

"He is mad," Vanye breathed.

"I could kill you both from here," Chei said. "I could have let Skarrin's men kill you. But I do not. I had rather come down to talk. Which shall I?"

"Mad," Vanye said. His arm was shaking as he had it braced. His breath was short. He looked at Morgaine. "There were three of them. I have the one arrow left. I can gather more out there. Cover me."

"Stay!" Morgaine said. "Do not try it."

He lowered the bow and eased the string.

"My lady," Chei's voice drifted down to them. And an arrow struck and shattered in front of them. "Is that earnest enough of good faith? Talk is what I want. On your terms."

"I cannot see the wretch," Morgaine hissed softly, looking upward with the black weapon in hand. "Curse him, he can loft his shots, and I cannot—"

"Let me—"

"We still have another choice."

"Loose rock," Vanye muttered, looking at the set of the boulders Changeling might dislodge. "The horses—"

"My lady—" Chei's voice came down. "They have sent a gate-jewel into the field, more than one—Do you want to talk about this?"

"I am listening," Morgaine answered him.

"The while we were on the road the jewel he wore was constantly sending. It could not but draw them. I do not deny—I fought you. But there is no more fighting. If you win, you will destroy the gate at Mante, you will destroy everything, and we die.

If Skarrin wins, we die—as rebels. We have few choices left. You want Mante. I want something else. It is alliance I am proposing."

"Alliance," Vanye muttered under his breath.

"Narrow quarters," Morgaine said quietly. "And an unstable gate. And no knowing where our enemies out there have gotten to."

"It is a lie—"

She rested her hand on his shoulder, and looked up at the cliffs. "Come down!" she called to Chei.

"Under truce?" Chei asked.

"As good as your own," Morgaine shouted back. "Do you trust it?"

A pebble dropped and bounded from somewhere above.

"For God's sake, do not trust him."

"I do not. I want him in sight. Remember I have no scruples."

He drew a larger breath. His hands were shaking. From off the rock where the qhal had fallen, blood ran, and dripped.

And from up among the rocks, on the trail they had ridden, the sound of movement.

"There were three," Vanye said again as a rider came down, out of their view behind the hill, hoof-falls echoing among the rocks.

"We do not know how many there are now," Morgaine said. "We have a dead man for proof. Perhaps they would kill their own. Who knows?"

He drew a long, slow breath, resting back against the rock that was no shelter.

"On the other hand," Morgaine said, "Chei has already killed men of Skarrin's. Did you not say? How did that go?"

"Aye." Breath was short. He sent his thoughts back, to gather everything, putting it in one place. "Typthyn was the name. For the stone. It was the stone the captain wanted. To take it to Mante, he said. And to get clear. But do not believe him for the sake of that. Chei wanted it for himself."

A single rider came into view, on the red roan that had been Gault's, the man a slight, young figure in silver mail.

"The fool," Vanye breathed.

"Foolish or desperate."

"No!" Vanye said. "I believed him a moment too long. He lies—very well."

Her hand clenched on his shoulder, on bruises. "Be patient. We will hear him out. That at least we can afford."

She stood clear to face the rider, who, finding himself in a pocket in the maze of stone, dismounted and leapt up to the flat rock which had been Vanye's post. Vanye took his place at her left shoulder, the bow easy in his hands, aimed at the ground.

But he kept the arrow nocked.

Chei spread wide his hands. "That I have men above me, you can guess. And you have the sword." He walked forward on the slanting surface and dropped lightly off the rock to the ground facing them—spread his hands again, keeping the palms in plain view. "I think the advantage is yours."

"Come no closer," Morgaine said. "For this I have no need of the sword."

Chei stopped instantly. The mockery was gone from his face as she lifted her hand toward him. "My lady—"

"I am not your lady and whatever there is of Chei ep Kantory I should best requite by killing his enemy, Gault. I saved you for last, only so you might keep the others under your hand. I spared you once on Vanye's word—and because I should have enjoyed it too much—Do you hear me, Gault?"

"My men, my lady. Above us."

"We two, lord Gault, are in front of you, and this is the cleanest of my weapons, for which you may thank me. Is there something you want that is worth this?"

"What I always wanted. What I would have freely given, if you had come to Morund. What the boy gave when you befriended him—"

"Lies," Morgaine said sharply.

"Vanye!" Chei said, holding out his hands.

"I had as lief kill you," Vanye said; and bent the bow as Chei took a step closer. "No farther!"

Chei fell to his knees, hands outheld. "God help me, I do not know what I am, I cannot sort it out—What else do you leave me?"

"No more lies!"

"Listen to me. I know the way in. Do you want Skarrin? I will give him to you."

"Our guide," Vanye breathed, "to whom we owe so much already."

There was fear on Chei's face now. The eyes flickered desperately, distractedly for a moment, and he moistened his lips before they steadied. "The boy—misled you. I am not that boy. My men have you in sight. Will you throw away your lives—merely to have mine? It seems a poor exchange."

"We can take him with us," Vanye said in the Kurshin tongue. "I will take care of him."

"Skarrin will kill me for what I have done—he will kill all of us. Listen to what I am saying. I know how to mislead them. I know the way in. I will give you Skarrin . . . for your promise to take us with you." He rested back on his heels, hands on his knees, and the rising sun shone fair on Chei's curling hair, on Chei's earnest face. "And I will not betray you."

"Why not?" Morgaine asked. "You are betraying Skarrin."

"Because," Chei said with a foreign twist of the mouth, a sullen look up, as he set his hands on hips and sat back. "Skarrin is not a lord I chose, not a lord who chooses me, what is more. You are no fool, lady. And I am not. You have knowledge of the gates that I do not have. I made one try. You won. I have spent my life bowing down to a lord who has trod my face into the dust more than once, and the boy, —when I will listen to him—" The young features contracted, a kind of grimace. "—the boy remembers you dealt well with him."

Vanye's breath shortened. "Let us get out of here," he said, "liyo."

"The boy meant to kill me," Chei said. "He wanted to die. He still wants revenge. He came to me—to pit himself against me—inside—to drive me mad, if he could." Chei's mouth jerked, neither grimace nor smile, both humorless. "But he has changed his mind about death. It never agreed with him. Or with me. And he has changed his mind about killing you. He thought you would kill him—and me. He was disturbed that you declined. Now he understands more and more what a fool he was, having acquired a man's understanding, and a warrior's good sense. And what he remembers tells me I am safer right now than I would ever be in Morund."

"He was mistaken now and again. I need no assassin at my back."

"You need me, my lady. And Skarrin will prove it to you, too late, if you kill me. I know the way into Mante. And you will not find it!"

"I have done harder things."

"I am not a rebel by nature, my lady! Give me a lord I can serve, give me a lord who can win against Skarrin, deal with me as you deal with your own, put me beside you, and you will find I have skill, my lady—in a command twice Morund's size, in any field, I am a man worth having, only so I have a lord more set on winning than on his fears of having me win! I do not rival you. I do not wish to. Only take me and my men and I will tell you how I will prove it: I will swear my allegiance through Vanye, I will put myself under his orders—he is a fair man. I know that he is a fair man—"

"But no fool," Vanye said bitterly, down the shaft of the arrow, "besides which, man, I have my own allegiance, which is to my liege, and her safety, and if I have to shoot you where you kneel I will do that before I will let you at her back." The arrow trembled and almost he lost his grip on it, so much the soreness of his joints and the lightness of his head affected him. He tightened his fingers, feeling the sweat stinging in the cut on his brow; and for all his stomach knotted up in loathing of the choices, it was not for her to do, after so many other burdens she had. "Liyo, " he said, and lapsed into the Kurshin tongue, looking nowhere but at the center of Chei's chest. "Let him call the others down. Let us—as you say—have them in sight. Let us get down off this hill. And I will deal with them."

She delayed her answer. The sweat stung his eyes and ran down his sides, into raw burns; the muscles of his arm began to tremble dangerously.

She touched his shoulder then. "No," she said; and the breath went out of him and the world spun so that he braced his feet as he lowered the bow. "You are Vanye's," she said to Chei. "What he does short of killing you I will not prevent." Her hand pressed hard on Vanye's shoulder. "No," she said in the Kurshin tongue, "thee cares too much."

He drew a breath and lifted the bow on the draw, half-blind and choking on the desperation in him. He fired. But her hand struck his arm up and the arrow sped past Chei's head to strike a chip from the stone wall behind him.

Everything froze in its place—Chei in front of him, white-faced; Morgaine at his side. He trembled in the aftershock of attempted murder; he felt the weakness on him with a giddiness that dimmed the light and made sounds ring in his ears.

"Aye," he said, because something seemed incumbent on him to say then, who had disregarded her orders. If there was a part of his soul undamned, he had done it by that act, excepting her forgiveness. He drew in a breath, straining bruised ribs, vision hazing—the blows to his head, he thought; the lack of food; the exertion of the fight. He wanted only to have them moving again, himself in the saddle with the horse to carry him. Rest would mend him, a night's sleep—

But, O Heaven, it was not in reach, and Morgaine listening to this man—

He could not think beyond her, not, in any case, with his head swimming and his thinking and his fears shrunk to the little space between these rocks, and the chance of an enemy which had been all too fortunate in its ambush—

And he must not kill this man. Morgaine forbade it. He had defied her order once. Twice was without excuse.

"Do you swear?" he asked Chei, knowing after he had asked, that oaths meant nothing with this creature.

"I have said," Chei said, and got to his feet. There was darkness in that stare. There was profound apprehension. Then another, more agitated way of speaking: "I swear before God. Is that enough?"

That human expression, that shift of voice, sent a chill through him.

Perhaps it was meant to.

But he let the silence go on a moment, and looked Chei in the eyes, long and steadily, until the air was a good deal colder and Chei surely knew it was not fear held his hand.

Then: "Do not cross me," he said to Chei, "and I will return you nothing of what I owe you. Where is my sword?"

Chei's eyes shifted toward the roan horse.

"I will have it back."

Chei nodded. "Aye."

"Aye—my lord. "

"Aye, my lord."

"Call your men down here. They can ride away or they can ride with us, but if one of them missteps, I will lay his head at your feet and lay yours at my lady's. I am nothing you know, whatever you think you gained at Tejhos. I am Nhi, and my clan is not reputed to give second chances."

Perhaps Chei believed him. Chei looked once back at him as he turned to face the cliffs, and once at Morgaine.

Then he shouted up at the height. "They have agreed," he called up the cliffs. "Come down."

Three of them, Vanye kept thinking, and went and gathered up the arrows that had spilled off the cliff with the dead man—twelve he found with the fletchings and points whole, and put them in his quiver, the while Morgaine kept her eye on matters. His ribs ached.

Three of them, he kept thinking in the throbbing of his hurts and the panicked beating of his heart. She has gone mad.

It is this Skarrin—this man she fears. That is what drives her. That is what she wants to know—always, always when she does not know as much as she wishes—she doubts herself—

The Devil rather than honest men, he remembered her saying. O my liege, you have found him.

The two from the cliff came riding around the shoulder of the hill as Chei had come, stopped their horses by the red roan; and came to pay their respects to their recent enemy—the bowman and the qhal, the bowman's human face betraying intense worry, the qhal's having no expression at all.

"Rhanin ep Eorund," Chei named them. "And Hesiyyn Aeisyryn, both late of Mante."

"I will give you a simple choice," Vanye said, leaning on his bow, and this time with a quiver half full of arrows. "Ride off now, and go free. Or go with us, do my liege honest service, and I will forget what I owe you. I count that more than fair."

Rhanin nodded, clear of eye and countenance; and had the likeness of truth about him. "Aye," Rhanin said, and let go a long breath, as if he had taken him at his word and had worried, until then.

Hesiyyn lowered his eyes and inclined his head, and looked up with a bland, half-lidded insolence. "Anything you will, lord human."

Vanye stared at him and thought of striking him to the ground. But then it would come to killing—not one but all of them.

The archer had fired on his liege: but in defense of his own lord. While this Hesiyyn, he judged, might do anything and everything for his own sake.

And this, this was the qhal who had intervened to save his life.

"If they ride with us," he said to Chei, disdaining the qhal with a passing glance, "remember I hold you accountable."

And he turned his back on Chei as well, feeling their stares like knives; his heart beat like a hammer in his temples, and his face was hot, the sky like brass. Morgaine said something to him of riding out, that they were well off this hillside. " Aye," he said, and shouldered his bow and his quiver, and went to untangle the horses, which had wound themselves into a predicament, their two with the nervous geldings. Siptah had braced himself, flat-eared, too trail-wise to move, despite Arrhan's lead-rope wound across his rump, and that the blaze-faced gelding had a hind leg in among the rocks, its rump against the wall, one foreleg crossing its partner's lead.

He cut both free and straightened out the leads, darting an anxious eye to Chei and the rest, but Morgaine was watching them: he saw her. He shoved Siptah with his shoulder to gain room, held Arrhan steady to re-tie the leads, and recalled his sword on Chei's saddle, uphill with the other horses.

He thought of climbing the rocks and making the exchange, but it was a war-horse in question, easier that Chei should deal with it, and he was out of breath and not wanting either the climb or any dealings with weapons at close quarters: bruised ribs and stiff muscles, he thought, leaning on Siptah's side to work past him and lead him out of the confusion.

But when he unstrung his bow to tie it with his gear on Arrhan's saddle, the weakness of his arm and his lack of wind surprised him. He had to make a second pull to slip the string. When he had gotten it tied and set his foot in the stirrup, it more than hurt to pull himself up, it sapped the strength from him and made him sweat and his head reel despite the morning chill.

It is the sun-heat on the metal, he told himself; there is no wind here. Using the bow and pushing the horses about had strained the ribs. It will pass.

He sat still, with the sweat running, leaning on the saddlebow, while Morgaine mounted up. Get us moving, he thought, feeling the sting of salt in his cuts. There was no wind in this place. He longed to be off this hill, not knowing what they might meet on that slope down there or out in the land: best hurry before they collect a defense, he thought; and everything conspired with delays.

"They will go first," Morgaine said, starting out. "I have told them."

"Aye," he murmured. "Let Skarrin's men have them for ranging-shots."

"They might have killed us," Morgaine said. "They could have taken the weapons. That much is true."

He thought about that.

"But I do not forget what they did," she said.

"Aye," he said. The hill seemed steeper than he recalled as they struck the open slope—a place littered with dead, thirty, forty or more.

And Chei and his men rode past them, dutifully taking the lead.

'Is thee all right?" Morgaine asked.

"A little faint. I am well enough. It is the heat." He urged Arrhan to a faster pace, and overtook Chei's men.

"Arrows," he said. "All we can gather. We may need them."

"Aye," Rhanin said, and veered off on that chancy slope, at hazard of further attack, from men on the ground, from Heaven knew where on the rocky heights around them.

Rhanin would not, he thought at the back of his mind, come back. The man would take his chance and ride for his own life.

"The sword," he said to Chei.

Chei took it from his saddle and reversed it, passing it over as they rode.

"A good blade," Chei said.

He said nothing. He unhooked his own from Arrhan's saddle and passed it by the hilt.

"Alayyis' sword," Chei murmured.

"My liege did not ask his name," he said harshly, and reined back and hooked the arrhendur blade to his sword-belt, waiting for Morgaine to overtake him.

O God, he thought then, why did I say that? Why am I always a fool?

Morgaine overtook him. He murmured an explanation for the bowman's departure, and started up again, riding after the others, a crowded trail avoiding the lumps of bodies which lay like so much refuse on the hillside. He watched carefully such dead as they did pass close at hand, wary of traps. He watched the hills about them, for any flash of armor, any flight of birds or bit of color out of place.

Far across the field, Rhanin searched, dismounted, searched again. Eventually he came riding back, carrying three quivers of arrows. "I would keep one," Rhanin said, offering two as he rode alongside—no grudging look, only an earnest and an anxious one.

"Do that," Vanye said; and the man gave him them, and turned off downslope, to overtake Chei and Hesiyyn.

He hung the two quivers from his saddlebow, and he stared at Rhanin's retreating back with misgivings. They had reached the bottom of the hill, and the last body, which lay face upward. Carrion birds had gathered. He did not look down at it as they rode their slow course past. That man was incontrovertibly dead. The hour was fraught enough with nightmares, and he had had enough of such sights in his life.

But, he thanked Heaven, there were no ambushes.

The hill beyond the next rise gave out onto the flat again, a broad valley; he blinked at the sweat in his eyes and rubbed at them to make the haze go away.

"Vanye?" Morgaine asked, as Siptah's heavy weight brushed his leg.

"Aye?" His head ached where the helm crossed his brow; the sun heated the metal, heated his shoulders beneath the armor and the pain in his ribs made his breath hard to draw.

"Is thee bearing up?"

"Well enough. Would there was more wind."

Chei had drawn rein in front of them, and scanned the ground; and waited for them with the others.

"We should bear south a little," Chei said. "Around the shoulder—" Chei pointed. "Off into the hills. One of them may well have us in sight. But the weapon you used up there—" He gave a small, humorless laugh. "—will have improved my reputation with Mante. At least for veracity. They will be very hesitant to come at us."

"Why south?"

"Because—" Chei said sharply, and pointed out over the plain, below, and to their right, toward the hills. "To reach that, necessitates crossing this, else, and if you have no liking for—"

"Courtesy, man," Vanye muttered, and Chei drew another breath.

"My lady," Chei said quietly, "it is safer. If you will take my advice—lend me the stone a moment and I can send a message that may draw their forces off us."

"Tell me the pattern," Morgaine said.

Chei took up the reins on the roan, that flattened its ears toward Siptah. "Two flashes. A simple report. I can send better than that. I can tell them the enemy has gone up into the hills. In numbers. And if you provoke them to answer you, my lady, and you cannot reply rapidly, they will know what you are. I can answer them."

"Do not give it to him," Vanye said, and made no move to hand over the stone.

"No," Morgaine said. "Not here and not now."

"My lady—"

"Can it be—you have sent?"

"Aye. From Tejhos."

"And the stone, man!"

"With that," Chei said with a reluctant shrug. "Yes. The first night."

"And told them it would stay unshielded. Do not evade me. I am out of patience for guesswork. What have you done, what do you suspect, what is out there?"

"They will have known something went amiss from the time you sealed off the stone," Chei said in a low voice. "There is rumor Skarrin's gate can tell one stone from the other, given sure position. I do not know. I only know there are two more such stones out there. I saw them, clear as I could see Tejhos."

"In the stone."

"In the stone, my lady. There may be more than that by now. When yours stopped sending—It is myself they will be hunting, along with you. I am well known for treason."

"Did you think they would forgive," Vanye asked, "the small matter of killing your lord's deputy?"

Chei's eyes lifted to his, hard and level. "No. But, then, if I had won, I would have done what we are doing now. With your weapons. It is not Mante I want. It is the gate. . . . With your weapons. I told you my bargain. And, lady, you have convinced me: I will not follow a lord in the field who cannot beat me. I should be a fool, else. You won. So I take your orders."

There was a moment's silence, only the stamp and blowing of the horses.

"Let us," Morgaine said to Chei then, "see where your ability leads us."

And in the Kurshin tongue, when they struck a freer pace, tending toward the south, into rougher land.

"Do not be concerned for it. I will choose any camp we make, and he will not lay hands on the stone, to be telling them anything. —Thee is white, Vanye."

"I am well enough," he said again.

If he confessed otherwise, he thought, she might take alarm, might seek some place to rest, where they must not—must not go to hiding now, when Mante knew the vicinity to search, and might throw company after company into the field. Even Changeling had its limits—

—had them, more and more as they drew near the aching wound that was Mante

My fault, he kept thinking. All of this. O Heaven, what are we going to do?

And others, out of the muddle of heat and exhaustion, she has taken them because she knows I am near to falling; she needs help; she takes it where she can, against this stranger-lord in Mante—against this Skarrin—needs them in place of me—to guard her back—

O God, that I leave her to these bandits—

It is her own perverse way of managing them, putting them under my hand, forcing the bitter draught down their throats—lest they think they can leave me behind: it is her own stratagem, give them a captain like to spill from his horse, and let them vie for her favor, whereby she keeps Chei at bay, and in hope of succession, and he never dares strike at me, lest he lose what gratitude he might win of her later—If he has not betrayed us outright—if the ambush was not a trick, their own arrangement—

A man learned to think in circles, who companied with Morgaine kri Chya. A man learned craft, who had before thought a sword-edge the straightest way to a target.

She might manage Chei. Surely Rhanin. I should tell her to keep that man.

And: This weakness of mine may pass. It may well pass. She is winning time for me. Gaining ground.

And lastly: Why did she prevent me from Chei? Why strike my hand?

You care too much?

What did she mean by that?

Hills closed about them, brushy ravines and rock and scrub, steep heights on either side. He looked up and behind them, and never was there trace of any watcher.

Except in a fold between two hills, near a stand of scrub, where they came to a stream: there Hesiyyn drew up by the grassy margin and signaled Chei.

They were old tracks. It had surely been yesterday that some rider had paused to water his horse, and ridden along the hillside, in this place of tough, clumped grass which showed very little trace otherwise. The track there went out onto that ground on their own side, not, Vanye reckoned, hard to follow, if one had to wonder where that rider had gone, or if one were interested in finding him.

As it was: "What is this place?" he asked angrily. "A highway their riders use? A known trail?"

"Doubtless," Hesiyyn said, "my lord human. We are all anxious to die."

He sent Hesiyyn a dark look.

"We are no more anxious for a meeting than you are," Chei said. "They are out here, that is all. I told you. Skarrin is no longer taking the matter lightly.—I ask you again, lady, in all earnestness: lend me the stone."

Morgaine leaned her hands against the saddlebow and quickly restrained Siptah from edging toward the roan. It was warfare, now. The red roan's ears were flat, his eyes—red-rimmed, his least lovely feature—constantly one or the other toward the gray stud.

"No," she said shortly, and reining Siptah sharply aside to gain room, dismounted and threw her hand up to shy the roan. "Move him off! We will rest here a little. At least they have passed here. And it is at least some cover."

"My lady," Chei said with heavy resentment, and drew the wild-eyed roan aside, along the stream.

So the rest of them. Vanye glared a warning in their direction, threw his leg over the horn and slid down. He dropped Arrhan's reins to let her drink, and let the two horses he led move up to the water, then sank down on his knees and bathed his face and the back of his shorn neck, discovering that insult again, where it had passed in shock when Chei had done it. For this one unjustified thing he was more and more angry, an unreasoning, killing anger, of the sort he had not felt—

—since the day his brother died.

"We will rest here an hour," Morgaine said, sinking down to wash beside him, letting Siptah drink.

"Aye." He dipped up another double handful. It was spring-fed, this stream, and like ice, taking the breath. He stood up with a sudden effort.

The daylight went to gray and to dark.

"Vanye—" Morgaine said.

"Watch them!" he said to her in the Kurshin tongue, and sat down hard where he stood, his balance simply gone, his foot off the edge into the chill water, his wounds jolted so he thought he would not get the next breath at all.

"Vanye!"

"Watch them," he said again, calmly, fighting panic. He drew his foot out of the water. "Liyo, I will rest here a little. I am tired. That is all."

He heard her bend near him, felt her shadow take the heat of the sun from his face. He heard footsteps in the grass nearby and that frightened him.

"Liyo, do not turn your back on them."

She laid her hand on his brow. "Thee is fevered," she said.

"Liyo, in the name of Heaven—"

"We will rest here," she said. The daylight began to come back, but it was still brass and full of illusion, with her as a darkness in the center of it.

"We have no time—"

"Vanye, lie down."

He did as she asked, reckoning if they must stop an hour for his sake, he had as well not waste the time it cost them in argument. He let himself back on the grass and rested his head on his arm, and shut his eyes against the giddiness of the sky. The ground seemed to pitch and spin under him. He had not felt that dizzy when he was riding, and now that he let go it was hard not to lose all his senses. His stomach tried to heave and he refused to let it, refused the panic that lay at the bottom of his thoughts.

A little time, he told himself. They had been pushing too long to keep moving; and a battle and a ride with enemies-turned-comrades did not count for rest. An hour on his back, and he would be good for another ten.

Only, O God, he was weak. And his head spun.

And Morgaine was alone with these men.

She came back to him, knelt down by him, dampened a cloth in the cold stream and laid it on his brow.

"You are watching them," he murmured in his own tongue.

"I am watching them."

"Liyo, kill them."

"Hush, rest."

"Kill them!" He sat up on his elbow and caught the cloth in his hand, the pulse at once hammering in his ears and his gut hurting and his ribs a blinding pain. " 'Man and man,' you said. Then trust me to know. I am telling you these men are after the weapons; they are only waiting to see what more they can find out, whether we have anything else they want—Kill them. And do not give them any warning."

Her hand rested on his chest, pressing him to lie back. He would not yield.

"Listen to me," he said.

"Hush," she said. "Hush. I have an eye to them."

"This is a man who gave Chei to the wolves. This is the guide who lied to us, whose brother I killed. If it is sane inside it is a wonder."

"Lie back. Lie down. Do not make me trouble. Please. Please, Vanye."

He let go his breath and let himself back. She wet the cloth again and wrung it out and laid it on his brow. It set him shivering.

"I will ride," he said, "in an hour."

"Only lie here. I will make some tea."

"We cannot be risking a fire—"

She touched his lips with her fingers. "Still, I say. Hush. A little one. Do not fret about it. Be still."

"Willow tea," he murmured, "if you are going to do it anyway. My head aches."

He rested then with his eyes half-open, slitted on Chei and his two men, who sat apart on the stream-bank. He watched Morgaine gather up twigs and grass, and his gut tensed as he saw Chei rise and walk toward her and have words with her.

What they said he could not hear. But Morgaine settled down thereafter and made a fire with that means she could, and Chei and the others began to unsaddle the horses.

He sat up then, and began to get to his feet in dismay, but Morgaine looked at him and lifted her hand in that signal that meant no.

He fell back again, and lay in misery while the pulse beat like a hammer in his temples and the sun glared red behind closed lids.

She brought him tea to drink, infused very strongly with something bitter; and little pellets wrapped in leaves, that were from Shathan, and very precious. He took them and drank the sour-bitter tea, as large mouthfuls as he could bear, simply to get it down, and rested back again.

"I will be all right," he murmured then.

"Thee is not riding in an hour. Or two."

"Dark." he said. "Give me till dark. We can cut closer to the plain at night. Gain back the time."

But he was no better. If anything, he hurt the worse. It is because of lying still, he thought.

Then, clearly and honestly: I am getting worse.

And we are too near the gate.

He rested. It was not sleep that passed the hours into twilight, only a dimness in which Morgaine came and went, and gave him cold water to drink. "I will try," he said, then, "try to ride. Have them put me on my horse. I will stay there."

There was fear in her eyes. It verged on panic. She smoothed the hair back from his face. "We will hold this place," she said.

"With what? With them? With—" Anger brought a pain to his skull. His eyes watered, blurring the sight of her. "It is foolishness. Foolishness, liyo. No more time. Too many of them. When will you sleep? You cannot—cannot depend on me to stay awake. Cannot depend on me."

"I will manage."

"Do not lose for me! Do not think of it! Ride out of here!"

"Hush." She touched his face, bent and kissed him, weary, so very weary, her voice. Her hand shook against his cheek. "Forgive me. Trust me. Will you trust me?"

"Aye," he said, or thought he said. She unlaced his collar and took the stone from under his armor; and took it from him.

"Not to him—" he protested.

"No. I will keep it. I will keep it safe."

It was too difficult to hold on. The dark grew too deep, a place unto itself, tangled and mazed. He wanted to come back. He wanted to stay awake to listen to her.

He dreamed of dark, like that between the Gates.

He dreamed of dark, in which she walked away, and he could not so much as tell where she had gone.

Chei rested his head in his hands, weary with his own aches, with the foolishness that would not let the woman see reason.

Will not leave him, the inner voice said, and it echoed a night in Arunden's camp, a doorway—embarrassed youth, rebuffed and dismayed and made lonely all at once, in a child's way; Pyverrn, seeking exile—riding into Morund on a wretched, shaggy horse—Ho, hello, old friend —Court grew deadly dull without you. . . .

Thoughts upon thoughts upon thoughts. He rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes, grimaced with the confusion of images.

"My lord," Rhanin said.

He looked up to see the lady walking toward them—with further delay, he reckoned. She looked distraught, her eyes shadowed and her face showing exhaustion.

She had to sleep. There would come a time she had to sleep. Then there was a reckoning, with the weapons in his hands, and the lady brought to see reason once for all.

He was not prepared to see her hand lift, and the black weapon in it, aimed straight at him. His heart froze in him: death, he thought. Our death, only so a crazed woman dares sleep —

"My lord Gault," she said quietly, "Qhiverin. Chei. I have a proposition for you."

"My lady?" he asked, carefully.

"I am going to rest. You will tend him, you will do everything you can for him, you will make him fit to ride, my lord; and if he is not better by morning, I will kill you all. If he cries out—once —I will shoot one of you at random. Do you have any doubt of that, my lord?"

"He will not be fit to ride—the man is fevered—he is out of his head—"

"Do you doubt my word, my lord? Do you want an earnest of my intentions?"

"She is mad," Hesiyyn exclaimed.

Chei gathered himself hastily to his feet. "Up," he said, dragging at Hesiyyn, at Rhanin. And cast an anxious glance at Morgaine, whose weapon stayed centered on him, whose eyes were, as Hesiyyn said—mad and beyond all reason.