Fires of Azeroth

Chapter Ten

They pushed the horses to the limit, and it was dark before they stopped, a fireless camp, one that they would break before dawn. Vanye slid down from the saddle holding to the harness and found himself hardly able to walk; but he cared for his horse, and took his gear and limped over to Roh's side, head bowed as he passed through the midst of the men. He thought that if one of them should set hands on him he would turn and kill that man; but that was madness and he knew it. He endured one man shouldering his horse past deliberately, and kept his head down as Roh had said… assumed an ilin'shumility like a garment.

When he reached Roh's side he flung his pack down and stayed standing, for it was painful to rise once down. "I would like to change clothes," he said.

"So shall I. Do so."

He stripped off the Hiua garments with distaste, and stood only in shirt and breeches, Shiua, of fine-spun cloth: the haqueton he put on, against the chill, and meditated putting on the mail-shirt as well, but the stiffness of his shoulders decided otherwise. He put on his cloak, no more. And Roh also rid himself of the disguise; and paused in that to give orders to Fwar.

"We will want sentries watching all horizons. There are Shiua riders behind us without doubt; but there could be some returning from the forest edge, and we cannot risk that meeting either.

Fwar made a sound that might be agreement, turned, and with his foot hooked Vanye's good leg.

Vanye sprawled, his knee awash with pain, and rolled and started up as best he could; but Roh was on his feet in the instant, his sword drawn. "Do that again," Roh said, "or lay any hand on him and I will have the head from your shoulders."

"For this?"

Vanye struggled to his feet, but Roh laid a hand on his arm and thrust him back, turned on him when he resisted, and struck him hard across the face. "You forget yourself. Morgaine's patience was longer than mine. Cause me trouble and I will give you to them."

Anger blinded him for the moment; and then he understood and bowed his head and sank down again-for good measure performed the full obeisance as an ilin,an awkwardness with a stiff leg. Then he sat down, head bowed. It amused the Hiua mightily. He did not react to the laughter, which, ugly as it was, lightened the air.

"He is ilin," Roh said. "Is that in the old songs? Perhaps you have forgotten that custom; but he is not a free man. He is outlawed… Morgaine's servant, no more than that. By Andurin law, he is free of any blood he sheds: Morgaine is guilty. Now he is in my service, and he stays, Myya Fwar. Or would you rather kill him and lose our only hope of surviving? That is your choice. You are playing games with our own lives. Cripple or kill him and we have no guide, no safe passage. Hetharu is behind us. Why do you think? For me? No. I could ride out and Hetharu would bear that as he has everything else I have done, because he dares not kill me: I have the knowledge that provides him safety in this land . . knowledge of the Gates and of power,my Myya friends, that is greater than Hetharu himself suspects. And because you serve me, Hetharu has feared us both. But listen to me now and I will tell you what has driven Hetharu and me to this parting of ways, why he has taken arms against us-and he has done so, if any of you care to ride back and find out. It is because he had a chance to question this man, and he knows enough now to fear my getting my hands on him. He knows that with this man I can overthrow the khal…and seize control of all this land."

There was dead silence. All the men had gathered, hearing this, and Vanye turned his face aside and kept his head bowed, his hand clenched on his sword.

"How?" Fwar asked.

"Because this man has knowledge of the forest, of its people, and of Morgaine. The khalhave not found her. He can. And he is the means by which we can gain her weapons, and absolute control of the Gates. You have been trying to plunder villages.But with that power in hand, do you not think the khal-lordsknow what we will be then? They will risk everything to stop us. They are not anxious to be ruled by Men. But we will settle with them. No one… no one…is to set hands on this man. I have promised him his life for his help. The khalcould get nothing from him… nor could you, my friends, where they failed. But me he will listen to; he knows I keep my word. Now if that is too great a matter for you to bear, ride off now and join Hetharu… take your chances you will survive that. But if you will stay with me, then keep your hands off him or go through life one-handed. He is too valuable to me."

"He will not always be," someone said.

"My oath," Roh shouted at that man. "Put it from your mind, Derth. Put it from your mind!"

There was sullen agreement. Derth spat on the ground, but nodded. Others muttered assent.

"Four days," Roh said, "and we will be within reach of all you came into my service to have. Does that not content you? Four days."

"Aye," Fwar said suddenly, and the rest of the pack fell in. "Aye, lord," the rest agreed, and the camp settled again, with mutterings of what would be done with the khal-lordswhen they bad gained power over them.

Vanye swallowed heavily and looked up as Roh settled by him. Roh said nothing for a moment.

"Are you hurt?" Roh asked then. He shook his head for reply, stared at Roh with an uneasiness he could not shake. He dared not question; Fwar's cousins sat within earshot. This would be so for the duration of their journey. Roh could not be expected to reassure him, to do anything which would betray agreement between them. And he could not help wondering if he had not just heard Roh tell the truth.

Roh's hand clenched on his arm. "Get some sleep, cousin."

Vanye wrapped his cloak about him and lay down where the blanket was spread; he slept, but not quickly.

Roh nudged him in the mid of the night; he opened his eyes then and stayed awake while Roh closed his, as their agreement was. All about them were the sounds of men breathing, the sometime shifting of the horses, the strangeness of such a combination of men and purposes. It oppressed him.

At the first hint of dawn the camp stirred, the sentries passing among the blanketed shapes and kicking this man and that… no more grace had they among their own folk than with strangers. Vanye did not abide that manner of waking, but reached and shook at Roh, disappointing the Hiua who was coming this way-sat up and began putting his armor on. Already there were men saddling their horses and cursing the dark and the chill, for the Hiua went unarmored save where they had plundered somewhat from the khal-lords.Fwar had a scale-shirt under his Shiua-cloth garments: Vanye had already marked that for a time yet to come. He eased on his own ring-mail with a protest of his scabbed shoulders and laced up, put on the coif as well as his helm, to keep his hair from his eyes. And Roh had included a dagger for his belt, not a proper Honor-blade, but a Shiua knife.

"You carried mine so long and faithfully," Roh mocked him out of the dark, "I hate to deprive you of it."

"Avert," he said, crossing himself fervently.

"Avert," Roh echoed him, and made the gesture too, and laughed, afterward, which gave him no comfort at all.

He slid the hostile weapon into place at his belt and went to seek the horses, walking through the Hiua, as he must ride among them and sleep beside them and endure them for days more. They did not lose whatever chance they could find to trouble him. He bowed his head and took the abuse, choked with anger, reminding himself that he had grown too proud. It was no more than baiting, though uglier wishes lay beneath it. They hoped to provoke anger from him, which would bring Roh's wrath down on him… Cause me trouble,Roh had said in their hearing, and I will give you to them.They longed for that. But their baiting was only what an ilinin Andur-Kursh might endure under a harsh lord. Morgaine's service had been otherwise, even from the beginning, however hard it had been in other ways. He recalled her face and voice suddenly, and the gentleness she had given him, and thrust the memory away at once, for he could not afford to grieve.

She was not dead. He was not forever bound to the likes of these, in a world where she did not exist. His sanity insisted to believe it.

"Lord," someone said, and pointed south, in the direction of the Gate. There was a second dawn on that horizon, a glimmering of red brighter than the true one.

"Fire." The word hissed through the company on many lips.

Roh stared at it, and suddenly gestured for them to move. "The khalmust have settled the trouble we started in the camp; there is no hope it could be any other way. That fire is their means of dislodging the lower camp and moving them on; we have seen that tactic before. They are behind us now, and their outriders will have moved out long before now. We have to ride hard hereafter. They are coming, all of them."

The smudge of smoke on the horizon was evident in full dawn, but it soon burned itself out and dissipated on the winds: the wind was steadily from the north… had it been otherwise, it would have been a fire perilous in the extreme. "It has come up against the south river," Roh surmised, on one occasion that he turned in the saddle to look back. "I am relieved. Their madness might have swept down on all of us on this plain."

"Their riders will not come much slower than the fire would have," Vanye said, and looked back also; but all that was to be seen was Fwar's troop, and their faces were a sight he cared for as little as Hetharu's own. He turned about again, and spoke little to Roh thereafter, reckoning that much friendliness apparent between them could make things no better for Roh.

He tended Roh's horse at rests, and did all such things as he would have done for Morgaine. The Hiua were uncommonly quiet in their malice by daylight, where all that was done had to be done under Roh's witness. There were only spiteful looks, and once Fwar smiled broadly at him and laughed. "Wait," Fwar said, and that was all. He glared steadily at Fwar, reckoning that his principal danger was a knifing in the back when the time came. Fwar was one that wanted facing all the time.

And once thereafter he saw Fwar looking at Roh's back, with quite another look than he gave to Roh's face.

This is a man,Vanye thought, –who never forgives; some cause he has with me; and perhaps with Roh– another.

Guard my back,Roh had wished him, knowing well the men of his service.

They crossed the two rivers in the morning and the noon. Their bearing was to the north and slightly easterly, toward the ford of the Narn. Vanye chose their direction, for he rode at the head of the company with Roh and Fwar and Trin, and he bore as he would, while Roh adjusted his course to suit his at each small jostling of the horses, and Fwar and his men followed Roh's leading.

There was, he recalled, that camp of Hetharu's men or Fwar's due north, and he did not want to encounter that; there was the ford of the Narn itself, which he wanted less. But between the two, the expanse of a night's hard ride, there was a patch of forest that did not love Men, and that he chose, knowing it might be the end of them.

But having heard Roh's talk with the Hiua, he was determined on it, rather than to guide them all near Morgaine. He lived in the hourly anticipation that Fwar would discover where they were bound, and who was truly leading them, for Fwar had been in that region and might well know the danger… but it did not happen. He made himself as inconspicuous in his position as possible, bowing his head on his chest and feigning to give way to his wounds and to exhaustion. In fact, he did sleep a little while they rode, but not long; and he pretended hardly to be aware of what direction they took.

"Riders," Trin said of a sudden.

Vanye looked up and followed the pointing of Trin's arm. His heart pounded in sudden fright at the cloud that rose on the northwesterly horizon. "A Shiua camp was there," he said to Roh. "But they cannot yet know you have fallen out with Hetharu."

'They would know himquickly enough," Fwar said. "Get some covering round that armor, quick."

Fwar's advice or no, it was worth taking. Vanye slipped off his helm and unlaced his coif, shaking his hair free as the Barrows-men wore theirs. Fwar stripped off his tunic of coarse wool and gave it to him. "Put that on, Roh's bastard cousin, and drop back of us."

He did so, shrugged the unwashed garment down over his own leather and mail and reined back into the center of Fwar's pack of wolves where he was less conspicuous. His face was hot with rage for the taunt Fwar had flung at him… an old one, and one which only Roh could have told them, concerning the proper degree of their kinship. It disturbed him the more because the Roh he had known was his mother's close kin, and the taunt was not one that did honor to clan Chya or Roh's house.

Fwar's riders made close formation about him. Their hair was dark, and none were so tall. He made his stature as little obvious as possible. There was little more to be done. The riders were coming on them at speed now, having seen the dust they raised, and surely meant to meet them.

"The Sotharra camp," a man at his left muttered. "Shien's folk, those."

Roh and Fwar rode ahead to meet the riders at distance from the company, a wise maneuver if it were Shien. The oncoming riders slowed, breaking from a charge to an approach, and finally came to a halt, but for their three leaders, who kept riding. In Fwar's band, bows were strung and arrows readied, but there was no show of them.

It was indeed Shien. Vanye recognized the young khal-lordand thanked Heaven for the distance between them. The horses snorted and fretted wearily under them. There was a time that everything seemed peaceful. Then voices were raised, Shien's bidding them rum and follow his lead to his camp.

"I do not want your Barrows-scum riding where they please and cutting through our territory. They are hindrance as much as help. They take no orders."

"They take mine," Roh returned. "Out of my way, lord Shien. This is my path and you are in it."

"Go on, go on, then, but you are coming up against forest soon. Your men are no loss, but you are. Nothing has come alive out of that area, and I will use force to stop you, lord Roh. You are too much to risk."

Roh lifted his arm. Hiua bows lifted and bent. "Ride off," Roh said.

Shien stared incredulously, dazed by the sight of human defiance. "You are quite mad."

"Ride off. Or discover the limits of my insanity."

Shien backed his horse, and his escort with him; with a sudden jerk he wheeled about and rode back to his own troop, which glittered with scale-armor and pikes. One of the Barrows-men softly entreated protection of his several gods.

Roh started moving, Fwar and Trin beside him. The company moved forward, passing the Shiua riders, who stood still watching them. First their flank and then their backs were exposed to the Shiua, who remained motionless. Eventually the Shiua dwindled in the distance, and Roh started them to a gallop, which they kept until the horses could stay it no more. Even so it was well after dark before they stopped and flung down from their horses.

Fwar asked his tunic back. Vanye surrendered it gladly enough, and tended his horse and Roh's… and Fwar's, for the Barrows-man flung him the reins as Roh had done, to the general laughter of the company; they mocked him: bastardwas a taunt they had all taken up, seeing how it pricked at him.

He averted his face from their tormenting, and settled the horses and passed through the Hiua company back to Roh, where Fwar sat.

And he had no more than sat down than Fwar grasped his shoulder and pulled him roughly about.

"You are our guide, are you? The lord Roh says it. So what did Shien mean about hazards in the forest?"

He thrust off Fwar's hand. "There are," he said carefully, though rage nearly choked him, "there are hazards everywhere in the forest. I can guide you through them."

"What sort?"

"Others. Qhal."

Fwar scowled and looked at Roh.

"Morgaine has allies," Roh said softly.

"What kind of trap have you led us into? We trusted heronce and learned. I have no trust in this now."

'Then you are in a bad situation, are you not? Hetharu on one side and Shien on the other, and the forest that none of us yet have found a way to travel safely-"

"Your arranging."

"I will talk with you privately. Vanye, get out of here."

"See he does, Trin."

Vanye gathered himself up; Trin was quicker, and seized him by the arm and drew him away to the far side of the camp, where the horses were picketed.

They stopped there. Fwar and Roh spoke together, out of hearing, two shadows in the dark. Vanye stared at them, trying to hear all the same, trying to ignore his guard, who suddenly seized his collar from behind and wrenched. "Sit down," Trin advised him, and he did so. Trin stood over him and kicked several times gently at his splinted knee, naught but casual malice. "We will get you away from him sooner or later," Trin said.

He answered nothing, planning that meeting in his own way.

"Thirty-seven of us-all with reason enough to settle with you."

He still said nothing, and Trin swung his foot again. He seized it and wrenched, and Trin went down, startling the horses, crying out for help. Men poured toward them. Vanye hit the Hiua, staggered up from Trin's prostrate form and came up on one leg, whipped out his dagger and slashed a tether. The horse shied back; he seized its mane and swung up as the dark tide reached him.

The horse screamed and plunged-went over as the Hiua overwhelmed it, other horses shying and screaming and tearing at their tethers. Vanye cleared the falling animal and sprawled into a yielding mass of Hiua almost under other hooves. He slashed blindly and lost the dagger as that arm was held and strained back nearly to breaking.

They drew him up then, and one snatched him by the harness on his chest and wrenched him forward. He would have struck, but for the glitter of mail, that showed him who it was. Roh cursed him and shook him, and he flung the hair from his eyes, ready to fight the rest of them. One tried to come at him-Trin, alive, with dark blood on his face and a knife in his hand.

Fwar stopped the man, took the knife, thrust the rest of the mob back. "No," Fwar said. "No. Let be with him."

The Hiua gave back sullenly, began to move away. Vanye shivered convulsively from his anger and caught his breath. Roh had not let him go. He reached for Roh's hand and disengaged it.

"Trying to run?" Roh asked him.

He said nothing. It was obvious enough what he had tried.

Roh seized his wrist and turned his hand up, slammed the hilt of his dagger into it. "Put that away and thank me for it."

He went to the ground and performed the obeisance, and Roh stood staring at him for a moment, then turned and walked away, Fwar lingered Vanye gathered himself up, expecting Fwar's malice, recalling to his confusion that it had been Fwar who pulled his men back.

"Someone go catch that horse," Fwar said then. A man went, walking out to the horse that had stopped its flight a little distance from the picket line.

Vanye started back to Roh. Fwar took him by the arm.

"Come along," Fwar said, and guided him through the standing crowd. No hand was laid on him else. Trin threatened; but Fwar took him aside and spoke to him in private, and Trin returned pacified. The whole camp settled.

Vanye looked about him at this sudden tolerance, and at Roh, who averted his face and began to prepare himself for the night's rest.