Fires of Azeroth

Chapter Eleven

They moved out yet again before dawn, and by the time day came full upon them, the dark line of Shathan bowed across their northern horizon.

During that day a strange tension lay over the company, which had riders dropping back to the rear by twos and threes and talking together a while before riding forward again.

Vanye saw it plainly enough, and reckoned that Roh did… dared not call it into question, for there was Fwar, as ever, at his side. 1 am mad,he kept thinking, to have any trust left in him.He was afraid, with a gnawing apprehension which Shathan's nearness did nothing to allay: to ride into the darkness…

He flexed the knee against the splints, and estimated that with the horse under him he was a whole man and without it a dead one. To ride with any speed through that dark maze of roots and uneven ground was impossible; to run it afoot, lame as he was, held no better hope-and the question was how far he could lead this band, before someone called halt and challenged him.

Yet Roh let him guide them still, even after Shien's warning, and what mutterings Fwar had made about it were silenced. All objections were stilled. There were only the whisperings in the back of the column.

In the afternoon they stopped and sat down with tether lines in hand, letting the horses rest, themselves taking a little food and drink, unpacking nothing which was not at once replaced, ready to move on in any instant. A gambling game started up, using knives and skill, and imaginary stakes of khalurplunder; that grew loud, and swiftly obscene. Roh sat unsmiling. His eyes shifted to Vanye's, and said nothing.

And suddenly flickered, fixed beyond his shoulder. Vanye turned and saw through his horse's legs a haze of dust on the southern-horizon.

"I think we should move," Roh said.

"Aye," he murmured. There was no doubt what that was, by its direction: Hetharu-Hetharu with his riders, and the Shiua horde in his wake.

Fwar swore blackly and ordered his men to horse. They sprang up from their game and checked girths, adjusted bits, took to the saddle with feverish haste. Vanye swung up and reined about, taking another look.

It was more than one point of the horizon now: it was an arc that swept toward them from south and west, hemming them half about. "Shien," he said. "Shien has joined with them."

That dust will be seen in the Sotharra camp," Fwar judged, and swore. "There and among the ones out on Narn-side. They will lose no time riding this way either."

Roh made no answer, but set spurs to the black mare. The whole company rode after him in haste, driving their horses to desperate flight. Spur and quirt could not keep the weaker with the pace; already the company was beginning to string back. The Shiua animals, journey-worn, could not keep the Andurin mare's ground-eating stride, much as their riders belabored them. Vanye nursed his sorrel gelding as he had done from the beginning… an unlovely annual, burdened with a bigger man than the Hiua, and him armored; but the beast had had at least a horseman's care on the journey, and he held his own at the rear… not important now to be in the lead, only to be with the rest, to keep the animal running for that green line ahead of them. The khalurriders were gaining: he looked back and saw the glint of metal through the dust of their own riding; doubtless the khal,better mounted, would kill their horses if need be .to overtake them, seeing the forest ahead as well as they did.

Roh's lead was now considerable, and only a few of the Hiua could keep with him. Vanye guided the sorrel around a bit of brush another rider had gone over, reckoning the land and the easiest path. He passed three of the Hiua, though he had not changed his pace. He bit at his lip and kept the gelding to what he had set.

Now there was a cloud of dust not only behind them, but eastward, closer there, ominously closer.

Others looked that way eventually, saw that force that sprang bright and glittering as if by magic over a swell of the land. The Hiua cried out in alarm, and spurred and whipped their horses near to exhaustion, as if that would help them– rode them over ground that was fit to lame them even at a slower pace.

A horse went down, screaming, in the path of another. Vanye looked back; one of the riders was a marshlander, and a comrade dropped back for that man: three gone, then. The man picked up the one rider and overtook them again, leaving the other; but soon the overburdened horse broke stride and fell farther and farther behind.

Vanye cursed; Kurshin that he was, he loved horses too well to enjoy what was happening. Roh's doing, Roh's Andurin callousness, he thought; but that was because he had somewhere to place the anger for such cruelty. He consented in it and rode, although by now the little gelding was drenched in sweat, and his own gut and joints felt every bruise the land dealt them.

The forest was all their view now, though the khalurriders were almost within bowshot. Arrows flew, fell short; that was waste. Archery slowed the force that fired, to no profit at this range.

He no longer rode among the last: three, four more horses that had been near the fore broke stride and dropped behind him, even within reach of the forest. The others might make it.

"Hai!"he shouted, and used the spurs suddenly; the gelding leapt forward, startled-passed others, began to close the gap with the foremost, gaining on Roh's Andurin mare. Vanye bent low, although the arrows still flew amiss, for now the forest lay ahead. Roh disappeared into that green shadow, and Fwar, and Trin; he came third and others followed, slowing at once in that thickening tangle. One rider did not, and a horse rushed past riderless.

Vanye ducked a limb and pressed the exhausted gelding past to the fore. "Come," he gasped, and none disputed.

The gelding was surefooted despite that it was so badly spent; Vanye wound his way this direction and that with an eye to the ground and the tangle overhead, as rapidly as the horse could bear-down one leaf-covered slope and up another.

More riders crashed after them, horses breaking a way where there was none, either their own companions or the most reckless of their pursuers. A man screamed somewhere behind them, and Vanye did not look back, caring nothing who it was. The horse's breathing between his legs was like a bellows working, the beast's legs communicating an occasional shudder of exhaustion which he felt through his own body. He tapped it with his heels, talked to it in his own tongue as if all horses understood a Morij accent. It kept moving. He looked back and Roh was still there, and Fwar and Trin a little farther, and a third and fourth man; brush crashed somewhere that he could not see. A horse broke through a screen of branches even as he watched, and labored downslope; Minur was that rider, and the horse could scarcely make the gentle climb up again.

There was a stream, hardly with water enough to cover the horse's hooves. His wanted to stop; he did not allow it, drove it up the slope, found the trail he had thought to find. He put the horse to no more speed, only enough to maintain the pace. The shadow thickened, not alone of the forest, but of the declining sun. He turned in the saddle and saw Roh with him, Fwar and Trin and Minur, others, about three near, more farther back. Fwar looked back too, and the look in his eyes when he turned showed that finally, finally he understood.

Vanye drove the spurs in, ducked low and rode, shouts pursuing him, the thunder of hooves with him still and close. The trail dipped again, where a tree was down. The gelding measured that slope, refused it, and Vanye reined about in the same move, whipped his sword from sheath.

Fwar rode into it, his own sword drawn: Vanye remembered the scale-armor and cut high. Fwar parried; Vanye rammed the spurs in and defended in turn, cut downward as the gelding shied up. Fwar screamed, rumbled under the hooves of his own backing mount as a second horse plunged past, riderless: horses collided, went down on the slope, and Fwar was somewhere under them.

A third: Minur. Vanye spun the staggering gelding about and parried with a shock that numbed his fingers, whipped the blade about and across Minur's with a desperation Minur should have moved to counter: he had not. There was only his head in the longsword's path, and the Barrows-man died without a sound, sped before he left the saddle.

"Hai!" Vanye shouted, and spurred past blind at the others, cut right and cut left and emptied two saddles, he knew not whose. The gelding brought up short as one of the horses shouldered it, staggered. He drew rein and saw Roh in his path; but Roh faced the other way, still ahorse, and his bow was bent and one of his green-fletcbed shafts was trained down that dark aisle of trees, which was held only by dead men.

"Roh," Vanye called to him.

The shaft flew. Roh reined about and spurred toward him: a hail of arrows pursued, white-feathered, and none of them accurate. Vanye turned, and drove the gelding back toward the slope, weaving through the trees to avoid the obstacle at the bottom. The black mare stayed close behind.

An outcry rang out behind them, rage and anguish. Vanye took the gelding up the other slope, hearing brush break in the distance. The gelding reached the top and staggered, kept going a little farther and faltered badly. It was the end for it. Vanye slid down and slashed the leather that held the girth-ring, freeing it of the saddle, and he tore off its bridle and hit it a good slap to drive it farther. Roh did the same for the black mare, though it could have borne him farther-turned and nocked one of his god Chya shafts.

"We did not lose enough of them," Vanye said, in what of breath remained to him; he clenched the bloody sword in his fist and regretted bitterly the bow that was lost with Mai.

The sound of pursuit crashed nearer down the trail-and stopped, simply stopped. There was silence, save for their own hard breathing.

Roh swore softly.

A man cried out, and another. All through the forest there were thin outcries, and of a sudden a crash of brush near them that nearly startled Roh into firing. A riderless horse broke through and kept going, mad with terror. There were screams of horses and brush crackled in every direction.

Then silence.

Brush whispered about them. Vanye let his sword drop to the dry leaves, stood still, gazing into the shadowing dark with the hair prickling at his nape.

"Put down your bow," he hissed at Roh. "Drop it, or we are dead men."

Roh did so, nothing questioning, and did not move.

Shadows moved here and there. There was a soft chittering.

"Their weapons are poisoned," Vanye whispered. "And they have had bitter experience of Men of our breed. Stand still. Stand still whatever they do."

Then very carefully, arms wide, he limped a little apart from Roh, in the midst of the trail where they had turned at bay. He stood still a moment, then carefully turned, faced every quarter of the wood until he saw the strange shadow that he sought… not on the ground. It sat like a nest of old moss in the crotch of a tree. Enormous eyes were centered on him, alive in the midst of that unlikely shape.

He signed to it as Lellin had done. And when that brought no reaction, he bent his good leg and awkwardly knelt, hands still far from his sides, that it might see he held no weapon.

It moved. It was incredible how it descended, as if it had no need of branches, but clung to the wood of the trunk. It stood then watching him, tall and stilt-limbed. Voices chittered now from all sides, and all about them in the dusk, shadows moved, stalking into the pathway.

They towered over him as he knelt. He stayed absolutely still, and they put their hands on his shoulders and arms . .. slender, powerful fingers that tugged strangely at his garments and his armor. They closed and drew him to his feet, and he turned and stared up into their faces, shivering.

They spoke to him, and tugged at his clothing; there was anger in their rapid voices.

"No," he whispered, and signed at them carefully: friend, friend,hand to his heart.

There was no response. Slowly he lifted his arm and pointed down the trail in the direction he wished to go, and saw that others considered Roh, who stood deathly still in their unhuman hands.

He tried to leave those about him and walk in that direction, but they would not let him walk free: they brought him to Roh, holding him firmly. His eyes roved the area, counting: ten, twenty of them. Their faces, their dark, fathomless eyes, seemed all immune to reason or passion.

"They are harilim,"he said to Roh softly. "And they are of the forest… ofit, entirely."

"Morgaine's allies."

"No one's allies."

It was fully night now; the last twilight faded, and the shadows thickened. More and more of the harilimarrived, and all began to speak at once, in cluttering rushes of sound that thundered like falling water; debate, perhaps, or chanting. But at last came other stalking shadows that simply stood and watched, and silence fell, so suddenly it numbed.

"The amulet," Vanye said. "Roh. The amulet Do you still have it?"

Roh reached very slowly into his collar and drew it forth. It shone in the starlight, a silver circle trembling on Roh's hand. One of the harilimreached and touched it, and chirred softly.

Then one of the tall late-comers stalked forward with that heron-like gait, which halted several times and did not hurry. It too fingered the amulet, and touched Roh's face. It spoke, and the sound was deeper, like frog-song.

Tentatively Vanye lifted his arm yet again, pointing to the path that they wanted to go.

There was no response. He tried a step and none forbade. He took another, and another, and stooped very carefully and gathered up his sword and put it in its sheath. He edged back yet farther. Roh took his lead then, and moving very carefully, picked up his bow. There was no sound from the harilim,none anywhere in the forest. Step after step they were allowed.

A hail of twigs came down from overhead. They kept walking, and still none prevented them. They passed down the trail and met the stream again, where the trail ceased and they had only the streamcourse to guide them. Reeds rustled behind them. A cluttering came from the trees.

"You planned this," Roh said hoarsely. "Shien understood. I would that I had."

"What did you plan for me?" he returned, half a whisper, for sound was fearsome in this place. "I promised only to go with you and guard your back– cousin.But what did you contrive with Fwar that so well pleased him?"

"What do you suppose I promised him?"

He answered nothing and kept walking, limping heavily over tangles of roots and washes in the mossy earth. The stream beside them promised water they dared not stop to drink, not until the breath was raw in their throats.

Then he fell to one knee and gathered a cold double handful to his mouth, and Roh did likewise, both of them taking what they could. Leaves rustled. A hail of twigs flew about them, leaves and debris hitting the water. They gathered themselves up as larger pieces began to fly. Shadows moved in the forest. They started walking and the shaking of branches stopped.

There came a time that they had to rest. Vanye sank down, hands clasped to his aching knee, and Roh flung himself down among the leaves, heaving with sobs for breath. They had left the stream for a trail that offered itself. There was only dark about them.

Of a sudden the shaking of branches began. A piece of wood cracked; a branch crashed dangerously near them, breaking young trees in its fall. Vanye reached for support and clawed his way to his feet, Roh springing up hardly slower. A scattering of twigs hit them. They began walking and it ceased.

"How far will they drive us?" Roh asked. His voice shook with exhaustion. "Is there a place they have in mind?"

"Til morning… and out of their woods." He caught the bad leg and stumbled, recovered with an effort that blurred his eyes. Almost he would have defied them and flung himself down to see whether they meant then– threats, but he was too sure that they did. The harilimhad done much, indeed, not to have killed them among the others… save that they might-at least one or two of them-recall him as a companion of the qhal…if they had memories at all, if anything like the thoughts of Men existed behind those huge dark eyes.

Cruel, cruel as any force of nature: they would have their way, their forest cleared of outsiders. He reckoned that their freedom to walk was the utmost of the harilim'smercy and went blindly. Once they met another, broader trail, started to take it, but a hail of twigs came down on them, in their faces, and the chittering began to be angry.

"Go back," he said, pushing at Roh, who was minded otherwise, and they turned and struggled the other, the harder trail, which took them deeper into the woods.

He fell. The leaves skidded slickly under his hands and for a moment he simply lay there, until the chittering nearby warned him, and Roh put a hand under his arm and cursed him. "Get up," Roh said, and when he had his feet under him again, Roh flung an arm about him and kept him moving until he had recovered his senses.

Day was beginning, a first grayness. The shadows which stalked them became more and more visible, sometimes moving along beside them with more rapidity than a Man could manage in the brush.

Then as the light increased a hush fell, and nothing now disturbed the trees, as if their herders had suddenly become one with bark and moss and limb.

"They are gone," Roh said first, and began to slow, leaned against a tree. Vanye looked about him, and again his senses began to leave him. Roh caught his arm, and he sank down where he was and sprawled on the dry leaves, numb and blank for a time.

He woke with a touch on his face, realized he was on his back now, and Roh's hand, cold and wet, bathed his brow. "There is another stream just beyond those trees. Wake up. Wake up. We cannot spend another night in this place."

"Aye," he murmured, and moved, groaned aloud for the misery in body and limbs. Roh steadied him to rise on his good leg, and helped him climb down to the water. There he drank and bathed his aching head, washed the dirt from him as best he could. There was blood on his hands and his armor: Fwar, he recalled, and bathed that off with loathing.

"Where are we?" Roh asked. "What do you expect to find here? Only their like?"

He shook his head. "I am lost. I have no idea where we are."

"Kurshin," Roh said, like a curse. Roh was Andurin, in all his lives, and forest-bred, as Kurshin were of the mountains and valley plains. "At least that way is the river." He pointed to the downstream of the brook. "And the ford where she was."

"Which lies across the harilimwoods, and if you choose that route, go to it; I will not. It was your imagining to use me for a guide. I never claimed for myself what you claimed for me to Fwar."

Roh regarded him narrowly. "Aye, and yet you knew accurately enough how to cast us to those creatures, and you have travelled here. I think you are shading the truth with me, my Kurshin cousin. Lost you may be, but you know how to find yourself. And Morgaine."

"Go to blazes. You would have thrown me to the Hiua if the hour had needed it."

"A kinsman of mine? I fear I am too proud for that kind of bartering. Is that a reasoning you understand? No, I promised you to them, when we should have taken Morgaine… but I can shade the truth too, cousin. I would have shaken them from my track. I heard Shien's warning. I could have turned aside. I trusted to you. Are not a Kurshin and an Andurin match for Hiua in the woods? Do you think that I would ever have found them comfortable allies? Fwar hated me almost as he hated you. He meant to knife me in the back the moment Morgaine was no longer a threat and he had you in his hands, disarmed. That was the anticipation that sweetened his disposition. He thought he had everything he wanted, me to deal with Morgaine, and half-witted enough to strip myself of the only man who might give me warning if they went for my back. Fwar saw himself as master of this land if he only tolerated us for a time; that I could give my trust to you, who had been my enemy-Fwar was not such a man, and therefore he could not imagine it in others. And it killed him. But you and I, Vanye-we are different men. You and I-know what honor is."

Vanye swallowed heavily, uneasily reckoning that it might remotely be truth. "I promised to guard your back… no more than that. I have done so. It was your own saying, that you would find Morgaine and try to speak with her. Well, do it without my help. Here our agreement ends. Go your own way."

"For a cripple, you are very confident to dismisss me."

Vanye scrambled awkwardly to his feet, hand jerking his sword from its hook; he almost fell, and braced his back against a tree. But Roh still knelt, unthreatening.

"Peace," Roh said, turning empty hands palm up. A mocking smile was on his lips. "In fact, you do think you can manage without me in this woods, and I would know why. Crippled as you are, cousin, I should hate to abandon you."

"Leave me."

Roh shook his head. "A new agreement: that I go with you. I want only to speak to Morgaine… if she is alive; and if she is not, cousin… if she is not, then you and I together should reconsider matters. You evidently have allies in this forest. You think that you do not need me. Well, that is the truth, more than likely. But I shall follow you; I promise you that. So I may as well go with you. You know that no Kurshin can shake me from his trail. Would you not rather know where I am?"

Vanye swore, clenched his hand on the sword he did not draw. "Do you not know," he asked Roh hoarsely, "that Morgaine set me under orders to kill you? And do you not know that I have no choice where it regards that oath?"

That took the smile from Roh's face. Roh considered it, and shrugged after a moment, hands loose across his knees. "Well, but you could hardly out-fence me at the moment, could you?-save I gave you a standing target, which would hardly be to your liking. I shall go with you and abide Morgaine's decision in the matter."

"No," he pleaded with him, and Roh's expression grew the more troubled.

"What, is that keeping faith with your liege-to warn her enemies that she is pitiless, that she is unbending, that she understands no reason at all where it regards a threat to her? My oldest memories are dreams, cousin, and they are long and full of her. The Hiua call her Death, and the Shiua khalonce laughed at that. No longer. I know her. I know my chances. But the khalwill not forgive what I have done. I cannot go back; I would have no freedom from them. I saw what they did to you-and I am quick to learn, cousin. I had to leave that place. She is all that is left. I am tired, Vanye, I am tired-and I have bad dreams."

Vanye stared at him. Gone was all semblance of pride, of mockery; Roh's voice trembled, and his eyes were shadowed.

"Is it in your dreams… what Liell would have done with me and with her?"

Roh looked up. Horror was in his eyes, deep and distant. "Do not call those things up. They come back at night. And I doubt you want the answer."

"When you-dream those things: how do you feel about it?"

"Roh hates it."

Vanye shuddered, gazing into the wildness in Roh's face, the war exposed. He sank down again on the bank of the stream, and for a time Roh wrapped his arms about himself and shivered like a man fevered. The shivering stoppped finally, and the dark eyes that met his were whole again, quizzical, mocking.

"Roh?"

"Aye, cousin."

"Let us start walking."

They walked the streamside, which in Shathan was no less than a road… more reliable than the paths, for all the habitations of Men in Shathan were set near water. They must struggle at times, for the way was overgrown and at times the trees arched over the little stream or grew down to the very margin, or some fallen log damned it, making deep places. They had no lack of water, hungry as they were and there were fish in the stream that they might devise to take when they dared stop: not favored fare for a Kurshin, but he was not fastidious, and Roh had fared on much worse.

He limped along with Roh at his back, saying nothing of how he guided himself, though perhaps Roh could guess; he had found himself a staff and leaned on it as he walked, though it was less the knee that troubled him than other wounds, which covered the most of his body and at times hurt so that the tears came to his eyes… an abiding, never-ceasing misery that now had the heat of fever.

He sank down toward noon and slept, not aware even that he chose to do so. He simply came to himself lying on the ground, with Roh asleep not far from him. He rose up and shook at Roh, and they both stood up and started walking.

"We have slept, too long," Roh said, anxiously looking skyward. "It is halfway through the afternoon."

"I know," he said, with the same dread. "We cannot stop again."

He made what haste he could, and several times dared whistle aloud, as close to Lellin's tones as he could manage, but nothing answered him. There was no sight of game, hardly a flicker of a bird's wings through the trees, as if they were all that lived in this section of Shathan. No qhalwere near… or if they were, they chose to remain silent and unseen. Roh noted it; whenever he looked back he saw Roh's anxious shift of eyes over their surroundings and agreed with Roh's uneasiness. They walked through something utterly unnatural.

They came upon an old tree, corded with white. It was rotten at the heart, lightning-riven.

"Mirrind," Vanye said aloud, his pulse racing, for now he knew completely where he was, to what place the little stream had guided them.

"What is that?" Roh asked.

"A village. You should know it. The Shiua murdered one of its people." Then he repented his words, for they were both at the end of their strength and their wits, and he needed no quarrel with Roh. "Come. Carefully."

He sought the rutted road and found it, concealed as it was now by brush. He walked as quickly as he could with his limping stride, for the night was coming fast on them. From this place, he thought, he might try to find Merir's camp . .. but he was not sure of the way, and the chance was that Merir would have broken camp and left, the place even if he could find it. He was noly anxious now to put the harilimbehind them before the dark came on them again.

Through the trees suddenly appeared a haze of open space, and when they had reached that edge there were only shells of stone and burned skeletons of timber where Mirrind had stood. He swore when he saw it, and leaned against one of the trees by the roadside. Roh wisely said nothing at that moment, and he swallowed the tightness from his throat and started forward, keeping to the shadow of trees and ruins.

The crops still grew, although weeds had set in; and the ruins of the hall were mostly intact. But the desolation, where beauty had been, was complete.

"We cannot stay here," Roh said. "This is within reach of the Sotharra camp. Shien's men. We have come too far. Use some sense, cousin. Let us get out of the open."

He lingered yet a moment, staring about him, then turned painfully and began to do as Roh had advised.

An arrow hit the dirt at their feet, quivered there, brown-feathered.