Fires of Azeroth

Chapter Two

There were signs of habitation, of the hand of some manner of men, all down the road: the ruts of wheels, the cloven-hoofed prints of herded beasts, the occasional snag of white wool on a roadside branch. This is the way their herds come to water,Vayne reasoned. There must be some open land hereabouts for their grazing.

It was late, that softest part of afternoon, when they came upon the center of it all.

It was a village which might, save for its curving roofs, have occupied some forest edge in Andur; and a glamour of forest sunlight lay over it, shaded as its roofs were by old trees, a gold-green warmth that hazed the old timbers and the thatched roofs. It was almost one with the forest itself, save for the fanciful carving of the timbers under the eaves, which bore faded colors. It was a cozy huddle of some thirty bundings, with no walls for defense… cattle pens and a cart or two, a dusty commons, a large hall of thatch and timbers and carved beams, no proper lord's hold, but rustic and wide-doored and mainly windowed.

Morgaine stopped on the road and Vanye drew in beside her. A boding of ill came on him, and of regret. "Such a place," he said, "must have no enemies."

"It will have," said Morgaine, and moved Siptah forward.

Their approach brought a quiet stirring in the village, a cluster of dusty children who looked up from their play and stared, a woman who looked out a window and came out of doors drying her hands on her skirts, and two old men who came out of the hall and waited their coming. Younger men and an old woman joined that pair, with a boy of about fifteen and a workman in a leather apron. More elder gathered. Solemnly they stood, … human folk, dark-skinned and small of stature.

Vanye looked nervously between the houses and among the trees that stood close behind, and across the wide fields which lay beyond in the vast clearing. He scanned the open windows and doors, the pens and the carts, seeking some ambush. There was nothing. He kept his hand on the hilt of his sword, which rode at his side; but Morgaine had her hands free and in sight… all peaceful she seemed, and gracious. He did not scruple to look suspiciously on everything.

Morgaine reined in before the little cluster that had gathered before the hall steps. All the folk bowed together, as gracefully and solemnly as lords, and when they looked up at her, their faces held wonder, but no hint of fear.

Ah, mistrust us,Vanye wished them. You do not know what has come among you.But nothing but awe touched those earnest faces, and the eldest of them bowed again, and addressed them.

Then Vanye's heart froze in him, for it was the qhalurtongue that these Men spoke.

Arrhtkein,they hailed Morgaine, which was my lady;little by little as they rode, Morgaine had insisted to teach him, until he knew words of courtesies and threat and necessities. Not qhalin any case, these small dark folk, so courteous of manner… but the Old Ones were clearly reverenced here, and therefore they welcomed Morgaine, taking her for qhal,which she was to the eye.

He reasoned away his shock: there was a tune his Kurshin soul would have shuddered to hear that language on human lips, but now it passed his own. The speech was current, Morgaine had persuaded him, wherever qhalhad been, in whatever lands Gates led to, and it had lent many words to his own language-which disturbed him to realize. That these folk spoke it nearly pure , . . that amazed him. Khemeis,they addressed him, which sounded like kheman:accompany… Companion,perhaps, for my lordhe was not, not where qhalwere honored.

"Peace," he bade them softly in that language, the appropriate greeting; and "How may we please you and your lady?" they asked in all courtesy, but he could not answer, only understand.

Morgaine spoke with them, and they with her; after a moment she looked across at him. "Dismount," she said in the qhalurtongue. "Here are friendly people." But that was surely for show and for courtesy; he dismounted as she ordered him, but he did not let down his guard or intend to leave her back unguarded. He stood with arms folded, where he could both see those to whom she spoke and keep a furtive watch on the others who began to join the crowd-too many people and too close for his liking, although none of them seemed unfriendly.

Some of what was said he followed; Morgaine's teaching with him had encompassed enough that he knew they were being welcomed and offered food. The accent was a little different than Morgaine's, but no worse than the shift from Andurin to Kurshin in his mother tongue.

"They offer us hospitality," Morgaine said, "and I am minded to take it, at least for tonight. There is no immediate threat here that I can see."

"As you will, liyo."

She gestured toward a handsome lad of about ten. "He is Sin, the elder Bythein's grandnephew. He is offered to care for the horses, but I had rather you did that and simply let him help you."

She meant to go among them alone, then. He was not pleased at that prospect, but she had done worse things, and, armed, she was of the two of them the more dangerous, a fact which most misjudged. He took Changelingfrom her saddle and gave it to her, and gathered up the reins of both horses.

"This way, khemeis,"the boy bade him; and while Morgaine went into the hall with the elders, the boy walked with him toward the pens, trying to match his man's strides and gawking at him like any village lad unused to arms and strangers… perhaps amazed also at his lighter complexion and his height, which must seem considerable to these small folk. No man in the village reached more than his shoulder, and few that much. Perhaps, he thought, they reckoned him halfling qhal,no honor to him, but he did not mean to dispute it with them.

The boy Sin chartered at him busily when he reached the pens– and began to unsaddle the horses, but it was conversation all in vain with him. Finally the realization seemed to dawn upon Sin, who asked him yet another question.

"I am sorry; I do not understand," he answered, and the boy squinted up at him, stroking the mare's neck under her mane.

"Khemeis?"the boy asked of him.

He could not explain. I am a stranger here,he could say; or I am of Andur-Kursh;or other words, which he did not intend to have known. It seemed wisest to leave all such accountings to Morgaine, who could listen to these people and choose what to reveal and what to conceal and argue out their misconceptions.

"Friend," he said, for he could say that too, and Sin's face lighted and a grin spread across it.

"Yes," Sin said, and fell to currying the bay mare with zeal. Whatever Vanye showed him, Sin was eager to do, and his thin features glowed with pleasure when Vanye smiled and tried to show satisfaction with his work… a good folk, an open-handed people, Vanye thought, and felt the safer in their lodgings. "Sin," he said, having composed his sentence carefully, "you take care for the horses. Agreed?"

"I shall sleep here," Sin declared, and adoration burned in his dark eyes. "I shall care for them, for you and for the lady."

"Come with me," Vanye told him, slinging their gear on his shoulder, saddlebags which held things they needed for the night, and food that might draw animals, and Morgaine's saddle kit, which was nothing to be left to the curiosity of others. He was pleased in the company of the boy, who had no shyness or lack of patience in speaking with him. He set his hand on Sin's shoulder and the boy swelled visibly with importance under the eyes of the other children, who watched from a distance. They walked together back to the hall, and up the wooden steps to the inside.

It was a high-raftered place, the center filled with a long row of tables and benches, a place for feasts; and there was a grand fireplace, and light from the many wide windows which-like the unwalled condition of the village-betokened a place that had never taken thought for its defense. Morgaine sat there, a bit of pallor black-clad and glittering with silver mail in the dusty light, surrounded by villagers both male and female, young and old, some on benches and some at her feet. At the edge of that circle mothers rocked children on their laps, keeping them still, themselves seeming curious to listen.

Way was made for him, folk edging this way and that to let him through at once. He found a bench offered him, when his place was sitting on the floor, but he took it; and Sin managed to work eelwise to his feet and settle there against his knee.

Morgaine looked at him. "They offer us welcome and whatever we have need of, equipage or food. They seem most amazed by you; they cannot conceive of your origins, tall and different as you are; and they are somewhat alarmed that we go so heavily armed… but I have explained to them that you entered my service in a far country."

"There are surely qhalhere."

"I would surmise so. But if that is the case, they must not be hostile to these folk." She made her voice gentle then, and lapsed back into the qhalurtongue. "Vanye, these are the elders of the village: Sersein and her man Serseis; Bythein and Bytheis; Melzein and Melzeis. They say that we may shelter in this hall tonight."

He inclined his head, assenting and offering respect to their hosts.

"For now," Morgaine added in Andurin, "I only ask questions of them. I counsel thee the same."

"I have said nothing."

She nodded, and speaking to the elders, turned again to the qhalurlanguage, with fluency he could not follow.

It was a strange meal they took that night, with the hall aglow with torches and with firelight from the hearth, and the board laden with abundance of food, the benches crowded with villagers young and old. It was the custom here, Morgaine explained, that all the village take the evening meal together as if they were one house, as indeed was the custom of Rakoris in Andur, but here even children attended, and played recklessly among their elders, suffered to speak at table with abandon that would have fetched a Kurshin child, be he lord's son or peasant, a ringing ear and a stern march outside to a more thorough chastisement. Children here filled their bellies and then slid down from table to play noisily in the pillared wings of the hall, laughing and shouting above the roar of conversation.

It was not, at least, a hall where one feared an assassin's knife or poison. Vanye sat at Morgaine's right-an ilinshould stand behind, and he would rather have tasted the food that she was offered to be certain, all the same; but Morgaine forbade that, and he gave up his apprehensions. In the pen outside, the horses fed on good hay, and they sat in this bright, warm hall amid folk who seemed more inclined to kill them by overfeeding than by ill will. When at last no one could eat any more, the children who did not wish to be quiet were cheerfully dismissed into the dark outside, the oldest of that company leading the youngest, and there seemed no thought in any one that the children might be in any danger in the dark outdoors. Within the hall, a girl began to play on a tall, strangely tuned harp, and sang beautifully with it. There was a second song which everyone sang, save themselves; and then they were offered the harp as well-but playing was long-past for him. His fingers had forgotten whatever childish skill they had once had, and he refused it, embarrassed. Morgaine also declined; if there was ever a time when she had had leisure to learn music, he could not imagine it.

But Morgaine spoke with them instead, and they seemed pleased by what she said. There followed a little discussion, in which he could not share, before the girl sang one last song.

Then dinner was done, and the villagers went their own way to beds in their houses, while oldest children were quick to make their guests a place nearest the fire… two pallets and a curtain for privacy, and a kettle of warm water for washing.

The last of the children went down the outside steps and Vanye drew a long breath, in this first solitude they had enjoyed since riding in. He saw Morgaine unbuckle her armor, ridding herself of that galling weight, which she did not do on the trail or in any chancy lodging. If she were so inclined, he felt himself permitted, and gratefully stripped down to shirt and breeches, washed behind the curtain and dressed again, for he did not utterly trust the place. Morgaine did likewise; and they settled down with their weapons near them, to sleep alternately.

His watch was first, and he listened well for any stirring in the village, went to the windows and looked out on this side and on the other, on the forest and the moonlit fields, but there was no sign of movement, nor were the village windows all shuttered. He went back and settled at the hearth in the warmth, and began to accept finally that all this bewildering gentleness was true and honest.

It was rare in all their journeying that there awaited them no curse, no hedge of weapons, but only kindness.

Here Morgaine's name was not yet known.

The morning brought a smell of baking bread, and the stir of folk about the hall, a scatter of children who were hushed to quiet "Perhaps," Vanye murmured, smelling that pleasant aroma of baking, "a bit of hot bread to send us on our way."

"We are not going," Morgaine said, and he looked at her in bewilderment, not knowing whether this was good news or ill. "I have thought things through, and you may be right: here is a place where we can draw breath, and if we do not rest in it, then what else can we do but kill the horses under us and drive ourselves beyond our strength? There is no surety beyond any Gate. Should we win through-to another hard ride, and lose everything for want of what we might have gathered here? Three days. We can rest that long. I think your advice is good sense."

"Then you make me doubt it You have never listened to me, and we are alive, all odds to the contrary."

She laughed humorlessly. "Aye, but I have; and as for my own plans, some of the best of those have gone amiss at the worst of times. I have ignored your advice sometimes at our peril, and this time I take it I reckon our chances even."

They broke fast, served by grave-faced children who brought them some of that hot bread, and fresh milk and sweet butter besides. They ate as if they had had nothing the night before, for such a breakfast was not a luxury that belonged to outlawry.

Three days went too quickly; and the courtesy and gentleness of the folk brought something that Vanye would have given much to see: for Morgaine's gray eyes grew clean of that pain which had ridden there so long, and she smiled and sometimes laughed, softly and merrily.

The horses fared as well: they rested, and the children brought them handfuls of sweet grass, and petted them, and combed their manes and curried them with such zeal that Vanye found nothing to do for them but a bit of smithing– in which the village smith was all too willing to assist, with his forge and his skill.

Whenever he was at the pens with the horses, the children, particularly Sin, hung over the rails and chattered merrily to him, trying to ask him questions of the animals and Morgaine and himself, little of which he even understood.

"Please, khemeisVanye," said Sin, when he leaned to rest on the edge of the watering-keg, "please may we see the weapons?" At least so he put the words together.

He recalled his own boyhood, when he had watched in awe the dai-uyin,the high-clan gentlemen with their armor and their horses and weapons… but with the bitter knowledge of bastardy, which-for he had been a lord's bastard, gotten on a captive-made the attainment of such things desperate necessity. These were only village children, whose lives did not tend toward arms and wars, and their curiosity was that which they might hold toward the moon and stars… something remote from them, and untainted by understanding.

"Avert," he murmured in his own tongue, wishing harm from them, and unhooked the side ring of his sheathed sword, slipped it to his hand. He drew it, and let their grimy fingers touch the blade, and he let Sin-which filled the boy with delight-hold the hilt in his own hand and try the balance of it. But then he took it back, for he did not like the look of children with such a grim thing, that had so much blood on it.

Then, pointing, they asked to see the other blade that he carried, and he frowned and shook his head, laying his hand on that carven hilt at his belt. They cajoled, and he would not, for an Honor-blade was not for their hands. It was for suicide, this one, and it was not his, but one he carried, on his oath to deliver it.

"An elarrhthing," they concluded, in tones of awe; and he had not the least idea of their meaning, but they ceased asking, and showed no more desire to touch it.

"Sin," he said, thinking to draw a little knowledge from the children, "do men with weapons come here?"

At once there was puzzlement on Sin's face and in the eyes of the others, down to the least child. "You are not of ourforest," Sin observed, and used the plural you-surmise which shot all too directly to the mark. Vanye shrugged, cursing his rashness, which had betrayed him even to children. They knew the conditions of their own land, and had sense enough to find out a stranger who knew not what he should.

"Where are you from?" a little girl asked. And, wide-eyed, with a touch of delicious horror: "Are you sirreri?n

Others decried that suggestion in outrage, and Vanye, conscious of his helplessness in their small hands, bowed bis head and busied himself hooking his sword to his belt. He pulled on the ring of the belt that crossed his chest drawing the sword to his shoulder behind, hooked it to his side. Then: "I have business," he said, and walked away. Sin made to follow. "Please no," he said, and Sin fell back, looking troubled and thoughtful, which in no wise comforted him.

He walked back to the hall, and there found Morgaine, sitting with the clan elders and with some of the young men and women who had stayed from their day's work to attend her. Quietly he approached, and they made place for him as before. For a long time he sat listening to the talk that flowed back and forth between Morgaine and the others, understanding occasional small sentences, or the gist of them. Morgaine sometimes interrupted herself to give him an essential word-strange conversation for her, for they spoke much of their craps, and their livestock and their woods, of all the affairs of their village.

Like,he thought, a village discussing with its lord their state of affairs.Yet she accepted this, and listened more than she spoke, as was ever her habit.

At last the villagers took their leave, and Morgaine settled next the fire and relaxed a time. Then he came and rested on his knees before her, embarrassed by what he had to confess, that he had betrayed them to children.

She smiled when he had told her. "So. Well, I do not think it much harm. I have not been able to learn much of how qhalmay be involved in this land, but, Vanye, there are tilings here so strange I hardly see how we could avoid revealing ourselves as strangers."

"What does elarrhmean?"

"It comes from arrh,that is noble,or or,that is power,The words are akin, and it could be either, depending on the situation… either or both: for when one addressed a qhal-lord in the ancient days as arrhtheis,it meant both his status as a qhaland the power he had. To Men in those days, all qhalhad to be my lord,and the power in question was that of the Gates, which were always free to them, and never to Men… it has that distressing meaning too. Elarrhsomething belonging to power, or to lords. A thing of reverence or hazard. A thing which… Men do not touch."

Qhalurthoughts disturbed him, the more he comprehended the qhalurtongue. Such arrogance was hateful… and other things Morgaine had told him, which be had never guessed, of qhalurmaneuverings with human folk, things which hinted at the foundations of his own world, and those disturbed him utterly. There was much more, he suspected, which she dared not tell him. "What will you say to these folk," he asked, "and when-about the trouble we have brought on their land? Liyo,what do they reckon we are, and what do they think we are doing among them?"

She frowned, leaned forward, arms on knees. "I suspect that they reckon us both qhal,you perhaps halfling,… but after what fashion or with what feeling I can find no delicate means to ask. Warn them? I wish to. But I would likewise know what manner of thing we shall awaken here when I do. These are gentle folk; all that I have seen and heard among them confirms that. But what defends them… may not be."

It well agreed with his own opinion, that they trod a fragile place, safe in it, but perilously ignorant, and enmeshed in something that had its own ways.

"Be careful always what you say," she advised him. "When you speak in the Kurshin tongue, beware of using names they might know, whatever the language. But henceforth you and I should speak in their language constantly. You must gather what you can of it. It is a matter of our safety, Vanye."

"I am trying to do that," he said. She nodded approval, and they occupied themselves the rest of the day in walking about the village and the edge of the fields, talking together, impressing in his memory every word that could be forced there.

He had expected that Morgaine would choose to leave by the next morning, and she did not; and when that night came and he asked her would they leave on the morrow, she shrugged and in talking of something else, never answered the question. By the day after that, he did not ask, but took his ease in the village and settled into its routine, as Morgaine seemed to have done.

It was a healing quiet, as if the long nightmare that lay at their backs were illusion, and this sunny place were true and real. There was no word from Morgaine of leaving, as if by saving nothing she could wish away all hazard to them and their hosts.

But conscience worried at him, for the days they spent grew to many more than a handful. And he dreamed once, when they slept side by side-both slept, for sitting watch seemed unnecessary in the center of so friendly a place: he came awake sweating, and slept again, and wakened a second time with an outcry that sent Morgaine reaching for her weapons.

"Bad dreams in such a place as this?" she asked him. "There have been places with more reason for them."

But she looked concerned that night too, and lay staring into the fire long afterward. What the dream had been he could not clearly remember, only that there seemed something as sinister in his recollection as the creeping of a serpent on a nest, and he could not prevent it.

These folk will haunt me,he thought wretchedly. They two had no place here, and knew it; and yet selfishly lingered, out of time and place, seeking a little peace… taking it as a thief might take, stealing it from its possessors. He wondered whether Morgaine harbored the same guilt… or whether she had passed beyond it, being what she was, and impelled by the need to survive.

He was almost moved to argue it with her then; but a dark mood was on her, and he knew those. And when he faced her in the morning, there were folk about them; and later he put it off again, for when he faced the matter, the odds against them outside this place were something he had no haste to meet: Morgaine was gathering forces, and was not ready, and he was loath to urge her with arguments… when the geasfell on her, she passed beyond reason; and he did not want to be the one to start it.

So he bided, mending harness, working at arrows for a bow which he traded of a villager who was an excellent bowyer. It was offered free, once admired, but in his embarrassment Morgaine intervened with the offer of a return gift, a gold ring of strange workmanship, which must have lain buried in her kit a very long time. He was disturbed at that, suspecting that it might have meant something to her, but she laughed and said that it was time she left it behind.

So he had the bow, and the bowyer a ring that was the envy of his companions. He practiced his archery with the young folk and with Sin, who dogged his tracks faithfully, and strove to do everything that he did.

In the pen and agraze on the grassy margin of the fields, the horses grew sleek and lazy as the village's own cattle… and Morgaine, always the one who could not rest in an hour's delay, sat long hours in the sun and talked with the elders and the young herders, drawing on a bit of goatskin what became a great marvel to the villagers, who had never seen a map. Though they had the knowledge of which it grew, they had never seen their world set forth in such a perspective.

Mirrind, the village was named; and the plain beyond the forest was Azeroth; the forest was Shathan. In the center of the great circle that was Azeroth, she drew a skein of rivers, feeding a great river called the Narn; amid that circle also was written athatin,which was the Fires-or plainly said, the Gate of the World.

So peaceful Mirrind knew of the Gate, and held it in awe: Azerothen Athatin.Thus far their knowledge of the world did extend. But Morgaine did not question them on it closely. She made her map and lettered it in qhalurrunes, a fine fair band.

Vanye learned such runes… as he learned the spoken language. He sat on the step of the meeting hall and traced the symbols in the dust, learning them by writing all the new words that he had learned, and trying to forget the scruples in such things that came of being Kurshin. The children of Mirrind, who thronged him when he would tend the horses or who had such zeal to fetch his arrows that he feared for their safety, quickly found this exercise tedious and deserted him.

"Elarrh-work,"they pronounced it, which meant anything that was above them. They had awe of it, but when there was no amusement to come of it, and no pictures, they drifted away-all but Sin, who squatted barefoot in the dust and tried to copy.

Vanye looked up at the lad, who worked so intently, and poignant recollection stirred in him, of himself, who had never been taught, but that he had sought it, who had insisted oo having the things his legitimate brothers were born to have-and thereby gained what learning his mountain home could offer.

Now among all the children of Mirrind, here sat one who reached and wanted beyond the others, and who-when they had taken their leave-would be most hurt, having learned to desire something Mirrind could not give. The boy had no parents; they had died in some long-ago calamity. He had not asked into it. Sin was everyone's child, and no one's in particular. The others will be only ordinary,he thought, but what of this one?Remembering his sword in Sin's small band, he felt a chill, and blessed himself.

"What do you, khemeis?"Sin asked.

"I wish you well." He rubbed out the runes with his palm and rose up, with a great heaviness on him.

Sin looked at him strangely, and he turned to go up the steps of the hall. There was a sudden outcry somewhere down Mirrind's single street . . , not the shrieks of playing children, which were frequent, but a woman's outcry; and in sudden apprehension he turned. Hard upon it came the shouting of men, in tones of grief and anger.

He hesitated, his pulse that had seemed to stop now quickening into familiar panic; he hung between that direction and Morgaiue's, paralyzed in the moment, and then habit and duty sent him running up the steps to the shadowy hall, where Morgaine was speaking with two of the elders.

He needed not explain: Changelingwas in her hand and she was coming, near to running.

Sin lingered at the bottom of the steps, and tagged after them as they walked the commons toward the gathering knot of villagers. The sound of weeping reached them… and when Morgaine arrived the gathering gave way for her, all but a few: the elders Melzein and Melzeis, who stood trying to hold back their tears; and a young woman and a couple in middle years who knelt holding their dead. To and fro they rocked, keening and shaking their heads.

"Eth," Morgaine murmured, staring down at a young man who had been one of the brightest and best of the village: hardly in his twenties, Eth of clan Melzen, but skilled in hunting and archery, a happy man, a herder by trade, who had laughed much and loved his young wife and had no enemies. His throat had been cut, and on his half-naked body were other wounds that could not have brought death in themselves, but would have caused great pain before he was killed.

They gave him his death,Vanye thought fearfully. He must have told them what they wanted.Then he reckoned what kind of man he had become, who could think foremost of that. He had known Eth. He found himself trembling and close to being sick as if he had never looked on the like.

Some of the children were sick, and clung to their parents crying. He found Sin against his side, and set his hand on the boy's shoulder, drew him over to his clan elders and gave him into their care. Bytheis took Sin in his arms and Sin's face was still set and stricken.

"Should the children look on this?" Morgaine asked, shocking them from their daze. "You are in danger. Set armed men out on the road and all about the village and let them watch. Where was he found? Who brought him?"

One of the youths stepped forward-Tal, whose clothes were bloody and his hands likewise. "I, lady. Across the ford." Tears ran down his face. "Who has done this? Lady– why?"

Council met in the hall, the while the Melzen kindred prepared the body of their son for burial; and there was unbearable heaviness in the air. Bythein and Bytheis wept quietly; but Sersen-clan was angry in its grief, and its elders were long in gathering the self-possession to speak. The silence waited on them, and at last the old man of the pair rose and walked to and fro across the fireside.

"We do not understand," he cried at last, his wrinkled hands trembling as he gestured. "Lady, will you not answer me? You are not our lady, but we have welcomed you as if you were, you and your khemeis.There is nothing in the village we would deny you. But now do you ask a life of us and not explain?"

"Serseis," Bytheis objected, his old voice quavering, and he put a hand on Serseis' sleeve to restrain him.

"No, I am listening," Morgaine said.

"Lady," said Serseis, "Eth went where you sent him: so say all the young folk. And you bade him not tell his elders, and he obeyed you. Wheredid you send him? He was not khemeis;he was his parents' only child; he never went to that calling. But did you not sense that the desire was in him? His pride made him take risks for you. To what did you send him? May we not know? And who has done so terrible a thing?"

"Strangers," she answered. Not all the words could Vanye understand, but he understood most, and filled in the rest well enough. At the feelings which gathered in the air of this hall now, he stood close to Morgaine. Shall I get the horses?he had asked her in his own tongue, before this council met No,she had answered, with such distraction that he knew she pulled both ways, with anxiety to be moving and guilt for Mirrind's danger. She lingered, and knew better; and he knew better, and sweat gathered on his sides and trickled under the armor. "We had hoped they would not come here."

"From where?" Sersein asked. The old woman laid her hand on the rolled map that lay atop the table, Morgaine's work. "Your questions search all the land, as if you are looking for something. You are not our lady. Your khemeisis not of our village nor even of our blood. From some far land you surely come, my lady. Is it a place where things like this are common? And did you expect such a thing when you sent Eth out against it? Perhaps you have reasons that are valid, but it takes the lives of our children and you knew-could you not have told us? And will yon not tell us now? Make us understand."

There was utter stillness for a time in which could be heard the fire, and from somewhere outside the bleating of a goat, and the crying of a baby. The shocked faces of the elders seemed frozen in the cold light from the many windows.

"There are," Morgaine said at last, "enemies abroad; and they are spread throughout Azeroth. We watch here and rest, and through your young men, I have kept watch over you as best I could… for your young folk know these woods far better than we. Yes, we are strangers here; but we are not of their kind, that would do such a thing. We hoped to have warning-not a warning such as this. Eth was the one-as you say-who ranged farthest and risked himself most. I knew this. I warned him. I warned him urgently."

Vanye bit his lip and his heart beat painfully in anger that Morgaine had said nothing of this to him… for he would have gone, and come back not as Eth did. She had sent innocents out instead, boys who little knew what quarry they might start from cover.

But the elders sat silent now, afraid more than angry, and hung on her words.

"Do none," asked Morgaine, "ever come from Azeroth?"

"You would best know that," Bythein whispered.

"Well, it has happened," Morgaine said, "And you are near to the plain, and there are Men massed there, strangely armed and minded to take all the plain of Azeroth and ail the land round about. They could have gone in any direction, but they have chosen this one. They are thousands. Vanye and I are not enough to stop them. What befell Eth was the handiwork of their outriders, seeking what they could find; and now they have found it I have only bitter advice to give now. Take your people and walk away from Mirrind; go deep into the forest and hide there; and if the enemies come farther, then flee again. Better to lose houses than lives; better to live that way than to serve men who would do what was done to Eth. You do not fight; and therefore you must run."

"Will you lead us?" Bythein asked.

So simple, so instant of belief: Vanye's heart turned in him, and Morgaine sadly shook her head.

"No. We go our own way, and best for you and for us if you forget that we have ever been among you."

They bowed their heads, one after the other, and looked as if their world had ended… indeed it had.

"We shall mourn more than Eth," said Serseis.

"This night you will rest here," said Sersein. "Please."

"We ought not."

"Please. Only tonight. If you are here, we shall be less afraid."

It was truer than Sersein might understand, that Morgaine had power to protect them; and to Vanye's surprise, Morgaine bowed her head and consented.

And within the same degree of the sun, there was renewed mourning in Mirrind, as the elders told the people what they had learned and what was advised them to do.

"They are naive people," said Vanye heavily. "Liyo,I fear for what will become of them."

"If they are simple enough to believe me utterly, they may live. But it will be different here." She shook her head and turned away for the inside of the hall, for there came the women and children down the midst of the commons, to begin the preparation of the evening meal.

Vanye went to the horses, and made sure that all was in readiness for the morning. He was alone when he went but when he reached the gate, he heard someone behind him, and it was Sin.

"Let me go where you go," Sin asked of him. "Please."

"No. You have kin who will need you. Think of that and be glad that you have them. If you went where we go, you would never see them again."

"You will never come back to us?"

"No. Not likely."

It was direct and cruel, but it was needful. He did not want to think of the boy building dreams about him, who least deserved them. He had encouraged him too much already. He made his face grim, and attended to his work, in the hope that the boy would grow angry and go away.

But Sin joined him and helped him as he always had; and Vanye found it impossible to be hard with him. He set Sin finally on Mai's back, which was Sin's constant hope, whenever they would take the horses out to graze, and Sin stroked the mare's neck, and suddenly burst into tears, which he tried to hide.

He waited until the boy had stopped his crying, and helped him down again, and they walked together back to the hall.

Dinner was a mournful time. There were no songs, for they had buried Eth at sundown and they had no heart for singing. There was only hushed conversation and few even had appetite, but there were no animosities, no resentment shown them, not even by Eth's closest kin.

Morgaine spoke to the people in the midst of dinner, in a hush in which not even a child cried: babes slept in arms, exhausted by the day's madness, and there was a silence on all the children.

"Again I advise you to leave," she said. "At least tonight and every day hereafter, have your young men on guard, and do what you can to hide the road that leads here. Please believe me and go from this place. What Vanye and I can do to delay the evil, we will do, but they are thousands, and have horses and arms, and they are both qhaland Men."

Faces were stricken, the elders themselves undone by this, which she had never told them. Bythein rose, leaning on her staff. "What qhalwould wish us harm?"

"Believe that these would. They are strangers in the land, and cruel, even more than the Men. Do not resist them; flee them. They are too many for you. They passed the Fires out of their own land, that was ruined and drowning, and they came here to take yours."

Bythein moaned aloud, and sank down again, and seemed ill. Bytheis comforted her, and all clan Bythen stirred in their seats, anxious for their elder.

"This is an evil we have never seen," said Bythein when she had recovered herself. "Lady, we understand then why you were reluctant to speak to us. Qhal!Ah, lady, what a thing is this?"

Vanye filled his cup with the ale that Mirrind brewed and drank it down, trying with that to wash the tautness from his throat… for he had not shaped what followed them and now threatened Mirrind, but he had had his hand on it while it formed, and he could not rid himself of the conviction that somehow he might have turned it aside.

One thing of certainty he might have done, and that regarded the Honor-blade which he carried, a kinslaying that might have averted all this grief. In pity, in indecision, he had not done it. To save his life, he had not.

And Morgaine: indeed she had launched what pursued them, more than a thousand years ago as Men reckoned time… men who had not trespassed in Gates. Her allies once, that army that followed them-the children's children of men that she had led.

There was much that wanted drowning this night. He would have gotten himself drunk, but he was too prudent for that, and the time was too hazardous for self-indulgence. He stopped short of it, and, likewise in prudence, ate-for the wolves were at their heels once more, and a man ought to eat, who never knew whether the next day's flight would give him leisure for it.

Morgaine too ate all that was set before her, and that, the same as his, he thought, was not appetite but common sense. She survived well… it was a gift of hers.

And when the hall was clear, she gathered up what supplies they could possibly carry, and made two packs of it .. . more than to distribute the weight: it was their constant fear that they could be separated, or one fall and the other have to continue. They carried no necessity solely on one horse.

"Sleep," she urged him when he would have stood watch.

"Trust them?"

"Sleep lightly."

He arranged his sword by him, and she lay down with Changelingin her arm… unarmored, as they had both slept unarmored since the first night in Mirrind.