The Complete Morgaine

by C. J. Cherryh

  Chapter 17

  Cold wind whipped among the rocks where they sheltered, and they wrapped in their cloaks and sat still, warmed by hot drink which the arrha brought out to them—fed, although they were so bloody and wretched that food was dry in the mouth. Arrha tended their horses, for they were hardly fit to care for them themselves; Vanye interfered in that only to assure himself that at least one of them had some skill in the matter, and then he returned to Morgaine.

  Sezar joined them finally, supported by two of the young arrha and wrapped in a heavy cloak; Lellin arose to rebuke him, but said nothing after all, for joy that he was able to have come. The khemeis sank down at his feet and Sharrn’s and rested against their knees, perhaps as warm as he would have been inside and fretting less for being where they were.

  Morgaine sat outermost of their group, and looked on them little; generally she gazed outward with a bleak concentration which made her face stark in the glare from Nehmin’s open doors. Her arm was hurting her, perhaps other wounds as well. She carried it tucked against her, her knees drawn up. Vanye had moved into such a position that he blocked most of the wind, the only charity she would accept, possibly because she did not notice it. He hurt; in every muscle he hurt, and not alone with that, but with the anguish in Morgaine.

  Changeling had killed, had taken lives none of them could count; and more than that—it had taken yet another friend; that was the weight on her soul now, he thought: that and worry for the morrow.

  There was still the tumult on the field below . . . sometimes diminishing, sometimes increasing as bands surged toward the rock of Nehmin and away again.

  “The road must surely be blocked with the stonefall,” Vanye observed, and then realized that would remind her of the arrha and the ruin, and he did not want to do that.

  “Aye,” she said in Andurin. “I hope.” And then with a shake of her head, still staring into the dark: “It was a fortunate accident. I do not think we should have survived otherwise. Fortunate too . . . Fortunate too . . . there were none of us in the gap twixt Changeling and the arrha.”

  “You are wrong.”

  She looked at him.

  “Not fortunate,” he said. “Not chance. The little arrha knew. I bore her across the field down there. She had great courage. And I believe she thought it through and waited until it had to be tried.”

  Morgaine said nothing. Perhaps she took peace of it. She turned back to the view into the dark, where cries drifted up fainter and fainter. Vanye looked in that direction and then back at her, with a sudden chill, for he saw her draw her Honor-blade. But she cut one of the thongs that hung at her belt-ring and gave it to him, sheathing the blade again.

  “What am I to do with this?” he asked, thoroughly puzzled.

  She shrugged, looking for once unsure of herself. “Thee never told me thoroughly,” she said, lapsing into that older, familiar accent, “for what thee was dishonored . . . why they made thee ilin, that I know; but why did they take thy honor from thee too? I would never,” she added, “order thee to answer.”

  He looked down, clenching the thong taut between his fists, conscious of the hair that whipped about his face and neck. He knew then what she was trying to give him, and he looked up with a sudden sense of release. “It was for cowardice,” he said, “because I would not die at my father’s wish.”

  “Cowardice.” She gave a breath of a laugh, dismissing such a thought. “Thee?—Braid thy hair, Nhi Vanye. Thee’s been too long on this road for that.”

  She spoke very carefully, watching his face: in this grave matter even liyo ought not to intervene. But he looked from her to the dark about them and knew that this was so. With a sudden resolve he set the thong between his teeth and swept back his hair to braid it, but the injured arm would not bear that angle. He could not complete it, and took the thong from his mouth with a sigh of frustration. “Liyo—”

  “I might,” she said, “if thy arm is too sore.”

  He looked on her, his heart stopped for a moment and then beginning again. No one touched an uyo’s hair, save his closest kin . . . no woman except one in intimate relation with him. “We are not kin,” he said.

  “No. We are far from kin.”

  She knew, then, what she did. For a moment he tried to make some answer, then as it were of no consequence, he turned his back to her and let her strip out his own clumsy braiding. Her fingers were deft and firm, making a new beginning.

  “I do not think I can make a proper Nhi braid,” she said. “I have done only my own once and long ago, Chya.”

  “Make it Chya, then; I am not ashamed of that.”

  She worked, gently, and he bowed his head in silence, feeling what defied speaking. Long-time comrades, she and he; at least in distance and time as men measured it; ilin and liyo—he thought that there might be great wrong in what had grown between them; he feared that there was—but conscience in this area grew very faint.

  And that Morgaine kri Chya set affection on anything vulnerable to loss—he knew what that asked of her.

  She finished, took the thong from him and tied it. The warrior’s knot was familiar and yet unaccustomed to him, setting his mind back to Morija in Kursh, where he had last been entitled to it. It was a strange feeling. He turned then, met her gaze without lowering his eyes as once he might. That was also strange.

  “There are many things,” he said, “we have never reckoned with each other. Nothing is simple.”

  “No,” she said. “Nothing is.” She turned her face to the dark again, and suddenly he realized there was silence below . . . no clash of arms, no distant shouting, no sound of horses.

  The others realized it too. Merir stood and looked out over the field, of which only the vaguest details could be seen. Lellin and Sharrn leaned on the rocks to try to see, and Sezar struggled up with Lellin’s help to look out over the edge.

  Then from far away came thin cries, no warlike shouts, but terror. Such continued for a long time, at this point of the horizon and that.

  Afterward was indeed silence.

  And a beginning of dawn glimmered in the overcast east.

  • • •

  The light came slowly as always over Shathan. It sprang from the east to touch the gray clouds, and lent vague form to the tumbled rocks, the ruin of the great cliffs of Nehmin, and the distant breached gate of the Lesser Horn. The White Hill took shape in the morning haze, and the circular rim of the grove which ringed them about. Bodies of men lay thick on the field, blackening areas of it. Birds came with the dawn. A few frightened horses milled this way and that, riderless, unnatural restlessness.

  But of the horde . . . none living.

  It was long before any of them moved. Silently the arrha had come forth into the daylight, and stood staring at the desolation.

  “Harilim,” said Merir. “The dark ones must have done this thing.”

  But then the distant call of a horn sounded, and drew their eyes northward, to the very rim of the clearing. There was a small band gathered there, which began their ride to Nehmin even as they watched.

  “They came,” said Lellin. “The arrhend has come.”

  “Blow the answer to them,” Merir said, and Lellin lifted the horn to his lips and sounded it loud and long.

  The horses began in their far distance, to run.

  And Morgaine gathered herself up, leaning on Changeling. “We have a road to open,” she said.

  • • •

  It was a grisly ruin, that tumbled mass on the lower road which had been the Dark Horn. They approached it carefully, and perhaps the arrhendim had vision of setting hands to that jumble of vast blocks, for they murmured dismay; but Morgaine rode forward and dismounted, drew Changeling from its sheath.

  The blade shimmered into life, enveloped stone after stone with that gulf at its tip, and whirled them away otherwhere . . . no random choice, but
carefully, this one and the next and the next, so that some rocks fell and some slid over the brink and other were taken. Even yet Vanye blinked when it was done, for the mind refused such vision, the visible diminution of that debris whirled away into the void, carried on the wind. When even a small way was cleared, it seemed yet impossible what had stood there before.

  They went past it fearfully, with an eye to the slide above them, for Morgaine had taken some care that it be secure, but the whole mass was too great and too new to be certain. There was enough space for them to pass; and below, cautiously, they must venture it again on the lower windings of the road.

  The carnage was terrible in this place: the road had been packed with Shiua when the Horn came down, here and in other levels. In some places Morgaine must clear their way through the dead, and they were wary of stragglers, of ambush, by arrow or stonefall, at any moment; but they met none. The lonely sounds of their own horses’ hooves rolled back off the cliff and up out of the rocks of the Lesser Horn as they wound their way down to that breached fortress.

  This Vanye most dreaded; so, surely, did they all. But it had to be passed. Daylight showed through the broken doors as they rode near; they rode within and found death, dead horses and dead Men and khal, arrow-struck and worse. Beams and timbers from the shattered doors were scattered so that they must dismount, dangerous as it was, and lead the horses among Shiua dead.

  There lay Vis, her small body almost like a marshlander’s for size, fallen among her enemies, hacked with many wounds; and by the far gates was Perrin, her pale hair spilled about her and her bow yet in her dead fingers. An arrow had found her heart.

  But of Roh, there was no sign.

  Vanye dropped the reins of his horse and searched among the dead, finding nothing; Morgaine waited, saying nothing.

  “I would find him,” he pleaded, seeing the anger she had not spoken, knowing he was delaying them all.

  “So would I,” she answered.

  He thrust this way and that among the bodies and the broken planks, the crashes of disturbed timbers echoing off the walls. Lellin helped him . . . and it was Lellin who found Roh, heaving aside the leaf of the front gate which had fallen back against the wall, the only one of the four still half on its hinges.

  “He is alive,” Lellin said.

  Vanye worked past the obstacle, and put his shoulder beneath it, heaved it back with a crash that woke the echoes. Roh lay half-covered in debris, and they pulled the beams from him with care, the more so for the broken shaft which was in his shoulder. Roh’s eyes were half open when they had him clear; Sharrn had brought his water flask, and Vanye bathed Roh’s face in it, gave him a sip to drink, lifting his head.

  Then with a heaviness of heart he looked at Morgaine, wondering whether having found him was kindness at all.

  She let Siptah stand and walked slowly over in the debris. Roh’s bow lay beside him, and his quiver that held one last arrow. She gathered up both out of the dust and knelt there, frowning, the bow clasped in her arms.

  Horses were coming up the road outside. She rose then and set the weapons in Lellin’s keeping, walking out into the gateway; but there was no alarm in her manner and Vanye stayed where he was, holding Roh on his knees.

  They were arrhendim, half a score of them. They brought the breath of Shathan with them, these green-clad riders, fair-haired and dark, scatheless and wrapped in dusty daylight from the riven doors. They reined in and dismounted, hurrying to give homage to Merir, and to exclaim in dismay that their lord was in such a place and so weary, and that arrhendim had died here.

  “We were fourteen when we came into this place,” said Merir. “Two of the nameless; Perrin Selehnnin, Vis of Amelend, Dev of Tirrhend, Larrel Shaillon, Kessun of Obisend: they are our bitter loss.”

  “We have taken little hurt, lord, of which we are glad.”

  “And the horde?” Morgaine asked.

  The arrhen looked at her and at Merir, seeming bewildered. “Lord—they turned on each other. The qhal and the Men—fought until most were dead. The madness continued, and some perished by our arrows, and more fled into Shathan among the harilim, and there died. But very, very many—died in fighting each other.”

  “Hetharu,” Roh whispered suddenly, his voice dry and strange. “With Hetharu gone—Shien; and then it all fell apart.”

  Vanye pressed Roh’s hand and Roh regarded him hazily. “I hear,” Roh breathed. “They are gone, the Shiua. That is good.”

  He spoke the language of Andur, thickly, but the brown eyes slowly gained focus, and more so when Morgaine left the others to stand above him. “Thee sounds as if thee will survive, Chya Roh.”

  “I could not do even this much well,” Roh said, self-mocking, which was Chya Roh and none of the other. “My apologies. We are back where we were.”

  Morgaine frowned and turned her back, walked away. “Arrhendim can tend him, and we shall. I do not want him near the arrha, or Nehmin. Better he should be taken into Shathan.”

  She looked about her then, at all the ruin. “I will come back to this place when I must, but for the moment I would rather the forest, the forest . . . and a time to rest.”

  • • •

  They made an easier ride this time across Azeroth, attended by old friends and new. They camped last beyond the two rivers, and there were arrhendur tents spread and a bright fire to warm the night.

  Merir had come . . . great honor to them; and Lellin and Sezar and Sharrn, no holding them from this journey; and Roh: Roh, sunk much of the time in lonely silence or staring bleakly elsewhere. Roh sat apart from the company, among the strange arrhendim of east Shathan, well guarded by them, although he did little and said less, and had never made attempt to run.

  “This Chya Roh,” Merir whispered that night, while the remnant of the company shared food together, all but Roh. “He is halfling, aye, and more than that—but Shathan would take him. We have taken some even of the Shiua folk who have come begging peace with the forest, who have some love of the green land. And could any man’s love for it be greater than his, who has offered his life for it?”

  He spoke to Morgaine, and Vanye looked on her with sudden, painful hope, for Roh’s fate had blighted all the peace of these last days. But Morgaine said nothing, and finally shook her head.

  “He fought for us,” said Lellin. “Sezar and I will speak for him.”

  “So do I,” said Sharrn. “Lady Morgaine, I am alone. I would take this Man, and Dev would not reproach me for it, nor would Larrel and Kessun.”

  Morgaine shook her head, although with great sadness. “Let us not speak of it again tonight. Please.”

  • • •

  But Vanye did, when that night they were alone, in the tent which they shared. A tiny oil lamp lent a faint glow among the shadows. He could see Morgaine’s face. A sad mood was on her, and one of her silences, but he ventured it all the same, for there was no more time.

  “What Sharrn offered . . . are you thinking of that?”

  Her gray eyes met his, guarded at once.

  “I ask it of you,” he said, “if it can be given.”

  “Do not.” Her voice had a hard edge, quiet as it was. “Did I not say: I will never go right or left to please you? I know only one direction, Vanye. If you do not understand that, then you have never understood me at all.”

  “If you do not understand my asking, hopeless as it is, then you have never understood me either.”

  “Forgive me,” she said then faintly. “Yes, I do. Thee must, being Nhi. But consider him, not your honor. What did you tell me . . . regarding what struggle he has? How long can he bear that?”

  He let go his breath and clenched his hands about his knees, for it was true; he considered Roh’s moodiness, the terrible darkness that seemed above him much of the time. The Fires were near dying. The power at Nehmin had been set to fade at a given day an
d hour, and that hour was evening tomorrow.

  “I have ordered,” Morgaine said, “that his guards watch him with special closeness this night.”

  “You saved his life. Why?”

  “I have watched him. I have been watching him.”

  He had never spoken with her of Roh’s fate, not in all the days that they had spent in the forest about Nehmin, while Roh and Sezar healed, while they rested and nursed their own wounds, and took the gentle hospitality of Shathan’s east. He had almost hoped then for her mercy, had even been confident of it.

  But when they had prepared to leave, she had ordered Roh brought with them under guard. “I want to know where you are,” she had told Roh; and Roh had bowed in great irony. “Doubtless you have stronger wishes than that,” Roh had answered, and the look of the stranger had been in his eyes. The stranger was much with them on this ride, even to this last night. Roh was quiet, morose; and sometimes it was Roh and as often it was not. Perhaps the arrhendim did not fully see this; if any suspected this shifting, it was likely Merir, and perhaps Sharrn, who knew fully what he was.

  “Do you doubt I consider what pain he suffers?” Vanye asked bitterly. “But I have faith in the outcome of this mood of his; and you always have faith in the worst. That is our difference.”

  “And we would not know until the Fires were dead, whether we should believe one thing or the other,” Morgaine said. “And thee and I cannot linger this side to find it out.”

  “And you do not take chances.”

  “I do not take chances.”

  There was long silence.

  “Never,” she said, “have I power to listen to heart more than head. Thee’s my better nature, Vanye. All that I am not, thee is. And when I come against that . . . Thee’s the only—well, I would miss thee. But I have thought it over . . . how perhaps if I should harm this man, thee would hate me; that thee would, finally, leave me. And thee will do what thee thinks right; and so must I, thee by heart, I by head; and which of us is right, I do not know. But I cannot let myself be led by wanting this and wanting that. I must be right. It is not what Roh can do that frets me; once the Fires are dead—I hope . . . I hope that he is powerless.”