Fires of Azeroth

by C. J. Cherryh

  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 141

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  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 him quickly 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."

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  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-lord and 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 turn 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 scalearmor 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 143

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  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 for 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: bastard was 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 her once 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—"

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  "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 hi
m, and he flung the hair from his eyes, ready to fight the rest of them. One tried to 145

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  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.

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  Chapter 11

  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. I 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 that 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 khalur plunder; 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.

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  "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 animal, 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 khalur riders 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.

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  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 khalur riders 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.

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  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 scalearmor and cut high. Fwar parried; Vanye rammed the spurs in and defended in turn, cut downward as the gelding shied up. Fwar screamed, tumbled 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.

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  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, dead before he left the saddle.