The Limbreth Gate tkavq-3

by Megan Lindholm

  'Yes. No. Hell, get off me! I don't want her if she doesn't want to be with me.'

  'Now he decides that. Wonderful. Beware of ifs, Human. They dilute your purpose and spoil your drive. Consider your decision with no ifs. You want her. You have her. Keep her after this.'

  'That's easy for you to say. You don't care about her. You won't wonder if it's right for her, good for her.'

  'I'd get more sense out of talking to Black. Look at her, fool! Does she look like the Limbreths are good for her?'

  'There are other things besides being alive and healthy,' Vandien began in a low voice, but the Brurjan cut him off with a hoot of laughter. 'Name one thing worth having that you can get without being alive and healthy,' she demanded.

  'She wants to leave a mark on this world, a memorial to her passing.'

  'Sort of like a pile of horseshit in the road.' Hollyika gave him her Brurjan snarl-grin. 'You're funny, Human. I've laughed more since I met up with you than I have in years. Come here, Black.'

  The horse wheeled and came to her call. Vandien watched her in curiosity, then saw her set her mouth to his wounds, cleansing them with her tongue. 'Taste good?' he asked her as rudely as he could, and received another snort of laughter from her.

  He knelt over Ki, seeing for the first time that the Brurjan had bound her, wrist and ankle. Perhaps subduing Ki had not been as swift and easy as she had claimed. Her parting words still cut through his mind. Letting her go once had been hard enough; why did he have to face this twice? 'But I promised you, long ago, to never ask anything of you that you were not willing to give. If you are no longer willing to give me your companionship, how shall I force it from you? I don't think you are doing what is best for you; but it is not my right to decide that for you.' He reached to unfasten the rawhide thongs that bound her.

  Hollyika's short knife thudded suddenly into the turf beside him. 'Thanks,' he muttered, and reached for it to slice the bonds. But, 'Hands off her, Vandien. Next knife won't be a warning.'

  'You don't understand, Hollyika. I don't want her like this.'

  'Perhaps not. But I do. I caught her, I bound her, and that makes her mine. You had your chance at her. You let her go, knowing she was going back to her death. So now she's mine, and you'll keep your hands off her.'

  Vandien's dark eyes snapped as he pinned her with them. 'Do you really think I'll sit back for that?' he asked in a cold voice.

  She laughed. 'As if it mattered what you did! Human, I told you. And I'll only tell you once. Look at me. Do you think you could defeat me if we fight over her? I'll tell you an old Brurjan custom. Kill yourcaptives before you let them be rescued. If I had believed you had any chance of cutting her loose, that knife would have been in her. Now, hands off and go back to your own business.'

  Vandien remained motionless, calculating. He was no match for a Brurjan, even one as weakened as Hollyika, unless he could take her by treachery. Ki was in no position to side with him against her. He glowered at Hollyika, demanding, 'Why?'

  She reached under her armor to scratch. 'Because I want to. It doesn't suit me that she go back to the Limbreths. Maybe I bear them hostility for finding me unworthy of their confidences and leaving me to die on the road. Maybe I think she'll sell for a good price on the other side of the Gate. Maybe I think I owe her something. Or you. But maybe I'm doing it to spite you. Remember what I told you before, Vandien? You don't need to know what I think or feel. Only what I do. And I do leave her tied, and I am taking her with us. Get me some food, will you? If Black hadn't already been bled by those farmers, I'd have him again myself.'

  'The food's in the sack. Get it yourself,' Vandien snarled.

  She strode over to pluck her knife from the turf. She loomed over him, and then with a bark of laughter gave him a cuff that sent him sprawling. He was still recovering from it as she took food from the bag. 'Vandien,' she called over her shoulder in an affable voice, 'you may yet be worth something. At least you growl well, even when you know you're beaten. Want anything to eat?'

  'I'm still chewing my pride, thank you,' he muttered as he rose to dust tendrils of moss from his clothes.

  'It's too late for you to eat anyway,' Hollyika observed calmly. 'Time for us to be riding on. I'm loading her back onto the nasty grey. If we meet more farmers, I don't want her hampering me. You'll still lead her horse, but don't get any stupid ideas.'

  'Have I ever had any other kind?' Vandien asked bitterly, and moved to help load Ki. She was too light in his arms. He placed her as comfortably as he could, but she still looked as fragile as the flower he had stepped on. As he secured her in place, the rain began. No warning patter preceded it; it came down like a curtain, chill, soaking, relentless.

  In the time it took him to get to Sigmund's back the horse was already drenched. He didn't want to move out of the grove's shelter, but Vandien pressed him on. Hollyika and Black were a sable shadow in front of him. The road was theirs again, empty of pursuit for as far as Vandien could see in the driving rain.

  The spattering drops drowned all other sound. His hair soaked to his scalp, and then rivulets of water began to trickle down his face. His moustache was like a damp rag pressed to his mouth. He shook his head to clear the tickling drops, but the water clung like oil. He resigned himself to it and fixed his eyes on Hollyika's back as she plodded along, past meadows and marsh and field. At least she looked as uncomfortable as he felt. Wherever her fur was exposed, it was soaked into dripping points. Her sodden crest flopped to one side, ruining her warlike appearance.

  'Vandien!' The long wailing cry cut through the rain noise and reached him. Vandien in his turn called forward to Hollyika and reined in his mount. Sigmund was glad of the rest. The road, once so fair and hard, was now softening again into a sucking muck that gripped hooves when it did not slip beneath them. Vandien was shivering, rain running down his bare arm on one side and soaking his sleeve on the other. He could not remember a more miserable night. 'Ki's awake,' he told the Brurjan as her black horse picked its cautious way back to him. 'With your most gracious permission, I'll cut the bonds on her ankles so she can ride upright.'

  'No.' Hollyika's voice was flat. 'I know of what I speak. She'd find a way to turn that beast and set heels to it. It's her horse, after all, and used to taking the commands of her voice. No, she rides well enough the way she is.'

  A slow anger began to burn inside Vandien as he looked into her grim face. He glanced again to the rain dripping from Ki's lank mop of hair. 'Look at her,' he said flatly, 'You'll kill her. Who knows when she last ate?'

  'No. She's tougher than she looks. Even I know that, as short a time as I have known her. She last ate before I met her on the riverbank; I would wager on that. And she has drunk only the Limbreth water since then. But don't worry about that. Romni can go forever on a sip of water and a gnawed bone ? I should know, I've rousted enough of them. She'll be fine. You think you are trying to aid a friend, but you're only dancing to the Limbreth's tune. She is theirs. They have all her thoughts; she doesn't care for her own well-being or comfort. So we won't either. Let her ride belly down; it's the least bother to us.'

  'Listen to me!' Ki gasped out the words, spitting aside strands of hair. She was panting with the effort of speaking while face down across Sigurd's back. 'I have words for you.'

  'Say them,' Hollyika ordered tersely, and silenced Vandien with a glare.

  'The Limbreths speak to me, and through me to you. They bid me make their will known to you, unenlightened as you are.' Ki paused, and Hollyika rolled her eyes at the dramatic wording. But Vandien leaned closer, brows knit, for the voice that spoke was strangely unlike Ki's, as if someone else did speak through her mouth. Though, he reflected quickly, he had not often spoken to her while she was flung over a horse like a sack of grain.

  'The Limbreths have decided to grant you their mercy. It grieves them, for you both turn aside from the graces and knowledge they offer, and from a chance to make more of your lives than merely a time to eat, r
ut, and sleep.'

  'They left out fighting.' Hollyika grinned over to Vandien.

  Ki drew breath. 'You may go. They will make it very easy for you to regain the Gate. If you set me free to return to them and to finish the task we have begun. They do not desire to hamper you in pursuing your petty goals; all they ask is the return of their consecrated servant, that she may finish the task she set herself.'

  'And if we don't? What if one of our petty goals is taking her back to the Gate with us?'

  'Then you will fail. Do you think the road is bad now? Defy them, and see what it becomes. The folk of this land will rise up against you, in numbers you cannot ignore, and the road will forget the way to the Gate and lead you only to your destruction. And mine also. So you see, you cannot save me for whatever end you had in mind. Better to release me now, and go on to the Gate unmolested, than to stubbornly follow a path that leads to all our deaths.'

  Hollyika snorted merrily. 'Lovely logic. We should set you free and go our way, so we all get what we want. The only thing they do not mention is that you are to run back to your own death at their hands. So, it's all one to us, whether you die doing the Limbreth's bidding, or by being spitted on a farmer's staff.Vandien. Pass me the waterskin.'

  He unlooped it from where it was strapped on Sigurd's back. Hollyika took it from him, and slid from her horse, her boots sinking deep in the muck. 'Drink or drown,' she told Ki. As Vandien opened his mouth to protest, Hollyika stared him down with baleful eyes. 'If you get off that horse, I'll break her neck. This is no worse than that sludge you forced down me. Where was your sensitivity and mercy then? Look the other way, if you must.'

  But he couldn't. The Brurjan moved close to Ki, trapped her head at an awkward angle in the bend of her arm, and forced the neck of the waterskin between her teeth. She pinched Ki's nose shut and squeezed the waterskin. Ki gasped and spluttered as best she could, choking, and then gulping the water to clear the way for air to her lungs. But another spurt of water followed before air, and most of it went down. Hollyika released her. Ki choked and gasped and sneezed violently. 'Too bad we can't get food into her the same way,' Hollyika observed calmly. 'It might bring her to her own senses again. But we've no time to stop, and no dry wood or pot for you to use to brew up another of your disgusting messes. The longer we stand here, the more time they'll have to carry out their threats. Let's be on.'

  'The Gate can't be far,' Vandien agreed wretchedly as he eyed Ki. Her eyes had sagged shut and the rain dripped from her face. 'I remember that I ran from the Gate all the way to the bridge on foot. We've come a good gallop from the bridge already. I think the Limbreths know we are nearly out of their reach, and are trying to bluff us out of our captive.'

  'Come on.' Hollyika remounted. The black slogged ahead of them and Sigmund fell in behind him, and a tug on the lead rope brought Sigurd at their heels. Vandien tried to sit so as to make no shift of weight that would throw the great horse off stride in the dangerously mucky footing. The rain streamed down endlessly upon them from a blacked sky and the road dwindled to a trail of mud between trees. In vain Vandien looked for some sign of the fragrant flowering trees that had arched his path when first he came through the Gate. All was blackness ahead, no sign of the Gate's red mouth. The trees that hedged the road now were black leafless things with long raking thorns jutting from their reaching branches. The path was narrower than Vandien remembered, and not well trodden. Roots humped up in the middle of it to make the weary horses stumble. Twice swift running streams crossed their path. They had cut deep gouges in the trail, so that the big horses lurched down into them, and then awkwardly lunged up again, their wide hooves slipping and squelching in the bad footing. On they rode, and on. The trail became a track, and dwindled to less than that. Soon the horses were breaking through vines that twined across their path from tree to tree. Vandien was damned if he knew what signs Hollyika was following; there were not even any stars to give them a heading. They could be endlessly circling. But the black horse ahead of him kept plodding on, and he kept the greys in its tracks. He could think of nothing better to do, even though he knew they should have reached the Gate long ago.

  Slower and slower they plodded. Sigurd bunched up on Sigmund's heels, and Vandien became aware of Ki's voice speaking. How long she had been talking he didn't know, but she was speaking to him. Her tone was calm and reasonable, her words weighted and barbed.

  '... Dragged me from one of your impulses to another. Never content to let me live my own life in my own way, were you? In the Pass of the Sisters, you turned death aside from me, even though I was ready to accept and even welcome that end. But no, all-seeing Vandien decided it wasn't right for me then. You moved in on me, upsetting my life and routine, making me more than ever a stranger among my own people. You with your loud and rowdy ways, never aware of when a man should be silent or when gravity is more seemly than a callous laugh. How often have your foolish ideas slowed me when I had a goal to hasten to? You with your fine words of companionship and sharing; do you call this respect for one another's wishes? The only reason you want me is so that there will be someone to play mother tothe child you still are. Someone to be responsible for your silliness, to look to the morrow and make your decisions for you. There is no caring in that.'

  Vandien bowed to her words and to the rain. They fell on him, eroding him. The greys plodded ever slower; he could not keep his eyes from darting back to her. Every word fell coldly and clearly in his ears, demoralizing as the rain. The pain was almost hypnotic. Much of what she said he could not deny. He absorbed the abuse numbly.

  'You damn fool! Do I have to put a lead on your horse too, so we all go like a line of blind beggars?' Hollyika pushed her horse into his, and gave him a quick shot to the ribs that was neither gentle nor jesting. 'Wake up! I'm as weary as you, but we have to push on. I looked back and couldn't even see you in this muck. Do you want to get lost?'

  'Aren't we already?' Vandien asked dully. Hollyika didn't answer. She had become aware of Ki's low monologue and was listening in fascination. 'She's come back to herself a bit,' she said as Ki paused for breath. 'Seems a bit sharper and nastier than what a Limbreth would inspire her to say. A bit more personal, too. When you're in their hands, personal memories blur to a mist. But she seems to recollect your times together well enough. Whew! What a bastard you've been to her; wonder why she kept you. Listen, you!' This last was to Ki in a grim voice. 'Shut your mouth for a minute and listen to me. You hoped to get him to slip you loose, didn't you? A few kicks in the pride like that, and most men would let go. But I don't have any pride for you to trade on, and I'm the one who holds you. Pass that on to your Limbreths. And pass them this, too. I've thought things out rather thoroughly, riding through this crud. Here's the offer. They let us find the Gate, then we let you go. But if we don't find it damn quick, I'm going to start taking blood from you. I'm hungry, and my control slips when I'm hungry - and from you, too, if you try to interfere. Get your hand off that rapier hilt. I'll take the lead rope now. If you don't pay better attention, the only thing you'll loose is yourself. Move!'

  Vandien didn't. His hand remained on the hilt where it had lightly fallen at the beginning of Hollyika's threat. He still gripped the lead line. He turned eyes on her that were darker than the blackness around them.

  'Don't get stupid on me now, Vandien. It's the only way out.'

  Vandien swallowed but remained silent and motionless, waiting for her to make a move. His heart hammered as he tried not to figure the odds against him. She was closer to Ki than he was. Her knife would be in her before he could move, unless he could figure a way to draw the attack to himself first.

  'Vandien.' Ki's voice was as hoarse as it had earlier been clear. 'Please. Don't. You'll only get us both killed.'

  'And that matters to you? First sensible thing we've heard out of you. A little more water might do you good, if we had the time. But we don't. And you, with the rain running into your mouth and soaking into your skin. Tr
y to use your own brain. Listen to her. Don't be stupid.'

  Vandien's grip on the rapier had firmed. He strained his eyes, trying to be aware of every small move the Brurjan made. But the night was dark, the falling rain muffled the softer sounds of her movements, and her horse was shifting restlessly under her. As her stout forearm lashed out and cleared him from his horse, he realized belatedly that she had been guiding her horse in with small commands from her heels. He lit in briars and mud, struggling to rise and draw his weapon at the same time. But Hollyika's horse was already between him and Ki, its eyes shining wickedly. 'Did you tell the Limbreths yet?' Hollyika pressed Ki, and when there was no reply, she leaned down to grip her by the hair. 'Did you tell them?'she snarled, yanking her head up so she saw the bared knife before her eyes.

  'Yes!' Ki gasped. 'I don't need to tell them. They hear all, they know all.'

  Vandien had stepped lightly as they spoke, working his way around her horse. But Hollyika swung her attention back to him, and with a curse sent her beast lunging at him. He retreated, the treacherous briars tripping him. He fell heavily onto his back, clutching his rapier before him. The horse was coming on, but Ki's voice suddenly cried out, 'The Gate! The Gate!'

  Vandien waited for death, the rain splashing on him, his rapier a tiny sting that would only madden the horse that loomed over him. But the Brurjan had checked at Ki's cry. She glared angrily down at Vandien, and glanced back to Ki. Ki shook her head to fling the wet hair from her face. 'Over there!' she cried, tossing her head in the direction.

  'I'll be damned. They came around pretty quick.'

  The Gate was visible as a red shining through the trees. The light was dim, a blackened red, but in this place of darkness it shone like a beacon. Hollyika's teeth flashed suddenly at Vandien in a menacing smile. 'Get up!' she laughed at him. 'We're getting out of here.'

  'What about me?' Ki gasped. 'Let me go. At least, let me sit up.'

  Hollyika appraised her silently as the rain fell all around them. 'Let her up,' she grunted at last to Vandien.