He came up against the wall and his fingers sought the crevices in the stonework, affording him the means to pull himself up the old defensework at its lowest point. He slipped over the crest, dropped, landed in wet grass and slid to the bottom of the little enclosure on the slope inside. He gathered himself up slowly, shaken, feeling in every bone the misery of the long ride, the weakness of hunger. He feared as he had feared all along, that it was nothing other than a trap laid for him by Erij: Myya-deviousness, not to have told him the truth. That his brother should have committed a mistake in telling him the truth and in trusting him was distressing; Erij’s mistakes were few. His shoulders itched. He had the feeling that there might be an arrow centered there from some watcher’s post.
He yielded to the fear, judging it sensible, and darted into shadows, rounded the corner of the building where it was tucked most securely against the hill. There was a crack in the wall there that he well remembered, wide as a door, and yet one that ought to be safest to use, sheltered as it was.
He crept along the wall to that position, caught the stable-scent of horses. Large bodies moved within.
“ Liyo!” he hissed into the dark. Nothing responded. He eased his way inside, the pale glimmer of Siptah to his left, to his right, blackness.
“Do not move,” came Morgaine’s whisper. “Vanye, thee knows I mean it.”
He froze, utterly still. Her voice was from before him. Someone—he judged it to be Ryn—moved from behind him, put his hands at his waist and searched him cursorily for some hidden weapon before taking hold of the sword belt. He moved his head so that the strap could pass it the more easily: he was unaccountably relieved at the passing of that weight, as if he had been in the grip of something vile and were gently disentangled from it and set free.
Ryn carried it to her: he saw the shadow pass a place of dim starlight. For his own part his knees were trembling. “Let me sit,” he asked of her. “I am done, liyo. I have been night and day in the saddle reaching this place.”
“Sit,” she said, and he dropped gratefully to his knees, would gladly have collapsed on his face and slept, but it was neither the place nor the moment for it. “Ryn,” she said, “keep an eye to the approaches. I have somewkat to ask of him.”
“Do not trust him,” Ryn said, which stung him with rage. “The Nhi would not have made him a gift of the sword and set him free for love of you, lady.”
Fury rose in him, hate of the youth, so smooth, so un-scarred, so sure of matters with Morgaine. He found words strangled in his throat, and simply shook his head. But Ryn left. He heard the rustle of Morgaine’s cloak as she settled kneeling a little distance from him.
“Well it was thee spoke out,” she said softly. “A dozen or so have tried that way these past two days, to their grief.”
“Lady.” He bowed and pressed his forehead briefly to earth, pushed himself wearily upright again. ‘There is a large force, either on its way or here already. Erij covets Thiye’s power, thinking he can have it for himself.”
“You cried at me not to trust him,” she said, “and that I did believe. But how do I trust you now? Was the sword gift or stolen?”
What she said frightened him, so much as anything had power to frighten him, tired as he was: he knew how little mercy there was in her for what she did not trust, and he had no proof. “The sword itself is all that I can give you to show you,” he said. “Erij drew it: it killed, and he feared to hold it. When it fell, I took it and ran—it is a powerful key, lady, to gates and doors.”
She was silent for a moment. He heard the whisper of the blade drawn partway, the soft click as it slipped back to rest. “Did thee hold it, drawn?”
She asked that in such a tone as if she wished otherwise.
“Yes,” he said in a faint voice. “I do not covet it, liyo, and I do not wish to carry it, not if I go weaponless.” He wished to tell her of the men of Myya, what had happened: he had no name for it, and saw in his mind those lost faces. In some deeper part of him, he did not want to know what had become of them.
“It taps the Gates themselves,” she said, and moved in the dark. “Ryn, do you see anything?”
“Nothing, lady.”
She settled back again, this time in the dim starlight that fell through the crack, so that he could see her face, half in shadow as it was, the light falling on it sideways. “We must move. Tonight. Does thee think otherwise, Vanye?”
“There are archers on the height out there. But I will do what you decide to do.”
“Do not trust him,” Ryn’s voice hissed from above. “Nhi Erij hated him too well to be careless with him or the blade.”
“What does thee say, Vanye?” Morgaine asked him.
“I say nothing,” he answered. Of a sudden the weariness settled upon him, and it was too much to argue with a boy. His eyes stayed upon Morgaine, waiting her decision.
‘The Nhi gave me back all but Changeling,” she said, “not knowing, I suspect, that some of the things they returned were weapons: they recognized the sword as what is was, but not these others. They also gave me back your belongings, your armor and your horse, your sword and your saddle. Go and make yourself ready. All the gear is in the corner together. I do not doubt but what you are right about the archers; but we have to move: all this coming and going of yours cannot have gone entirely unmarked.”
He felt his way, found the corner and the things she described, the familiar roughness of the mail that had been his other skin for years. The weight as he settled it upon him was greater than he remembered: his hands shook upon the buckles.
He considered the prospect of the ride they would make, down that throat of a pass, and began to reckon with growing fear that there was not enough left in him to make such a ride. He had spent and spent, and there was little more left in him.
It was not likely, he thought, that they would escape from this unscathed: Myya arrows were a sound that had come to strike a response in his flesh. He had escaped too many of them, in Erd and in Morija. The odds were in favor of the arrows.
Morgaine came upon him, sought his hand, took it and turned his wrist upward. The thing that hit was like a weapon, unexpected, and he flinched. “Thee does not approve,” she said. “But I will have it so. I have little of that to spend: unlike my other things, the sun does not renew it, and when it is gone, it is gone. But I will not lose thee, ilin.”
He rubbed at the sore place, expecting a wound, finding none, and beginning to feel something amiss with himself, the tiredness melting, his blood moving more strongly. It was qujalin, or whatever race she named as her origin, and once the thing she had done would have terrified him: once she had promised him she would not do such things with him.
I will not lose thee, ilin.
She had lingered in this snare in Morija because of Changeling. He knew that in his heart and did not blame her. But there was in that word a small bit of concern for the ilin who served her, and that, from Morgaine, was much.
He set to work about his preparations with the determination that he would not be lost, that so long as he had a horse under him he would make it down the pass and into Baien’s hills.
They had three horses: Siptah; the ungrateful black, who tried to bite and desisted sullenly with a rap of the quirt along his jaw; and Ryn’s dun horse, hardly fine-blooded, but long in the legs and deep in the chest. Vanye estimated that the beast might hold the course they set, at least as long as need be; and the youth could ride: he was Morij, and Nhi.
“Leave the harp,” Vanye protested when he saw the thing slung on the youth’s back, as they led their horses out into the starlight. “The rattle of it will kill us all.”
“No,” said the youth flatly, which was what one might expect of Nhi Ryn Paren’s-son. And rather than snatch it from him and delay for argument, Vanye cast a stern look at Morgaine, for he knew that the boy would heed her word.
But she forbore to do anything, and, effectively set in his place, Vanye led the black after
Siptah’s tail, until they were at the corner. There was a gate to be opened: he led the black to that point and heaved back the rusty bolt, shouldered it wide; and Morgaine and Ryn thundered through, Vanye only an instant slower, springing to the saddle and laying heels to the animal. Siptah’s white tail flipped gay insolence as the big gray took the retaining wall, warning Vanye what he had forgotten over the years: that there was a jump there. Ryn took it; his own black gathered and jolted down to a landing, skidding downslope, haunches down like a bird in landing, for the grass was wet.
And arrows flew. Vanye tucked down to the black’s opposite side, making himself as inconspicuous as possible. He hoped the others had the same sense. But through the black’s flying mane he saw a streak of red fire, Morgaine’s hand-weapon; and there was silence from that quarter then, no more arrows. Whether she had hit anything firing blind, he did not know, but they were Morij, those men, and in his heart he hoped that the archers had simply lost heart and run.
Bruising force hit his side. He gasped and nearly lost his grip for the pain of it, and he knew that he had been hit: but no arrow at that range could pierce the mail. His worst fears were for the vulnerable horse. It went against Morij honor to hit a man’s horse, but here was no chivalry. These men must face Erij if they let them through, and that was no pleasant prospect for them.
They were near the end of the pass. He laid heels to the black and drove him harder, and the panicked beast gathered himself, saliva spattering back against Vanye’s leg as the horse took the rein he wanted. He passed even Siptah, answered to main force as Vanye hauled his head round toward the north again, toward the cleft of Baien’s pass through the hills, and leaped forward under the brutal impact of Vanye’s heels. In that instant he almost loved the vile beast: there was heart in him.
Morgaine, low in the saddle, was by him again: Siptah’s head, nostrils wide, was alongside with the starlight in his white mane. Unaccountably Morgaine laughed, reached out a hand to him that did not touch, and clung again to the saddle.
And they were through. Beyond all range of archers, safe on Baien’s level plain, they were through, and Vanye reined down the snorting black and brought him to a stop, only then remembering the youth who rode in their wake. He came, a good bowshot behind them, and they both waited—silent, Vanye reckoned, in the same concern, that the boy might have been hit, for he rode low in the saddle.
But he was well enough, pale-faced in the dim light when he rode in among them, but unscathed. The dun horse was spent, his rump sinking on one side as if he favored that leg, and Vanye dismounted to see to it: an arrow had ripped the hide and perhaps hung for a time. He explored the wound with his fingers, found it not dangerously deep.
“He will last,” Vanye pronounced. “There will be time later.”
“Then let us be off,” Morgaine said, rising in the stirrups to look behind them, even while he climbed back into the saddle. “The surprise of the matter will not last long. They had not seen me fire before; now they have, and they will accustom themselves to the idea and recover their courage about it.”
“Where will you?” Vanye asked.
“To Ivrel,” she answered.
“Lady, Baien’s hold lies almost athwart our path. They were hearth-friends to you once. It may be we could shelter there a time if we reached them before Erij.”
“I do not trust hold or hall this near Ivrel,” she said. “No.”
They rode, an easy pace now, for the horses were spent and might be called on again to run; and soon the fire of whatever thing had entered his veins was spent as well, and he felt his senses going. His side hurt miserably. He felt of the place and found broken links in the mesh, but little hurt beneath. Assured then that was not bleeding his life away, he hooked one leg over the high bow of the saddle, and wrapped his arms tightly about him for support, and so gave himself to sleep.
Bells woke him.
He looked up and eased cramped muscles out of their long-held position, and saw to his shame that Ryn led his horse, and that it was well into morning. They filed along a peaceful pine-shaded lane by the side of a stone wall.
He leaned forward and took the reins, beginning to realize where they were, for he had visited this place in his youth. It was the Monastery of Baien-an, the largest in all Andur-Kursh that still remained safe and occupied by the Gray Fathers. He rode forward to join Morgaine, wondering whether she knew what this place was, or if she had been led to it on Ryn’s advice, for here was an abundance of witnesses to her passing, and a place that could not be friendly to her.
Brothers tending their wall paused at their work in wonder. A few started forward as they might to welcome travelers, and then hesitated, and seemed to abandon the idea altogether, their faces bewildered. They were gentle men. Vanye had no fear of them.
And there was a terrible weariness upon Morgaine’s face, pain, as if her wound troubled her. He saw that, and bit his lip in reckoning. “Do you think to stay here?” he asked of her.
“I do not think that the Abbot would abide that,” she said.
“I do not think that you are fit for much further riding,” he said. And he saw also the youth Ryn, who was shadow-eyed, and miserable; and he reckoned that pursuit would not look to find them here.
He reined the black in by the gate, for he remembered a guesthouse that was kept by the abbey, probably little used in winter, but it was there for such persons as were not acceptable within the holy walls.
He brought them there, asking no permission, taking them past the wondering eyes of the Brothers in the yard, and into the privacy of the house beyond its evergreen hedge. There he dismounted, and held up his hands to help Morgaine down as he might a lady: she tried awkwardly to accept his help, better suited to dismounting on her own, but her leg gave with her when she touched the ground, and she leaned upon his arm, thanhing him with a weary nod and a look of her gray eyes.
“There is sanctuary here,” he said. “It is the law. There will none touch us here, and if the place is surrounded... well, we will reckon with that when it happens.”
She nodded again, plainly at the end of her strength, and a sorry three they were, she and the youth and a warrior so stiff with bruises and wounds that he could scarcely manage to climb the steps himself.
There were no other guests. He was thankful for that, and helped Morgaine to the first of the several cots, before he went out to tend the horses and bring Morgaine’s gear into the room: she was concerned with that above all else, he knew, and she gave him a grateful look before she tucked the dreadful sword into her arms and sank down upon the bare mattress.
Ryn helped him with the horses, and carried all their gear and their saddles into the guesthouse; and afterward Ryn joined him in the stables and stood by with concern in his eyes as Vanye applied some of their cooking oil to the wound in the dun’s rump.
“He will not go lame,” Vanye judged. “It was an arrow mostly spent, and it is not the season for pests to infest the wound. Oil will ease it, but it will scar, I think.”
Ryn walked with him back to the guesthouse, a short distance hence, among the tall pines and the hedge. The bells had fallen silent now, the Brothers filing in to their prayers.
There was a difference in Ryn. He did not quickly decide what it was, but that a boy had slung harp on his back and ridden after Morgaine from Ra-morij; it was a tired, older youth that walked beside him in the daylight and observed things in silence. Ryn carried himself differently. He walked with a bearing as out of place in these pine-rimmed lanes as Vanye’s own. They had ridden out of Baien-ei and he had ridden hindmost; there was a new hardness to his eye that had learned to reckon more than to wonder.
Vanye took account of that new silence in him, estimated it, clapped a weary hand upon his shoulder when they had come into the guesthouse. He lowered his voice, for Morgaine seemed asleep.
“I shall watch,” Vanye said. “I am not good for long; yours is next, then hers.”
The youth Ryn
might have found some silly protest; he had been sullen at his father’s orders when they first rode together into Morija. Now he nodded assent to that justice of things, and sought a bare cot himself, while Vanye took his sword and set himself on the front steps of the guesthouse, point set between his feet, hands gripping the quillons, head leaned against its hilt In such position he could stay awake enough.
In such a manner he had watched many a night on the road.
And considering himself then, he reflected wryly that he had seen such occupations of Morija’s lower guesthall only when there was some marginally honorable hill-clan passing through, bound for other pastures and asking road-right Some bandit chief asleep in the guesthouse, his men lounging about swilling cheap wine and scarring the furniture with their feet, while as seal upon the door, some man more villainous looking than the rest sat the steps as door-warden, sword in arms and a sour expression on his face, terrifying the boys who lurked to see what visitors had come among them.
It was a warning to other would-be guests that they would be mad to seek that shelter, and must look elsewhere. Villainy had possessed the only beds, and unless the lords in the hall would take arms and dispossess them, so it would remain until the morning.
So the Brothers found him.
He came fully awake at the first tread upon the flagstone walk, and sat there with his sword between his knees while the gray-robed Brothers came cautiously up to the steps with earthen jars of food.
They bowed, hands tucked in robes. Vanye recognized innocent courtesy when it was offered and made as profound a bow as he could from his seated posture.
“May we ask?” It was the traditional question. It could be refused. Vanye bowed again, full courtesy to the honest Brothers.
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