Exile's Gate (41 page)

He
rode, he did not know how. He heard their voices sharp in argument.
"You can feel that thing," one said, and he knew what thing they meant:
it was all about them, it was in their nerves; it made the horses
skittish and fractious.

But it was nothing to them who did not hold it against their bare skin.

No
more died—for whatever reason, there were no more ambushes, as they
shifted horses and kept a pace that even gray Siptah could not match
unaided, in this place where the qhalur road broke down into eroded
stone traces, and the riders found a course not straight, but
recklessly direct, down toward the valley.

She
is left behind, he thought. These crags and this rough land has forced
her back to the road and she has fallen behind. They have won, in my
case. Somewhere I could have done better than this. Somehow I could
have done something better.

It
was the first thought he had allowed himself, of might-have and
could-have, and of how he had fallen to them and the things they had
done, and might do. Well enough, he thought, fool, twice fool—and
reviewed every move he had made on that hillside, every sign he might
have missed, every chance he had had, until the pain was all that took
his mind from his inward misery.

Then: fool, he thought. She has taken the odds down.

It would cost, he thought. Time would cost very dear. And chances were hard come by.

The
qhal shared rations at midday. "We had best feed him," one said, "or he
will faint." And when Chei consented, one came and fed him a strip of
jerky and gave him a drink as they rode, the water splashing down his
chin and front and onto the saddle, to dry again in the sun. After that
his stomach was queasy, and cramped, and the pounding gait put the
taste of blood in his mouth. He wished that he might fall off and
simply break his neck and be done, except he was Kurshin, and his body
kept the rhythm it had known from childhood, no matter how much he
swayed; and the same fool who had fallen into their trap, still thought
that there was a hope of delaying them, if he could find the means.

Then
he put the matter together and at their next stop, when they were
changing horses, as he was about to mount, brought his knee up in his
horse's flank and flung himself out of the way as it went hopping and
pitching and throwing the horse it was tied to into a wildly swinging
panic.

The
men grabbed after those and he went for the three a single man was
holding, startling those with a wild yell and a shove of his shoulder
before someone overhauled him from behind.

He
fell, with a man atop him and one of their horses having slipped its
bridle and racing off wildly across the road, one of the riders having
to free his horse of his relief mount to run it down.

It
was a little victory, a little one. The man who had overhauled him
dragged him over onto his back and stared at him as though murder was
too mild a vengeance.

Vanye brought his knee up with all the strength in him.

Two
more of them pinned him to the ground and one of them paid him in kind.
After that he lost sense of where he was for the moment, until he felt
the weight go off him and heard a shout, and came to with Chei's blade
at his throat and a dead man at his side.

And the sound of a rider coming, at full gallop.

Chapter Fourteen

The
gray horse became clear, and its rider, and Vanye took in his breath,
held as he was against Chei's knee, Chei's sword across his throat. And
one of the two qhal with him had taken up his bow, and nocked an arrow.

Vanye
swung his leg around in an attempt to strike the bowman. He could not.
The blade stung along his neck, taking up what room he had for
breathing. "Look out!" he yelled. But Morgaine was drawing to a halt
well down the road. She slid down, and started walking, through the
tall grass.

The bowman drew back, aiming a high arc for a distance shot.

"You are in her range," Vanye said quietly, and the bowman eased off the draw.

"Fire!" Chei said.

The bowman drew again, with careful aim. And a second time eased off.

"Fire, curse you!"

"The
wind is gusting." A third time the bowman lifted the bow and drew. His
arm trembled with the strain as he sought an arc and a lull in the wind.

"Wind does not trouble her," Vanye said.

"Wait
your target," Chei said then, and the bowman eased off a third time,
trembling. Chei relaxed his grip on Vanye's hair, then shifted his hand
to his shoulder and pressed gently. "Stay still, man, stay still."

It
was worse than the other. His leg began to shake, at its unnatural
angle. He moved it. And Morgaine walked closer still, the bowman's
necessary arc continually diminishing.

She reached half-range. The bowman lifted his bow, made a swift draw.

"Haaaaiiii!" Vanye yelled, and Chei jerked his head back. The shaft flew.

Morgaine dropped, and sprang up again, covering ground at a run.

The blade stung, and a slow trickle ran down Vanye's neck. "
I
will kill him,"
Chei yelled.

Morgaine stopped. The bowman stopped, a second arrow nocked and drawn.

"Ride off!" Chei shouted at her. "You leave me nothing to lose, woman!"

"I will bargain with you!" Morgaine's voice came faintly on the wind at full shout.

"I will bargain with
you,
woman. Throw down the sword and I will give you both your lives. Or I will cut his throat here and now."

She walked closer, and a second shaft flew, amiss on a gust of wind.

"Curse you," Chei said to the bowman. "Fire!"

The
bowman brought up another arrow. But Morgaine had stopped. She lifted
her hand, aimed dead at them. "An easy shot for me. Let him free and
you are free to ride south. My word on it! Any one of you that wants to
live, walk clear."

The
bowman lowered his bow; and: "My lord," the qhal on Chei's other side
said, and reached, and pressed the blade back from Vanye's throat with
his bare hand. "My lord. We are the last. She will kill us. Let him go.
We have lost."

There was long silence. Chei's grip faltered on his shoulder and tightened again.

"Let him free!" Morgaine said.

"For a price," Chei said.

"Name it!"

"I will name it later," Chei said. "Do you want him on those terms?"

"Let
him go!" Morgaine said. "And I will give you your lives and your
gear—or flay the skin off you if you harm him! Let him go!"

Chei's
hand loosed. The sword withdrew and Chei shoved him carefully aside and
stood up, a clear target "Free him," Chei said "Let him go."

The
second man took a knife and cut Vanye's hands free, and with a hand
under his arm, helped him to his feet. He was not one of those who had
been forward to do him harm—a tall, silver-haired qhal, expressionless
even now in this shift of fortunes. His hand was firm and steady, and
gently tested his balance before he let him free.

Vanye
walked, the whole of the sky seeming for a moment gone to metal and his
hands, lifeless and swinging beside him, seeming to belong, like his
feet, to some other man. He staggered on a hole in the ground,
recovered himself short of a fall, and kept walking, the gusts of wind
touching the sweat on his face and stinging in the cuts on his throat.

But
the sky went stranger still, peculiarly translucent, and he was on one
knee without knowing how he had gotten there, Morgaine rushing up to
kneel and seize him by the shoulder.

"I
am all right," he said. There was a look of dismay on her face; and
rage; and she whirled on one knee and aimed her weapon at their enemies.

"No," he said on a breath, and caught her arm.

She
did not fire. He did not know why he had said it, only that it was one
more mistake like the rest he had made. He felt the shorn hair blowing
about his face and into his eyes, the most visible of the dishonors
they had put on him, and her; and that expression of horror was still
in her eyes. "I am sorry," he said to her, when he could say anything.

"Curse
them for this!"

"It
was their doing, not mine." He knelt there shifting glances between her
and their unmoving enemy, for she had stopped paying them attention. He
did not offer the head-to-ground obeisance that might have made some
amends for his shame with a Kurshin liege, did not ask for duel with
the man who had done this, did not do any of the things that would have
driven her to fury with him.
"Liyo,
I am tired, is all."

"I
have Arrhan with me. Yonder, beyond the hill." She made a motion of her
head. "And all your gear. With her and Siptah to trade about, there was
no way they could outrun me." She found the cord that bound the stone
about his neck and pulled it from beneath his armor, which itself was
great relief. She laid down the black weapon a moment to take her
Honor-blade and cut it free. "Where is the case for this thing?"

"Chei has it."

"That is one thing I will get from him.—Is it Gault?"

"Yes." In the tail of his eye, he saw Chei walk toward them. "In Heaven's name,
liyo,
watch them—"

Her
gray eyes flicked past his with a killing fury—for them, not for him.
He knew then the measure of it, in her red-rimmed and shadowed gaze—the
pace she had to have kept, to set ambush after ambush, the strain,
constantly to be sure of her targets.

She gathered up her weapon. She rose to her feet, and Vanye levered himself up to stand by her.

"The matter of a price," Chei called out.

"There is no price," Morgaine shouted back, "but your
lives,
my lord, and that is for old grudges, not new ones! You have the casing for the stone. Let it fall. And get out of my sight!"

"The price, my lady!"

Her hand lifted, the weapon aimed. "You go too far with me."

"My
enemies—and passage through the gate, for me and mine." Chei strode
forward and stopped, hands held wide and empty. "There is no way back
for us."

"No way back from
hell,
my lord, and you are treading on the brink.
Vanye
wants
your life, I have no least notion why—you can thank him on your knees,
before you ride out of here. Now! Drop the case, man!"

Chei's hand moved to his neck. A silver chain glittered in the sun as he lifted it over his head and dropped it.

"On your knees, my lord, and thank him, else I will shoot the legs out from under you."

Chei went down.

"Thank him."

"Liyo,"
Vanye protested.

"Thank him!"

"I give you my thanks, Nhi Vanye."

Morgaine
dropped her hand, and stood staring as Chei got up and went to the roan
horse and his remount; and the others, the qhal and the bowman who wore
human shape, claimed their own.

"There was one more man—" Vanye recalled with a sudden chill.

"The
one who chased the horses?" Morgaine asked. "That one I accounted for."
She half-turned and whistled for Siptah. The gray horse threw his head
and shook himself and tended in their direction, reins trailing, as
they walked toward the place Chei had dropped the casing.

Chei
and his men rode off, southward, with no delaying. Vanye knelt,
fighting dizziness, and picked up the gray box that Chei had dropped in
the trampled grass. Morgaine gave him the stone and its cord and he
made a ball of it and put it inside. Its raw power left the air like
the feeling after storm, and his hands were shaking as he hung it again
about his neck on its proper chain, safe and still.

"What did they do?" she asked fiercely. "What did they do?"

He
did not meet her eyes. He gathered up his helm, from where it had
fallen. The gray horse came up to them, snorting and throwing his head,
and he went and caught the trailing reins and laid his hand on Siptah's
neck, for the comfort of a creature who asked no questions. "Nothing,
past the time you put a fear in them. Mostly want of food and rest."

"Get up," she said. "I will ride behind. We will find Arrhan and quit this place."

He
was glad enough of that. He wiped the hair back from his face, put the
helm on, slung the reins over and put his foot in the stirrup with a
little effort, with a greater one hauled himself onto Siptah's back and
cleared the right stirrup for Morgaine. She climbed up by the cantle
and her hand on his leg, and held only to the cantle when they started
out, so she knew well enough he was in pain, and did not touch him as
they rode. She only gave him directions, and they went over the road
and beyond the further hill, where Arrhan placidly cropped the grass
with a pair of Chei's strayed horses.

She
slid down. He climbed down and went and gave his hands to Arrhan's
offered muzzle, endured her head-butting in his sore ribs and leaned
himself against her shoulder.