Fires of Azeroth (13 page)

Then they mounted up and rode out quietly among the trees, past sentries who were themselves little more than shadows in the trees. Leaves curtained them from Carrhend, and they soon had only the sound of the forest about them.

Sezar was downhearted after the leavetaking, and Lellin looked at him in frowning concern. His mood needed no inquiry, for surely Sezar and perhaps Lellin would have been glad to stay for Carrhend's protection, and the duty which drew them off lay heavy on them at the moment

Finally Lellin gave a low whistle . . . and in tune there came an answer, slow and placid. At that Sezar looked somewhat cheered, and they all felt better for his sake.

Chapter Six

They kept to the streamcourse for a road after Carrhend and made good time. The horses that the two
arrhendim
had acquired . . . both bays, Lellin's with three white stockings .. . kept well from Siptah's vicinity, so that Lellin and Sezar generally kept the lead by some small space.

The two talked together in soft voices which they, who rode behind, could not quite hear, but they had no distrust for it, and sometimes conversed themselves in private, though usually in the
qhalur
tongue. Morgaine was never inclined to conversation, not in all the time he had known her, but she spoke idly and often since they had come to this land . . . teaching, at first, deliberately making him speak, correcting him often. Then she seemed to have fallen into the habit of talking more than she once would. He was glad of it, and though she never spoke of her own self beyond Andur-Kursh, he found himself speaking of home, and of the better moments of his youth in Morija.

They could speak of Andur-Kursh now, as one finally could speak of the dead, when the pain was gone. He knew his own age; she knew that of a hundred years before his birth; and grim as some of the tales they passed back and forth might be, there was pleasure in it. Time-wanderer she was; and now he was of her kind, and they could speak of it.

But once she mentioned Myya Seijaine i Myya, clan-lord of the Myya when she had led the armies of Andur-Kursh .. . and then her eyes clouded and she fell silent, overcome by memory-for that was one of the scatterings in time which had begun what sat at Azeroth, clan Myya, clan Yla, clan Chya-men who had served her once, and who bad become lost in Gates and time. Myya survived. Their children's children a thousand years removed had dwelt in Shiuan, recalling her only as an evil legend, confounding her with myth ... until Roh came to rouse them.

"Seijaine was a fell sort," she said after a moment, "but good and generous to his friends. So are his children, but I am not among their friends."

"It looks," he said with desperate irrelevance, "as if it might rain."

She looked perplexed by his bent of thought, then looked up at the clouds that were only slightly gray-edged, and at him again. She laughed. "Aye. Thee's good for me, Vanye. Thee is very good."

She went sober after, and found something to look at which did not necessitate meeting his eyes. Something swelled up in him that was bitter and sweet at once. He savored it briefly, but then, his eyes on Lellin's back-Lellin, whose pale, spidery grace was the very like of Morgaine's-he despaired, and put a different interpretation on what she had said to him . . . recovered the good sense which had long saved him from making a mistake with her which would sever them.

He laughed aloud at himself, which drew from her a strange look. "An odd fancy," he explained, and quickly led the talk to stopping for noon rest; she did not probe more deeply.

The rain proved an empty threat. They had feared a wet camp and a hard night, but the clouds passed over with only a slight sprinkling at evenfall, and they lay down on the streamside having made good progress during the day, well-fed, and under a clear sky on dry ground. It was as if all the wretchedness that had attended their other rides were a bad dream, in this land too kindly to do them harshness.

Vanye chose first watch .. . even in this matter they were more comfortable, for the four of them sharing watches meant longer sleep. He yielded his post afterward to Lellin, who rubbed his eyes and propped himself against a tree standing, while he lay down to sleep without a qualm or apprehension of treachery.

But he was roused again by a touch on his back, and at once terror seized on him. He rolled over and saw Lellin likewise touch Morgaine: Sezar was already awake. "Look," Lellin whispered.

Vanye strained his eyes against the dark, following the fix of Lellin's stare. A shadow stood among the trees on the other side of the stream. Lellin gave a low trilling whistle, and it moved . . . manlike, but not a Man. It waded the stream with soft splashes, long-limbed and jerking in its precise movements. A chill tightened Vanye's skin, for he knew now that he had seen such a creature before, and in the same vicinity.

Lellin arose, and so did they all, but they stayed where they were, while Lellin walked to the stream and met the creature. Its height was greater than Lellin's; its limbs were arranged like those of a Man, but the articulation was different. When the creature looked up, the eyes were all dark in the starlight, and the features were thin and the mouth pursed, very small for the enormity of the eyes. The legs when it moved flexed like those of a bird, knees bent opposite the direction of a Man's. Vanye crossed himself at the sight, and yet more in awe than in fear, for there seemed less menace in it than difference.

"Haril,"
Morgaine whispered in his ear. "Only once have I seen the like."

It came onto the bank, wary, and looked them all over with its large eyes. Whether it was male or female was impossible to tell. The body, dusky-hued, was ambiguous under its thick, fibrous robes, which were short and matched the shade of its skin, whatever the color was in daylight. Lellin spoke softly and signed to it. The
haril
answered in a lisping chitter and made a gesture of its own. Then it turned and waded the stream, heron-like in its cant of body and its movements.

"There are strangers," said Lellin. "It is distressed. Something is fearfully amiss that a
haril
has approached us. It wants us to follow."

"What are they?" Vanye asked. "How much can you understand of what it wants?"

"They are from long ago. They live in the deepest parts of Shathan, the wild parts where we seldom go, and generally they have nothing to do with
qhal
or Men. Their speech is their own; we cannot learn it and they cannot learn ours . .. nor wish to, I suppose . . . but they will sign-and if a
haril
has come asking us to do something, then we should do it, my lady Morgaine. There is something vastly amiss to urge it to that."

The
haril
waited, across the stream.

"We will go," Morgaine said. Vanye spoke no word of objection, but there was a tightness at his belly that settled in like an old friend. He gathered up their gear and started for the horses in haste and quietly. Whatever they had evaded in these last slow days was suddenly upon them, and from now on, there seemed no hope of coming peacefully to Nehmin.

They rode across the stream, moving as quietly as the horses might, and the
haril
went before them, a shadow that the horses did not like. It chose ways difficult for riders, and often they must bend beneath branches or negotiate difficult slopes. At each delay the
haril
waited, silent, until they had overcome the obstacle and began to close the gap.

"Madness," Vanye said under his breath, but Morgaine did not regard him. The
haril
stayed in sight, but now and again there was another presence: the horses detected it and threw their heads and would as gladly have fled. It flitted now on this side and now on the other, a tail-of-the-eye presence that was gone before one could turn the head, or which rustled a leaf and stopped before one could fix the place of it.

Another, Vanye reckoned ... or maybe more than one. He slipped the ring which let his sword fall to his hip, and ducked low against Mai's neck as they took a new turn through dense branches and down a slope.

The trees thinned. Their guide brought them out into the midst of an almost-clearing, where something like a white-butterfly seemed suspended above a shadowy form ... a little nearer and they saw it for a body,
haril,
and dead. The butterfly was the fletching of the arrow in its back. Their guide cluttered a string of words that seemed to reproach them.

Lellin dismounted and signed what looked like a question. The
haril
stood still and did not respond.

"It is no arrow of ours," said Sezar; and while Morgaine and Sezar stayed ahorse, Vanye slid down and went carefully to the dead
haril,
examined the arrow more closely in the starlight. The feathering it bore would not give it near the accuracy of the
arrhendim's
brown-fletched shafts at long range. This was the feather of a sea-bird, here in Shathan woods.

"Shiua," he said. "Lellin, ask them:
where?"

"I cannot be-" Leilin began, and then looked about in alarm. Morgaine's hand went to her back, where she carried the lesser of her weapons, for all about them were tail, stalking shadows, heron-like in their movements. No brush rustled. They were simply there.

"Please," Lellin breathed, "do not do anything. Do not move." He faced the first
haril,
and repeated the question-sign, adding to it several others.

The
harilim
chittered reply all together. There was anger in that sound, which was that of mice or rats, but deeper. One came forward to stand by the dead, and Vanye backed a step, but only a step, lest they mistake it for flight. He stood very close to that one, and dark, enormous eyes flickered over him minutely. A spidery arm extended and it touched him; fingers ran lightly over his clothing, clinging slightly at each touch. He did not move. Starlight shone on the creature's smooth dark skin, showed the gauzy weave of its thick garments. He shuddered involuntarily as it moved behind him and touched his back, and he cast a glance at Morgaine, seeking counsel. Her face was pale and set, and in her hand was the weapon which had killed the deer. If she used it, he thought, then he would not be riding out with her: he much feared so.

Signs passed between the
haril
and Lellin, angry on the
haril's
part, urgent on Lellin's. "They believe you part of the strangers' force," Lellin said. "They ask why we ride with you. They have seen you two here before, alone."

"Near Mirrind," Vanye said very quietly, "there was one. I know what it was now. It ran away when we chased it." The
haril's
hand descended on his shoulder from behind, gentle as wind, and tightened, betraying enormous strength, wanting him to turn. He did so, and faced it, heart beating wildly as he stared up into that dark, strange face.

"It is you," Sezar said from horseback. "It is you that disturb them ... a tall Man, and too fair for a Shathana. They know that you are not of our blood."

"Lellin," said Morgaine, "I advise you do something before I do."

"Please, lady, do nothing. We are all alone here. Our folk have given no warning of this, and I do not think there are any of the
arrhendim
in the vicinity . . . little they could help if they were. These woods are the
harilim's
just now, and our chances of escape are not good. They are not violent ... but they are very dangerous."

"Bring one of my arrows," Vanye said; and when no one moved: "Bring it!"

Lellin did so, moving very carefully. Vanye held it so that the
haril
could see it and indicated the feathering, which was brown; and pointed at the arrow in the corpse, which bore white feathers. The
haril
spoke something to its fellows; they responded in tones that seemed at least less angry.

"Tell him," Vanye asked of Lellin, "that those Men out there in Azeroth are not our friends; that we come to fight them."

"I am not certain I can," Lellin said in despair. "There is no system to the signs; subtleties are almost impossible."

But he tried, and perhaps succeeded. The
haril
spoke to its fellows, and some of them gathered up the body of their dead and bore it into the woods.

Then the one behind set hand on Vanye and began to draw him away too. He resisted, planting his feet, and now he was very frightened, for the thing was strong -and they were still completely surrounded.

Lellin put himself in the
haril's
path and signed a negative. The
haril
spat back a chittering retort, and beckoned.