Authors: C. J. Cherryh
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Large Type Books, #Science Fiction, #Adventure, #Oklahoma Author, #Frosthair; Morgaine (Fictitious Character), #Morgaine Frosthair (Fictitious Character)
He began then to understand the terror in her, the same intense terror there was in Liell, he thought, who also wished something of him. He wished no more truth of her: it was the kind that wrought nightmares, that held no peace, that asked him to forgive things that were unthinkable.
Spare us this, he wanted to say to her. / have honored you. Do not make this impossible.
He held his tongue.
"I might have killed you," she said, "in panic. I frighten easily, you see, I am not reasonable. I have ceased to take risks at all. It is unconscionable—that I should take risks with the burden I carry. I tell myself the only immorality I have committed is in trusting you after aiming at your life. Do you see, I have no luxury left, for virtues."
"I do not understand," he said.
"I hope that you do not."
"What do you want of me?"
"Hold to your oath." She swung up to Siptah's back, waited for him to mount, then headed them not across the vale of Men, but around the rim of the valley, that trail which she had followed the day of the battle.
She was in a mood that hovered on the brink of madness, not reasoning clearly. He became certain of it. She feared him as if he were death itself making itself friendly and comfortable with her, feared any reason that told her otherwise.
And forebore to kill, forbore to violate honor.
There was that small, precious difference between what he served and what pursued them. He clung to that, though Mor-gaine's foreboding seeped into his thoughts, that it was that which would one day kill her.
The ride around the rim was long, and they must stop several times to rest. The sun went down the other part of the sky and the clouds began to gather thickly over Ivrel's cone, portending storm, a northern storm of the sort that sometimes whirled snow down on such valleys as this, north of Chya, but more often meant tree-cracking ice, and misery of men and beasts.
The storm hovered, sifting small amounts of sleet. The day grew dimmer. They paused for one last rest before moving onto the side of Ivrel.
And chaos burst upon them—their only warning a breath from Siptah, a shying of both their horses. Another moment and they would have been afoot. Half-lighting, Vanye sprang back to the saddle, whipped out his longsword and laid about him in the twilight at the forms that hurtled at them from the woods and from the rocks, men of Hjemur, fur-clad men afoot at first, and then men on ponies. Fire laced the dark, Mor-gaine's little weapon taking toll of men and horses without mercy.
They spurred through, reached the down-turning of the trail. The slope was alive with them. They clambered up on foot, dark figures in the twilight, and not all of them looked human.
Knives flashed as the horde closed with them, threatening the vulnerable legs and bellies of the horses, and they fought and spurred the horses, turning them for whatever least resistance they could find for escape. Morgaine cried out, kicked a man in the face and rode him down. Vanye drove his heels into the black's flanks and sent the horse flying in Siptah's wake.
There was no hope in fighting. His liyo was doing the most sensible thing, laying quirt to the laboring gray, putting the big horse to the limit, even if it drove them off their chosen way; and Vanye did the same, his heart in his throat no less for the
way they rode than for the pursuit behind them—skidding down a rocky slope, threading the blind shadows along unknown trail and through a narrow defile in the rocks to reach the flat to Irien's west.
There, weary as their horses were, they had the advantage over the Hjemurn ponies that followed them, for the horses' long legs devoured the ground, and at last pursuit seemed failing.
Then out of the west, riders appeared ahead of them, coming from the narrow crease of hills, an arc of riders that swept to enclose them, thrusting them back.
Morgaine turned yet again, charging them at their outer edge, trying to slip that arc before it cut them off from the north, refusing to be thrust back into the ambush at Irien. Sip-tah could hardly run now. He faltered. They were not going to make it. And here she reined in, weapon in hand, and Vanye drew the winded black in beside her, sword drawn, to guard her left.
The riders ringed them about on all sides now, and began to close inward.
"The horses are done," Vanye said. "Lady, I think we shall die here."
"I have no intention of doing so," she said. "Stay clear of me, ilin. Do not cross in front of me or even ride even with me."
And then he knew the spotted pony of one that was at the head of the others, ordering his riders to come inward; and near him there was the blaze-faced bay that he expected to see.
They were Morij riders, that ran the border by Alis Kaje, and sometimes harried even into this land when Hjemur's forces or Chya's grew restive.
He snatched at Morgaine's arm, received at once an angry look, quick suspicion. Terror.
"They are Morij," he pleaded with her. "My clan. Nhi. Llyo, take none of their lives. My father—he is their lord, and he is not a forgiving man, but he is honorable. Ilin's law says my crimes cannot taint you: and whatever you have done, Morija has no bloodfeud with you. Please, lady. Do not take these men's lives."
She considered; but it was sense that he argued with her, and she must know it. The horses were likely to die under them if they must go on running. There would likely be more
Hjemurn forces to the north even if they should break clear now. Here was refuge, if no welcome. She lowered her weapon.
"On your soul," she hissed at him. "On your soul, if you lie to me in this."
"That is the condition of my oath," he said, shaken, "and you have known that as long as I have been with you. I would not betray you. On my soul, liyo."
The weapon went back into its place. "Speak to them," she said then. "And if you have not a dozen arrows in you—I will be willing to go with them on your word."
He put up his sword and lifted his hands wide, prodding the exhausted black a little forward, until he was within hailing distance of the advancing riders, whose circle had never ceased to narrow.
"I am ilin," he cried to them, for it was no honor to kill ilin without reckoning of his lord. "I am Nhi Vanye. Nhi Paren, Paren, Lellen's-son—you know my voice."
"Whose service, ilin Nhi Vanye?" came back Paren's voice, gruff and familiar and blessedly welcome.
"Nhi Paren—these hills are full of Hjemur-folk tonight, and Leth too, most likely. In Heaven's mercy, take us into your protection and we will make our appeal at Ra-morij."
"Then you serve some enemy of ours," observed Nhi Paren, "or you would give us an honest name."
"That is so," said Vanye, "but none that threatens you now. We ask shelter, Nhi Paren, and that is the Nhi's right to grant or refuse, not yours, so you must send to Ra-morij."
There was a silence. Then: "Take them both," came across the distance. The riders closed together. For a moment as they were closely surrounded, Vanye had the overwhelming fear that Morgaine might suddenly panic and bring death on both of them, the more so as Paren demanded the surrender of their weapons.
And then Paren had his first clear sight of Morgaine in the darkness, and exclaimed the beginning of an invocation to Heaven. The men about him made signs against evil.
"I do not think that it will be comfortable for you to handle my weapons, being that your religion forbids," said Morgaine then. "Lend me a cloak and I will wrap them, so that you may know that I will not use them, but I will continue to carry
them. I think that we were well out of this area. Vanye spoke the truth about Hjemur."
"We will go back to Alis Kaje," Paren said. And he looked at her as if he thought long about the matter of the weapons. Then he bade Vanye give her his cloak, and watched carefully while she wrapped all her gear within the cloak and laid it across her saddlebow. "Form-up," he bade his men then, and though they were surrounded by riders, he put no restraint on them.
They rode knee to knee, he and Morgaine, with men all about them; and before they had ridden far, Morgaine made to pass the cloak-wrapped arms to him. He feared to take it, knowing how the Nhi would see it; and it was instant: weapons crowded them. A man of clan San, more reckless than the others, took them from him, and Vanye looked at Morgaine in distress, knowing how she would bear that.
But she was bowed over, looking hardly able to stay in the saddle. Her hand was pressed to her leg. Threads of blood leaked through her pale fingers.
"Bargain us a refuge," she said to him, "however you can, ilin. There is neither hearth-right nor bloodfeud I have with clan Nhi. And have them stop when it is safe. I have need to tend this."
He looked on her pale, tense face, and knew that she was frightened. He measured her strength against the jolting ride they would have up the road into Alis Kaje, and left her, forced his way through other riders to reach Nhi Paren.
"No," said Paren, when he had pleaded with him. It was firm. It was unshakable. He could not blame the man, in the lands where they were. "We will stop at Alis Kaje."
He rode back to her. Somehow she did keep the saddle, white-lipped and miserable. The sleet-edged wind made her flinch at times; the horse's motion in the long climb and descent wrung now and then a sound from her: but she held, waiting even as they found their place to halt, until he had dismounted and reached up to help her down.
He made a place for her, and begged her medicines of the one who had her belongings. Then he looked round at the grim band of men, and at Paren, who had the decency to bid them back a distance.
He treated the wound, which was deep, as best he could
manage with her medicines: his soul abhorred even to touch them, but he reasoned that her substance, whatever it was, would respond best to her own methods. She tried to tell him things: he could make little sense of them. He made a bandage of linen from the kit, and at least had slowed the bleeding, making her as comfortable as he could.
When he arose, Nhi Paren came to him, looked down at her and walked back among his men/bidding them prepare to ride.
"Nhi Paren." Vanye cursed and went after him, stood among them in the dark with men on all sides already mounting. "Nhi Paren, can you not delay at least until the morning? Is there such need to hurry now, with the mountains between us?"
"You are trouble yourselves, Nhi Vanye," said Paren. "You and this woman. There is Hjemur under arms. No. There will be no stopping. We are going through to Ra-morij."
"Send a messenger. There is no need to kill her in your haste."
"We are going through," said Paren.
Vanye swore blackly, choked with anger. There was no cruelty in Nhi Paren, only Nhi obdurate stubbornness. He changed his own saddleroll to the front of his saddle, lashing it to pad it. Anger still seethed in him.
He turned to lead the horse back to Morgaine. "Bid a man help me up with her then," he said to Paren through his teeth. "And be sure that I will recite the whole of it to Nhi Rijan. There is justice in him, at least; his honor will make him sorry for this senseless stubbornness of yours, Nhi Paren."
"Your father is dead," said Paren.
He stopped, aware of the horse pushing at his back, the reins in his hand. His hands moved without his mind, stopping the animal. All these things he knew, before he had to take account of Paren, before he had to believe the man.
"Who is the Nhi?" he asked.
"It is your brother," said Paren. "Erij. We have standing orders, should you ever set foot within Morija, to take you at once to Ra-morij. And that is what we must do. It is not," Paren said in a softer tone, "to my taste, Nhi Vanye, but that is what we will do."
He understood then, numb as he was. He bowed slightly, acknowledged reality; which gesture Nhi Paren received like a
gentleman, and looked embarrassed and distressed, and bade men help him take Morgaine up so that he could carry her.
Morij-keep, Ra-morij, was alleged to be impregnable. It sat high upon a hillside, tiered into it, with all of a mountain at its back and its walls and gates made double before it. It had never fallen in war. It had been sometimes the possession of Yla and lately of Nhi, but that had been by marriages and by family intrigue and lastly by the ill-luck of Men, but never by siege against the fortress itself. Rich herds of horses and of cattle grazed the lands before it; in the valley its villages nestled in relative security, for there were no wolves nor riders, nor Koris-beasts troubling the land as they did in the outside. The keep frowned over the fair land like some great stern grandfather over a favored daughter, his head bearing a crown of crenelated walls and jagged towers.
He loved it still. Tears could still swell in his throat at the sight of this place that had been so much of misery to him. For an instant he thought of his boyhood, of spring, and of fat, white-maned Mai, the first Mai—and both his brothers racing with him on one of those days when there was such warmth in the air that not even they could find hate for each other, when blooms were on the orchards and the whole of the great valley lay studded with pink and white clouds of trees.
Before him now there was the light of a dying winter sun upon the walls, and the clatter of armed riders about him, and Morgaine's weight in his arms. She slept now, and his arms were numb and his back a column of fire. She knew little of the ride, exceedingly weak, though the bleeding had ceased and the wound already showed signs of healing. He thought that she might have fought against the weakness, but she did not know that things were amiss, and the men of Nhi were kindly with her. They did whatever it was possible to do for her, short of touching her or her medicines; and their fear of her seemed to have much abated.