C. Cherryh - Gate of Ivrel

This time the thing he had constantly dreaded was there.

They were pursued.

“ Liyo ,” he said quietly. Both she and Ryn looked. Ryn’s face was pale.

“They will surely have changed horses in Ra-baien,” Ryn said.

“That is what I have feared,” she said, “that there is no war nor feud between Morija and Baien.”

And she put Siptah to a slightly quicker pace, but not to a run. Vanye looked back again. The riders were coming steadily, not killing their horses either, but at a better pace than they.

“We will make the hills and choose a place for them to overtake us as far as we can toward the border,” said Morgaine. This is a fight I do not want, but we may have it all the same.”

Vanye looked back yet again. He began to be sure who it was, and there was a leaden feeling in his belly. He had already committed one fratricide. To fight and to kill at a liyo’s order was the duty of an ilin , even if he were ordered against family. That was cruel, but it was also the law.

“They will be Nhi,” he said to Ryn. “This fight is not lawful for you. You are not ilin , and until you lift hand against Erij and your kinsmen, you are not an outlaw. Go apart from us. Go home.”

Ryn’s young face held doubt. But it was a man’s look too, not the petulance of a boy, which was not going to yield to his reason.

“Do as he tells you,” Morgaine said.

“I take oath,” he said, “that I will not.”

That was the end of it He was a free man, was Ryn; he rode what way he chose, and it was with them. It pained Vanye that Ryn had no more than the Honor blade at his belt, no longsword; but then, boys had no business to attempt the longsword in a battle; he was safest with the bow.

“Do you know this road?” Morgaine asked.

“Yes,” said Vanye. “So do they. Follow.”

He put himself in the lead, minded of a place within the hills, past the entry into Koris, where Erij might be less rash to follow, near as it was to Irien. The horses might be able to hold the pace, though it was climbing for some part. He cast a look over his shoulder, to know how things were with those behind.

The Morijen had fresh mounts surely, to press them so, grace of the lord of Ra-baien, and how much Baien knew of them or how Baien felt toward them was yet uncertain.

There was the matter of Baien’s outpost of Kath Svejur, manned by a score of archers and no small number of cavalry. There was that to pass beneath.

He chose pace for them and held it, not leaving the highroad despite Mogaine’s expressed preference for the open country.

They had speed to take them through, unless there were some connivance already arranged between Baien’s lord and Erij—some courier passed at breakneck speed during the night, to cut off their retreat. He hoped that had not happened, that the pass was not sealed: otherwise there would be a hail of arrows, to match what rode behind them.

Those behind were willing enough to kill their mounts, that became certain; but there was the pass ahead of them, the little stone fort of Irn-Svejur high upon its crag.

“We cannot pass under that,” Ryn protested, thinking, no doubt, of arrows. But Vanye whipped up his horse and tucked low, Morgaine likewise.

They were within arrowshot both from above and from behind. Doubtless in their fortress the guards looked down and saw the mad party on the road and wondered which was friend and which was foe: yet there was in both Morija and Baien that simple instruction that what rode east was friend, and what rode west was enemy; and here rode two bands madly eastward.

Vanye cast a look back as they won through. A rider left pursuing them to mount the trail to the fort. He breathed an oath into the wind, for there would be men of Irn-Svejur after them shortly, and Ryn’s dun was faltering, dropping behind him.

Here, upon the open road and with precious scant cover, the cursed dun spelled end to their flight, Vanye began to pull in, where a bend of rock gave a little shelter before the brush began. Here he leaped down, bow and sword in hand, and let the black take what way he would down the road. Morgaine alighted into cover also, bearing Changeling in the one hand, and the black weapon at her belt, he doubted not. And breathlessly last came Ryn; he stayed to strike the dun and make it move, and the poor beast took an arrow then, reared up and crashed down, flailing with its hooves.

“Ryn!” Vanye roared, his voice cracked and hoarse, and Ryn came, stumbled in, his arm all bloody with the black stump of an arrow broken in the flesh. He could not flex to string the bow he carried, and it was useless. The riders pressed them, came in, close quarters—men of Nhi and Myya, and Erij with them.

Vanye ripped his longsword from its sheath, too late for other defenses; and he saw Morgaine do the same, but what she drew, he would not attempt to flank to protect her. The opal blade came to life, sucked arrows amiss, bent them up and otherwhere, and sent a man after them, screaming.

The winds howled within that vortex, the sword sure, a hand that knew it upon its hilt; and nothing touched them, nothing passed the web of shimmer that it wove. Through watery rippling he saw Erij’s black and furious form. Erij pulled up, but some did not, and rushed toward nothingness.

And one was Nhi Paren, and another Nhi Eln, and Nhi Bren, spurring after.

“No!” Vanye cried, snatched at Ryn, who cried the same, and flung himself from cover, between blade and riders.

And ceased to be.

One instant Morgaine flung the blade aside, a saving reaction too late: her face bore horror—a rider thundered past, struck down at her, drove her stumbling aside.

Vanye cut at horse, dishonorable and desperate, tumbled beast, tumbled rider, and killed Nhi Bren, who had never done him harm. He whirled about then to see the red beam dropping beast and man indiscriminately, corpses and dying, writhing wounded. The mass of them that came reined back into better cover, still pursued by lancing fire that started conflagrations in the brush and in the grass—full twenty beasts and men lay stretched upon the road, the visible dead, and tongues of flame leaped up in the dry trees, whipped by the wind, Changeling still unsheathed in her right hand.

They fled, these others. Vanye saw with relief that Erij was among those that fled: though he knew that his brother had never run from anything, Erij fled now.

Vanye fell to his knees, leaned upon his sword’s hilt, and gazed about at what they had wrought. Morgaine too stood still, the glimmer of Changleing dim in her hand now, still opal. She sought its sheath and it became like fine glass again, slipping into its natural home.

And so she rested, one hand upon the rock, until at last with a gesture like one grown old she felt her way back from that place and turned to look at him.

“Let us find the horses before they gather courage for another attack,” she said. “Come, Vanye.”

She did not weep. He gathered himself up, caught her, fearing that she would fall, for she walked like one that would; and he thought then that she would have tears, but she leaned against him only a moment, shivering.

“ Liyo ,” he pleaded with her, “they will not come back. Stay, let me go find the horses.”

“No.” She freed herself of him, returned the black weapon to her belt, tried to lift the strap of Changeling to her shoulder, and her hands trembled too much. He helped her with it. She accepted its weight, eased it on her shoulder, and cast one backward look, before she began with him to seek the way the horses had gone.

And, brush rustling, there were with them brown men, gray men, men in green and mottled; men of Chya, who placed themselves across their path. With the men was Taomen, and another and another that they had seen before: they were Chya of Ra-koris, and leading them, last to appear, was Roh.