Morgaine's hand did not lower. It stayed aimed at the center of the qhalur ranks.
"My lady," the man said to her, human face, human voice.
"Gault," Chei's voice rasped. "That is Gault, on the roan. The man by him is Jestryn ep Desiny—he was one of our company—"
"My lord Gault," Morgaine shouted back. "What have we to say to each other that you follow me so far from home?"
"We might have discovered that had you come to me." Gault rode forward a few paces and drew the roan to a halt again. "You take strange allies, my lady. Brigands. Rebels. You set them free from my justice. You burn my lands and kill my game. Am I to take this for a friendly gesture?"
"I rarely practice justice. Outright slaughter, yes. I do not call it pretty names, my lord Gault."
"What is that you hold?" Gault's big roan surged forward and he curbed it, reining aside.
"That which seems to make you prudent, my lord. Justifiably so. I see you have talked to my enemies."
"And is your report of me so foul?" Again Gault paced the horse the other direction, weaving a slow, distracting course in the deepening dusk, which Morgaine's hand followed constantly.
"It is your death, my lord. My patience is lessening with every step you take. Do you want to discover which is the fatal one?"
Another three paces. "He is delaying," Vanye muttered, scanning the hills with constant attention. "There is something else out there, and he is waiting for the dark."
"My lady," Gault called out. "You and I might have more to speak of than you think likely. And perhaps more in common than you think." Gault's voice grew gentler, and he curbed his horse's straying. "I take it that it is you I deal with and not this gentleman by you."
"It is myself," she said. "Have no doubt of that."
"What is he?"
"This is delay," Vanye said. "Liyo,seek no more of him. Let us be out of here."
"My companion," Morgaine answered Gault. "So—you do not know everything about me."
"Should I?" Again the horse surged forward and Gault reined it back. "You are no visitor out of Mante. Your name is Morgaine. So the humans say. Mine is Qhiverin—among others."
"Liyo.Break away—now! Do not listen to this serpent."
"You are a stranger here," Gault said. "A wayfarer of the gates. You see I am not deceived. You have threatened Mante. Now you will kill me and all my men, lest I reach Tejhos. You think that you have no choice. But here am I, come to parley with you when I might have stayed safe in Morund—or turned prudently south to Morund-gate, once I learned what you are. I did not. I have risked my life and my lord's favor to find you. Is this the action of an implacable enemy?"
"Do not believe him," Bron said. "My lady, do not listen!"
Gault held up one hand, took his sword from its hangings and dropped it ringing to the ground. "There. Does that relieve your suspicions?"
"Withdraw your men," Morgaine said.
Gault hesitated, seeming uncertain, then lifted his hand to the darkened sky.
A black and moving hedge crested the hill eastward.
"Riders on our left!"Vanye cried, and ripped Changelingfrom its sheath.
The air went numb and Arrhan shied under him as that the blade came free, an opal blaze till its tip cleared the sheath and whirled free.
Then a darkness greater than the night formed at Changeling'spoint, and drew in the air all about them. Wind shrieked and keened; men cried out in panic, and the dark lines went to chaos, some breaking forward to meet him, some turning to flee.
"Gate,"he heard cry throughout the enemy ranks, "Gate!"—for gate it was, leading to Hell itself. He swung it and a horse and rider together went whirling away into dark, screaming with one terror. Others collided with each other in their attempt to escape his attack, and them he took in one stroke and the next, merciless, for there was no stopping it, there was no delicacy in it—it ate substance and spun it out again, streaming forms of living men away into Hell and cold—
—one and the next and the next as Arrhan cut a curving swath through attackers who trampled each other trying to flee it.
"Archers!" he heard cry. It was for his liege and his comrades he had concern. He reined aside to bring the hell-thing to the defense of his own—taking missiles askew with the wind, trying to shield his liege if he could find her in the unnatural light and the blinding wind.
"Liyo!"he shouted, desperate, fighting when he must, when some rider rushed him. The gate-force quivered through his arm and his shoulder and deafened him with its screaming; his eyes grew full of the hell-light and the sights and the faces till he was numb and blinded.
"Liyo!"
"Vanye!"he heard, and went to that thin sound, turning Arrhan, forcing her with his heels as the mare faltered in blind confusion.
Riders swept toward him. He swung the sword up at the nearest and saw the horrified face in the light of the blade, saw the mouth open in a cry of disbelief.
"Bron!"he cried, wrenching the blade aside, veering so that Arrhan skidded and fought wildly for balance.
Bron was gone. The bartered horse thundered past riderless.
He guided Arrhan about in a stumbling turn, and saw Morgaine beyond, silver and black, and Siptah's eyes wild in the opal fire.
"Follow!" she ordered him, and reined about and rode for the dark and the road.
He did not even think then; he followed. He drove his heels into Arrhan's flanks and swept to her right and behind, to keep Morgaine safe from what he did not know and could not see for the shock to his soul and the blinding of his eyes. If there were enemies still behind he did not know. He held Changelingnaked to his right, protecting them both, for in that howling wind no arrow could reach them.
Up, up and up the steep slope, until horses faltered on the wet grass, and Siptah came about and Arrhan slowed, blowing froth back from her bit.
"Sheathe it," Morgaine cried. "Sheathe it!"
He discovered the sheath safe in its place at his side: he had done that much before he lost himself, reflexive and unremembered act. He took the sheath in a trembling hand and turned the other numbed and aching wrist to wobble the point toward safety, the only thing that would contain Changeling'sfire.
That small aperture was a goal he suddenly feared he could not make without calamity. His hand began to shake.
"Give over!" Morgaine said in alarm.
He made it. He slid the point home and the fire dimmed and died, so that he was truly blind. His right arm ached from fingers to spine. He had no strength in it nor feeling in his fingers. "I killed Bron," he said with what voice he could manage, quite calmly. "Where is Chei?"
"I do not know," Morgaine said, reining Siptah close to him. There was hardness in her voice, was very steel. He could not have borne any softer thing. "We did not take them all. Some escaped. I do not know which ones."
"Forgive—" His breath seemed dammed up in him. "I—"
"We are near Tejhos. There is a chance that Mante will mistake one gate-fire for the other. At least for the hour." She turned Siptah on the slope and rode, Arrhan followed by her own will, dazed and blind as he.
"Too near the gate," he heard her say. "Too cursed near. We must be nearly onTejhos-gate. I should neverhave given it to you."