"Cursethem 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. Vanyewants 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.
His bow, his quiver, hung on Arrhan's saddle, though different men had stolen them. There was a fine qhalur sword, that one of the lords had worn.
He looked around at Morgaine, at a face as qhal-pale as theirs, and a vengefulness far colder. For a moment she seemed changed far more than Chei.
Then she walked past him to take the rest that she had won, the horses that grazed oblivious to their change of politics. "Remounts," she said, leading them back. "Can thee ride, Nhi Vanye?"
"Aye," he murmured. She was brusque and distant with him, giving him room to recover himself; he inhaled the air of freedom and set his foot in his own stirrup and flung himself up to Arrhan's back, gathering up the sword as the mare began to move. He wanted that in its place at his belt first; even before water, and a little food, and a cool spring to wash in.
Even that impossible gift Morgaine gave him, finding among the hills and the rocks, a place where cold water spilled down between two hills and trees shaded the beginnings of a brook. She reined in there and got down, letting Siptah and the remounts drink; and he slid down, holding to the saddle-ties and the stirrup-leather: he was that undone, now that the fighting was done, and his legs were unsteady when he let go and sank down to drink and wash.
He looked and she was unsaddling the gray stud. "We have pushed the horses further than we ought," she said, which was all she said on the matter.
He lay down on the bank then, sprawled back and let his helmet roll from his head, letting his senses go on the reeling journey they had been trying to take. He felt his arm fall, and heard the horses moving, and thought once in terror that it had been a dream, that in the next moment he would find his brothers' hands on him, or his enemies' faces over him.
But when he slitted his eyes it was Morgaine who sat against the tree, her arms tucked about her knees, the dragon sword close by her side. So he was safe. And he slept.
He waked with the sun fading. For a moment panic jolted him and he could not remember where he was. But he turned his head and saw Morgaine still sitting where she had been, still watching over him. He let go a shaking breath.
She would not have slept while he slept. He saw the exhaustion in her posture, the bruised look about her eyes. "Liyo,"he said, and levered himself up on his arm, and up to his knees.
"We have a little time till dark," she said. "If thee can travel at all. Thee should tend those hurts before they go stiff. And if need be, we will spend another day here."
There was fever in her eyes, restraint in her bearing. It was one thing and the other with her, a balance the present direction of which he did not guess at, rage and anxiety in delicate equilibrium.