"Lord," said one of the young Carrhendim. "We will fight now if we can help."
"Help by defending Carrhend and Mirrind. Your help in that is much needed."
That one bowed, and joined his friends. The Carrhendim left, each bowing to their guests; but the Mirrindim stayed, for they were bedded down in the wings of the hall.
Only Sin departed. "I shall sleep by the horses," he declared, and Vanye did not deny him that.
"Lellin," said Sezar, and Lellin nodded. Sezar left, likely to his kinfolk for the night, or perhaps to some young woman.
The hall was long in settling. There were fretful children and restless young folk. Blankets hung on cords curtained the wings, making a sort of privacy, and leaving the area nearest the fire for their guests.
At last there was quiet, and they settled comfortably, without armor, sharing with Lellin a few sips of a flask that Merir had sent with him.
"Things are well done here," Morgaine said, in the whisper the hour and the sleeping children demanded. "Your folk are very well organized to have lived so long at peace."
The qhal'seyes flickered, and he cast off the sober mood that had lain on him like a mantle. "Indeed, we have had fifteen hundred years to meditate on the errors we made in the wars. So long ago we settled on what we would do if the time came; it has, and we will do it swiftly."
"Is it," asked Vanye, "that long since a war in the land?"
"Aye," answered Lellin, compassing with that more than the known history of Andur-Kursh, where strife was frequent. "And may it be longer still."
Vanye thought on that long after they had taken to their pallets, with the qhal-lordresting beside him.
Fifteen hundred years of peace. In some measure the thought distressed him, who was born to warfare. To be locked within such long and changeless tranquility, in Shathan's green shadow-the thought distressed him; and yet the pleasantness of the villages, the safety, the order-had their appeal.
He turned his head and looked on Morgaine, who slept. Theirs was a heavy doom, endlessly to travel and they had seen enough of war for any lifetime. Might we not stay here?he wondered, brief traitor thought: and pushed it aside, trying not to think of their existence and Mirrind side by side.
Morning was not yet sprung where there came a sound of horses in Carrhend. Vanye rose, and Morgaine, sword in hand; Lellin padded after them to the windows.
Riders had come in, with two saddled horses in tow; they tied them to the rail of an empty pen and rode away.
"Well," said Lellin, "they came in time. They have ridden in from the fields of Almarrhane, not far from here, and I hope they have care riding home."
At the doorstep of one of the nearest houses Sezar appeared, lingering to kiss his parents and his sister, and then, slinging his bow and his gear to his shoulder, he walked across the commons, waved back at his family and then came toward the hall.
They went back to the fireside and armed, quietly gathering their belongings, trying not to disturb the sleeping Mirrindim. Vanye slipped out to saddle the horses and found Sin awake, already beginning that task.
"Are you going to Azeroth to fight sirrindim?"Sin asked, the while they both worked no longer innocent, the Mirrindim: they had seen Eth's fate, and had been driven from their homes.
"Where I go next I can never say. Sin, seek the qhalwhen you are old enough; I should not tell you that, but I do."
"I would go with you. Now."
"You know better. But someday you will go into Shathan."
The fever burned in the dark young eyes. The Men of Shathan were all smallish. Even so, Sin would never be tall among them, but there was a fire in him that began already to burn away his childhood. "I will find you there, then."
"I do not think so," Vanye said; sorrow settled deep in Sin's eyes, and all at once a pain stabbed him to the heart
Shathan will not be the same for him,he thought We will go, and destroy the Gates; and it is his hope -we are going to kill. It will all change, in his lifetime either at our enemies' hand-or ours.He gripped Sin's shoulder then, gave him his hand. He did not look back.
They were not quiet enough for the village; despite their wish to depart quickly and quietly, there was no preventing the Mirrindim, who rose to bid them farewell; or Sezar's mother, who brought them bread hot from the ovens-she had risen long before dawn, baking for them; and Sezar's father, who offered them some of his finest fruit wine for their journey; and the brothers and sister who turned out to bid Sezar farewell. They laughed gently when Lellin planted a kiss on the sister's cheek, picking her up and setting her down again, for though she was a budding woman, she was tiny next a qhal.She laughed at the kiss, but glanced down shyly and up again with a look that held her heart in her eyes.
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 arrhendimhad 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 qhalurtongue. 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.