Something flew, hissing, and hit; she went over, flung nearly out of the saddle. Siptah shied wildly, and Vanye cried out and rammed spurs into the mare. Somehow, by desperate strength, Morgaine was still ahorse, clinging by the mane and by one heel across the saddle, her pale hair a wild banner against the shadow, a white-feathered arrow driven somewhere the armor was not. Siptah spun once, confused, then ran, arrows hailing faster. Vanye bent low and drove the mare in desperate flight down the bank after her somehow Morgaine pulled herself back into the saddle,enough to hold on.
"Riders!" Sezar shouted behind him.
He did not turn to look. His eyes were only for Morgaine, who slumped now across Siptah's neck, and the sand over which the mare's hooves flew was spotted with dark drops.
The mare slowed, faltered, froth spattering her and him. Sezar and Lellin overtook him-passed him now as the mare broke stride. Sezar started to draw back for him. "No!" Lellin cried, and Sezar whipped the horse on to stay with Lellin. Further and further the distance widened between him and arrhendim.
"Get her to safety!" Vanye screamed after them. To do that, they had come within reach, he would have cast one of them from the saddle and thrown him to the enemy. Perhaps Lellin sensed it, and would not delay in his reach. "Help her!"
Mai was done, staggering badly. In desperation he turned for the trees up the incline of the bank, drove her for that, to dismount and run for cover afoot.
But she betrayed him at the last. Her strength failed in the loose sand and she went down nose-first while they were still on the flat. He sprawled, and she heaved down on him before he cleared the saddle, rolled as dead weight, neck broken, limp.
He twisted round as he heard the riders bearing down on him-grimaced, for his leg was pinned and he could not drag it free nor get leverage against Mai's heavy body.
He had no hope of anything further, even that all would give up the chase and delay for him; they did not. Most of them thundered past, spraying him with sand and gravel, but four reined back to deal with him. He had his sword still, and managed to get it into his hand, reckoning even so that it was futile, that they would put an arrow into him at safe distance and end it.
They were not halfling Shiua, but Men. He recognized them as they left their horses and came to him, and he cursed as they grinned in triumph, making a half-ring about him, out of his reach.
Myya Fihar i Myya Mija Fwar, a Hiua accent made the name: there was no mistaking that face, scarred and twisted about the lips with a knife-mark. Fwar had been Morgaine's lieutenant once, before their ways parted in violence. The others were Fwar's kinfolk, all Myya, all with blood-debt against him.
They laughed at his plight, and he bided quietly, no longer anticipating the arrow, hoping that Fwar in particular would come within reach. "Bring that branch over here," Fwar ordered one of his cousins, Minur. The man brought it, a sandy length of still-sound wood, tall as a Hiua and thick as a man's wrist.
Not for levering, that; they were wiser. Vanye saw the intent in Fwar's eyes and tucked down as the blow came clutched the sword against him, but blow after blow to his helmed skull stunned him, and finally they rammed the end of the branch at him and broke his grip on the sword. They were on him then; he tried for the dagger, and though he had it from sheath and put a wound on at least one of them, they pinned him and wrested it from him. Then they found cords and tried to bind his hands back; but he fought that wildly, and twice they had to daze him before that was done.
Then he was finished, and knew it lay still with his face against the dry sand, gathering his forces for whatever came next. One kicked him in the belly for good measure, and he doubled reflexively, not even focusing his eyes to look at them. They were Myya, of a cold and vengeful clan, which had hated him in Kursh and sworn his death there. But these descendants of the proud Kurshin Myya, lost in Gates a thousand years and more knew nothing of honor, despised it as they despised everything beyond themselves. Fwar hated him with a burning and personal hatred.
They levered Mai off him finally. He had thought that the leg might be broken where she had fallen on him, but the sand had saved him from that. He had some hope then; but the knee gave with a stab of blinding pain when they seized him up and expected him to stand, and not all their blows and curses could amend that. Then he gave up all hope of winning free of them.
"Put him on a horse," Fwar said. "There might be friends of his hereabouts and we want time to pay you your due, Nhi Vanye i Chya, for all my brothers and our kinfolk that you killed."
Vanye spat at him. It was all the recourse he had left, and that too failed of the mark. Fwar's eyes raked him over and calculated not stupid, this man: Morgaine would not have had a dull-witted man in her service. "He would like us to stay near here as long as possible, I suppose. But the khal-lords will see to her,and we can deal with them later. We had better take our prize downriver a ways."
One of them brought a horse near. Vanye kneed the hapless beast in the flank and sent it screaming and plunging away from him; but the Hiua had an answer for that took and bound his ankles and flung him over another saddle belly down, lashed him in place so that he could not further delay them. The helm fell; one of them gathered it up and set it mockingly on his own head.
Then they started off down the riverside, moving rapidly, and from that head-down jolting Vanye began to slip from consciousness now wholly unaware, but there were long darknesses in which he found no refuge.
And worse than other pain was the thought of Morgaine, whether the Shiua riders had overtaken her or whether she had fallen to her wound he recalled the blood on the sand, sick at heart. But he must live, then. If she were alive, she needed him. If she were dead, he still must contrive to live; he had sworn so.
He had not been reckoning of that when he had fought the Hiua, trying to win of them a quick death and honest; but when he had had time to think of what she had set on him by oath, he gave up fighting his enemies and gathered his strength for another and longer fight, in which there was no honor at all.
The Hiua stopped at mid-morning. Vanye was aware of the horse slowing, but of little else until they freed him of the saddle and flung him roughly to the sand. There he lay still and ignored them, staring at the dark waters of the Narn which flowed a stone's throw away a black thread that still bound this place to that where she was: the sight of it comforted him, that they were not yet lost, one from the other.
One of the Hiua seized hold of him and lifted his head, put a flask to his lips: water. He drank what they would give him; they poured more of it on his face and struck him, trying to restore him. He reacted little to either, although he was aware enough.
Fwar came, seized him by the hair, shook at him until his eyes fixed on him. "Ger, Awan," he named his dead brothers, "and Efwy. And Terrin and Ejan and Prafwy and Ras, Minor's kin here; and Eran, that was Hul's brother; and Sithan and Ulwy that were Trin's"
"And our wives and our children and all those that died before that," said Eran. Vanye looked at him, reading there a hate which equalled Fwar's. He had killed Fwar's brothers with his own hand. Perhaps he had killed the others they named too: many had died in pursuit of them. The women and children had died with their dead hold, no doing of his but that made no difference in their minds. He was a hate they could seize upon, an enemy they had in hand, and for all the grief they had ever suffered, for Morgaine who had led their ancestors to grief in Irien and tried to bind them in drowning Shiuan-for her too they had such burning hate: but he was Morgaine's, and he was in hand.