He thrust off Fwar's hand. "There are," he said carefully, though rage nearly choked him, "there are hazards everywhere in the forest. I can guide you through them."
"What sort?"
"Others. Qhal."
Fwar scowled and looked at Roh.
"Morgaine has allies," Roh said softly.
"What kind of trap have you led us into? We trusted heronce and learned. I have no trust in this now."
'Then you are in a bad situation, are you not? Hetharu on one side and Shien on the other, and the forest that none of us yet have found a way to travel safely-"
"Your arranging."
"I will talk with you privately. Vanye, get out of here."
"See he does, Trin."
Vanye gathered himself up; Trin was quicker, and seized him by the arm and drew him away to the far side of the camp, where the horses were picketed.
They stopped there. Fwar and Roh spoke together, out of hearing, two shadows in the dark. Vanye stared at them, trying to hear all the same, trying to ignore his guard, who suddenly seized his collar from behind and wrenched. "Sit down," Trin advised him, and he did so. Trin stood over him and kicked several times gently at his splinted knee, naught but casual malice. "We will get you away from him sooner or later," Trin said.
He answered nothing, planning that meeting in his own way.
"Thirty-seven of us-all with reason enough to settle with you."
He still said nothing, and Trin swung his foot again. He seized it and wrenched, and Trin went down, startling the horses, crying out for help. Men poured toward them. Vanye hit the Hiua, staggered up from Trin's prostrate form and came up on one leg, whipped out his dagger and slashed a tether. The horse shied back; he seized its mane and swung up as the dark tide reached him.
The horse screamed and plunged-went over as the Hiua overwhelmed it, other horses shying and screaming and tearing at their tethers. Vanye cleared the falling animal and sprawled into a yielding mass of Hiua almost under other hooves. He slashed blindly and lost the dagger as that arm was held and strained back nearly to breaking.
They drew him up then, and one snatched him by the harness on his chest and wrenched him forward. He would have struck, but for the glitter of mail, that showed him who it was. Roh cursed him and shook him, and he flung the hair from his eyes, ready to fight the rest of them. One tried to come at him-Trin, alive, with dark blood on his face and a knife in his hand.
Fwar stopped the man, took the knife, thrust the rest of the mob back. "No," Fwar said. "No. Let be with him."
The Hiua gave back sullenly, began to move away. Vanye shivered convulsively from his anger and caught his breath. Roh had not let him go. He reached for Roh's hand and disengaged it.
"Trying to run?" Roh asked him.
He said nothing. It was obvious enough what he had tried.
Roh seized his wrist and turned his hand up, slammed the hilt of his dagger into it. "Put that away and thank me for it."
He went to the ground and performed the obeisance, and Roh stood staring at him for a moment, then turned and walked away, Fwar lingered Vanye gathered himself up, expecting Fwar's malice, recalling to his confusion that it had been Fwar who pulled his men back.
"Someone go catch that horse," Fwar said then. A man went, walking out to the horse that had stopped its flight a little distance from the picket line.
Vanye started back to Roh. Fwar took him by the arm.
"Come along," Fwar said, and guided him through the standing crowd. No hand was laid on him else. Trin threatened; but Fwar took him aside and spoke to him in private, and Trin returned pacified. The whole camp settled.
Vanye looked about him at this sudden tolerance, and at Roh, who averted his face and began to prepare himself for the night's rest.
Chapter Eleven
They moved out yet again before dawn, and by the time day came full upon them, the dark line of Shathan bowed across their northern horizon.
During that day a strange tension lay over the company, which had riders dropping back to the rear by twos and threes and talking together a while before riding forward again.
Vanye saw it plainly enough, and reckoned that Roh did… dared not call it into question, for there was Fwar, as ever, at his side. 1 am mad,he kept thinking, to have any trust left in him.He was afraid, with a gnawing apprehension which Shathan's nearness did nothing to allay: to ride into the darkness…
He flexed the knee against the splints, and estimated that with the horse under him he was a whole man and without it a dead one. To ride with any speed through that dark maze of roots and uneven ground was impossible; to run it afoot, lame as he was, held no better hope-and the question was how far he could lead this band, before someone called halt and challenged him.
Yet Roh let him guide them still, even after Shien's warning, and what mutterings Fwar had made about it were silenced. All objections were stilled. There were only the whisperings in the back of the column.
In the afternoon they stopped and sat down with tether lines in hand, letting the horses rest, themselves taking a little food and drink, unpacking nothing which was not at once replaced, ready to move on in any instant. A gambling game started up, using knives and skill, and imaginary stakes of khalurplunder; that grew loud, and swiftly obscene. Roh sat unsmiling. His eyes shifted to Vanye's, and said nothing.
And suddenly flickered, fixed beyond his shoulder. Vanye turned and saw through his horse's legs a haze of dust on the southern-horizon.
"I think we should move," Roh said.
"Aye," he murmured. There was no doubt what that was, by its direction: Hetharu-Hetharu with his riders, and the Shiua horde in his wake.
Fwar swore blackly and ordered his men to horse. They sprang up from their game and checked girths, adjusted bits, took to the saddle with feverish haste. Vanye swung up and reined about, taking another look.
It was more than one point of the horizon now: it was an arc that swept toward them from south and west, hemming them half about. "Shien," he said. "Shien has joined with them."
That dust will be seen in the Sotharra camp," Fwar judged, and swore. "There and among the ones out on Narn-side. They will lose no time riding this way either."
Roh made no answer, but set spurs to the black mare. The whole company rode after him in haste, driving their horses to desperate flight. Spur and quirt could not keep the weaker with the pace; already the company was beginning to string back. The Shiua animals, journey-worn, could not keep the Andurin mare's ground-eating stride, much as their riders belabored them. Vanye nursed his sorrel gelding as he had done from the beginning… an unlovely annual, burdened with a bigger man than the Hiua, and him armored; but the beast had had at least a horseman's care on the journey, and he held his own at the rear… not important now to be in the lead, only to be with the rest, to keep the animal running for that green line ahead of them. The khalurriders were gaining: he looked back and saw the glint of metal through the dust of their own riding; doubtless the khal,better mounted, would kill their horses if need be .to overtake them, seeing the forest ahead as well as they did.
Roh's lead was now considerable, and only a few of the Hiua could keep with him. Vanye guided the sorrel around a bit of brush another rider had gone over, reckoning the land and the easiest path. He passed three of the Hiua, though he had not changed his pace. He bit at his lip and kept the gelding to what he had set.
Now there was a cloud of dust not only behind them, but eastward, closer there, ominously closer.
Others looked that way eventually, saw that force that sprang bright and glittering as if by magic over a swell of the land. The Hiua cried out in alarm, and spurred and whipped their horses near to exhaustion, as if that would help them– rode them over ground that was fit to lame them even at a slower pace.
A horse went down, screaming, in the path of another. Vanye looked back; one of the riders was a marshlander, and a comrade dropped back for that man: three gone, then. The man picked up the one rider and overtook them again, leaving the other; but soon the overburdened horse broke stride and fell farther and farther behind.
Vanye cursed; Kurshin that he was, he loved horses too well to enjoy what was happening. Roh's doing, Roh's Andurin callousness, he thought; but that was because he had somewhere to place the anger for such cruelty. He consented in it and rode, although by now the little gelding was drenched in sweat, and his own gut and joints felt every bruise the land dealt them.
The forest was all their view now, though the khalurriders were almost within bowshot. Arrows flew, fell short; that was waste. Archery slowed the force that fired, to no profit at this range.