A hail of twigs came down from overhead. They kept walking, and still none prevented them. They passed down the trail and met the stream again, where the trail ceased and they had only the streamcourse to guide them. Reeds rustled behind them. A cluttering came from the trees.
"You planned this," Roh said hoarsely. "Shien understood. I would that I had."
"What did you plan for me?" he returned, half a whisper, for sound was fearsome in this place. "I promised only to go with you and guard your back– cousin.But what did you contrive with Fwar that so well pleased him?"
"What do you suppose I promised him?"
He answered nothing and kept walking, limping heavily over tangles of roots and washes in the mossy earth. The stream beside them promised water they dared not stop to drink, not until the breath was raw in their throats.
Then he fell to one knee and gathered a cold double handful to his mouth, and Roh did likewise, both of them taking what they could. Leaves rustled. A hail of twigs flew about them, leaves and debris hitting the water. They gathered themselves up as larger pieces began to fly. Shadows moved in the forest. They started walking and the shaking of branches stopped.
There came a time that they had to rest. Vanye sank down, hands clasped to his aching knee, and Roh flung himself down among the leaves, heaving with sobs for breath. They had left the stream for a trail that offered itself. There was only dark about them.
Of a sudden the shaking of branches began. A piece of wood cracked; a branch crashed dangerously near them, breaking young trees in its fall. Vanye reached for support and clawed his way to his feet, Roh springing up hardly slower. A scattering of twigs hit them. They began walking and it ceased.
"How far will they drive us?" Roh asked. His voice shook with exhaustion. "Is there a place they have in mind?"
"Til morning… and out of their woods." He caught the bad leg and stumbled, recovered with an effort that blurred his eyes. Almost he would have defied them and flung himself down to see whether they meant then– threats, but he was too sure that they did. The harilimhad done much, indeed, not to have killed them among the others… save that they might-at least one or two of them-recall him as a companion of the qhal…if they had memories at all, if anything like the thoughts of Men existed behind those huge dark eyes.
Cruel, cruel as any force of nature: they would have their way, their forest cleared of outsiders. He reckoned that their freedom to walk was the utmost of the harilim'smercy and went blindly. Once they met another, broader trail, started to take it, but a hail of twigs came down on them, in their faces, and the chittering began to be angry.
"Go back," he said, pushing at Roh, who was minded otherwise, and they turned and struggled the other, the harder trail, which took them deeper into the woods.
He fell. The leaves skidded slickly under his hands and for a moment he simply lay there, until the chittering nearby warned him, and Roh put a hand under his arm and cursed him. "Get up," Roh said, and when he had his feet under him again, Roh flung an arm about him and kept him moving until he had recovered his senses.
Day was beginning, a first grayness. The shadows which stalked them became more and more visible, sometimes moving along beside them with more rapidity than a Man could manage in the brush.
Then as the light increased a hush fell, and nothing now disturbed the trees, as if their herders had suddenly become one with bark and moss and limb.
"They are gone," Roh said first, and began to slow, leaned against a tree. Vanye looked about him, and again his senses began to leave him. Roh caught his arm, and he sank down where he was and sprawled on the dry leaves, numb and blank for a time.
He woke with a touch on his face, realized he was on his back now, and Roh's hand, cold and wet, bathed his brow. "There is another stream just beyond those trees. Wake up. Wake up. We cannot spend another night in this place."
"Aye," he murmured, and moved, groaned aloud for the misery in body and limbs. Roh steadied him to rise on his good leg, and helped him climb down to the water. There he drank and bathed his aching head, washed the dirt from him as best he could. There was blood on his hands and his armor: Fwar, he recalled, and bathed that off with loathing.
"Where are we?" Roh asked. "What do you expect to find here? Only their like?"
He shook his head. "I am lost. I have no idea where we are."
"Kurshin," Roh said, like a curse. Roh was Andurin, in all his lives, and forest-bred, as Kurshin were of the mountains and valley plains. "At least that way is the river." He pointed to the downstream of the brook. "And the ford where she was."
"Which lies across the harilimwoods, and if you choose that route, go to it; I will not. It was your imagining to use me for a guide. I never claimed for myself what you claimed for me to Fwar."
Roh regarded him narrowly. "Aye, and yet you knew accurately enough how to cast us to those creatures, and you have travelled here. I think you are shading the truth with me, my Kurshin cousin. Lost you may be, but you know how to find yourself. And Morgaine."
"Go to blazes. You would have thrown me to the Hiua if the hour had needed it."
"A kinsman of mine? I fear I am too proud for that kind of bartering. Is that a reasoning you understand? No, I promised you to them, when we should have taken Morgaine… but I can shade the truth too, cousin. I would have shaken them from my track. I heard Shien's warning. I could have turned aside. I trusted to you. Are not a Kurshin and an Andurin match for Hiua in the woods? Do you think that I would ever have found them comfortable allies? Fwar hated me almost as he hated you. He meant to knife me in the back the moment Morgaine was no longer a threat and he had you in his hands, disarmed. That was the anticipation that sweetened his disposition. He thought he had everything he wanted, me to deal with Morgaine, and half-witted enough to strip myself of the only man who might give me warning if they went for my back. Fwar saw himself as master of this land if he only tolerated us for a time; that I could give my trust to you, who had been my enemy-Fwar was not such a man, and therefore he could not imagine it in others. And it killed him. But you and I, Vanye-we are different men. You and I-know what honor is."
Vanye swallowed heavily, uneasily reckoning that it might remotely be truth. "I promised to guard your back… no more than that. I have done so. It was your own saying, that you would find Morgaine and try to speak with her. Well, do it without my help. Here our agreement ends. Go your own way."
"For a cripple, you are very confident to dismisss me."
Vanye scrambled awkwardly to his feet, hand jerking his sword from its hook; he almost fell, and braced his back against a tree. But Roh still knelt, unthreatening.
"Peace," Roh said, turning empty hands palm up. A mocking smile was on his lips. "In fact, you do think you can manage without me in this woods, and I would know why. Crippled as you are, cousin, I should hate to abandon you."
"Leave me."
Roh shook his head. "A new agreement: that I go with you. I want only to speak to Morgaine… if she is alive; and if she is not, cousin… if she is not, then you and I together should reconsider matters. You evidently have allies in this forest. You think that you do not need me. Well, that is the truth, more than likely. But I shall follow you; I promise you that. So I may as well go with you. You know that no Kurshin can shake me from his trail. Would you not rather know where I am?"
Vanye swore, clenched his hand on the sword he did not draw. "Do you not know," he asked Roh hoarsely, "that Morgaine set me under orders to kill you? And do you not know that I have no choice where it regards that oath?"
That took the smile from Roh's face. Roh considered it, and shrugged after a moment, hands loose across his knees. "Well, but you could hardly out-fence me at the moment, could you?-save I gave you a standing target, which would hardly be to your liking. I shall go with you and abide Morgaine's decision in the matter."
"No," he pleaded with him, and Roh's expression grew the more troubled.
"What, is that keeping faith with your liege-to warn her enemies that she is pitiless, that she is unbending, that she understands no reason at all where it regards a threat to her? My oldest memories are dreams, cousin, and they are long and full of her. The Hiua call her Death, and the Shiua khalonce laughed at that. No longer. I know her. I know my chances. But the khalwill not forgive what I have done. I cannot go back; I would have no freedom from them. I saw what they did to you-and I am quick to learn, cousin. I had to leave that place. She is all that is left. I am tired, Vanye, I am tired-and I have bad dreams."