Exile's Gate (44 page)

As an arrow hit the rock by his foot.

An arrow flew from another quarter, crosswise streak of black on pale rock, high up the ledges.

Not
at them. At the hidden archer. An outcry said that it had hit. Other
arrows followed, arcing downslope this time, into enemy positions,
starting enemies from cover, as Morgaine turned on her slab of rock and
fired again and again at targets suddenly visible.

A
dark spot moved in the edge of Vanye's vision: he whirled and fired at
a man coming up the throat of their little shelter, near the horses.

That
man sprawled backward, his armor of no avail against an arrhendur bow
at that range; and screamed as he slid down the slope, while Vanye
nocked his last arrow with a deliberate effort at steadiness, as shafts
sped unexplained over their heads, as the enemy broke and fled,
offering their backs to the arrows and the red glow that flashed on a
man and doomed him.

There
were, perhaps, two or three who made it off that field. When quiet came
the very air seemed numb. He still had the one arrow left. He refused
to spend it on a retreating enemy. He slid off his rock and lost his
footing in the landing, gathered himself up with his bow in one hand
and the last arrow still nocked, and struggled through the brush to the
tumbled mass Morgaine was descending.

"My lady Morgaine!"
a shout came down from the heights.

He
crossed the last distance with a desperate effort, to steady Morgaine
as she jumped the last distance and to thrust her back where there was
at least scant cover.

"No gratitude?" The mocking voice drifted down from that place of vantage. "No word of thanks?"

"Chei,"
Vanye muttered between his teeth, and pressed his body against Morgaine
as some large object hurtled off the heights to land close by them,
with a sickening impact of bone and flesh.

A helmet rolled and clanged down the rocks. Arrows scattered and rattled; and a qhalur body lay broken on the stone.

He bent the bow, aimed upward, hoping for a target.

"There
is my gift," Chei called down to them, never showing himself. "One of
Skarrin's pets, none of mine. An appeasement. Do I hear yet thanks?"

"He is mad," Vanye breathed.

"I could kill you both from here," Chei said.
"I
could have let Skarrin's men kill you. But I do not. I had rather come down to talk. Which shall I?"

"Mad,"
Vanye said. His arm was shaking as he had it braced. His breath was
short. He looked at Morgaine. "There were three of them. I have the one
arrow left. I can gather more out there. Cover me."

"Stay!" Morgaine said. "Do not try it."

He lowered the bow and eased the string.

"My
lady," Chei's voice drifted down to them. And an arrow struck and
shattered in front of them. "Is that earnest enough of good faith? Talk
is what I want. On your terms."

"I
cannot see the wretch," Morgaine hissed softly, looking upward with the
black weapon in hand. "Curse him, he can loft his shots, and I cannot—"

"Let me—"

"We still have another choice."

"Loose rock," Vanye muttered, looking at the set of the boulders
Changeling
might dislodge. "The horses—"

"My lady—" Chei's voice came down. "They have sent a gate-jewel into the field, more than one—Do you want to talk about this?"

"I am listening," Morgaine answered him.

"The
while we were on the road the jewel he wore was constantly sending. It
could not but draw them. I do not deny—I fought you. But there is no
more fighting. If you win, you will destroy the gate at Mante, you will
destroy everything, and we die.

If
Skarrin wins, we die—as rebels. We have few choices left. You want
Mante. I want something else. It is alliance I am proposing."

"Alliance," Vanye muttered under his breath.

"Narrow quarters," Morgaine said quietly. "And an unstable gate. And no knowing where our enemies out there have gotten to."

"It is a lie—"

She rested her hand on his shoulder, and looked up at the cliffs. "Come down!" she called to Chei.

"Under truce?" Chei asked.

"As good as your own," Morgaine shouted back. "Do you trust it?"

A pebble dropped and bounded from somewhere above.

"For God's sake, do not trust him."

"I do not. I want him in sight. Remember I have no scruples."

He drew a larger breath. His hands were shaking. From off the rock where the qhal had fallen, blood ran, and dripped.

And from up among the rocks, on the trail they had ridden, the sound of movement.

"There
were three," Vanye said again as a rider came down, out of their view
behind the hill, hoof-falls echoing among the rocks.

"We
do not know how many there are now," Morgaine said. "We have a dead man
for proof. Perhaps they would kill their own. Who knows?"

He drew a long, slow breath, resting back against the rock that was no shelter.

"On the other hand," Morgaine said, "Chei has already killed men of Skarrin's. Did you not say? How did that go?"

"Aye."
Breath was short. He sent his thoughts back, to gather everything,
putting it in one place. "Typthyn was the name. For the stone. It was
the stone the captain wanted. To take it to Mante, he said. And to get
clear. But do not believe him for the sake of that. Chei wanted it for
himself."

A single rider came into view, on the red roan that had been Gault's, the man a slight, young figure in silver mail.

"The fool," Vanye breathed.

"Foolish or desperate."

"No!" Vanye said. "I believed him a moment too long. He lies—very well."

Her hand clenched on his shoulder, on bruises. "Be patient. We will hear him out. That at least we can afford."

She
stood clear to face the rider, who, finding himself in a pocket in the
maze of stone, dismounted and leapt up to the flat rock which had been
Vanye's post. Vanye took his place at her left shoulder, the bow easy
in his hands, aimed at the ground.

But he kept the arrow nocked.

Chei
spread wide his hands. "That I have men above me, you can guess. And
you have the sword." He walked forward on the slanting surface and
dropped lightly off the rock to the ground facing them—spread his hands
again, keeping the palms in plain view. "I think the advantage is
yours."

"Come no closer," Morgaine said. "For this I have no need of the sword."

Chei stopped instantly. The mockery was gone from his face as she lifted her hand toward him. "My lady—"

"I am not your lady and whatever there is of Chei ep Kantory I should best requite by killing his enemy,
Gault.
I saved you for last, only so
you
might keep the others under your hand. I spared you once on Vanye's word—and because I should have enjoyed it too
much—
Do you hear me, Gault?"

"My men, my lady. Above us."

"We
two, lord Gault, are in front of you, and this is the cleanest of my
weapons, for which you may thank me. Is there something you want that
is worth this?"

"What I always wanted. What I would have freely given, if you had come to Morund. What the boy gave when you befriended him—"

"Lies," Morgaine said sharply.

"Vanye!" Chei said, holding out his hands.

"I had as lief kill you," Vanye said; and bent the bow as Chei took a step closer.
"No farther!"

Chei fell to his knees, hands outheld. "God help me, I do not know what I am, I cannot sort it out—What else do you leave me?"

"No more lies!"

"Listen to me. I know the way in. Do you want Skarrin? I will give him to you."

"Our guide," Vanye breathed, "to whom we owe so much already."

There
was fear on Chei's face now. The eyes flickered desperately,
distractedly for a moment, and he moistened his lips before they
steadied. "The boy—misled you. I am not that boy. My men have you in
sight. Will you throw away your lives—merely to have mine? It seems a
poor exchange."

"We can take him with us," Vanye said in the Kurshin tongue. "I will take care of him."

"Skarrin will kill me for what I have done—he will kill all of us.
Listen
to
what I am saying. I know how to mislead them. I know the way in. I will
give you Skarrin . . . for your promise to take us with you." He rested
back on his heels, hands on his knees, and the rising sun shone fair on
Chei's curling hair, on Chei's earnest face. "And I will not betray
you."

"Why not?" Morgaine asked. "You are betraying Skarrin."

"Because,"
Chei said with a foreign twist of the mouth, a sullen look up, as he
set his hands on hips and sat back. "Skarrin is not a lord I chose, not
a lord who chooses
me,
what is more. You are
no fool, lady. And I am not. You have knowledge of the gates that I do
not have. I made one try. You won. I have spent my life bowing down to
a lord who has trod my face into the dust more than once, and the
boy,
—when I will listen to him—" The young features contracted, a kind of grimace. "—the boy remembers you dealt well with him."

Vanye's breath shortened. "Let us get out of here," he said,
"liyo."

"The boy meant to kill me," Chei said. "He
wanted
to die. He still
wants
revenge.
He came to me—to pit himself against me—inside—to drive me mad, if he
could." Chei's mouth jerked, neither grimace nor smile, both humorless.
"But he has changed his mind about death. It never agreed with him. Or
with me. And he has changed his mind about killing you. He thought you
would kill him—and me. He was disturbed that you declined. Now he
understands more and more what a fool he was, having acquired a man's
understanding, and a warrior's good sense. And what he remembers tells
me I am safer right now than I would ever be in Morund."

"He was mistaken now and again. I need no assassin at my back."

"You need
me,
my lady. And Skarrin will prove it to you, too late, if you kill me. I know the way into Mante. And you will not find it!"

"I have done harder things."

"I
am not a rebel by nature, my lady! Give me a lord I can serve, give me
a lord who can win against Skarrin, deal with me as you deal with your
own, put me beside you, and you will find I have skill, my lady—in a
command twice Morund's size, in any field, I am a man worth having,
only so I have a lord more set on winning than on his fears of having
me win! I do not rival you. I do not wish to. Only take me and my men
and I will tell you how I will prove it: I will swear my allegiance
through Vanye, I will put myself under his orders—he is a fair man. I
know
that he is a fair man—"

"But
no fool," Vanye said bitterly, down the shaft of the arrow, "besides
which, man, I have my own allegiance, which is to my liege, and her
safety, and if I have to shoot you where you kneel I will do that
before I will let you at her back." The arrow trembled and almost he
lost his grip on it, so much the soreness of his joints and the
lightness of his head affected him. He tightened his fingers, feeling
the sweat stinging in the cut on his brow; and for all his stomach
knotted up in loathing of the choices, it was not for her to do, after
so many other burdens she had.
"Liyo, "
he
said, and lapsed into the Kurshin tongue, looking nowhere but at the
center of Chei's chest. "Let him call the others down. Let us—as you
say—have them in sight. Let us get down off this hill. And I will deal
with them."

She
delayed her answer. The sweat stung his eyes and ran down his sides,
into raw burns; the muscles of his arm began to tremble dangerously.

She
touched his shoulder then. "No," she said; and the breath went out of
him and the world spun so that he braced his feet as he lowered the
bow. "You are Vanye's," she said to Chei. "What he does short of
killing you I will not prevent." Her hand pressed hard on Vanye's
shoulder. "No," she said in the Kurshin tongue, "thee cares too much."

He
drew a breath and lifted the bow on the draw, half-blind and choking on
the desperation in him. He fired. But her hand struck his arm up and
the arrow sped past Chei's head to strike a chip from the stone wall
behind him.

Everything
froze in its place—Chei in front of him, white-faced; Morgaine at his
side. He trembled in the aftershock of attempted murder; he felt the
weakness on him with a giddiness that dimmed the light and made sounds
ring in his ears.

"Aye,"
he said, because something seemed incumbent on him to say then, who had
disregarded her orders. If there was a part of his soul undamned, he
had done it by that act, excepting her forgiveness. He drew in a
breath, straining bruised ribs, vision hazing—the blows to his head, he
thought; the lack of food; the exertion of the fight. He wanted only to
have them moving again, himself in the saddle with the horse to carry
him. Rest would mend him, a night's sleep—