Exiles Gate

dead fire. 'He is human. But it is not considering my scruples you took his oath. You deceived him and you refused to confide in me. Why?'

'I do not deceive you.'

'You do not tell the truth.'

'Thee pleaded for his life.'

'I had as soon have left him at the last camp, where he had some choice where to go. I had as soon gone further west from the beginning and come up through the hills.'

She pressed her lips together in that way she had when she had said all she would. So their arguments tended to end—himself with the last word, and Morgaine lapsed into one of her silences that could last for hours and evaporate at the last as if there had never been a word of anger.

But always Morgaine did as she would—would simply ride her own way, if he would not go with her; there was no reasoning with her.

'I will get your cursed horse,' he said.

She drew a sharp breath. 'We will go his way, by the trails.'

He felt his face go hot. 'So we walk turn and turn.'

'I did not ask that.'

'That is a wounded man. How much do you think he can do?'

'I am willing to wait here. Did I not say as much?'

'Wait here! With the enemy over the next hill!'

'What would you?'

Now it was he who found no words. He only stood there a moment, half-choked with anger; then bowed his head and walked on past her, back to put the pan with their gear.

Chei looked at him with the same bewilderment, his eyes jerking from one to the other—lastly toward Morgaine, who came and sat down on her heels beside them.

Vanye sat as he was a moment, jabbing at the ground with a stick between his knees. 'I reckon,' he said mildly, 'that we could make the back trails. If Chei and I rode and walked by turns.'

Morgaine rested her arms on her knees, her brow on the heels of her hands. Then she dropped her arms and sat down cross-legged. 'Myself,' she said, 'I am not of a mind to be inconvenienced by this Gault of Morund.'

A touch of renewed panic hit him. 'Liyo —'

'On the other hand,' she said, 'your suggestion is reasonable. Unless our guide knows where we might find horses, otherwise.'

'Not except we raise the countryside,' Chei said in a faint voice.

'How far a journey—clear of his lands?'

'By morning we are clear.'

Vanye rested the stick in both his hands, 'In the name of Heaven,' he said in the Kurshin tongue, 'he will tell you whatever he thinks will save his life: he was wrong this morning, and we rode under sun and in the open.'

'Trusting him is thy advice, and first it is aye and then nay—which do I believe?'

'I am a Man. I can trust him without believing him. Or trust him in some things and not in others. He is desperate, do you understand. Wait here. I will go and steal you a horse.'

'Enough on the horse!'

'I swear to you—'

'Vanye—'

'Or lord Gault's own cursed horse, if you like! But I should not like to leave you with this man. That would be my worry, liyo. Leaving you here, I would tie him to a tree, and I would not take his word how far it is across this cursed lord's land. I will tell you what I had rather do: I had rather do without the horse, strike out due west, far from here, and come north well within the hills.'

'Except it needs much too long.'

'Too long, too long—God in Heaven, liyo, it needs nothing but that we ride quietly, carefully, that we arrive in our own good time and disturb no one. I thought we had agreed.'

'He named a name,' Morgaine said.

'What, he? Chei? What name?'

'Skarrin, in Mante. This lord in the north.'

His heart clenched up. 'Someone you know?'

'Only an old name. We may be in great danger, Vanye. We may be in very great danger.'

For a moment there was only the sound of the wind in the leaves.

'Of what sort?' he asked. 'Who?'

'In the north,' she said. 'I am not certain, mind. It is only a very old name—and this north-lord may be an old man, very old, does thee mark me. And once he knows his danger, there are measures he might take which could trap us here. Does thee understand me?'

'Who is he?'

' I do not know who he is. I know what he is. Or I guess. And if I bind this man by oaths and any promise I can take from him—I do not loose him near that gate behind us, does thee understand? From Morund I might gain something. From Morund I might draw this north-lord south, out of reach of his own gate. But thee may be right—there is the chance too that this Gault is mad, and that there is no dealing with him.'

'With a man who feeds his enemies to wolves?'

'With a devil, there is dealing—sometimes far easier than with an honest man. And by everything Chei has told us, there are Men enough among the qhal and not the other way about, so we need not worry for thy sake. But thee says trust this Man, and trust ourselves to his folk—'

'I did not say that!'

'What does thee say? Leave him? Kill him? Is that what thee is asking? Or ride on with him? We are too far into this to camp, and if this lord Gault finds us skulking about without his leave, that brings us to a fight or to Morund-gate, under worse terms.'

Vanye raked his hair out of his eyes, where it fell forward of the braid, and raked it back again, resting his elbows on his knees.

In Andur-Kursh, Men would shoot a qhal on sight.

'Has Chei ever heard my other name? Did you by any chance tell it to him?'

'I do not know,' he said, dismayed. 'The one the Shiua used?' And when she nodded: 'I do not know. I think not. I am not sure. I did not know—'

'Do not speak it. Ever. And do not ask me now.'

He glanced at Chei, who stared at him and at her as his only hope of safety—his life, Chei surely sensed hung in the balance in this dispute he could not follow. It was a sensible man, Vanye thought, whose eyes followed all their moves, but who had the sense to hold his peace. 'He is surely wondering what we say—Heaven knows what he understands of us—but in God's good mercy, liyo —'

She rose and walked back to Chei; and he rose and followed.

'Can you walk?' Morgaine asked in the qhalur tongue, looking to Chei. 'Do you think you can walk through the night?'

'Yes,' Chei said.

'He is telling you anything he thinks he must,' Vanye said in the other. 'He fears you. He fears to refuse any qhal, that is the trouble with him. Let him ride and I will walk, and let us go the trails he says he knows, quietly as we may. That is my advice. That is all the advice I have. Quickly and quietly, and without bruising a leaf. It is Men here I had rather trust. And you know that it is not my human blood makes me say it: I had no such feeling in the arrhend, and you well know it.'

'My conscience,' she named him. 'And has thee forgotten—it is a world's honest men who will always fight us. I dread them, Vanye, I do dread them, more than the Gaults and all the rest.'

'Not here,' he said with conviction. 'Not here, liyo. Nor, let me remind you, in my