Exiles Gate

called him only cousin when he was kindest. But in Chei's mouth it was not a curse, it was like a spell cast on him, was the way Morgaine used it.

Fool, he told himself. And his heart moved in him all the same.

'Where are we going?' he asked Chei.

'Where I told you from the beginning—across the hills to the road. Before God I have not lied. Vanye, tell her so. Tell—'

What sound it had been Vanye could not identify, even in hearing it. But it had been there; and none of them moved or breathed for the instant.

The black weapon was in Morgaine's hand, beneath the cloak. Vanye knew it, as well as he knew where sky and earth was. Changeling rode at her side tonight, since she went hooded; and there was power enough in her hand to deal with any single enemy.

Chei shook his head, faint movement. His eyes rolled toward the woods, a gleam of white in a shadowed face. 'I do not know,' he whispered, ever so faintly. 'I swear to God I do not know who that is, I did not plan this —Please. Let me go, let me ride to them. It may be they are human—I expect that they are. If they are not, you can deal with them. If they are, then likely I can ride in on them.'

'And tell them what?' Morgaine asked in a flat voice.

'After that—God knows. They may kill me. But likeliest they will want to know what they can find out.' His voice trembled. His teeth were chattering, and he drew in a rough breath. 'Lady, if we go on we will ride into ambush and they will raise all the hills against us. We have no choice! Let me go to them!'

'You are supposing we would ride in after you,' Morgaine said.

'I am supposing,' Chei whispered back, 'nothing. Except we are too few to threaten them. That is all the safety we have. I can talk to them, I can tell them you are no friend of Gault's—Let me try, lady. It is the only way. They are bowmen. We will not have a chance if they begin to hunt us.'

'He is brave enough,' Vanye said in his own language.

'Brave indeed,' Morgaine said. 'He has courted this, curse him.'

It might well be true. Honest men, Morgaine had warned him.

'What can we do now,' Vanye asked with a sinking heart, 'thatcosts less?'

'Try,' Morgaine said tochei.

'Hold.' Vanye edged Arrhan up next the gelding to pull the tiesfree which held the heavy bundle of mail and leather atop chei's other gear. he pulled it free and handed it to him. 'put it on.'

In the case, he thought, that Chei was on their side.

Chei did not argue. He took the offered help, and took the mailon his arms, ducked his head and slid it on, leaving it unbelted.

Then he took up the reins and urged the gelding quietly ahead, up the bank and into the woods. In a moment more there was a whistle from that direction, low and strange. Siptah threw his head and Morgaine held him steady.

It was not a safe vantage they had. Vanye interposed himself and his horse between her and the woods, on the side the bank did notshelter; but their backs he could not defend.

There was nothing then but the dark and the bubbling of thestream behind them, the sighing of the leaves.

Another sound, from their side: Morgaine unfastened the hookwhich held Changeling at her side, and brought it sheath and all, torest crosswise on her saddle.

Doomsday. His hand went on reflex to that pyx he had beneath his armor, and he felt it like a coal against his heart.

Destruction.

Once that sword was drawn there was no peace in the world. Once that was drawn there would be deaths heaped up and uncountable.

He sat his horse still, thinking of archers beyond the trees; and that by now Chei had either fallen to some silent killer, or found the allies he had led them to, for whatever purpose.

The movements were virtually silent, the rustle of a branch, thebrush of a body against leaves. the gelding shifted and snorted and stamped, breaking twigs and working at the bit; and chei held him in place.

'Who are you?' came a voice hardly above the wind.

'A human man,' Chei answered in a normal voice, and did not turn in his saddle. 'Ep Kantory. Chei ep Kantory, asking passage. There are three of us, no more, two at the streamside. One of us is qhal.'

There was long silence, very long. He heard a whisper, and another, but he could not hear the words. He did not turn his head.

'Get off your horse,' the whisper came.

He did that, and drew a whole breath, though his legs wanted to shake under him. One qhal, he had told them. It was enigma enough to confuse them and make them ask further. He had made himself defenseless. He had ridden without true stealth. Therefore he was still alive. He stepped down in the little clear space and held his horse close to the bit, forestalling its nervous shifting as branches stirred and a shadow afoot came out of the brush into filtered starlight only slightly better than the forest dark.

That shadow came to him and took his horse's reins and led it away from him. He did not resist.

He did not resist when others came up behind him and took his arms in a painful grip.

'It is passage I ask,' he said to them in a hushed voice. 'The qhal with me is a woman, alone with one human man. They are enemies of Gault's. Gault is hunting us.'

A slight weight rested on his shoulder, and moved till the cold, flat metal of a sword-blade rested against his neck. 'Where do you come from?'

It was death to move. It was death to give the wrong answer, and for the moment he could think of nothing at all, the forest air seeming too thin, his senses wanting to leave him as if the world had shifted again, and he should be back on that hilltop, all that he had to tell them become a dream, a delirium. He could not even believe, for one dizzy moment, in the companions he had left on that streamside, or in the things that had happened to him, at the same time that he knew he was back among human men.

The sword turned edge-on against his neck.

'I am still human,' he said. 'So is the man with her. She is here on business of her own. It would be well—to find out what that is. They have told me something of it—enough I knew I ought to bring them here. I swear you have never seen anything like her. Or like the man with her—he is a Man, and from somewhere I do not know. Let me go back to them and I will lead them to the falls. There is no way out of that place but back. You know that there is not. We will camp there and wait, and you can ask what questions you want.'

There was another long pause. Then: 'Ep Kantory,' the whisper in front of him said, 'your brother is with us.'

His heart lurched. As a trick, it was cruel. 'My brother died at Gyllin-brook. Ichandren at Morund. I am the last alive.'

'Bron ep Kantory is alive,' the whisper said. 'He is with Arunden. In our camp.'

He did not know whether, then, he could stand on his feet. He was numb. He felt his breath short and anger blinded him and hope came by turns, between the conviction they were lying and hope—remotest and terrible hope, that it might be true.

'Who is this,' the same voice continued to ask, 'that you travel with?'

He could not speak. He could not find his voice. He had been better than this when Gault's men led him to the hilltop. He had been better than this in the depths of Morund-hall when Ichandren died. His senses came and went, as if he would faint, and here and there wavered.

'Did you think that you could do this?' the whisper asked him. 'Did you think that you could deceive us?'

'I am Chei ep Kantory. My brother's name is Bron. He fell at Gyllin-brook—'

The blade pressed against his neck. A strong grip drove the blood from his hands.