Exiles Gate

no word beyond that simple directive.

Somewhere a nightbird cried.

'Come,' their guide said then, and turned his horse sedately and went ahead at the same deliberate walk he had used for some little time. So Chei went and so Morgaine; and himself and the last man, as the trail followed the shoulder of a wooded hill and climbed again, up among tall trees and down once again, onto the other side of the hill.

For the first time, on that breath of wind, Vanye picked up the scents of smoke and habitation. No lights showed as they came down, first into thinner trees and then among brushy lumps—huts which seemed more like thickets than dwellings—but nature never grew them, Vanye thought, as they rode sedately down the steep slope and past one such that was high as horse and rider together, a rounded shape against the straight trunks of the trees.

Not a stirring hereabouts. Not a breath of a voice, no gleam of fire. From a pen, withdrawn among the trees, came stable-smell and a restless shifting of horses, as they rode out into the clear midst of this low place.

Then their guide dismounted. 'Get down,' he said.

'Best we do that,' Chei said, and slid down.

Well indeed, if there were archers in question. Morgaine got down from the saddle, with Changeling hung at her side, and Vanye did, at the same time as Chei did; and dropped the reins to let the horses stand.

Then came a little movement, and more than one shadow gliding out from among the trees and the huts.

One came and crouched on the ground in the starlight in the midst of the large clearing at the center of the huts, and poked round in a familiar way with a stick, after which coals came to a sullen glow, and a slight gleam showed: the man then piled on tinder and wood. So the village folk had taken precautions and now felt encouraged enough that the one man squatted there with the firelight leaping up brighter and brighter on his heavy-jowled face.

'My lord Arunden—' Chei said in a plaintive way, and walked forward a pace or two; and stop as the man at the fire looked up at them with an underlit scowl.

The man called Arunden stood up, and drew the short sword that hung at his belt. The fire limned them both, Chei all dark, fire glancing on the edges of his mail; the older man all light, shadow about his features and his leather and furs and braids.

'Strange guests,' Arunden said, and the voice matched the face, heavy and rough. 'Stranger still that you bring them here. What does Gault want?'

'Is my brother truly alive, my lord?'

'Answer.'

'Gault wants our lives, theirs and mine, my lord. I am human. So is the man. The lady is qhal, but she is no friend of Gault's.'

'The land is burning, below. What do we do for this? How did this happen?'

Chei had no quick reply for that.

'It happened,' Morgaine said, drawing a startled look from the man, and walked forward to stand, gray- cloaked and hooded figure with arms folded, the dragon-sword out of sight, riding at her hip, and Heaven knew where her other weapon was, but Vanye well guessed as he moved to take his place at her left shoulder. 'The qhal of your land have no courtesy,' Morgaine said to the lord, 'and I have found more with this young human. So I have come to you. As for the burning—a matter of war, my lord, else worse would be at your borders.'

There was stark silence from lord Arunden . . . stark silence too from the shadowy figures which appeared among the trees behind him. Vanye's heart began to pound in dread, his mind to sort rapidly what he could see of those about them, mapping which way they should go—what their path of escape should be, where cover was.

There would be, Chei had assured them, archers.

'Who are you,' Arunden asked sharply, 'riding here with your minions? What are you, Gault's jilted doxy?'

That was the limit. Vanye slipped the ring. The weight of the sword hit his hip as Morgaine lifted one empty, white hand, forestalling him without even looking to see what his move had been, and let back her hood, spilling her pale hair free to the light.

'No,' she said softly, 'I am not. Would you guess again, my lord Arunden?'

'My lady,' Chei said, stepping between. 'My lord—'

'Is she here to make threats?' Arunden asked. 'Or to spy out the hills, with you for her guide?'

Morgaine glanced Chei's way with chill disdain. 'You vowed this was a reasonable man.'

'I am no fool!' Arunden shouted, and stamped his stick into the coals, so that coals scattered and sparks flew up.

'I am out of patience,' Morgaine said to Chei, and turned aside.

'Stay,' Chei said. 'Wait—my lord Arunden. Do not make a mistake.'

'I make no mistake. It is your mistake—'

'Chei!' a voice called out of the dark, and a man was coming down the slope of a sudden, limping and making his way with difficulty on the uneven ground among the trees and huts.

Vanye let his sword surreptitiously back to its sheath, as Morgaine had stopped near him, her hands shrouded in her cloak and her jaw set.

'Bron, it is not your brother,' Arunden shouted uphill as that man came on, and waved him to stand off.

But: 'Bron,' Chei said, quietly. 'O Bron—'

The man came resolutely forward, limping somewhat—unarmored, wearing only breeches and shirt and boots, weaponless; he came and he stopped in doubt a little the other side of the fire; as Chei for his part stood still—wisely, Vanye thought with that prickling between his own shoulder-blades that weapons at his back set there.

'I am not Changed,' Chei said in a voice that scarcely carried, a voice which trembled. 'Bron, Ichandren is dead. Everyone is dead. Gault gave the last of us to the wolves. Myself, Falwyn, ep Cnary—' His voice did break, quiet as it was. 'They died. That was what happened to them. I thought you had died on the field.'

'What do you want here?' Bron asked, in a voice colder than Arunden's. 'What is it you want?'

Chei turned his face away as if it he had been dealt a blow, and shook his head vehemently.

'What do you want, Chei?'

'Passage,' Chei said after a moment, looking back toward his brother. 'Safety. I am sworn, Bron, my lord was dead, you were dead, the lady and this man found me, they took me away from the wolves, healed my hurts —He is not qhal, Bron, he is a man like I am and she set me free and gave me a horse and tells me things that Arunden ought to know, that all of us ought to know, Bron—I swear to you, I know there is no way to prove anything I say. But you know me, you know everything I could know—try me, whether I have forgotten anything. Bron—for the love of Heaven—'

Bron's face worked, somewhere between desperation and grief.

And suddenly he held out his open arms.

'No,' Arunden cried. 'Fool!'

But Chei came to him, slowly, carefully. They embraced each other, and wept, for very long, till Bron set Chei back by the shoulders and looked at him as if he could discover the truth by firelight.

Vanye watched with a pang of his own—the which he could not comprehend, only something in him hurt, perhaps that a man could come home again; or that brothers could prove true.

Or that Chei had just deserted them for a deeper loyalty, whatever the issue of this place.

Fool, he thought. Well that there be some help for us here.

There was Morgaine beside him, who was all his own concern; and Chei at the moment was hers, he reckoned, their guide and the source of everything they knew in this world. She would wreak havoc to keep him safe, Chei was very right; had Arunden attempted to stop him or to strike him or his brother, Morgaine would have acted, fatally for Arunden and half the village before she was done.

But she and Arunden and all of them stood baffled by this, that Bron ep Kantory took his brother into his arms without being sure what he was embracing: he made himself a hostage to stop those who cared for either of them, and by one move held them all powerless.