Exiles Gate

to the little space between these rocks, and the chance of an enemy which had been all too fortunate in its ambush—

And he must not kill this man. Morgaine forbade it. He had defied her order once. Twice was without excuse.

'Do you swear?' he asked Chei, knowing after he had asked, that oaths meant nothing with this creature.

'I have said,' Chei said, and got to his feet. There was darkness in that stare. There was profound apprehension. Then another, more agitated way of speaking: 'I swear before God. Is that enough?'

That human expression, that shift of voice, sent a chill through him.

Perhaps it was meant to.

But he let the silence go on a moment, and looked Chei in the eyes, long and steadily, until the air was a good deal colder and Chei surely knew it was not fear held his hand.

Then: 'Do not cross me,' he said to Chei, 'and I will return you nothing of what I owe you. Where is my sword?'

Chei's eyes shifted toward the roan horse.

'I will have it back.'

Chei nodded. 'Aye.'

'Aye—my lord. '

'Aye, my lord.'

'Call your men down here. They can ride away or they can ride with us, but if one of them missteps, I will lay his head at your feet and lay yours at my lady's. I am nothing you know, whatever you think you gained at Tejhos. I am Nhi, and my clan is not reputed to give second chances.'

Perhaps Chei believed him. Chei looked once back at him as he turned to face the cliffs, and once at Morgaine.

Then he shouted up at the height. 'They have agreed,' he called up the cliffs. 'Come down.'

Three of them, Vanye kept thinking, and went and gathered up the arrows that had spilled off the cliff with the dead man—twelve he found with the fletchings and points whole, and put them in his quiver, the while Morgaine kept her eye on matters. His ribs ached.

Three of them, he kept thinking in the throbbing of his hurts and the panicked beating of his heart. She has gone mad.

It is this Skarrin—this man she fears. That is what drives her. That is what she wants to know—always, always when she does not know as much as she wishes—she doubts herself—

The Devil rather than honest men, he remembered her saying. O my liege, you have found him.

The two from the cliff came riding around the shoulder of the hill as Chei had come, stopped their horses by the red roan; and came to pay their respects to their recent enemy—the bowman and the qhal, the bowman's human face betraying intense worry, the qhal's having no expression at all.

'Rhanin ep Eorund,' Chei named them. 'And Hesiyyn Aeisyryn, both late of Mante.'

'I will give you a simple choice,' Vanye said, leaning on his bow, and this time with a quiver half full of arrows. 'Ride off now, and go free. Or go with us, do my liege honest service, and I will forget what I owe you. I count that more than fair.'

Rhanin nodded, clear of eye and countenance; and had the likeness of truth about him. 'Aye,' Rhanin said, and let go a long breath, as if he had taken him at his word and had worried, until then.

Hesiyyn lowered his eyes and inclined his head, and looked up with a bland, half-lidded insolence. 'Anything you will, lord human.'

Vanye stared at him and thought of striking him to the ground. But then it would come to killing—not one but all of them.

The archer had fired on his liege: but in defense of his own lord. While this Hesiyyn, he judged, might do anything and everything for his own sake.

And this, this was the qhal who had intervened to save his life.

'If they ride with us,' he said to Chei, disdaining the qhal with a passing glance, 'remember I hold you accountable.'

And he turned his back on Chei as well, feeling their stares like knives; his heart beat like a hammer in his temples, and his face was hot, the sky like brass. Morgaine said something to him of riding out, that they were well off this hillside. ' Aye,' he said, and shouldered his bow and his quiver, and went to untangle the horses, which had wound themselves into a predicament, their two with the nervous geldings. Siptah had braced himself, flat-eared, too trail-wise to move, despite Arrhan's lead-rope wound across his rump, and that the blaze-faced gelding had a hind leg in among the rocks, its rump against the wall, one foreleg crossing its partner's lead.

He cut both free and straightened out the leads, darting an anxious eye to Chei and the rest, but Morgaine was watching them: he saw her. He shoved Siptah with his shoulder to gain room, held Arrhan steady to re-tie the leads, and recalled his sword on Chei's saddle, uphill with the other horses.

He thought of climbing the rocks and making the exchange, but it was a war-horse in question, easier that Chei should deal with it, and he was out of breath and not wanting either the climb or any dealings with weapons at close quarters: bruised ribs and stiff muscles, he thought, leaning on Siptah's side to work past him and lead him out of the confusion.

But when he unstrung his bow to tie it with his gear on Arrhan's saddle, the weakness of his arm and his lack of wind surprised him. He had to make a second pull to slip the string. When he had gotten it tied and set his foot in the stirrup, it more than hurt to pull himself up, it sapped the strength from him and made him sweat and his head reel despite the morning chill.

It is the sun-heat on the metal, he told himself; there is no wind here. Using the bow and pushing the horses about had strained the ribs. It will pass.

He sat still, with the sweat running, leaning on the saddlebow, while Morgaine mounted up. Get us moving, he thought, feeling the sting of salt in his cuts. There was no wind in this place. He longed to be off this hill, not knowing what they might meet on that slope down there or out in the land: best hurry before they collect a defense, he thought; and everything conspired with delays.

'They will go first,' Morgaine said, starting out. 'I have told them.'

'Aye,' he murmured. 'Let Skarrin's men have them for ranging-shots.'

'They might have killed us,' Morgaine said. 'They could have taken the weapons. That much is true.'

He thought about that.

'But I do not forget what they did,' she said.

'Aye,' he said. The hill seemed steeper than he recalled as they struck the open slope—a place littered with dead, thirty, forty or more.

And Chei and his men rode past them, dutifully taking the lead.

'Is thee all right?' Morgaine asked.

'A little faint. I am well enough. It is the heat.' He urged Arrhan to a faster pace, and overtook Chei's men.

'Arrows,' he said. 'All we can gather. We may need them.'

'Aye,' Rhanin said, and veered off on that chancy slope, at hazard of further attack, from men on the ground, from Heaven knew where on the rocky heights around them.

Rhanin would not, he thought at the back of his mind, come back. The man would take his chance and ride for his own life.

'The sword,' he said to Chei.

Chei took it from his saddle and reversed it, passing it over as they rode.

'A good blade,' Chei said.

He said nothing. He unhooked his own from Arrhan's saddle and passed it by the hilt.

'Alayyis' sword,' Chei murmured.

'My liege did not ask his name,' he said harshly, and reined back and hooked the arrhendur blade to his