Exiles Gate

Morgaine leaned her hands against the saddlebow and quickly restrained Siptah from edging toward the roan. It was warfare, now. The red roan's ears were flat, his eyes—red-rimmed, his least lovely feature—constantly one or the other toward the gray stud.

'No,' she said shortly, and reining Siptah sharply aside to gain room, dismounted and threw her hand up to shy the roan. 'Move him off! We will rest here a little. At least they have passed here. And it is at least some cover.'

'My lady,' Chei said with heavy resentment, and drew the wild-eyed roan aside, along the stream.

So the rest of them. Vanye glared a warning in their direction, threw his leg over the horn and slid down. He dropped Arrhan's reins to let her drink, and let the two horses he led move up to the water, then sank down on his knees and bathed his face and the back of his shorn neck, discovering that insult again, where it had passed in shock when Chei had done it. For this one unjustified thing he was more and more angry, an unreasoning, killing anger, of the sort he had not felt—

—since the day his brother died.

'We will rest here an hour,' Morgaine said, sinking down to wash beside him, letting Siptah drink.

'Aye.' He dipped up another double handful. It was spring-fed, this stream, and like ice, taking the breath. He stood up with a sudden effort.

The daylight went to gray and to dark.

'Vanye—' Morgaine said.

'Watch them!' he said to her in the Kurshin tongue, and sat down hard where he stood, his balance simply gone, his foot off the edge into the chill water, his wounds jolted so he thought he would not get the next breath at all.

'Vanye!'

'Watch them,' he said again, calmly, fighting panic. He drew his foot out of the water. 'Liyo, I will rest here a little. I am tired. That is all.'

He heard her bend near him, felt her shadow take the heat of the sun from his face. He heard footsteps in the grass nearby and that frightened him.

'Liyo, do not turn your back on them.'

She laid her hand on his brow. 'Thee is fevered,' she said.

'Liyo, in the name of Heaven—'

'We will rest here,' she said. The daylight began to come back, but it was still brass and full of illusion, with her as a darkness in the center of it.

'We have no time—'

'Vanye, lie down.'

He did as she asked, reckoning if they must stop an hour for his sake, he had as well not waste the time it cost them in argument. He let himself back on the grass and rested his head on his arm, and shut his eyes against the giddiness of the sky. The ground seemed to pitch and spin under him. He had not felt that dizzy when he was riding, and now that he let go it was hard not to lose all his senses. His stomach tried to heave and he refused to let it, refused the panic that lay at the bottom of his thoughts.

A little time, he told himself. They had been pushing too long to keep moving; and a battle and a ride with enemies-turned-comrades did not count for rest. An hour on his back, and he would be good for another ten.

Only, O God, he was weak. And his head spun.

And Morgaine was alone with these men.

She came back to him, knelt down by him, dampened a cloth in the cold stream and laid it on his brow.

'You are watching them,' he murmured in his own tongue.

'I am watching them.'

'Liyo, kill them.'

'Hush, rest.'

'Kill them!' He sat up on his elbow and caught the cloth in his hand, the pulse at once hammering in his ears and his gut hurting and his ribs a blinding pain. ' 'Man and man,' you said. Then trust me to know. I am telling you these men are after the weapons; they are only waiting to see what more they can find out, whether we have anything else they want—Kill them. And do not give them any warning.'

Her hand rested on his chest, pressing him to lie back. He would not yield.

'Listen to me,' he said.

'Hush,' she said. 'Hush. I have an eye to them.'

'This is a man who gave Chei to the wolves. This is the guide who lied to us, whose brother I killed. If it is sane inside it is a wonder.'

'Lie back. Lie down. Do not make me trouble. Please. Please, Vanye.'

He let go his breath and let himself back. She wet the cloth again and wrung it out and laid it on his brow. It set him shivering.

'I will ride,' he said, 'in an hour.'

'Only lie here. I will make some tea.'

'We cannot be risking a fire—'

She touched his lips with her fingers. 'Still, I say. Hush. A little one. Do not fret about it. Be still.'

'Willow tea,' he murmured, 'if you are going to do it anyway. My head aches.'

He rested then with his eyes half-open, slitted on Chei and his two men, who sat apart on the stream-bank. He watched Morgaine gather up twigs and grass, and his gut tensed as he saw Chei rise and walk toward her and have words with her.

What they said he could not hear. But Morgaine settled down thereafter and made a fire with that means she could, and Chei and the others began to unsaddle the horses.

He sat up then, and began to get to his feet in dismay, but Morgaine looked at him and lifted her hand in that signal that meant no.

He fell back again, and lay in misery while the pulse beat like a hammer in his temples and the sun glared red behind closed lids.

She brought him tea to drink, infused very strongly with something bitter; and little pellets wrapped in leaves, that were from Shathan, and very precious. He took them and drank the sour-bitter tea, as large mouthfuls as he could bear, simply to get it down, and rested back again.

'I will be all right,' he murmured then.

'Thee is not riding in an hour. Or two.'

'Dark.' he said. 'Give me till dark. We can cut closer to the plain at night. Gain back the time.'

But he was no better. If anything, he hurt the worse. It is because of lying still, he thought.

Then, clearly and honestly: I am getting worse.

And we are too near the gate.

He rested. It was not sleep that passed the hours into twilight, only a dimness in which Morgaine came and went, and gave him cold water to drink. 'I will try,' he said, then, 'try to ride. Have them put me on my horse. I will stay there.'

There was fear in her eyes. It verged on panic. She smoothed the hair back from his face. 'We will hold this place,' she said.

'With what? With them? With—' Anger brought a pain to his skull. His eyes watered, blurring the sight of her. 'It is foolishness. Foolishness, liyo. No more time. Too many of them. When will you sleep? You cannot—cannot depend on me to stay awake. Cannot depend on me.'

'I will manage.'

'Do not lose for me! Do not think of it! Ride out of here!'

'Hush.' She touched his face, bent and kissed him, weary, so very weary, her voice. Her hand shook against his cheek. 'Forgive me. Trust me. Will you trust me?'

'Aye,' he said, or thought he said. She unlaced his collar and took the stone from under his armor; and took it from him.

'Not to him—' he protested.

'No. I will keep it. I will keep it safe.'