Gate of Ivrel

of anything valuable to the Brothers.

Ryn searched his own things, took out a few coins and left them on the bed, a few pennies—it was all.

It was upon the road with the morning light still barely bringing color to things that Vanye remembered the harp, and did not find it about the person of Ryn.

There was instead only the bow slung from his shoulders, and he was strangely sorry for that. Later he saw Morgaine realize the same thing, and open her lips to speak; but she did not. It was Ryn’s choice.

It was said by men of Baien that Baien-an was a fragment left from the making of Heaven. However that was, it was true that this place surpassed even Morija for fairness. Winter though it was, the golden grass and green cedar gave it grace, and the mighty range of Kath Vrej and Kath Svejur embraced the valley with great ridges crowned with snow. There was a straight road, with hedges beside it—one did not see hedges kept so anywhere else but in Baien—and twice they saw villages off the road, golden-thatched and somnolent in the wintry sun, with white flocks of sheep grazing near like errant clouds.

And once they must pass through a village, where children huddled wide-eyed at their mothers’ skirts and men paused with their work in hand, as if they were held between rushing to arms or bidding them good day. Morgaine kept her hood upon her at that time, but if there was not the strangeness of her, riding astride and with a sword-sheath under her knee, there was Siptah himself, who had been foaled in this land, before all the great herd of king Tiffwy had been taken by Hjemur’s bandits. Mischance had befallen them, and they had been seen no more: Baienen said that it was because they were the horses of kings, and would not carry the likes of their Hjemurn masters.

But perhaps the villagers blinked again in the sunlight, and persuaded themselves that they had no proper business with travelers going east: it was only those who came from it, out of Hjemur, that need trouble them to take arms; and there were gray horses foaled who were not of the old blood. Siptah had grown leaner; he was muddy about legs and belly; and he spent none of his strength on high-blooded skittishness, although his ears pricked up toward any chance move and his nostrils drank in every smell.

“ Liyo,” said Vanye when they were quit of the town, “they will hear of us in Ra- baien by evening.”

“By evening,” she said, “surely we will be in those hills.”

“If we had turned aside there, and sought welcome at Ra-baien,” he insisted, “they might have taken you in.”

“As they did in Ra-morij?” she answered him. “No. And I will accept no more delays.”

“What is our haste?” he protested. “Lady, we are all tired, you not least of all. After a hundred years of delay, what is a day to rest? We should have stayed at the Monastery.”

“Are you fit to ride?”

“I am fit,” he acknowledged, which was, under less compulsion, a lie. He ached, his bones ached, but he was well sure that she was in no better case, and shame kept him from pleading his own. She had that fever in her again, that burning compulsion toward Ivrel; he knew how it was to stand in the way of that, and if she would not be reasoned into delay, it was sure that there was little else would stop her.

Then, when the sun was at their backs, reddening into evening upon the snows of Kath Svejur before them, Vanye looked back along the road they had come as he did from time to time.

This time the thing he had constantly dreaded was there.

They were pursued.

“ Liyo,” he said quietly. Both she and Ryn looked. Ryn’s face was pale.

“They will surely have changed horses in Ra-baien,” Ryn said.

“That is what I have feared,” she said, “that there is no war nor feud between Morija and Baien.”

And she put Siptah to a slightly quicker pace, but not to a run. Vanye looked back again. The riders were coming steadily, not killing their horses either, but at a better pace than they.

“We will make the hills and choose a place for them to overtake us as far as we can toward the border,” said Morgaine. This is a fight I do not want, but we may have it all the same.”

Vanye looked back yet again. He began to be sure who it was, and there was a leaden feeling in his belly. He had already committed one fratricide. To fight and to kill at a liyo’s order was the duty of an ilin, even if he were ordered against family. That was cruel, but it was also the law.

“They will be Nhi,” he said to Ryn. “This fight is not lawful for you. You are not ilin, and until you lift hand against Erij and your kinsmen, you are not an outlaw. Go apart from us. Go home.”

Ryn’s young face held doubt. But it was a man’s look too, not the petulance of a boy, which was not going to yield to his reason.

“Do as he tells you,” Morgaine said.

“I take oath,” he said, “that I will not.”

That was the end of it He was a free man, was Ryn; he rode what way he chose, and it was with them. It pained Vanye that Ryn had no more than the Honor blade at his belt, no longsword; but then, boys had no business to attempt the longsword in a battle; he was safest with the bow.

“Do you know this road?” Morgaine asked.

“Yes,” said Vanye. “So do they. Follow.”

He put himself in the lead, minded of a place within the hills, past the entry into Koris, where Erij might be less rash to follow, near as it was to Irien. The horses might be able to hold the pace, though it was climbing for some part. He cast a look over his shoulder, to know how things were with those behind.

The Morijen had fresh mounts surely, to press them so, grace of the lord of Ra-baien, and how much Baien knew of them or how Baien felt toward them was yet uncertain.

There was the matter of Baien’s outpost of Kath Svejur, manned by a score of archers and no small number of cavalry. There was that to pass beneath.

He chose pace for them and held it, not leaving the highroad despite Mogaine’s expressed preference for the open country.

They had speed to take them through, unless there were some connivance already arranged between Baien’s lord and Erij—some courier passed at breakneck speed during the night, to cut off their retreat. He hoped that had not happened, that the pass was not sealed: otherwise there would be a hail of arrows, to match what rode behind them.

Those behind were willing enough to kill their mounts, that became certain; but there was the pass ahead of them, the little stone fort of Irn-Svejur high upon its crag.

“We cannot pass under that,” Ryn protested, thinking, no doubt, of arrows. But Vanye whipped up his horse and tucked low, Morgaine likewise.

They were within arrowshot both from above and from behind. Doubtless in their fortress the guards looked down and saw the mad party on the road and wondered which was friend and which was foe: yet there was in both Morija and Baien that simple instruction that what rode east was friend, and what rode west was enemy; and here rode two bands madly eastward.

Vanye cast a look back as they won through. A rider left pursuing them to mount the trail to the fort. He breathed an oath into the wind, for there would be men of Irn-Svejur after them shortly, and Ryn’s dun was faltering, dropping behind him.

Here, upon the open road and with precious scant cover, the cursed dun spelled end to their flight, Vanye began to pull in, where a bend of rock gave a little shelter before the brush began. Here he leaped down, bow and sword in hand, and let the black take what way he would down the road. Morgaine alighted into cover also, bearing Changeling in the one hand, and the black weapon at her belt, he doubted not. And breathlessly last came Ryn; he stayed to strike the dun and make it move, and the poor beast took an arrow then, reared up and crashed down, flailing with its hooves.

“Ryn!” Vanye roared, his voice cracked and hoarse, and Ryn came, stumbled in, his arm all bloody with the black stump of an arrow broken in the flesh. He could not flex to string the bow he carried, and it was useless. The riders pressed them, came in, close quarters—men of Nhi and Myya, and Erij with them.

Vanye ripped his longsword from its sheath, too late for other defenses; and he saw Morgaine do the same, but what she drew, he would not attempt to flank to protect her. The opal blade came to life, sucked arrows amiss, bent them up and otherwhere, and sent a man after them, screaming.