Stones and entered the more honest shade of pine woods and unhewn crags. “We bear east before then, toward Koris.”
“Lady, you know your way well enough,” he protested glumly. “Why was it needful to snare me for a guide?”
“How should I know otherwise that Gervaine is lord of Morij Erd?” she asked, still smiling. The eyes did not. “Besides, I did not say that you were to be a guide in these lands .”
“What, then?”
But she did not answer. She had that habit when he asked what displeased her. More human folk might dispute, protest, argue. Morgaine was simply silent, and against that there was no argument, only deep frustration.
He climbed back into his saddle and saw thereafter that they bore more easterly, toward east Koris, toward that land that was most firmly in Thiye’s hands.
Toward dusk they were in pine forest again. Gray-centered clouds sailed across the moon, increasingly frequent as the night deepened, and yet they rode, fearful of more storms, fearful for the horses, for there was little grain remaining in both their saddlebags, and they wished to make what easy time they could, hopeful of coming to the lower country before the winter set a firm grip on the passes before them. The bright moon showed them the way.
But at last the clouds were thick and the trail became hardly passable, trees crowding close and obscuring the sky with their bristling shadow. A downed tree beside the road promised them at least a drier place to rest, and wood for fire. They stopped and Vanye hacked off smaller branches and heaped them into a proper form for a damp-wood fire.
How the fire came to be, Vanye did not see: he turned his back to fetch more wood, and turned again and it was started, a tiny tongue of fire within the damp branches. It smoked untidily: wet wood; but it remained, Morgaine leaning close to encourage it, and he gingerly fed it tinder.
“There is a certain danger in this,” he advised Morgaine, looking at her closely over the little fire. “There may be men hereabouts to see the light or smell the smoke, and no men in these woods are friendly to any other. I do not care to meet what this may attract, and it is best we keep it small and not keep it the night long.”
She opened her hand and in the dim light showed him a black and shiny thing, queer and ugly. It revolted him: he could not determine why, only that it would not be made by any hand he knew, and there was a foul unloveliness about the thing in her fair slim hand. “This is sufficient for brigands and for beasts,” she said. “And I trust you are somewhat skilled with sword and with bow.
He nodded silent acknowledgement
“Fetch our gear,” she bade him.
He did so, clearing snow from the great tree and resting all that could be harmed by damp upon that. She began to make a meal for them of the almost frozen meat, while he doled out a bit of the remaining grain to the poor horses. They nudged him in the ribs and coaxed pitiably, wanting the rest of it: but he steeled his heart against them, grieved and out of appetite for the good venison they had. Kurshin that he was, he could not eat with his animals in want. A man was to be judged by his horses and the fitness of them; and had it been grain they themselves were eating he would gladly have given them his share and gone hungry.
He went and settled glumly by the fire, working his stiffening hand, which was affected by the cold. “We must somehow get down from this height,” he said, “by tomorrow, even if it takes us by some more dangerous road. We are out of grain but for one day. These horses cannot force drifts like these and go hungry too. We will kill them if we keep on.”
She nodded quietly. “We are on a short road,” she said.
“Lady, I do not know this way, and I have ridden the track from Morija to Koris’s border to Erd several ways.”
“It is a road I knew,” she said, and looked up at the clouding sky, the pinetops black against the veiled moon. “It was less overgrown then.”
He made a gesture against evil, unthought and reflexive. He thought then that it would anger her. Instead she glanced down briefly, as if avoiding reply.
“Where are we going?” he asked her. “Are we looking for something?”
“No,” she said. “I know where it lies.”
“Lady,” he asked of her, for she seemed about to sink into another of her silences. He made a bow, earnestly; he could not bear another day of that. “Lady, where? Where are we going?”
‘To Ivrel.” And when in dread he opened his mouth to protest that madness: “I have not told you yet,” she said, “what service I claim of thee.”
“No,” he agreed, “you have not.”
“It is this. To kill the Hjemur-lord Thiye and to destroy his citadel if I die.”
A laugh escaped him, became a sob. This was the thing she had promised the six lords she would do. Ten thousand men had died in that attempt, so that many surmised she had never been enemy to Thiye of Hjemur, but friend and servant-witch, set out to ruin the Middle Lands.
“Ah, I will go with thee,” she said. “ I do not ask you to do this thing alone; but if I am lost, that is your service to me.”
“Why?” he asked abruptly. “For revenge? What wrong have I done you, lady?”
“I came to seal the Gates,” she said, “and if I should be lost, that is the means to do it. I do not think I can teach you otherwise. But take my weapons and strike at the heart of Hjemur’s hold: that would do it as well as I ever could.”
“If you wish to ruin the Gates,” he said bitterly, for he did not half believe her, “there was a beginning to be made at Aenor-Pyven’s fires, and you rode past it.”
“Pointless to meddle with it. They are all dangerous; but the master Gate is that you call the Witchfires: without it all the others must fade. They all once led to there: now they only exist, without depth or direction. They are the one thing that Thiye has not fully discovered how to manage. He cannot stop or use them singly. Thiye is no blood of mine, but he has had instruction. He plays with things he only half understands, although it may be,” she added, “that a hundred years may have increased his wisdom.”
“I understand nothing at all,” he protested. “Set me free of this thing. It does no honor to you to ask such a thing of me. I will go with you, I swear this: I will do you
“All these things,” she said softly, “I have of the oath you have already given me.” And then her voice became almost kindly: “Vanye, I am desperate. Five of us came here and four are dead, because we did not know clearly what we faced. Not all the old knowledge is dead here; Thiye has found teachers for himself, and perhaps he has indeed grown in knowledge: in some part I hope he has. His ignorance is as dangerous as his malice. But if I send you, I will not send you totally ignorant.”
He bowed his head. “Do not tell me these things. If you need a right arm, I am there. No more than that.”
“Well enough,” she said, “well enough for now. I will not force any knowledge on thee that does not have to be.”
And she applied knife to a twig and sharpened it to hold the strips of venison.
He slipped his helmet off, for it hurt his brow from long wearing, but he did not slip the coif: it was cold and shame still prevented him, even in her sight. He wrapped the cloak about him and undertook to cook his own food, and shared wine with her. He went over to the log after that, and stretched himself upon the higher part of it, and she upon the lower a time later. It was a peculiar sort of bed, but better by far than the cold snow below them; and he tucked himself up like a warrior on a bier, his longsword clasped upon his breast, for he did not want to let it out of his grasp on this night, and in this place. He did not even keep it in its sheath.
And late, when the fire had become very low, he became uneasy with the impression that there was something stirring besides the wind that cracked the icy branches, something large and of weight; and he strained his eyes and hearing and held his breath to see and listen to what it might be.
