Wall of Shiuan

He wished that Ela’s-daughter had escaped them when she had run—or better still, that they had missed each other in the fog and never met.

He shifted to his other side, and stared into the blind dark, remembering home, and other forests, knowing that he had entered an exile from which there was no return.

The Gate behind them was sealed. The way lay forward from here, and it occurred to him with increasing unease that he did not know where he was going, that never again would he know where he was going.

Morgaine, his arms, and a stolen Andurin horse: that comprised the world that he knew.

And now there was Roh, and a child who had about her the foreboding of a world he did not want to know—his own burden, Jhirun Ela’s-daughter, for it was his impulse that had laid ambush for her, when by all other chances she might have ridden on her way.

Chapter Five

“Vanye.”

He wakened to the grip of Morgaine’s hand on his arm, startled out of a sleep deeper than he was wont.

“Get the horses,” she said. The wind was whipping fiercely at the swaying branches overhead, drawing her fair hair into a stream in the darkness. “It is close to dawn. I let you sleep as long as I could, but the weather is turning on us.”

He murmured a response, arose, rubbing at his eyes. When he glanced at the sky he saw the north flashing with lightnings, beyond the restless trees. Wind sighed coldly through the leaves.

Morgaine was already snatching up their blankets and folding them. For his part he left the ring of firelight and felt his way downslope among the stones of the ruins, across the narrow channel and up again to the rise where the horses were tethered. They snorted alarm at his coming, already uneasy at the weather; but Siptah recognized him and called softly—gray Siptah, gentler-mannered than his own Andurin gelding. He took the gray and Jhirun’s homely pony together and led them back the way he had come, up again into the ruins.

Jhirun was awake. He saw her standing as he came into the firelight, opened his mouth to speak some gentle word to her; but Morgaine intervened, taking the horses. “I will tend them,” she said brusquely. “See to your own.”

He hesitated, looking beyond her shoulder to Jhirun’s frightened face, and felt a deep unease, leaving her to Morgaine’s charge; but there was no time for disputes, and there was no privacy for argument. He turned and plunged back into the shadows, making what haste he could, not knowing against what he was racing, the storm or Morgaine’s nature.

Dawn was coming. He found the black gelding a shadow in a dark that was less than complete, although the boiling clouds held back the light. He freed the horse, hauled firmly on the cheekstrap as the ungentle beast nipped at him, then in his haste swung up bareback and rode back with halter alone, down across the stream and up again among the trees and the ruins.

He was relieved to find Jhirun calmly sitting by the dying fire, wrapped in her brown shawl, eating a bit of bread. Morgaine was doing as she had said, tending to Siptah’s saddling; and she bore Changeling on her shoulder harness, as she would when she judged the situation less than secure.

“I have told her that she is coming with us,” Morgaine said, as he alighted and flung the blanket up to the gelding’s back. He said nothing, unhappy in Morgaine’s intention. He bent and heaved the saddle up, settled it and reached under for the girth. “She seemed agreeable in the matter,” Morgaine said, seeming determined to draw some word from him on the subject.

He gave attention to his work, avoiding her eyes. “At least,” he said, “she might ride double with me. She has a head wound. We might give her that grace—by your leave.”

“As you will,” said Morgaine after a moment. She rolled her white cloak into its oiled-leather covering and tied it behind her saddle. With a jerk of the thongs she finished, and gathered up Siptah’s reins, leading the horse toward the fire, where Jhirun sat.

Jhirun stopped eating, and sat there with the morsel forgotten in her two hands. Like something small and trapped she seemed, with her bruised eyes and bedraggled hair, but there was a hard glitter to those eyes nonetheless. Vanye watched in unease as Morgaine stopped before her.

“We are ready,” Morgaine said to her. “Vanye will take you up behind him.”

“I can ride my own pony.”

“Do as you are told.”

Jhirun arose, scowling, started to come toward him. Morgaine reached to the back of her belt, a furtive move. Vanye saw, and dropped the saddlebag he had in hand.

“No!” he cried.

The motion was sudden, the girl walking, the sweep of Morgaine’s hand, the streak of red fire. Jhirun shrieked as it touched the tree beside her, and Vanye caught the gelding’s bridle as the animal shied up.

Morgaine replaced the weapon at the back of her belt. Vanye drew a shaken breath, his hands calming the frightened horse. But Jhirun did not move at all, her feet braced in the preparation of a step never taken, her arms clenched about her bowed head.