Wall of Shiuan

A light soon winked in the tower nearest the gate; a shuttered window opened to see them in that almost-dankness, and a bell began to ring, high-pitched and urgent. From that open shutter it was certain that they suffered the scrutiny of more than one observer, a series of black shapes that appeared there and vanished.

Then the shutter was closed again, and there was silence from the bell, no sound but the rush of water that sluiced off the walls and gathered on the stone paving before the gate. Jhirun shivered miserably.

Came the creak of a door yielding; the sally-port beside the main gate opened, veiled in the rain, and one man put his head forth to look at them. Black robed he was, with a cloak about him so that only his face and hands were visible. Timidly he crept forward, opening the gate wider, holding his rain-spattered cloak about him and standing where a backward step would put him within reach of the gateway. “Come,” he said. “Come closer.”

Chapter Seven

“A priest,” said Jhirun. “A Shiua priest.”

Vanye let go a careful breath, relieved. The black robes were of no order that he knew, not in his homeland, where vesper and matin bells were a familiar and beloved sound; but a priest, indeed, and in all this gray and dying land there was no sight so welcome, the assurance that even here were human and godly men. He was still cautious in coming forward as they were summoned, for there were likely archers in the shadows atop the wall, bows drawn and arrows well-aimed. So would many a border hold in Kursh and Andur receive night-coming travellers, using the sally port for fear of a concealed force, keeping the archers ready if things went amiss.

But throughout all Andur-Kursh, even in the hardest years, there was hospitality, there was hearth-law, and halls were obliged to afford charity to wayfarers, a night’s shelter, be it in hall, be it in a lowly guest-house without the walls. Vanye kept his hands in sight, and stopped and stood to be seen clearly by the priest, who gazed at them both in wonder, face white and astonished within the cowl, a white spot in the descending night.

“Father,” said Vanye, his voice almost failing him in his hoarseness and his anxiety, “Father, there is a woman, on a gray horse or a black or, it might be, afoot. You have not seen her?”

“None such,” said the priest. “None. But if any other traveler passes Ohtij-in, we will know it. Come in, come in and be welcome.”

Jhirun stepped forward; Vanye felt an instant’s mistrust and then ascribed it to exhaustion and the strangeness of the place. It was too late. If he would run, they could hunt him down easily; and if they would not, then here was shelter and food and he was mad to reject it. He hesitated, Jhirun tugging at his hand, and then he came, by the sally port, into a space between two walls, where torches flared and rain steamed on their copper shieldings.

A second priest closed the sally port and barred it; and Vanye scanned with renewed misgivings the strength of the gates, both inner and outer: a double wall defended this approach to Ohtij-in. The second priest pulled a cord, ringing the bell, and ponderously the inner gates swung open, upon torchlight, rain, and armed men.

There was no flourish of weapons, no rush at them, only an over-sufficient escort—pikemen standing beneath the windblown glare of torches, light gleaming wetly on bronze half-face helms that bore on the brow the likeness of grotesque faces—on armor that was long-skirted scale and plate, with intricate embellishment—on pikes with elaborate and cruel barbs.

It was a force far stronger than any hold at peace would keep under arms on a rainy night. The sense of something utterly amiss wound coldly through Vanye’s belly: the terror of the strange armor, the excessive preparation for defense in an unpeopled land. Even Jhirun seemed to have lost all her trust in the place, and kept close to his side.

A priest tugged at the staff he yet held; he tightened his grip on it, trying to make sense of such a welcome, to know whether there might be more profit in resisting or in appealing to their lord. He let the staff go, thinking as he did so that it was small defense in any case.