Wall of Shiuan

Still the man did not look up at them, but walked with eyes downcast, step by agonized step with the staff to support him. He was young, wearing hall-garments; he bore a knife at his belt, and the staff on which he leaned was the broken remnant of a pike. His white hair was tangled, his cheek cut and bruised, blood soaked the rough bandages on his leg. Vanye hailed him, and yet the youth kept walking; he cursed, and thrust his sheathed sword across the youth’s chest.

The qujal stopped, downcast eyes fixed on something other and elsewhere; but when Vanye let fall the sword, he began to walk again, struggling in his lameness.

“He is mad,” Jhirun said.

“No,” said Kithan. “He does not wish to see you.”

Their horses moved along with the youth, slowly, by halting paces; and softly Kithan began to question him, in his own tongue—received an anguished glance of him, and an answer, spoken on hard-drawn breaths, the while he walked. Names were named that touched keenly Vanye’s interest, but no other word of it could he grasp. The youth exhausted his supply of breath and fell silent, walked on, as he had been before.

Morgaine touched Siptah and moved on, Vanye at her side; and Jhirun with them. Kithan followed. Vanye looked back, at the youth who still doggedly, painfully, struggled behind them.

“What did he say?” Vanye asked of Morgaine. She shrugged, not in a mood to answer.

“He is Allyvy,” said Kithan in her silence. “He is of Sotharrn; and he has the same madness as took the villagers: he says that he is bound for Abarais, as all are going, believing this Chya Roh.”

Vanye looked at Morgaine, found her face grim and set; and she shrugged. “So we are too late,” she said, “as I feared.”

“He has promised them,” said Kithan, “another and better land: a hope to live; and they are going to take it. They are gathering an army, to march toward it; holds are burned: they say there is no need of them now.”

He looked again at Morgaine, expecting some answer of her. There was none. She rode with her eyes fixed, no more slowly, no more quickly, passing the ruined fields. He saw in her a tautness that trembled beneath that placid surface, something thin-strung and fragile.

Violence, terror: it flowed to his own taut nerves.

Let us retreat, something in him wanted to say. Let us find a place, lost in the hills, when all of them have passed, when the Wells are sealed. There is life enough for us, peace—once you have lost and can no longer hope to follow him. We could live. We might grow old before the waters rose to take these mountains. We would be alone, and sealed, safe, from all our enemies.

She knew her choices, he reckoned to himself, and chose what she would; but he began to think, in deep guilt, what it would be did they find Roh gone: that that was earnestly to be hoped, else she would hurl herself against an army, taking all with her.

It was a traitorous thought; he realized it, and crossed himself fervently, wishing it away—met her eyes and feared suddenly that she understood his fear.

“ Liyo,” he said in a quiet voice, “whatever wants doing, I will do.”

It seemed to reassure her. She turned her attention back to the way they rode, and to the hills.

Night began to fall, streaks of twilight that shaded into dark among the smokes across the hills, a murky and ugly color. They rode among stones that gathered more and more thickly about the road, until it became clear that here had been some massive structure, foundations that lay naked and exposed in great intersecting rectangles and circles and bits of arches. Constantly the earth bore signs that vast numbers had traveled this way, and lately.

And there was a dead man by the road. The black birds rose up from his body like shadows into the dark, a heavy flapping of wings.

Violence within the army’s own ranks attended them, Vanye reckoned: desperate men, frightened men; and men and halflings massed together. They were not long in coming upon other dead, and one was a woman, and one was a black-robed priest, frail and elderly.

“They are beasts,” Kithan exclaimed in anguish.

None disputed him.

“What shall we do,” asked Jhirun, who had remained silent most of the day, “what shall we do when we reach Abarais, if they are all gathered there?”

It was not a witless question; it was a desperate one... Jhirun, who knew less than they what must be done, and who endured all things patiently in her hope. Vanye looked at her and shook his head helplessly, foreseeing what he thought Jhirun herself began to foresee, what Morgaine had tried earnestly to warn her, weaponless as the Barrows-girl was, and without defenses.

“You also,” said Morgaine, “are still free to leave us.”

“No,” Jhirun said quietly. “Like my lord Kithan, I have nothing to hope for from what follows us; and if I cannot get through where you are going, at least—” She made a helpless gesture, as if it were too difficult a thing to speak. “Let me try,” she said then.