It was worse yet when they had crested a long rise and suddenly found the land dropping away below them across a wide rolling plain; and the crags which had long hung rootless in morning light, faced them across this gulf.
Then the world reeled about him in a mad confusion of blue sky and golden distances and the crags of yellow rock about them. The horse moved again, and his vision cleared, but there still seemed a distance between him and the world—less of pain, but greater unease, gate-sense that crawled up and down his nerves and prickled the hair on his body.
There, he thought, lifting his face toward the high crags. Mante-gate is up there—-
Without question, as he knew the whereabouts of other powers, close by it, like small pools beside an ocean, and that ocean raging with storms and like to swallow up the lives that came near it.
It wanted this stone that he wore, wanted the bearer, wanted all creation, and that was not enough to fill it.
O my God, he thought, my God, if they bring me nearer this thing, if they bring me too close—
He rode, he did not know how. He heard their voices sharp in argument. "You can feel that thing," one said, and he knew what thing they meant: it was all about them, it was in their nerves; it made the horses skittish and fractious.
But it was nothing to them who did not hold it against their bare skin.
No more died—for whatever reason, there were no more ambushes, as they shifted horses and kept a pace that even gray Siptah could not match unaided, in this place where the qhalur road broke down into eroded stone traces, and the riders found a course not straight, but recklessly direct, down toward the valley.
She is left behind, he thought. These crags and this rough land has forced her back to the road and she has fallen behind. They have won, in my case. Somewhere I could have done better than this. Somehow I could have done something better.
It was the first thought he had allowed himself, of might-have and could-have, and of how he had fallen to them and the things they had done, and might do. Well enough, he thought, fool, twice fool—and reviewed every move he had made on that hillside, every sign he might have missed, every chance he had had, until the pain was all that took his mind from his inward misery.
Then: fool, he thought. She has taken the odds down.
It would cost, he thought. Time would cost very dear. And chances were hard come by.
The qhal shared rations at midday. "We had best feed him," one said, "or he will faint." And when Chei consented, one came and fed him a strip of jerky and gave him a drink as they rode, the water splashing down his chin and front and onto the saddle, to dry again in the sun. After that his stomach was queasy, and cramped, and the pounding gait put the taste of blood in his mouth. He wished that he might fall off and simply break his neck and be done, except he was Kurshin, and his body kept the rhythm it had known from childhood, no matter how much he swayed; and the same fool who had fallen into their trap, still thought that there was a hope of delaying them, if he could find the means.
Then he put the matter together and at their next stop, when they were changing horses, as he was about to mount, brought his knee up in his horse's flank and flung himself out of the way as it went hopping and pitching and throwing the horse it was tied to into a wildly swinging panic.
The men grabbed after those and he went for the three a single man was holding, startling those with a wild yell and a shove of his shoulder before someone overhauled him from behind.
He fell, with a man atop him and one of their horses having slipped its bridle and racing off wildly across the road, one of the riders having to free his horse of his relief mount to run it down.
It was a little victory, a little one. The man who had overhauled him dragged him over onto his back and stared at him as though murder was too mild a vengeance.
Vanye brought his knee up with all the strength in him.
Two more of them pinned him to the ground and one of them paid him in kind. After that he lost sense of where he was for the moment, until he felt the weight go off him and heard a shout, and came to with Chei's blade at his throat and a dead man at his side.
And the sound of a rider coming, at full gallop.
Chapter Fourteen
The gray horse became clear, and its rider, and Vanye took in his breath, held as he was against Chei's knee, Chei's sword across his throat. And one of the two qhal with him had taken up his bow, and nocked an arrow.
Vanye swung his leg around in an attempt to strike the bowman. He could not. The blade stung along his neck, taking up what room he had for breathing. "Look out!" he yelled. But Morgaine was drawing to a halt well down the road. She slid down, and started walking, through the tall grass.
The bowman drew back, aiming a high arc for a distance shot.
"You are in her range," Vanye said quietly, and the bowman eased off the draw.
"Fire!" Chei said.
The bowman drew again, with careful aim. And a second time eased off.
"Fire, curse you!"
"The wind is gusting." A third time the bowman lifted the bow and drew. His arm trembled with the strain as he sought an arc and a lull in the wind.
"Wind does not trouble her," Vanye said.
"Wait your target," Chei said then, and the bowman eased off a third time, trembling. Chei relaxed his grip on Vanye's hair, then shifted his hand to his shoulder and pressed gently. "Stay still, man, stay still."
It was worse than the other. His leg began to shake, at its unnatural angle. He moved it. And Morgaine walked closer still, the bowman's necessary arc continually diminishing.
She reached half-range. The bowman lifted his bow, made a swift draw.
"Haaaaiiii!" Vanye yelled, and Chei jerked his head back. The shaft flew.
Morgaine dropped, and sprang up again, covering ground at a run.
The blade stung, and a slow trickle ran down Vanye's neck. "Iwill kill him," Chei yelled.
Morgaine stopped. The bowman stopped, a second arrow nocked and drawn.
"Ride off!" Chei shouted at her. "You leave me nothing to lose, woman!"
"I will bargain with you!" Morgaine's voice came faintly on the wind at full shout.
"I will bargain with you, woman. Throw down the sword and I will give you both your lives. Or I will cut his throat here and now."
She walked closer, and a second shaft flew, amiss on a gust of wind.
"Curse you," Chei said to the bowman. "Fire!"
The bowman brought up another arrow. But Morgaine had stopped. She lifted her hand, aimed dead at them. "An easy shot for me. Let him free and you are free to ride south. My word on it! Any one of you that wants to live, walk clear."
The bowman lowered his bow; and: "My lord," the qhal on Chei's other side said, and reached, and pressed the blade back from Vanye's throat with his bare hand. "My lord. We are the last. She will kill us. Let him go. We have lost."
There was long silence. Chei's grip faltered on his shoulder and tightened again.
"Let him free!" Morgaine said.
"For a price," Chei said.
"Name it!"
"I will name it later," Chei said. "Do you want him on those terms?"
"Let him go!" Morgaine said. "And I will give you your lives and your gear—or flay the skin off you if you harm him! Let him go!"
Chei's hand loosed. The sword withdrew and Chei shoved him carefully aside and stood up, a clear target "Free him," Chei said "Let him go."
The second man took a knife and cut Vanye's hands free, and with a hand under his arm, helped him to his feet. He was not one of those who had been forward to do him harm—a tall, silver-haired qhal, expressionless even now in this shift of fortunes. His hand was firm and steady, and gently tested his balance before he let him free.