Vanye heard, mind frozen, the halfling held with one hand, the other hand sweating on the grip of his sword. It was not his to answer: with his eyes he tried to warn her.
We have followed you, a Barrows-man said. We are yours, we BarrowersWe will follow you.
Take them, Kithan laughed, a bitter and mocking laugh; and of a sudden the foremost of the Aren-folk fled, his fellows with him, thrusting their way through the tall Barrows-men, running.
Still Kithan laughed, and Vanye cursed and hurled him aside, into the midst of the Barrows-men, who hurled him clear again; Vanye unsheathed the sword, and Kithan halted, within striking distance of him, and knowing it.
No, Morgaine forbade him. No. And to the Barrowers: Fwar, stop the Aren-folk. Find me Haz.
But the Barrowers too remained as if dazed, pale of face, staring at her. One of them touched a luck-piece that he wore hanging from a cord about his neck. Fwar bit at his lip.
And Kithan smiled a wolf-smile and laughed yet again. Worlds-end, worlds-end, O ye blind, ye Barrows-rabble. She has followed you through the Wells to repay you for all you have done... your own, your personal curse. An eyeblink for her, from there till now, but there is no time in the Wells, nor distance. We are avenged.
A knife whipped from sheath: a Barrows-man drewfor Morgaine, for Kithan, unknown which: Vanye looked toward it, and that man backed away, whey-faced and sweating.
There was silence in the room, heavy and oppressive; and of a sudden there was a stir outside, as the animals in the pens began bawling all at once. Furniture quivered, and the surface in the wine pitcher on the table shimmered and then men sprang one way and the other as chairs danced and the floor heaved sickeningly underfoot, masonry parting in a great crack down the wall that admitted dusty daylight. The fire crashed, a burning log rolled across the carpet, and there were echoing crashes and screams throughout the hold.
A rumbling shook the floor, deafening, sudden impact jolting the very stones of the hold.
Then it was done, and anguished screams resounded outside and throughout the keep. Vanye stood clinging to the back of a chair, Kithan to the table, the laughter shaken from him, and the Barrows-men stood white and trembling against the riven wall.
Out, Morgaine shouted at them. Out of here, clear the hold. Out!
There was panic. The Hiua rushed the doorway in a mass, pushing and cursing at each other in their haste; but Vanye, swords point levelled at Kithan, saw Morgaine delay to gather her belongings from the fireside.
Go, he told her, reaching for her burden. She did not yield it, but left, quickly. Vanye abandoned Kithan, intent on staying with Morgaine; and the halfling darted from the door, raced the other way down the hall, a way that led upward.
His people, said Morgaine; and Vanye felt an instants respect for the qujallord, realizing what he was about.
And as he looked he saw another thingbroken timbers, a doorframe riven and shattered, and a door ajar.
The priest.
Go! he shouted at Morgaine; and turned back, running, slid to a stop and pulled that jammed door wide, splintering wood as he did so.
The storeroom was empty. The priest was a slight man, the opening he had forced sufficient for the body of so slender a man, and the priest was gone.
He turned and ran, back the way Morgaine should have gone, past a cabinet that was overturned and shattered, a wall that leaned perilously. He saw her, redoubled his effort and overtook her just as she reached the main corridor.
Terror reigned in that long spiraclass="underline" few had torches, and the fall of some in the corridor had darkened areas of the passage. Servants gained courage to push and shove like free men: screaming women and children of the Aren-folk fought with hold servants for passage, and men pushed ruthlessly where strength would avail in their haste. One of the sons of Haz fought his way to Morgaines side, pleading for comfort, babbling words almost impossible to understand. Morgaine tried to answer, caught for balance on his arm as they came to the riven place that had always been in the corridor. It was the width of a mans body now. A child fell, screaming, and Vanye seized it by its clothing and deposited it safely across, hearing a stone crumble. It hit water far below.
And Morgaine, with the marshlander to make way for her, had kept moving. Vanye saw her gone and fought his own way through, ruthless as the others, desperate.
The gate at the bottom was not barred: it had not been since the attack. He saw Morgaine step clear, onto the steps, in the drizzling rain, and caught his own breath as he overtook her, dazed, dimly conscious that they were still being jostled by those that poured out behind.
But his eyes, like hers, fixed in shock on the gate, for the barbican tower had fallen, leaving a wider gap beside the ruined gates; and pitiful folk clambered over the nibble in the falling rain, where the uppermost stones had fallen among the shelters, crushing them, crushing flesh and timbers alike under megaliths the size of two men.
Shiua saw Morgaine standing there, and there went up a cry, a wailing. They came, dazed and fearfully; and Vanye gripped his sword tightly in his fist, but he realized then that they came for pity, pleading with their gestures and their outcries. There gathered a crowd, both marshlanders and folk of the shelters, Hiua and Shiua mingled in their desolation. None reached her: she stepped off the last step and walked among them, they giving back to give her place, pressing at each other in their zeal to avoid her. Vanye went at her back, sword in hand, fearful, seeing the mob that once had threatened him now pleading desperately with them both. Hands touched him as they would not touch Morgaine, but they were pleas for help, for explanation, and he could not give it.
Morgaine slung her cloak about her and put up the hood as she walked across the yard, and there, in the clear of threatening stones, she turned and looked back at the keep.
Vanye looked, a quickly stolen glance, for fear of those about them, and saw that the tower that had fallen had taken one of the buttresses too, riving it away from the keep. There was a crack in that vast tower, opening it widely to the elements and promising further ruin.
I would give nothing for its chance of standing the hour, Morgaine said. There will be other shocks. And for the instant she gazed about the yard, seemed herself in a state of shock. Over the babble of prayers and panicked questions rose the steady keening of men and women over their dead.
And suddenly she flung back her head and shouted to those of the Aren-folk near her: There is no staying here. It will all collapse. Gather what you must have to live, and go, get out of here!
Panic spread at that dismissal; she did not regard the questions others shouted at her, but seized at Vanyes sleeve. The horses. Get our horses out before that wall goes.
Aye, he agreed, and then realized it meant leaving her; half a step he hesitated, and saw her face with that unreasoning fixedness, saw the folk that crowded frantically about her, that in their fear would cling to her: she could not get away. He fled, steps quickening, avoiding this man and that, racing across the puddled yard to the stable, remembering Jhirun, left to her own devices, panicked horses and the damage of the quake.
The stable door was ajar. He pushed it open. Chaos awaited him inside that warm darkness, planks down where horses had panicked and broken their barriers. There was a wild-eyed bay that had had the worst of it: it bolted when he flung the stable door wide. Other horses were still in stalls.
Jhirun, he called aloud, seeing with relief Siptah and his own horse and Jhiruns mare still safe.
No voice responded. There was a rustling of strawmany bodies in the darkness.
Fwar stepped into the light, his kinsmen emerging likewise from the shadows, from within a stall, over the bars of another: armed men, carrying knives.