And suddenly those men that attacked him were alone. Morgaine spurred Siptah into that oncoming horde, swept the terrible blade in an arc that became vacant of enemies and corpses, a crescent that widened.
With a shout she rode farther, driving them in retreat before her, taking any man that delayed, the blade flickering with the cold opal fire, slow and leisurely as it took man after man into that void, dealing no wound, sparing none.
Liyo! Vanye cried, and spurred after her, shouldering a screaming marshlander over the brink. Liyo! He rode to lands edge; and there perhaps his voice first reached her. She reined about, and he saw the arc of the sword, the sudden eclipse of the light as it swung toward him. He reined over, hard, and the gelding slid on the wet stones, skidding. He recovered. The horse trembled and fretted under him, Morgaines wild face staring at him in the balefire of Changeling.
Put it up, he urged her in what of a voice remained to him. No more. No more.
Get back.
No! he cried at her. But she would not listen to him: she turned Siptahs head toward the people that gathered on the hillside, and spurred forward onto the muddy earth. Women and children cried out and ran, and men held their ground desperately, but she came no farther, circling back and forth, back and forth.
Liyo! Vanye screamed at her; and when she would not come, he rode forward, carefully, reining in a few paces behind, where he was safe from her as well as from the enemy.
She stopped, sat her horse facing the great empty space that she had made between the causeway and their attackers. There was, after that confusion and madness, a terrible silence made. And she kept the sword unsheathed, waiting, while time passed and the silence continued.
A voice broke the stillness, distant and its owner well hidden in the darkness. There were curses spoken against her, who had deceived them; there were viler things shouted. She did not move, nor seem provoked, although at some of the words Vanye trembled with rage and wished the man within reach. Almost he answered back himself; but something there was about Morgaines silence and waiting against which such words, either attacking or defending, were empty. He had held Changeling: he knew the agony that grew in ones arm after long wielding of it, the drain upon ones very soul. She did not move, and the voice grew still.
And at last Vanye gathered his resolve and toed the gelding forward. Liyo, he said, so that she would know that it was he. She did not protest his approach now; nor did she turn her head from the darkness she was watching.
It is enough, he urged her quietly. Liyoput it away.
She gave no answer, nor moved for a time. Then she lifted Changeling so that the darkness at its tip aimed toward the huddle of tents and shelters, and that one great tree, whereon corpses dangled and twisted above a dying fire.
And then she lowered her arm, as if the weight of the sword suddenly grew too much. Take it, she said hoarsely.
He eased close to her, stretched out both his hands and gently disengaged her rigid fingers from the dragon grip, taking it into his own hand. The evil of it ran through his bones and into his brain, so that his eyes blurred and his senses wavered.
She did not offer him the sheath, which was all that might damp its fires and render it harmless. She did not speak.
Go back, he said. I will watch them now.
But she did not answer or offer to move. She sat, straight and silent, beside himbelieving, he was sure, that did it come to using the sword he had less willingness than she; lives and nations were on her conscience. His crimes were on a human scale.
And they sat their horses side by side, the two of them, until he found the sword making his arm ache, until the pain of it was hard to bear. He counted only his breaths, and watched the slow passage of Lis descent; and the horses grew weary and restless under them.
From the camp there was no stirring.
Give it back, Morgaine said at last; he did so, terrified in the passing of it, the least touch of it fatal. But her hand was strong and sure as she received it.
He looked behind him, at the rift of the Suvoj, where the others waited. The waters are lower, he said. And after a moment: The Hiua will not dare come. They have given up. Put it away.
Go, she said; and harshly: Go back!
He drew his horses head about and rode back to the others, the qujal at one side of the roadway, Jhirun at the other, holding the mares reins as she sat on the stone edge.
And the girl gathered herself up as she saw him coming, staggered with exhaustion as she went forward to meet him. Lord, she said, holding the geldings reins to claim his attention, lord, the halflings say we might perhaps cross. They are talking of trying it. There was a wild, desperate grief in her face, like something graven there, incapable of changing. Lordwill she let us go?
Go, now, he bade her on his own, for there was no reasoning with Morgaine; and as he sat watching them mount up and begin to take their horses out onto that dangerous passage, he was dismayed at his own callousness, that he could send men and a woman ahead to probe the way for his liegein his place, because she valued him and not them.
Such he began to be, obedient to Morgaine. He made his heart cold, though his throat was tight with shame for himself, watching those four lone figures struggling across that dangerous flooded stonework.
And when he saw that they were well past the halfway point and still able to proceed, he turned and rode back to Morgaines side.
Now, he said hoarsely. Now, liyo. We can cross.
Chapter Fifteen
Vanye set himself in the lead, riding the skittish gelding toward the rift that thundered and echoed with flood. The retreating water had left the land glittering with water under the moon. A number of uprooted trees lay about the pool-studded plain, several having rammed the causeway, creating heaps of brush that loomed up on the side where the current had been, skeletal masses festooned with strings of dead grasses and leaves.
Then the causeway arched higher above the rocky shelf, pierced by spans above the water: a bridge that extended in vast arches out across the rift.
Please Heaven, Vanye thought, contemplating what lay before them, let the earth stay still now. The horse slowed, side-stepping; he touched it with his heels gently and kept it moving.
The current thundered and boiled through the spans that had lately been entirely submerged. Vast megaliths formed that structure, that as yet neither quake had dislodged nor flood eroded. A tree hung on the edge of the roadway, itself dwarfed by the spans, so that it seemed only some dangling bit of brush, but its roots thrust up taller than horse and rider. Vanye avoided looking directly down into the current, that dizzied the sensessave once: saw the waters sweeping down on the one side and through into endless water on the other, an expanse that seemed to embrace all creation. In the midst of it hung the thread of the bridge, and themselves small and lost amid the crash and roar that flung up spray as a mist about them.
He turned his headsuddenly, unreasoningly anxious about Morgaine, at once comforted to know her close behind him. She bore Changeling sheathed at her shoulders; her pale hair seemed to glow in the half-light, whipped on the wind as she also turned to look back.
Torches massed at the beginning of the causeway, like so many stars flickering there, beginning to stream out onto it.
What they had loosed on Ohtij-in was still following them, violent and desperate. Morgaine turned forward again; so did he, anxious for their safety on the bridge. The roadway was wide: it would have been possible to run, but the roar of the water and the sight of it had the animals wild-eyed with distress. It was not a place to let them go.