And some three, hanged, twisted slowly on the fire-blackened tree that had grown in the center of the courtyard.
Morgaine reached for the lesser of her weapons, and fire parted the strands of the feathered cords. She urged Siptah slowly forward. The walls echoed to the sound of the horses and to the alarmed flutter of the carrion birds. Smoke still boiled up from the smouldering core of the central keep, from the wreckage of human shelters that had clustered about it.
Riders clattered up the stones outside. Morgaine wheeled Siptah about as Kithans party came within the gates and reined to a dazed halt.
Kithan looked slowly about him, his thin face set in horror; there was horror too in the face of Jhirun, who arrived last within the gateway, her mare stepping skittishly past the blowing strands of cords and feathers. Jhirun held tightly to the charms about her neck and stopped just inside the gates.
Let us leave this place, Vanye said; and Morgaine took up the reins, about to heed him.
But Kithan suddenly hailed the place, a loud cry that echoed in the emptiness; and again he called, and finally turned his horse full circle to survey all the ruined keep, the dead that hung from the tree and that lay within the yard, while the two men with him looked about them too, their faces white and drawn.
Sotharrn, Kithan exclaimed in anguish. There were better than seven hundred of our folk here, besides the Shiua. He gestured at the fluttering cords. Shiua belief. Those are for fear of you.
Would Hetharu have gathered forces here, Morgaine asked him, or lost them? Was this riot, or was it war?
He follows Roh, Kithan said. And Roh has promised him his hearts desiresas he doubtless would promise others, halfling and human. He gazed about him at the shelters that had housed men, that were empty now, asVanye realized suddenlythe village in the night had lain silent, as the valleys and hills between had been vacant, with only the alarm fires to break the peace.
And of a sudden one of the guards reined about, and spurred through the gates. The other hesitated, his pale face a mask of anguish and indecision.
Then he too rode, whipping his tired horse in his frenzy, and vanished from sight, deserting his lord, seeking safety elsewhere.
No! cried Morgaine, checking Vanyes impulse to pursue them; and when he reined back: No. There are already the fires: they are enough to have warned our enemies. Let them go. And to Kithan, who sat his horse staring after his departed men: Do you wish to follow them?
Shiuan is finished, Kithan said in a trembling voice, and looked back at her. If Sotharrn has fallen, then no other hold will stand long against Hetharu, against Chya Roh, against the rabble that they have stirred to arms. What you will dodo. Or let me stay with you.
There was no arrogance left him. His voice broke, and he bowed his head, leaning against the saddlebow. When he lifted his face again, the look of tears was in his eyes.
Morgaine regarded him long and narrowly.
Then without a word she rode past him, for the gate where the feathered cords fluttered uselessly in the wind. Vanye delayed, letting Jhirun turn, letting Kithan go before him. Constantly he felt a prickling between his own shoulders, a consciousness that there might well be watchers somewhere within the ruinsfor someone had strung the cords and tried to seal the gate from harm, someone frightened, and human.
No attack came, nothing but the panic flight of birds, a whispering of wind through the rums. They passed the gate on the downward road, riding slowly, listening.
And Vanye watched the qujallord, who rode before him, pale head bowed, yielding to the motion of the horse. Without choices, Kithanwithout skill to survive in the wilderness that Shiuan had become, helpless without his servants to attend him and his peasants to feed him... and now without refuge to shelter him.
Better the swords edge, Vanye thought, echoing something that Roh had said to him, and then dismayed to remember who had said it, and that it had been true.
At the roads joining, Morgaine increased the pace. Move! Vanye shouted at the halfling, spurring forward, and struck Kithans horse with the flat of his blade, startling it into a brief burst of speed. They turned northward onto the main road, slowing again as they came beyond arrowflight of the walls.
On sudden impulse Vanye looked back, saw on the walls of Sotharrn a brown, bent figure, and another and anotherragged, furtive watchers that vanished the instant they realized they had been seen.
Old ones, deserted, while the young had been carried away with the tide that swept toward Abarais: the young, who looked to live, who would kill to live, like the horde that followed still behind them.
The land beyond Sotharrn bore more signs of violence, fields and land along the roadway churned to mire, as if the road itself could no longer contain what poured toward the north. Tracks of men and horses were sharply defined beside the road and in mud yet unwashed from the paving stones.
They passed, Vanye said to Morgaine, as they rode knee to knee behind Jhirun and Kithan, since the rain stopped.
He tried to lend her hope; she frowned over it, shook her head.
Hetharu delayed here, perhaps, she said in a low voice. He would be enough to deal with Sotharrn. But were I Roh, I would not have delayed for such an untidy matter if there were a choice: I would have gone for Abarais. And once there, then no hold will stand. I would be glad to know where Hetharus force is; but I fear I know where Roh is.
Vanye considered that; it was not good to think on. He turned his mind instead to forces that he understood. Hetharus force, he said, looks to have gathered considerable number; perhaps two, three thousand by now.
There are also the outlying villages, she said. Kithan.
The halfling reined back somewhat, and Jhiruns mare, never one to take the lead, lagged too, coming alongside so that they were four abreast on the road. Kithan regarded them placidly, his eyes again vague and hazed.
He is only half sensible, Vanye said in disgust. Perhaps he and that store of his were best parted.
No, said Kithan at once, straightening in his saddle. He made effort to look at them directly, and his eyes were possessed of a distant, tearless sadness. I have listened to your reckoning; I hear you well... Leave me my consolation, Man. I shall answer your questions.
Then say, said Morgaine, what we must expect. Will Hetharu gain the support of the other holds? Will they move to join him?
Hetharu Kithans mouth twisted in a grimace of contempt. Sotharrn always feared him... that did he succeed to power in Ohtij-in, then attack would come. And they were right, of course. Some of our fields flooded this season; and more would have gone the next; and the next. It was inevitable that the more ambitious of us would reach across the Suvoj.
Will the other holds follow him or fight him now?
Kithan shrugged. What difference to the Shiua; and to usEven we bowed and kissed his hand in Ohtij-in. We who wanted nothing but to live undisturbed... have no power against whoever does not. Yes, most will be with him: to what purpose anything else? My guards have gone over to him: that is where they are going. There is no question of it. They saw my prospects, and they know defeat when they smell it. So they went to him. The lesser holds will flock to do the same.
You may go too if you like, Morgaine said.
Kithan regarded her, disturbed.
Be quite free to do so, she said.
The horses walked along together some little distance; and Kithan looked at Morgaine with less and less assurance, as if she and the drug together confused him. He looked at Jhirun, whose regard of him was hard; and at Vanye, who stared back at him expressionless, giving him nothing, neither of hatred nor of comfort. Once more he glanced the circuit of them, and last of all at Vanye, as if he expected that some terrible game were being made of him.