"I would think that was too slight a thing to satisfy you."
"Swear," said Erij, "by that oath you regard with her, that you will stay for Claiming by me, no treachery, no aid from her if she should somehow live. And that will not be a year that you will thank me for, Chya bastard, and it will not stop me from turning you over to the kinsmen of Paren and Bren when it is finished. But if it is worth the price to you, I will refrain from cutting your throat here and now. I will even go with you to Rahjemur. Is that the way you want it, bastard? Will you pay that?"
"Yes," Vanye said without hesitating; but Erij's blade still rested under his chin.
"And I will wager," said Erij, "that you know the use of the sword and that you know the witch herself better than any now living. If taking Hjemur purges you of her— that being the service she named for you, and not merely a year— then let us agree, my brother, that when Hjemur falls, it is mine, and you are mine— from that moment. And you will not speak of this oath of ours— not to her, not to Thiye, not to anyone."
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He saw the trap then, which Erij wove for Morgaine, treachery suspecting treachery in everyone, and admired the cunning of the man: Myya to the heart, thinking of all possibilities save one— that neither of them would survive the taking of Hjemur.
He did not like the oath: it was woven too tightly.
"I will agree," he said.
"And upon your soul you will not betray me," Erij said. "You will hand me Hjemur and hand me Thiye and the witch and this qujal himself."
"As many as live," Vanye agreed.
"That you will not desert me or raise hand against me before then."
"I agree."
"Your hand," said Erij.
It was not right to do: by ilin-law he ought not to yield another oath, and any crossing of the two obligations was on his soul, his own fault; but Erij insisted, and he yielded up his hand and clenched his teeth as Erij drew the black across the palm. Then Erij touched it with his mouth, and Vanye likewise, spat blood into the snow. It was not Claiming, for there was no signing with it, but it was an oath and a binding one, and when Erij released him to get to his feet, he knelt clenching numbing snow in his fist as he had knelt once in a cave in Aenor-Pyvvn, shaking this time in utter misery, such that his senses threatened to leave him.
The liyo he served could by rights curse his soul to perdition; he had yielded his brother the same right. And yet he knew that he would have mercy of Morgaine, and none at all of Erij. He knew his liyo, that though she was cruel in other ways, she would not curse him; and that knowledge of her perversely made him sure which oath he would follow.
And kill his brother, as he had killed a third of Nhi.
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He had done this for his liyo, serving her: ilin-oath had bound him, and he had killed kinsmen. There had seemed no worse act that he could be drawn to commit.
Until this, that he oath-broke, and murdered his brother by his silence.
I owe it to thee to tell thee plainly; if thee uses Changeling as I have told thee to do— thee will die.
Changeling was not selective in its destructions.
"Come, on your feet," said Erij. He hooked the blade to his saddle-harness, displacing his own to the useless right-hand fastenings. Then he gathered reins and climbed up, waiting for him.
Vanye gathered himself up and sought the black, who stood, reins dangling, some distance away across the clearing. He set foot in the stirrup and rose into the saddle with a wince of strained muscles.
"You are guide," said Erij. "Lead. And be mindful of your oath."
He retraced the way that they had come, then cut north, aiming to come out upon the highroad at a different place than they had left it. When they had it in sight among the trees he was relieved to see that there were as yet no tracks marring the snow.
Only as they came out into the open road, something fluttered through the trees, alarmed by their passing— a rapid clap of wings in the dark. Erij stared after it with hate in his face, the honest loathing of a human man for things that frequented these woods.
Vanye had even ceased to shudder at such things. He set a good pace, reckoning that they were laying a clear trail for Liell and his men if they would follow; but it could not be helped. There was one quick way to Hjemur's heart, and they were on it.
The black was laboring. It was impossible to drive the horse further, hard-put as he had been on the road to Ivrel. And at last Vanye reined in, looked back and considered stopping. It was an uncomfortable place. Forest was on one side, high rocks upon the other.
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"Let us be moving," Erij said.
"I am not going to kill this horse," Vanye protested, but he kept the animal at a walk all the same, and did not stop.
Then Erij spurred his own horse and the black dutifully matched the pace.
Vanye smothered his temper and hoped that the horse would last to the gates of Ra-hjemur.
And they came upon tracked snow, where an unexpected road intersected theirs at an angle from the direction of Ivrel. Men afoot— horses— the short-footed sign of the smallish northerners, Hjemurn mixed with the larger prints of men: Andurin.
And blood upon the snow, and bodies lying in the road, abandoned.
Vanye swung down, Erij ordering him otherwise: he ignored his brother, went quickly from one body to the other, turning them to see the faces.
Two were Lethen. The other three were the small, dark men of Hjemur, and one fair, like qujal. Relief flooded over him.
Erij hissed, drawing his attention: suddenly there was a stirring, a crunch of snow and a rattling of rocks, and he pulled himself out of his thoughts, looked up to see a dark shadow crouched upon the ledge overhanging the road.
He ran, sprang for the horse, hauled himself into the saddle as the startled animal began to run: he gathered reins awkwardly and tucked low as Erij did.
"Erij," he gasped when he could, "Hjemurn have come in behind, but Chya Liell and the Lethen are on the road ahead of us— the Hjemurn could not hold them. Ease off, ease off, or we will be riding into them."
"Then," said Erij, "we will be one enemy the less."
Morgaine too, and Roh, if they still lived: Erij, who held the sword, would as gladly kill them both as Chya Liell and Lethen: Nhi's bloodfeud with 199
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Chya was old and well-exercised, and that with Morgaine was as fresh as Irn-Svejur, and still painful.
"Give me a sword," Vanye asked of him then, for he had not so much as a dagger. "If not hers, then at least some weapon."
"Not at my back," said Erij, insulting the oath there was between them.
But that was Erij's privilege: it did not lessen the oath.
Vanye pressed his lips tightly in anger and kept with him, counting Erij for a madman, to press both horses so, to ride unshielded after any company containing Morgaine after his bitter lesson at Irn-Svejur. He regretted his oath for a new reason: that Erij would kill the both of them and hand Changeling to the enemy, madder than Chya Roh and almost as great an idiot.
The road was winding, the turns blind, woods and rocks cutting off their view upon the right, trees almost taking the road in places upon the left.
And they met it, inevitably: the rear of Liell's column, men warned by their noise and braced to receive them with a hedge of spears, a bristling shadow in the dark.
Erij ripped Changeling loose and let its sheath slide, lost, nothing hesitating. He spurred his uncertain horse and drove the beast at the spears, while the blade flared into opal and a peculiar starry dark hovered at its tip. The Lethen that touched it were quickly nothing: others fled aside, closed in, in renewed determination as Vanye tried to ride through, but few, few of them. Instead came dark, fur-clad bodies off the ridge, dropping thick upon his path— Hjemurn, howling their blood-chilling cries. In his last clear sight of the column ahead he saw a gl
immer of white— Siptah among those horses: and the Lethen riders began to run, abandoning those on foot, perhaps knowing what pursued them.
Dark bodies poured between, Vanye kicked his faltering horse, himself and the beast being pulled down together. A spear rammed at his ribs and rocked him badly. Weaponless, he seized the shaft with both hands and tried to wrench it free from its owner.
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Then the horse collapsed, and arms encircled him, pulling him to the ground at the same moment. A blade flashed down and rebounded off his mail, surprising the would-be killer. Others hacked at him, with the same result, bruising, driving the wind from him. He was smothered in bodies and sinking into dark.
And as suddenly released.
He scrambled for his feet, still dazed, and sprawled in the stained snow.
Screams were in his ears, then silence, a howl of wind, hollow and abruptly silenced too.
He struggled to one knee as steps crunched up to him, looked dazedly upon Erij, who held the sword in the sheath. There were no bodies, and there were no Hjemurn to be seen, only themselves, and the horses standing side by side.
Quickly, he twisted about to look in the direction the riders had taken.
There was nothing to be seen there either.
"The riders," Vanye said. "Killed or fled?"
"Fled," said Erij. "If you had not fallen— but that must be the Chya blood in you. Get up."
He rose, steadied unexpectedly by Erij's hand, and he was surprised into a closer look at his brother, that same dark expression he had known in Ra-morij— anger compounded by something else violent; but the hand that still held him was solidly gentle.
"Why stay for me?" Vanye taunted him, for he truly suspected some brotherly sentiment in the man. "Did you want revenge that badly?"
Erij's lips trembled in anger. "Bastard that you are, I will not leave even Nhi refuse for the Hjemurn. Get mounted."
And out of the contradictions that were Erij, he pushed him and hit him at once, no cuff, but a blow that brought him to one knee, dizzy as he was.
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Vanye gathered himself to rise, went after Erij, and halted as Erij's own longsword hit the snow between them. He seized it up without hesitating.
And there was Erij by his horse, glaring at him with hate and fear staring naked out of his eyes.
If he had not known Erij he would have thought him mad as Kasedre himself; but of a sudden he knew the feeling himself, an old one, and familiar. Erij did fear him. Maimed by him, his former skill cut away by him, Erij feared, and likely wakened in the night in such dreams as Vanye himself knew, dreams of Rijan, of Kandrys, and a morning in the armory court.
Father loved perfection, Erij had told him once. He hated leaving Nhi to a cripple.
He never forgave me either, for being the one of us two legitimate sons that lived. And for being less than perfect afterward.
But Erij had sense enough finally to arm him, in spite of all instincts otherwise. A one-handed man coming alone into Hjemur… he perhaps feared to die less than he feared to be proved weak.
Vanye bowed an awkward respect to his brother. "Likely we will die," he said, that sure knowledge a weight of guilt at his heart. "Erij, lend me Changeling instead. I do swear to you, I will go through with it— myself.
Whatever can be done by a man carrying that thing, I will do. I will hand you Ra-hjemur if I live, and if I do not, then it was impossible anyway.
Erij, I mean it. I owe you to do that."
Erij gave a short and uneasy laugh, tucked his handless arm behind him.
"Your gratitude is unnecessary, bastard brother. The fact is, I dropped the sword-sheath and came back after it."
"You came back in time," Vanye insisted doggedly. "Erij, do not make it nothing. I know what you did; and I say I would do this."
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"You are expert in treachery, and I am not about to trust you, especially where she is concerned. You are trying to delay me now, and there is an end of it. Get mounted."
* * *
He could not hold the course Erij set. He came near to falling as they took a slippery downslope, hung on grimly, but dropped a rein. The horse stopped at the bottom as a consequence, well-trained, stood with its own sides heaving between his knees, and Vanye slowly bent over the saddle, trying to clear his vision and making no effort to recover the lost rein. Erij rode close to him, hit his horse and started it forward. He clung, but the horse stopped again, and he disregarded Erij and used his remaining strength to climb down and walk, leading his horse, toward a place where a flat rock promised a place to sit. He walked like a drunken man, and ached so that he more fell down than sat down when he reached it. He lay over on his side, tucked his limbs up against the cold and simply ignored Erij's attempts to rouse him: a time to let the pain leave his gut— it was all he asked.
Erij pulled at him roughly, and Vanye realized finally that Erij was attempting to lift his head upon his maimed arm; and himself took the wine flask and drank.
"You are chilled," Erij said distantly. "Sit, sit up."
He understood then that Erij was trying to put his cloak about him, and leaned against his brother, warmed against him so that finally he began to shiver and abused muscles began to knot up in reaction to cold.
"Drink," said Erij again. He drank. Then, briefly, he slept.
He meant it to be brief, only a closing of his eyes. But he awoke with the sun warming him, and Erij sitting nearby with Changeling tucked within his arms as Morgaine was wont to rest. Erij did not sleep: Vanye's first move brought him alert and sharp-eyed with suspicion.
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"There is food," said Erij after a moment. "Get to horse and we will eat in the saddle. We have wasted enough time."
He did not contest the order, but dragged his aching limbs up and obeyed.
There was an edge to the wind when they were out of the fold of the hill; he was glad of the little bit of wine Erij shared with him, and the coarse, crumbling bread and strong cheese. Food put strength into him. He looked at his brother in the daylight and saw a man equally haggard, shadow-eyed, hollow-cheeked, unshaven; but at a sane pace and with provisions to last them, he reckoned their chances of reaching Ra-hjemur better, at least, than he had reckoned them last night.
"They are surely making little better time than we," he said to Erij. "Ahead of us that they are… still, there is a limit to their horses, and their strength."
"It is possible that we can overtake them," said Erij. "It is at least possible."
Erij seemed soberly sane after the impulses of the night had run themselves out: for a moment there seemed even implied apology in his tone. Vanye snatched at it instantly.
"I am stronger," Vanye said. "I could go on. Listen to me. You have made a kind of Claiming; and once I am quit of my oath to her, then I serve your interests at that point, and I will hold Ra-hjemur for you."
"And of course the witch would let you."
"She has no ambitions for Ra-hjemur: only to settle with Thiye and then to go her own way. She will not come back. She is no threat to you, none.
Erij, I beg you, I earnestly beg you, do not seek to kill her."
"You have to ask that, of course, being ilin to her; I respect that. But knowing that— of course I have to go with you into Ra-hjemur and above all I will not put this blade into your loyal hands, bastard brother. You had me willing to believe you once, and that cost me, that cost me bitterly in lives and in honor. Do not expect me to make the same mistake twice."
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Then, Vanye concluded, he must obtain the blade from Erij by force or by theft, or somehow deceive Erij so that Erij himself would do what had to be done— oath-breaking and murder at once.
And ever since he had known of Morgaine what must be done, he had begun to suspect what manner of death there would be for h
im when he had obeyed her orders.
Its field directed at its own source of power would effect the ruin of all the Gates, she had said. And: Cast back within the Gate itself, it would be the same: unsheathe it and hurl it through. Either way should be sufficient.
Changeling fed upon the Witchfires of Ivrel. The black void beyond the Gate was that tiny nothingness that glimmered at Changeling's tip, to seize whole men and whirl them through, winds howling into skies where men could not survive, as the dragon had perished in the snow… other skies where there was never day. Changeling aimed at the Gate would be void aimed at void, wind sucking into wind, ripping at its own substance and drawing all things in.
And perhaps even Ra-hjemur itself would follow it, and all within it. The force that had taken ten thousand men upon the winds at Irien and left no trace behind could not be so delicate as to take one man, if rent wide open, destroying itself.
He thought with a shudder of the retreating faces of those he had seen drawn into the field, the horror, the bewilderment, like men new arrived in Hell.
This would be theirs, this ending for the surviving sons of Nhi Rijan, for all their hate and striving against each other.
He kept his face turned from Erij until the wind had dried the tears upon his face, and gave himself up finally to do what he had given oath to do.
* * *
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There lay before them the greatest valley in the north, and of Hjemur's hold, a grassy land ringed about by snow-capped peaks, fair to be seen save in one place, and that bare and blighted, even from such a distance.
"That," said Vanye, pointing to the ugliness, and thinking of the waste the Gates made about them, "that would be Ra-hjemur." And when he strained his eyes he could see the imagining of a rise there, a hill such as might be Ra-hjemur, hazy in distance.