“Nehmin is one dire concern, and I suppose that it is somewhere close about Azeroth, though I do not see it on your map. But the Narn itself . . . could become a threat, a road to lead them through your heart.”
“Indeed you do see. It leads too close to the land of the sirrindim. It is a threat much beyond Mirrind . . . we do see that. In war, we would swiftly decline and die. The invaders must be held in Azeroth . . . above all they must not open a way to the northern plains. Of all directions they might have gone, that is the most deadly to us . . . and I think that is the direction they will choose, for you are here, and they will surely find that out.”
“I understand you.”
“We will hold them.” There was sorrow etched deep in the old qhal’s face. “We shall lose many of our numbers, I fear, but we shall hold them. We have no choice. Go now. Go and sleep. In the morning you will go with Lellin and Sezar, and we shall hope that you keep faith, lady Morgaine: I have shown you much that could greatly harm us.”
She inclined her head, respecting the old qhal. “Good night, my lord,” she murmured and turned and left. Vanye replaced the lamp carefully on its hanging chain near the old lord’s chair, thinking of his comfort, and when the aged qhal sat down, he bowed too, the full obeisance he would have shown a lord of his own people, forehead to the ground.
“Man,” said Merir gently, “for your sake I have believed your lady.”
“How, lord?” he asked, for it bewildered him.
“Your manner—that you are devoted to her. Self-love shows itself first that qhal and Man cannot trust one another. But neither you nor she is afflicted by that evil. You serve, but not because you fear. You affect the manner of a servant, but you are more than that. You are a warrior like the sirrindim, and not like the khemi. But you show respect to an elder, and him not of your blood. Such small things show more truth than any words. And therefore I am moved to trust your lady.”
He was stricken by this, knowing that they would fail that trust, and he was frightened. All at once he felt himself utterly transparent before the old lord, and soiled and unclean.
“Protect Lellin,” the old qhal asked of him.
“Lord, I will,” he whispered, and this faith at least he meant to keep. Tears stung his eyes and choked his voice, and a second time he inclined himself to the mat, and sat back again. “Thank you for my lady, for she was very tired and we are both very weary of fighting. Thank you for this time you have given us, and for your help to cross your lands. Have I leave to go, my lord?”
The old qhal dismissed him with a soft word, and he rose and left the tent, sought Morgaine’s in the dark, on the rim of the gathering. The merriment there still continued, the eerie sounds of qhalur singing.
• • •
“We shall both sleep,” Morgaine said. “And the armor is useless. Sleep soundly; it may be some time before we have another chance.”
He agreed, and put up a blanket for a curtain between them, suspended from the cross-pole; gladly he stripped of the armor, and of clothing, wrapped himself in a blanket and lay down, and Morgaine did likewise, a little distance away on the soft furs provided for their beds. The makeshift curtain did not reach the floor, and the light of the fires outside cast a dim glow within. He saw her gazing at him, head pillowed on her arm.
“What kept thee with Merir?”
“It would sound strange if I said it.”
“I ask.”
“He—said that he trusted you because of me . . . that if there were evil in us, it would show—between you and myself; of course they take you for one of their own.”
She made a sound that might have been a laugh, bitter and brief.
“Liyo, we shall ruin these people.”
“Be still. Even in Andurin, I would not discuss that; Andurin is laced with qhalur borrowings, and I do not feel secure in it. Besides, who knows what tongues these sirrindim speak, or whether some qhal here may not know it? Remember that when we travel with Lellin.”
“I shall.”
“Yet thee knows I have no choice, Vanye.”
“I know. I understand.”
Her dim face seemed touched by that, and a great sorrow was on it.
“Sleep,” she said, and closed her eyes.
It was the best and only counsel in the matter.
Chapter 5
Their setting out was by no means furtive or quiet. The horses were brought up before Merir’s tent, and there Lellin took leave of his grandfather and his father and mother and great-uncle . . . grave, kind-eyed folk like Merir. His parents seemed old to have a son as young as Lellin, and they took his leaving hard. Sezar too they bade an affectionate farewell, kissing his hands and wishing him well, for the khemeis seemed to have no kinfolk among the Men in the camp: it was of Lellin’s family that he took his leave.
They were offered food, and they took it, for it was well-prepared for keeping on the trail. Then Merir came forward and offered to Morgaine a gold medallion on a chain, intricate, beautiful work. “I lend this,” he said. “It is safe passage.” And another he brought forth and gave to Vanye, a silver one. “With either of these, ask what you will of any of our people save the arrha, who regard no authority of mine. Even there it might avail something. These are more protection in Shathan than any weapon.”
Morgaine bowed to him in public respect, and Vanye likewise . . . Vanye at his feet, and not grudgingly, for without the old lord’s help, the passage which now lay so easily before them would have been a terrible one.
Then they went to their horses, Siptah and Mai glistening from a bath and content with good care. Someone had twined star-like blue flowers in long chains from Siptah’s mane, and white in Mai’s—the strangest accouterment that ever a Kurshin warrior’s horse bore, Vanye thought . . . but the gesture was like these graceful folk, and touched him.
There were no horses for Lellin or Sezar. “We will have,” Lellin explained, “farther.”
“Do you know where we are going?” Morgaine asked.
“Where you will, after I have taken you clear of this camp. But the horses will be there.”
And by this it was clear that they would be under more eyes than Lellin’s during their journey.
They set out down the main aisle of the camp, while the people both Men and qhal inclined to them in a bow like the rippling of wind through tall grass—as if they honored old friends; the rippling flowed with their passage almost to the edge of the wood.
There Vanye turned and looked back, to convince himself that such a place had been real at all. There was the forest shade on them, but a golden-green light fell over the encampment, which was all tents and movable—and would, he suspected, swiftly vanish from the place.
They entered the forest then, where the air was at once cooler. They took a different path than that by which they had come: Lellin avowed they must follow it until noon. And Lellin strode along by Siptah’s head, while Sezar vanished shadow-wise into the brush. The qhal whistled a few clear notes from time to time, which were echoed from ahead, evidence where Sezar might be . . . and sometimes, for what seemed Lellin’s own joy, the notes trilled into a snatch of qhalur song, wild and strange.
“Do not be too reckless,” Morgaine bade him after one such. “Not all our enemies are unskilled in the forest.”
Lellin turned as he walked and swept a slight bow . . . he seemed too happy by nature to keep the spring from his step, and a smile came naturally to his face. “We are surrounded at the moment by our own people . . . but I shall remember your warning, my lady.”
He had a fragile look, this Lellin Erirrhen, but today, against what seemed the habit of his people, he went armed . . . with a smallish bow and a quiver of brown-feathered arrows. It was probable, Vanye reckoned to himself, that this tall, delicate-looking qhal could use them, with the same skill that he and his khemeis could travel the woods u
nheard. Doubtless the noise they must make in riding seemed so loud to their young guide that he felt he might as well whistle songs into the bargain . . . but thereafter he heeded Morgaine’s wish and signaled only. He still seemed cheerful, songs or no.
• • •
They rested at noon, and Lellin called Sezar back, to sit beside them at a streamside, while the horses drank and they took the leisure for a bit to eat. They had become well-fed in their recent travels, accustomed to meals at regular tunes and abundant provisions, when before, their travelling and their scant rations had worn them so that they had made new notches in their armor straps. Now they were back to the old, and rested in a patch of warm sun. It would have been easy to fall under Shathan’s whispering spell. Morgaine’s eyes were half-lidded and lazy, but she did watch, and observed their two guides as if her thoughts much turned upon them.
“We must move,” she declared sooner than they would have wished, and rose; dutifully they gathered themselves up, and Vanye took up their saddle-kits.
“My lady Morgaine says our enemies are forest-wise,” Lellin said then to Sezar. “Be most careful in your walking.”
The Man set his hands in his belt and gave a short nod. “It is quiet all about, no sign of trouble.”
“There is bloodshed likely before we are done with this journey,” Morgaine said. “And now we come to a point where we are clear of your camp and choose our own way. How far will you two be with us?”
The two looked at her with apparent dismay, but Lellin was the first to recover himself, and bowed ceremoniously. “I am your appointed guide, wherever you will go. If we are attacked, we will defend; if you attack others, we will stand aside, if it is a matter of going into the plains: we do not go there. Yet if your enemies come into Shathan—we will deal with them and they will not come to you.”
“And if I bid you guide us to Nehmin?”
Now Lellin faced her with more directness than he was wont, and his look was sad. “I was warned that this was your desire, and now I warn you, my lady: the place is dangerous, and not alone because of your enemies. It has its own defenders, the arrha, against whom my grandfather warned you. Your safe-conduct is not valid there.”
“But it will take me there.”
“So will I, my lady, but if you attack that place—well, you would not be wise to do that.”
“If my enemies attack it, it may not stand; and if it falls, then Shathan will fall. I have discussed it with my lord Merir, and he likewise warned me, but he set me free to do what I would in the matter. And he set you to watch me, did he not?”
“Yes,” said Lellin, and now all joy and lightness in his face was replaced by dread. “If you have deceived us, doubtless Sezar and I could not stand against you, for you could always take us by stealth if nothing else. Yet I wish to believe that this is not the case.”
“Believe that it is not. I have promised lord Merir that I will see you come home safely, and I will keep that promise to the best of my ability.”
“Then I shall take you where you wish to go.”
“Lellin,” said Sezar, “I do not like this.”
“But I cannot help it,” said Lellin. “If Grandfather had said do not go to Nehmin, then we should not be going; but he did not, and therefore I must do this.”
“At your—” Sezar began to say, and stopped; and all froze in each small movement. A horse moved, untimely, drowning the faint sound that had come to them, a bird calling. It was caught up again, nearby.
“We are not safe any longer,” said Lellin.
“How do you read such signs?” Vanye asked, for it seemed a good thing to know; and Lellin bit his lip in reluctance, then shrugged.
“It is in the pulses. The more rapid the trill, the more certain and imminent the hazard. There are other songs for other purposes, and some carry words, but this was a watch-song.”
“We should be moving,” said Sezar, “if we wish to avoid the matter, and I hope that is your wish.”
Morgaine frowned, and nodded, and they quit the place and rode further.
• • •
There were warnings sometimes about them, and all that day they tended east, bending about the arc of Azeroth . . . and it seemed, though the route they took was different, the lay of the land was familiar. “We are near Mirrind,” Morgaine observed finally, which agreed with Vanye’s own sense of direction, abused though it was by their crooked journeyings and the strangeness of another sky.
“You are right,” Lellin said. “We are north of it; best we stay as much withdrawn from the rim of Azeroth as possible. So the signals advise.”
By evening they had passed the vicinity of Mirrind and crossed one little stream and another, hardly enough to wet the horses’ hooves. Then they came upon a stand of trees many of which were bound with white cords, a-flutter in the breeze.
“What are those?” Vanye asked of Lellin, for he had seen them about Mirrind; and because they had ominous meaning in Shiuan, he had avoided asking. Lellin smiled and shrugged.
“Cut-mark. We are nearing the village of Carrhend, and so we mark the trees for them that are proper to cut, for wood at need, so that the best trees live and they take the least shapely. This we do throughout Shathan, for their use and ours.”
“Like tenders of gardens,” Vanye observed, amazed by such a thought, for in Andur, forested as it was, and even in Kursh, men cut where they would and the trees still outpaced them.
“Aye,” said Lellin, and seemed amused and pleased by such a thought. He patted the shadowy trunk of an old tree they passed in the gathering dusk. “We wander, but I have wandered more in this wood than in any other, and I daresay I know these trees as villagers know their goats. That old fellow has guided me since I was a boy and he was a little slimmer. Gardeners indeed! And if weeds spring up, why, we tend to that too.”
That, Vanye thought, had a chilling undertone to it having nothing at all to do with trees.
“It is coming time for camp,” Morgaine said. “And have you a place in mind, Lellin?”
“Carrhend. They will take us into their hall.”
“And shall we endanger another village? I would rather the woods than that.”
Lellin sketched a bow, a backward step as they walked. “I believe you would, my lady, but there is no need. Our horses will find us there in the morning, and everything there is quite secure. You will find folk there you know: some of the Mirrindim have elected to come to Carrhend for their safety, such as did not choose to stay by their own fields.”
Morgaine looked to Vanye, and he ventured no opinion, but he was privately glad when she accepted. More than two years he had spent under the open sky, but Mirrind had re-taught him the luxuries he had put from his mind forever, being Morgaine’s companion. In his mind was a strong memory of Mirrind’s mornings, and fine hot bread and butter, so vivid he could taste it. He was, he thought, losing his keen edge. The Shathana style of travel seemed all too easy . . . and yet they had covered much ground in the day’s ride, and evaded some manner of trouble.
Sezar turned up again in their path, walking with them in the gathering dark. Soon enough they saw the forest’s edge and a broad expanse of fields. They skirted that open space, keeping within the forest shade, and came into Carrhend at the very last of the daylight.
The village spilled out to meet them. “Sezar! Sezar!” the children cried with abandon, and they trooped round the khemeis and caught his hands and made much of him.
“This is Sezar’s village,” Lellin said as they dismounted. “His parents and sister and four brothers live here, so you see we could not pass by this hospitality; I would not be forgiven.”
They had been maneuvered, but not to their hurt, and even Morgaine took it in good humor, smiling as the elders of Carrhend presented themselves. Three clans lived here: Salen, Eren, and Thesen . . . and Sezar, who was of clan Thesen, k
issed his elders both, and then his parents, and his brothers and sister. There was not overmuch astonishment in this visit, as if it were a frequent thing; but Vanye felt for the young khemeis they took perforce into danger with them, and reckoned why he would have been anxious to make this particular stop on their way to Nehmin.
Lellin also had his welcome with them. Neither young nor old had much awe of him. He took the hands of the kin of Sezar, and was kissed on the cheek by Sezar’s mother, which gesture he repaid in kind.
But suddenly there were the Mirrindim, spilling down the steps of the common-hall, as if they had waited on their hosts’ courtesies. Now they came. Bythein and Bytheis, and the elders of Sersen and Melzen, and the young women . . . some of them running in their joy to greet them.
There was Sin, among the other children. Vanye caught him up out of their midst and the boy grinned with delight when he lifted him up to Mai’s back. Sin set himself astride and looked quite dazed when Vanye passed him up the reins . . . but Mai was too tired to give him trouble and would not leave Siptah.