Exile's Gate (36 page)

"Aye," she said quietly. "But turn and turn about. The next one is mine."

"Liyo
—"

But he had already lost that argument for the time. He gathered himself up and dusted off his knees, and went to saddle Arrhan.

The
land was difficult beyond the camp they had made—little wooded, flatter
for a space: he had known that much when he had chosen the camp they
had, a retreat from the furthermost point he had reached in his last
searching.

Now
it was careful riding, by every low spot he could find that could
shelter them as they went, and a good deal of it east rather than
north. It was the watercourses he had most hope in, and most fear of:
it was water that bound a man to his course in land like this, water by
which their enemies could find them, nearly as surely as they might
have by the Road itself.

But
he spent some time afoot, and finally flat on his belly on a hill from
which he had vantage, scanning every rabbit-track in the grassland
below, every flight of birds, and listening—listening finally alone,
until the sounds of the land began to speak to him, the ordinary chirp
of insects in the sun, the birds that ought to sing in the thicket and
out on the meadows.

He was alone. There was no one out there: he was as sure of that as he dared be sure of anything with an unknown enemy.

Still—he
found no sane way to cross that plain, except to go far to the east and
as the stream bore: to cross it even by night, would leave a track
plain enough for a child to follow the next day.

That
was
no good. If they did that, there was no good choice but to pick up
speed again, and then they would be no better off than before.

A
plague on her haste and her insistence. He lay with his chin on his
hand and with the sun on his back overheating the layers of armor, and
considered again what his chances were of reporting to her and gaining
her agreement, after a day's delay, that the proper course was not
northward, but considerably eastward and out of the direct course she
wanted to take.

Her
anger when it came to her safety was a matter of indifference to
him—except that his liege, having gotten a purpose in her mind, was
likely to strike out on her own in what direction she chose, leaving
him to follow; and that prospect left him contemplating arguments, and
reason, and unreason, and the fact that he had no means but force truly
to restrain her—and restrain her by that means, he could not, by
ilin
-oath, by
uyin
-oath, by the deeper things between them, not to save either of their lives, so long as she was in her right mind.

And
Heaven help them both, she was oftener right even when she was not
sane, or at least retrieved her mistakes with more deftness than anyone
he knew; and he was still uneasy that he had persuaded her against her
instincts. Doubt ate at his gut, a continual moil of anxiety in all
this ride out here separate of her, and the only solace in it was the
knowledge that she was well-situated, in no likelihood of attracting
attention, and in a way to defend herself if trouble happened on her.

It
was that things had shifted between them, he told himself; it was the
muddle things had gotten to that made him unreasonably anxious. They
sinned before Heaven with his oath and hers, and with no priest, and
with ten thousand trifling laws he had no regard of—laws it was mad to
regard, when there were so many greater and bloody sins on them.

He
was half-witted with thinking about her, he had done what he had sworn
he would never do and let that thinking come between them in daylight,
using that bond to gain his way—he had done one thing after another he
had sworn he would not do with her. Decisions that she would make, he
had argued to take onto his shoulders when he well knew he was not, of
the two of them, the wiser—

If
he were back in Myya lands, he thought, with his cousins hunting him,
he would lie low for the whole day exactly where he had left Arrhan
down under the hill. He would watch everything that moved by day, every
hawk that flew, every start of game; and move again only at night. But
Morgaine was left worrying back there; and he could never have
persuaded her to wait day upon day on him—he could not bear the worry
of it himself, to be truthful, if matters were reversed; or keep her
still beyond half a day as matters were, unless he could demonstrate
some danger to her.

It was a long effort for their enemies to search all the watercourses in the plains.

But long efforts bore fruit, if they had long enough.

And
having thought that three times through, he could not rest where he was
and he could not risk anything further. He edged down off the height
and gathered up Arrhan where he had left her in a brushy hollow; and
led her by the dry streambed which had been his route up to this hill.

It merged with yet another narrow water-cut, and took him back into sparsely wooded hills.

Then
he mounted up and rode, quietly, back the way he had come, far and far
through the hills to the place where the dry bed joined the water.

Beyond that he rode the stream itself for a space, the water only scarcely over Arrhan's hooves, but it served.

It served, certainly, better than the streamside had served another rider.

He
saw the mark among bent reeds, the water-filled impression of a horse's
hoof, and searched his mind whether Arrhan had misstepped when he had
passed this bank in the morning.

No,
he thought, with the blood going colder and colder in him. No. She had
not. Not here. They had gone straight along as they went now, making no
track at all. He remembered the reeds. He remembered the little shelf
of rock where it came down from the hill.

He saw the track merge with the stream further on, a single rider.

Morgaine
would not have broken her word to him without reason. He believed that
implicitly. She would not have followed, except something had gone very
wrong.

There
were further marks, down the stream where the water became momentarily
and treacherously deeper and a rider had to take to the waterside. He
had done so. So had this rider; and one mark showed a shod horse, a
shoe of a pattern different than Siptah's and headed the wrong
direction.

There was cold dread in him now. He scanned the hills about him.

If
he had been in Myya lands again, his Myya cousins looking to have his
head on a pike, he would do what he had told Morgaine he would do: he
would go to earth and lie close until the hunters had passed and failed
to find him for a fortnight or more.

But
then he had not had a woman waiting for him, in the direction the rider
was going, camped right on the stream-course as if it were some
roadside, now the hunters were out. She would not be sitting blind: she
would have vantage from higher on the hill—he took that for granted.
But there was the horse to worry for—more visible, and tracking the
ground despite all they could do to keep cover. If someone rode
through, looking with a skilled eye—never grant that every man in
Gault's party was a fool, even granted one of them had been careless
enough to let his horse misstep in this thread of a stream.

He
put Arrhan to more speed. He scanned the hills about him, dreading the
sight of riders, finding only, in one place between the hills, a fan of
tracks in the grass, as riders had come together and joined forces.

Thereafter tracks met the stream and the bank was well-trampled, the mud churned by the hooves of more than a score of horses.

He
followed, trying desperately to recollect every stone and every vantage
of the camp they had. It was well enough, he thought: their numbers
were only an advantage—they could not go silently, Heaven knew that
they were no woodsmen, the way they bunched together; and Morgaine with
the least of her weapons could take them, once she had taken some
position of defense: the greatest worry she must have was whether her
companion was going to come riding in to put himself in danger.

Only—he
thought of the pyx he wore against his heart and thought of
gate-weapons with a lingering chill—it might not be Gault's folk. It
might be something else, out of Mante.

Even
if it were not, she would hesitate to use the sword that was her
chiefest weapon, for fear of alerting other forces Mante might have
sent out southward to find them—

Or through the gate at Tejhos, coming at them from both sides.

Heaven knew what their limit was.

And if one of them had so much as what he carried, it could reshape
Changeling's
gate-force, warp it and draw it in such fashion that
Changeling
became wildly unpredictable, a danger to flesh and substance anywhere between: he had seen one of the
arrhim,
a gate-warder, brave that danger in the arrhend war—and lose—which sight haunted him every time he thought of what he carried.

The
gift was for way-finding, was for light in dark places, for startling
an ignorant enemy but not as a weapon—never as that, for someone who
rode as shieldman to Morgaine Anjhuran.

He
dared not use it now, in any hope of warning her. He had given his
sword to Chei and not reclaimed it—not, in all else they had done,
turned him out utterly defenseless.

He had no weapon now but his bow.

And Heaven knew how far he was behind.

He
listened as he rode the center of the stream, close to their camp. He
stopped Arrhan where there was brush enough to hide her, and slid down,
and stood for a moment steadying her so that he could hear the least
stirring of the wind.

A
bird sang, natural, long-running song, but it was not a sound that
reassured him. There were the tracks, evident now at this muddy bank,
and hours old.

Now
it was a hard choice what to do. There was no safe place further than
this. He took one risk, and made a faint, careful birdcall: I am here,
that said, no more than that.

No answer came to him.

He
bit his lip furiously, and put a secure tie on Arrhan, took his bow and
quiver and slipped away into the brush, onto the hillside. He was not
afraid, not yet. There were too many answers. There was every chance
she had heard him and dared not risk an answer.

He
went hunter-fashion, stopping often to listen. He found the tracks
again where he picked up the stream course; and when he had come within
sight of the place where they had camped, beneath the hill, Siptah was
gone, and with one glance he was reassured.

Good, he thought, she has taken him, the tack is gone.

But
there were marks of the enemy's horses, abundant there, trampling on
Siptah's and Arrhan's marks, and no matter the skill of the rider,
there was no way not to leave some manner of a trail for a good tracker
well sure where that trail began.

She
would lead them, that was what she would do. She would lead them around
this hill and that until they came straight into one of her ambushes.

But so many riders had gone
away
from
this point, left and right, obliterating any tracks the gray stud might
have made, the tracks they could have followed; and left him the
necessity to cast about beyond the trampled area—and cast about widely
he could not, without risking ambush.

Best, he thought, find out what was still here.

He
moved, crouched behind what cover there was, along the flank of the
hill, among the rocks, stopping now and again to listen. There was
nothing astir but the wind.

Then a bird flew up, taking wing east of his backtrail.

He froze where he was, a long time, shifting only the minuscule degree that kept his legs from cramping.

A birdcall sounded, directly on his track.

He
calmly, carefully scanned the hillsides and the points of concealment
so far as he could from his own cover, not willing to give way to any
feeling, not fear, not self-reproach for anything he might have done
and not done: there was only the immediate necessity to get off this
hillside and take the enemy, whatever had happened behind him, else he
might never find her.

He
waited what he judged long enough to make them impatient, then moved,
quietly, behind what cover the brush and the rocks afforded, without
retracing his steps into what might now be tracking him.

They
meant him to go to his horse. They had found Arrhan, that was what had
happened, and they were effectively advising him where the ambush was,
and where he had to go, if he did not want to flee them afoot.

Where
is she? was his constant thought. The whole area had become hostile
ground, enemy marks everywhere, his horse discovered, and no sign of
Morgaine.

If she had heard the birdcalls, she was at least warned.

He sank down behind a rock to wait a moment, to see what they would do, and there was not a sound, not a stir below.

Not even the wind breathed.

Then
a pebble rolled, somewhere on the bare rock around the shoulder of the
hill above him. A step whispered across stone and left it again.