Gate of Ivrel

CHAPTER X

“ERIJ.” VANYE TRIED a second time to rise, and in a sudden move Erij moved back and let him. Then he snapped the Honor blade back into his belt and stalked up the road a space where his horse stood, along with Vanye’s black.

Vanye stumbled up from the ditch, limping, trying vainly to overtake him and prevent him, saw to his dismay that Erij had already found what the black horse bore on its saddle.

A fierce grin spread over Erij’s face as he took the sheathed blade in hand, and with the sheath in the crook of his arm and his hand upon its hilt, he waited Vanye’s coming.

Vanye stopped short of the threat he posed him, still shaking in all his limbs, trying to gather his breath and his wits and frame some reasonable argument.

“There is a qujal out of Leth,” he began, his voice hardly audible. “Erij, Erij, there are Lethen and the devil himself behind me. We are both in danger. I will go with you clear of this road—not try at escape, at least that far. I swear, I swear it, Erij.”

Erij considered, his dark eyes fluid in the dark. Then he nodded abrupt decision, hooked the sheath of Changeling to his own belt—one-handed as he was, he wore it at his hip, not his back—and swung up to mount.

Vanye hauled his aching body into the saddle on a second effort, sent the black galloping down the road in Erij’s company, down side trails into forest, though at every turn the forest looked more ominous in itself. The horses went at a careful pace now, wending their way down into rocky ground. Here was still patches of snow in which to leave prints, but brush and woods were so thick that pursuit of them could not be easy for any group of men, and their trail was somewhat obscured. It held no feeling of safety, this place—rather, the same kind of queasiness that all of Erij’s ambushes had held, from boyhood up, screaming alarm, such that he thought, like another dream by Aenor-Pyven, that he might have ridden this place in some bad dream, wherein he had died. The trees, the rocks etched themselves into his sight, his senses clinging to them as strongly as fingers might cling to some last handhold on solidity. I am losing these , he thought, and: I am mad to go with him like this . But he had no strength left, and Erij held Changeling , held his duty as ilin to hostage: Erij could reason, could be reasoned with—his hope insisted so.

Then, in a clear place among the trees, Erij reined in and ordered him down.

Panic struck him. Almost he did lay heels to the horse. But he found himself climbing down, careful of strained knees as he caught his balance on the ground. He moved out uncertainly as Erij motioned him to the center of the clearing.

“Where is she?” Erij asked then, and as he asked, climbed down, and unhooked the sheath of Changeling .

Then he knew of a certainty that Erij meant to kill him when he had answered; and Changeling slipped inexorably from its sheath, Erij knowing the nature of the blade now, well able to wield it

Vanye hurled himself at Erij waist-high, grappled and came down with him, Changeling falling still sheathed.

Erij’s elbow crashed into his face, blinding him. Vanye was suddenly underneath again, losing, as he had always lost, as it had always been with his brothers. He could not see, could not breathe, could not feel for a moment. With his last effort he heaved over and clung, fighting only for leverage. Then his hands were slamming Erij’s head into the snowy ground, again and again, until Erij’s limbs weakened and ceased to struggle. He scrambled up to find Changeling , his mind now clearing as he reached his horse, holding the sword-sheath, groping blindly for the reins.

The horse shied. Erij’s rush carried into his lower back, hurling him, stu

“A third of Nhi died at Irn-Svejur,” Erij gasped at him, hoarse and out of breath. “Your doing—and hers. Where is she?”

Vanye swallowed against the blade’s pressure, unable to answer. He fought instinctively to breathe and froze, trembling with the effort, when he felt moisture trickling down the sides of his neck. Raw pain rode on the edge of the blade as it eased slightly.

“Answer me,” Erij hissed.

“Leth.” He moved an arm as heavy as his whole body ought to be, ceased. “ Qujal –men from Leth caught her—to make her give them what she knows. Erij—Erij, no, do not kill me. They will have her knowledge—theirs—Thiye’s—together—against us.”

The pressure eased altogether, but it was there. The faint hope there was of Erij’s interest sent the sweat coursing over him. Erij’s knee hampered his breathing: he felt himself losing touch with his senses again, dizzied and numb. “And you, bastard?” Erij asked him. “What are you doing loose and alone?”

“Hjemur—the source. That can stop them. I am to kill Thiye—take Ra-hjemur. Erij, let me go.”

“Bastard, I have chased you from Irn-Svejur. The others had no stomach for Hjemur’s territory and Morgaine’s weapons, but I swore to them that I would go where I had to go to bring back your head. I would bring back the whole of you alive, but one-handed as I am, I know I ca

“Go with me there, then.”

“I offered you the chance of sharing power once, bastard, and I meant it; but you loved the witch more than you loved Morija, enough to kill Nhi for her.”

“Erij, you know at least that I will not break an oath. Help me—to Ra-hjemur. Now. Before our enemy takes it. Let me have my revenge on Thiye—for Morgaine; on the qujal too if I can. I am speaking sense, Erij. Listen to me. There are weapons in Ra-hjemur, surely—and if our enemy lays hands on them, even holding Changeling might not be enough to take the citadel. Do this. Come with me. That is my oath to her—to deal with Thiye. After that, anything that is between us will be between us, and I will not cry foul at anything.”

Erij’s shadowed eyes took on a narrow, reckoning look. “You were condemned to be ilin by our father’s law, for Handrys; and you will be clean of that if I listen to you. But you have me yet to satisfy. Suppose I were to sentence you to another year.”

“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 Ra-hjemur. 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.”

He saw the trap then, which Erij wove for Morgaine, treachery suspecting treachery in everyone, and admired the cu

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 blade 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-Pyven, 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.

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.