Fires of Azeroth

One of the Hiua seized hold of him and lifted his head, put a flask to his lips: water. He drank what they would give him; they poured more of it on his face and struck him, trying to restore him. He reacted little to either, although he was aware enough.

Fwar came, seized him by the hair, shook at him until his eyes fixed on him. "Ger, Awan," he named his dead brothers, "and Efwy. And Terrin and Ejan and Prafwy and Ras, Minor's kin here; and Eran, that was Hul's brother; and Sithan and Ulwy that were Trin's…"

"And our wives and our children and all those that died before that," said Eran. Vanye looked at him, reading there a hate which equalled Fwar's. He had killed Fwar's brothers with his own hand. Perhaps he had killed the others they named too: many had died in pursuit of them. The women and children had died with their dead hold, no doing of his… but that made no difference in their minds. He was a hate they could seize upon, an enemy they had in hand, and for all the grief they had ever suffered, for Morgaine who had led their ancestors to grief in Irien and tried to bind them in drowning Shiuan-for her too they had such burning hate: but he was Morgaine's, and he was in hand.

He gave them no answer; none would serve. Trin hit him a dazing blow, and Vanye twisted over and spat blood on him, with more accuracy than before. Trin hit him a second time but Fwar stopped him from a third.

"We have all day, and all night and after that."

They looked pleased at that thought, and the talk afterward was foul and ugly, at which Vanye simply set his jaw and stared at the river, ignoring their attempts to bait him. A great deal of their threatening was wasted on him, for they spoke a rough sort of Kurshin well-laden with qhalur and marshlands borrowings, much changed from his own tongue… and he had learned Hiua of a young woman whose speech was gentler. He could guess at enough of it.

He was angry. That fact dully amazed him, in the far distance to which his thinking mind had retreated… that he would feel more rage than terror. He had never been a brave man. He had come to every grief that had driven him from home and hold and honor because he imagined pain too vividly and came undone at his kinsmen's slow tormenting… a boy's misery: he had been all too vulnerable then, loving them more than he had understood.

He had no love for these, these scourings of Hiuaj's Barrow-hills, these fallen Myya. He seethed with anger that of all the enemies he had, he had fallen to them… to Fwar, whose worthless life he had spared, being too much Nhi to kill a downed enemy. Now he had his reward of that mercy. Morgaine too they attacked with their foul laughter, and he had to bear it, still hoping that somewhere in their confidence they would make the mistake of freeing his hands with Fwar in reach.

They did not. They had learned him too well, and devised to get him from his armor without freeing him, throwing a noose about his ankles and suspending him from the limb of one of the trees like a slaughtered deer. They amused themselves in that too, pushing him to and fro while the blood pounded in his head and his senses were near to leaving him. Then they had easier work to free his hands and take the armor from him. Even so he succeeded in getting his hands on Trin, but he could not hold him. They struck him for their amusement until the blood ran down his arms and spotted the sand beneath him. Eventually his senses faded.

Horsemen, in number.

He hears the thunder of the hooves that merged with the pulse in his ears. Bodies rushed about him, with panting and blowing of horses.

More of them, returned from upriver. He remembered Morgaine and struggled back to consciousness, trying to focus his blurred eyes to see whether they had found her or not. Upside down in his vision, all the horses were dark shadows: Siptah was not there. One rider came near, aglitter with scale, white-haired.

Khal. Shiua qhal. "Cut him down," the khal-lord ordered. Finally there came a sawing at the rope. Vanye tried to lift his stiffened arms to protect his head, knowing that he must fall. But armored riders locked arms beneath him, eased him to the ground upright. He did not struggle after he realized their support… fell less hard than he might. They were not Fwar's: no more his friends than Fwar's men, and likely crueler; but their immediate purpose involved his living, and he accepted it. He lay still on the sand at the horses' feet, while the blood flowed back to his lower limbs and his heart labored with the strain of it. In his ears were the lord's curses for the Men who had almost killed him.

Morgaine, he thought, what of Morgaine? But nothing they said gave him any clue.

"Ride off," the lord bade Fwar and his cousins. "He is ours."

Eventually-for in Shiuan as here, qhal were the more powerful-Fwar and his men mounted and rode away, without a word of a threat of vengeance… and that, in a Barrows-man and a Myya, boded ill for an enemy's back when the time came.

Vanye struggled to his elbows to see them go; but he had view of nothing but horses' legs and a few khal afoot, scale-armored and wearing helms which gave them the faces of demons-all helmed, save their lord, who remained ahorse, his white hair flowing in the wind. It was not one of the Shiua lords be knew.

The men-at-arms cut the cords that bound his ankles and tried to make him stand. He shook his head at that. "The knee… I ca

They were startled at that. Men in Shiuan did not speak the language of their masters, although khal spoke that of Men; he remembered that they were Shiua when one hit him across the face for his insolence.

"He will ride," said the lord. "Alarrh, your horse will bear this Man. Gather up all that is strewn here; the humans have no sense of order. They will leave all this for enemies to read. You"-for the first time he spoke directly to Vanye, and Vanye stared up at him sullenly. "You are Nhi Vanye i Chya."

He nodded.

"That means yes, I suppose."

"Yes." The khal had spoken the language of Men, and he had answered again in qhalur. The lord's pale, sensitive face registered anger.

"I am Shien Nhi

"I do not doubt," he murmured; but he did not resist when they bound his hands and brought a horse for him, heaving him into the saddle upright. The pain of his wounds almost took his senses from him; he swayed with dizziness as the horse shied off, and the Shiua began to dispute bitterly who should foul his hands and his person in seeing that he stayed ahorse, bloody and half-naked and human as he was. "I am Kurshin," he said then between his teeth. "While the horse stays under me, I shall not fall off. I will have no khal's hands on me either."

They muttered at that and spoke of teaching him his place; but Shien bade them to horse. They started off down the sandy bank with speed that jolted, likely malice rather than needful haste. They gave it up after a time, and Vanye bowed his head and gave to the horse's moving, exhausted. He roused only when they made the fording of the Narn, and the wide plain of Azeroth lay open before them.

After that it was grassland under the horses' hooves, and they went smoothly and easily.

He lived: that was for now the important thing. He smothered his anger and kept his head down as they expected of a Man awed by them. They would not anticipate trouble of him, these folk who marked their own hold-servants with brands on the face, to know them from other Men… reckoning no Man much more than animal.

It was not uncharacteristic of them that they found a means to splint his knee at their first rest, caring for him with the same detachment that they might have spent on a lame horse, no gentler and no rougher than that; yet no one would give him a drink because it meant his lips touching something they must use. One did throw him a morsel of food when they ate, but it lay on the grass untouched, for they would not unbind his hands and he would not eat after that fashion, as they wished. He sullenly averted his face, and was no better for that stop except that he could at least stand once he had been put on his feet. They saw to that, he reckoned, simply because it saved them having to work so much getting him on and off a horse.

"There was a khal with you besides your mistress," Shien said to him, riding close to him that afternoon. "Who?"

He did not look up or give indication that he had heard.

"Well, you will find time to think of it," Shien said, and spurred disdainfully ahead, giving up the question with an ease curious in his kind.

And that who seemed to desire a name in answer, as if they had taken Lellin to be one of their own, renegade to them. As if-he thought, hope stirring in him-as if they had not yet realized the existence of the arrhend, or realized a presence in this land besides that of Men. Perhaps Eth had held back more than seemed likely; or perhaps his killers had not left Shathan alive.

He lifted his head despite himself, and looked at the horizon before him, which was grassy and flat as far as the eye could see, an expanse unbroken save for a few bushes or thorn-thickets randomly scattered. The u

He hoped so with a fearful hope, although he held out little for himself.

They camped in the open that night, and this time they yielded to practicality and freed his hands briefly, standing over him with swords and pikes as if he could run, lame as he was. He ate a little, and one of them condescended to pour a little water into his hands that he might drink, thus saving the purity of his waterflask. But they restored the bonds for the night, hand and foot, securing him to one of their heavy saddles on the ground, so that he could not slip off into the dark. Lastly they threw a cloak over him, that he not freeze, for he had no clothing on his upper body.