Fires of Azeroth

And when the horses came thundering to the front of the shelter, with the shouts of Men audible in the distance, there was Roh's tall black mare, conspicuous among the smaller Shiua mounts: no hope of concealment; the alarm was surely passed… Chya wildness-Vanye cursed it aloud, and flung himself for the saddle of the bow-nosed sorrel allotted him,… cursed again as the leg shot fire up the inside when he threw it over. He shook the hair from his eyes and looked up-saw a cluster of khalur riders bearing down on them from the center of the camp.

"Roh!" he shouted.

Roh saw it, wheeled the black mare about and plunged through the Hiua, drawing them face-about, nigh forty riders, Hiua and a scattering of renegade marshlanders.

"We will shake them from our heels," Roh cried. "There is no luck for them in this direction."-For they were headed for the sprawl and clutter of the human camp, where a thin row of demon-helms ma

The guards saw them coming, hesitated in confusion. Roh drew rein, shouted an order to open the barricade, and Hiua sprang down to do it-Roh passed at the least opening, and Vanye stayed with him, raking his leg on the barrier: it was all too quick, the guards without orders, not resisting. More Hiua poured through, and they plunged for the midst of the human camp at a dead gallop, aimed for the mob gathered there.

Swords whipped out; the mob lost its nerve at the first shock and scattered from their charge, with only a few missiles flying. One man was hit and unhorsed, and they took him… for what fate was not good to think. But they broke through by sheer impetus and shock, with the open plain before them and a scatter of futile stones pelting from behind. Vanye kept low; he had not blooded his sword, not on men's.

Roh laughed. "The khal will ride into a broken hive."

He looked back then, and there was not a Man in sight; no more stones, no fight; the human folk had gone to cover, armed, and there was no sight of the Shiua riders behind them either. Either they would seek some exit that avoided the human camp, or they would make the mistake of trying to ride through, and either would take them time.

"When Hetharu knows we are gone," Roh said, "as he must by now-then there will be no shaking them from pursuing us."

"No," said Vanye, "I do not think there will be."

He looked again over his shoulder, past the dark mass of Hiua riders, and it dawned on him what should have before, that his flight with Roh would stir all the camp into action… the whole army would mass and move.

He said nothing, seeing finally the trap into which he had fallen-he had wanted to live, and therefore he had blinded himself to things other than his own survival.

Mirrind, he thought over and over, grieving. Mirrind and all this land.