Fires of Azeroth

The others sought their rest; the fire burned to ash; the watch passed from Perrin to Vis.

Roh lay near him, staring at the heavens, his face set and still angry, and when Roh slept, if ever that night, he did not know it.

The camp came to slow life in the daylight, the arrhendim begi

"So you do not break the peace again," Merir cautioned them.

"I do not seek my cousin's life," Vanye said in a faint voice, only for Merir and Roh.

Roh said nothing, but slipped into his sword harness, and rammed the Honor-blade into place at his belt, stalking off to attend to his horse.

Vanye stared after him, bowed courtesy to Merir empty reflex… and went after him.

There were no words. Roh would not look at him but with anger, making speech impossible, and he turned instead to saddling his horse.

Roh finished; he did, and started to lead his horse into line with the others that were mounting up. And on a last and bitter impulse he stopped by Roh's side and waited for him.

Roh swung to the saddle; he did the same. They rode together into line, and the column started moving.

"Roh," he said finally, "are we beyond reasoning?"

Roh turned a cold eye on him. "You are worried, are you?" he asked in the language of Andur. "How much did they learn of you, cousin?"

"Probably what they did of you," he said. "Roh, Merir is armed. As she is."

Roh had not known. The comprehension dawned on him slowly. "So that is what u

"He would have told you when he wished; now I know that you know."

Roh was silent a time. "I do not know why I do not pay you what you have deserved of me. I suppose it is the novelty of hearing a Nhi say he was wrong." His voice broke; his shoulders sagged. "I told you that I was tired. Peace, cousin, peace. Someday we shall have to kill one another. But not… not without knowing why."

"Stay with me. I will speak for you. I said that I would, and I still mean it."

"Doubtless." Roh spat again to the side, wiped his mouth and swore with a shake of his head. "You loosened two of my teeth. Let it wipe out other debts. Aye, we will see how things stand… see whether she knows the meaning of reason, or whether these folk do. I have a fancy for an Andurin burial; or if things turn out otherwise, I know the Kurshin rite."

"Avert," he murmured, and crossed himself fervently.

Roh laughed bitterly, and bowed his head. The trail narrowed thereafter, and they rode no more together.

Larrel and Kessun returned; they were simply standing in the way as they rode around a bending of the trail, and met and talked with Merir.

"We have ridden as far as the Laur," Larrel said, and both the arrhendim and their horses looked weary. "Word is relayed up from Merrind: no trouble; nothing stirs."

"This is a strange silence," Merir said, leaning on his saddle and casting a look back. "So many thousands-and nothing stirs."

"I do not know," said Vanye, for that look shot directly at him. "I would have expected immediate attack." Then another thought came to him. "Fwar's men. If any who fell behind were not killed-"

"Aye," Roh said. "They might have given warning what that forest is, if any came out again; or Shien might. And perhaps others of Fwar's folk could do us harm enough by talking."

"Knowledge where she is to be sought?"

"All the Shiua know where she was lost. And having lost us. .."

"Her," Merir concluded, taut-lipped. "An attack near Nehmin."

The sword was drawn, Vanye recalled, two nights ago. There was time enough for the horde to have veered to Narn-side. A fine sweat broke out on him, cold in the forest shadow. "I pray you haste."

"We are near the harilim's woods," Merir said, "and there is no reckless haste, not for our lives' sake."

But they kept moving, the weary arrhendim falling in with them, and they rested as seldom as the horses could bear, save that they stopped at midafternoon and rested until twilight; then they saddled up again, and set out into a deeper, older part of the woods.

Dark fell on them more quickly under these monstrous old trees; and now and again came small chitterings in the brush that frightened the horses.

Then from the fore of their party flared an opal shimmer that made Merir's horse shy the more, horse and rider for a moment like an image under water. The flare died.

For a moment the forest was utterly quiet. Then the harilim came, stalking, rapid shapes. The first gave a chirring sound, and the horses threw their heads and fought the bits, dancing this way and that in a frenzy to run.

Then Merir led them forward, and their strange guides went about them, melting away into shadow after a time until there were only three left, which walked with Merir, chittering softly the while. It was clear that the master of Shathan had safe-passage where he would, even of these: they reverenced the power of the Fires which Merir held in his naked hand, and yielded to that, although the arrhendim themselves seemed afraid. Of a sudden Vanye realized what his chances had truly been, trifling with these creatures, and he shuddered recalling his passage among them: they served the Fires in some strange fashion, perhaps worshipped them. In his ignorance he had sought a passage in which even the lord of Shathan moved carefully and with dread… and one of them at least must have recalled him as companion to another who carried the Fires. Surely that was why he and Roh lived: the harilim had recalled Morgaine.

His heart beat faster as he sca

The hope faded. It was not to any secret place that the harilim led them, but only through; they broke upon the Narn at the last of the night… black and wide it showed through the trees, but there was a place which might be a crossing, sandbars humped against the current. The haril nearest pointed, made a sign of passing, and as suddenly began to leave them.

Vanye leaped down from his horse, caught his balance against a tree and tried to stop one of them. Three persons, he signed to the creature. Where? Perhaps it understood something. The vast dark eyes flickered in the starlight. It lingered, made a sign with spidery fingers spread, hand rising. And it pointed riverward. The third gesture fluttered the fingers. And then it turned and stalked away, leaving him helpless in his frustration.

"The Fires," said Sharrn. "The river. Many."

He looked at the q hal.

"You took a chance," said Sharrn. "It might have killed you. Do not touch them."

"We could learn no more of them," said Merir, and started the white mare down the bank toward the water.

The harilim were gone. The oppression of their presence lifted suddenly and the arrhendim moved quickly to follow Merir. Vanye swung up to the saddle and came last but for Roh and Vis. The anxiety that gnawed at him was the keener for the scant information the creature had passed. And when they went down to water's edge he looked this way and that, for although it was not the place they had been ambushed, it was the same situation and as likely a trap. The only difference was that the harilim had guided them right up to the brink, and perhaps still stood guard over them in the coming of the light.

There was need of care for another reason in crossing at such a place, for quicksands were well possible. Larrel gave his horse into Kessun's keeping and waded it first; at one place he did meet with trouble, and fell sidelong, working out of it, but the rest of the crossing went more easily. Then Kessun rode the way that he had walked, and Dev followed, and Sharrn and Merir and the rest of them, the women last as usual. On the other side the young arrhen Larrel was soaked to the skin, shivering with the cold and with the exhaustion of his far-riding and his battle with the sands. Qhal that he was, he looked worn to the bone, thi

"We must get away from this place," Larrel said amid his shivering. "Crossings are too easily guarded."

There was no argument from any of them in that; Merir turned them south now, and they rode until the horses could do no more.

They rested at last at noon , and took a meal which they had neglected in their haste of the morning. No one spoke; even the prideful qhal sat slumped in exhaustion. Roh flung himself down on the sun-warmed earth, the only patch of sun in the cover they had found in the forest's edge, and lay like the dead; Vanye did likewise, and although the fever he had carried for days seemed gone, he felt that the marrow had melted from his bones and the strength that moved them was dried up from the heat. His hand lying before his face looked strange to him, the bones more evident than they had been, the wrist scabbed with wounds. His armor was loose on his body-sun-heated misery at the moment where it touched him; he was too weary even to turn over and spare himself the discomfort.

Something startled the horses.

He moved; the arrhendim sprang up; and Roh.. A whistle sounded, brief and questioning. Merir stood forth to be seen, and Sharrn answered the signal in such complexity of trills and runs that Vanye's acquaintance with the system could make no sense of it. An answer came back, no less complex.