Fires of Azeroth

Chapter Fifteen

She was gone in the morning. There was food there, milk and bread and butter, and slices of cold meat. Written in a dab of butter on the side of the pitcher was a Kurshin symbol, the glyph that began Morgaine.

Safe, she meant. He ate, more than he had thought he could; and there was water heated for him over the coals. He bathed, and shaved… with his own razor, for his personal kit was there: they had recovered it from Mai, surely; and his bow was laid there with his armor, and other things that he had thought forever lost. He was glad-and dismayed, to think that they might have risked themselves, she and Lellin and Sezar, to recover them.

But her own weapons were still standing in the corner, and it began to trouble him that she stayed so long, unarmed. He went outside, unarmored, to see whether she was in sight: Siptah was gone too, though the harness was not.

Then a movement caught his eye, and he saw her coming back, riding down the slope, bareback on the gray horse, a strange figure in her white garments. She slid down and wrapped the tether-line over a branch, for she had been riding with only the halter. Her face had held a worried look for an instant; but she put on a different face when she looked up at him… he saw it and answered it with a faint smile, quickly shed.

"We have a little trouble from the outside this morning," she said. "They are trying us."

"Is that the way to go looking for it?" He had not meant his voice to be so sharp, but she shrugged and took no affront. The frown came back to her eyes, and they fixed beyond, back the way she had come.

He looked. Three arrha had followed her, and a Man walked with them, a tall man in green and brown, coming from the shadow of the trees.

It was Roh.

They brought him to the front of the shelter and stopped: they laid no hand on Roh in their bringing him, but he had no weapons either. "Thank you," Morgaine told the arrha, dismissing them; but they withdrew only as far as the rocks near the shelter.

And Roh bowed, as lord visiting hall-lord, with weary irony.

"Come inside," Morgaine bade him.

Roh came, passed the curtain which Vanye held aside for him. His face was pale, unshaven-and afraid, although he tried not to show it. He did not look as if he had slept.

"Sit down," Morgaine invited him, herself settling to the mat by the brazier, and Roh did so on the opposite side, crosslegged. Vanye sank down on his heels at Morgaine's shoulder, an ilin's place, which said what it might to Roh. Changeling, he thought uneasily, for the sword was unattended in the corner, and Morgaine unarmed: he had at least placed himself as a barrier between Roh and that.

"Chya Roh," Morgaine said softly. "Are you well?"

A muscle jerked in Roh's jaw. "Well enough."

"It took me some argument to bring you here. The arrha were minded otherwise."

"You usually obtain what you want."

"Vanye did speak for you-and well.. None could be more persuasive with me. But counting all that-and my gratitude for your help to him, Chya Roh i Chya-are we other than enemies? Roh or Liell, you have no love for me. You hate me bitterly. That was so in Ra-koris. Are you the kind of man who can change his mind that thoroughly?"

"I hoped you would be dead."

"Ah. Truth from you. That does surprise me. And then what would you?"

"The same that I did. I would have stayed…" His eyes shifted to Vanye's and locked, and his voice changed. "I would have stayed with you and tried to reason with you. But… that is not how it came out, is it, cousin?"

"And now?" Morgaine asked.

Roh gave a haggard grin, made a loose gesture of the hands. "My situation is rather grim, is it not? Of course I offer you my service. I should be mad not to. I do not think that you have any intention of accepting; you are hearing me now to satisfy my cousin's sensibilities; and I am talking to you because I have nothing left to do."

"Because Merir and the arrha turned a deaf ear to you last night?"

Roh blinked dazedly. "Well, you did not expect me not to try that, did you?"

"Of course not. Now what else will you try? Harm Vanye, who trusts you? Perhaps you would not; I almost believe that. But me you never loved, not in any shape you have worn. When you were Zri you betrayed your king, your clan, all those men… when you were Liell, you drowned children, and made of Leth such a plague-spot, such a sink of deprav-ity-"

Terror shot into Roh's eyes, horror. Morgaine stopped speaking, and Roh sat visibly shivering… gone, all pretense of cynicism. Vanye looked on him and hurt, and set his hand on Morgaine's shoulder, wishing her to let him be; but she did not regard it.

"You do not like it," she murmured. 'That is what Vanye said-that you had bad dreams."

"Cousin," Roh pleaded.

"I shall not call it back for you," she said. "Peace. Roh… Roh… I shall say nothing more of it. Be at peace."

Roh's hands, shaking, covered his face; he rested so a moment, white and sick, and she let him be. "Give him drink," she said. Vanye took the flask she indicated with a glance, and knelt and offered it to him. Roh took it with trembling hands, drank a little. When he was done, Vanye did not leave him, but held to his shoulder.

"Are you all right now?" Morgaine asked him. "Roh?" But he would not look at her. "I have done you more harm than I wished," she said. "Forgive me, Chya Roh."

He said nothing. She rose then, and took Changeling from the corner… withdrew from the shelter entirely.

Roh did not look at that, nor at anything. "I can kill him," he breathed between his teeth, and shuddered. "I can kill him. I can kill him."

For a moment it made no sense, the rambling of a madman; and then Vanye understood, and kept hold of him. "Cousin," he said in Roh's ear. "Roh. Stay with me. Stay with me."

Sanity returned after a moment Roh breathed hard and bowed his head against his knees.

"Roh, she will not do that again. She saw. She will not."

"I would be myself when I die. Can she not allow me that?"

"You will not die. I know her. I know her. She would not."

"She will manage it. Do you think that she will ever let me at her back where you stand, or rest when I am near her? She will manage it."

The veil shadowed, went back. Morgaine stood in the doorway. "I am afraid I hear you," she said quietly. "The veils do not stop much."

"I will say it to your face," Roh said, "syllable by syllable if you did not get it clear. -Will you not return the courtesy, to me-and to him?"

Morgaine frowned, rested Changeling point down on the floor before her. "I will say this: that there is some good chance it will make no difference what I will and will not." She nodded vaguely westward, at the other wall. "If you want to walk through that woods and take a look at the riverside, you will find enough Shiua to make any quarrel we have among ourselves quite pointless. What I say I would say if Vanye were not involved. The kindnesses I attempt generally come to worse than my worst acts. But murder sits ill with me, and,…" She lifted Changeling slightly from the floor and rested it again. "I have not the options of fair fight that a man has; nor would I put that burden on Vanye, to deal with you in that fashion. You are right; I ca

Roh seemed dazed a moment… and then he set his hands on his knees and laughed bitterly. "Yes. Yes, I would do that."

"I will not ask an oath of you or take one, no great one: it would bind me to an honor I ca

"I give it," Roh said. He rose, and Vanye with him. "You will have what you want of me. All… that you want of me."

Morgaine's lips tightened. She turned and walked to the far wall and laid down Changeling, gathering up her armor. "Do not be too forward in it. There is food left, probably. Vanye, see he has what he needs."

"My weapons," Roh said.

She looked at him, scowling. "Aye, I will see to that." And she turned again and began working into her armor.

"Morgaine kri Chya."

She looked up.

"You… did not bring me from Ra-koris; I brought myself, I. You did not aim that horde at this land. I did, no other. And I will not take food or drink or shelter of you, not as matters stand. If you insist, I must; but if not-then I will take it elsewhere, and not inflict any obligation on myself or on you."

She hesitated, seeming stu

"You," Vanye said into that silence, "you did as much as he would have asked of you."

She looked up at him. "But you expect more."

Vanye shook his head. "I regard you too much, liyo. You are risking your life in giving what you have. He could kill you. I do not think so, or I would not have him near you. But he is a risk; and I know how you feel. Maybe more so. He is my cousin. He brought me here alive. But… if… he is overmuch tempted, liyo, then he will lose. I know that. What is more, he does. You have done the best thing you could do."

She bit her lips until the blood left them. "He is a man, your cousin. I will give him that."

And she turned and gathered up the rest of her armor, put it on with a grimace of discomfort. "He will have his chance," she said then. "Armor and bow: little use for anything else if this is like the last time… until they reach the rock itself. We are in no small danger."

"They are prepared?"