Fires of Azeroth

Chapter Sixteen

They found the horses still safely in the clearing, with some of the arrha watching over them-your qhal, male and female, dressed in white, with faces which still were i

And of all the arrhend, it rested most heavily on Merir.

"My lord," said Morgaine to him. "The arrhendim must be brought here. If we are to save this place-they must be brought. Can you do it?"

The old lord nodded, turned, the reins of the white horse in his hand, and stared in the direction of the river. Even through the trees the roar of many voices could be heard, shouts raised; the horde was on the march.

"I would see this thing," Merir said.

It was madness. But not even Morgaine opposed it "Aye," she said. "Lellin, Sezar?"

"The hill is still ours," Lellin said. "Or was, lately."

Arrha stood sentinel in the woods, and farther on, in the meadow. "Do not stay here when they come," Morgaine said to the last. "You will only lose your lives. Take shelter with our elders."

They bowed, after their silent fashion. Perhaps they would heed and perhaps not. There was no dispute with men who did not speak.

There rose their own goal, the stony hill at the side of the meadow, and the trail which wound among the trees. The shouts of the horde sounded very near to this place, hardly beyond the screen of trees at the far side of the hill.

They climbed the height on horseback, and rode farther, Morgaine guiding them among the trees which crowned that slope and far to the other side. Rocks were frequent here, a tumbled basalt mass which became a naked promontory, highest of all points hereabouts.

Here Morgaine drew rein and slid down, leaving Siptah to stand. The rest dismounted and tied their horses among the aged trees, and followed her.

Vanye looked back; the last of them rode in, Roh, who left his horse too, and came. Roh might have fled. Do so, Vanye wished him with part of his heart; but that which loved the man knew why he had stayed, and what he sought, that was his soul.

But he did not wait for Roh; what battle Roh fought was his own, and he feared to intervene in it. He turned instead and followed after Sharrn and Dev, up among the rocks.

The hill gave them view across the open meadow, higher than it had seemed, for it overtopped most of the trees at this one point, which upthrust broken fingers of stone. Slabs stood like standing stones on this crest, no work of qhal, but of nature. Morgaine and Merir stood between two of them, sheltered there, with the others of their company.

Vanye moved up carefully past Dev to the very brink next Morgaine, and gained a view which spa

And nearer… ugliness moved. It was as Lellin had said, like a new forest grown upon the shores of the Nara, a surging mass bristling with metal-tipped pikes and lances of wood, dark and foul. Occasionally there showed a small khalur band, conspicuous in the sunlight glancing off their armor… most of those were horsemen. The horde filled all the shore and surged up the throat of the low place that led to the meadow, moving steadily and in no haste. Their voices roared as if from a common throat.

"They are so many," breathed Vis. "purely there are not so many arrhendim in all Shathan. We ca

"Or time to fire them," said Larrel.

Morgaine stepped closer to the edge. Vanye seized her arm, anxious, although the distance was far and the chance was small of being seen in this sheltered point against the rocks. She regarded his warning and stopped. "This place," she said, "is impossible to hold, even if we would. The slope on the other side is too wide. This height would become a trap for us. But the enemy's circle is not yet closed. If the arrhendim could be brought… before they start to work at us with fire and axe, and if we could keep the horde from breaching Nehmin's gates…"

"It can be done," said Lellin. "Grandfather, it must."

"We ca

"Yet we must have help," Morgaine said, "of whatever fashion."

"Do not trust-" Roh said, edging forward; Vanye whipped out his dagger and Roh stopped still a distance from Morgaine, leaning against the slanting rock. "Listen to me. Do not trust appearances with the Shiua. I taught them. Hetharu took the whole north of Shiuan in a matter of days. He is a student more apt than his teacher."

"What do you reckon of them?"

Roh looked toward the river, grimacing into the wind and the light. "Eight, ten thousands there, if they extend much beyond that point of the trees. What they have coming in on the other side of Nehmin… three times that many. Probably more coming up that little river north of here, until they have us framed. Any riders of ours who try to escape this wedge of land now will be cut down. They are screened in brush and on every side of us. This– show- is to distract us."

"And the higher crossings of the Nara? How many are we dealing with?"

"Believe that Shiua will have reckoned first of those crossings. Every possible escape will be held. And the whole number of the horde… that is uncounted; even the khal do not know. But they reckon a hundred thousands-all fighters, killers. Even the young ones. They plundered their own land and killed their own kind to come here into this one. A man who falls even to the children will be cut to pieces. Murder is common among them; murder, and theft, and every crime. They will fight; they do that well when they think their enemy helpless."

"Shall we," asked Merir, "believe that advice this one gives?"

Morgaine nodded. "Believe," she said softly, "that this man wishes you well, my lord Merir. His own land was such as Shathan, even more so in the age before him, which he may remember-in his better dreams. Is it not so?"

Roh looked at her, shaken, and reached forth a hand to the rocks, leaning there.

"My lord," said Morgaine, "I do not think even the arrhendim could fight with more love of the land than this man."

A moment Merir looked on him. Roh bowed his head, looked up with eyes glittering with tears.

"Aye," Merir said, "aye, I do think so."

The voices from the lower meadow chanted the louder. The sound began to strike them with immediacy, reminder of their danger.

"We ca

She stepped back; but Merir lingered, and unslung the horn which he carried… silver-bound and old and much cracked.

"Best you get to horse," said the old lord. "We are bound to attract notice. It is a strange law we have, stranger-friends,… that no horn shall ever be blown in Shathan. And yet we do keep them, silent though they have been these fifteen hundred years. You asked the arrhendim be summoned. Get you to horse."

She looked beyond him, to the horde which swarmed toward the hill. Then she nodded, started back quickly with the others. Only Lellin and Sezar stayed.

"We shall not leave them," said Sharrn.

"No," Morgaine agreed. "We shall not. Ready their horses for them; I think we shall have a hard ride leaving this place."

They reached the horses and mounted up in haste.

And of a sudden came a low wailing that grew to the bright, clear peal of a horn. Vanye looked back. On the height they had quitted Merir stood, and sent forth a blast which rang out over the meadow… exhausted, he ceased, and gave the horn to Lellin, who lifted it to his lips. Uncertain the sound was at first, in the raging shout of the horde who took it for challenge. Then it rang out louder than all the voices of the enemy, woke echoes from the rocks, and sounded again and again and again.

There was silence for a moment; even the voices of the horde were stilled by that.

Then from far away came another horn-call, faint as the wind in leaves. A howl from the enemy drowned it, but the faces of the arrhendim were wild with joy.

"Come!" Morgaine shouted at the three, and now they left the high rocks, Lellin and Sezar helping the old lord.

Vanye led the white mare across their path, gave Merir the reins as the two youths helped him into the saddle; then Lellin and Sezar ran for their own horses as Morgaine turned them all for the trail off the hill.

They ran, weaving in and out the trees of the grove, around the rocks; and sudden and chilling came a howl on their right, on the gentle slope of the hill. Shiua were pouring up it toward them.

"Angharan!" the cry went up, Angharanl Angharan! –That to them was Death.

A bolt of red fire came from Morgaine's hand, a single arrow from Perrin's bow. Several of the horde fell, but Morgaine did not stay for more, and Vanye spurred his horse between her and them, bent low for the hazard of branches and answering fire. The down-trail was before them. They hurtled down that winding chute, the horses twisting and turning at all the speed they could manage.

The enemy had not yet reached the point of the hill; at the bottom of the trail Morgaine bent low and headed Siptah for the forest and the path concealed there, and in that moment Vanye cast a look over his left shoulder. There were Shiua aplenty ru

Sharrn and Dev, Perrin and Vis and Roh: they rode rearguard, and sent a few arrows back. Larrel and Kessun were with Merir, guard to him, for Lellin and Sezar bore no weapons… all too vulnerable they were, with three of their number unarmed. But into that arrow-fire which shielded them the Shiua were less than willing to ride.

Vanye had his sword in hand: vanguard, he and Morgaine, and there was no use for his bow in head-to-head meeting. Morgaine would pull ahead of him… insisted so, for fear of taking him as she had taken one of their comrades: the black weapon and the sword needed freedom for their effective use; and in ilin's place at his lord's left hand, shield-side. Vanye kept there now, as best he could, while they rode a mad course through land that demanded more caution. Branches raked them; horses jostled one another avoiding obstacles or making the turns. But the khalur riders, less skilled, hampered with their barbed lances and half-blinding helms, could not follow so swiftly here, and in time the sounds of pursuit faded into distance behind them.