Gate of Ivrel

And arrows flew. Vanye tucked down to the black's opposite side, making himself as inconspicuous as possible. He hoped the others had the same sense. But through the black's flying mane he saw a streak of red fire, 157

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Morgaine's handweapon; and there was silence from that quarter then, no more arrows. Whether she had hit anything firing blind, he did not know, but they were Morij, those men, and in his heart he hoped that the archers had simply lost heart and run.

Bruising force hit his side. He gasped and nearly lost his grip for the pain of it, and he knew that he had been hit: but no arrow at that range could pierce the mail. His worst fears were for the vulnerable horse. It went against Morij honor to hit a man's horse, but here was no chivalry. These men must face Erij if they let them through, and that was no pleasant prospect for them.

They were near the end of the pass. He laid heels to the black and drove him harder, and the panicked beast gathered himself, saliva spattering back against Vanye's leg as the horse took the rein he wanted. He passed even Siptah, answered to main force as Vanye hauled his head round toward the north again, toward the cleft of Baien's pass through the hills, and leaped forward under the brutal impact of Vanye's heels. In that instant he almost loved the vile beast: there was heart in him.

Morgaine, low in the saddle, was by him again: Siptah's head, nostrils wide, was alongside with the starlight in his white mane. Unaccountably Morgaine laughed, reached out a hand to him that did not touch, and clung again to the mane.

And they were through. Beyond all range of archers, safe on Baien's level plain, they were through, and Vanye reined down the snorting black and brought him to a stop, only then remembering the youth who rode in their wake. He came, a good bowshot behind them, and they both waited—silent, Vanye reckoned, in the same concern, that the boy might have been hit, for he rode low in the saddle.

But he was well enough, pale-faced in the dim light when he rode in between them, but unscathed. The dun horse was spent, his rump sinking on one side as if he favored that leg, and Vanye dismounted to see to it: an arrow had ripped the hide and perhaps hung for a time. He explored the wound with his fingers, found it not dangerously deep.

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"He will last," Vanye pronounced. "There will be time later."

"Then let us be off," Morgaine said, rising in the stirrups to look behind them, even while he climbed back into the saddle. "The surprise of the matter will not last long. They had not seen me fire before; now they have, and they will accustom themselves to the idea and recover their courage about it."

"Where will you?" Vanye asked.

"To Ivrel," she answered.

"Lady, Baien's hold lies almost athwart our path. They were hearth-friends to you once. It may be we could shelter there a time if we reached them before Erij."

"I do not trust hold or hall this near Ivrel," she said. "No."

They rode, an easy pace now, for the horses were spent and might be called on again to run; and soon the fire of whatever thing had entered his veins was spent as well, and he felt his senses going. His side hurt miserably. He felt of the place and found broken links in the mesh, but little hurt beneath. Assured then that was not bleeding his life away, he hooked one leg over the high bow of the saddle, and wrapped his arms tightly about him for support, and so gave himself to sleep.

Bells woke him.

He looked up and eased cramped muscles out of their long-held position, and saw to his shame that Ryn led his horse, and that it was well into morning. They filed along a peaceful pineshaded lane by the side of a stone wall.

He leaned forward and took the reins, begi

Gate of Ivrel

it on Ryn's advice, for here was an abundance of witnesses to her passing, and a place that could not be friendly to her.

Brothers tending their wall paused at their work in wonder. A few started forward as they might to welcome travelers, and then hesitated, and seemed to abandon the idea altogether, their faces bewildered. They were gentle men. Vanye had no fear of them.

And there was a terrible weariness upon Morgaine's face, pain, as if her wound troubled her. He saw that, and bit his lip in reckoning. "Do you think to stay here?" he asked of her.

"I do not think that the Abbot would abide that," she said.

"I do not think that you are fit for much further riding," he said. And he saw also the youth Ryn, who was shadow-eyed, and miserable; and he reckoned that pursuit would not look to find them here.

He reined the black in by the gate, for he remembered a guesthouse that was kept by the abbey, probably little used in winter, but it was there for such persons as were not acceptable within the holy walls.

He brought them there, asking no permission, taking them past the wondering eyes of the Brothers in the yard, and into the privacy of the house beyond its evergreen hedge. There he dismounted, and held up his hands to help Morgaine down as he might a lady: she tried awkwardly to accept his help, better suited to dismounting on her own, but her leg gave with her when she touched the ground, and she leaned upon his arm, thanking him with a weary nod and a look of her gray eyes.

"There is sanctuary here," he said. "It is the law. There will none touch us here, and if the place is surrounded… well, we will reckon with that when it happens."

She nodded again, plainly at the end of her strength, and a sorry three they were, she and the youth and a warrior so stiff with bruises and wounds that he could scarcely manage to climb the steps himself.

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There were no other guests. He was thankful for that, and helped Morgaine to the first of the several cots, before he went out to tend the horses and bring Morgaine's gear into the room: she was concerned with that above all else, he knew, and she gave him a grateful look before she tucked the dreadful sword into her arms and sank down upon the bare mattress.

Ryn helped him with the horses, and carried all their gear and their saddles into the guesthouse; and afterward Ryn joined him in the stables and stood by with concern in his eyes as Vanye applied some of their cooking oil to the wound in the dun's rump.

"He will not go lame," Vanye judged. "It was an arrow mostly spent, and it is not the season for pests to infest the wound. Oil will ease it, but it will scar, I think."

Ryn walked with him back to the guesthouse, a short distance hence, among the tall pines and the hedge. The bells had fallen silent now, the Brothers filing in to their prayers.

There was a difference in Ryn. He did not quickly decide what it was, but that a boy had slung harp on his back and ridden after Morgaine from Ra-morij; it was a tired, older youth that walked beside him in the daylight and observed things in silence. Ryn carried himself differently. He walked with a bearing as out of place in these pine-rimmed lanes as Vanye's own.

They had ridden out of Baien-ei and he had ridden hindmost; there was a new hardness to his eye that had learned to reckon more than to wonder.

Vanye took account of that new silence in him, estimated it, clapped a weary hand upon his shoulder when they had come into the guesthouse.