Exile's Gate

They had taken three of the watchposts. Arunden snuffled and wept about it and protested they were disgracing him and ruining his usefulness.

But a flash of Jestryn's knife stopped the snuffling.

"You either serve us," Gault had said then, "or not. Decide now. We cando without you."

"My lord," Arunden had said.

Now they rode quietly as they could, with bows strung and arrows ready.

Jestryn gave a quiet call, a kind of lilting whistle, and a like signal answered it from down the slope.

The horses picked their way down with steady, small paces, to a place where the trail widened. A Man waited there, whose eyes betrayed shock the moment before Gault's arrow took him. Perhaps it had been the sight of Jestryn, back from the dead. Perhaps it had been the sight of Arunden himself, who was their own lord, beside Gault, who had been lord over the human south, not six years gone: Men to the outward sight, and armored like Men, he and Jestryn, Qhiverin and Pyverrn—both archers of Mante's warrior Societies and both deadly.

Jestryn gri

"Let us go," Gault said, and motioned to the men who followed.

They rode forward, closer to the human camp, with the stench of its midden all too evident. It was that garrison which guarded the road; and there was dangerous work at hand—We must take them, Jestryn had said, and reach the Road there: that is the quickest way.

If only, Gault thought, they did not bog down in some day-long siege; but Jestryn promised not: Arunden would hail them out once their archers were positioned.

Gault chose three arrows as he rode quietly at Jestryn's back: he did not ride the roan, which was too well known—but on a borrowed sorrel. The rest of the column overtook them on this flat ground as the shapes of huts appeared among the pines. Gray smoke drifted up as haze in that clearing, from fires about which humans pursued domestic business, the weaving of cloth, the grinding of grain doubtless bartered or plundered from Gault's own storehouses.

There was hardly reason at first that these humans should take alarm at human riders arriving in their camp, since those riders had had to pass their sentries, even if the riders carried bows at their sides.

They could only be mildly alarmed when their own lord Arunden rode forward of the three, and in a ringing voice ordered everyone to the center of the village.

Only when those bows lifted and bent and the shafts went winging to drop those who obeyed, then the cries went up and humans rushed to the attack of two solitary archers.

Then the rest of Gault's troop appeared from the brush around the camp, and arrows came from every direction.

It was unfortunate that Arunden was not quick enough, and that a stray shaft tumbled him from his horse.

Beyond this there was little resistance. Certain humans escaped into the brush and saved their lives: do not pursue, Gault had told his men. We have no time.

When there was quiet in the clearing Gault changed horses again and rode where Jestryn beckoned him, where the height on which the village sat, dropped away sheer, and the Road showed as patches of white stone in an otherwise grassy expanse of rolling hills.

Jestryn led them down the slope of the hill to a track which human feet had worn, going and coming, laying bare the roots of pines and stripping those roots of bark, a natural series of steps in the muddy slope which gave the horses somewhat surer footing on their way down to the plains.

There was no dread of arrows now. Only of what they followed.

He could not understand why they had burned his woods and sheltered with humans; why, if they were hostile they had not attacked Morund; why, if they were not, they had not approached it. The woman whom Arunden had abundantly described was surely no halfling and the tall Man with her doubtless hosted some qhalur mind: they would have been welcome in Morund, if they were Mante's enemies, some shadow out of Skarrin's traffic in the gates.

But they had one and now two of Ichandren's lot to advise them: that too, Arunden had told them, among other things. That one of them was Chei ep Kantory surprised him: the pale-haired wolf-whelp had cozened Morund-gate's wolves then, longer than he would have thought: Kantory's get was hardy as its sire, whatever might presently house in that human frame—for it was well possible the strangers had taken his offering at Morund-gate.

But that the other Man was Bron ep Kantory distressed him: Bron who had carried off Gault's serfs and raided his storehouses three times in the last two years. He had thought he had taken care of that matter at Gyllin-brook, along with the rest of Ichandren's rebels.

Broncould not be qhal, having been near neither gate; and therefore Chei was not likely to be. Bron would have suspected a changeling—they never would have deceived him. No, it was a question of humans.

And qhal who dealt with them in preference to legitimate authority, for whatever purpose.

It was a ride on which Gault-Qhiverin had had ample time to think; and the thoughts which chased one another through his mind held only greater and greater uncertainty, whether he could hope to find common ground with these strangers, Mante's likely enemies, or whether he should only strike and kill and hope for reward as Skarrin's savior.

Which would last, he thought, about as long as it took for Skarrin to arrange his assassination. Gault-Qhiverin the exile was something Skarrin could ignore. Gault the hero of the south—was not.

He reached the road just behind Jestryn and with room to run, the red roan overtook Jestryn's bay with a vengeance, weary as they all were.

"We will catch them," Jestryn said. "There is still time."

It was Tejhos Jestryn was thinking of; so were they all. That was the place the enemy was going, and that was the place they would find them.

The trail led down by the last of the twilight, and deeper still the twilight under the great trees which overshadowed the trail in the descent. "Not far, not far," Bron assured them, when once Morgaine asked. Bron's face was pale in the half-light and sweat glistened on it. Constantly Chei had a worried look, but Bron did not ask to stop; neither did Chei, though Bron's riding now was generally with his shoulders hunched in pain, his hands braced against the saddlehorn against the jolts of the descent: his leg by now must be agony and Vanye hurt with a sympathetic pain, who had endured similar miserable rides.

But suddenly their trail reached a level place, and in a little more of riding the trees began to thin: the forest edge gave way to open land and hills the like of the hills in the south, open grassland.

Between the last trees, under a clearing and fading sky, a rain-puddled bit of white stone, the trace of the Road; and looking up from it, toward the hills in the dusk, it was easy to see it, a line where ancient builders had sundered hill from hill, letting nothing divert it from here to the horizon.

Exhausted as they were, the horses picked up their pace somewhat on this level ground, and they grouped two and two, Bron and Chei to the fore and himself and Morgaine behind, with all the open hills before them and the sunset at their left.

"We will make it," Bron said, dropping back a moment to ride with them. "My lady, we will make it there very soon."

"Tejhos is on the road itself," Morgaine asked him, "is it not?"

"Yes," Bron said.

"We can find our way, then, from here. Go back. Take my advice."

"No," Bron said, "my lady."