The roan horse shied back from the fire and the rider applied the quirt, driving it through the smoke, where human servants labored with axe and wet sacking and mattocks to keep it from passing the Road. Others rode behind him, both qhal and the levies from the villages.
Gault ep Mesyrun was not his name: it was Qhiverin; but at times he forgot that fact, as he did now, that the rebels assailed the land itself. In this unprecedented attack on the forest, Gault's will and the self that had been Qhiverin's were of one accord.
The land burned. They had seen the plume from Morund, long before the first of the riderless horses came wandering into the pastures. There was no reasonable cause of fire on a clear night, but one; and Gault had roused the levies, rung the bell to turn out the villagers, and sent out his couriers breakneck for the east, where his fellow lords held an older and firmer control over the land. Southward to the gate, to take a shorter route to the north, he sent his lieutenant Kereys—for the change in tactics that set human folk to war against the land itself was a considerable one, and the high lord in Mante preferred too fervent a zeal for reports rather than too much complacency.
It was a humiliation of a kind Gault did not intend to let pass, more, it was an embarrassment before Skarrin, with whom he had little favor; and nothing but justice on the rebels would redeem him. He had broken the back of the rebellion at Gyllin-brook, eliminated his former ally Ichandren as a trouble-maker and made examples; and since that time the man who rode beside him, on the piebald gelding, was not the human he looked to be.
His name had been Jestryn ep Desiny, but that was not the mind which lived behind that handsome, sword-marred face. It was Gault-Qhiverin's old friend Pyverrn, who had taken too grievous a wound at Gyllin-brook; and who had chosen a human shape, gate-given—one of Ichandren's own, his cousin.
There was a certain irony in it, Gault-Qhiverin thought—that two old friends rode side by side bent on vengeance, Jestryn being Gault's ally and guide in this foray to the highlands as they had once, when they were human, ridden against qhalur enemies at Ichandren's side.
Their friendship thus had, as Gault counted it, a certain double poesy.
It was onto the road at dusk, and the road which began in the lowlands as a track carts used, became a narrow trail cut through the pines, a pale line eroded and slotted by horse or foot, grown up in wispy grass along the margin so that it was easy to mistake some thinning of the trees for a spur off it.
There was no room, where it crossed difficult places, to have two riders abreast; and it was all too easy a place for ambush.
Ambush crossed Vanye's mind—constantly. He little liked these close spaces, little as he had liked the prospect of the open road, knowing what Chei had warned them. It was Chei in the lead now, Morgaine bringing up the rear, in this dark, pine-spiked shadow, and Chei did not have the look of a man contemplating a run for freedom: Chei had declined to wear the armor Morgaine had returned to him—the scabbed sores were still too painful, Chei had said: it was hard enough to bear the riding.
But Chei was armed again, after a fashion: he had the harness-knife, small as it was, a gesture Morgaine had made to him at their setting-out; for peace, Vanye reckoned. Or it was another test of him.
Certainly Chei had looked confused, and then: "My lady," he had said, in a respectful, astonished tone, the while Vanye's gut had knotted up and his hand clenched tight on his own blade-hilt, considering how close Morgaine stood to Chei, with the knife in his hand.
But Chei had put it away in its sheath on his saddle-skirt, and tied his armor up behind his horse with his blanket and his saddlebags; and rode now to the fore of them, conscious, surely of his sword and of Morgaine's weapon at his back, if treachery ever crossed his mind.
It was a wooded track, Chei had assured them. It was a way they would stand less chance of being seen.
It was also a track in which they could not see the turns ahead in the nightbound forest, in which they did not know the way and were utterly dependent on their guide, the same one who had twice mistaken his way—he swore.
Vanye himself had argued for this. Morgaine would have walked brazenly into Morund and demanded hospitality, and thrust Chei into Gault's very hold and hall and forced Gault to take him for a guest . . . backed by power enough to deal with any qhalur hedge-lord.
He had persuaded her otherwise, into this, with the land afire and men dead, half a score of them, and a twice-mistaken guide holding their lives in his hand—
Lady, Chei called her now, not witch. If Chei thought of sorcery it was surely tempered, living near qhal as he did, by the knowledge that what qhal did came not entirely from empty air and ill intent; it was not a thoroughly superstitious belief, and Chei surely knew by now that there was a qhalur weapon involved. When it came to fine distinctions beyond that—
—When it came to that, Vanye himself was not well sure whether it was witchcraft, or what it was he carried against his heart, or what that blade was that Morgaine carried, and both guarded and hated with all that was in her.
If they had met some innocent folk family on the valley road, if some children—
God help them, he thought; God help us.
And tried to forget the face which lingered behind his eyes, the sixteen year old boy, open-eyed and startled and dead in the starlight of the road.
It stood for everything that had gone amiss.
He rubbed his eyes that stung with weariness—short sleep, trading watches, with the smell of smoke still hanging about the hills and the surety that by now there was commotion behind them, deadly as a river in spate—Heaven send it was not in front of them as well.
At a point where the road reached the turning and the climbing was steep to the shoulder of the hill, Chei drew rein and hesitated, drawing his horse back about in the starlight, coming even with them.
Then he gave his horse his heels and took the ascent with the impetus it needed.
I am not eluding you, that gesture was to say. Follow me.
Morgaine sent Siptah after; Vanye allowed the big gray the room he needed on the narrow track, then gave Arrhan the touch of his heel.
For a moment they were in starlight, climbing that slot among the rocks; then they came among the pines again, and into thicker brush, where boughs whispered in a ghostly voice above the creak of harness and the sound of the horses, a climb for a long, long distance until the way began to wind down again, through deep shadow, such as it was in this land where the stars shone in such numbers and so bright, and white Arrhan and even the Baien gray and his gray-cloaked rider seemed to glow by night.
Then they broke out upon a broader track, and Chei's gelding struck a faster pace, along a streamside and across shallow water that kicked up white in the night-glow.
Morgaine suddenly put Siptah to a run, so that Vanye's heart skipped a beat and he kicked Arrhan in the same moment that Arrhan leapt forward on her own: the mare cleared the water in a few reckless strides to bring him up on Morgaine's flank as she overtook Chei and cut him off with Siptah's shoulder. The gelding shied off, scrambling up against a steep bank and recovering its balance at disadvantage. Chei drew in, his eyes and hair shirting pale in the starlight.
"Slower," Morgaine said. "Where do you think to go, so surely and so fast? A trail you know? To what?"
"It is a way I know," Chei said, and restrained his horse as it backed against the bank and shied and threw its head. "Where should I lead you? I swear I know this place."
"That also I wonder. We are making far too much noise for my liking."
"Vanye," Chei appealed to him, "for God's sake—"
"Liyo," Vanye said, and eased Arrhan forward, his heart beating so the pulse seemed to make his hands shake. No man called his name. Few in his own land had cared to know it; excepting Nhi and Chya and Myya, and his Chya cousin, who was not wont to use a Kurshin name when he could help it, and called him only cousin when he was kindest. But in Chei's mouth it was not a curse, it was like a spell cast on him, was the way Morgaine used it.
Fool, he told himself. And his heart moved in him all the same.
"Where are we going?" he asked Chei.
"Where I told you from the beginning—across the hills to the road. Before God I have not lied. Vanye, tell her so. Tell—"
What sound it had been Vanye could not identify, even in hearing it. But it had been there; and none of them moved or breathed for the instant.
The black weapon was in Morgaine's hand, beneath the cloak. Vanye knew it, as well as he knew where sky and earth was. Changeling rode at her side tonight, since she went hooded; and there was power enough in her hand to deal with any single enemy.
Chei shook his head, faint movement. His eyes rolled toward the woods, a gleam of white in a shadowed face. "I do not know," he whispered, ever so faintly. "I swear to God I do not know who that is, I did not plan this—Please. Let me go, let me ride to them. It may be they are human—I expect that they are. If they are not, you can deal with them. If they are, then likely I can ride in on them."
"And tell them what?" Morgaine asked in a flat voice.
"After that—God knows. They may kill me. But likeliest they will want to know what they can find out." His voice trembled. His teeth were chattering, and he drew in a rough breath. "Lady, if we go on we will ride into ambush and they will raise all the hills against us. We have no choice! Let me go to them!"
"You are supposing we would ride in after you," Morgaine said.
"I am supposing," Chei whispered back, "nothing. Except we are too few to threaten them. That is all the safety we have. I can talk to them, I can tell them you are no friend of Gault's—Let me try, lady. It is the only way. They are bowmen. We will not have a chance if they begin to hunt us."
"He is brave enough," Vanye said in his own language.
"Brave indeed," Morgaine said. "He has courted this, curse him."
It might well be true. Honest men, Morgaine had warned him.
"What can we do now," Vanye asked with a sinking heart, "thatcosts less?"
"Try," Morgaine said tochei.
"Hold." Vanye edged Arrhan up next the gelding to pull the tiesfree which held the heavy bundle of mail and leather atop chei's other gear. he pulled it free and handed it to him. "put it on."
In the case, he thought, that Chei was on their side.
Chei did not argue. He took the offered help, and took the mailon his arms, ducked his head and slid it on, leaving it unbelted.
Then he took up the reins and urged the gelding quietly ahead, up the bank and into the woods. In a moment more there was a whistle from that direction, low and strange. Siptah threw his head and Morgaine held him steady.
It was not a safe vantage they had. Vanye interposed himself and his horse between her and the woods, on the side the bank did notshelter; but their backs he could not defend.
There was nothing then but the dark and the bubbling of thestream behind them, the sighing of the leaves.
Another sound, from their side: Morgaine unfastened the hookwhich held Changeling at her side, and brought it sheath and all, torest crosswise on her saddle.
Doomsday. His hand went on reflex to that pyx he had beneath his armor, and he felt it like a coal against his heart.
Destruction.
Once that sword was drawn there was no peace in the world. Once that was drawn there would be deaths heaped up and uncountable.
He sat his horse still, thinking of archers beyond the trees; and that by now Chei had either fallen to some silent killer, or found the allies he had led them to, for whatever purpose.
The movements were virtually silent, the rustle of a branch, thebrush of a body against leaves. the gelding shifted and snorted and stamped, breaking twigs and working at the bit; and chei held him in place.
"Who are you?" came a voice hardly above the wind.
"A human man," Chei answered in a normal voice, and did not turn in his saddle. "Ep Kantory. Chei ep Kantory, asking passage. There are three of us, no more, two at the streamside. One of us is qhal."
There was long silence, very long. He heard a whisper, and another, but he could not hear the words. He did not turn his head.
"Get off your horse," the whisper came.
He did that, and drew a whole breath, though his legs wanted to shake under him. One qhal, he had told them. It was enigma enough to confuse them and make them ask further. He had made himself defenseless. He had ridden without true stealth. Therefore he was still alive. He stepped down in the little clear space and held his horse close to the bit, forestalling its nervous shifting as branches stirred and a shadow afoot came out of the brush into filtered starlight only slightly better than the forest dark.
That shadow came to him and took his horse's reins and led it away from him. He did not resist.
He did not resist when others came up behind him and took his arms in a painful grip.
"It is passage I ask," he said to them in a hushed voice. "The qhal with me is a woman, alone with one human man. They are enemies of Gault's. Gault is hunting us."
A slight weight rested on his shoulder, and moved till the cold, flat metal of a sword-blade rested against his neck. "Where do you come from?"
It was death to move. It was death to give the wrong answer, and for the moment he could think of nothing at all, the forest air seeming too thin, his senses wanting to leave him as if the world had shifted again, and he should be back on that hilltop, all that he had to tell them become a dream, a delirium. He could not even believe, for one dizzy moment, in the companions he had left on that streamside, or in the things that had happened to him, at the same time that he knew he was back among human men.
The sword turned edge-on against his neck.
"I am still human," he said. "So is the man with her. She is here on business of her own. It would be well—to find out what that is. They have told me something of it—enough I knew I ought to bring them here. I swear you have never seen anything like her. Or like the man with her—he is a Man, and from somewhere I do not know. Let me go back to them and I will lead them to the falls. There is no way out of that place but back. You know that there is not. We will camp there and wait, and you can ask what questions you want."
There was another long pause. Then: "Ep Kantory," the whisper in front of him said, "your brother is with us."
His heart lurched. As a trick, it was cruel. "My brother died at Gyllin-brook. Ichandren at Morund. I am the last alive."
"Bron ep Kantory is alive," the whisper said. "He is with Arunden. In our camp."
He did not know whether, then, he could stand on his feet. He was numb. He felt his breath short and anger blinded him and hope came by turns, between the conviction they were lying and hope—remotest and terrible hope, that it might be true.
"Who is this," the same voice continued to ask, "that you travel with?"
He could not speak. He could not find his voice. He had been better than this when Gault's men led him to the hilltop. He had been better than this in the depths of Morund-hall when Ichandren died. His senses came and went, as if he would faint, and here and there wavered.
"Did you think that you could do this?" the whisper asked him. "Did you think that you could deceive us?"
"I am Chei ep Kantory. My brother's name is Bron. He fell at Gyllin-brook—"
The blade pressed against his neck. A strong grip drove the blood from his hands.
"And who else are you? What other name?"
'Tell Bron I am here. Bring him. Tell him he will know if I am still his brother. Tell him that!"
A long time passed. He told himself that it had been a test. He had failed it. At any moment the one in front of him would give the order and the blade would slit the vein—or worse, they would take him with them, and ask him questions alone—
There was a chance, O God, a chance: if Bron had lain alive on Gyllin's bank, if Arunden's men had heard the rumor and had been able to reach that place before the night and the scavengers—
If only once, if he died for it, he could see his brother again—
"Let him go," the voice said.
Vanye had both hands on his own sword, across the saddlebow, as he heard the stir of a rider in the forest. Arrhan shifted nervously, and Siptah stamped once and worked at the bit.
Then one rider in unbelted mail came out into the starlight and down the slope at an easy pace. Two others followed, shadowlike, at either side and behind him.
Chei reached the flat and stopped face to face with them, then carefully got down from his horse and left it to stand while the others waited at his back.
It was to Vanye's side he walked, leftward, away from Morgaine, and it occurred to Vanye it might be attack, some means to take him down and leave Morgaine's back undefended: there was the harness-knife, for one; and Heaven knew with what Chei was armed now.
But he saw nothing in Chei's hands—Chei held them both outward from him in the starlight, and when Chei came up at Arrhan's shoulder and laid a hand on his stirrup:
"They have agreed to talk." Chei said in a low voice. "They want you to come. There are others in the woods. There are arrows aimed at us. Likely they will aim for the horses if we try to run." Strong emotion trembled in his voice. "They say my brother is alive. I do not know. It might be true. If it is—if it is, then he might convince them—whether to listen to me."
That they were surrounded was credible. The rest of it … Heaven knew. He was sure that Morgaine heard what Chei was saying: her ears were sharper than anyone's he knew, and likeliest she heard whatever was in the brush as well. She said nothing, and a sense of panic came over him—man and man, she had said, Man and Man, trusting his instincts to deal with this many-turning youth.
"I beg you," Chei said, and caught at his hand where it rested on his leg, gripping it hard. "I beg you. I am not sure of these trails, enough to run the horses here. It is a tangle ahead, rock and root. The stream leads to a falls and there is no way out. But if we go with them, there is the chance they will listen, and it will likely be closer to the road anyway. These men belong to Arunden ep Corys, and if they are not lying, my brother will know whether or not to believe me. Come with them. If things go wrong I will fight with you, I swear it under Heaven."
"And your brother? What of him?"
"I want his life. His. That is all I ask. And you have me. Heart and mind—I swear it, only so you save him and take no life you can spare. Listen to me: this is the last place free Men hold. It is the land I am fighting for, it is the land, and your lady says she has hope for us—but if becomes a war of fire, Gault and the lady—for God's own sake, Vanye—listen to me and come with me and take them for allies. They will not ask you give up your weapons. They are not unreasonable men. And when we reach their camp my brother will stand with us. I know that he will."
"As you knew the way across the plains? And the woods? As you led us here?"
Chei's hand was cold on his, cold and strong. "In the name of God, Vanye. I am your friend. You have been mine. I never betrayed you. I only wanted to live to get here; and we are here—and I am begging you—take what I give you. I have lied, I admit it. But not of malice—only of too much hope. And now I swear to you I am not lying. I have brought you where there was hope of getting through, and now that has failed us—there is this, and it is the best one, the best I could have hoped for—"
"All your hopes diminish, friend. And this one if it goes amiss, has your people's blood on it."
"There is nothing else," Morgaine said beside him, and in the Kurshin tongue, "that we can do, but see where this leads."
His advice, he thought, had brought them to this—as much as Chei's. "Aye," he said heavily. And to Chei: "My lady agrees; we will go."
Chei's hand clenched on his, desperately hard. Gratitude shone in his eyes, starlight aglimmer on tears unshed. "I swear," Chei said. "I swear to you—I am with you in this. I will not betray you. Not for my life. I know what you can do. Take me first if I betray you."
Vanye felt an unaccustomed, half embarrassed impulse, let his fingers twitch, then clench in human comfort as he looked into Chei's shadowed face.
"My brother will help us," Chei said. "I swear that too. And you will not harm him."
"We will harm no one who does not threaten us."
"And your lady—"
'Take Vanye's word," Morgaine said. "He does not know howto lie. and in this i take his advice."
The way lay up the bank, into the forest by trails only Chei andthe shadowy horsemen knew; and it was well enough certain that there were other watchers about, on foot and ahorse on trails following and crossing theirs.
It was like the arrhend, Vanye thought; or the men of Koris, of his own land. One did not hope to take such a land cheaply, in lives or in time—except an enemy did the unthinkable; except it was not the land or the wealth of the woods a conqueror valued, and he was willing to use fire.
We ought not, he kept thinking with every stride of the horses, every whisper of the leaves, we ought not, we ought not to have brought the fire.
There was that in him which ached, thinking of it, as greenwood and the forest damp took the stench of smoke away—as more and more the land was like coming to his own home again, even to the smell of the trees.
O my liege, I might have stopped you from setting the fire. Why did not I speak? I am a Man. And this is a human place. Did it not occur to me?
Or am I become something else?
The trails made a maze, a narrow track down one hill and up another through one and another little dell completely unremarkable in the dark.
Chei went foremost behind their first guide. Morgaine rode at Chei's back and Vanye at hers, with the second of their mounted guides going hindmost; and at times in the shadow of the thicket there was only the sound of the horses and the creak of harness and jingle of chain; and at most the pale flash of Siptah's pale rump and white-tipped tail to keep him aware which way they were turning, each horse following the other.
To such a land Arrhan had been foaled, and there was a lightness in her step and an alertness to her busy ears as if she were reading signals no human ear heard. She was not alarmed, not yet; but by the prick of her ears and the set of her head she advised where her apprehensions were and where some sound went which he did not hear.
There is no way out of this, he kept thinking, the further and the deeper they went. Whether Chei is witting of it or no, it is a trap, this narrow passage.
Heaven help us. The last hold of free Men. Chei has lied to us; and fair enough for that: Morgaine has lied to him in turn—and we are all in the web, they and we alike.
No more deaths. No more children. Mother of God, no more mistakes, and no more blood. I dream of them.
At last Morgaine stopped; for ahead of her Chei and their guide had paused. Arrhan came up with her head against Siptah's flank and crowded closer still as the big gray threw his head and snorted warning.
"It is soon," their forester guide said. "Be patient."
It was, Vanye reckoned, a boundary of a sort, and they were about to cross it: someone ran ahead to tell others what came visiting.
There was silence after. There were only forest sounds and the slow, fretful shifting of the horses. Morgaine did not question. Chei did not say anything, nor had he spoken since they began this ride. Their guides volunteered no word beyond that simple directive.
Somewhere a nightbird cried.
"Come," their guide said then, and turned his horse sedately and went ahead at the same deliberate walk he had used for some little time. So Chei went and so Morgaine; and himself and the last man, as the trail followed the shoulder of a wooded hill and climbed again, up among tall trees and down once again, onto the other side of the hill.
For the first time, on that breath of wind, Vanye picked up the scents of smoke and habitation. No lights showed as they came down, first into thinner trees and then among brushy lumps—huts which seemed more like thickets than dwellings—but nature never grew them, Vanye thought, as they rode sedately down the steep slope and past one such that was high as horse and rider together, a rounded shape against the straight trunks of the trees.
Not a stirring hereabouts. Not a breath of a voice, no gleam of fire. From a pen, withdrawn among the trees, came stable-smell and a restless shifting of horses, as they rode out into the clear midst of this low place.
Then their guide dismounted. "Get down," he said.
"Best we do that," Chei said, and slid down.
Well indeed, if there were archers in question. Morgaine got down from the saddle, with Changeling hung at her side, and Vanye did, at the same time as Chei did; and dropped the reins to let the horses stand.
Then came a little movement, and more than one shadow gliding out from among the trees and the huts.
One came and crouched on the ground in the starlight in the midst of the large clearing at the center of the huts, and poked round in a familiar way with a stick, after which coals came to a sullen glow, and a slight gleam showed: the man then piled on tinder and wood. So the village folk had taken precautions and now felt encouraged enough that the one man squatted there with the firelight leaping up brighter and brighter on his heavy-jowled face.
"My lord Arunden—" Chei said in a plaintive way, and walked forward a pace or two; and stop as the man at the fire looked up at them with an underlit scowl.
The man called Arunden stood up, and drew the short sword that hung at his belt. The fire limned them both, Chei all dark, fire glancing on the edges of his mail; the older man all light, shadow about his features and his leather and furs and braids.
"Strange guests," Arunden said, and the voice matched the face, heavy and rough. "Stranger still that you bring them here. What does Gault want?"
"Is my brother truly alive, my lord?"
"Answer."
"Gault wants our lives, theirs and mine, my lord. I am human. So is the man. The lady is qhal, but she is no friend of Gault's."
"The land is burning, below. What do we do for this? How did this happen?"
Chei had no quick reply for that.
"It happened," Morgaine said, drawing a startled look from the man, and walked forward to stand, gray-cloaked and hooded figure with arms folded, the dragon-sword out of sight, riding at her hip, and Heaven knew where her other weapon was, but Vanye well guessed as he moved to take his place at her left shoulder. "The qhal of your land have no courtesy," Morgaine said to the lord, "and I have found more with this young human. So I have come to you. As for the burning—a matter of war, my lord, else worse would be at your borders."
There was stark silence from lord Arunden . . . stark silence too from the shadowy figures which appeared among the trees behind him. Vanye's heart began to pound in dread, his mind to sort rapidly what he could see of those about them, mapping which way they should go—what their path of escape should be, where cover was.
There would be, Chei had assured them, archers.
"Who are you," Arunden asked sharply, "riding here with your minions? What are you, Gault's jilted doxy?"
That was the limit. Vanye slipped the ring. The weight of the sword hit his hip as Morgaine lifted one empty, white hand, forestalling him without even looking to see what his move had been, and let back her hood, spilling her pale hair free to the light.
"No," she said softly, "I am not. Would you guess again, my lord Arunden?"
"My lady," Chei said, stepping between. "My lord—"
"Is she here to make threats?" Arunden asked. "Or to spy out the hills, with you for her guide?"
Morgaine glanced Chei's way with chill disdain. "You vowed this was a reasonable man."
"I am no fool!" Arunden shouted, and stamped his stick into the coals, so that coals scattered and sparks flew up.
"I am out of patience," Morgaine said to Chei, and turned aside.
"Stay," Chei said. "Wait—my lord Arunden. Do not make a mistake."
"I make no mistake. It is your mistake—"
"Chei!" a voice called out of the dark, and a man was coming down the slope of a sudden, limping and making his way with difficulty on the uneven ground among the trees and huts.
Vanye let his sword surreptitiously back to its sheath, as Morgaine had stopped near him, her hands shrouded in her cloak and her jaw set.
"Bron, it is not your brother," Arunden shouted uphill as that man came on, and waved him to stand off.
But: "Bron," Chei said, quietly. "O Bron—"
The man came resolutely forward, limping somewhat—unarmored, wearing only breeches and shirt and boots, weaponless; he came and he stopped in doubt a little the other side of the fire; as Chei for his part stood still—wisely, Vanye thought with that prickling between his own shoulder-blades that weapons at his back set there.
"I am not Changed," Chei said in a voice that scarcely carried, a voice which trembled. "Bron, Ichandren is dead. Everyone is dead. Gault gave the last of us to the wolves. Myself, Falwyn, ep Cnary—" His voice did break, quiet as it was. "They died. That was what happened to them. I thought you had died on the field."
"What do you want here?" Bron asked, in a voice colder than Arunden's. "What is it you want?"
Chei turned his face away as if it he had been dealt a blow, and shook his head vehemently.
"What do you want, Chei?"
"Passage," Chei said after a moment, looking back toward his brother. "Safety. I am sworn, Bron, my lord was dead, you were dead, the lady and this man found me, they took me away from the wolves, healed my hurts—He is not qhal, Bron, he is a man like I am and she set me free and gave me a horse and tells me things that Arunden ought to know, that all of us ought to know, Bron—I swear to you, I know there is no way to prove anything I say. But you know me, you know everything I could know—try me, whether I have forgotten anything. Bron—for the love of Heaven—"
Bron's face worked, somewhere between desperation and grief.
And suddenly he held out his open arms.
"No," Arunden cried. "Fool!"
But Chei came to him, slowly, carefully. They embraced each other, and wept, for very long, till Bron set Chei back by the shoulders and looked at him as if he could discover the truth by firelight.
Vanye watched with a pang of his own—the which he could not comprehend, only something in him hurt, perhaps that a man could come home again; or that brothers could prove true.
Or that Chei had just deserted them for a deeper loyalty, whatever the issue of this place.
Fool, he thought. Well that there be some help for us here.
There was Morgaine beside him, who was all his own concern; and Chei at the moment was hers, he reckoned, their guide and the source of everything they knew in this world. She would wreak havoc to keep him safe, Chei was very right; had Arunden attempted to stop him or to strike him or his brother, Morgaine would have acted, fatally for Arunden and half the village before she was done.
But she and Arunden and all of them stood baffled by this, that Bron ep Kantory took his brother into his arms without being sure what he was embracing: he made himself a hostage to stop those who cared for either of them, and by one move held them all powerless.