They did not press the horses, that like themselves had gone without sleep and rest; Kithan rode with them, his two men trailing, and last rode Jhirun, whose bay mare was content to lag by several lengths.
And at dusk, as they came through one of the many narrows, there appeared stones by the road, set by men; and against the forested cliffs beyond was a stone village, a sprawling and untidy huddle next the road.
“Whose?” Morgaine asked of Kithan. “It was not on the maps.”
Kithan shrugged. “There are many such. The land hereabouts is Sotharra land; but I do not know the name of the village. There will be others. They are human places.”
Vanye looked incredulously at the halfling lord, and judged that it was likely the truth, that a lord of Shiuan did not trouble to learn the names of the villages that lay within reach of his own land.
Morgaine swore, and came to a slow stop on the road, where they were last screened by the trees and the rocks. A spring flowed at the roadside, next the trees. She let Siptah drink, and herself dismounted and knelt upcurrent, drinking from her hand. The qujal followed her example, even Kithan drinking from the stream like any peasant; and Jhirun overtook them and cast herself down from her mare to the cool bank.
“We shall rest a moment,” Morgaine said. “Vanye—”
He nodded, stepped down from the saddle, and filled their waterflasks the while Morgaine watched his back.
And constantly, while they let the horses breathe and took a little of their small supply of food, Morgaine’s eye was on their companions or his was, while the dusk settled and became night.
Jhirun held close, by Morgaine’s side or his. She sat quietly, for the most part, and braided her long hair in a single plait down the back, tied it with a bit of yam from her fringed skirt. And there was something different in her bearing, a set to her jaw, a directness to her eyes that had not been there before.
She set herself with them as if she belonged: Vanye met her eye, remembered how she had intervened in Fwar’s ambush in the stable, and reckoned that were he an enemy of Myya Jhirun i Myya, he would well guard his back. A warrior of clan Myya, restrained by codes and honor, was still a bad enemy. Jhirun, he remembered, knew nothing of such restraints.
It was at the men of Kithan that she stared in the darkness, and they would not look toward her.
And when they remounted, Jhirun rode insolently across the path of Kithan and his men, turned and glared at Kithan himself.
The qujal-lord brought up short, and seemed not offended, but perplexed at such arrogance in a Hiua peasant. Then, with elaborate irony, he reined his horse aside to give her place.
“We are going through,” said Morgaine; “and from now on I do not trust we will be able to rest for more than a few moments at any stopping. We are near Sotharrn, it seems; and we are, from Sotharrn, within reach of Abarais.”
“By tomorrow, liyo?” Vanye asked.
“By tomorrow night,” she said, “or not at all.”
CHAPTER Sixteen
The village sprawled at the left of the road, silent in the dark, beneath a forested upthrust of rock that shadowed it from Anli’s wan light: a motley gathering of stone houses, surrounded by a wall as high as a rider’s head.
The horses’ hooves rang unevenly off the walls as they rode by. There was no stirring within, no light, no opening of the shuttered windows that overtopped the wall, no sound even of livestock. The gate was shut, a white object affixed to its center.
It was the wing of a white bird, nailed there, the boards smeared blackly with the blood.
Jhirun touched the necklace that she wore and murmured something in a low voice. Vanye crossed himself fervently and scanned the shuttered windows and overshadowing crags for any sign of the folk that lived there.
“You are expected,” Kithan said, “as I warned you.”
Vanye glanced at him, and at Morgaine—met her eyes and saw the shadow there, as it had been at the bridge.