Roh looked up at him, and at the men that delayed about them. “My lord Hetharu,” Roh said, “lord Kithan will go with you, if you have use for him.”
Hetharu gave an order. The two house guards rode forward and set themselves on either side of Kithan, whose pale face was set in helpless rage.
“Vanye,” Roh said.
Vanye looked at him.
“Once again,” Roh said, “I ask you.”
“I have been dismissed,” Vanye said slowly, the words difficult to speak. “I ask fire and shelter, Chya Roh i Chya.”
“On your oath?”
“Yes,” he said. His voice trembled. He knelt down, reminding himself that this must be, that his liege’s direct order absolved him of the lie and the shame; but it was bitter to do so in the sight of both allies and enemies. He bowed himself to the earth, forehead against the trampled grass. He heard the voices, numb in the Well-cursed air, and was glad in this moment that he could not understand their words of him.
Roh did not bid him rise. Vanye sat back after a moment, staring at the ground, shame burning his face, both for the humiliation and for the lie.
“She has sent you,” Roh said, “to kill me.”
He looked up.
“I think she has made a mistake,” said Roh. “Cousin, I will give you the sheltering you ask, taking your word that you have been dismissed from your service to her. By this evening’s fire, elsewhere—a Claiming. I think you are too much Nhi to forswear yourself. But she would not understand that. There is no pity in her, Nhi Vanye.”
Vanye came to his feet, a sudden move: blades rasped loose all about him, but he kept his hand from his.
“I will go with you,” he said to Roh.
“Not at my back,” Roh said. “Not this side of the Wells. Not unsworn.” He took back the reins of the black mare, and rose into the saddle—cast a look toward the hill, where row on row of Sotharran forces had marshalled themselves, toward which the first frightened lines of human folk labored.
The lines moved with feverish speed behind: those entering that oppressive air hesitated, pushed forward by the press behind; horses shied, of those forces holding the hill, and had to be restrained.
And of a sudden a tumult arose, downtrail, beyond the curve of the mountainside. Voices shrieked, thin and distant. Animals bawled in panic.
Roh reined about toward that sound, the least suspicion of something amiss crossing his face as he gazed toward that curving of the hill: the shouting continued, and somewhere high atop the mountain a horn blew, echoing.
Vanye stood still, in his heart a wild, sudden hope—the thing that Roh likewise suspected: he knew it, he knew, and suddenly in the depth of him he cursed in anguish for what Morgaine had done to him, casting him into this, face to face with Roh.
Vanye whirled, sprang for his horse and ripped the reins from Jhirun’s offering hand as the qujal closed on him; a rake of his spurs shied the gelding up, buying him time to draw. A pike-thrust hit his mailed side, half-throwing him; he hung on with his knees, and the sweep of his sword sent the pikeman screaming backward, that man and another and another.
“No!” Roh’s voice shouted thinly in his roaring ears; he found himself in ground free of enemies, a breathing space. He backed the gelding, amazed to see part of the force break away: Roh, and his own guard, and all of fifty of the Ohtija, plunging toward the hill, and the Sotharra, and the screaming hordes of men that surged toward the Wells, lines confounded by panicked beasts that scattered, laboring carts, and a horde that pressed them behind. The Sotharra ranks bowed, began to break. Into that chaos Roh and his companions rode.
And the Ohtija that remained surged forward. Vanye spurred into the impact, wove under one pike-thrust, and suddenly saw a man he had not struck topple from the saddle with blood starting from his face. A second fell, and another to his blade; and a second time the Ohtija, facing more than a peasant rabble, fell back in confusion. Air rushed; Vanye blinked, dazed, saw a stone take another of the Ohtija—the house guard that had betrayed Kithan.