Then, in the great stillness, Vanye heard the coming of distant riders. On that impulse he sprang up, flung saddle upon Siptan first: she was his first duty; and by this time Morgaine and Liell seemed to have heard, for they were coming back. Vanye pulled Siptah’s girth to its proper tension and secured it, then furiously began to saddle poor Mai. The mare would die. If they were harried much farther, the little beast would go down under him. He hurt for her: the Nhi blood in him loved horses too well to use them so, though Nhi could be cruel in other ways.
Liell flung saddle to the black himself. “I still much doubt,” he said, “that they will come to this shore.”
“I trust distance more than luck,” said Morgaine. “Do as you will, Chya Liell.”
And she swung up to Siptah’s back, having settled Changeling in its accustomed place at the saddle, and laid heels to the gray.
Vanye attempted to mount and follow after. Liell’s hand caught his arm, pulled him off balance, so that he staggered and looked at the man in outrage.
“Do not follow her,” hissed Liell. “Listen to me. She will have the soul from you before she is done, Chya. Listen to me.”
“I am ilin,” he protested. “I have no choice.”
“What is an oath?” Liell whispered urgently, air the while Siptah’s hooves grew faint upon the shingle. “She seeks the power to rain the middle lands. You do not know how great an evil you are aiding. She lies, Chya Vanye. She has lied before, to the ruin of Koris, of Baien, of the best of the clans and the death of Morij-Yla. Will you help her? Will you turn on your own? Ilin-oath says betray family, betray hearth, but not the liyo; but does it say betray your own kind? Come with me, come with me, Chya Vanye.”
For an aging man, Liell had surprising power in his hand: it numbed the blood from Vanye’s hand by its grip upon his elbow. The eyes were hard and glittering, close to him in the dark. The sound of pursuit was nearer.
“No,” Vanye cried, ripping loose, and started to mount. Pain exploded across the base of his skull. The world turned in his vision and he had momentary view of Mai’s belly passing over him as the mare bolted. She jumped him, managing to avoid him with her hooves; he scrambled up against the earthen bank, half-blind, seeking to draw his sword.
Liell was upon him then, wresting his hand from the hilt, close to overpowering him, dazed as he was; but the thought of being taken by Leth animated him to frenzy. He twisted, not even trying to defend himself, only to tear free, to reach Morgaine’s side and keep his oath for his soul’s sake. Mai was out of reach; the black was at hand. He sprang for that saddle and laid heels to him before he was even sure of the reins, gathering them up and settling low in the saddle from his precarious balance. Black legs flashed long in the dark, muscles reached and gathered, bounding obstacles, splashing over inlets of the lake, surging up rises of the shore.
The black at last had run all he chose to run, beyond the shore and far upon the trail: Vanye laid heel to him again, mer-
ciless in his fear. The animal gathered himself and plunged forward again.
Morgaine’s pale form was ahead. At last she looked around, seeming to hear him; she whipped up Siptah, and he cried out to her in despair, urging the black to further effort.
And she held back, pulling up, weapon in hand until he had come closer.
“Vanye,” she exclaimed softly as he drew alongside. “Is thee thief too? What came of Liell?”
He reached behind his head, felt a tenderness at the back of his head despite the leather coif. Dizziness assailed him, whether of the blow or of the fever, he did not know.
“Liell is no friend of yours,” he said.
“Did you kill him?”
“No,” he breathed, and was content to hang over the saddlebow a moment until his sight cleared. Then he urged the black into a gentle pace, Siptah keeping with him: no horses that had run all the distance from Ra-leth could overtake them now.