Ki’s skin was cold beneath his hands as he eased her down from Sigurd’s back. ‘Ki?’ he asked of her staring eyes, but they focused on something past him. She was on her feet and standing, but when he took away his support, her body slowly folded. Catching her, he moved her away from the horses and eased her to the ground.
Vandien shook his head over her as he chafed her icy hands and feet and glanced once more to where the road unwound like a dark ribbon. He didn’t want Hollyika to ride past his hiding place in the dark. He flattered himself that he had chosen this grove of trees well. Their silvery trunks camouflaged the grey hides of the team. They were safe here, for the moment.
He crouched again over Ki, proffering the loose robe he had packed from the wagon for her. ‘Come on. Let’s get you into this and warm you up.’ She still made no reply. Her open eyes stared past him at the ever dark sky. He sighed, thinking of the stiff blow Hollyika had dealt her. Was she witless, or too angry to speak? But her body was limp beneath his touch, and she didn’t resist him as he bundled her into the robe; he found it harder to put hose and soft low boots onto feet that were equally limp. Dressed, she appeared a little more like the Ki he knew, though the looseness of the robe exaggerated her emaciated condition.
‘How about some food?’ No answer. He went to the food sack anyway, taking out dried fruit and hard traveler’s bread. She didn’t move when he put it before her, but when in exasperation he waved it under her nose, she turned away with an exclamation of disgust.
‘Well, at least you’ve remembered how to talk,’ he commented sourly. He moved closer to her. ‘How’s your head?’
‘Why did you bring me here?’ she demanded, low and savage.
‘I’m taking you back to the Gate. To our own world, where we belong, so that Jace and Chess can come back where they belong.’
‘This is my world now.’ Leashed fury in her voice. ‘This is where I belong. I have a task to do here, a creation to unfold. In this world, I can make my existence mean something. I have no desire to go back.’
‘I don’t suppose you do, right now.’ Vandien kept his voice reasonable. ‘You are not yourself at present; you are still under the Limbreth’s sway. After a time without their water, and some proper food in you, you’ll come back to your senses.’
‘You mean I’ll sink back to your level.’ Ki sat up, running skeletal hands through her disheveled hair. She hissed out a breath. ‘Look at me. Already you’ve brought me back to anger, one of the basest emotions of the Human race. I had managed to free myself of that, Vandien, before you came back. Why did you have to spoil it all? Can’t you see? You had your place in my life, and filled it sweetly. I am grateful to you for all that you were to me and all that we shared. But that time is past, and I have moved beyond you. Do not take it hard; I appreciate you now as I never did before. I have looked back at every memory I have of you, of every moment we have ever shared, and from each I have taken the gold and left the dross behind. I have purified your touch on my life. Now you would come back to soil it all again. I beg you not to. Leave me and go on, let me return to my work, and keep of you what was good.’
Vandien had remained silent before her impassioned plea. Now he forced his clenched hands to open. He rose and stepped away to give her space. A practical voice inside him assured him that it was the Limbreth speaking, not Ki. She had been poisoned by their water, drugged by their visions. But that small demon of insecurity that sleeps in the best-loved of men sent forth a poisoned dart. She was done with him. She had taken of him all he had to offer her, and now she would carry it away with her. What had he to offer that could compete with the vision of the Limbreths? He coughed out a sigh and walked to the horses, to annoy them by thoroughly inspecting their hooves. He chewed his bitter choices. He could bind her like an animal and keep her at his side. He would be ashamed to treat a dog so. He could plead with her to come with him. He could let her go.
‘You have my love, Vandien,’ she said to his hunched shoulders. ‘I leave it with you. You don’t need me always by your side to possess that. We have cared for one another. But I am not a vine, to twist my life and twine about a strong column like yourself. Rather we have been as two strong trees that grew side by side, but must eventually lean apart from one another. You would not have me in your shade, would you, stunted and misshapen? Let me go.’
‘I am not holding you.’ The words were ripped slowly out of him, like torn pieces of flesh. He crossed his arms on his chest and held himself tightly, but there was no comfort in that solitary hug. The warm rich scents of the forest flowered up around him as it breathed out as peacefully as a sleeping child. The horses cropped the short grasses growing from the moss in contentment. No wind disturbed a single leaf; peace walked the night in velvet slippers. Vandien felt himself as a gaping red wound in the tranquil night as he watched Ki rise with difficulty. She was so painfully thin, so weakened by her fast. It was the water, he told himself vainly, the enchantment of the Limbreths that had brought them to this parting. But he could not wholly believe it. They had but brought Ki to an earlier realization of a truth he had always secretly known, that he needed her more than she needed him; that there were things waiting for one so capable and strong that could not be shared by a reckless vagabond like himself. In a thousand nightmares he had stood by the road calling after her as her wagon dwindled out of sight. Now she was going, her wagon lost to them both, and he did not call. She walked as hesitantly as a new-born fawn, picking her steps with caution born of weakness. Her robe was dark, and so was her hair; in no time the road swallowed her from sight. He stepped back into the sheltering trees, suddenly aware that his traitorous feet had nearly followed her. Let her go, he told himself sternly. Within the copse, he sank down, letting his dark head rest on his knees. He wondered what he would do next.
How long he sat he couldn’t guess. He heard hoofbeats coming at an easy lope down the black road. He would have to go out of the copse and call to her, or she would pass him by in the dark. Not that it mattered much. Belatedly he recalled that he had all the food, and to Hollyika that would matter. He rose grudgingly, but before he could step out into the open, the greys had whinnied to Black and he had answered. Vandien heard the sound of his hooves change as he slowed and turned off the hard road onto firm turf.
Horse and rider looked bad and smelled worse. Vandien had heard rumors of the Brurjan battle musk, but had never smelled it before. He judged it a weapon at least as potent as her sword. He stepped forward to catch the reins of the spent horse, but he went jigging out of his reach; Hollyika pulled the horse’s head sharply away.
‘You’re a damn fool!’ she growled at him.
‘I’m glad to see you, too.’
She didn’t even pause. ‘You don’t muffle your horses’ muzzles; how did you know it would be me coming along? Then you step up in front of a warhorse fresh from battle, waving your hands like a target; and lastly, you seem to have dropped this on your way.’
‘This’ proved to be Ki, slung casually behind the Brurjan on her horse, and almost invisible behind her bulk.
‘What the hell?’ Vandien exclaimed in dismay. He stepped again to take her from the horse, remembered in time, and jumped back from the feint of Black’s hooves.
‘Quit spooking him!’ growled the Brurjan and leaped from the saddle like a cat from a fence. She turned and went casually up to her horse, who stood docilely for her. She unslung Ki, dumping her to the ground unceremoniously. Vandien hastened to kneel beside her. ‘Is she hurt?’
‘Not as bad as I am.’ For the first time, he noticed the dark drip from one of her muscular forearms. A passing scythe, he decided, and rose again, anxious for both of them.
‘Let her flop.’ Hollyika read his thoughts. ‘I whacked her again, and down she went. She’ll keep. She won’t be up for a while, at any rate. Rip the sleeve off your shirt for a bandage.’ She worked her tongue around in her immense mouth, and then put her lips to her wound. Vandien watched in awe as her black tongue moved carefully down the length of the slash. Two tugs had his sleeve free of his shirt. He began to rip it into strips.
‘You don’t say much,’ Hollyika observed when she had finished licking her wound. ‘Not a “thank you, Holly, I dropped her off the pack horse and never noticed” or anything.’
‘I didn’t drop her off the pack horse.’ Vandien stepped up to take her arm in his hands. He split one end of his long strip to knot it firmly but not too tightly above the wound. With a gentle touch he began to wrap the strip firmly in a long spiral down her arm. She gave no sign of pain.
‘So how did you lose her?’ she pressed.
‘Are you asking me what I think you’re asking me?’ Vandien asked spitefully.
‘No. I’m asking what stupid thing you did, that’s all.’
‘She didn’t want to stay with me. She wanted to go back to the Limbreths. I let her go.’ The words were clipped, but he resisted the urge to snug the bandage tighter around the wound.
‘Stupider than I thought. I figured you had taken a nap and let her wander off. Don’t you want her, after all the trouble we’ve gone to?’
‘Yes. No. Hell, get off me! I don’t want her if she doesn’t want to be with me.’
‘Now he decides that. Wonderful. Beware of “ifs,” Human. They dilute your purpose and spoil your drive. Consider your decision with no “ifs.” You want her. You have her. Keep her after this.’
‘That’s easy for you to say. You don’t care about her. You won’t wonder if it’s right for her, good for her.’
‘I’d get more sense out of talking to Black. Look at her, fool! Does she look like the Limbreths are good for her?’
‘There are other things besides being alive and healthy,’ Vandien began in a low voice, but the Brurjan cut him off with a hoot of laughter. ‘Name one thing worth having that you can get without being alive and healthy,’ she demanded.
‘She wants to leave a mark on this world, a memorial to her passing.’
‘Sort of like a pile of horseshit in the road.’ Hollyika gave him her Brurjan snarl-grin. ‘You’re funny, Human. I’ve laughed more since I met up with you than I have in years. Come here, Black.’
The horse wheeled and came to her call. Vandien watched her in curiosity, then saw her set her mouth to his wounds, cleansing them with her tongue. ‘Taste good?’ he asked her as rudely as he could, and received another snort of laughter from her.
He knelt over Ki, seeing for the first time that the Brurjan had bound her, wrist and ankle. Perhaps subduing Ki had not been as swift and easy as she had claimed. Her parting words still cut through his mind. Letting her go once had been hard enough; why did he have to face this twice? ‘But I promised you, long ago, to never ask anything of you that you were not willing to give. If you are no longer willing to give me your companionship, how shall I force it from you? I don’t think you are doing what is best for you; but it is not my right to decide that for you.’ He reached to unfasten the rawhide thongs that bound her.
Hollyika’s short knife thudded suddenly into the turf beside him. ‘Thanks,’ he muttered, and reached for it to slice the bonds. But, ‘Hands off her, Vandien. Next knife won’t be a warning.’
‘You don’t understand, Hollyika. I don’t want her like this.’
‘Perhaps not. But I do. I caught her, I bound her, and that makes her mine. You had your chance at her. You let her go, knowing she was going back to her death. So now she’s mine, and you’ll keep your hands off her.’
Vandien’s dark eyes snapped as he pinned her with them. ‘Do you really think I’ll sit back for that?’ he asked in a cold voice.
She laughed. ‘As if it mattered what you did! Human, I told you. And I’ll only tell you once. Look at me. Do you think you could defeat me if we fight over her? I’ll tell you an old Brurjan custom. Kill your captives before you let them be rescued. If I had believed you had any chance of cutting her loose, that knife would have been in her. Now, hands off and go back to your own business.’
Vandien remained motionless, calculating. He was no match for a Brurjan, even one as weakened as Hollyika, unless he could take her by treachery. Ki was in no position to side with him against her. He glowered at Hollyika, demanding, ‘Why?’
She reached under her armor to scratch. ‘Because I want to. It doesn’t suit me that she go back to the Limbreths. Maybe I bear them hostility for finding me unworthy of their confidences and leaving me to die on the road. Maybe I think she’ll sell for a good price on the other side of the Gate. Maybe I think I owe her something. Or you. But maybe I’m doing it to spite you. Remember what I told you before, Vandien? You don’t need to know what I think or feel. Only what I do. And I do leave her tied, and I am taking her with us. Get me some food, will you? If Black hadn’t already been bled by those farmers, I’d have him again myself.’
‘The food’s in the sack. Get it yourself,’ Vandien snarled.
She strode over to pluck her knife from the turf. She loomed over him, and then with a bark of laughter gave him a cuff that sent him sprawling. He was still recovering from it as she took food from the bag. ‘Vandien,’ she called over her shoulder in an affable voice, ‘you may yet be worth something. At least you growl well, even when you know you’re beaten. Want anything to eat?’
‘I’m still chewing my pride, thank you,’ he muttered as he rose to dust tendrils of moss from his clothes.
‘It’s too late for you to eat anyway,’ Hollyika observed calmly. ‘Time for us to be riding on. I’m loading her back onto the nasty grey. If we meet more farmers, I don’t want her hampering me. You’ll still lead her horse, but don’t get any stupid ideas.’
‘Have I ever had any other kind?’ Vandien asked bitterly, and moved to help load Ki. She was too light in his arms. He placed her as comfortably as he could, but she still looked as fragile as the flower he had stepped on. As he secured her in place, the rain began. No warning patter preceded it; it came down like a curtain, chill, soaking, relentless.
In the time it took him to get to Sigmund’s back the horse was already drenched. He didn’t want to move out of the grove’s shelter, but Vandien pressed him on. Hollyika and Black were a sable shadow in front of him. The road was theirs again, empty of pursuit for as far as Vandien could see in the driving rain.
The spattering drops drowned all other sound. His hair soaked to his scalp, and then rivulets of water began to trickle down his face. His moustache was like a damp rag pressed to his mouth. He shook his head to clear the tickling drops, but the water clung like oil. He resigned himself to it and fixed his eyes on Hollyika’s back as she plodded along, past meadows and marsh and field. At least she looked as uncomfortable as he felt. Wherever her fur was exposed, it was soaked into dripping points. Her sodden crest flopped to one side, ruining her warlike appearance.
‘Vandien!’ The long wailing cry cut through the rain noise and reached him. Vandien in his turn called forward to Hollyika and reined in his mount. Sigmund was glad of the rest. The road, once so fair and hard, was now softening again into a sucking muck that gripped hooves when it did not slip beneath them. Vandien was shivering, rain running down his bare arm on one side and soaking his sleeve on the other. He could not remember a more miserable night.
‘Ki’s awake,’ he told the Brurjan as her black horse picked its cautious way back to him. ‘With your most gracious permission, I’ll cut the bonds on her ankles so she can ride upright.’
‘No.’ Hollyika’s voice was flat. ‘I know of what I speak. She’d find a way to turn that beast and set heels to it. It’s her horse, after all, and used to taking the commands of her voice. No, she rides well enough the way she is.’
A slow anger began to burn inside Vandien as he looked into her grim face. He glanced again to the rain dripping from Ki’s lank mop of hair. ‘Look at her,’ he said flatly, ‘You’ll kill her. Who knows when she last ate?’
‘No. She’s tougher than she looks. Even I know that, as short a time as I have known her. She last ate before I met her on the riverbank; I would wager on that. And she has drunk only the Limbreth water since then. But don’t worry about that. Romni can go forever on a sip of water and a gnawed bone – I should know, I’ve rousted enough of them. She’ll be fine. You think you are trying to aid a friend, but you’re only dancing to the Limbreth’s tune. She is theirs. They have all her thoughts; she doesn’t care for her own well-being or comfort. So we won’t either. Let her ride belly down; it’s the least bother to us.’
‘Listen to me!’ Ki gasped out the words, spitting aside strands of hair. She was panting with the effort of speaking while face down across Sigurd’s back. ‘I have words for you.’
‘Say them,’ Hollyika ordered tersely, and silenced Vandien with a glare.
‘The Limbreths speak to me, and through me to you. They bid me make their will known to you, unenlightened as you are.’ Ki paused, and Hollyika rolled her eyes at the dramatic wording. But Vandien leaned closer, brows knit, for the voice that spoke was strangely unlike Ki’s, as if someone else did speak through her mouth. Though, he reflected quickly, he had not often spoken to her while she was flung over a horse like a sack of grain.
‘The Limbreths have decided to grant you their mercy. It grieves them, for you both turn aside from the graces and knowledge they offer, and from a chance to make more of your lives than merely a time to eat, rut, and sleep.’
‘They left out fighting.’ Hollyika grinned over to Vandien.
Ki drew breath. ‘You may go. They will make it very easy for you to regain the Gate. If you set me free to return to them and to finish the task we have begun. They do not desire to hamper you in pursuing your petty goals; all they ask is the return of their consecrated servant, that she may finish the task she set herself.’
‘And if we don’t? What if one of our petty goals is taking her back to the Gate with us?’
‘Then you will fail. Do you think the road is bad now? Defy them, and see what it becomes. The folk of this land will rise up against you, in numbers you cannot ignore, and the road will forget the way to the Gate and lead you only to your destruction. And mine also. So you see, you cannot save me for whatever end you had in mind. Better to release me now, and go on to the Gate unmolested, than to stubbornly follow a path that leads to all our deaths.’
Hollyika snorted merrily. ‘Lovely logic. We should set you free and go our way, so we all get what we want. The only thing they do not mention is that you are to run back to your own death at their hands. So, it’s all one to us, whether you die doing the Limbreth’s bidding, or by being spitted on a farmer’s staff. Vandien. Pass me the waterskin.’
He unlooped it from where it was strapped on Sigurd’s back. Hollyika took it from him, and slid from her horse, her boots sinking deep in the muck. ‘Drink or drown,’ she told Ki. As Vandien opened his mouth to protest, Hollyika stared him down with baleful eyes. ‘If you get off that horse, I’ll break her neck. This is no worse than that sludge you forced down me. Where was your sensitivity and mercy then? Look the other way, if you must.’
But he couldn’t. The Brurjan moved close to Ki, trapped her head at an awkward angle in the bend of her arm, and forced the neck of the waterskin between her teeth. She pinched Ki’s nose shut and squeezed the waterskin. Ki gasped and spluttered as best she could, choking, and then gulping the water to clear the way for air to her lungs. But another spurt of water followed before air, and most of it went down. Hollyika released her. Ki choked and gasped and sneezed violently. ‘Too bad we can’t get food into her the same way,’ Hollyika observed calmly. ‘It might bring her to her own senses again. But we’ve no time to stop, and no dry wood or pot for you to use to brew up another of your disgusting messes. The longer we stand here, the more time they’ll have to carry out their threats. Let’s be on.’
‘The Gate can’t be far,’ Vandien agreed wretchedly as he eyed Ki. Her eyes had sagged shut and the rain dripped from her face. ‘I remember that I ran from the Gate all the way to the bridge on foot. We’ve come a good gallop from the bridge already. I think the Limbreths know we are nearly out of their reach, and are trying to bluff us out of our captive.’
‘Come on.’ Hollyika remounted. The black slogged ahead of them and Sigmund fell in behind him, and a tug on the lead rope brought Sigurd at their heels. Vandien tried to sit so as to make no shift of weight that would throw the great horse off stride in the dangerously mucky footing. The rain streamed down endlessly upon them from a blacked sky and the road dwindled to a trail of mud between trees. In vain Vandien looked for some sign of the fragrant flowering trees that had arched his path when first he came through the Gate. All was blackness ahead, no sign of the Gate’s red mouth. The trees that hedged the road now were black leafless things with long raking thorns jutting from their reaching branches. The path was narrower than Vandien remembered, and not well trodden. Roots humped up in the middle of it to make the weary horses stumble. Twice swift running streams crossed their path. They had cut deep gouges in the trail, so that the big horses lurched down into them, and then awkwardly lunged up again, their wide hooves slipping and squelching in the bad footing. On they rode, and on. The trail became a track, and dwindled to less than that. Soon the horses were breaking through vines that twined across their path from tree to tree. Vandien was damned if he knew what signs Hollyika was following; there were not even any stars to give them a heading. They could be endlessly circling. But the black horse ahead of him kept plodding on, and he kept the greys in its tracks. He could think of nothing better to do, even though he knew they should have reached the Gate long ago.
Slower and slower they plodded. Sigurd bunched up on Sigmund’s heels, and Vandien became aware of Ki’s voice speaking. How long she had been talking he didn’t know, but she was speaking to him. Her tone was calm and reasonable, her words weighted and barbed.
‘… Dragged me from one of your impulses to another. Never content to let me live my own life in my own way, were you? In the Pass of the Sisters, you turned death aside from me, even though I was ready to accept and even welcome that end. But no, all-seeing Vandien decided it wasn’t right for me then. You moved in on me, upsetting my life and routine, making me more than ever a stranger among my own people. You with your loud and rowdy ways, never aware of when a man should be silent or when gravity is more seemly than a callous laugh. How often have your foolish ideas slowed me when I had a goal to hasten to? You with your fine words of companionship and sharing; do you call this respect for one another’s wishes? The only reason you want me is so that there will be someone to play mother to the child you still are. Someone to be responsible for your silliness, to look to the morrow and make your decisions for you. There is no caring in that.’
Vandien bowed to her words and to the rain. They fell on him, eroding him. The greys plodded ever slower; he could not keep his eyes from darting back to her. Every word fell coldly and clearly in his ears, demoralizing as the rain. The pain was almost hypnotic. Much of what she said he could not deny. He absorbed the abuse numbly.
‘You damn fool! Do I have to put a lead on your horse too, so we all go like a line of blind beggars?’ Hollyika pushed her horse into his, and gave him a quick shot to the ribs that was neither gentle nor jesting. ‘Wake up! I’m as weary as you, but we have to push on. I looked back and couldn’t even see you in this muck. Do you want to get lost?’
‘Aren’t we already?’ Vandien asked dully. Hollyika didn’t answer. She had become aware of Ki’s low monologue and was listening in fascination. ‘She’s come back to herself a bit,’ she said as Ki paused for breath. ‘Seems a bit sharper and nastier than what a Limbreth would inspire her to say. A bit more personal, too. When you’re in their hands, personal memories blur to a mist. But she seems to recollect your times together well enough. Whew! What a bastard you’ve been to her; wonder why she kept you. Listen, you!’ This last was to Ki in a grim voice. ‘Shut your mouth for a minute and listen to me. You hoped to get him to slip you loose, didn’t you? A few kicks in the pride like that, and most men would let go. But I don’t have any pride for you to trade on, and I’m the one who holds you. Pass that on to your Limbreths. And pass them this, too. I’ve thought things out rather thoroughly, riding through this crud. Here’s the offer. They let us find the Gate, then we let you go. But if we don’t find it damn quick, I’m going to start taking blood from you. I’m hungry, and my control slips when I’m hungry – and from you, too, if you try to interfere. Get your hand off that rapier hilt. I’ll take the lead rope now. If you don’t pay better attention, the only thing you’ll loose is yourself. Move!’
Vandien didn’t. His hand remained on the hilt where it had lightly fallen at the beginning of Hollyika’s threat. He still gripped the lead line. He turned eyes on her that were darker than the blackness around them.
‘Don’t get stupid on me now, Vandien. It’s the only way out.’
Vandien swallowed but remained silent and motionless, waiting for her to make a move. His heart hammered as he tried not to figure the odds against him. She was closer to Ki than he was. Her knife would be in her before he could move, unless he could figure a way to draw the attack to himself first.
‘Vandien.’ Ki’s voice was as hoarse as it had earlier been clear. ‘Please. Don’t. You’ll only get us both killed.’
‘And that matters to you? First sensible thing we’ve heard out of you. A little more water might do you good, if we had the time. But we don’t. And you, with the rain running into your mouth and soaking into your skin. Try to use your own brain. Listen to her. Don’t be stupid.’
Vandien’s grip on the rapier had firmed. He strained his eyes, trying to be aware of every small move the Brurjan made. But the night was dark, the falling rain muffled the softer sounds of her movements, and her horse was shifting restlessly under her. As her stout forearm lashed out and cleared him from his horse, he realized belatedly that she had been guiding her horse in with small commands from her heels. He lit in briars and mud, struggling to rise and draw his weapon at the same time. But Hollyika’s horse was already between him and Ki, its eyes shining wickedly. ‘Did you tell the Limbreths yet?’ Hollyika pressed Ki, and when there was no reply, she leaned down to grip her by the hair. ‘Did you tell them?’ she snarled, yanking her head up so she saw the bared knife before her eyes.
‘Yes!’ Ki gasped. ‘I don’t need to tell them. They hear all, they know all.’
Vandien had stepped lightly as they spoke, working his way around her horse. But Hollyika swung her attention back to him, and with a curse sent her beast lunging at him. He retreated, the treacherous briars tripping him. He fell heavily onto his back, clutching his rapier before him. The horse was coming on, but Ki’s voice suddenly cried out, ‘The Gate! The Gate!’
Vandien waited for death, the rain splashing on him, his rapier a tiny sting that would only madden the horse that loomed over him. But the Brurjan had checked at Ki’s cry. She glared angrily down at Vandien, and glanced back to Ki. Ki shook her head to fling the wet hair from her face. ‘Over there!’ she cried, tossing her head in the direction.
‘I’ll be damned. They came around pretty quick.’
The Gate was visible as a red shining through the trees. The light was dim, a blackened red, but in this place of darkness it shone like a beacon. Hollyika’s teeth flashed suddenly at Vandien in a menacing smile. ‘Get up!’ she laughed at him. ‘We’re getting out of here.’
‘What about me?’ Ki gasped. ‘Let me go. At least, let me sit up.’
Hollyika appraised her silently as the rain fell all around them. ‘Let her up,’ she grunted at last to Vandien.
He scrabbled to his feet, still keeping an eye on the black horse, and moved to Ki. Sheathing his rapier, he drew his belt knife and cut the bonds at her ankles. He eased her down onto her feet, holding her upright until she could take her own weight. She gripped the torn shoulder of his shirt to keep her balance.
‘Water?’ he asked her softly.
She shook her head slightly. Then she sighed and nodded regretfully. ‘The rain is only enough to tease. My throat is so dry I’d drink anything. All my ribs feel cracked.’
‘Bruised is all, more likely.’ He grabbed the waterskin for her and unstoppered it. Hollyika sat on her horse sullenly, watching Ki sip, and then take a mouthful. She pushed the skin back abruptly into Vandien’s hands. ‘Tastes like swamp muck,’ she complained, but her voice was stronger.
Vandien opened his mouth to speak, but Hollyika cut in. ‘Put her back on the horse.’ She had already taken Sigurd’s lead line and was toying with the end of it. Vandien boosted Ki up, but she had to scramble for her own seat among the bags strapped to the big grey. Ki gave a nod when all was settled, and Vandien moved to Sigmund.
‘I think Ki is feeling …’
‘Oh, shut up!’ Hollyika snapped. ‘What you think and what she feels have no bearing on anything. The Gate is there. Follow me.’
It proved to be farther off than expected. Or perhaps, Vandien mused to himself, it is retreating before us as we go. The fancy didn’t please him. They followed the light like a kitten after a string. Was the Limbreth toying with them to gain time to muster a large force of peasants? He had no inkling of just how far the powers of the Limbreth reached. Had they, as Hollyika suspected, sent the rain that drenched them, in the hopes of discouraging them into obedience? The road had certainly fallen to their will, and the farmers. He crouched low over Sigmund’s neck, trying to keep clear of the low branches that threatened to sweep him off. They followed no path at all now. Hollyika led them in and out of thickets; the horses stumbled over roots and pushed through low brush. The red light grew ever larger, but was always slashed by tree trunks and branches. Vandien stared ahead at it, until he saw it even when he blinked.