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have had a knife," Morgaine raged at him. "He might have had any sort of weapon! Thee did not know!"

    He thought the same, now it
was done; more, he thought of the hoof-strike that had missed his head,
and his knees went to water. The big gray had shifted balance in
mid-attack and all but fallen trying to miss him; that was what had
saved them.

    At his feet the prisoner
moaned and moved, a half-conscious stir of his limbs. Vanye set his
foot in the man's back when he tried to get an arm under him and
pressed him flat, not gently.

    "He is not altogether lame," Morgaine observed dryly, then, having recovered her humor.

    "No," Vanye said, still
hard-breathing. The deserved reproof of his mercy stung more than the
bruise did. "Nor in any wise grateful."

     

    Chapter Two

     

     

    Dawn light grew in the
clearing, and Vanye probed the ashes of their fire with a bit of
kindling, as he had fed it from time to time in the hours of his watch.
Yellow threads of fire climbed and sparked in the threads of inner bark
of something very like willow. He added a few other twigs, then
arranged more substantial pieces, deliberate in his leisure. It was a
rare moment in which nothing pressed them, in which he knew that they
were not riding on, and all he needed think on was the fire, the
mystery that was always homelike, no matter what the sky over him, or
the number of moons in it. The horses grazed in the clearing on the
riverside, where the twisted trees let in enough light for
grass—faithful sentries both, dapple gray Siptah wise to war and
ambushes, Arrhan forest-wise and sensible. Something might escape human
ears, but the horses would give alarm—and they found nothing amiss in
this morning. Catastrophe had attempted them in the night—and failed.

    On the other side of the
fire, the glow falling on slender hand and silver hair, Morgaine slept
on, which small vision he cherished in that same quiet way as he did
the fire and the dimly rising sun.

    "Sleep," he whispered when
she stirred. Sometimes, in such rare leisure, she would yield him the
body-warmed blankets, so he might sleep a little while she made
breakfast—or he yielded them to her, whichever of them had sat the
watch into dawn.

    She half-opened her eyes
and lifted her head, nose above the blankets. "Thee can sleep," she
said, in the Kurshin tongue, as he had spoken—but it was an older
accent, forgotten by the time he was born. It was a habit she had when
she spoke to him alone, or when she was muddled with sleep.

    "I am full awake," he said,
which was a lie: he felt the long hours of his watch in a slight
prickling in his eyes, his bruised shoulder ached, and the blankets
were tempting shelter from the morning chill. But he saved her from
hardship when he could—so often that it became a contest between them,
of frowns and maneuverings, each favoring the other in a perpetual
rivalry which tilted one way or the other according to the day and the
need.

    "Sleep," he said now.
Morgaine sank back and covered her head; and he smiled with a certain
satisfaction as he delved into their saddlebags and brought out a pan
for mixing and cooking.

    The prisoner too, lying
prone in his cloak, showed signs of life, rolling onto his side. Vanye
reckoned what his most pressing need likely was, and reckoned that it
could wait a time: shepherding an escape-prone madman out to the woods
meant waking Morgaine to put her on guard; or letting their breakfast
go cold—neither of which he felt inclined to do, considering the
prisoner was healthy enough to have sprinted for the horses last night,
and considering he had won a stiff arm for his last attempted kindness.

    Morgaine bestirred herself
as the smell of cakes and bacon wafted into the air—enough to draw the
hungry for leagues about, Vanye reckoned—the most of them bent on
banditry, if what they had seen was any guide.

    And another glance toward
the prisoner showed him lying on his side, staring in their direction
with such