Exile's Gate Read Free Page B

break.

    The black-maned wolf moved
closer, jaws agape, a distraction. It was always the notch-eared one
that darted to the flank. He had seen this before, and knew her tricks.
He spun and swung the chain, and Notch-ear dodged: Black-mane then, and
the gray one—he gave them names. He taunted them with a voice that
rasped like the ravens'. "Here, bitch, try again. Try closer—"

    They came in twos and
threes this time. He turned with his back against the pole, his right
foot failing him, swollen in the boot and the chain, a lifeless thing
at the end of his leg. It was that which the wolf caught, driving in
with serpent-quickness, and he swung the chain at it, jabbed down onto
its shoulders with the jagged bone and felt it snap on tough hide and
bone. Jaws closed on his armor at knee and elbow, teeth snapping in
front of his face and a wolf dodging with a yelp as he swung the chain
in the limited range he had. The pack closed about him in a snarling
maelstrom, out of which the flap of wings, the thunder of riders—he saw
them in a whirling confusion, the pale horses, the gleam of metal, the
pale banner of hair a-flutter in the wind—

    —back, then, to that
moment. The wolves shied away, their grip leaving him, all but the gray
bitch, and a sword flashed, the rider of the white horse leaning from
the saddle to strike—

    He cried out then, falling
against the post, which did not belong on that riverbank. It began
again. He fell, and the riders, afoot, walking their horses across the
debris of bones, came to take him to torment. That was the worst
cruelty, that he was lost in a dream wherein the end began it all again.

     

    The man fought him. Well he
might, though there was little strength left in him. "Have care!"
Morgaine cried as the chain swung, but Vanye jerked his head out of the
way, guarded himself against a knee-thrust, and with the press of his
weight and a twist at the arm, disarmed the wild-haired, armored man of
the chain he wielded. It did not end the fight, but he had the man,
then, beyond any dispute, gripped in both arms and carried struggling
to the ground.

    "Be still," he said in his own language, for the man was human. "Be still. We are not your enemies."

    That did no good. "We are not here to harm you," Morgaine said in the qhalur tongue. And in the human: "Hold him still."

    Vanye saw what she was
about and edged further from the post, dragging the struggling man with
him and drawing the ankle chain taut between the man and the post, as
Morgaine took that small black weapon of hers and burned it. A smell of
heated metal went up. One link reddened and bent under the pull, and
the man writhed and fought his hold, but Vanye freed a hand and laid it
on his cheek, shielding his vision from what a man of simple beliefs
might not want to see, while iron sparked and sputtered and parted.

    "There, man, there. You are free of that."

    "Tie him," Morgaine said, being the crueler and the more practical of them both.

    "I must," Vanye said, and
patted the man's face and shared a look with him, one glance into blue
and desperate eyes that sought—perhaps—some hope of him, before he took
the man in both his arms, wrestled him over face down and sat on him
till he could work loose one of the leather thongs from his belt and
tie his hands behind him.

    After that, the man seemed
sane, for he stopped fighting and lay inert, only turning his face out
of the unwholesome dirt, his cheek against the ground, his eyes open
and staring elsewhere as if nothing that proceeded could interest him
further.

    He was thin, beneath the
armor. There was filth all about, a stench of death and human waste and
wolf. Vanye got up and brushed himself off, and bent to drag the man up
to his feet with him.

    The man kicked, a futile
effort, easily turned. Vanye shrugged it off and hauled him up to his
feet with a shake at the scruff, grabbed him up in a tight embrace from
behind and held him there against his struggles. "Enough," he