The Complete Morgaine Read Free

fingers of his right hand, his swordhand, and sweating priests and old San Romen labored with the moaning prince, giving him drafts and poultices to ease his agony while they tried to save the damaged members.
    Nhi Kandrys had not been so fortunate. His body, brows bound with the red cord to tie his soul within until the funeral, rested between death-lights upon another bench in the armory.
    Erij stifled a scream at the touch and hiss of iron, and Vanye flinched. There was a stench of burned flesh. Eventually Erij’s moans grew softer as the druggedwine had effect. Vanye lifted his head, fearing this brother dead also—some died under the cautery, of the shock, and the drugged wine together. But his half-brother yet breathed.
    And Nhi Rijan struck with all the force of his arm, and cast Vanye sprawling and dazed, his head still ringing as he crawled to resume his kneeling posture, head down at his father’s feet.
    â€œChya murderer,” his father said. “My curse, my curse on you.” And his father wept. This hurt Vanye more than the blow. He looked up and saw a look of utter revulsion. He had never known Nhi Rijan could weep.
    â€œIf I had put an hour’s thought into your begetting, bastard son, I would have gotten no sons on a Chya. Chya and Nhi are an unlucky mixing. I wish I had exercised more prudence.”
    â€œI defended myself,” Vanye protested from bruised lips. “Kandrys meant to draw blood—see—” And he showed his side, where the light practice armor was rent, and blood flowed. But his father turned his face from that.
    â€œKandrys was my eldest,” his father said, “and you were the merest night’s amusement. I have paid dearly for that night. But I took you into the house. I owed your mother that, since she had the ill luck to die bearing you. You were death to her too. I should have realized that you are cursed that way. Kandrys dead, Erij maimed—all for the likes of you, bastard son. Did you hope to be heir to Nhi if they were both dead? Was that it?”
    â€œFather,” Vanye wept, “they meant to kill me.”
    â€œNo. To put that arrogance of yours in its place—that, maybe. But not to kill you. No. You are the one who killed. You murdered. You turned edge on your brothers in practice, and Erij not even armed. The fact is that you are alive and my eldest son is not, and I would it were the other way around, Chya bastard. I should never have taken you in. Never.”
    â€œFather,” he cried, and the back of Nhi Rijan’s hand smashed the word from his mouth and left him wiping blood from his lips. Vanye bowed down again and wept.
    â€œWhat shall I do with you?” asked Rijan at last.
    â€œI do not know,” said Vanye.
    â€œA man carries his own honor. He knows.”
    Vanye looked up, sick and shaking. He could not speak in answer to that. To fall upon his own blade and die—this, his father asked of him. Love and hate were so confounded in him that he felt rent in two, and tears blinded him, making him more ashamed.
    â€œWill you use it?” asked Rijan.
    It was Nhi honor. But the Chya blood was strong in him too, and the Chya loved life too well.
    The silence weighed upon the air.
    â€œNhi cannot kill Nhi,” said Rijan at last. “You will leave us, then.”
    â€œI had no wish to kill him.”
    â€œYou are skilled. It is clear that your hand is more honest than your mouth. You struck to kill. Your brother is dead. You meant to kill both brothers, and Erij was not even armed. You can give me no other answer. You will become
ilin.
This I set on you.”
    â€œYes, sir,” said Vanye, touching brow to the floor, and there was the taste of ashes in his mouth. There was only short prospect for a masterless
ilin,
and such men often became mere bandits, and ended badly.
    â€œYou are skilled,” said his father again. “It is most likely that you will find place