The Complete Morgaine Read Online Free PDF Page A

someone freed me. I am no older; I knew nothing of the years. But things have gone to dust, else the horses and we would fare better tonight. Thee fears me—”
    It was so, it was clearly so: from a man his enemy he would have resented those words; Morgaine he feared and he was not ashamed. His heart beat painfully at each direct glance of those gray, unhuman eyes. If he did not know of a certainty that he would die, he would flee this little place and her company; but there was the storm. It howled outside with the fury of winter. He knew the mountains. Sometimes there was no break in the snow for days. Men unprotected died, turned up in spring all twisted and stiff in the melting snow, along with carcasses of horses and deer that the wolves had somehow missed.
    â€œThere is no harm in words between us,” she said. She offered him wine of her own flask. He took it hesitantly, but the night was chill, and he had alreadyshared food with her. He drank a little and gave it back. She wiped the mouth fastidiously and drank also, and stopped the flask again.
    â€œI beg thee tell me the end of my tale,” she said. “I was not able to know. What became of the men I knew? What was it I did?”
    He stared into her eyes, this most cursed of all enemies of Andur-Kursh, the traitor guide that had sent ten thousand men to die and sunk half the Middle Kingdoms into ruin. And those words would not come to him. He would easily say them of her to someone else: but in that fair and unguarded face there was something that unfolded to him, that strangled the curse in his throat.
    He found no words for her at all.
    â€œI do not think then,” she said, “that it has a pleasant ending, since thee does not want to say. But say it, Nhi Vanye.”
    â€œThere is no more to tell,” he said. “After Irien, after so great a defeat for Andur-Kursh, Hjemur took Koris, took all the lands from Alis Kaje east. You were not to be found, not after the chase the Aenorin gave you. You vanished. What allies you had left surrendered. All that followed you died. They say that there were prosperous villages and holds in south Koris in your day. There are none now. It is as desolate as these mountains. And Irien itself is cursed ground, and no one enters there, even of Hjemur’s men. There is rumor,” he added, “that the Thiye who rules now is the same that ruled then. I do not know if that is true. The Hjemur-lord has always been called Thiye Thiye’s-son. But the country people say that it is the same man, kept young a hundred years.”
    â€œIt could be done,” she said in a low and joyless voice.
    â€œThat is the end of it,” he said. “Everyone died.” And he thrust from his mind what she said of Thiye, for it occurred to him that she was living proof that it could be done, that things could be done for which he wanted no explanation. He must share this place with her: he wanted to share nothing else.
    She let him be then, asking no more questions, and he retreated to the other side of the fire and curled up again to sleep.
    The morning came, miserable and still spitting snow. But soon there began to be a break in the clouds, which cheered Vanye’s heart. He had feared one of those storms that stayed for days, that might seal him in this place with her unwelcome company, while the poor horses froze outside.
    And she cooked strips of venison over the fire for their breakfast, and offered him a little of the wine too. He cut bits from the steaming venison with his knife against his thumb, and watched even with amusement as she, more delicate, cut hers most awkwardly into bits, and dusted each piece and inspected it, and only then cooked it further and prised it off the dagger tip for eating, tiny bites and manageable.
    Then she wrapped up the rest in a square of leather that he had of his gear for the purpose.
    â€œWill you not keep some,” he asked, “or are you