Free Exile's Gate by C. J. Cherryh

easy way this
man and this qhalur woman spoke together, argued, shrugged and
gestured—everything about them being the way of two comrades in the
field, except the little frowns, or the small gestures that said male
and female—

    As if that could be. As if a human man could willingly go to a qhal—

    That a qhal could laugh and
trade barbs with her servant, and that a qhalur woman sat here in the
woods, secret from Gault and all his doings—a qhalur witch with one
human servant and a power which could burn iron—this was a matter that
ranged far beyond the things that Chei wanted to think about.

    It was only certain that
they meant him to go with them; and for the moment that meant he had
hope of evading Gault's patrols and a return to that hilltop. That was
worth the lady and the bowing of his head, and
even—more dangerously—the least small wondering if there was not
another kind of qhal, and if the bargain this qhalur lady offered might
be real—or if her human servant might wish to be his friend.

    The most perilous thing,
the most dangerous thing, was to give way to that manner of thinking
and even once, even a moment—think that the qhal might take him on the
same terms as her servant, or that in her—in the slender person of this
qhalur woman—might be safety without compromise, safety such as he
experienced now—even power such as a Man could have. If a man could
find a qhal-lord so free with her servants—was a man not a fool to
refuse to shelter in that shadow, when he had come to the point he
would not have lived, otherwise? Was there shame in that?

    He did not want to think of
that overmuch either. The comfort he was in was sufficient for the day,
sufficient for many days. He should turn onto his face and avoid
burning his skin. That was the most onerous decision he needed make.

    In a little while he moved to the shade and was content to lie still,
wrapped in his blanket, his head pillowed on his arm. He slept, and
waked to find the smell of cooking on the breeze, at which he wept, a
foolish leaking of tears from his eyes and a desire to gather his
courage and walk up the hill to them and sit down at their fire and be
welcomed there—but he lay there weeping instead, and shaking with fear
of trying that, fear that there would be no welcome for him, and that
they would only tie him again and his aching shoulders could not bear
the pain of another night like the last.

    And he did not know why he
should weep and shiver like a fool over the smell of cakes on the fire,
except he was still alive; and others were not, his brother was not,
which thoughts ranged back to the hill and the noise of wolves feeding
in the dark—a safe sound, a sound with nothing at all of grief in it,
because life shrank to the night, the moment, the instant ... in which
the wolves were fed and he was still alive.

    That was the safe thing to
remember. That was a cold time, a numb, down-to-the-rock time, when a
man learned that only life was valuable, and only his own life was
truly valuable. His comrades kept the wolves from him. That was all.
They were there to talk to and fill the silence while they were alive,
but a man only wanted to be alive a little longer at the last; and if a
friend was the price of that, then a man learned he would pay that,
would pay the wolf-price with his dearest friend or with his own
brother. That was the safe thing to remember . . . when the smell of
bread and the sound of voices waked something so painful, so terribly
painful it might shatter him and make him a man again.

    So quickly then, the aching
knot untied itself, and the tears dried in the wind, and he lay
smelling that cooking and thinking that he would sell his soul for a
morsel of fresh bread and a little of human laughter. There was so
little of it left to sell, so very little of what he had been. He was
damned as the qhal and as this man who served her, and if they would
take another soul for a little ease and a little food and