by Diane Wilson
Excitement was springing up within me. I was still with Bayan. I had Bator back. I had dinner lying warm on the outside of my belly, and it would be inside later. And nine was a lucky number. How hard could it be to find my swift horse and return home, triumphant?
I laid my free hand on the pocket holding the flying horse figurine that had started this adventure. I began to believe that my luck had changed. That the good luck brought by the ornament was outweighing the bad luck I carried in my leg. And on that cold spring morning, far away from my home, surrounded by strangers who cared not for me, I sighed happily.
14
The Luck That Lurks upon the Steppe
With the order to ride, a thousand hooves stamped the frozen ground. Bator had stopped squirming. I imagined he slept, hoped he wasn’t gnawing the suslik. Wrinkling my lip, I thought about bouncing along the whole day with blood and guts squishing inside my del.
The morning’s pace was not as fast as before. I guessed the commander had wanted to put a safe distance between his newly captive soldiers and their ail. But he had no need to worry about me. My heart already skipped ahead of the horses.
Now, you will ask me, didn’t I miss my father? And I answer honestly: yes. But our ties had begun to loosen on the night he gave me the silver earrings—the price that would send me from our ger. It was right that I should leave. And the winged gold ornament had shown me the way.
Throughout the day the scowling commander galloped back and forth, scrutinizing his groups of soldiers. Riding in the arban just ahead of the extra horses, I was able to look over my shoulder frequently to check on Bayan. To my eyes she traveled easily, neck stretched level in an easy, swaying trot. Some of the other horses, ones ridden especially hard the previous day, moved more slowly, and the soldiers riding at the back had to beat them with sticks to push them up with the herd. My heart cried out when I saw one old liver-colored gelding, nostrils fluttering, finally hunch under the blows of the sticks and refuse to go on. With loud curses, the soldiers passed around him, closed up the caravan, and left the gelding to drift alone.
The odd thing about the days I rode as a soldier was the steppe. Always I had known the grasses to quiver with wildlife, but that spring they stood still, eerily empty. Each afternoon, the commander sent out hunting parties to bring back game, but time and again they returned empty-handed, shrugging their shoulders and muttering about bad fortune. The hungry soldiers began to grumble. When the dried meats and powdered mare’s milk they carried were gone, they took knives and—to my horror—slashed the necks of the very horses they were riding! I had to turn my head from the sight of their greedy lips sucking the oozing blood. With the wipe of a sleeve across a satisfied mouth and a grimy hand pressed briefly against the wound, a soldier would coolly pull himself back into the saddle and kick his meal and his mount forward.
One gray morning we spotted a herd of saiga scattered across a far hillside, and a cheer rippled among the men. The commander quickly held the arbans noiseless behind his upraised arm while a hunting party sneaked up on the herd. Suddenly, without letting fly a single arrow, they turned and galloped back. Ashen-faced, the hunters kept looking over their shoulders and nervously flicking their fingers toward the earth and sky. When we moved on, I saw why.
The herd of saiga we had spotted was actually a herd of long-dead carcasses, the hollow remains of a thousand creatures that had starved to death in the past winter. No one spoke a word as we steered our horses in a wide arc around the withered bodies, only a few of which had been gnawed upon by predators. Certain that the bad luck of the dead, so widespread here, would pounce at any moment, I gripped the gold ornament within my pocket until my own nails drew blood from my palm. The soldiers that yet had mare’s milk flung drops into the sky and upon the earth.
The instant the last arban cleared the silent herd the commander gave the order to gallop. And gallop we did. Thumping our horses’ sides with our heels, we raced in a frenzy to gain the next hill. And the next and the next. With fear birthing confusion, the arbans frayed, jumbling one into the other. Even some of the spare horses struck out on their own, pushing past the ones carrying riders. You can imagine my surprise when Bayan’s white nose pulled alongside my knee. Ears pinned, eyes blackened, the mare hurtled past. Her hooves ripped the soil as she caught the rider ahead of me, steadily bested him, then targeted the next horse and rider. Heads turned to watch, and pride, swirling with wonder, rose within me. Just as Bayan’s white body began bumping with those of the lead horses, the commander called us to a halt. Jerking his horse’s mouth, he trotted up and down, shoving his soldiers back into their proper arbans and ordering that the spare horses be gathered as well. When Bayan was trotted past me, I could see that her sides were heaving and that her nostrils flared red. But I swear to Tengri that at that moment she tipped her head and winked.
So many questions in my head then! Could Bayan really race? She had been challenging the front-runners, hadn’t she? But I thought she was too old. And, if no longer lame, at least not sound enough to gallop a festival race that pounded a horse’s legs half the morning prior to reaching the finish line.
Before my mind stopped spinning and even before the mounts stopped blowing, the commander ordered us all into a strong trot. The tired horses leaned into their work less enthusiastically now, but their riders, including myself, urged them forward with hands and heels. We were so itchy to escape this lifeless, eerie spot on the steppe into which we had fallen that we rode well into the night and arose in the still-dark to hurry on.
The light that finally touched the empty grasses that next morning came from a pale sun veiled by a cold haze. With unexplained suddenness, a bone-dry wind kicked up, gusting so hard that the horses had to bend their heads and push into it with their shoulders. Thick manes and tails whipped crazily. Dels flapped; hats blew off. My eyes were tearing so badly that I yanked my father’s big hat low over my brow, preferring to squint through its fringe of wolf hairs. The blustery cold pierced even the fleece-lined del of my stepbrother, and I was grateful for Bator’s lumpy warmth against my stomach.
Midday—with the wicked wind yet blowing furiously—we came upon a shallow pond. The commander called for a halt that the horses might drink and rest. Usually the soldiers and I dismounted to stretch our legs and rest as well, but this day we remained huddled in our saddles, too numb to move. I fed out the reins so that the horse I was riding, a mealy-colored mare with faint brown stripes on her legs, could lower her head to the water. Pushed by the strong wind, crescents of white scooted across the surface, splashing waves upon the horses’ hooves. The mealy mare snorted suddenly and jumped sideways, nearly dumping me. Looking at the spot where she had just been standing, I saw a shimmering silver and black fish flopping upon the muddy bank. A strong murmur, like one of the waves, was rolling among the other riders and, when I lifted my head, I saw that all along the pond’s edge, the wind was lifting the very fish from the water and tossing them upon the bank. Silver bodies arched and leaped, slapping helplessly against the mud. Some flopped all the way into the blowing grasses of the steppe and disappeared from sight.
When the murmur reached my ears, I heard the words “bad luck” over and over. It was an evil sign that fish tried to swim upon the land, the men were saying. Perhaps this was not so much a bad area of the steppe as that something bad was riding among them. Soon the attention focused on the members of my ail, for we were the newest soldiers, and it was whispered that one of us carried the bad luck. My pulse raced. I hunched over, trying to sit very small and unnoticed upon the back of the mealy mare.
The commander came riding along the muddy bank, his black horse prancing and snorting against the wind and a tight rein. Irritated, the man shouted a sharp command to move on. The soldiers began clustering in their groups of ten. I likewise reined my horse toward the line, but as the commander passed me he leaned forward and glared.
“What are
you hiding?” he said, pointing at my bulging del.
Pretending not to hear him, I kicked the mare and hurried forward to join my assigned arban. But the commander surged alongside, shoving his horse’s shoulder against the mare to stop her.
“You must truly be deaf as well as crippled,” he sneered. “Do you not hear me?”
Scared sick, I answered in a small voice. “It’s my cat,” I said.
“What?” he yelled. “Did you say a cat? A cat! Koke Mongke Tengri! A cat!” He slapped his forehead in the manner of my father’s exasperation, and the shadow of a smile flitted across my face. “Koke Mongke Tengri!” he went on. “First a cripple—who becomes a girl—who hides a cat! I should never have stopped at your puny ail. What made me stop there? And why did I choose that crazy white mare that has seen too many winters?” He thrust out his jaw, squinting his yellowish eyes at me. “What is it about this one mare that a girl gathers her cat and follows it through this miserable weather? Tell me!”
I had little to lose, I thought. My life already rested in the hands of this ugly man. So, facing him, I said simply, “She speaks to me.”
“She! Koke Mongke Tengri, you are half-witted!” He began to rein his horse away when I saw a look of near fear come over him. “Or are you some sort of shamaness?” His eyes traveled quickly over my clothing, my leather pouch, my hands. “Can you change the weather? Is it you who has caused the fish to swim upon the land?” Not waiting for an answer, the man shook his head and said, “I had not seen weather this foul until we visited your ail.” He muttered some words I couldn’t hear, words that ended with “my ornament of luck.” Pounding his heels into his horse’s sides, the commander galloped to the head of the line. But not before the wind carried his last words into my ears: “Everything has gone wrong since that ornament dropped from my side.”
At that moment I felt the gold ornament weigh heavily inside my pocket. It was true, then! The flying horse did bring good luck, and now I carried it! An uneasiness in my stomach told me I should return it, but as I let my wind-reddened hand fall across the pocket, patting it protectively, I knew I would never release it from my side. Reaching inside my del, I patted Bator’s head. He shoved his wet nose against my fingers. Moving my hand past him, I also felt the hardened body of another suslik that he had hunted. Bator and I would eat meat again tonight.
With the sinking of the pale sun, the gusting faded. The silence, after so much deafening wind, felt doubly eerie and again no one spoke as we rode north. Throats painfully dry, hands and faces cracked, we finally stopped for the night.
I had taken to sleeping apart from the others, beside my own small fire, and this bothered no one. Although I suffered more of the night’s cold, I avoided recognition. That evening the distance allowed me to hold the skinned suslik on a stick over the embers while a great number of the soldiers held only bowls of weak tea. Bator huddled within the shelter of my upturned saddle, green eyes shining as he watched the suslik blacken.
I was worrying that evening about Echenkorlo’s warning to me: “Follow only your heart…choose your own path.” We had been traveling east, but this day we had turned north. I would not find my swift horse there, I knew, if in fact I was still to find one. I did not yet know if Bayan was sound enough for the long race. Her sprint yesterday had brought on no lameness today. But the lure of ten thousand white mares made me want to search farther. And so, after gnawing the meat from the suslik’s bones, I tossed anxiously upon the ground, my heart tugging in one direction, the Khan’s commander forcing me another.
The sun shone bright and clear the next morning, warming the spirits of horse and human alike. Bayan would be somewhat rested by now and I had decided even before I stirred from beneath the saddle blanket that I would ride her that day, testing her stamina.
But as I walked toward the herd carrying my saddle, I saw that another soldier was already trying to force his bit into her mouth. Bayan was fighting him, tossing her head out of reach. The soldier booted her in the stomach. The sound of bone cracking upon bone split the air as Bayan’s jaw swung hard against the soldier’s face. In instant and fierce response, the soldier’s fist flew through the air, punching her tender muzzle. Before his fist returned to his side, I was shoving my small body between him and Bayan.
“Stop!” I cried. Without a glance, the soldier shoved me to the ground and threw the bridle around Bayan’s head again, banging the metal bit against her clenched teeth.
Now, in my homeland, wrestling is an art, an admired skill that every boy masters. I had no such training and so cannot say if my next move was truly skillful. But it worked. Crouching, I threw all my weight against the soldier’s legs, low and hard, so that, with a surprised grunt, he toppled to the ground. Bayan trotted away. Which left me alone—and eye to eye with a furiously growling man twice my size. My scrambling escape backward was stopped short by a wall of tall, rigid boots.
“What is happening here?” Immediately I recognized the bellowing voice as that of the commander. I leaped to my feet along with the angry soldier. He was spluttering.
“This skinny little—” he began ranting, but the commander cut him off.
“Silence!” he shouted. “You will save your fighting for the enemy. Now, each of you, choose other horses and saddle them before I—”
“Commander!” a voice called from afar. “Commander!” Heads turned to see a young man in a badly torn brown del limping toward us. He led a well-muscled bay with a white blaze, three white socks, and, quite apparently, a painful limp as well. Twin goatskin bags were slung across his back. It took the pair several moments to reach us, in which time the angry soldier slipped off to saddle another horse and I stubbornly moved toward Bayan. She moved toward me, too, so I was able to listen to the young man’s words while I fitted my saddle upon her back.
“Commander,” he said when he reached the soldiers’ leader. “I am an arrow rider for Kublai Khan, delivering to him a great prize. My horse slipped on a shale slope beyond that hill and I fear we both suffer broken bones.” I could see now that the young man hitched one shoulder higher than the other and cradled his arm motionlessly against his side. “I ask you in the name of the Khan to send your best horse and rider in my place, at least to the next arrow station.”
“How far is the next station?” the commander asked.
“No more than a day’s ride—straight toward that notch in the Hentei Mountains.” The arrow rider moved his chin gently southward, in the direction of the horizon’s blue mountains.
“I’ll go,” offered a tall, swaggering soldier, leading his underfed horse to the commander’s side.
The commander gave him no answer. “Give me the paiza and the message,” he ordered the young man.
The arrow rider untied a thick gold medallion the size of a man’s hand that hung from a rope around his waist, as well as a small leather pouch on another rope hidden inside his clothing. At once the commander walked the few steps to where I stood beside the saddled and bridled Bayan and, feeding the smaller rope through the opening of my del, secured the pouch against my bare stomach. Then he roughly fastened the gold medallion around my waist.
“Huh?” exclaimed the swaggering soldier.
“Commander, are you certain that—” the injured arrow rider began.
“This mare can run,” he said crisply, “and this one can ride her like no one else. Besides, sending them off will solve both our troubles.”
As he doubled the knot, the commander’s hairy hand brushed the solid weight hidden within my pocket. “What is this?” he muttered, boldly reaching inside to pull the gold ornament into the light. “Why, it is mine!” he cried. “You stole it from me!”
“No!” I said, shaking my head vigorously. “I found it—on the floor of my ger.”
“Then why did you not return it to me?”
I wasn’t sure how to answer, for he was right. Bu
t, gazing longingly at the winged gold horse in his palm, I just had to whisper, “Is it true it brings luck to its owner?”
A queer sort of look churned in the dark eyes of the commander. He shoved his gold ornament back inside my pocket, jerked the goatskin bags from the injured bay, and threw them across Bayan’s saddle. With the briefest of glances into my face, he said, “Deliver this valuable; then let the luck of that winged horse carry you home. Your father misses you.” Clamping a rough hand upon my shoulder, the man all but lifted me into the saddle. He slapped Bayan upon the rump, making her jump forward, but I reined her to a quick halt.
Leaning down to the commander’s ear, I whispered again. “But I can’t go yet. My cat—”
Fury boiled up inside the man, bursting forth in the kick of his boot into Bayan’s tail. She pinned her ears and bucked.
“Commander,” the arrow rider was saying nervously, “it appears this rider is unfit. I’m certain you realize that not to deliver the Khan’s desire—and swiftly—is death! Perhaps you have another…” His voice trailed off.
The commander had rushed to my leg, jerking the reins so hard that Bayan’s mouth gaped sideways in pain. “Ride! Now!” he roared. “You ride for those mountains and don’t look back or, as Tengri watches all, I’ll have the hides of you and your mare!” Flinging free the reins, he booted Bayan again. This time I bent over her neck and, gulping, sent her galloping as fast as she could.
15
Wolves in the Water
The hot stares of the soldiers pricked my back like arrows. I ached to wait for Bator, but the harsh words of the injured rider swirled within my ears as I galloped: “Not to deliver the Khan’s desire—and swiftly—is death!”
