Alsanobal had paid for his rashness. But Mirrimal, her brother, and two fine horses had paid as well. Surely, Tabilit must weep.
Shannivar told herself that Mirrimal was now beyond pain, beyond fear, beyond disappointment. She was galloping free and wild over the endless Pastures of the Sky with Grandmother and Saramark. With Tabilit herself.
Bennorakh seemed to have no such recriminations, no thoughts about how the riders had died. After a brief period of solitary meditation, far shorter than for Grandmother’s death, he began directing the disposal of the bodies. They had not the time for burials, but it was a common practice to burn those fallen in battle. Under the enaree’s direction, the surviving riders erected a funeral pyre inside the ruins of the Gelonian fort. The wooden stakes of the palisade were dry enough to burn hot and clean.
The afternoon wore on. Shadows stretched like wavering, elongated ghosts across the battle ground. Shannivar studied what remained of the palisade, the huts and half-constructed strong house. She knew little of building with stone and wood, yet it seemed to her the Gelon had intended this fort to stand for many years. This was their way, even as the way of Azkhantia was to follow the herds, to wander from one moon to the next, drifting from summer dharlak to the shelter of winter kishlak. Only there and at the ancient gathering place did they leave any trace of their passing.
The surviving riders laid out the bodies of the slain enemy, along with their belongings. These Gelon were soldiers, accustomed to traveling light and hard. Besides their weapons, they carried military necessities, tiny boxes of salt, cakes of dried opium juice, packets of steel needles, bone fishing hooks and silk thread, and small, slender knives. Shannivar also noticed more personal items: a chain bearing a small copper medallion, so worn that its image could not be deciphered; a ring, silver set with a small, poor-quality ruby, too small for a man’s finger; a scroll covered with close writing that Leanthos identified as a collection of prayers to the Gelonian god known as The Protector of Soldiers.
As she handled and sorted these possessions, Shannivar felt a kinship that bordered on intimacy with the dead Gelon. What would one of them make of her life from the examination of her own effects? Her bow, her bag of women’s contraceptive herbs, the wooden chest from Grandmother, carved with horses dancing beneath the moon? That I was a warrior, a woman, a rider. Nothing more.
As he straightened the last Gelonian corpse, Rhuzenjin muttered that the entire fort should be burned to the ground. Mud and ash, he said, would be a fitting memorial for the invaders.
Shannivar considered his words. Certainly, this was as safe a place as any for such a blaze. Between the earthworks and the river bank, there was little chance of the fire spreading.
A idea crept into her thoughts—to give the Gelonian soldiers and these tokens of their lives, as well as her comrades, to the fire. And why not the fort as well, the symbol of Gelonian arrogance? All would be erased in Tabilit’s cleansing fire.
Dharvarath, Mirrimal’s surviving brother and the most conservative of the party, was horrified when she proposed it. “You cannot mean to accord these—these dwellers-in-stone such an honor? To send them in glory to the Kingdom of the Sky? Who knows what they will do there? Pile stones on Tabilit’s sacred earth?”
Ythrae, standing nearby, flinched under the strength of his outburst. Shannivar held her ground. “What else are we to do with them?” Shannivar countered. “Throw them into the river and foul the water? They were warriors, not beasts.”
“Beasts! Yes, evil beasts! Not to be treated as men!”
Rhuzenjin looked as if he were about to intervene on Shannivar’s behalf, to defend her. Impatiently, she gestured for him to stay out of the quarrel. If she allowed a man to rescue her, she would lose all hope of setting her own terms in marriage. She would arrive at the khural as just an ordinary woman rider, when she most needed to be a Saramark.
“The Gelon were most certainly wrong. Wrong to desecrate the land with stone and wrong to violate our territory. But they fought bravely and with cunning. No one can deny them that. I will not send them without honor to whatever lies beyond their lives.”
“You will not? Did the battle so addle your wits that you have forgotten it is Alsanobal son of Esdarash who leads this party?” He narrowed his eyes. “Or do the deaths of Mirrimal and my brother mean nothing to you?”
Heat shot through Shannivar’s veins. Even as her hands curled into fists, she held herself firm. More lay at stake here than her own grief. Dharvarath was challenging her, deliberately provoking her to a fight he was sure he would win. When they were children, she could have wrestled him to the ground, but now she could not prevail against his greater height, his weight, his raw muscular power. She must use her own strength to advantage.
Until now, she had not realized that she had indeed stepped into Alsanobal’s place. Unless she faced Dharvarath down, she would lose all hope of control. She moved toward him, feeling her pulse speed up and her muscles tense for action.
Levelly, without flinching, she met his eyes. Despite his taunts, Dharvarath took a step back.
“Treating the dead of a noble foe with respect will not bring our friends back to us,” she said, her voice low and tight. “It will not restore your kin. But not doing so will diminish the meaning of their deaths. Should we do the enemy’s work for him and destroy the best of who we are, simply because we are angry and stricken with grief?”
Ythrae gasped and Rhuzenjin murmured something to her. Without waiting for Dharvarath’s answer, Shannivar turned and walked away. Dharvarath made no attempt to follow her. He had already lost.
In the few moments it took to locate Bennorakh, Shannivar had time to assume the appearance of being reasonable and calm. She found the enaree in conference with the Isarran emissary.
“We must make provision for the bodies of the Gelon, as well as our own,” she told him. “They were outlanders, true, and dwellers-in-stone, but they died under Tabilit’s Sky, and we—it is our duty—” She drew in a breath, then went on in a rush. “We should make one big funeral pyre and burn them all.”
Leanthos turned to her with an astounded look. She could not tell if his reaction were due to a woman speaking so forthrightly or to a difference in funeral customs. Or was he, like Dharvarath, disgusted at according such dignity to an enemy?
Bennorakh considered her gravely. “You speak what is in my own mind, Eagle Daughter.”
Silently Shannivar sent up a prayer of thanks.
“In ancient times,” the enaree went on, shifting into a high-pitched sing-song voice, “enemy captives were slain and burned with a fallen hero, and their horses and weapons as well. The mightier the warrior, the more sacrifices would be sent to the Sky Kingdom as tribute to Onjhol, to stand with the gods against the coming of Olash-giyn-Olash, the Shadow of Shadows.”
Shannivar knew the legends. Tabilit and her consort would not reign forever. The time would come when the fate of the worlds, the one above and the one below, would depend upon a mighty battle. Then the people of the steppe would rise up, the dead as well as the living, to fight against the Shadow of Shadows. It was an honorable fate for a vanquished foe, to have the hope of fighting in that final, cataclysmic battle.
“The Gelon fought well,” she nodded. “Therefore, they will serve Tabilit well.”
* * *
They built the funeral pyre inside the ruins of the Gelonian fort. When all the preparations were complete and the fires lit, the Azkhantian warriors withdrew to the heights to watch. The enaree burned incense and chanted the ancient invocations. The Isarrans offered prayers according to their own ways.
The pyres burned brightly at first, then fitfully. Shannivar feared the wood was either too wet or there was too little of it to consume so many bodies. Bennorakh took a torch and went down to the fort, his path marked only by that single bobbing light. It winked out, then reappeared as he moved ab
out the burning ground. A wind sprang up, fanning the sputtering flames.
Shannivar caught snatches of chant in the quavering falsetto of the enarees, although she could not make out any words. The wind beat about her ears, muffling the ordinary sounds of the hilltop camp. She could not even hear the voices of the other riders, although they were only a short distance away.
The chanting of the enaree grew louder and louder. Insistent, demanding. The darkness seemed to pick out the phrases, to lift them to the heights and swirl them around her . . . through her.
Shannivar had walked through snowstorms in the long steppe winters. Each mote of sound reminded her of an ice-edged flake. She opened her mouth to cry out, only to inhale an eddy of sound-flakes. She could not breathe, could not move, could not cry out. The whirlwind intensified, flaying skin, shredding flesh from both the outside and inside. Bone lay bare and then blew away into dust.
Tabilit, help me!
Her vision went white in the pummeling storm, or perhaps she no longer had eyes. Yet through that raging vortex, a shape emerged. A woman of snow, of ice, mounted on a mare whose coat shimmered like polished steel. Slowly the woman rode toward Shannivar, sitting as firm and supple as if she and the horse were one being. The mare’s head swung from side to side, revealing that she bore no bridle, only ribbons of silver braided into her mane.
Tabilit, Mother of Horses?
Terrified yet ecstatic, Shannivar waited as the rider grew even closer. Then she saw the rider’s face. Grandmother.
She was no longer the withered crone, the tyrannical matriarch, but a woman young and strong, a warrior such as Shannivar had never seen. A Saramark.
Then the winds howled once more. The voice of the enaree returned with renewed strength. The young-old woman who was Grandmother smiled at Shannivar. The shimmering-steel mare turned and disappeared into the storm. A moment later, a heartbeat, an eon, a second figure took shape. Again, it was a woman, a warrior. She sat astride a big horse whose colorless flanks were tinged with red-bronze, laughing as if her heart were the cradle of all joy. Mirrimal.
Am I dead, too? Is that why I can see them?
The white-against-white figure of Mirrimal shook her head gently. The red stallion dipped his head. Then they were gone.
Shannivar peered into the fast-flowing currents of white and wind. There was something else, something she could not quite see. Mirrimal’s brother and his horse. The Gelon. Shannivar could feel them moving with deliberate grace. In the same way, she could feel a lineage of women riders, their features engraved upon her own—her own mother, whom she had never known, and Aimellina, and the first Shannivar.
And behind them, infusing them with her courage, Saramark.
Without warning, Shannivar came back to herself. A sound like thunder, only sharper, resounded through her skull. She blinked, and the next moment, the fires in the fort below surged skyward. They erupted into volcanic brightness, spewing forth glowing, garnet-red cinders. The flames burned white over the pyres. Around Shannivar, the others cried out and pointed.
One of the men said, “There will be nothing left but ash by morning.”
“Hush,” said Ythrae. “Tabilit herself has laid her hand upon them.”
* * *
They watched long into the night and chanted to the dead as the fires raged below. Eventually the songs died into the velvet quiet of the night. The air turned cool and river-moist. The others retired for the night, except for Shannivar and Rhuzenjin. Bennorakh had not yet returned from tending the fires below.
Shannivar sat staring at the fires. Something within her coiled upon itself like a tangled knot. She could not stop thinking of how quickly everything had changed. The red horse had been so strong, so full of life, as had Mirrimal and her brother. Men and women fell in battle or under the weight of years or disease. She had seen it and had accepted that it would happen to her as well. Over and over, she told herself that what they did was right and noble, keeping their land free from the Ar-King’s menace. And yet—
And yet.
The something in her belly would not let go. Somewhere at the back of her mind, Grandmother’s white mare stumbled and fell. The wind howled across the steppe like a wolf in winter. She shivered in the warmth of the summer night.
Across the campfire, Rhuzenjin watched her. The light of the flames filled his eyes. If she spoke the words, he would come eagerly to her bed. He was strong and fit, and from the way he looked at her, passionate. He would cover her in eager kisses; she imagined the hardness of him inside her, the scent of his arousal, the power of his body between her thighs. She could, for the space of a night, escape this strange dark mood. His ardor would sustain them both. But it would be only for a night. The next morning, his eyes would follow her, filled with longing for what she could not give.
Alone, she strode away from the fire to the horse lines. Radu nickered a greeting and Eriu nuzzled her shoulder as she stroked him. The comfort of horses was uncomplicated. They never told each other to set aside running beneath the wild Moon of Birds, nor sought to steal the sky from another herd. When they coupled, it was for an hour’s mutual need, nothing more.
A shape flickered in the darkness. She was not alone, but her horses gave no sign of alarm, as they would at the approach of a stranger. She caught a whiff of incense but did not entirely relax. Bennorakh posed no threat, not physically, but he confused her, sometimes frightened her. He was always full of prophecies that no one could understand.
“What do you want?” she demanded.
“What do you want?”
Shannivar could not tell if the enaree were asking the question or repeating her own words back to her.
What did she want? Once she would have said, to ride, to fight, to be free. Now, with the taste of blood and ashes in her mouth, she did not know.
The enaree lifted one hand with a soft jangling of the bits of bone and carved antler threaded into his hair. He pointed north, toward the khural-lak, the gathering-place. Go, he seemed to say. Go where your spirit leads you.
For a long moment, she stared into the night. Around her, the land lay quiet, shrouded. The Road of Stars glimmered overhead. When she turned back to the enaree, he was gone. She wondered if she had seen him at all.
Chapter 10
THE next morning, Shannivar’s throat ached, and her eyes felt as if she had spent the night weeping. Death, by sword or fever or the simple wearing away of years came to everyone. Mirrimal had died in honor, young and strong. No cookpot or infirmity would ever hold her in its grip. For all her grief, Shannivar could not begrudge her friend that measure of peace.
Shaking off her pensive mood, she began setting the camp in order. Mirrimal’s personal belongings must be given to Dharvarath to bring back to their father, along with those of her brother. Mirrimal had no sisters to inherit her few bits of finery, and her mother was dead. Perhaps Dharvarath would marry and present them to his wife.
As for Alsanobal’s return to the dharlak encampment, one of the carts appeared undamaged and sturdy enough to carry him, and the Gelonian onagers were accustomed to drawing it. Convincing her cousin would be another matter.
“A cart?” Alsanobal glared at her, brows drawing together. “You expect me to ride in a cart?”
Shannivar suppressed a sigh. “Be sensible, cousin. You cannot mount a horse, let alone ride one, with a broken thigh bone.”
“It’s bad enough to be still alive, to not have perished in glorious battle!” He glowered at her as if his survival were a malicious act on her part. “Have I offended the Sky People so deeply that I must return to my father as a cripple? All this I could bear as the will of Tabilit. But now you tell me I must do so in a Gelonian cart, like so much baggage or like a child too young to ride properly? No, it’s too humiliating! I would be shamed forever! There must be another way. Or if there is not, I will sit here until I am fit
to ride again.”
“Who else can I trust to carry the looted treasure back?” Shannivar shifted tactics. “Is this not the matter of songs and legends, to lay before your chieftain the captured weapons of the enemy, their armor and swords of good steel? Is this not the deed of a hero?” Alsanobal’s expression softened minutely as he considered this. Shannivar pushed on, knowing she had the better of him now. “Not to mention five sacks of lentils and wheat, the oil to cook it in, and even a good-sized box of salt.”
A portion of the food would go with Shannivar to the gathering as gifts to the elders there, to be meted out among those clans who had supplied fresh meat for those who had traveled the farthest. In this traditional manner, the burden of feasting was fairly distributed.
At last, Alsanobal relented. “Very well, since it will bring honor to my father and our clan, I suppose I must do it. But I do not like the thought of dividing our strength. My father charged me with the safe conduct of the Isarran emissaries. The Gelonian outpost may not be the only danger along the way. I dare not deprive you of a single warrior—”
“And I dare not allow you, the son of the chieftain of Golden Eagle, to travel alone for exactly the same reason!” Shannivar checked herself, took a breath, and tried to sound reasonable. “Not even a warrior of legendary prowess could defend himself against a serious assault while lying in a cart.”
Alsanobal raised one eyebrow as if to say she had proved his own point.
“Sitting in a cart,” she amended.
“Driving a cart.”
“Driving a cart. Certainly. But can you do this and at the same time shoot your bow? Or use your sword?”
Reluctantly he shook his head.
Shannivar’s attention was drawn to Jingutzhen as he checked the gear on his saddle, the bow and arrow-case, and the sword in its sheath, all of them properly cared for and ready for travel. Satisfied, Jingutzhen led his horse to them, with one of the pack ponies on a lead line. His impassive face showed no sign of fatigue or the aftermath of the battle and deaths. He nodded to Shannivar, took a stance, and waited.
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