by Kate Elliott
From her position at the base of the trail, Tess could see the neck of the gorge and the first level of wall, gray now, lightening. She glanced at the Chapalii; they looked completely undisturbed, pallid and colorless. Yuri put a hand on her shoulder.
The night retreated as the sun rose. The fifteen men were ranged along the wall below. One of them detached himself from the line and ran up toward them: Bakhtiian. Tess and Yuri gave their reins to Nikita and walked over to Niko, who had gone to the upper wall. Bakhtiian scrambled up the escarpment and pulled himself up to sit on the wall, one leg dangling, the other flat against the stone.
“Josef?” If he was breathing quickly, it was from excitement not from his short run.
“No sign,” said Niko.
“I’ve changed my mind. You’ll go up the trail now. We’ll follow as soon as we confuse them enough to set them back a bit.”
“How are you going to do that?” Tess asked.
He did not even look at her, his attention on the narrow gorge. Movement flashed and vanished. “You mustn’t hasten the game.”
“What if the trail is a dead end?” Niko asked.
“Then we’re dead either way. Let us hope the gods favor us today.”
Movement again at the neck of the gorge. Bakhtiian stood up on the wall. White flashed, and then a white cloth tied to a spear appeared.
“So they want to talk to a priest,” said Bakhtiian. “I hope I’ll do.”
A man appeared, holding the spear aloft. The white cloth shuddered and danced in the breeze. The man halted and placed the spear butt on the ground: parley. Nothing moved. Deep shadows surrounded him. The man shifted nervously and then threw back his head.
“We have no quarrel with jharan,” he shouted.
“Jharan jharan,” the echoes returned. “He speaks khush!” Tess whispered to Yuri.
“A similar tongue.”
“Give us Boctiyan!” the man cried. “The others may go free.” His accent was atrocious.
Tess looked up. Bakhtiian was smiling. “What do you want with Bakhtiian?” he shouted down.
“Boctiyan—he has burnt town, killed children, forced women. He is an evil man, cruel, a demon sent by—” He lapsed into a description of something, or someone, that sounded horrible but which Tess could not follow.
“I have gotten a reputation,” said Ilya. “Of the unsavory kind.”
“That,” said Tess, “is an understatement.”
The man, silent now, stared up at Bakhtiian, a figure lighter than anything below, the wind moving in his hair and flaring the loose sleeves of his blood-red shirt as he stood, unmoving, on the high wall.
“Do you suppose they think I’m mad?” he asked. He grinned, looking like an uncomfortable blend of beauty and menace: the bright child gone evil.
“You are mad,” Tess muttered, wondering if he had already forgotten what he had said last night. And then, because he was looking down at her, she went on hastily. “They probably scare their children into bed at night by telling them stories about you.”
He laughed. “Gods. I’m still young. I’ll end up by giving myself nightmares.” He stared down at the man below. “He must be a priest. Don’t khaja priests wear that cut of tunic and those thick—what are they called?” He switched to Rhuian briefly. “Baldrics.” He lifted his chin and shouted again. “What will you do with Bakhtiian?”
“He has offended our god by killing our holy brothers in Eratia and Tiarton. We of Tialla Great Walls are doubly stricken, for he has fouled our sacred temple by setting his cursed feet in it. Our god must have revenge.”
“Niko!” His gaze remained on the priest below. “This temple?”
“I know of no other near here.”
“These khaja are a religious people.”
“Devout. Fanatic. Their god offends easily, if the death of a holy brother is of greater account than that of a child.”
“Keregin of the arenabekh says that they treat their women particularly badly here. Would lying with a woman in here offend them, do you think?”
“Ilya!”
“Damn it, Niko, would it? We need time. Would they try to stop it? Or retreat?”
That hushed sound, Tess thought. It must be the stream.
“Damn you, Ilya. I talked with a khaja once years ago, a man from hereabouts. We were trading.”
“Niko.”
“He said that to murder or to rape in a temple brought the anger of the god, and—gods! Yes, I remember. Or to see it done!”
“Ha! Priest! Priest!” He shouted, one hand moving to his saber. “So you think I foul your temple.”
The priest dropped the spear, grabbed it. “Black demon!” he cried. Two men helmeted with leather coifs appeared and then vanished back into the gorge behind him.
“So your god is offended!” shouted Ilya. “Niko,” he said, not turning his head. “Everyone mounted.” Niko moved back, Tess and Yuri following. “No,” said Bakhtiian. He reached down, glancing back, and grabbed Tess’s wrist. “Up.” His pull was so strong that instead of coming up to her feet on the wall she lost her balance, boots skidding on the smooth stone, and fell to her knees on the wall. She stared up at Bakhtiian; the priest stared at her. Bakhtiian reached down and tugged at her braid. Her hair fell loose around her. “Priest!” he shouted. “Since you offend me, I’ll defile your temple.”
The priest wailed a protest, incoherent at this distance.
“Fight me,” Bakhtiian demanded, jerking her up. She twisted away from him and kicked out, half slipping again. He reacted so instinctively that he wrenched her arm and she gasped in pain. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“No!” cried the priest. “Do not defile the temple!”
She was caught, bent backward, half balanced on one hand and half held up by Bakhtiian’s arm behind her back. The sky had a transparent quality; the peaks shimmered. “Scream,” he said. He put his free hand to the top of her tunic.
“I’ve never screamed in my life,” she said, paling. “I don’t know how.”
“Scream, damn it!”
Tess screamed.
“No,” cried the priest. Men appeared, armed, bows ready, spears leveled. “No!” he yelled, desperate. “Stay back. Do not compound the offense. Stay back!” The men retreated. The priest fell to his knees and covered his eyes, calling once, twice, to his god, entreating His aid.
Bakhtiian’s glance shifted, and he lifted his chin, signaling to the men stationed along the wall below. Then he glanced back. “Yuri. Tell the others to go. We can’t wait for Josef. You wait with Tess’s horse.” He looked down at Tess. “Do you have anything on under this?”
“Yes.”
From above, they heard noises, the beginning of the retreat. The priest looked up. Bakhtiian ripped off her tunic. The priest shrieked and covered his face. At the wall, the fifteen riders leapt up and ran for the escarpment.
“That’s Nadezhda Martov’s pattern,” said Bakhtiian, looking bemusedly at the collar of the white blouse she wore under her now-ripped tunic.
“Stay back! Stay back!” the priest was crying. “We must not compound the crime with offense of our own.”
The fifteen men reached the upper wall and scrambled over it to land panting on the packed earth behind.
“Everyone go except the archers,” said Bakhtiian.
“But—”
At the sudden silence, the priest ceased wailing and lowered his hands from his face.
“Go!”
Twelve left. Tess saw them, quiet and swift, and heard their horses pounding away up the trail. The priest looked up, confused. Then he stood, dropping the spear, and the white cloth fluttered to the ground.
Bakhtiian closed his hand on the thin white fabric of her blouse. And hesitated. “I can’t do this.”
“Damned male.” Tess kicked him, swung with an arm, and squirmed for the edge of the wall. The priest hid his eyes and yelled again at the soldiers behind him to stay back, adding a string of incomprehensible,
hysterical words.
Tess’s legs lay half off the wall on the upper side, Yuri crouched beneath her. Bakhtiian lay half across her chest, his left arm pinning her to the rock. Cold edges thrust into her back. His head rested two hands above hers, shading her from the sun. He was not looking at her, but staring down at the priest, a small figure in white and blue far below. She noticed how the waves of his dark hair flowed in patterns that had the same sweep and curve and richness as rose petals. A breeze cooled her cheek.
“Now what?” she asked.
Bakhtiian looked down at her. His mouth twitched. “I think I’m going to start laughing.”
Tess shut her eyes and choked back a giggle, gulping in the thin air. Six of them left. Someone was not going to make it up that trail. “How long do you think they’re going to believe this?” she cried, not at him really but at the fate that had brought them here. She pushed at him, trying to get free. “Yuri!” yelled Bakhtiian. “Get her out of here.” To the others: “Ready!”
Yuri hauled her off the wall. Bakhtiian jumped down after. Faintly, she heard yelling from the priest, orders being given. Tears blurred her sight. Yuri dragged her away toward the horses.
“We can’t leave them!” Tess pulled away from him. An arrow struck the ground and skittered to a stop a meter from her. Yuri grabbed her at the elbow and yanked her forward, shoving her into Myshla.
“Mount!” he yelled, as if she were deaf. She swung up reflexively. More arrows peppered the packed dirt, too spent to penetrate. “Come on, Tess.”
Far below, a man cried out in pain.
“Ilya got one. Damn it, Tess. Ride.” He wheeled his horse back and slapped Myshla on the rump. Four arrows hit, and one stuck in the earth. Myshla moved, ears cocked forward. Tess urged her to a trot, hearing the swell of shouts and cries from below. She looked back: four jaran men crouched behind the upper wall, their shirts like blood against the black stone, shooting.
“Yuri!” She waved frantically at him. “They can’t hold them!” She reined Myshla back.
“Ride, Tess!” He reined his horse in, waiting for her, impatient, angry, scared. The horses sidestepped, catching their fear. Myshla neighed, calling to those left behind.
“Mikhal. Konstans. Go.” Bakhtiian’s voice carried easily in the clear air. Bent low, the two men ran for their horses and started after Tess and Yuri. Behind, the last mounts shifted nervously.
“What if they bolt?” she yelled.
“Then they’re dead. Damn it, Tess. Damn it. Ride!” He came close enough finally to grab Myshla’s bridle and start dragging her. Tess still stared behind. They came to the head of the trail, where it wound up between rocks until a sharp corner hid its path.
“Go!” Yuri waved her ahead. Mikhal and Konstans neared, cantering. She could not see the stretch of wall that sheltered Bakhtiian and Tadheus, only the high, impenetrable barrier of mountain and a tuft of grass fallen, its brown, withering roots exposed, onto a jagged ledge. She kicked Myshla and rounded the corner.
“Yuri!” she screamed.
Black, all in black, like the avenging spirits of the gods. How she turned Myshla and thrust her back through the others to the ruins she never knew. The arenabekh spilled out behind her, out over the cleared area and scrambling down the escarpment to the ruins below. Curses and shouts of fear came from below, and from above, from a man not twenty feet from her, a yell like the scream of a carnivore after blood. The riderless horses bolted but one of the arenabekh caught them and led them over to Bakhtiian and Tadheus. Tasha’s shirt bore a wet stain: blood. A broken arrow lay at his feet, its shaft striped with scarlet. The black riders arrayed themselves over the slopes, utter black against gray and gold and green. Like the obsidian walls, they reflected nothing but darkness. From below came only silence. Except for one body lying prone in a shadow, the khaja soldiers had retreated back into the gorge.
Bakhtiian stood and turned. “My own demons from the mountains.”
Keregin rode over to Bakhtiian. “Your sweethearts are no longer so eager.”
Bakhtiian looked down at the mouth of the gorge. A few shadows still overlay it, but light descended steadily, and soon enough it would lie fully lit in the glare of the sun. “They don’t approve of my relations.”
“They’ll get over it. Do you want us to entertain them when they return?” Keregin grinned, peering through half-closed, heavy-lidded eyes.
“You have no obligation to take on my quarrels.”
“The gods have touched your head, Bakhtiian. You send away your jahar to make the odds interesting, and then, because that isn’t enough, you send away the last four, so that you can impress the world by beating off—how many?”
“One hundred and seven.”
“One hundred and seven! Ah, Bakhtiian, you’ve taken our fighting from us by uniting the jaran. Whom can we hire ourselves to now? Give us this. Don’t be greedy.”
“You are only forty riders.”
Keregin laughed. “Rather unfair odds against those khaja bastards, don’t you think? If we’d wanted to live forever, we’d have married and gotten children. No, let us do this. This day’s work alone will make your reputation.”
Bakhtiian smiled slightly. “Make my reputation what?”
“Something for you to live with and live up to. And yet, I still have no good idea of your height.” He grinned, purposely insulting. “From up here, you still don’t seem that impressive.”
“I improve as one gets closer.”
“Oh, I like you, Bakhtiian.” Keregin slapped his thigh. The sound reverberated through the vale, and he chuckled. “If only I were a younger, handsomer man—but no, you wouldn’t make that choice, would you? Ho, there, Sergi!” he yelled down to one of the lead riders. “What are our sweethearts up to down there?”
“Cowering,” replied the distant man. “Afraid of love, the fools.”
“Love!” shouted Keregin. “No. Passion.” His shout echoed back at him.
“Keregin, I’ve never before let others do my work for me.
“If you plan to lead the jaran, Bakhtiian, you’d best get used to it. Other men have made you a devil to our friends below. Why shouldn’t you leave us to make you an atrocity that will terrify them for generations?”
“Damn you. Leave a few alive to tell the tale.”
The wind was rising. “We’ll tell them you called us up from the very depths of your fire-scorched heart.”
Tadheus had mounted. Bakhtiian paused, as if to say something, but swung up on his horse without a word. He sat there a moment, while he and Keregin simply looked at one another.
Abruptly, Keregin reined his horse downward and yelled at his riders. They all left the upper level, scattering down into the ruins, and those in the forefront started down to the gate that led onto the meadow and from there to the neck of the gorge. A volley of arrows sprayed out from the gorge. Tess caught her breath, but no one fell.
Not yet. The riders shouted insults at each other, arguing among themselves over who would get to lead the charge. Until Keregin, shouting, “Move aside!” sent his horse down in front, thrusting past the others, through the gate, and plunged down onto the meadow, the rest crowding behind.
Soldiers burst out of the gorge, swords out. Arrows flew. Two of the riders fell, but four khaja were struck down by the sabers that flashed in the sun. The khaja soldiers retreated in great disorder back into the gorge, and Keregin, to Tess’s horror, charged down the neck of the gorge after them, shouting, all in black, like the shadow of death against rock. The rest of the arenabekh followed him, one by one. Shrieks of agony and shrill, exultant cries echoed through the vale.
“Tess!” A touch on her arm. Yuri. Tadheus, Mikhal, and Konstans had already gone, vanished up the trail. Bakhtiian, like her, had been watching. Now he rode up beside her.
“Go on, Tess. Haven’t you had enough excitement?”
“I don’t call that excitement,” she muttered, but neither man heard her, Yuri riding in front, Ba
khtiian behind, as they followed the trail up into the mountains, the vale and the sounds of fighting lost in the towering rocks they left behind. Her last glimpse: fair-haired Sergi, thick braid dangling to his waist, saber raised, horse half rearing as he drove it down into the gorge. Someday, she thought, a great avalanche will cover it all up.
Yuri paused at the switchback to glance back at her. He grinned. Tess pulled the last of her ruined tunic free and tossed it away, letting it fall where it would. The sun warmed her back where it penetrated the delicate weave of her blouse. Ahead, a bird trilled.
“I’ll get you a new shirt,” shouted Bakhtiian from below. Tess laughed. “By the gods,” he said, coming up beside her, “we’ll give you a red one.”
Chapter Sixteen
“When therefore in the air there occurs a clash of contrary winds and showers.”
—ANTIPHON THE SOPHIST
THEY FOLLOWED THE NARROW trail all day, hemmed in by high rock, then dismounted and walked their horses until the moon set. Tess slept huddled in her cloak, shivering, starting awake at intervals, but even so, Yuri woke her all too soon. The flush of dawn stained the sky, softening the darkness, and they went on.
The path curled through the heights, ascending and descending by turns. For one interminable stretch a fall of rock half obliterated the trail, and they dismounted and picked their way over the gray slivers that littered the ground. At midday Bakhtiian stopped them at a waterfall that fed a lawn of lush grass; the horses drank and grazed. Tess slumped against a rock, chewing on a strip of dry meat. She was glad of the rest at first, but as it stretched out she became afraid. What if the khaja soldiers were behind them? What if Keregin’s men hadn’t killed them all? What if more khaja had come hunting them? At last Bakhtiian called to them to mount, and they continued on. Still, they saw no sign of their jahar.
“Niko’s driving them,” said Bakhtiian when they halted by yet another stream. They rode again until the moon was gone, shadows staggering over the ground. Yuri’s Kuhaylan mare went lame with a stone in its hoof. Mikhal’s chestnut tarpan began to cough and wheeze.
