Lords of Grass and Thunder

by Curt Benjamin

  “I’m fine!” she shouted after it. “You can go home now!

  “My teacher, Toragana,” she apologized, rolling her eyes. “Checking up on me. I’d have been a lot less nervous if I’d known she was keeping watch, but the danger is over now. I don’t know why she hasn’t gone home.”

  The dogs seemed to agree with her, adding their own baying commentary on the matter of privacy and spying shamanesses. The bird merely pranced on her branch, settled on the other side of a knot, and groomed under her wing until some more interesting scent caught the fickle attention of the hounds, who abandoned their prince and the threat of the raven to mill about among the trees. Searching with a hunter’s eye the area around the tree where the shamaness perched, he found her answer in a flash of blue just visible through the spiny fingers of a spruce tree. “Someone is up there,” he said.

  “An enemy?”

  “No, an ally, I suspect. Your teacher would show more agitation if you were in danger.”

  “Or you,” Eluneke agreed in principle. “The dogs don’t seem upset either.” She leaned closer to him, hoping perhaps to gain a clearer angle to their observer. “Who is it, can you tell?”

  Tayy couldn’t see that much himself. He knew he ought to tell her that, but when she stood with her hair so close to his mouth and his nose he found it difficult to remember she had so recently been a toad. Would she let him touch the sleek strands hiding the side of her face like a curtain? Not with an audience that included her teacher, surely. His hand had started its own journey of exploration when the dogs raised a cry and bounded from the woods behind him. He turned quickly, reaching for his bow.

  “They’re over here, by the river!” Qutula stepped from among the trees, brotherly exasperation fixed in the vee of his brows and the downturn of his mouth, which he caused to twitch as if a smirk were trying to escape. “Would you call off your dogs? We’ve been looking all over for you.”

  The blood rose dark in the prince’s cheeks, but he called his dogs to him and settled them with a hand at their necks. “Has something happened?”

  “Only that you disappeared without your guardsmen this morning and no one has seen you since. The gur-khan is beside himself with worry and here you are propped up against a tree with a strange woman falling into your arms.”

  As Qutula spoke, the young warriors who made up the prince’s personal guard gathered behind him, their approach ghostly silent on the rain-softened ground. His own followers Duwa and Mangkut came first, with others who counted themselves Durluken. The prince’s Nirun came after; they did not stop with Qutula but formed up like the dogs around their own master.

  Jumal was gone and no longer a threat, thank the spirits. Altan, who lacked the other’s intelligence and skill, remained with a handful of young hopefuls of no importance who gathered at the heir’s side for politics rather than love.

  Once over the shock of the interruption, the girl showed no surprise at his mention of the gur-khan. Prince Tayy had been about to kiss her when he’d broken in on their little tryst. She’d been about to let him, if Qutula was any judge of women. His own lover sometimes gave him cause to doubt that, but he had this one figured out well enough. She wouldn’t say no to a royal ride, he thought, as long as she held a prince’s reins. The idiot had given her his true name.

  Mergen was right to be worried. The girl was a nobody; he could tell that from the poor and threadbare quality of the clothes she wore, bad enough even if she weren’t an apprentice shaman. As for Tayyichiut the hero, his abject guilt in the face of his cousin’s gentle chiding made him look more like a repentant pup than a doughty warrior.

  If he’d come alone, Qutula could have apologized for interrupting the tryst and left the girl to set her talons in tight. See then who would be heir, with Prince Tayyichiut making alliances in disastrously wrong tents. But he had witnesses for whom he must act the dutiful servant of the gur-khan’s wishes.

  “Sorry,” he said and smiled contritely at the prince, that much at least. “I didn’t realize you were busy. But the gur-khan really is getting worried. He’ll want to see you with his own eyes before he’ll believe you haven’t drowned yourself in the river, or that your horse hasn’t broken a leg in a rabbit hole and fallen on top of you.”

  “I’m the one who should apologize. We were talking, and I completely forgot.” Tayy held out his hand to the girl, but his guardsmen had surrounded him, effectively separating them.

  “Go, then, before he sends his own guard to find you.”

  Altan gave a dramatic shudder. “Qutula’s right,” he said. “I don’t want to be dragged home by my father in front of the whole camp.” Jochi, his father, had taken Yesugei’s place as general of the gur-khan’s armies and captain of his private guard.

  The younger guardsmen all laughed in sympathy for their companion. Most of them had a parent or older brother in the gur-khan’s service and none wanted to be dragged home like an unblooded boy by their elders. The prince conceded with chagrin when Qutula motioned the Nirun to take him home. He allowed no expression of triumph to show on his features as they quickly obeyed him. They all knew he carried out Mergen-Gur-Khan’s instructions, but still Qutula felt his power among them grow. Soon they would take it for granted that he was the greater of the two. When the prince met his all-too-timely end, they would look to Qutula to lead them.

  “I’ll make sure the lady gets home safely,” he managed a courtly bow almost hiding the contempt in his eyes.

  The prince didn’t notice, though his “lady” gave an indignant snort. “I can find my own way, thank you.”

  “Please—” the prince turned back. He reached hesitantly for her hand and Qutula saw the doubt cross his eyes as he aborted the gesture before she could refuse him. “I have to go now. Will I see you again?”

  “Of course!”

  “When?”

  Qutula had expected her to smile seductively as he had seen his mother do to entice her lovers. Instead she frowned as if she didn’t see him clearly, though he had gone only a few paces into the trees with his Nirun. “I don’t know. I have to think—”

  “What have I done?” The prince would have returned to her side, but Altan took him by the shoulder and whispered in his ear, a reminder, no doubt, that the gur-khan awaited him.

  “Nothing. It’s not you. You’re perfect—” She smiled so sweetly that Qutula wanted to gag.

  It cheered Tayy right up, though. With a bow completely inappropriate from one of his rank to a girl of her low status, he left her in his cousin’s tender care.

  When the prince had passed out of sight among the trees, Qutula signaled his Durluken to draw closer while he mockingly applauded her performance. “Innocence and adoration. How could he possibly resist? You did that very well.” Clap. Clap. Clap. He had to hand it to her: she had perfected the moves of a seductress after all, though her person left much to be desired.

  “I have to go home—” She shook off his followers and tried to move past him, but Qutula was faster. Quick as the snake that coiled around his heart he snatched at her throat, so slim that his fingers almost met in a perfect ring around her neck. “You will leave when I say ‘go.’ ” He pinned her against the tree where lately she had stood making love with his cousin. Or not. She hadn’t the stink of it on her, but there was something between them.

  “First, you will listen. You may think a roll in the summer leaves will make you a khaness, but don’t fool yourself. His uncle has other plans for the prince. Cross the gur-khan again and you may not live to contemplate the consequences. I have orders to protect the prince from your wiles, and if I have to snap your neck to do it, I will. I might even like it, so don’t push me.”

  An impoverished charm-seller held no interest for him, but Qutula knew the terror men’s bodies could bring to women. He leaned in, pressing her back against the tree. Under her poor clothes, he felt her trembling against his flesh.

  His Durluken snickered rudely, not even hiding their sneers
behind their hands. “Teach her a lesson!” He heard the tension in Duwa’s voice, smelled the excitement rising from his followers like a mist. “Show her who’s boss!”

  His own lady demanded constancy only in his resolve to the dais. He felt her watching through his eyes, felt her mark stir against his skin as she scented prey.

  “You must have hidden depths beneath your skirts, to have ensnared a prince against his gur-khan’s will.” He ground his hips against the girl, licked the curve of her jaw with a wide, lascivious tongue. The tattoo over his heart grew heated. His breath came deeply, impassioned as he felt the serpent slither down his belly.

  Among the trees, the Lady Bortu waited and watched. “What have we done, that you come to this?” she muttered, seeing her grandson threaten his own half sister. Toragana flew off the moment Qutula’s hand pinned the girl’s throat. The khaness struggled another step down the steep incline but was forced to grab hold of a branch to stop a tumble that doubtless would have broken her old bones. She could do nothing to help Eluneke but bear witness to the gur-khan after the worst had been done.

  That she could do well, however. She directed her gaze on the unhappy pair so forcefully that she almost missed the plunge of the raven, spinning out of the shadows to peck at Qutula’s head. Images spun behind her eyes then. She looked through the shaman gaze of the raven, saw when Qutula ground his hips against the girl, Eluneke. The green shadow of the bamboo snake that had enfolded him during the wrestling match again obscured his true form from her eyes. Through that grassy dusk glinted a shard of green jade gleaming at his breast.

  Had the false Lady Chaiujin taken another victim in her grandson? If not the lady, had he fallen under the spell of some other demon of her kind? Or was her unacknowledged grandson a willing accomplice in some plot of demons to overthrow the khanate? It seemed clear that however the thing had arranged itself, the green talisman reflected the power of its serpent master over Mergen’s blanket-son.

  Qutula dropped his mouth to the girl’s ear. With the sharp ears of the raven Lady Bortu heard his whisper, “Show me what would drive a prince to set his own desires above the will of his gur-khan.”

  “Prince Tayyichiut has done no such thing,” she answered him. Her breath came in shallow, frightened gasps beneath his fingers as he tore at her clothes.

  “I think my father would see it differently.”

  At court he dare not declare his relationship to the gur-khan. Patience had never been his strength; his grandmother had known the truth of his birth festered like a canker in his heart. She had not expected the pride and anguish that flavored the words on his tongue. “Show me what you give my cousin—”

  Toragana attacked, tugging at his hair and pecking at his head.

  “Stop!” Lady Bortu commanded in their silent communication. A little smile had touched the girl-shaman’s lips. “If fate is at work here, let the girl prove her good faith. If not fate but simple villainy, we will still have time to chastise my overeager young warrior.” Mergen would have to know, and Bolghai, but first she must have the facts to tell them.

  Toragana cawed her agreement. Allowing the young men below to think they had chased her into the trees, she perched within easy reach to watch and listen.

  “You want to see what he sees when he looks at me?” Her gaze drifted off, as if she had gone somewhere Qutula couldn’t follow in her mind. Fortunately, she wasn’t very good at her craft yet. He’d heard tales enough of shaman and other dream travelers disappearing from the midst of crowds. Even the gur-khan had told such tales as one who had seen them. If she’d been able to escape him, Qutula felt sure she would have.

  Suddenly, however, he was looking into the eyes of a toad, huge and malevolent and as poisonous as the snake that now coiled herself at the bottom of his belly. The toad tongue flicked out, testing the air between them, and he pulled his hand away, his fingers grown numb from contact with her poison touch.

  “Tell your lady I am ready for her.” Somehow, words the grinning toad face could not form found their way into his mind.

  Qutula knew better than to show the sick dread he felt—his Durluken would abandon any leader with less than heroic resolve in the face of such a foe. If he lived, he would go home before presenting himself at the ger-tent palace. His mother would have a simple to cure him of the toad-girl’s touch. As for his mind, he must speak to his lady. Could the girl read his intentions as well as speak inside his head? Did his own lady know his thoughts? The possibilities turned him cold inside. Or perhaps it was the girl’s poison, chilling him through his skin.

  “Go,” he said, as if it were his choice to release the girl. “But keep in mind that an arrow or a knife can kill even a shaman. There will be no tainted blood running in the veins of the khanate.”

  It seemed she would say something in answer, but she only rubbed at the bruises on her throat, staring at the jade that hung over his breast as if it were a clue to some riddle she must solve about him.

  “Don’t forget our little conversation. Don’t think I will forget it either.” With a final baleful glare Qutula turned and walked away. It was a calculated gamble, but the poisons of her kind worked best on contact with eyes or skin, an open wound to act like an open door to his vitals. With his back to her, he presented no vulnerable targets. But he tensed for the numbing effect of the toxin until he made it to the clearing at the center of the dell. He did not feel completely free of her until he had climbed the steep sides to the horses waiting above them on the plains.

  The raven allowed Lady Bortu to see what Toragana saw with her shaman’s vision. The giant toad with toxins glistening on her skin was an illusion. At its center stood the girl who carried within her the spirit of her totem, a harmless toad small enough to sit at the center of Bortu’s palm. Qutula, who had never enjoyed a deep insight, had recoiled from her as if touching her skin had indeed poisoned him.

  Through the shamaness she heard him tell the girl. “Go.” And then he left her there as if he weren’t running away. When he had gone, taking his followers with him, the shamaness fluttered down from her tree and turned again into the tall and lanky woman Bortu had confronted in the raven tent. She was too late, however, Eluneke had vanished.

  Lady Bortu stepped out from behind the tree from where she had watched both the lovers and the rivals. “Follow her,” she said.

  Toragana looked up at her, torn between her duty to her apprentice and to the khaness she had left watching on the shoulder of the dell. It was easier to climb up than down, however.

  “I’ll be fine,” the khaness assured her, “Come back, if you wish, when you have found your apprentice.” My granddaughter, she didn’t say, my grandson’s salvation.

  “Thank you.” Toragana’s voice echoed softly in her head. “I’ll come back for you.”

  “I know you will.” She began the slow and painful trip back to her own horse, certain that Toragana would honor her word, no doubt with her apprentice in tow. She wasn’t ready for that meeting yet, though she’d thought to be when she came out that day. It was one thing to take the measure of a simple shamaness in training, no matter her blood. Quite another, she discovered, to find that same girl holding off the threats of her own half brother, and that for love of her cousin the prince.

  If the story Toragana had told was true, the young shamaness would need that love to save the prince’s life. If it were true, Qutula might be the threat that rumbled like a storm on the horizon. Or he might have taken his father’s instructions to mean the girl was a threat and acted against that danger. The matter required deeper contemplation than she had yet given it. But later. Toragana knew where to find her now. And Bolghai would see that she did.

  Chapter Nineteen

  ELUNEKE TREMBLED under the warrior’s touch. She recognized him from the wrestling matches. The shard pinned to his leathers that had seemed to rest between the serpent’s fangs now hung from a golden thread over his breast. Through the eyes of the old witch who sat at t
he left hand of the gur-khan, she had watched the same green demon mist rise up to envelope him in the form of the emerald green bamboo snake. No question about the meaning of that warning. Though he followed the prince and acted his friend, he was at the heart of the danger that threatened not only the heir but the whole ulus as well. And he had help, whispering in his ear and resting over his heart.

  Toragana waited on a branch above her, so she wasn’t really worried about the immediate threat he posed her. But what serpent had he brought into the ger-tent palace? How could she stop him if he wielded a sinister magic more powerfully than a shaman?

  “. . . an arrow or a knife can kill even a shaman . . .” His power didn’t have to be stronger; a resolve to evil might destroy the purest unguarded magic. The bark from the tree pressed into her back while his hand around her throat demonstrated his threat. He could kill her now if he chose; only the image of her totem she wore like a shield kept her alive. In his eyes she saw anger building against the fear that stayed his hand.

  Her strongest instinct urged her to run, to turn into her totem animal and travel the secret paths of shaman as her teachers had shown her. If she were the dangerous creature she pretended to be, she might have tried it. But Qutula wouldn’t need magic to kill her if he caught her before she disappeared. All he had to do was step on her, sealing the prince’s fate and her own with one messy boot.

  She waited, therefore, until he turned away. “Go,” he said, and she did, faster than she had thought her skills would take her. She couldn’t do this alone. Toragana had the skills to lead her to the gods, but only the court shaman understood palace intrigues. Bolghai had lost a khan to treachery, after all. He wouldn’t let it happen again if he could help it. She knew where she had to go.

  Sechule banked the fire in the firebox. The day’s chores were done—bedding stacked against the lattices, mirrors polished to keep away evil spirits, a hole in the felted tent cover mended. The pies rested in the cooling chest and the millet stew that Qutula liked would simmer gently in its pot on the firebox until her sons returned wanting to be fed. She didn’t expect them until late, but a racket at her door set her plans aside.