To the High Redoubt

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  The other merchant hurried to the table just as the kitchen door swung open and one of the potboys came out with a tray of boiled eggs.

  “Make sure you eat two,” Old Milo advised everyone in his party. “They will sustain you.” With that, he fell to eating himself.

  Within the hour, the entire group had assembled in the innyard, ready to leave. The sun was not far above the horizon and it cast long, spiky shadows. The air had an ominous red tinge to it, and the animals all were restless.

  “It must be the wind coming,” Tibor said as he got onto his bucket-faced mare. “It always makes ’em crazy.”

  Arkady’s bay was restless as well, and he sidled when Arkady tried to lift Surata to his back. He slapped the horse with the ends of his reins. “Stand!” he ordered and swung Surata upward as he spoke. Behind him, the ass brayed, his long ears turning and big teeth bared.

  “We’ll not make good time today,” Old Milo declared and gave the sign for his company to mount up. “But the sooner we start, the better.”

  Yevgen mounted his dun and took his position at the head of the little train, gesturing Arkady and Tibor into their forward positions. “If you see anything, warn me.”

  It was all they could do to keep their beasts moving, and for the next two hours, most of the men were silent, giving their attention to horses and asses and donkeys.

  “The wind will be here soon,” Surata told Arkady as the sun approached mid-heaven. “There is still time to find shelter.”

  This time Arkady did not question her, for he had felt that change in the air and the scar over his eye had been aching for most of the morning. “I’ll do what I can,” he said and raised his hand to catch Yevgen’s attention.

  “Trouble?” the other shouted.

  “The wind is rising. It might be best to make camp now, while we can.” Arkady did his best to say this calmly, as he would have spoken to his own men, but he could see Yevgen bristle at the suggestion.

  “I don’t sense it,” he replied. “You’re too cautious, Sól.”

  “Rather that than capricious,” Arkady snapped before he could stop himself. “We’ll lose horses if we fight the wind.”

  That argument had an impact. Yevgen nodded grudgingly. “There is that,” he said. “I’ve spotted some trees in the distance. We should be able to shelter there.”

  “Arkady-immai,” Surata whispered, “there is danger.”

  Arkady nodded to show he had heard. “Very well. Should I warn the merchants?”

  “I’ll do it,” Yevgen declared, turning his horse toward the men behind him.

  “Do not go to the trees, Arkady-immai,” Surata said as soon as Yevgen spurred away. “There are men waiting there already. They are eager for goods and slaves.”

  “Then Yevgen should—” Arkady began.

  “Yevgen can deal with the men. He has done so before.” She pressed closer to him. “If you let the ass run away, we may chase it.”

  “And lose it,” he rejoined.

  “Better an ass than a life, Arkady-champion,” she said very softly.

  He shook his head, but could not ignore her warning as he might have done before. His skin was prickly with apprehension, and he could not rid himself of the impression he was being watched. “Very well. In a little while, I will release the ass and we’ll chase it.”

  Surata nodded. “It will go to the north and east, away from the road.”

  Arkady started to laugh at this, then stopped. “How can you be sure?”

  “Because I will guide it,” she said with a trace of mischief in her voice. “He will go precisely where I wish.”

  “But—” He could not bring himself to say anything more, especially since he feared her answer.

  “Then we will follow him and the others will go to the trees on the south side of the road. We’ll be safe, Arkady-immai, and we will be able to shelter from the storm.”

  “How can you be certain of that?” he asked curtly.

  She sighed. “Arkady-immai, you have trusted me before and had no cause to regret it. Why do you hesitate now, when you yourself suspect the others?” Her hands pressed more tightly against him. “They go to a trap and you know it. Everything you ever learned as a soldier tells you that, and still, when I echo what your senses tell you, you question me as if you had no fear.”

  Arkady rode in silence a little while. “I do trust you, Surata, and that frightens me more than the swords of a few highwaymen or robbers.”

  For once, Surata said nothing. She clung to him, her head against his shoulder, her hands pressed to him where she had said the Sixty-Four Petaled Center was.

  Yevgen rode over to Arkady, shaking his head as he came. “They want to make for the trees. Keep your eye out for a road. I don’t want to have to cut across the fields unless we must. It always slows us down to do that.”

  Arkady almost added that it also left a trail to follow, but was able to hold his tongue this time. “I will. But Tibor is more likely to find it than I am, being on the south.”

  “True, but we should all watch, in case.” He waved and started away, then glanced back. “The wind’s starting to rise, did you notice?”

  “I did,” Arkady said.

  As Yevgen hastened away, Surata said, “He is plotting death, Arkady-champion.”

  “But he speaks Polish!” Arkady protested, hating to think ill of the man when they were both so far from home.

  “Even then,” Surata said by way of consolation.

  A little distance on, Tibor pulled in his chestnut mare and shouted, pointing ahead to a narrow pathway through the fields. “There! Yevgen, there it is!”

  Yevgen signaled the men behind him to stop and rode ahead while the others waited.

  “Let the ass run, Arkady-champion,” Surata whispered. “Let him run now.”

  Reluctantly Arkady loosened the lead rein that was tied to the front of his saddle. He could feel the ass tugging on it as the length of braided leather pulled free. He forced himself to wait a bit before he noticed the ass. It was running to the north and east, as Surata promised it would.

  “Sól!” Yevgen shouted. “Your pack ass!”

  Arkady felt a great inward relief as he rose in his stirrups and swore. “I’ve got to catch him! He’s got all my provisions!”

  Yevgen shouted an objection, but Arkady had spurred his bay into a tired lope after the fleeing ass. He was glad that the gelding was not too fresh, for it would have been an easy task then to catch the ass and bring him back. This way, it would be some little time before he stopped the runaway, providing himself with an excuse for not trying to return to the rest of the party. Arkady loved the feel of a running horse under him, and he rode now with exhilaration. This had been one of his greatest joys since he was a child, and to let the bay have his head delighted him, though he had sense enough not to let him run too far.

  By the time they caught up with the ass—it was standing with sweat-daubed coat and heaving flanks—the merchants and their two out-riders were specks in the distance. Arkady leaned out of the saddle and caught the lead rein. “What do we do now, Surata? You said there would be shelter, and I’m damned if I see any.”

  Surata turned her head, for all the world as if she were looking over the landscape. “It is that way,” she said, pointing off to her left. “Not far. Look for a stream and two tall rocks.”

  Although he was skeptical, Arkady did as she told him. “It had better be close,” he said as they started off again at a walk. “The wind is growing stronger.”

  “Yes; we have time enough.” She held him tightly. “It was fun, wasn’t it, chasing the ass?”

  “It was,” he said with a smile. He leaned into the wind as he rode.

  The first keening wail of the storm was sounding by the time he found the two upright rocks near the stream, and by that time he had almost given up hope of them. Arkady coughed as he tried to speak, for the wind had dried his throat. “The rocks are ahead.”

  “Th
en stop,” Surata said confidently. “Take the blankets and make a shelter with the rocks and the saddles. Give me things to carry or hold for you. That will speed us.” As he drew up the bay, she slid off the horse and stood, her arms lifted. “Give me your swords and maul for a start. I know how they should be cared for.”

  As he dismounted, Arkady did as she ordered him, no longer surprised at himself for following her orders. He blinked as the wind stung his eyes.

  While Surata gathered small rocks to hold the blankets in place, Arkady secured both his bay and the ass in the lee of the rocks. He hauled the saddles off both animals and lugged them to where Surata waited for him. “They’re safe enough, I think. I have tethers and hobbles on both of them. In wind like this, they won’t want to go far.”

  “Good.” She pointed out the little rocks and helped him with the unfolded blankets, giving him very little advice on what to do. “You have spent more time in tents that I have, Arkady-immai,” she remarked when he expressed amazement at her reserve.

  “I’m glad you’re aware of that.” He had to shout to be heard over the howl of the wind, and when, shortly after, he crawled under the protecting blankets, he said to her, “Not bad for makeshift.”

  “You’ve known worse,” she said for him. “Now you can lie back, and I will rub your arms and legs for you, and while the wind blows, we can go elsewhere together.”

  He looked up sharply. “Surata, if you mean—”

  “I mean only that we have the ability to wait out the storm in pleasant ways. Come, Arkady-immai, it isn’t too cold and we are not in any real danger here. Why do you refuse something so pleasant and useful?” She was sitting with her legs crossed in a way that Arkady thought was impossible. Her hands were folded in her lap, first fingers and thumbs pressed together in two circles; she smiled at him. “Arkady-immai, where we go when we are venturing together, you can fight trolls and dragons. You are the warrior, Arkady-immai, and in that other place, I will be your weapon, whatever kind you want.”

  In spite of himself, he was intrigued. “It…isn’t that, Surata. It’s what you do.”

  “You mean that we unite our bodies? Why does this vex you?” She held up one of her hands. “You needn’t tell me.”

  Arkady leaned back, saying rather dreamily under the wind’s scream, “When I vowed to fight the Turks, I went to the church and did the Stations of the Cross. I said all the prayers, and promised God that I would be a worthy Christian soldier, so that He might favor us in battle. A woman like you…there’s no way I can explain it. I’ve tried, and you don’t understand. Every moment in the Stations, the Crowning with Thorns, the Driving of the Nails, I beseeched God to be the soldier He wanted me to be.”

  “And why do you fear you are not?” Surata asked, uncrossing her legs and crawling toward him. “Couldn’t it be possible that your God sent me to you so that you could battle more than Turks? Think of it, Arkady-immai. You can conjure and defeat dragons.” She touched him, seeking the place she had called the Center of the Heart. “Why not try, Arkady-champion? If your God disapproves, you will remain here to sense the storm. If your God does not mind, you will transcend to the other place and fight dragons.” She took his face in her hands, tracing his features. “Arkady-champion, I know many things, but I never learned how to fight. Without you to aid me, I will be lost to the Bundhi. With you, there is a chance. If you are so anxious to serve the Right Hand Path, aid me.”

  He caught her hands in his. “Isn’t there another way?”

  She sighed. “No. You would need years of training and study, and even then, if we are to fight together, we would have to be together. That is where the strength of man and woman lies, Arkady-champion, in their unity, not in their separation.”

  One corner of the blanket flapped free, snapping in the wind. Arkady reached over to secure it again. “I should refuse,” he said when he turned back to her. “I should not let you speak to me of any of this.”

  “But you are listening,” she pointed out, her mouth turning up at the corners. “Arkady-champion, I am no different than you. I am far from my home and I am uncertain and lonely. But the Subtle Body is never away from its home, and there can be no loneliness when we are together.” She ran one hand along the hem of his brigandine. “Arkady-champion.”

  The truth was, and he knew it, that he wanted her, and he welcomed her persuasions. He could convince himself that she was the one who desired their lovemaking, and that he had resisted until her presence overpowered him. He let her take his hand. “Dragons, you say?”

  “Or anything else you can imagine. In that other place, everything is mutable. If you wish it to be, then it can be that way. And while I am with you, you are in no danger. You have…my word on that,” she said, the last words a perfect imitation of him.

  He laughed aloud. “Well, I admit I would like to fight a dragon.” He remembered all the tales he had heard of Saint George of Armenia, who had been empowered by God Himself and the Archangel Michael with the strength to defeat the Devil in the form of a dragon. Was it the sin of vanity to want to emulate the great warrior-saint? He stared down at his large, blunt hands. Carefully he flexed his fingers and imagined his right hand closed around the hilt of a lance.

  “Think, Arkady-champion,” Surata said to him, “you will be able to do what you wish, and you will not fail.” She had already unfastened her belt and opened her outer robe. “Arkady-champion, undress me.”

  “A true dragon?” he persisted even as he reached for her.

  “As true as anything in that place. This is not the realm of dreams, but another place. Your battles there are as real as your battles here, Arkady-immai.” She raised her arms so that he could take off her inner gown, shivering when she was naked.

  “Oh, sweet Mother of God,” he said to himself as he put her garments aside. “You are so beautiful.”

  “And you are beautiful, Arkady-champion,” she replied, her hand on his. “Take off your clothes so that I can…see for myself.”

  He paused in unfastening his heavy belt. “Don’t, Surata.”

  “But Arkady-champion, I do see you. When we are in the other place, I can see you with more than eyes, and what I see is beautiful.” She took his belt from him and laid it aside. “Does that trouble you?”

  “Of course not,” he muttered, feeling his face suffuse with embarrassment. He could not make himself take off his brigandine and acton, or remove his boots and leggings.

  Very gently, Surata took his left foot in her hands and began to draw off his boot. “You can remove the rest, Arkady-champion.”

  How he desired and dreaded her! He undressed without thinking, as if he were numb from fatigue and battle instead of stricken with lust. He did not try to stop her when she pulled off his other boot, or when she unfastened his leggings and codpiece. He folded his acton and brigandine as if his body belonged to someone else and what was happening had nothing to do with him.

  But then she began to massage him again, triggering reactions that racked and delighted him. He was suddenly restless with his need of her; he reached out for her, all but dragging her across his body.

  “Slowly, Arkady-champion,” she told him. “You know that.” Then she kissed him, her lips parted, her tongue just touching his.

  He made a sound that was half moan, half sigh as he rolled on top of her, his whole body shivering for her as the blankets shivered in the wind. He felt her, supple and ardent, lift herself to him, and his head swam as if he were rapturously drunk and the colors were all around him, vivid and intense as they shifted and changed, more beautiful than sunlight on the ocean.

  “Arkady my champion,” Surata said to him, “choose where you wish to be, and what you want to encounter.”

  He could not speak to her, so all-consuming was his vision and his passion. There was a current running through him, inexorable as the tide. Surata filled the lights, her face transformed with ecstasy. “You are the most beautiful woman in the world,” he felt himself
say, wondering if he had spoken at all.

  “You want to battle dragons, Arkady my champion. Build a dragon from the light and make me your weapon.” Her voice was all around him, tangible in the brightness, and it touched him in ways that her hands could not.

  “I don’t know how,” he whispered and knew that his response was part of the light.

  “Tell me what it is you wish, Arkady my champion, and it will be there. You thought of Saint…George, who defeated a dragon. What was the creature? Tell me.” She spoke in sounds more wonderful than music. “Tell me, Arkady my champion.”

  They glowed in the light. “It was big, and clawed and scaled. It breathed fire, and it lived in a cave in the rocks, where it had piled up an enormous treasure, and where it brought the maidens it demanded in token…”

  Around him the light coalesced into rocks, crags and canyons. Enormous, yawning darknesses punctuated these granite turrets, and in one of them, two chatoyant spots glowed. Arkady felt something in his hand and looked down to see a lance, so long and powerful that he was astonished he could control it more easily than his short sword. It fitted his hand and his arm so comfortably and lightly that he wondered how it could have the strength he knew it possessed.

  “I am your weapon, Arkady my champion,” Surata told him, her voice running up his arm. “I will not let anything hurt or harm you.”

  He was about to question her, when a shuddering roar burst from the distant cave.

  Chapter 9

  A dragon, twice the size of a horse, shambled into the brightness. Its scales flashed more than the sun off new snow, and when its spike-filled mouth gaped, ragged plumes of fire shone out. As he watched, Arkady marvelled at the beast and yearned for a horse to ride against such a monster, for surely, surely, he could not face it on foot with just his lance.

  “Make it a good horse, Arkady my champion,” Surata told him, her voice once more ringing in his flesh, moving up his arm like the strength of his muscles.