To the High Redoubt

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  She nodded once. “We must do what is easiest.” Her expression was not clear to him, and he waited for her to say more. When she did not, he dropped his hand and went to find the caravan leader to make his final arrangements.

  They were required to stay at the back of the caravan, behind two old and vile-tempered she-camels that stank and spat if Arkady let his gelding get too close to them. In the heat of the day, the dust raised by the caravan forced Arkady and Surata to ride in a perpetual gritty cloud; in the evening, they sat together in isolation while the men of the caravan ate, prayed and joked.

  By the time they crossed the Ural River and entered the city of Gurjev, Arkady was so vexed that he was tempted to leave the caravan and wait for another.

  “It would mean a long wait,” Surata reminded him. “This is the height of summer and few caravans venture across the desert at this time of year. The longer we stay here, or anywhere, the greater are our chances of being found by the Bundhi.”

  “He must be as reluctant to go across the desert as anyone else,” Arkady said in disgust. His eyes ached and he was furious.

  “He need not cross himself. His agents are eager to have his good opinion and will undertake…anything he wishes.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth. “I am sorry, Arkady-immai, that we must do this.”

  Until she said that, he agreed with her, but now that she had apologized, he felt his attitude change. “Well, if this discomfort makes it easier to reach the Bundhi, then it is good strategy for us to do it.”

  They were in their tent outside the walls of Gurjev—since they were foreigners and Infidels, they were not permitted to sleep inside the city. It was a still, baking night, one that stifled the very air. Since sunset, they had been alone; the men of the caravan had been accorded a welcome Arkady and Surata were denied.

  “Suppose they simply leave without us?” Arkady suggested some little time later. He had tried without success to fall asleep, and now lay staring up at the peak of the tent, feeling the rivulets of sweat run off his body and soak into the blanket beneath him.

  “Do you think they would?” Surata was drowsy but still awake.

  “They might. What could we do to them? Where could we complain? Who would listen to us? Who would understand?” He sighed and turned over, willing himself, unsuccessfully, to rest.

  Surata had no answer for him, and said nothing.

  Two days later they once more took up their position at the rear of the caravan and set out across the desolate lands east of the Caspian Sea. Four days out from Gurjev, they encountered a west-bound caravan from Kabul, and the two groups camped together for three days, the traders exchanging information and gossip while Arkady and Surata waited in their tent, forbidden to let themselves be seen by the Kabuli merchants.

  Among the Kabuli was a strange, wizened man, gnarled by disease into a skinny gnome. He was regarded by all the merchants with a reverence that bordered on fear. He took an immediate dislike to Arkady and Surata, castigating them in a frenzy of incomprehensible words. The caravan leader who had accepted Arkady’s gold began to make the sign to ward off evil every time he came near anything belonging to the foreigners. There was no doubt that the misshapen mystic had influenced the caravan leader.

  “I don’t like it,” Arkady grumbled at the end of the third day. “That magician, or whatever he is, he’s up to no good.”

  “I wish I could leave this tent,” Surata said. “I might be able to understand him.”

  “No. The leader made it plain that you’re to stay out of sight. So am I.” He could not pace in the limited area of the tent, but he moved restlessly, glaring at the wedge of sunlight that slanted in at them.

  “Describe him to me again,” Surata requested.

  “Little, bent, knobby, old.” He ticked these features off on his fingers. “Falls into trances, harangues the others, eats only cooked grain. I don’t know, Surata. I can’t understand most of what they’re saying, and even if I did, they wouldn’t let me near him long enough to find out much.” He snorted. “Fools!”

  “Yes, but they know the way.” She rubbed her face. “Do we have our packs ready?”

  This question was so unexpected that he turned and stared at her. “What? Why do you want to know that?”

  “Because I’m worried,” she admitted and would say nothing more.

  By nightfall a slow, persistent wind had come up, and with it, a pervasive sense of unease. The camels became more obstreperous than ever, the mules balked at their feed, and Arkady’s gelding tried to nip him when Arkady brought him a leather pail filled with water.

  “They sense something,” Surata told Arkady when he complained of the way the animals were acting. “I don’t know what it is, but they can tell there is trouble coming.”

  Arkady knew better than to discount this. How many times had he felt the same disquiet before a battle? He strove to remain composed, but his inner anxiety grew as the night deepened and he heard the animals grunting and stamping.

  “It’s that damned holy man of theirs. He’s making everyone upset and the animals feel it.” Arkady slammed his fist into his open palm. “By tomorrow, they’ll all be as mad as he is.”

  Surata shook her head. “That might be part of it, Arkady-immai, but it isn’t all of it.” She had been sitting quietly, in one of her ritualistic postures. “He’s…summoning.”

  Arkady stared at her, the back of his neck prickling. “Summoning what?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure what it is.” She gave an impatient clicking of her tongue. “He is…masked to me. I have tried to reach him, to learn what he is doing, but…” Helplessly she opened her hands. “Arkady-immai, I can discover nothing.”

  “Well,” he said wryly, “then we’re both confused.” He sat beside her, his legs crossed. “I wish they’d all go to bed. They’re still eating and talking. They might be up half the night.” He faltered, then went on. “I don’t want to sleep while they’re in the state they are. If I have to fight them off, I want to be awake enough to know what I’m doing.”

  “I don’t know if that’s the problem,” she said somberly. “I think it is something…different.”

  “Worse?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.” In her frustration, she struck out in the direction of his voice, but succeeded only in hitting the heel of his boot. With a cry she pulled her hand back.

  “Surata, I…” He tried to comfort her, but she wrenched away from him.

  “No. I’ve failed you.”

  “What are you talking about?” he demanded, a trace of unbelieving laughter tinging his question. “How have you failed me?”

  “I can tell you nothing, yet we’re in danger. You are aware of it, and so am I, but I have no skill to find out what it is. Fine protection!” This time she brought her hands down hard on her own knees.

  Arkady was reaching to stop her when a shattering roar filled the night. “Christ in heaven!” he burst out, crossing himself at the sound.

  The animals echoed this dire sound with whinnies and screams.

  Surata sat very still. “A tiger.”

  “By Saint Michael,” Arkady whispered. “Near?”

  They could hear the men of the two caravans shout and lament. There was a flurry of activity as they hastily armed themselves and prepared to fend off the huge cat.

  A second roar sounded, nearer than the first.

  “It’s closer,” Arkady whispered.

  “No,” Surata corrected him. “There are two of them.”

  He did not doubt her now; she had that stillness that was part of her certainty. “They’re hunting?”

  “Yes. Camels and mules and horses. They’re afraid of the fire, but their hunger may be greater than their fear.” She raised her head. “Can we build up our cooking fire?”

  “There isn’t much to burn,” he warned her.

  “Still,” she said, her brows drawing together.

  “The merchants won’t like it.” He said it
in a rush, and harshly. “They…”

  When he did not go on, Surata folded her hands, and her expression changed to that vacant look that Arkady knew he should not disturb no matter how much it puzzled him. He moved closer to her, waiting for her to come back to herself. He listened to the sounds of the mules and horses, their increasing agitation and fear. One of the mules let out a high squealing bray that started the others doing the same. The noise was almost worse than the tigers’ roars had been, and Arkady held his hands over his ears, hating himself for doing nothing.

  There was another roar, and the sound of snapping cord as one of the mules broke free of its tether, racing away in panic.

  “God,” Arkady muttered, waiting for what he knew he would hear.

  It came quickly the galloping was interrupted by a few irregular hoofbeats, and then there was a shriek and growl and the sound of the mule falling, kicking and grunting, and then there was another roar.

  “The tigers are sent. So is the holy man,” Surata told Arkady in a remote way. “They have been sent. They are…following us.” She lowered her head.

  “And?” Arkady said, knowing there was more. “The Bundhi wants to stop us?”

  “Yes. He wants us to die.” She leaned toward him. “I think I’ve held the horses and the other mules for the time being, but I can’t do it for long. If the tigers stalk us, they’ll flee.”

  “If the tigers stalk us, I want them to flee,” Arkady said. “I hope they chase our stock all over the desert. I hope they glut themselves and die of it.” His vehemence was so intense that he hardly noticed his fingernails digging into his palms.

  “First we should be sure we can go on,” she said. “The holy man will try to stop us now. I wonder, does he carry a staff?” She did not expect an answer but Arkady responded.

  “I didn’t see one, but to walk so far, and twisted as he is, he must have one.” There was a softer tone in his voice now, one that revealed his fatalism. “I ought to have thought of that before now.”

  “It doesn’t matter. If it had not been him, it would have been another.” With a sob of frustration, she reached for his hand. “Arkady-champion, it’s as much my error as yours. I’m going distracted sitting in this tent, like a piece of meat in an oven. I’ve lost track of what I must do, and it’s caused me to…make mistakes.”

  There were sounds from the merchants’ camp, a steady shouting like a chant. Above it all, the high, wailing voice of the holy man screamed in demented fury.

  “They’re as frightened as we are,” Surata said.

  “They’re angry as well.” He brought her hands to his lips and kissed them. “I think…we’d better be ready to get away from here.”

  Surata’s hands tightened. “We can’t.”

  “We can’t stay with these merchants either. Not tonight, but perhaps tomorrow night or the night after, they will decide that there has been too much wrong, and they will know it’s our fault. I don’t want them to be able to find us when they make up their minds. I’ve seen what Turks do to their enemies. I don’t want to learn that these men are cut from the same cloth.” He pushed the images that had formed in his thoughts to a far corner where he would not have to look at them too closely, but one refused to be banished: a sergeant, massive and dependable as a workhorse, strapped to an X-shaped cross, held in place with long strips of his own skin.

  “What should we do?” Surata asked.

  “Give the tigers time to feed, then make sure we have all our goods ready. Tomorrow when we start again—they have said we must resume our journey tomorrow—we will follow as always, but we will fall behind, so that by nightfall, we’ll be on our own.” He cleared his throat. “That ability you have, the thing you do when you…go look at things. Can you use it to guide us to Khiva?”

  She considered his question. “I don’t know. I’ve never tried to do it, but…I suppose it’s possible. We know the direction we have to go, and some of the route is marked. If I take care, I think…” She sighed, shaking her head. “Arkady-immai, I will do the best I can.”

  “Fine,” he said with enthusiasm. “That gives us a chance. If we continue southeast, we must come upon something eventually.” That sounded dreadful to him, and he knew it was terrible to her. “Surata, don’t be troubled. I’m saying these things wrong.”

  “No,” she said with resignation. “You are saying them truly. I don’t mind that you do. I would rather not fool myself or you. There is a good chance we will go astray, and then…the Bundhi need not trouble himself to send agents after us. The sun and thirst will be enough.”

  He could not contradict her. “In the morning, be prepared, Surata.”

  “I will.” She turned away from him, listening to the shouts and chanting from the merchants, and the nervous sounds of the animals while the tigers dragged their prey off to feed.

  Halfway through the next day, the caravan was so far ahead of Surata and Arkady that it appeared to be nothing more than a cloud of dust, like a distant storm, or the funnels that towered up out of the desert, swaying and coasting with the wind.

  “Do you think they know we’ve gone?” Surata asked as they watered their animals.

  “Probably. They will have stopped for food and water by now, and that should let them know that we’re missing.” He took his hoofpick and went to work on his gelding’s feet. “This hot, hard earth is bad for them.”

  “After Samarkand, we will soon be in the mountains.” She patted her mare’s nose. “At Ajni we turn south. There is a canyon that will lead us toward Gora Čimtarga. The Zeravšan and the Jagnob are the rivers we will follow.”

  “Tell me when we get there,” he recommended. “For the moment, all I wish to do is reach Khiva.”

  “And Samarkand,” she added.

  They deliberately went slowly that day and the next, putting as much distance between themselves and the caravan as they could without actually stopping.

  “Do you think the tigers will be back?” Arkady asked as they made camp the second night.

  “Yes,” she answered. “They have been trailing us since they killed the mule. They have the scent of us and the Bundhi to keep them constant on their hunt.”

  Arkady still found it difficult to believe that the Bundhi could control such beasts as tigers and he said so. “Even the Pope cannot command animals, and he speaks for Christ on earth.”

  “And did your Christ have power over beasts?” Surata asked while she gathered dried camel dung to burn in their fire.

  “I…” He had never actually thought about it. “Well, he cast demons out of a woman so that they entered swine.”

  “And what did the animals do? Did your Christ rid them of the demons as well?”

  “No,” he replied after he had thought about it. “At least, the priests don’t say that He did.” He looked at the pile she was gathering. “I should have remembered that all we had to do was follow the camels. That will guide us where we wish to go.”

  “Not all camels are bound for Khiva,” she pointed out. “Some are bound for Bukhara and some for Rai. Doubtless some are wild and are going where wild camels go.”

  “Right,” Arkady said, not quite comfortably. “It was just an idea.”

  “It was cheering,” Surata said, continuing in a lighter tone, “Arkady-immai, we have already come a great distance, more than I would have thought possible, and faster than I assumed we could go. For that alone, I am grateful to you.”

  “I don’t want your gratitude,” he said kindly. “I have not done this for gratitude.”

  “Then why have you?” She was searching the folds of her clothes for the flint and steel to start the fire.

  “Does it matter?” He had asked this facetiously but stopped himself. “It does matter. It would be a simple thing to say that I was captivated by you—and I was—but that’s not why I did this. At first I was running from my own disgrace, and saying that I was aiding you, or embarking on an adventure made it less like flight. Then…”—his thou
ghts turned inward—“I found that I wanted to do this. Expiation? Exoneration? I don’t know. I do it for myself.” He saw the trouble she was having with the fire and came to her side, handing her flint and steel. “Here. Use mine.”

  She took it from him. “Thank you, Arkady-immai.” She patiently struck several sparks before she was able to get a little flame, and all that time she did not respond to him.

  “Well?” he said when she had got the dried dung burning.

  “Your flint and steel,” she said, giving them back to him.

  “You have nothing to say?” He could not imagine that she would refuse to talk to him after what he had said to her.

  “Arkady-immai, do you want me to make light of what you’ve told me? Do you want me to say the easy thing or the true thing?” She remained silent while he thought this over.

  “The true thing, Surata.” He turned away from her and took the tether-stakes from one of the packs.

  “That will take a little time,” she said, adding more dung to the growing flames.

  Arkady set the tethers and unsaddled the animals, then tended to their hooves once more. By the time he was through, Surata had grain and fruit cooking. “I’m hungry,” he said as he unpacked their tent. “You?”

  “Yes.” There was something in her expression or the tone of her voice that caught his attention.

  “What is it, Surata?” He looked out over the dry land, the occasional bits of brush and withered grasses. The shadows in the fading day were long and deep like fresh scars.

  “The tigers are near.” She sighed. “Tonight or tomorrow night, they will be after the mules again.”

  Arkady knew better than to doubt her. “When do you think they’ll get close?”

  “I don’t know. There’s a dry wash to the south, and we could move over there for the night. There’s more fuel for fires,” she said.

  “I don’t like to fight in a trap,” Arkady said, thinking back to the battle he had refused that brought about his disgrace.

  “Nor do I,” she said, “but for different reasons. I want to know what is coming after me, and in that wash, I might not be able to find out.”