by J. S. Bangs
Chuuri followed. The horses trotted forward, yellow prairie grass swishing against the boots of the riders. The loudest sound was the buzzing of grasshoppers.
They crested the outcropping. The prairie opened before them as a sea of yellow and green, riven by streams. At the bottom of the depression below them glittered the river, and crossing it at that moment was a line of pale figures, moving in single file.
“Those are not deer,” Keshlik said.
“No,” Chuuri said flatly. There was fear hiding in the corners of his mouth, but his teeth were clenched as if to prevent his courage from escaping. “But are they Yakhat?”
“They have no horses,” Keshlik said. “Have you ever known a Yakhat band to travel on foot?”
“No.” His dismay was clearer this time.
“Light the signal.”
Chuuri unwound the greased torch strapped to his shoulder. At the touch of an ember from his fire pouch, the torch leapt with flame, and a trickle of black smoke curled into the sky. The two nearest pairs of riders begin to move toward Keshlik, their horses cleaving the grass into feathery wakes. The line of pale Prasei reached the near shore and crept forward in the grass. “Do you think they’ve seen us?”
“If they have, they aren’t showing it. Or they’re so confident that they don’t think they need to change course.” His voice crackled with fear.
Keshlik searched for a cloud. Alas, the sky was a pale, flawless blue from horizon to horizon. None of Golgoyat’s mounts would bolster their courage today. But he was not afraid. He and Bhaalit had drilled the men on how they could defeat the earth witch, and he felt as confident as he ever had that they would prevail.
The first pair of sentries reached them just before the second. “What have you spotted?” the eldest rider asked.
“A large band of Prasei,” Keshlik said. “Moving toward our camp.”
“Have you seen the witch among them?” one of the younger ones asked.
“Too far away,” Keshlik said. “But we have to assume that she’s there.”
There was fear in their eyes, and he needed to cast it out now. “I hope she’s there, so we can teach her the taste of her own blood.” He glanced over them and picked out the youngest and most nervous fighter. “Dhalyat, you return to the camp. Rouse the rest of the warriors.”
Dhalyat nodded and galloped away.
Keshlik turned to the others. “So are you ready to teach the earth bitch to fear the Yakhat?” He didn’t wait for them to respond and give voice to their own uncertainty. “Ready your bows. Remember what Bhaalit and I taught you and that Golgoyat himself fights among us.”
Their assent was not as fierce as Keshlik would have wanted, but it would do.
They walked their horses toward the advancing band. A line of little hills hid them from view, but when they crested the next ridge, they saw the band about a mile away, jogging through the grass at a surprising clip. The leader of their enemies stopped and pointed, and the line drew together.
Chuuri drew his breath in sharply and put his hand on his spear.
Keshlik reached and put his hand over the youth’s to calm him. “Follow me.”
The two groups slowly advanced toward each other. The other band formed into a vague ball, moving forward through the grass with an awkward, uncoordinated pace. No hardened warriors, then. And a circle was a formation to be used when protecting something—and of course they were. The witch. She was the only reason that the rabbits had ventured out of their holes in the first place.
They were just outside of arrow range now. Keshlik loosed his bow and nocked an arrow on the string, squeezing his horse with his knees to guide her to the left. “Run without fear,” he shouted to his men. “Like the hawk against its prey.”
The bows of the others rattled behind him.
Those on the edge of the Prasei circle bent away from his approach like mice. He knelt to the right and let his arrow fly into the middle of the circle. It hardly mattered if he hit anything, just that the enemy recoil and stop moving. By the time he straightened himself in the saddle, his horse had carried him out of arrow range again, and he slowed her down to a trot and watched those following him. The last man in his line was shooting into the circle, and the others already formed up behind him, slowing and preparing to turn back. The Prasei had fallen back and drawn together, and he saw a few arrows held crookedly against bows to threaten their next pass.
“Again!” He plucked another arrow from the quiver. This tactic to harry a slow-moving enemy was as old as the plains, and the Yakhat knew it like their skin. The challenge would come when the witch began to attack. A few Prasei arrows fell past him, harmless as leaves as he thundered by and sent his point singing into their midst. For the second time, the little group, unharmed, formed up again beyond the huddled knot of Prasei.
“This band of trembling mice meant to attack us?” Keshlik called out. “Five Yakhat warriors have them hemmed in! And where is this witch of theirs?”
“They’d be better off throwing sticks, for all the good their arrows do!” Chuuri echoed. “Shall we go again?”
“Again!” Keshlik shouted. He charged back at their cringing circle.
At first he thought that Lashkat had almost misstepped. Then she nearly fell, her legs suddenly akilter beneath her, and a deep, omnipresent moaning buffeted the air. The ground trembled. His mare regained her feet, and he dropped the arrow from his fingers. He leapt from the saddle in midstride, and when his feet touched the ground, he slapped her flank. “Run!”
There was a thunderclap, then a hail of earth. Lashkat whinnied in terror. He glanced back: a fountain of earth gushed up from the place that he had just been, widening and tearing, vomiting up a geyser of stones and soil. The rain of stones battered his head and his mare’s flank. Lashkat bolted away from him, and he sprinted after her. He hoped they might both escape the range of the earthen hail, but no—a dark shape passed overhead, and the world became a twisted blanket of color. The lurching earth hurled him to the ground, and stones beat against his chest.
The earth was shaking like a flag in a gale. Keshlik tried to stand, pitched forward, and got a mouthful of dirt where he fell. He crawled. Lashkat was gone, all the better for her. He could dig himself out of the ground, but the horse couldn’t. The air was a soup of dust and falling stones, and the only sound was the earth’s sorrowful roar. Golgoyat’s balls. He had no idea if he was moving toward the fight or away from it, but he sure wasn’t going to stand still. Forward, forward, on his belly, battered by the downpour of fist-sized stones.
The soil split open like a wound in front of him, grass parting to release smothering loam. He rolled to one side, pushed himself to his feet, and ran blindly to escape the brown, bloody tide.
Suddenly he was sliding down a short rocky slope, scraping his knees and shins against the exposed teeth of the hill. The force of his landing stole his breath.
Air returned to his lungs, and he realized it was clear. No stones fell here. He had escaped the range of the witch’s wrath.
He crept to the top of the rise and peered at the course of the battle. The rest of his band had done exactly as trained. They scattered so that the witch couldn’t take more than one in any one swipe, and they loosed arrows into the heart of the Prasei formation as fast as they could draw the strings. But the Prasei were returning fire as they advanced with raucous, discordant elation. Fools. Keeping order in a charge was at least as hard as keeping order in a retreat, and more important. But let them be fools.
The tiny outcrop of rock that Keshlik had slid down protected him from their eyes, if only he stayed low. Their front line sprinted out of the dust clouds the witch had stirred up, and behind them came the core, walking more slowly, and with a stately reserve.
He caught a glimpse of the witch in their midst. A woman with unruly gray hair sticking out around her head like
wisps of clouds around the moon, hunched and pale. She was being carried by two men with interlocked arms, and Keshlik briefly thought she had fainted. But she moved, and her bearers moved where she pointed. They were following their front line to the Khaatat encampment to the east. And behind them came a few stragglers bearing more bows and stakes, shooting back at Chuuri on their rear.
Well. That gave him an idea.
His bow and his spear were with Lashkat, so the knife on his belt would have to be enough. He waited until the last of the Prasei were about a quarter-mile ahead of him, and he crouched and followed. He held his head just above the level of the grass, and he kept to the little hollows and dips of the plain whenever possible, to be sure that the enemy’s rear guard wouldn’t see him. But the enemy band was making a beeline for the encampment, and their guard, if it could even be called that, barely gave a glance at their flanks. If not for the witch in the midst of them, these people would be among the easiest targets he had ever taken.
Ahead, the peaks of the yurts rose from the grass. A few were stripped of their wrappings, and around their bases a horde of women moved like ants, trickling away to the south where their line disappeared. Between the attackers and the women stood a long line of horses with warriors on their backs. Spears and bows glittered in their hands. The knot of attackers drew itself together as it approached the Khaatat camp, but the Khaatat dispersed, assailing them with shouts and jeers. The warriors could certainly see the witch in the middle of the attackers, but they showed no signs of fear. Keshlik and Bhaalit’s plan had been to scatter the warriors like gnats, giving the witch no neat lines or clusters of warriors to strike against, and then sting her to death while she swatted at them one by one. And they were doing it flawlessly.
“Golgoyat himself fights among us,” he muttered. “Don’t fear the witch.” He touched the knife at his waist.
The Prasei force stopped. Keshlik dropped to a knee and watched them through the leaves of the grass. Like fools, they began to spread out, the rear guard splitting to both sides, the better to guard against the Khaatat swarm. The two men carrying the witch set her on her feet. She wobbled like a woman in her dotage, unsure of her step, then she reached for the ground.
The Khaatat did not wait to see what sorcery she would do. Shouts sounded from their lips, and they began to encircle the Prasei formation. A few brave men darted forward to spit arrows toward the witch, then retreated, weaving into the swarm.
The ground opened in front of the woman. A chasm spread, the earth splitting like a sheet beneath a knife, the soil in the wound churning like whitewater. The Khaatat fled from the line, but Keshlik saw a few who did not run in time and were swallowed by the earth. Cheers rose from the Prasei. The men in the rear line looked forward to watch the witch’s magic. Now.
Keshlik drew his knife and sprinted.
The witch was kneeling, her hands sunk into the earth up to the elbows. Another heartbeat and he would be upon her—but one of the men guarding her glanced back. He moved to block. Keshlik crouched and hit him at a sprint.
His shoulder struck the other man’s chest. The world spun. The ground smacked them both, but Keshlik kept his knife. He struck and met flesh. The other man’s scream vibrated through the knife blade.
He rose and turned. The witch was in front of him. She turned those horrible white eyes toward him, and the certainty on her face shook him to his bones—her Power had confirmed his presence. The moment in which they regarded each other stretched out glittering like a flake of flint, all other movement of the battlefield sliding to the edges of his vision.
“Die.” Keshlik sprang forward.
Before his blade could strike, one of the Prasei leapt onto his back and wrapped his arm around Keshlik’s throat. Keshlik jerked his head back and crushed his attacker’s nose. The man screamed and his grip loosened, but he maintained his hold. Keshlik charged forward, dragging the man behind him. He slashed at the witch. Missed. She was on her hands and knees, crawling backward, babbling in her serpentine tongue. The ground shook like a drumhead beneath them.
He lunged forward and slashed again. A corner of the woman’s shawl tore away. The man clinging to Keshlik’s back fell off. Keshlik leapt and stabbed. The tip of his knife pricked the witch’s shoulder and knocked against her bone. A mist of blood followed his slash.
The witch slumped against the ground, forehead first, then screamed against the dirt.
A fist of earth struck Keshlik in the chest like a hammer, throwing him into the air. The world turned to noise. He landed with a hail of stones.
He lay on the ground, stunned. Get up! Get up! pounded inside his skull. His feet and hands found the ground, and he rose.
He fell immediately. The ground wriggled like a serpent beneath him. The turf tore itself free to batter at his head. He tore it apart in chunks. Clods of dirt swarmed up his chest and burrowed into his mouth. He spat and tore them away, then spat again. No air. The soil rose up to bury him. He clawed and dug. No air. His lungs ached. He would scream, but his mouth was packed with dirt, dirt that fought and sought his throat to clog his voice forever.
Then it ended.
The dirt slumped away from him. He rolled onto his side, vomited a black puddle onto the ground, then fell forward into it. Dirtied snot dribbled from his nose. He spat gravel. Get up! Get up! ran his thoughts again.
His legs refused him.
The ground thundered. The bitch was coming to finish him off. “No,” he said. “No.”
His right hand formed a fist. He pushed himself up to an elbow. There were voices and screams all around him. Another push, and he regained his knees. If he could only get to his feet, he would finish off the witch. He raised his head to find her in the forest of shapes that fought around him.
But these were not Prasei. He saw horses. Khaatat riders. One of them looked at him, then shouted with terrified joy. “Keshlik!”
The Prasei were running, sprinting at full speed back to the west in a scattered, defenseless line. One of them held the witch in his arms like a babe.
Keshlik took a wobbly step toward them and coughed. “Go after them!”
The cry was spreading among the Khaatat: Keshlik lives! Keshlik lives! The riders around him slowed and ran to his aid. Their charge dissipated.
Keshlik spat another mouthful of mud and shouted, “Go after them, you fools! Forget me! They escape!”
As he said it, he felt the earth shudder. The Prasei had reached the top of the nearest hill. The witch slipped from the grasp of the man carrying her and planted her hands and knees in the soil. The ground creaked and shook. Nearby horses started. The riders at the head of the charge clung desperately to their panicked mounts. Keshlik braced for another attack.
The ground between the Yakhat and the Prasei bent, bulged, and buckled. A spine of stone rent the prairie’s skin, growing upward, shedding strips of sod and earthy clods as it grew. It widened faster than a horse could run. A mile, two miles—Keshlik lost sight of the end of it before the ridge ceased to grow.
The rumbling of the earth subsided. The stone ridge was twice as tall as a man, but it grew no taller. And the Prasei were hidden behind it.
Silence loomed over the prairie. Warriors stared in disbelief at the ridge of stone that had not existed seconds before. Keshlik took a few steps toward the vast, impossible wall. He dropped to a knee. “She got away.” He couldn’t imagine how the Yakhat would get a better strike at her than this, and still she got away.
Keshlik’s chest grew hot with fury. He gathered his strength and strode into the midst of the riders. His voice rumbled over the plain like thunder. “Do you hear me, witch? If you’re hoping to keep yourself safe from me, then this was not enough! The earthworks of Prasa did not keep me out. Neither will your stones.”
That was the last of his power. He fell to a knee and collapsed to the ground. The hands of warriors clos
ed over him and carried him back to the tents.
Chapter 16
Uya
There was shouting outside the yurt, from the direction of the main encampment. Uya and Tuulo looked up at the same time, eyes darting to the door of the yurt, but Dhuja barked a short, sharp command at them. Tuulo folded back to the ground.
Uya dropped her head into her hands. “She always tells us to stay.”
Tuulo looked at Uya with her big cow eyes and shrugged. She didn’t understand a word Uya said, but at least she seemed to sympathize with being cooped up in this reeking yurt. And she was better than the old midwife.
Boredom. She would not have guessed that the biggest problem with being captured by savages from beyond the mountains would be boredom. At first Dhuja had tried to order her to churn butter and serve food to Tuulo, but Uya had sulked and dragged her feet until Dhuja gave up. Now she sat in the yurt every day, doing nothing, and wished they would try to order her around again. Tuulo at least sometimes made little weavings with her fingers, but no one would let Uya try. Not that she even wanted to learn their savage patterns anyway. And in the enna she had whittled, carved, and done book work. The enna…
Oh, now she was crying again, and Tuulo was watching her with fake concern. The woman reached out her brown hand, but Uya swatted it away and wiped her own tears on her sleeve. She felt her family’s absence like a knife in her stomach. Sometimes, she went a whole day without thinking of them, but then Tuulo would say something, or Dhuja would look at her in a way that reminded her of Nei, and the knife twisted again. Most nights she cried herself silently to sleep.
If she did not have the promise of her baby, she thought, she would have died of despair weeks ago.
The earth quivered beneath the yurt. Tuulo shrieked and leapt to her feet. A stream of gibberish poured from her mouth.
“Calm down,” Uya said. “That was nothing important.”
