Jaran

  “A greeting in passing,” said Sergi.

  Bakhtiian edged back toward the rock. He lunged forward suddenly to Tobay’s right, cutting low. There was a quick exchange: low, low, and high; then low, and Bakhtiian came out to the open space with Tobay backed against the cliff.

  “An exchange of kisses,” said Sergi. “How passionate.”

  Tobay’s face and demeanor changed utterly, as if, Tess thought with sudden fear, a light had been turned on inside him. He moved back until less than a meter separated him from the rough wall of rock. With his right hand he reached back to brush the rock with his fingers, and the angle of his saber changed ever so slightly. Bakhtiian circled in, trying to push Tobay completely against the rock, feinting high but striking low again. But Tobay’s saber swept the cut aside and went on sweeping for Bakhtiian’s head.

  Tess gasped, breath suspended. Bakhtiian fell to his knees, saber barely catching the blow. For an instant the tableau held and then Bakhtiian twisted Tobay’s saber around, cut free from a flurry of blows, and leapt backward, regaining his feet.

  “A conversation,” said Sergi. “About the weather.”

  But Bakhtiian was wounded. Tess stared. Blood welled and, welling to fullness, bled off a cut on Bakhtiian’s wrist. She breathed again. Not deep enough to be fatal, or even perhaps, debilitating. And yet, what if Tobay was only playing with him?

  They moved away from the rock. Their exchanges grew more complex. Tess saw only a mix of high and low, wide and close, movements begun in one place that ended in another until she could not recognize where one began and the other left off. And all the time, the slow drip of blood from Bakhtiian’s wrist tracked his movements over the ground. She could not move. They both feinted, and feinted again, their sabers never touching. Every second she expected to see Tobay kill Bakhtiian. Every second Bakhtiian escaped.

  Tobay fenced him against a slab of rock and went for his face, angled the slice into an arc that would open his stomach. Somehow Bakhtiian twisted the blade and was still whole and moving. He parried and pressed, made a bid for open ground, and gained it. They backed off, eyeing each other, breathing fast and hard. Bakhtiian’s face shone with intensity. My God, she thought, watching him as he circled slowly, so concentrated that it seemed his entire being had caught fire: if he ever looks at me like that, I’ll last about as long as tinder under a glass.

  And she suffered an instant of stark fear, wondering what such a blaze would do to her.

  “Right hands,” said Keregin.

  Tess watched the rest of the fight in a haze. Somehow, now that they were right-handed, they seemed more evenly matched, but still she knew that she ought to fear more for Bakhtiian than for Tobay. Until, in a furious exchange, Tobay wrenched himself free and slapped his left hand over his right arm. Blood leaked out between his fingers. He grinned.

  “Enough!” yelled Keregin, dismounting.

  “The woman didn’t bolt,” said Sergi. “I’m more impressed with her than with Bakhtiian.”

  Keregin strode over to Bakhtiian, who stood breathing deeply to regain his wind.

  “By the gods,” Keregin squinted down at him. “Maybe there’s something to your reputation after all. Tobay, put up and go.” Tobay sheathed his saber, looking again half-witted and lifeless. Many of the men, who had looked up to watch the fight, turned their heads away again. “Tobay’s got no interest in life but saber. He prefers fighting two or three men, since one is too easy. He wasn’t going for the kill.”

  “I know.” Blood still dripped from Bakhtiian’s wrist.

  Keregin laughed. “And not too proud to admit it.” His expression changed. “You’ve got foreigners with you.”

  Bakhtiian shrugged. Tess crouched, balancing herself with a touch of one hand on the pebbles that littered the ledge.

  “I know the ruins up in these mountains. A place to inspire the gods in you if nothing else might, but I warn you, Bakhtiian, to reach them you’ve got to ride through khaja lands. There have been jahar raids into khaja towns, and your name linked to them. I won’t lift a hand against you, but there’s been mischief done. Is it yours?”

  “No.”

  Keregin lifted his right hand to flick a piece of grass off his beard. His little finger was missing. “I believe you. But remember, the khaja know your name now. They blame you. They are like us in one way, Bakhtiian, if not in any other: They seek revenge.”

  “I’ll scarcely bend a blade of grass as I go.”

  “One blade might be too many. Well, then, can you promise me one thing?”

  “How can I know until you ask?”

  Keregin smiled. “I admire your companion, who wears a man’s clothes with a woman’s courage, who is foreign and yet speaks our tongue. Don’t let her get into their hands. I’ve seen khaja do things to their women that made me cringe, and I’m not an easy man to sicken.”

  Bakhtiian’s head moved slightly, as if he began to look back up at Tess and then chose not to. “That I can promise you, Keregin. No woman for whom I have accepted responsibility will ever fall into khaja hands. Don’t forget that I have also seen how khaja treat their women.”

  “‘He who has traveled far,’” Keregin mused. “I begin to think you might even deserve it.”

  Bakhtiian sketched him the merest trifle of a bow, half respectful, not quite mocking. “You honor me.”

  Keregin chuckled. “Do I, indeed? I’d offer you a place with us, but I don’t think you’d accept.”

  “I wouldn’t.” He smiled. “I love women too well, Keregin, to give them up now.”

  “Yet you’ve made no jaran woman your wife.” Behind, the other riders began turning their horses away. Keregin angled his gaze toward the two horses standing quietly between them. “They’re beautiful horses, Bakhtiian, as well you know.” He smiled, a little mocking in return, and glanced once at Tess. “Breed strong stock if you can. I wish you luck.”

  He mounted without waiting for the reply that Bakhtiian seemed unlikely to give in any case, and reined his horse away from them. The rest of the arenabekh followed, not even glancing back as they galloped off. The sound of hooves drummed away, fading into silence in the clear air.

  When they were out of sight, Bakhtiian sat down and rested his head in his hands. Tess scrambled down from the rock.

  “Ilya, are you hurt?”

  He lifted his head to give her a wan smile. “Just regaining my composure.”

  “I’ll get the horses.”

  “Thank you,” he said into his hands.

  She busied herself with the horses, recovering her own composure. Eventually he appeared and took the black’s reins from her.

  “Thank you,” he repeated. He rubbed his horse’s nose and talked nonsense to it for a bit, slapped its neck, and mounted. Tess, who had been repelling Myshla’s attempts to chew off her ear, quickly followed suit. “A congenial group,” he said.

  “Keregin offered you a place. Would you ever have gone with them?”

  “I thought of it once, a long time ago. For them, it is the only life.” He shook his head. “It can’t be mine.”

  “I didn’t like them.”

  He smiled and brought his left wrist up to his mouth, touching partially congealed blood to his lips. “And blood is sweet, but life is sweeter.” He urged the black forward and they walked the horses parallel to the ridge. “Tobay is better than I am. Much better.”

  Wind touched her throat and her eyes. She blinked. “Because fighting is his whole life?”

  “He could have killed me.” He lowered his hand, turning it slowly, eyes on the cut, its slow well of blood almost stopped now. “He chose not to.”

  She put a hand on her stomach. “Good Lord.” He turned his hand over; the cut no longer showed. “But Keregin was impressed.”

  Bakhtiian flicked several bits of grass off the knee of his trousers. “Tobay can kill any of them, too, if I’m any judge of saber. I did well. With more experience, Vladimir would give him a fight.”

>   Silence followed for a moment, which Tess broke. “Keregin mentioned ruins. Are we near the shrine of Morava?”

  “No. The shrine is farther south. This is another temple. I would rather pass it by, but the pilgrims have insisted on seeing every one. What Keregin said about the khaja—well, I shall have to discuss this with Ishii.”

  He did discuss it with Ishii, that night at the campfire. Bakhtiian flanked by Niko and Josef and Tasha, Ishii by Garii and Rakii.

  “Because the shrine of Morava lies still on the plains, some days north of the don-tepes, the great forest, no foreign towns rest nearby and no foreign people come there but the occasional pilgrims,” Bakhtiian was saying as Tess settled in next to Yuri, far enough away that she could pretend to be listening to Mikhal strum his lute, but close enough to overhear. “But this temple, the zhai’aya-tom, rests in the mountains themselves, Cha Ishii, and to reach it we must pass by a city with walls and ride up into the mountains, and thereby make ourselves vulnerable to their attack, should the war leader of this city choose to pursue us. And then we must ride back the same way. It will be very dangerous. It might mean a battle, and we are too few, and the mountains themselves too great a disadvantage to the way we jaran fight, that I can offer you with any surety what the outcome of such a battle might be.”

  Ishii sat with perfect impassivity, hands clasped in front of him in that arrangement known as Lord’s Patience, and listened. When, after a moment, he accepted that Bakhtiian had said as much as he meant to say, he nodded. “We appreciate your concerns, Bakhtiian, but our god protects us. We fear no battle.”

  Tess lifted her gaze from a close examination of the knives at their belts to see Bakhtiian’s face tighten in exasperation.

  “Neither do I fear a battle, but it is folly to ride into a trap when the trap is there to see. It is only one temple. Cha Ishii. I promise you that the shrine of Morava is by any account the greatest temple in these northern lands. It will not disappoint you.”

  Ishii inclined his head. “All the temples or none. I believe, Bakhtiian, that we made this agreement.”

  Bakhtiian did not reply, merely giving Ishii a curt nod, and he turned away to walk out into the night, Niko and Josef and Tasha following him. The three Chapalii shifted as if with one thought to look at Tess, and she hurriedly evinced an overwhelming interest in Yuri’s embroidery.

  In the morning, they rode across the plateau. Fields appeared, then settlements, each one a handful of cottages surrounded by stockades of varying height and strength but all showing signs of frequent and recent repair. That first day, riding wide around these hamlets, Tess saw them as ugly squares intruding on the landscape like sores on otherwise healthy skin, their inhabitants forever bound and imprisoned by the protecting walls. The idea of defending one place seemed preposterous, until her settled sensibilities took over and the idea of always fading into the brush and never making a stand suddenly seemed cowardly. It was hardly surprising that these people, settled and wandering, could not trust each other.

  Bakhtiian led them through without stopping. No one harassed them. Indeed, they saw no one at all. But at every stockaded village they passed, Tess felt, knew, that they were being watched. They halted late that night, kept a triple watch—sleeping in shifts—and rose before dawn to ride on. Somehow word had passed on ahead of them. Empty fields ripe for harvest lay quiet in the sun. No one walked the trails linking the hamlets. Every stockade gate stood shut. Now and again, they glimpsed faces, peering over the walls. Another day passed.

  The next morning Bakhtiian gathered them all together.

  “Today we reach the mountains. The ruins are at the head of a gorge. To reach it we must pass close beneath a city.” There was little color this early. He looked mostly gray, shaded dark and light. “We’ll ride fast. Expect attack but do not provoke it. They may ignore us.”

  The Chapalii waited, patient, unafraid. As they mounted, Garii hung back as if his horse was balking and hissed softly between his teeth as Tess went by.

  “Lady Terese, I beg pardon for my presumption,” he said quickly, not even looking up to see if she was slowing her horse to hear him—which she was—“but I implore you to have a care for the gift which you were so magnanimous as to accept from me.” Glancing down, she saw he had a hand on his knife.

  “Garii?” Ahead, Ishii had turned and was staring back at them.

  “Yuri,” Tess said, riding on as if no exchange had taken place, “how long until we enter the mountains?” She kept going, not even waiting to hear Yuri’s reply.

  At noon the scouts, hardly more than a shout away, came back from all sides. The mountains loomed before them, huge and impenetrable. But there, like a scar, a great valley slashed through the wall. Where the valley opened onto the plateau, a city rose, hard against the eastern heights of the mountain. A fortress, heavy with stone; high, castellated walls weighted it to the earth. Fields and hovels sprawled out from it like so much debris. A narrow river pushed past, curving east. The valley opened before them and then they rode up between the high sides of the mountains.

  They galloped past the town, Bakhtiian leading them as far against the western heights as he could. Small figures gestured atop the stone walls, but they were too far away to attack. The jahar rode on, up the broad valley, and soon enough they left the fortress behind. The last traces of fields merged into the wild scrub of the narrowing gorge. Bakhtiian signaled a halt, and everyone dismounted, walking their horses to cool them.

  It was a brief halt. They mounted again and went on. Tess stared at the sheer dark cliff faces, veined with white, that rose like an iron stockade to her left, at the rocky defiles that climbed up and up to her right. Ahead, the gorge ascended toward the white-topped peaks in a gentle but narrowing incline, colored in greens and grays and dry golds. Tess urged Myshla up to ride next to Bakhtiian. He had a slight smile on his face that disturbed her.

  “What if they do pursue us?” she asked.

  He laughed. “They can’t catch us, not on foot. Certainly not on horses. Khaja don’t know how to ride.”

  Tess began to make a comment about how she was a khaja, and then thought better of it. “But Ilya, even if they don’t catch us, we’re going to run into the peaks eventually. And then we’ll have to ride out this way again. They can simply wait for us.”

  “They can wait,” he agreed. He did not glance back. “But I have heard there is another path out of this gorge, a rough trail, but better, I think, than returning the way we came.”

  Tess chuckled. “Yes. Nature is so much safer than men are.”

  “Is she?” A cold wind stirred her sleeves, chilling her fingers. “I wonder.”

  “How far to the ruins?”

  “Two days.”

  “But look how close the mountains are. We’ll run into them before then.”

  His mount shied. A small rodent ran chittering off the trail to disappear under rock and moss. He pulled the black in, undisturbed. “The mountains have as many twists and turns as a devious man.”

  “As many as you, Bakhtiian?”

  “Oh, far more.”

  She smiled, and then sobered, glancing back. “But what if they follow us? What happens then? I don’t think these khaja like the jaran.”

  “Neither do I.” He did not answer her question.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “I thought in a dream that I was dead.”

  —EPICHARMUS OF SYRACUSE

  YURI TOLD HER THAT it was autumn, by their reckoning, and she looked for signs of the change of season. It was bitter cold at night, but that could have been the altitude. Streams spilling down from the heights fed the gorge, feeding green to the thickets and the meadows of thin grass. Smaller plants that neither she nor any of the jaran had a name for grew abundantly. Colors she never saw on the plains, crimson and olive and mustard, dappled the rocks, growing sparser the higher they rode. And yet the eye quickly grew accustomed to the variety. How monotonous the plains were in comparison.
r />   The first night they rode until the moon set, changing mounts as the horses tired, slept in shifts, tentless, tireless. Not even the Chapalii demurred. Even the thermals in her Earth clothing barely kept Tess warm. The gorge angled right, a narrow scar that cut up into the mountains as though some long-dead giant had left this furrow in the wake of his planting. It was cool and damp between the high walls of stone, moss and orange-gray lichens everywhere. They did not see the sun until mid-morning. A stream rushed down one side of the defile, more white than water. It was shockingly cold to the touch.

  They followed a road littered with rocks, but a road for all that. Paving stones showed here and there under lichens; tufts of grass sprouted in lines too straight to be natural. The gorge narrowed until they could ride only three abreast, then two, then single file. The hooves of the horses echoed strangely in the enclosed spaces. Just when Tess knew they could not possibly ride any farther, the gorge opened out abruptly into a secret glen. They had reached the ruins.

  “That was never a temple.” Tess moved her mount up beside Bakhtiian as she gazed out and up at the little valley, a large, open area of grass and ruins, sprinkled through with a profusion of tiny white flowers. “That was a fortress.”

  “That’s what I’m counting on,” said Bakhtiian.

  Except for the defile through which they had ridden, they were surrounded on all sides by the mountains. An avalanche had obliterated the leftmost portion of the ruins. The back of the vale ended in a sheer cliff face that rose cleanly into the mountains for about twenty meters before beginning to climb in stair steps to the huge, snow-capped peak towering behind.

  The glen itself rose in three broad stair steps to the cliff face: directly in front of them, a bluff—not quite the height of two men—ran the entire length of the shallow meadow that the neck of the gorge emptied into. A stone wall rose flush from its edge, so that from where Tess and Bakhtiian sat below, they could see only the suggestion of another wall, above and beyond, that marked a higher level. Here and there the bluff had eroded away and a stone tumbled down into the meadow. The remains of the road continued along the base of the bluff to its lowest point, where it snaked up through a stone gate that had once, perhaps, borne a lintel over the two pillars that flanked it.