No time to wait out the frenzy, for the others would surely note their absence by now. No words that he could risk that might stir her from the madness, for he could only think she would seek to kill away the shame if he gave her the chance. And so he struck out into the darkness, taking his mark by moon and star.
He should have kept to a light pace, spared the horse for as long as he could. He might be pursued, and there was that other warband somewhere in front of them, hunting in the dark. But his horse was flying through the night, towards the point where the sun would rise, for Kai already had the feeling, as sure as curse or omen, that he would be too late.
23
The hard wind called from the west, and blew upon on the camp of the River Dragon. The spirit wind, their people called it, for there were unseen messengers abroad in the dark, bringing word from the living and the dead. And so it was that when the hard west wind blew, there were many who did not sleep. They huddled on the steps of their wagons and at the entrances of their tents – wrapped up thick in felt and fur, but with their heads uncovered, ears white with the cold and teeth gritted against the pain, for they would not pass the chance to hear some whisper on that wind. And so it was with Arite.
For days their people had wandered slowly from the winter campground, parting once more into the five clans, a nation divided and on the move once more. The dream of a nation, like all dreams, that dissolved under the light of a spring sun. And Arite’s people, the clan of the River Dragon, had moved to the south and the west, back towards the boundaries of their lands. A moving city upon the plain, resting here for only a single night.
Lucius and Kai’s daughter lay asleep in the caravan behind her, but the wind called to her as surely as a lover in the night, some turning passage of the wind that seemed to sound her name. She found herself walking far from the embers of the fire, to the northern borders of the camp. The sentries were lost in the darkness, the clouds thick and stars unseen. It was as though she stood at the edge of some great black sea, those waters that had swallowed her husband and children and her lover. And she listened for them, and waited for them to speak.
No words came to her on the wind, from the living or the dead. Perhaps it was that Kai and Bahadur were already slain, that their spirits wandered back slow across the plain and forest, sparing her the knowledge of their deaths for as long as they could. But she chose to believe that they lived. She waited there to see if the wind might change, so she might send a message of her own back with it.
A twist of the air rolled across her skin then, and somehow it carried a warning with it. Not one of sound or even smell – it was as though something invisible were carried to her from someone hidden in the night, some part of their spirit laid across her skin by the wind. For there were moving shadows out there, swimmers in that black sea beyond the camp.
And so it was that she saw them as they came, the line of riders from the darkness. Silent, faces soot-blackened, and even the horses were voiceless, their mouths bound with leather thongs. They were Sarmatians, bearing the long spears and scale armour of their people, and they could have been mistaken for ghosts, her clan’s dead riders returning from the Otherlands, until the first spear struck home and pinned a man to the ground at the edge of the camp. His screams drowned out by the war cry of the raiders, a song of the Wolves of the Steppe.
An old pain in Arite’s knee shooting fire as she ran, her legs as dull and heavy as though she were running in a nightmare. At any moment she expected to feel the sharp touch from behind and see the spearhead burst from her chest like a living thing, to see the world rolling into darkness and dust. But though they seemed all about her, hooves beating the ground so that she felt it shake and the war cries roaring in her ears, it seemed that none of them thought her worth the killing.
At the wagon, Lucius and Tomyris already there, weapons in hand – the child’s face painted with an eerie calm, and Lucius with his eyes rolling in his head, muttering prayers or curses to himself in his own language. For like all Romans he feared the ambush, to be caught in open ground.
In moments she had cut the horses loose and mounted, the horse trembling beneath her, the spear cool and steady in Arite’s hand.
‘A raid,’ she said. ‘Our people. The Wolves have betrayed us.’
‘What do we do?’ said Lucius.
She saw it all in a moment. The raiders passing through like a great wave from the black sea beyond, leaving the dead behind them, drowned on dry land. The light already rising from where the wagons had been fired – so soon, impossibly soon. The war cries that sang out unanswered.
‘We must run,’ she said.
There should have been no path for escape. Everywhere she looked were the raiders of the Wolf noosing the camp, every way closed by horse and spear. Yet fluttering in the air somewhere close, a Dragon banner rose, some captain of her people leading a doomed charge. She heard the war cries of the Wolves closing about that banner, and through the burning tents, she saw a gap open up, a path to the black open steppe.
Arite charged towards that gap, Lucius and Tomyris close behind. They were through it, past it, the dark plain open before them. And they almost made it away. Almost, they were allowed to live.
For she heard a hunting cry sound high and close. For a moment, Arite could not find the courage to look back – in nightmares, a stalking monster may remain fleshless until it is looked upon, and she had the mad dreamer’s hope that if she did not look they could not harm her. Then she heard Tomyris crying out, and she could wait no longer. She looked back upon her death, five riders peeling towards them, pursuing them into the darkness.
The lightest tug of the reins, and her horse fell to a grateful stillness. A little pressure of the right knee, and they were wheeling around. For the horses they rode were old warriors, robbed of the speed of their youth, pursued by eager young killers. She knew that there would be no outrunning those who followed them. She could only hope to wear her wounds upon her front, and before her, she saw their pursuers slow to a walk, too. No need for them to waste the breath of their horses, or trust to uncertain footing in the dark.
Arite leaned over in her saddle, passed Lucius a sword. He gave an experimental swing, testing the weight and the balance.
‘It is old,’ she warned. ‘Not as strong as the ones you are used to. Be sure of your stroke.’
‘It does not matter. Thank you,’ he said, his voice just as calm as hers.
‘Tomyris…’ But Arite fell silent as she turned to the girl. She meant to tell her to ride away, flee into the night and follow the river to the east. But what a death that would be to gift the child, alone and starving on the steppe. And so instead, she said: ‘Ride close behind, and stay low in the saddle. Use your dagger – at that place on the thigh, or across the eye of the horse.’ The child shuddered at that, though more for the thought of the horse than the man. Perhaps she was still young enough, mercifully young, that she could not think of her own death.
Both sides still walking, that maddening slow pace of cavalry conserving their horses. The moon was out once more, and she could see the markings of their gear, the scalps tied to the saddlehead. Trophies that they would join soon enough.
She tried to think that it was well to end this way – a death from the old stories. But there, at the last, she found that she did not believe in the glorious death. There was only a desperate hunger to live. She could feel dewed grass against her fingers, a lover’s weight above her, the taste of wine around a fire with close companions.