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."
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.