"Niko!" His gaze remained on the priest below. "This temple?"
"I know of no other near here."
"These khaja are a religious people."
"Devout. Fanatic. Their god offends easily, if the death of a holy brother is of greater account than that of a child."
"Keregin of the arenabekh says that they treat their women particularly badly here. Would lying with a woman in here offend them, do you think?"
"Ilya!"
"Damn it, Niko, would it? We need time. Would they try to stop it? Or retreat?"
That hushed sound, Tess thought. It must be the stream.
"Damn you, Ilya. I talked with a khaja once years ago, a man from hereabouts. We were trading."
"Niko."
"He said that to murder or to rape in a temple brought the anger of the god, and-gods! Yes, I remember. Or to see it done!''
"Ha! Priest! Priest!" He shouted, one hand moving to his saber. "So you think / foul your temple."
The priest dropped the spear, grabbed it. "Black demon!" he cried. Two men helmeted with leather coifs appeared and then vanished back into the gorge behind him.
"So your god is offended!" shouted Ilya. "Niko," he said, not turning his head. "Everyone mounted." Niko moved back, Tess and Yuri following. "No," said Bakhtiian. He reached down, glancing back, and grabbed Tess's wrist. "Up." His pull was so strong that instead of coming up to her feet on the wall she lost her balance, boots skidding on the smooth stone, and fell to her knees on the wall. She stared up at Bakhtiian; the priest stared at her. Bakh-tiian reached down and tugged at her braid. Her hair fell loose around her. "Priest!" he shouted. "Since you offend me, I'll defile your temple."
The priest wailed a protest, incoherent at this distance.
"Fight me," Bakhtiian demanded, jerking her up. She twisted away from him and kicked out, half slipping again. He reacted so instinctively that he wrenched her arm and she gasped in pain. "I'm sorry," he whispered.
"No!" cried the priest. "Do not defile the temple!"
She was caught, bent backward, half balanced on one hand and half held up by Bakhtiian's arm behind her back. The sky had a transparent quality; the peaks shimmered. "Scream," he said. He put his free hand to the top of her tunic.
"I've never screamed in my life,' she said, paling. "I don't know how."
"Scream, damn it!"
Tess screamed.
"No," cried the priest. Men appeared, armed, bows ready, spears leveled. "No!" he yelled, desperate. "Stay back. Do not compound the offense. Stay back!" The men retreated. The priest fell to his knees and covered his eyes, calling once, twice, to his god, entreating His aid.
Bakhtiian's glance shifted, and he lifted his chin, signaling to the men stationed along the wall below. Then he glanced back. "Yuri. Tell the others to go. We can't wait for Josef. You wait with Tess's horse." He looked down at Tess. "Do you have anything on under this?"
"Yes."
From above, they heard noises, the beginning of the retreat. The priest looked up. Bakhtiian ripped off her tunic. The priest shrieked and covered his face. At the wall, the fifteen riders leapt up and ran for the escarpment.
"That's Nadezhda Martov's pattern," said Bakhtiian, looking bemusedly at the collar of the white blouse she wore under her now-ripped tunic.
"Stay back! Stay back!" the priest was crying. "We must not compound the crime with offense of our own."
The fifteen men reached the upper wall and scrambled over it to land panting on the packed earth behind.
"Everyone go except the archers," said Bakhtiian.
"But-"
At the sudden silence, the priest ceased wailing and lowered his hands from his face.
"Go!"
Twelve left. Tess saw them, quiet and swift, and heard their horses pounding away up the trail. The priest looked up, confused. Then he stood, dropping the spear, and the white cloth fluttered to the ground.
Bakhtiian closed his hand on the thin white fabric of her blouse. And hesitated. "I can't do this."
"Damned male." Tess kicked him, swung with an arm, and squirmed for the edge of the wall. The priest hid his eyes and yelled again at the soldiers behind him to stay back, adding a string of incomprehensible, hysterical words.
Tess's legs lay half off the wall on the upper side, Yuri crouched beneath her. Bakhtiian lay half across her chest, his left arm pinning her to the rock. Cold edges thrust into her back. His head rested two hands above hers, shading her from the sun. He was not looking at her, but staring down at the priest, a small figure in white and blue far below. She noticed how the waves of his dark hair flowed in patterns that had the same sweep and curve and richness as rose petals. A breeze cooled her cheek.
"Now what?" she asked.
Bakhtiian looked down at her. His mouth twitched. "I think I'm going to start laughing."
Tess shut her eyes and choked back a giggle, gulping in the thin air. Six of them left. Someone was not going to make it up that trail. "How long do you think they're going to believe this?" she cried, not at him really but at the fate that had brought them here. She pushed at him, trying to get free. "Yuri!" yelled Bakhtiian. "Get her out of here." To the others: "Ready!"
Yuri hauled her off the wall. Bakhtiian jumped down after. Faintly, she heard yelling from the priest, orders being given. Tears blurred her sight. Yuri dragged her away toward the horses.
"We can't leave them!" Tess pulled away from him. An arrow struck the ground and skittered to a stop a meter from her. Yuri grabbed her at the elbow and yanked her forward, shoving her into Myshla.
"Mount!" he yelled, as if she were deaf. She swung up reflexively. More arrows peppered the packed dirt, too spent to penetrate. "Come on, Tess."
Far below, a man cried out in pain.
"Ilya got one. Damn it, Tess. Ride." He wheeled his horse back and slapped Myshla on the rump. Four arrows hit, and one stuck in the earth. Myshla moved, ears cocked forward. Tess urged her to a trot, hearing the swell of shouts and cries from below. She looked back: four jaran men crouched behind the upper wall, their shirts like blood against the black stone, shooting.
"Yuri!" She waved frantically at him. "They can't hold them!" She reined Myshla back.
"Ride, Tess!" He reined his horse in, waiting for her, impatient, angry, scared. The horses sidestepped, catching their fear. Myshla neighed, calling to those left behind.
"Mikhal. Konstans. Go." Bakhtiian's voice carried easily in the clear air. Bent low, the two men ran for their horses and started after Tess and Yuri. Behind, the last mounts shifted nervously.
"What if they bolt?" she yelled.
"Then they're dead. Damn it, Tess. Damn it. Ride!" He came close enough finally to grab Myshla's bridle and start dragging her. Tess still stared behind. They came to the head of the trail, where it wound up between rocks until a sharp corner hid its path.
"Go!" Yuri waved her ahead. Mikhal and Konstans neared, cantering. She could not see the stretch of wall that sheltered Bakhtiian and Tadheus, only the high, impenetrable barrier of mountain and a tuft of grass fallen, its brown, withering roots exposed, onto a jagged ledge. She kicked Myshla and rounded the corner.
"Yuri!" she screamed.
Black, all in black, like the avenging spirits of the gods. How she turned Myshla and thrust her back through the others to the ruins she never knew. The arenabekh spilled out behind her, out over the cleared area and scrambling down the escarpment to the ruins below. Curses and shouts of fear came from below, and from above, from a man not twenty feet from her, a yell like the scream of a carnivore after blood. The riderless horses bolted but one of the arenabekh caught them and led them over to Bakhtiian and Tadheus. Tasha's shirt bore a wet stain: blood. A broken arrow lay at his feet, its shaft striped with scarlet. The black riders arrayed themselves over the slopes, utter black against gray and gold and green. Like the obsidian walls, they reflected nothing but darkness. From below came only silence. Except for one body lying prone in a shadow, the khaja soldiers had retreated back into the gorge.