Bakhtiian stood and turned. "My own demons from the mountains."
Keregin rode over to Bakhtiian. "Your sweethearts are no longer so eager.''
Bakhtiian looked down at the mouth of the gorge. A few shadows still overlay it, but light descended steadily, and soon enough it would lie fully lit in the glare of the sun. "They don't approve of my relations."
"They'll get over it. Do you want us to entertain them when they return?'' Keregin grinned, peering through halfclosed, heavy-lidded eyes.
"You have no obligation to take on my quarrels."
"The gods have touched your head, Bakhtiian. You send away your jahar to make the odds interesting, and then, because that isn't enough, you send away the last four, so that you can impress the world by beating off-how many?''
"One hundred and seven."
"One hundred and seven! Ah, Bakhtiian, you've taken our fighting from us by uniting the jaran. Whom can we hire ourselves to now? Give us this. Don't be greedy."
"You are only forty riders."
Keregin laughed. "Rather unfair odds against those khaja bastards, don't you think? If we'd wanted to live forever, we'd have married and gotten children. No, let us do this. This day's work alone will make your reputation."
Bakhtiian smiled slightly. "Make my reputation what?"
"Something for you to live with and live up to. And yet, I still have no good idea of your height." He grinned, purposely insulting. "From up here, you still don't seem that impressive."
"I improve as one gets closer."
"Oh, I like you, Bakhtiian." Keregin slapped his thigh. The sound reverberated through the vale, and he chuckled. "If only I were a younger, handsomer man-but no, you wouldn't make that choice, would you? Ho, there, Sergi!" he yelled down to one of the lead riders. "What are our sweethearts up to down there?''
"Cowering," replied the distant man. "Afraid of love, the fools."
"Love!" shouted Keregin. "No. Passion." His shout echoed back at him.
"Keregin, I've never before let others do my work for me."
"If you plan to lead the jaran, Bakhtiian, you'd best get used to it. Other men have made you a devil to our friends below. Why shouldn't you leave us to make you an atrocity that will terrify them for generations?"
"Damn you. Leave a few alive to tell the tale."
The wind was rising. "We'll tell them you called us up from the very depths of your fire-scorched heart."
Tadheus had mounted. Bakhtiian paused, as if to say something, but swung up on his horse without a word. He sat there a moment, while he and Keregin simply looked at one another.
Abruptly, Keregin reined his horse downward and yelled at his riders. They all left the upper level, scattering down into the ruins, and those in the forefront started down to the gate that led onto the meadow and from there to the neck of the gorge. A volley of arrows sprayed out from the gorge. Tess caught her breath, but no one fell.
Not yet. The riders shouted insults at each other, arguing among themselves over who would get to lead the charge. Until Keregin, shouting, "Move aside!" sent his horse down in front, thrusting past the others, through the gate, and plunged down onto the meadow, the rest crowding behind.
Soldiers burst out of the gorge, swords out. Arrows flew.
Two of the riders fell, but four khaja were struck down by the sabers that flashed in the sun. The khaja soldiers retreated in great disorder back into the gorge, and Keregin, to Tess's horror, charged down the neck of the gorge after them, shouting, all in black, like the shadow of death against rock. The rest of the arenabekh followed him, one by one. Shrieks of agony and shrill, exultant cries echoed through the vale.
"Tess!" A touch on her arm. Yuri. Tadheus, Mikhal, and Konstans had already gone, vanished up the trail. Bakhtiian, like her, had been watching. Now he rode up beside her.
"Go on, Tess. Haven't you had enough excitement?"
"I don't call that excitement," she muttered, but neither man heard her, Yuri riding in front, Bakhtiian behind, as they followed the trail up into the mountains, the vale and the sounds of fighting lost in the towering rocks they left behind. Her last glimpse: fair-haired Sergi, thick braid dangling to his waist, saber raised, horse half rearing as he drove it down into the gorge. Someday, she thought, a great avalanche will cover it all up.
Yuri paused at the switchback to glance back at her. He grinned. Tess pulled the last of her ruined tunic free and tossed it away, letting it fall where it would. The sun warmed her back where it penetrated the delicate weave of her blouse. Ahead, a bird trilled.
"I'll get you a new shirt," shouted Bakhtiian from below. Tess laughed. "By the gods," he said, coming up beside her, "we'll give you a red one."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
"When therefore in the air there occurs a clash of contrary winds and showers."
They followed the narrow trail all day, hemmed in by high rock, then dismounted and walked their horses until the moon set. Tess slept huddled in her cloak, shivering, starting awake at intervals, but even so, Yuri woke her all too soon. The flush of dawn stained the sky, softening the darkness, and they went on.
The path curled through the heights, ascending and descending by turns. For one interminable stretch a fall of rock half obliterated the trail, and they dismounted and picked their way over the gray slivers that littered the ground. At midday Bakhtiian stopped them at a waterfall that fed a lawn of lush grass; the horses drank and grazed. Tess slumped against a rock, chewing on a strip of dry meat. She was glad of the rest at first, but as it stretched out she became afraid. What if the khaja soldiers were behind them? What if Keregin's men hadn't killed them all? What if more khaja had come hunting them? At last Bakhtiian called to them to mount, and they continued on. Still, they saw no sign of their jahar.
"Niko's driving them," said Bakhtiian when they halted by yet another stream. They rode again until the moon was gone, shadows staggering over the ground. Yuri's Kuhaylan mare went lame with a stone in its hoof. Mikhal's chestnut tarpan began to cough and wheeze.
Tess slept badly. When she woke at dawn, one of her calves had cramped. Her back ached. She limped. The path worsened and their pace slowed. Bakhtiian stopped them again at midday to water and graze the horses; Tess ate her food mechanically, without hunger. The shock she had had in the vale, the sudden appreciation of death, had drained her; she kept going now only because Myshla followed the other horses.
In the late afternoon they halted to let the horses breathe, a rough, tearing sound in the stillness. Tadheus, white-faced and sweating, was too exhausted to dismount by himself, but at least his wound was no longer bleeding. Konstans sat hunched and shaking on the ground. After a bit he rose and checked all the horses' hooves with unnerving thoroughness. Then he argued with Mikhal and Bakhtiian over whether to kill the chestnut, who was lagging badly. They decided to kill it.
Tess leaned against Myshla, not wanting to watch. She breathed in the mare's hot, dry smell as if it were tenacity. No matter how much of the thin air she gulped down, it was never enough.
"Here, Tess." It was Yuri, holding a cup of blood, still warm. "Drink."
Tess clutched Myshla's mane, feeling dizzy with revulsion. "I can't."
"Drink it."