Clouds scudded across the farther reaches of sky. The hooves of the horses rang like the echo of a bell on the hard trail. When the clouds reached the far horizon and covered the moon, she had to dismount and lead the horses.
The wind struck when she reached the crest. Her hair streamed back, caught in the flow. In the darkness, she felt as if she were on the edge of an abyss, the world falling away before and behind her. Dark masses of rock loomed around her, the suggestion of ages. She felt very old, knowing that as she stood here, with the wind's pull like the rush of the planet's rotation, she was as much a part of the scene as the wind itself.
Myshla shifted. Glancing back, she saw Bakhtiian sway in the saddle. She shook him. Finally he blinked and stared at her. His look of complete confusion frightened her.
"You can faint when we get to shelter," she snapped. "I could hold out longer than that. I could hold out twice as long."
"I doubt it," he whispered, but he pushed himself up.
The wind tore at her clothes as if it was trying to scatter her off the heights. She tugged the horses forward, stumbling down the path. Her boots slipped on pebbles. Kriye's breath warmed her neck. Her hands stiffened into a tight grip on the reins. Her toes ached with cold.
When the trail gave out on a broad ledge that angled up into a deep overhang, she realized that in the dark she had missed the switchback and taken an offshoot. As she moved forward she no longer felt the wind, only a still presence over her head. She halted and untied the blankets from Kriye's saddle.
"Where are we?"
"Shelter. For the rest of the night." She laid out the blankets by the far wall.
She had to help him off the horse. He slumped against her. She let him down very carefully onto the blankets and knelt beside him. She was shivering.
"Ilya?" There was no answer, no movement at all. "Oh Lord." She rested a hand on his chest. His breathing was regular and even. She sat back with a sigh. She cared for the horses first; afterward, taking two strips of meat, she settled down at the far edge of the overhang. Darkness surrounded her. Soon, she dozed.
A rush of sound startled her awake. It was raining. She sank back against the wall, tucking her hands under her cloak. For a time the rain kept her awake. Later, despite the cold, it lulled her to sleep.
She woke abruptly at dawn, chilled and shivering. Her cheeks and forehead felt warm. No wind penetrated the overhang, a shallow cave eroded from the hill by a millennia of storms. Outside the rain had stopped. Surely such rain would cover their tracks.
She stamped her feet and rubbed her hands together to try to bring some warmth into them. Turning, she caught Bakhtiian looking abruptly away from her. He was already sitting up. Dark circles set off his eyes. A smudge of dirt mottled one cheek. The night had tangled his hair and trapped a tiny yellow leaf in his beard. Unbelted, the tunics bunched and wrinkled at his waist. One sleeve of his red shirt, showing at a wrist, had twisted at the cuff.
"This is all very foolish," he said.
"You don't still think I should go on ahead, do you?" She offered him water and food.
"It's cold," he said.
She felt her heart race with fear. If he was getting ill from the shock-
"No," he said, reading her expression. "I'm not-I'm well enough. But the air. Can't you feel it? It's the ayakhov, the wind from the peaks. It brings the storms. This shelter can't possibly protect us." He halted, just breathing for a while, as if the effort of speaking so much had exhausted him.
"Can you go on? I'll saddle the horses."
He shook his head, a gesture compounded half of answer, half of pain. "No." She waited. "If we're caught in the open- These storms last days sometimes. You'll have to scout for better shelter. Even a deeper overhang where we can set up the tent…"He trailed off.
"Yes," she said, not wanting to remind him that they had no tent with them. "I'll go now." She saddled Myshla and left. She rode down into the canyon and half up the other side before tethering Myshla and exploring. By the time she found a good cave, the wind had indeed blown up, cold enough that all her exertion did not keep her warm. She gathered all the brush she could find, arranging the softest into a couch set against the steep-sloping cave wall, and gathered scraps, everything she could find for fodder for the horses, and piled rocks for a corral in the dark recesses of the shelter.
He was asleep when she returned. She unsaddled Myshla and took all four horses out on a long lead, letting them graze and water behind her as she hiked up to the crest. As she had hoped, the rain had swept all traces of their passage from the rock-littered trail. At the height she tried to recapture that timelessness she had felt the night before. But the rocks looked drab, worn away by the weather and the years, and there were too many windblown plants clinging to their surface, a few wilted leaves holding tenuously to branches.
It was cold. Wind whipped the ends of her cloak around her knees. No one was following them. Surely the khaja had given up their search. Turning away, she saw a mass of thick clouds tipped with darkness, sweeping down, almost on her where she stood high and exposed on the ridge. Alarmed, she mounted Myshla bareback and rode back to the overhang.
She found Bakhtiian standing at the entrance, hands clutching his walking stick, staring at her as she dismounted and led the horses under the rock. If he could have looked anything but haggard, pained, and tired, she would have said he looked glad to see her. He had made some effort to tidy himself up. His face was clean, his hair combed, the hunter's tunics straight and neatly belted.
She chuckled, because the incongruity-of their desperate situation, of the approaching storm, of his appearance-was simply too much.
"Where were you?" he demanded.
"Scouting. I found shelter." She began immediately to saddle Kriye and Myshla. "The storm is coming."
"Why didn't we leave sooner?"
His bad temper irritated her. "You were asleep. And I must say you needed it."
"I am aware," said Bakhtiian slowly, "that I am not looking my best."
Tess laughed and stooped to pick up the blankets he had already rolled up and readied. "Do you know why I like you, Ilya?"
"I can't imagine."
She knew she should stop now, but the storm, the danger, his whole attitude, made her reckless. "Because you're vain."
He limped across to Myshla. "At least," he said, tying the blankets to the saddle with hard, efficient jerks, "I am not uncivil."
"No." Her whole face burned, with excitement, with fever, with anger-she could not be sure. "That fault will never tarnish your reputation." She turned back to Kriye and tightened the cinch of his saddle. "Do you need help to mount?''
He cursed, a phrase she did not recognize, and she started around to see that he had already mounted. He clutched the pommel, eyes shut. "Forgive me." Though his voice was scarcely more than a whisper, she knew he was in earnest. "My language."
Immediately she felt guilty. "No, I'm sorry. I have a terrible temper.'' When he did not reply, she judged it prudent simply to go.
She led the horses out. Drops of ice-tipped rain stung her face. She tucked her braid beneath her cloak and pulled her hood up over her head.
A gust of wind scattered leaves across the trail. Kriye whickered and tossed his head, and Tess moved her grip up closer to his mouth. The wind dragged at her, pulling her hood back off her head, so cold that it stiffened her joints even as she moved. The trail veered down around a boulder. Tess slipped on a damp stone; only Kriye's pulling back kept her from falling. Rain spattered her face. All color faded suddenly. She looked up to see the entire sky darken, curling down like a black glove from invisible heights.