His horse shifted its gait, dancing around the moss-covered hump of an old log, and Gansukh squirmed in his saddle. He was no stranger to riding long distances with a full bladder, but that didn’t make the experience any less uncomfortable. He had pissed from saddleback often enough, but it was easiest when he could look ahead and see that his horse wouldn’t need to change its gait. Here, in the forest, the ground was uneven and the occasional branch tried to grab his horse. Performing the necessary contortions and managing his horse was a little more complicated. Stopping to relieve himself would be simpler.
He pulled his horse to a halt, dismounted, and looped his reins around a low branch of a nearby sapling. He opened one of his saddlebags and retrieved a handful of dried berries. His horse snorted as he offered the treat, its breath warm on his palm. “I’ll be right back,” he said with an affectionate pat between its ears.
He walked a few paces away, adjusting the bow slung over his shoulder. He undid his sash to make water over the gnarled roots of an immense oak. The tree leaned crookedly, an aged malingerer that refused to point in the same direction as its surrounding brethren. Gansukh let out a sigh of satisfaction as the pressure of his bladder lessened.
He was, not unlike other wild animals in the forest, marking his territory. If the hunting party was anywhere near the bear’s cave-and the lack of bear sign suggested they weren’t very close-he would have been more circumspect in his pissing. It wasn’t so much that such behavior was rude-one animal to another; it was that four-legged predators had a much better sense of smell than the two-legged kind. Urine carried a very distinct odor, and leaving such a stain would only alert them of his presence.
A grim smile touched his lips as he finished. Munokhoi had pissed all over his gear. Such a feral response, one wolf marking the territory of another.
He started to retie his sash, and then paused, his senses suddenly alert. He didn’t turn his head, but he tried to read as much of his peripheral surroundings as he could. He listened intently to the sounds of the forest: the rustling of the leaves as they were stroked by the gentle caress of the wind, the creaking and croaking of insects, the crunching sound of his horse’s jaws as it chewed on long grass that it had pulled up, and the distant chatter of birds.
Close by, it was too quiet. An uneasy silence.
His horse raised its head, ears flicking. Its nostrils widened as it smelled the breeze.
Gansukh left his sash half tied and, slowly, put his hands on his bow.
His horse wasn’t frightened by the scent, which meant whatever was out there in the woods wasn’t the bear-or a wolf or some other predator.
He heard the arrow, a rustling that whispered through the trees. It hit its target with a meaty thwap, and his horse let out a dreadful scream. It reared, a long black-fletched arrow protruding from its neck. Blood spattered from the wound, and the beast stumbled as it found its range of movement limited by the reins tied to the sapling. It snorted, its eyes wide with fear and pain, and then it stumbled again, falling heavily against the nearby tree.
Gansukh had instinctively dropped to a crouch as soon as he had heard the arrow, his back pressed against the thick trunk of the leaning oak. He unslung his bow and quickly reset the string, a series of motions his hands performed automatically, unconsciously.
His horse collapsed, its body shuddering with pained breaths. Each one was shorter and more violent than the last. The grass around its head glistened with blood. It couldn’t lie its head down; the reins were still caught in the tree. The fletching on the arrow in its neck matched the arrow he had broken the day before.
Gansukh’s eyes were drawn to the quiver of arrows nestled among his saddlebags. He had no idea where Munokhoi was. The other man would be moving to a better position, but he had no idea how long that would take. He couldn’t stay where he was for long.
If he could just reach his arrows… Even one would be enough.
He shifted his weight, readying himself, and his foot slipped. He glanced down, remembering why the roots of the tree would be wet, and noticed a fist-size rock close to his left boot. He pitched it downslope, hoping it would make a great deal of noise as it rolled through the brush. As soon as he hurled the rock, he made a mad dash for his fallen steed. He didn’t have time to release his quiver from the straps holding it in place; all he could do was grab a handful of arrows.
He kept running, his eyes scanning for a suitable hiding place. An arrow sang past his head, and he changed his direction, forcing Munokhoi to adjust his aim. Gansukh spotted the ragged shape of a giant stump, nearly waist-high, and he dashed toward it, skidding across the ground as he tried to slow his headlong rush. An arrow smacked heavily into the moss-covered wood above his head as he scrambled to cover.
The upper part of the stump had become hollow over time, and there were numerous gaps in the bark. Shifting back and forth between several of the larger holes, he spied on the upward slope. Such scouting was torturous, but he kept at it, hoping to catch some flicker of movement that would indicate Munokhoi’s position.
A shaft of light was eclipsed, and Gansukh fumbled with one of his precious arrows. Holding its fletching with his right hand, he tried to lay the arrow across his bow but it didn’t seem to catch, and he tore his gaze away from his secret spy hole to see what was wrong.
The arrow in his hand was too short, missing its head and a portion of the shaft. It had snapped off during his dash to safety. Cursing, he threw it aside and grabbed another one, visually checking this one before laying it across his bow.
He peered through the bark hole again, moving his head from side to side to increase his field of view. Had he missed his chance? He ground his teeth in frustration and leaped to his feet, drawing his string back and loosing an arrow. He immediately fell back to his crouched position, peering through the gaps.
He didn’t expect to hit Munokhoi, but his arrow drew a response. He heard a hollow thock as one of Munokhoi’s arrows sunk into the old bark. He prepped another arrow and stood up again. He tried not to focus on anything in particular, waiting a fraction of a second for something to move, some target to suggest itself. He sensed motion without actually seeing it, and loosed his second arrow.
At this range, without having time to aim properly, it was next to impossible to hit his target. He could only hope to draw Munokhoi closer. He counted his remaining arrows-three-and decided he didn’t have enough to play this game with Munokhoi.
A booming noise echoed through the forest, and something heavy crashed into the stump, knocking great holes in the wood. Bark pelted Gansukh, and like a startled deer, he sprinted away from his hiding place. He dashed through a clump of spiny bushes, branches clawing at his bow and clothing, and slid to a stop behind an aged spruce. His heart pounded in his chest, and the echo of the thunder still rang in his ears.
Smoke came through the trees, a gray haze that drifted slowly downslope. The upper portion of his previous hiding place looked as if it had been clawed by a giant bear; ragged strips of bark poked up from the crown of the stump like crooked fingers.
There was no bear. Gansukh had heard nothing prior to the sudden boom, nor had there been any subsequent sound of a large animal crashing through the underbrush. It could not have been a lightning strike either. The sky was clear of clouds, and no fire had been started. It had to have been Munokhoi, but what sort of sorcery was it?
Gansukh remembered the night of the Chinese raid. When he had been chasing Lian, he had heard similar booming noises. Afterward, some of the Torguud had spoken of a Chinese weapon, a portable cannon that used fire to hurl shards of metal and pottery with incredible force.