The rashan swore.
Another rider opened fire. He felt the air ripple around him. He leaped forward as bullets cracked through tree limbs and branches. John felt almost giddy.
Then he broke from the dim shadows of the forest into a huge, open field of snow. He charged forward, knowing the rashan’im would follow him. Beneath the deep banks of snow, John felt the glassy surface of a lake. He charged across the frozen water, racing for the far bank. John stole a glance back as four rashan’im broke from the forest. The other six came behind them.
The cover of the forest on the far shore rose in front of John. He reached the far bank of the lake and turned back to face the rashan’im. Two of them had already reached the center of the lake. The others came close behind. John plunged his hands down into the snow. The cold bit into his fingers. He reached down until his hands touched the smooth surface of the ice. He felt the brittle formations of suspended hydrogen and oxygen spilling out like glass beneath his feet.
The closest rashan lifted his rifle, taking aim at John.
John thought of the sign of awakening that Ji had taught him. His fingers hardly moved in response, but the ice shuddered. A low noise, like thunder, boomed across the lake. Then the ice shattered. John and the rashan’im dropped down into the water. At the bank’s edge, John only sank to his calves. The rashan’im and their tahldi plunged deep into the frigid water. John didn’t remain to see which of them would come up.
He clambered up the bank and sprinted into the cover of the forest. He thought he heard one of the rashan’im call another man’s name. Another of the rashan’im shouted and swore furiously.
John kept running. He continued west, in case the rashan’im decided to track him further. He imagined that those who escaped the water would be far more concerned with keeping themselves from freezing to death than following him. Still, he had to be careful. He couldn’t lead them straight back to Lafi’shir.
The scent of the dark pines rolled over John and aching cold wrapped around him. Icy needles shot through the nerves of his feet and calves. Snow caked his wet legs. Deep throbbing hurt pulsed through his back and thigh.
It wasn’t worse than his broken hands and legs had been. When the adrenaline and endorphins burned out of his system, he had no doubt that his opinion would change.
He concentrated on the white fields of snow ahead of him and the blue shadows of the trees. He ducked under snow-laden branches. Above him, several small white birds burst into flight. John kept running even after he knew no one followed him. He slowed his pace but didn’t dare stop. Only his momentum kept him going now.
The winter shadows lengthened and the air grew even colder. John turned west. His strides came in a numb, clumsy rhythm.
He thought of Ravishan, not of him fighting or spying in the south, although he knew Ravishan was doing that right now, but of his warm, inviting mouth and his hard, flat stomach. He thought of Ravishan’s strong legs and his supple back. He fought back the overwhelming cold and pain with memories of the heat of Ravishan’s body, the pleasure of his touch. He imagined absurd positions and impossible acts. Anything to hold his inevitable collapse at bay.
Staggering and delirious, John reached Gisa long after dark. Moonlight seemed to ignite the white snow, so that it almost glowed against the black shadows of the city walls. Even at a distance, John could make out the hard line where the train tracks bisected empty fields and disappeared into the city.
Briefly he recalled the afternoon he had first seen Gisa. A little more than three months ago, he stood here with Ravishan and Alidas. The fields had been filled with freshly cut bales of taye. Shepherds had herded flocks of sheep through the city gates to the railway station. John tried to recall the afternoon warmth. He swayed on his feet.
Slowly, he walked around the perimeter of the city wall. At first, he only encountered a few wooden shacks. Many of them appeared to have been abandoned for the winter. But steadily the quality and number of buildings increased. Rows of stone winehouses spilled out from the city wall. The shadows of drinking men flickered across the oiled hides stretched over the windows. John heard laughter and even a few phrases of song as he passed the painted doors. Farther along, hostels and stables loomed up over the worn ruts that served as a street.
In the autumn, the whole area had teemed with men and women hawking cheap food, copper jewelry, and cages of fat weasels. Sheep, dogs, and tahldi had filled the pens of the stables. The constant commerce of the trains drew hundreds of people through this rutted, dirty street. But the harvest had passed and few merchants traveled through the winter snows. Now the street was quieter, though still not empty. Even in the dead of winter people missed their trains and needed places to sleep. A woman wearing surprisingly little clothing considering the weather led two young men around the back of a hostel. John kept back in the deeper shadows and continued walking.
A man stepped out from the dark alley between two winehouses, buttoning the top of his pants. He glanced at John, then with a horrified expression, stepped quickly back into the alley.
John touched his neck where the man’s eyes had lingered. His fingers came away dark with blood. John glanced down at his leg and for the first time realized that the rashan’s bullet had ripped through his thigh. The wound had already closed but blood still stained the entire left leg of his pants. His back had to look worse. He couldn’t just walk into a hostel looking like this. Even with his hood hiding his blond hair, he’d still attract too much attention.
Eventually, John spotted the painted sign for the Hearthstone Hostel. Beside the hostel there stood a small wooden stable. John slunk around the building and past the empty animal pens. The stable doors were secured with a heavy padlock.
Ravishan would have slipped through the doors in elegant silence, John thought. He could have come and gone without leaving a trace, like light passing through glass.
John grabbed the padlock. He felt its bright metallic nature glimmer against his palm. He closed his fingers around its mass and pushed just a little of his will against its structure. It blackened and crumbled, falling through his fingers to lie in smoking hunks on the snow.
Inside the stable, the darkness was deeper than the night outside, but John’s eyes adjusted quickly. He recognized eight of the tahldi in the stalls, but no more. Lafi’shir had already accomplished his mission and loaded men and cases of rifles on the train heading south. He, Saimura and the few remaining men were probably enjoying a warm meal in the comfort of the hostel. They’d most likely taken their packs and saddles with them, which meant he wouldn’t find a change of clothes in here that he could use to hide his injuries.
A perfunctory search revealed that this was true, but John noticed they’d left several saddle blankets behind. He couldn’t wear those, but he supposed he could climb up into the hayloft, curl up in the dirty blankets and sleep until Lafi’shir and the others came to retrieve their tahldi in the morning. He shoved his hands down into the pockets of his coat and considered the climb up into the hayloft.
His fingers brushed against a smooth, warm shape in his pocket. It was the bone Saimura had given to him for strength. John pulled it out and studied its incised surface.
Saimura’s carvings were different from the Eastern commands Ji taught. They weren’t Payshmura either, but they seemed to be a melding of both. Observing them now, they struck John as having been carved in Saimura’s own secret language.
Endowed with Saimura’s own blood, this talisman seemed far more individual, or perhaps more personal, than the charms John had carved in Ji’s classes. This warm bit of polished bone seemed intimately Saimura’s.
John closed his hand around it. He didn’t need strength, so much as he longed for some small comfort.