To the east spun a thread of dust.
To the west, a huge herd of sheep spilled over a distant rise, hounded by riders and dogs. Somewhere, west and north of here, a tribe had set up camp. A moment later, a pair of outriders galloped into view. The two youths circled her at a prudent distance and raced back to their tents. She debated whether to ask for shelter within their camp for the night, but she dared not stop. She had to follow what trail she had, lest she lose Kontas entirely. Turning the gelding, with the piebald in tow, she rode down onto the dead lake and turned east.
Hooves kicked up a fine dust, making her cough. Her eyes watered as particles stung her face. Sound echoed oddly, magnifying the fall of hooves into many more than two horses.
She looked over her shoulder. Four riders followed her, three male and the fourth dressed in female garb, long felt jacket reaching to her knees and a quiver slung by one knee.
'What do you think?' she asked the gelding. She wasn't in the sanctity of camp, but after all, what would they do to a lone girl? The laws of the gods forbade any insult done to women; that was how it had always been among the tribes. What if they had news of Kontas, or the eastern merchant?
She reined over and waited for them to catch up.
The males — two she recognized as the youths who had first scouted her — pulled up and let their companion approach, as was proper. She was not much older than Kirya, with her golden hair divided into a trident braid and a headdress adorned with silver atop her head to mark that she was married. She wore necklaces of gold and silver and bronze across her chest, displaying her family's wealth.
'Good riding, stranger,' she said, greeting Kirya. 'I am cousin to the headwoman of the Orzhekov tribe. Are you one of the Vidrini?'
'No, I'm Moroshya.'
'I don't know you,' said the other girl in the formulaic way that meant she'd never heard of that tribe. 'This is dangerous ground, between the grass and the border of demon lands. Why do you ride here?'
Kirya saw nothing to distrust in her open face. 'The Vidrini raiders stole my young brother. I've brought a horse to trade for him, if I can catch the eastern merchant who took him.' She indicated the east and the dying thread of dust spun up from the darkening horizon.
The other one smiled with a twist that made Kirya uncomfortable. 'Your tribe doesn't trade down here, does it?'
She shrugged, realizing how foolish she was, blabbing her errand to these strangers.
'You've seen your mistake now, haven't you? We might track you, and once you have the boy, what's to stop us from stealing him and trading him again to the merchant?'
Kirya indicated her quiver and bow. 'I am not unarmed. Would your riders attack a woman?'
'Don't insult us!' The girl's hard expression softened to one more thoughtful. 'That's the kind of thing the Vidrini might do, now they've raised a foreign woman to be their headwoman. They might do anything, with a hard-hearted Qin woman having put her claws
into their hearts. Still, it's a rash choice on your part, to ride into demon lands.'
'They're not so far away. I can catch them by tomorrow, surely.'
'Take only one step into demon lands, and anything might happen. If you die in demon lands, the gods will never find your spirit and bring you home.'
'He's my younger brother. Our mother is dead.'
'Yes, I can see you are obligated to retrieve him, although I wonder why your war leader has not — well-' As Kirya sucked in a sharp breath and tightened her hand on the reins, the girl broke stride and changed course. 'The Easterners speak words smeared with honey, but you can't trust them.'
'How do you know?' /
'My people trade with the caravans. The Easterners are not people, not like us. Yet I suppose you can do nothing else, not if you want to keep your honor. May the gods ride with you, cousin.'
She signaled to her companions and rode back the way she had come, back to the familiarity of tent, herd, and grass.
Kirya camped that night on the lake bed, staring up at the stars, the campfires of the gods' tribe. Beside which of those fires did her mother now shelter? She could not tell.
She moved out at first light. Not long after dawn she began to taste the caravan's dust. Soon after that, she rode past the disturbed ground where they had camped. Soon after that, she saw firsthand the ponderous creature that foreigners called caravan. This ungainly beast was made up of a tightly controlled herd of sheep and unsaddled horses, a line of grindingly slow-paced wagons dragged by worthless dray beasts a toddler could have outpaced, and various human figures — maybe some demons, although from here it was difficult to tell — walking alongside and within the ranks. Between two wagons, six ranks of boys and youths, most blond, trudged along. She scanned the rows. Was that Kontas? He had his head down, so she couldn't be sure.
Swinging wide, she rode parallel alongside the caravan. She willed Kontas to look up, and the pale head shifted, face rising to look at the heavens… even from this distance, she could see it was not Kontas. She felt as if she'd been kicked.
The caravan guards saw her, but for a while no one seemed to react. The caravan lumbered forward like a beast staggering on its last legs, while her horses made it known they couldn't understand why they must walk here when it was obvious they did not like the bones of the dead lake and the smell of demon lands. It was getting hotter as the sun rose swollen and fat. She licked chapped lips.
'Hoy! Hoy!'
A fat man on a sleek mare rode out from the wagons, waving at her. She kept riding at the same steady walk, and eventually he pushed up beside her. He had a funny complexion, like clay, and he was perspiring and licking moist lips and looking her up and down in a bold way that made her think he must be a demon, since men knew better than to look directly at women. Therefore, she ignored him.
He said, in labored and very precise speech, 'You are a tribeswoman, are you? Never before see I one tribeswoman so close. Whew!' He wiped his dripping forehead with a cloth. 'Why ride you here?'
'I will only speak to a man, not a demon,' she said, trying to shame him by meeting his gaze deliberately, but of course demons cannot feel shame. He did not look away.
'Whew!' He said words in demon language, then thought better of mumbling on in words that only proved he was not a man. 'I say good things about your blue eyes. Very pretty! Your hair! Very pretty! I am a man. I am not a demon. I am obligated to say I am only a-' He spoke a word she did not know. 'For this reason my-' Another demon word. '-sends me out here to speak at you.'
Despite the demon words, he spoke human speech well enough to make her wonder if he might be a human person after all, just a very ill-mannered one.
'I have come for my brother. He was traded to an eastern merchant. I want him back.'
Without turning, he indicated the caravan behind him. 'One of the boys, eh?'
'Yes.'
'Hrm.' He scratched his bare chin. 'I go ask my sarvar if he negotiate with you. You ride here, meantime?'
'I will ride here.'
He rode back to the caravan. He had a heavy seat that disturbed his horse's natural grace. She was trembling as she considered her options. She had two horses. If she could get Kontas up onto the piebald, she and Kontas could outrace them. They wouldn't know how to track her in the grass.
Six armed guards appeared from the vanguard of the beast and rode back to get a look at her. They were Qin, with demon-scratched eyes, coarse black hair pulled up into a funny knot, and broad faces, part human and part demon. Circling her with the easy grace of men raised on horseback, they called to each other in their barking language. They stared rudely, not civilized men at all.
She ignored them. But their ugly faces made her think of the Vidrini headwoman, who might as well be their sister for all that they looked so similar. The Qin were a brutal-hearted, demon-tainted people, always happy to hire themselves out to fight for whatever foreigner paid the most. She doubted she and Kontas could outride these.
'Hoy! Hoy!' The fat man returned, bouncing awkwardly on his trotting horse. Two riders followed him.
The Qin soldiers rode away toward the rear of the caravan.
'Greetings, greetings,' called the younger of the two men. He had a dark face that looked reasonably human, and kept his gaze averted in a mannerly fashion as he kept talking. 'Greetings, tribeswoman. My sarvar say to me,
