Jaran

'You flatter me.' Bakhtiian did not move. Leaves brushed at his boots.

'And bring your treasure down, too, the one you're hiding. Is it some handsome lad you're afraid we'll spirit off?'

Bakhtiian caught Tess's eye and lifted his chin. She stood up and came two steps forward. Even as she halted next to Ilya, about ten men turned their horses away and rode off to one side, backs to her, heads lowered. More than half of those left averted their faces, so as not to look at her, but the rest examined her with cold, inquisitorial interest.

'Gods!' cried Sergi. 'It's a damned woman! Who would ever have thought it!'

'Shut up, Sergi,' said the one with the pronounced dialect.

'Shall I come down?' asked Bakhtiian with all the familiar pleasantry of a venomous snake.

'Please do,' said Sergi. 'But keep the woman up on the ledge. Some of our men haven't seen a woman in five years, and I can't answer for them if they catch her scent.'

Tess straightened her shoulders, met his eye, and held it. 'They wouldn't dare touch me.' She laid one hand on her saber hilt, though she had no illusions about her ability to use it against any of these men.

Sergi let out a whoop. 'A khaja with spirit, and listen how she talks. They won't touch you. Certainly not if you're Bakhtiian's.'

Bakhtiian, descending with composed dignity, stopped dead. One of his feet slipped on the incline and pebbles skittered out and rattled down to the base of the rock.

Tess drew her dagger, tossed it up into the air, and caught it. 'You've got it half right, Sergi. They won't touch me. I don't know what Bakhtiian has to do with it.'

Bakhtiian, regaining his balance, resumed his descent as if nothing had happened.

'Sergi, shut up,' said another man. His face bore a broad, ugly white scar that stretched from forehead to chin, puckering one side of his face into a permanent leer. 'You can only keep your mouth shut for as long as it takes a horse to shit.'

On the pretext of sheathing her knife, Tess looked away. The jaran men she knew never swore in that way-or at least, not in front of her.

'So, you are Ilyakoria Bakhtiian,' said the man with the dialect, and suddenly all attention focused on him, though he had made no obvious effort to attract it. 'I am Keregin. You seem a little short for a man with such a tall reputation.'

'That depends on where you're standing,' said Bakhtiian, looking as though his greatest concern was the fit of his clothing.

'Choose your man,' said Keregin. 'I want to see if you deserve your reputation. Bakhtiian.' He savored the flow of the syllables. 'What kind of luck got you a name of your own?'

'Luck is only my lover, not my wife,' replied Bakhtiian easily. He drew his saber. 'If ever I wed, it will be skill and intelligence.'

'Tedious bedfellows,' said Sergi.

'Shut up,' said the scarred man.

'Choose,' said Keregin.

Bakhtiian looked over the arenabekh one by one, his gaze measuring and keen but never quite insulting. Watching him, Tess realized she had clenched her hands into fists without realizing it. This was to be a real fight, a real duel. What if Keregin meant it to be to the death?

'He has too heavy a hand,' said Bakhtiian, 'and that one, no instinct.'

'Got you there, Vlacov,' said Sergi.

But Bakhtiian appeared not to hear the comment and the low mutter of laughter it produced. He examined a man far to the side whose light eyes were shadowed by dark circles beneath and whose nose was broken. 'He's too angry. There, too unsteady a hand, and that one, he drinks too much khaja wine.' He paused, then pointed with his saber at a particularly unprepossessing man of middle years, a remarkably unkempt fellow whose only conspicuous features were a long nose and brilliant blue eyes. 'That man.'

Keregin laughed. 'We'll concede your eye for flesh. To-bay, fight him.'

'What will we do with the woman after Tobay kills him?' asked Sergi. 'None of us has any use for such a thing.'

'' Sergi, if you can't keep your mouth shut while they fight, we'll bury your head in the ground and stuff your saber up-'

'Silence!' shouted Keregin. 'Move back. Now, Bakhtiian. Make us remember you.' The lanky Tobay dismounted and came forward, holding his saber as if he did not know he had it in his hand. 'Left-handed,' added Keregin. 'Or I might get bored.'

With no change of expression, Bakhtiian switched hands and circled left, measuring his opponent. Tobay stared dumbly at him as if he had not a wit in the world. Bakhtiian had moved about a quarter of a circle when Tobay suddenly stepped left and cut in with a broad sweep toward Bakhtiian's right shoulder. Bakhtiian parried, stepping in to the blow, and there was a moment of suspension, metal pressed against metal, and then both men fell back unmarked.

'A greeting in passing,' said Sergi.

Bakhtiian edged back toward the rock. He lunged forward suddenly to Tobay's right, cutting low. There was a quick exchange: low, low, and high; then low, and Bakhtiian came out to the open space with Tobay backed against the cliff.

'An exchange of kisses,' said Sergi. 'How passionate.'

Tobay's face and demeanor changed utterly, as if, Tess thought with sudden fear, a light had been turned on inside him. He moved back until less than a meter separated him from the rough wall of rock. With his right hand he reached back to brush the rock with his fingers, and the angle of his saber changed ever so slightly. Bakhtiian circled in, trying to push Tobay completely against the rock, feinting high but striking low again. But Tobay's saber swept the cut aside and went on sweeping for Bakhtiian's head.

Tess gasped, breath suspended. Bakhtiian fell to his knees, saber barely catching the blow. For an instant the tableau held and then Bakhtiian twisted Tobay's saber around, cut free from a flurry of blows, and leapt backward, regaining his feet.

'A conversation,' said Sergi. 'About the weather.'

But Bakhtiian was wounded. Tess stared. Blood welled and, welling to fullness, bled off a cut on Bakhtiian's wrist. She breathed again. Not deep enough to be fatal, or even perhaps, debilitating. And yet, what if Tobay was only playing with him?

They moved away from the rock. Their exchanges grew more complex. Tess saw only a mix of high and low, wide and close, movements begun in one place that ended in another until she could not recognize where one began and the other left off. And all the time, the slow drip of blood from Bakhtiian's wrist tracked his movements over the ground. She could not move. They both feinted, and feinted again, their sabers never touching. Every second she expected to see Tobay kill Bakhtiian. Every second Bakhtiian escaped.

Tobay fenced him against a slab of rock and went for his face, angled the slice into an arc that would open his stomach. Somehow Bakhtiian twisted the blade and was still whole and moving. He parried and pressed, made a bid for open ground, and gained it. They backed off, eyeing each other, breathing fast and hard. Bakhtiian's face shone with intensity. My God, she thought, watching him as he circled slowly, so concentrated that it seemed his entire being had caught fire: if he ever looks at me like that, I'll last about as long as tinder under a glass.

And she suffered an instant of stark fear, wondering what such a blaze would do to her.

'Right hands,' said Keregin.

Tess watched the rest of the fight in a haze. Somehow, now that they were right-handed, they seemed more evenly matched, but still she knew that she ought to fear more for Bakhtiian than for Tobay. Until, in a furious exchange, To-bay wrenched himself free and slapped his left hand over his right arm. Blood leaked out between his fingers. He grinned.

'Enough!' yelled Keregin, dismounting.

'The woman didn't bolt,' said Sergi. 'I'm more impressed with her than with Bakhtiian.'

Keregin strode over to Bakhtiian, who stood breathing deeply to regain his wind.

'By the gods,' Keregin squinted down at him. 'Maybe there's something to your reputation after all. Tobay, put up and go.' Tobay sheathed his saber, looking again halfwitted and lifeless. Many of the men, who had looked