Jaran

up to watch the fight, turned their heads away again. 'Tobay's got no interest in life but saber. He prefers fighting two or three men, since one is too easy. He wasn't going for the kill.'

'I know.' Blood still dripped from Bakhtiian's wrist.

Keregin laughed. 'And not too proud to admit it.' His expression changed. 'You've got foreigners with you.'

Bakhtiian shrugged. Tess crouched, balancing herself with a touch of one hand on the pebbles that littered the ledge.

'I know the ruins up in these mountains. A place to inspire the gods in you if nothing else might, but I warn you, Bakhtiian, to reach them you've got to ride through khaja lands. There have been jahar raids into khaja towns, and your name linked to them. I won't lift a hand against you, but there's been mischief done. Is it yours?'

'No.'

Keregin lifted his right hand to flick a piece of grass off his beard. His little finger was missing. 'I believe you. But remember, the khaja know your name now. They blame you. They are like us in one way, Bakhtiian, if not in any other: They seek revenge.'

'I'll scarcely bend a blade of grass as I go.'

'One blade might be too many. Well, then, can you promise me one thing?'

'How can I know until you ask?'

Keregin smiled. 'I admire your companion, who wears a man's clothes with a woman's courage, who is foreign and yet speaks our tongue. Don't let her get into their hands. I've seen khaja do things to their women that made me cringe, and I'm not an easy man to sicken.'

Bakhtiian's head moved slightly, as if he began to look back up at Tess and then chose not to. 'That I can promise you, Keregin. No woman for whom I have accepted responsibility will ever fall into khaja hands. Don't forget that I have also seen how khaja treat their women.'

' 'He who has traveled far,' ' Keregin mused. 'I begin to think you might even deserve it.'

Bakhtiian sketched him the merest trifle of a bow, half respectful, not quite mocking. 'You honor me.'

Keregin chuckled. 'Do I, indeed? I'd offer you a place with us, but I don't think you'd accept.'

'I wouldn't.' He smiled. 'I love women too well, Keregin, to give them up now.'

'Yet you've made no jaran woman your wife.' Behind, the other riders began turning their horses away. Keregin angled his gaze toward the two horses standing quietly between them. 'They're beautiful horses, Bakhtiian, as well you know.' He smiled, a little mocking in return, and glanced once at Tess. 'Breed strong stock if you can. I wish you luck.'

He mounted without waiting for the reply that Bakhtiian seemed unlikely to give in any case, and reined his horse away from them. The rest of the arenabekh followed, not even glancing back as they galloped off. The sound of hooves drummed away, fading into silence in the clear air.

When they were out of sight, Bakhtiian sat down and rested his head in his hands. Tess scrambled down from the rock.

'Ilya, are you hurt?'

He lifted his head to give her a wan smile. 'Just regaining my composure.'

'I'll get the horses.'

'Thank you,' he said into his hands.

She busied herself with the horses, recovering her own composure. Eventually he appeared and took the black's reins from her.

'Thank you,' he repeated. He rubbed his horse's nose and talked nonsense to it for a bit, slapped its neck, and mounted. Tess, who had been repelling Myshla's attempts to chew off her ear, quickly followed suit. 'A congenial group,' he said.

'Keregin offered you a place. Would you ever have gone with them?'

'I thought of it once, a long time ago. For them, it is the only life.' He shook his head. 'It can't be mine.'

'I didn't like them.'

He smiled and brought his left wrist up to his mouth, touching partially congealed blood to his lips. 'And blood is sweet, but life is sweeter.' He urged the black forward and they walked the horses parallel to the ridge. 'Tobay is better than I am. Much better.'

Wind touched her throat and her eyes. She blinked. 'Because fighting is his whole life?'

'He could have killed me.' He lowered his hand, turning it slowly, eyes on the cut, its slow well of blood almost stopped now. 'He chose not to.'

She put a hand on her stomach. 'Good Lord.' He turned his hand over; the cut no longer showed. 'But Keregin was impressed.'

Bakhtiian flicked several bits of grass off the knee of his trousers. 'Tobay can kill any of them, too, if I'm any judge of saber. I did well. With more experience, Vladimir would give him a fight.'

Silence followed for a moment, which Tess broke. 'Keregin mentioned ruins. Are we near the shrine of Morava?'

'No. The shrine is farther south. This is another temple. I would rather pass it by, but the pilgrims have insisted on seeing every one. What Keregin said about the khaja-well, I shall have to discuss this with Ishii.'

He did discuss it with Ishii, that night at the campfire. Bakhtiian flanked by Niko and Josef and Tasha, Ishii by Garii and Rakii.

'Because the shrine of Morava lies still on the plains, some days north of the don-tepes, the great forest, no foreign towns rest nearby and no foreign people come there but the occasional pilgrims,' Bakhtiian was saying as Tess settled in next to Yuri, far enough away that she could pretend to be listening to Mikhal strum his lute, but close enough to overhear. 'But this temple, the zhai'aya-tom, rests in the mountains themselves, Cha Ishii, and to reach it we must pass by a city with walls and ride up into the mountains, and thereby make ourselves vulnerable to their attack, should the war leader of this city choose to pursue us. And then we must ride back the same way. It will be very dangerous. It might mean a battle, and we are too few, and the mountains themselves too great a disadvantage to the way we jaran fight, that I can offer you with any surety what the outcome of such a battle might be.'

Ishii sat with perfect impassivity, hands clasped in front of him in that arrangement known as Lord's Patience, and listened. When, after a moment, he accepted that Bakhtiian had said as much as he meant to say, he nodded. 'We appreciate your concerns, Bakhtiian, but our god protects us. We fear no battle.'

Tess lifted her gaze from a close examination of the knives at their belts to see Bakhtiian's face tighten in exasperation.

'Neither do I fear a battle, but it is folly to ride into a trap when the trap is there to see. It is only one temple. Cha Ishii. I promise you that the shrine of Morava is by any account the greatest temple in these northern lands. It will not disappoint you.'

Ishii inclined his head. 'All the temples or none. I believe, Bakhtiian, that we made this agreement.'

Bakhtiian did not reply, merely giving Ishii a curt nod, and he turned away to walk out into the night, Niko and Josef and Tasha following him. The three Chapalii shifted as if with one thought to look at Tess, and she hurriedly evinced an overwhelming interest in Yuri's embroidery.

In the morning, they rode across the plateau. Fields appeared, then settlements, each one a handful of cottages surrounded by stockades of varying height and strength but all showing signs of frequent and recent repair. That first day, riding wide around these hamlets, Tess saw them as ugly squares intruding on the landscape like sores on otherwise healthy skin, their inhabitants forever bound and imprisoned by the protecting walls. The idea of defending one place seemed preposterous, until her settled sensibilities took over and the idea of always fading into the brush and never making a stand suddenly seemed cowardly. It was hardly surprising that these people, settled and wandering, could not trust each other.

Bakhtiian led them through without stopping. No one harassed them. Indeed, they saw no one at all. But at every stockaded village they passed, Tess felt, knew, that they were being watched. They halted late that night, kept a triple watch-sleeping in shifts-and rose before dawn to ride on. Somehow word had passed on ahead of them. Empty fields ripe for harvest lay quiet in the sun. No one walked the trails linking the hamlets. Every stockade gate stood shut. Now and again, they glimpsed faces, peering over the walls. Another day passed.

The next morning Bakhtiian gathered them all together.

'Today we reach the mountains. The ruins are at the head of a gorge. To reach it we must pass close