The khepellis assembled behind them.
It grew light as they finished, Niko saddling one of the tarpans for Bakhtiian.
'Why isn't he riding his black?' Tess asked.
Niko looked up at her, eyes dark. 'He wants it to go with the herd.' He stood and laid a hand on the horse's withers. 'Headstrong idiot,' he muttered, and then, 'Well, this is all we can do. Damn it, where is Josef? He knows our situation. Something must have happened to him.' And then, as if appalled that he had said it, he lapsed into angry silence.
From her position at the base of the trail, Tess could see the neck of the gorge and the first level of wall, gray now, lightening. She glanced at the Chapalii; they looked completely undisturbed, pallid and colorless. Yuri put a hand on her shoulder.
The night retreated as the sun rose. The fifteen men were ranged along the wall below. One of them detached himself from the line and ran up toward them: Bakhtiian. Tess and Yuri gave their reins to Nikita and walked over to Niko, who had gone to the upper wall. Bakhtiian scrambled up the escarpment and pulled himself up to sit on the wall, one leg dangling, the other flat against the stone.
'Josef?' If he was breathing quickly, it was from excitement not from his short run.
'No sign,' said Niko.
'I've changed my mind. You'll go up the trail now. We'll follow as soon as we confuse them enough to set them back a bit.'
'How are you going to do that?' Tess asked.
He did not even look at her, his attention on the narrow gorge. Movement flashed and vanished. 'You mustn't hasten the game.'
'What if the trail is a dead end?' Niko asked.
'Then we're dead either way. Let us hope the gods favor us today.''
Movement again at the neck of the gorge. Bakhtiian stood up on the wall. White flashed, and then a white cloth tied to a spear appeared.
'So they want to talk to a priest,' said Bakhtiian. 'I hope I'll do.'
A man appeared, holding the spear aloft. The white cloth shuddered and danced in the breeze. The man halted and placed the spear butt on the ground: parley. Nothing moved. Deep shadows surrounded him. The man shifted nervously and then threw back his head.
'We have no quarrel with jharan,' he shouted.
'Jharan jharan,' the echoes returned. 'He speaks khush!' Tess whispered to Yuri.
'A similar tongue.'
'Give us Boctiyan!' the man cried. 'The others may go free.' His accent was atrocious.
Tess looked up. Bakhtiian was smiling. 'What do you want with Bakhtiian?' he shouted down.
'Boctiyan-he has burnt town, killed children, forced women. He is an evil man, cruel, a demon sent by-' He lasped into a description of something, or someone, that sounded horrible but which Tess could not follow.
'I have gotten a reputation,' said Ilya. 'Of the unsavory kind.'
'That,' said Tess, 'is an understatement.'
The man, silent now, stared up at Bakhtiian, a figure lighter than anything below, the wind moving in his hair and flaring the loose sleeves of his blood-red shirt as he stood, unmoving, on the high wall.
'Do you suppose they think I'm mad?' he asked. He grinned, looking like an uncomfortable blend of beauty and menace: the bright child gone evil.
'You are mad,' Tess muttered, wondering if he had already forgotten what he had said last night. And then, because he was looking down at her, she went on hastily. 'They probably scare their children into bed at night by telling them stories about you.'
He laughed. 'Gods. I'm still young. I'll end up by giving myself nightmares.' He stared down at the man below. 'He must be a priest. Don't khaja priests wear that cut of tunic and those thick-what are they called?' He switched to Rhuian briefly. 'Baldrics.' He lifted his chin and shouted again. 'What will you do with Bakhtiian?'
'He has offended our god by killing our holy brothers in Eratia and Tiarton. We of Tialla Great Walls are doubly stricken, for he has fouled our sacred temple by setting his cursed feet in it. Our god must have revenge.'
'Niko!' His gaze remained on the priest below. 'This temple?'
'I know of no other near here.'
'These khaja are a religious people.'
'Devout. Fanatic. Their god offends easily, if the death of a holy brother is of greater account than that of a child.'
'Keregin of the arenabekh says that they treat their women particularly badly here. Would lying with a woman in here offend them, do you think?'
'Ilya!'
'Damn it, Niko, would it? We need time. Would they try to stop it? Or retreat?'
That hushed sound, Tess thought. It must be the stream.
'Damn you, Ilya. I talked with a khaja once years ago, a man from hereabouts. We were trading.'
'Niko.'
'He said that to murder or to rape in a temple brought the anger of the god, and-gods! Yes, I remember. Or to see it done!''
'Ha! Priest! Priest!' He shouted, one hand moving to his saber. 'So you think / foul your temple.'
The priest dropped the spear, grabbed it. 'Black demon!' he cried. Two men helmeted with leather coifs appeared and then vanished back into the gorge behind him.
'So your god is offended!' shouted Ilya. 'Niko,' he said, not turning his head. 'Everyone mounted.' Niko moved back, Tess and Yuri following. 'No,' said Bakhtiian. He reached down, glancing back, and grabbed Tess's wrist. 'Up.' His pull was so strong that instead of coming up to her feet on the wall she lost her balance, boots skidding on the smooth stone, and fell to her knees on the wall. She stared up at Bakhtiian; the priest stared at her. Bakh-tiian reached down and tugged at her braid. Her hair fell loose around her. 'Priest!' he shouted. 'Since you offend me, I'll defile your temple.'
The priest wailed a protest, incoherent at this distance.
'Fight me,' Bakhtiian demanded, jerking her up. She twisted away from him and kicked out, half slipping again. He reacted so instinctively that he wrenched her arm and she gasped in pain. 'I'm sorry,' he whispered.
'No!' cried the priest. 'Do not defile the temple!'
She was caught, bent backward, half balanced on one hand and half held up by Bakhtiian's arm behind her back. The sky had a transparent quality; the peaks shimmered. 'Scream,' he said. He put his free hand to the top of her tunic.
'I've never screamed in my life,' she said, paling. 'I don't know how.'
'Scream, damn it!'
Tess screamed.
'No,' cried the priest. Men appeared, armed, bows ready, spears leveled. 'No!' he yelled, desperate. 'Stay back. Do not compound the offense. Stay back!' The men retreated. The priest fell to his knees and covered his eyes, calling once, twice, to his god, entreating His aid.
Bakhtiian's glance shifted, and he lifted his chin, signaling to the men stationed along the wall below. Then he glanced back. 'Yuri. Tell the others to go. We can't wait for Josef. You wait with Tess's horse.' He looked down at Tess. 'Do you have anything on under this?'
'Yes.'
From above, they heard noises, the beginning of the retreat. The priest looked up. Bakhtiian ripped off her tunic. The priest shrieked and covered his face. At the wall, the fifteen riders leapt up and ran for the escarpment.
'That's Nadezhda Martov's pattern,' said Bakhtiian, looking bemusedly at the collar of the white blouse she wore under her now-ripped tunic.
'Stay back! Stay back!' the priest was crying. 'We must not compound the crime with offense of our own.'
The fifteen men reached the upper wall and scrambled over it to land panting on the packed earth behind.
