'Tess!' A touch on her arm. Yuri. Tadheus, Mikhal, and Konstans had already gone, vanished up the trail. Bakhtiian, like her, had been watching. Now he rode up beside her.
'Go on, Tess. Haven't you had enough excitement?'
'I don't call that excitement,' she muttered, but neither man heard her, Yuri riding in front, Bakhtiian behind, as they followed the trail up into the mountains, the vale and the sounds of fighting lost in the towering rocks they left behind. Her last glimpse: fair-haired Sergi, thick braid dangling to his waist, saber raised, horse half rearing as he drove it down into the gorge. Someday, she thought, a great avalanche will cover it all up.
Yuri paused at the switchback to glance back at her. He grinned. Tess pulled the last of her ruined tunic free and tossed it away, letting it fall where it would. The sun warmed her back where it penetrated the delicate weave of her blouse. Ahead, a bird trilled.
'I'll get you a new shirt,' shouted Bakhtiian from below. Tess laughed. 'By the gods,' he said, coming up beside her, 'we'll give you a red one.'
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
'When therefore in the air there occurs a clash of contrary winds and showers.'
They followed the narrow trail all day, hemmed in by high rock, then dismounted and walked their horses until the moon set. Tess slept huddled in her cloak, shivering, starting awake at intervals, but even so, Yuri woke her all too soon. The flush of dawn stained the sky, softening the darkness, and they went on.
The path curled through the heights, ascending and descending by turns. For one interminable stretch a fall of rock half obliterated the trail, and they dismounted and picked their way over the gray slivers that littered the ground. At midday Bakhtiian stopped them at a waterfall that fed a lawn of lush grass; the horses drank and grazed. Tess slumped against a rock, chewing on a strip of dry meat. She was glad of the rest at first, but as it stretched out she became afraid. What if the khaja soldiers were behind them? What if Keregin's men hadn't killed them all? What if more khaja had come hunting them? At last Bakhtiian called to them to mount, and they continued on. Still, they saw no sign of their jahar.
'Niko's driving them,' said Bakhtiian when they halted by yet another stream. They rode again until the moon was gone, shadows staggering over the ground. Yuri's Kuhaylan mare went lame with a stone in its hoof. Mikhal's chestnut tarpan began to cough and wheeze.
Tess slept badly. When she woke at dawn, one of her calves had cramped. Her back ached. She limped. The path worsened and their pace slowed. Bakhtiian stopped them again at midday to water and graze the horses; Tess ate her food mechanically, without hunger. The shock she had had in the vale, the sudden appreciation of death, had drained her; she kept going now only because Myshla followed the other horses.
In the late afternoon they halted to let the horses breathe, a rough, tearing sound in the stillness. Tadheus, white-faced and sweating, was too exhausted to dismount by himself, but at least his wound was no longer bleeding. Konstans sat hunched and shaking on the ground. After a bit he rose and checked all the horses' hooves with unnerving thoroughness. Then he argued with Mikhal and Bakhtiian over whether to kill the chestnut, who was lagging badly. They decided to kill it.
Tess leaned against Myshla, not wanting to watch. She breathed in the mare's hot, dry smell as if it were tenacity. No matter how much of the thin air she gulped down, it was never enough.
'Here, Tess.' It was Yuri, holding a cup of blood, still warm. 'Drink.'
Tess clutched Myshla's mane, feeling dizzy with revulsion. 'I can't.'
'Drink it.'
Because it was an order, she obeyed.
'Thank the gods, Myshla and Khani are holding up so well,' said Yuri, taking the empty cup from her. He rubbed Myshla's nose affectionately. 'Ilya says he's never seen horses with the stamina of these khuhaylans. The khepellis must be the finest breeders of horses in all the lands. Come, Tess. We need your help.' He left.
Tess went to relieve Mikhal, who was watching the horses, so he could go help with the slaughter. The horses stood, heads drooping, exhausted. Tasha dozed on the ground. Yuri's words bothered her: the Chapalii-and the Arabians they had given to Bakhtiian-who should have been doing the worst on this journey, were doing the best. Chapalii efficiency. The horses had to have been altered somehow. Yuri brought more blood, and she lifted Tasha up and helped him drink. After an interminable time, the men finished their work. They went on, leaving the chestnut's carcass to rot on the path behind. Yuri and Konstans stank of blood.
The moon rose, bright, throwing hallucinatory shadows on the rock walls that surrounded them. Tess held onto
Myshla's reins and stumbled along in Yuri's wake. This went on forever.
Eventually the path narrowed. Directly ahead rose a blind wall of stone blocking their trail. Somewhere in the rocks an animal called, mocking them. A shout carried back from Konstans, who rode at the fore. She could not see him. The sheer cliff loomed before her, impassable, huge, and she began to rein Myshla aside, for surely they must halt here, having no farther to go. But the path twisted sharply to the right between two hulking black boulders, angled back to the left, and she heard a laugh above her and looked up.
'Kirill!' At that moment she could have seen nothing more pleasing.
He stood on a small ledge, looking more then usually self-satisfied. 'Tess. I could have spitted your four companions as they rode past, but I thought that if I did, I'd block the path with bodies and then you couldn't get through.'
Tess laughed, spirits already lighter. 'You're too good to me, Kirill. Where can I find a space large enough to sleep?'
'At my breast,' said Kirill cheerfully, aware that Bakh-tiian had come up behind her and was listening.
'Wanton,' said Tess.
'If you go on,' he added, not a bit contrite, 'it opens up and we've made a little camp.'
She walked on. The path remained an arm's span wide for about one hundred paces. Shadowy forms, concealed at strategic intervals, greeted her. Where the path widened, Niko was waiting. He took Myshla's reins.
'Yuri says you're tired, child. Let me take the horse.'
She merely stood after he left, her eyelids fluttering, her head sinking. A low humming filled her ears.
'Tess.'' Yuri took hold of her hand and led her to a small space away from the path. ' 'Sleep.'' He dumped her blanket and cloak on the ground and left. She slept.
The sun woke her. Its warmth on her face felt like the stroke of a hand, soft and comforting. Until it occurred to her that in this ravine the sun had to be very high to shine down on her; that they should still be here at this late hour of the morning was impossible. She sat up.
'I thought you'd never wake up.'
Looking up, she saw Yuri smiling at her from where he perched on top of the boulder against which she slept.
'Why are we still here?' She got hastily to her feet and blinked in the brightness. Ahead, she saw the camp- the four Chapalii tents and one fire crowded in between the high walls. One scrubby, yellow-barked tree shaded the fire, and a few bushes clung to the slopes. 'It must be midday.'
'Ah, Tess,' he said in Rhuian, 'your perspicacity amazes me.'
'Why, Yuri, your vocabulary is finally improving.'
He grinned, then lifted his head and looked around, so remarkably like a lizard that Tess laughed. He slid down the rock to stand beside her, lowering his voice. 'Ilya and Niko had a terrible argument last night. You were already asleep. Ilya was furious with himself for not sending everyone ahead up the trail to begin with, but Niko told Ilya that only a damn fool sent horsemen ahead on a trail that hadn't been scouted and that other circumstances had forced his hand. Well, it was a good thing the arenabekh came along when they did.'
