color. His eyes burned. ' 'So that you will understand that you must fear me, and set no foot on my ground, I have shown you my power. But because I am merciful as well as strong, I have left one alive to tell the tale.' '
Sibirin came up with Dr. Hierakis in tow, and Bakhtiian shifted aside to make room for her. She knelt beside Raevsky and stripped the cloth bandages away. Her face was intent, impassive.
'It looks like they burned the eyes out.' She ran a finger down the bridge of Raevsky's nose. 'How far did he come?'
Bakhtiian shrugged. 'It's about ten days' ride to the border. Much much farther to the royal city.''
'Incredible,' she said curtly. 'Make me a litter to bear him to my tent. If you wish him to live, do it quickly.' She rose. 'I will be waiting there.' And left, striding out into the darkness.
'Do as she says,' said Bakhtiian. He stayed kneeling beside Raevsky until men came with a litter and bore him away. Then he rose. Glanced around, at the men waiting on his word. 'You,' he said to the rider who had come in with Raevsky. 'What is your name?'
'Svyatoslav Zhulin, with Veselov's jahar.'
'You will return south, then, with this message. I want Veselov and Yaroslav Sakhalin to drive into Habakar territory. Then the king will begin to understand that he must fear us.' He glanced down at the pillow that rested against his boots, at the bright stain drying between the two birds of prey. 'Then he will understand our power. Aleksi.' His voice had the temper of the finest steel, decisive, cold, and sharp. 'You will bring the Habakar philosopher to me. Now.'
'Are you going to kill him?' someone asked, angry, wanting revenge.
'Of course not! We respect philosophers and envoys here. But I will inform him myself of this treachery. In the end, he may prove a valuable ally. Aleksi?'
Aleksi nodded and retreated, heading for the foreign envoys' enclave. Behind, he could hear Bakhtiian's crisp voice issuing more orders. The spring's campaign was beginning.
ACT TWO
'Some good I mean to do despite of mine own nature.'
CHAPTER TWENTY
From the ridge that bounded the valley on the northeast, black-shirted riders watched the battle raging below.
'They'll be routed by nightfall,' said the black-haired man who sat on his horse at the fore of the group, next to its leader.
'Sooner, Yevgeni,' replied the leader. 'Look there. The center is breaking. And there: do you see the general's standard? It's wavering.'
Yevgeni spat. 'The coward. He's running.'
The leader of the band watched as a clot of riders broke away from the back of the khaja army and raced for the western hills. He was fair, with golden hair and a strikingly handsome face. 'Bring the woman up here, Piotr,' he ordered, and a moment later Piotr returned. With him came the woman, a girl, more like, with a baby strapped to her back. She clutched the reins of a mountain pony, and she gave the battle below the briefest glance before fastening her gaze on what interested her most: the fair-haired man.
He gestured toward the retreating riders below. 'Do you know where they're heading? What path they'll take?' he asked, speaking khush slowly.
She tore her gaze from his face and studied the valley and the swell of hills that marked the western boundary. Near a lake, a city lay smoking and battered, and it was past these ruins that the riders fled. 'That way,' she replied, pointing to a gap in the hills. Her khush was faltering, but comprehensible. 'A road leading to the pass.'
'Is there a good spot for an ambush?'
She looked back at the band: about one hundred horsemen in black, all with sabers, a few with lances. 'With arrows, yes.' She ran her left hand over the quiver that hung from her belt along her thigh. 'With swords…' She shook her head. 'It is narrow.'
'I want that general,' said the leader.
'Vasil, are you mad?' asked Yevgeni. 'Let the khaja pig go, that's what I say. What does he matter? He'll be a worse burden on the khaja king alive than dead.'
Vasil glanced at the riders in his group and then down at the jaran army driving through the khaja infantry in the valley below. Evidently the bulk of the army had not yet realized that its leader had deserted it. 'I need a prize.'
Yevgeni shook his head. 'I don't understand you, Vasil. Your father was dyan of your tribe's jahar. It's a fair enough claim, if you want it back. But your cousin has been dyan now for-what? — three years? He may contest you.'
'Anton is Arina Veselov's brother,' said Vasil.
'That's bound to cause trouble, two so close making decisions.'
'And knowing Anton and Arina as I do, because of that, they'll be glad to give the command over to me. It isn't my cousins I have to convince. Viaka.' He turned to address the girl. 'We must go, quickly. Can you lead us?'
'It is a bad place for swords,' she insisted. 'There are others of my family who will come, if we can stay in the heights and shoot down. Then perhaps you can overcome your enemy. They have fine armor.''
Grumbling arose from the men closest. 'Archery… arrows in battle… it's dishonorable.'
'Come now,' said Vasil scornfully. 'Surely you men don't believe I'd ever suggest such a thing against an honorable man of the tribes? But these are khaja. What does it matter if arrows are used against them? They have killed enough jaran men with arrows. And these khaja villagers have agreed out of their own free will to accompany us.'
Yevgeni snorted. 'Out of the will of their headman's daughter, who's bedding with you.' The girl started around and glared at him. Then she flushed. She was an unremarkable young woman, scrubbed clean, with her brown hair tied back and bound with a net of tiny golden beads strung on a bronze wire. She wore a girdle of iron plates around her waist, and a golden embossed pectoral hung from around her neck, covering her upper chest: it was more armor than any of Veselov's riders had.
Vasil smiled. 'Yevgeni, my love,' he said softly, 'are you jealous?'
Yevgeni flushed with anger. 'You have no right to say such a thing to me,' he said in a fierce undertone. 'I have never asked anything of you, Veselov, except first a place in Dmitri Mikhailov's jahar and now, a place with your arenabekh.'
'Forgive me,' said Vasil, his voice as smooth as silk, 'but I do not like to be questioned. Do you understand?'
'I understand.'
Vasil surveyed his riders. He pitched his voice to carry to the back ranks. 'We're going to bag a prize, boys. We will take some khaja archers with us. If there are any of you who can't stomach their presence, then you may stay behind.'
No one moved. Vasil shifted his gaze to the girl. She gazed at him as much with avarice as with love. 'Then we can go,' he said to her. 'And swiftly.'
She urged the pony forward and the band set out, riding on twisting paths down off the ridge and through the
