steep hills. At a narrow crossroads, the party of villagers joined them. A woman took the baby from Viaka and vanished up the trail. The rest went on. The villagers were mounted on sturdy ponies, each man-and a few young women-armed with bow and arrows and a long knife. Only Viaka spoke khush well, and she used this skill and Vasil's deference to her to bully the older khaja men, who clearly objected to her authority.
She led them along a narrow road cut through the hills. They rode two abreast, with Viaka and Vasil at the fore and the bulk of the villagers at the rear. At last the road dipped down into a gully and gave out onto a wider road that led up toward the pass. Here, they found signs of the city's death: A burned out wagon and seven corpses, three of them children, littered the roadside.
Yevgeni moved up beside Vasil and sniffed the stench in the air with distaste. 'Arrows. Do they kill their own children?'
'These are Farisa,' said Viaka. 'As are my people.
We ruled this land once, until the King's grandsire rode here with an army, in my grandfather's father's time. He killed our prince and became prince himself. It was his army attacked the city, not yours, and killed these people. Those who escaped ran to the hills. We do not love the King.'
Vasil lifted a brow, questioning. 'So that is why your father agreed to help us? I thought all the khaja were alike. Where is the site for the ambush?'
They rode down and came to a curve in the road that was shielded by a rocky ridge. Vasil concealed his riders behind the ridge. Viaka sent archers up the steep cliffs on either side, where they hid behind boulders and underbrush. Then they waited.
After a time, the ring of harness and the pound of hooves drifted to them on the clear air. No voices carried: it was a silent flight. Vasil's face bore a curious stillness as he listened, as if this skirmish signaled the beginning of a momentous campaign.
Sudden shrieks echoed off the cliffs. Shouts and a scream blended with the terrified neighing of horses.
'Forward!' cried Vasil. He led the charge.. The jaran riders came around the curve and smashed straight into the panicked troop. Already demoralized from the battle, they scattered under the archers' fire, half fleeing back down the road, half ahead into the jaran charge.
Next to Vasil, Piotr lowered his lance and with the weight and speed of his horse behind the thrust, he toppled a heavily armored rider from the saddle. The khaja warrior screamed as a man in the second rank cut him down. The charge drove through the khaja ranks and Vasil shouted for half the jahar to go on, after the retreating remnants. Fifty riders headed down the pass. Behind, the archers let loose a new stream of arrows into the group that had just survived the charge. Then Vasil wheeled his horse around along with his remaining fifty men and hit the disintegrating troop from the rear, trampling some, killing the rest.
Yevgeni and Piotr cornered a man in a golden surcoat, and when the man saw that he was surrounded and defeated, he dropped his weapons and began to plead in a language none of them could understand. Vasil rode up and stared at him: an older man with a grizzled beard, dark eyes and skin, and fine gilded armor.
'Yevgeni,' said Vasil, 'take twenty riders and help Georgi mop up the others.' Yevgeni rode away.
The mountain people scrambled down from the heights and scurried among the bodies, gleefully stabbing those still alive and looting the dead.
'Is this the general?' Vasil asked when Viaka came up beside him on her pony.
She shrugged. 'How should I know? All these Habakar bastards look the same to me. His armor is rich enough.'
'Then you shall have it, my dear. Piotr, strip him.'
The man protested, at first. Piotr grabbed his left hand and cut off his little finger, and after that, the man submitted in silence. Until Yevgeni returned with seventy riders, a few of whom were wounded, and two captives. The first of the captives was a stalwart man in a fine brocaded surcoat who endured many bleeding wounds stoically. The second was an adolescent boy without a trace of beard on his face, tall but clearly young and terrified. He, too, wore a gold surcoat and gilded armor. When the Habakar general saw him, the old man broke out in a storm of weeping and struggled away from his captors to embrace the boy.
'They force children to ride into battle, too,' said Yevgeni, pulling his mount up beside Vasil. 'It's barbaric. But the boy seemed important, so we let him live.'
'The other man?'
'He fought courageously to defend the child.'
'Bind his wounds, then, after you've stripped him of his armor. Leave the boy in his, though, or they'll never believe we found such a child fighting.'
The old man, stripped down to his linen tunic and hose, broke away from the boy and threw himself at Vasil's feet, babbling in his khaja tongue. Vasil sighed and looked around for Viaka, but she was kneeling, running her hands over the golden surcoat and the fine armor with a gleam of lust in her eyes. She glanced up, and when she saw that Vasil was watching her, her face flushed with pleasure and she rose and came over to him, glancing back frequently as if to make sure her new armor was not being stolen by one of her villagers. She halted beside Vasil and listened to the old man, then spat on him.
'He says he will gladly give you anything you please, as long as you spare the boy,' she said to Vasil. 'He says his name is Yalik anSiyal, and he is a great nobleman and the leader of this army. The boy is his son.'
Vasil smiled. Not gloated, not quite, but he felt entirely pleased with himself. 'We'll ride, then. I have what I need.''
'I'm coming with you.' Viaka's gaze up, at him seated splendidly on his mount, was worshipful as well as possessive.
Vasil chuckled. 'My dear, you are wealthy now. You don't need me.'
'My father will only take these things from me once you are gone and give them to my brothers. I would gladly become your wife. My father would not protest.'
Yevgeni laughed under his breath. 'He'd be glad enough to be rid of her,' he said softly.
'I am married,' said Vasil quietly.
She gestured impatiently. 'I do not ask to be your chief wife. But surely you have a place for a secondary wife.'
'Savages,' muttered Yevgeni.
'Yevgeni, get the men ready. We must go.' Vasil put out a hand and took Viaka's, holding it a moment. 'My dear, however much I might wish it, it is impossible.' Then he released her hand and reined his horse away. Piotr bundled the general onto his horse and tied him there, stringing the boy's mount on behind. Viaka simply stood, staring at them. One of the villagers, an old man who had protested the most at the girl's usurpation of authority, grinned vindictively as the riders mounted and rode away.
Vasil did not even glance back, although Yevgeni did. 'You cold bastard,' he said to Vasil. He laughed. 'Gods, these khaja can't even keep their own tents in order. How can they expect to resist Bakhtiian's army?'
'We are not part of Bakhtiian's army yet.'
'I still don't understand,' said Yevgeni, 'how you can expect Bakhtiian to take us in, now that we're arenabekh, and then agree to let you become dyan of the Veselov tribe, after we rode with the last dyan who tried to kill him.'
'There is a great deal you don't understand, Yevgeni. There is a great deal no one understands. But I am determined to have my way, this time.' He glanced back as Piotr cantered up from the rear. 'What is it?'
'The girl. She's following us.'
'Let her follow. I'm no longer concerned with her.'
Yevgeni snorted. 'Meaning you don't need her anymore.'
Vasil did not answer. He picked up their pace, and they made good time down to the valley, riding past the ransacked city by late afternoon. A contingent of armored riders, hailing them, met them by an outstretched arm of ruined wall.
'Halt! I hadn't heard of arenabekh in these parts. Where's your leader?' This from their captain, a beautiful young man whose handsome face was marred by scars along the jaw and across the ridge of his nose. 'Vasil! Gods, I thought you were dead! Everyone thought so.'
Vasil smiled. 'But I am not dead, Petya, as you see.'
'But these are arenabekh, Vasil!'
'It's true that I've proven myself as a dyan by leading these men. Now I've returned. How is my sister? Have
