His conquering sword

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Night enveloped the city of Karkand. The hellish noise of the day's fighting had evaporated into the darkness, though echoes of it remained. Within the walls, a minaret still burned. Outside the walls, four siege towers smoldered, three of them collapsed into ruins. Beyond the range of catapults and arrows, Nadine heard knocking and pounding: the laborers built anew for the next day's assault.

Smoke obscured the stars, here close to the city, and on the eastern horizon clouds streaked the sky, blotting out the moon. Otherwise, silence lay like a blanket over them. Nadine gave command of her jahar over to Yermolov, took three auxiliaries to bear torches to light her way, and went in search of her uncle.

Her jahar had been stationed halfway round the inner city walls, almost opposite the main gates, and she rode back through the abandoned outlying districts. In these suburbs, quiet reigned. Many of the trees and houses nearest the inner city walls had been demolished, either by catapult fire or by laborers or soldiers scrounging for materials to build, for food, for shelter, or for firewood. A line of men stood patiently in a dark plaza, waiting for their turn at a public well. The two jaran guards lifted their hands, acknowledging Nadine as she passed by.

Farther along, she skirted a flat field on which a new set of siege towers and artillery rose or were repaired. She paused to watch, and there, escorted by four men bearing torches, she saw David ben Unbutu on his rounds. She rode over to him.

"David! Well met." She smiled and lifted a hand in greeting as she pulled up beside him. His torchbearers edged away from her. David spun around, startled. "Your engines did good work today."

"Dina! I didn't see you."

The wavering torchlight gave him an ashen appearance, but then she realized mat a fine white powder covered his hands and that streaks of it lightened his black skin. "You're out late," she said. She felt inordinately pleased to see him; his pleasant open face was such a relief to look at after watching the siege all day, after arguing with Feodor yet again at dawn over her decision to ride out with her jahar.

"Most of my work is done at night." said David. He glanced to either side. The torchbearers-khaja laborers all-had averted their faces from the exchange. "Preparing for-" He shuddered, cutting off his words. "You didn't see any righting, Dina? You look no worse for the wear. I'm glad of that."

"Saw plenty of it. We're too heavily armored, my jahar, to be of any use in these conditions, except what archers we now have with us. But we can protect against sorties that come out beyond the gates, and if those khaja bastards look over the walls, they see how many of us there are. That ought to encourage them to surrender."

A smile came and went on David's face, and he looked uncomfortable.

"If you'll excuse me. I'm off to report to my uncle."

"Dina."

"What is it? What's wrong?" she demanded. He waved his torchbearers away impatiently and looked meaningfully at hers. "Go on," she said, and they moved a few steps away. Her horse shifted restlessly, disliking the dark, and Nadine dismounted and stood at its head.

"Tess had the baby. It's-there's no way to say this gently, except to say I'm sorry. It's dead."

"Oh, gods." She was shocked and saddened, mostly, but a second voice nagged at hen If the baby had lived, there might have been less pressure on her to contribute heirs. No matter what Ilya said, Nadine suspected mat his children could inherit over any she bore, especially if they showed promise for command. "Where is she?"

"In Dr. Hierakis's tent. You ought to go…"

"I'll go. Thank you, David."

"For what?" he asked bleakly. She took a step toward him, reached up, and kissed him lightly on the lips. "Nadine!" he whispered fiercely, and pulled back from her.

She sighed and mounted again. Her torchbearers hurried back to her, and she rode on. She did not ride directly to camp. Instead, she detoured along her original route and came to the main gates near midnight. Torches ringed the fallen stretch of wall, and now and again arrows sped out and thudded dully against the shields, but there was otherwise no movement along the collapsed wall except for an occasional slide of loose bricks.

"Zvertkov! Well met!" She hailed the rider, and he turned his horse aside and came to meet her.

"Orzhekov. Your position?"

"Quiet, for now."

"You heard about Tess?"

"I heard."

They said nothing for a while, ruminating in silence over the ways of the gods.

"We've a courier in from Vershinin," said Zvertkov at last. "He's turned south. Grekov's jahar will ride to Karkand to replace him."

"Garrisons?"

"They left Izursky's jahar to patrol the area, but we can't afford the men. There isn't much resistance left there in any case."

"Zvertkov!" This from a rider at the far end of the line. "Messenger riding in!"

Torchlight bobbed along the uneven ground, heading for their position. Nadine heard the bells before she could make out the figures. Soon enough the sound resolved into three men running with torches in their hands and a single mounted rider. He pulled up before them. His horse was lathered, and he himself look exhausted.

"Gennady Besselov. Sakhalin's command."

"Sakhalin!"

"There's a khaja force marching north to relieve Karkand, under the command of the king's nephew."

"The Habakar king is dead," said Zvertkov. "The nephew may well be the king, now."

The courier shrugged. "Whatever he is, he's good enough on the field, for a khaja, and he's got twenty thousand well-trained men with him. Sakhalin could only spare two thousand of his army to harry him as he marched north; it was that, or lose the ground we've gained so far in the southern lands, which was hard enough won to begin with."

"I'll take you to my uncle," said Nadine, and she looked at Kirill for confirmation. Zvertkov nodded. She led the messenger away.

The man regaled her with stories of Sakhalin's advance southward and how stubborn the southern Habakar inhabitants were-except they called themselves Xiriki-khai, and some of them spoke a different language. The Habakar prince's mother was a Xiriki-khai princess, and the merchants they had captured said that she had herself as a girl led an army and thus gained the title "Lion Queen," and that it was her heart and courage the boy had inherited. The torchbearers trudged on beside them.

Once in camp Nadine found riders to send the message out that a council would meet immediately. They found Anatoly Sakhalin's jahar ringing the tent of the doctor at a discreet distance. Nadine left the horses and the torch-bearers with them. Closer in, Aleksi sat alone beside twin fires. Nadine led the courier between the fires, for their purifying heat to sear away any untoward contamination she or the man might bring with them, and Aleksi motioned at her to go on. It was late, past midnight and turning toward morning. A woman emerged from the tent, holding a swaddled bundle in one arm.

"Aleksi! Oh, I beg your pardon." It was Joanna Singh, one of Soerensen's assistants. She nodded at Nadine and eyed the courier, who stared at her in astonishment-at her height and her brown skin-before remembering his manners and looking away. "Would you like to go in? Your uncle is inside. Aleksi, can you get some of the riders out there to help? We need a bonfire. Cara wants to cremate the child as soon as possible. You'll need to get Sonia Orzhekov back here, too."

Nadine regarded the tiny bundle with curiosity. Was that the baby? Besselov waited patiently. Since they spoke in Rhuian, he couldn't understand them. "Besselov," said Nadine, "you'll have to wait out here. I'll go get Bakhtiian." She left the courier by the fires and ducked inside. The bells sewn onto the entrance flap sang, warning those inside that she was coming in. "Jo?" That was Dr. Hierakis. "Can you send for-? Oh, Nadine."

Nadine examined the chamber with interest, but it did not look that different from the outer chamber of Tess's tent: some khaja furniture and little else. A glass bottle sat, almost empty, on the table, with a crystal tumbler on either side. A book lay on a cushion, and a second book peeped out from the carved cabinet that stood against the far wall; the polished wood grain looked elegant compared to the plain fabric that made up the walls of this tent. Not a rich tent, by any means, but it was practical, and Nadine supposed that Dr. Hierakis prized practicality above luxury.

Light shone from farther in, from the private inner chamber into which no person but blood family or lover was ever admitted. The curtain between the two rooms had been thrown back. By the glow of two lanterns hanging from the corners of the chamber, Nadine saw a striking tableau.

For some reason, the doctor had shrouded her sleeping chamber with cloth, heaps of it, piled up and spread out everywhere, muting the edges in the room. Within all this fabric, almost seeming to float on it, Tess lay. Her entire left side was covered by gleaming silver silk. Nadine could not see Tess's left hand, but her right hand grasped Ilya's hands where he knelt beside her. He gazed up at her. Dried tears streaked his face. The prince stood down toward Tess's feet with one hand resting on her legs, which were also concealed by a silklike fabric that gleamed white under lantern light. At Tess's head hovered the doctor. Nadine could not see her left hand, but the doctor's right hand lay open on the silvery silk, the contrast making her hand seem almost as dark as David's.

Somehow, with Tess and Bakhtiian framed between the doctor and the prince, the picture held an ominous quality for Nadine, as if they-Tess and Ilya-acted out their parts within boundaries they were themselves not aware of. The prince and the doctor seemed like sinister figures to her, like demons in one of the old tales, working their plots in human guise. She shook herself, driving the thought away. In these dark hours, the interregnum between midnight and dawn, between one day and the next, ghosts touched the mind and whispered secrets that were usually lies. No wonder they wanted to burn the dead child now: better that its spirit fly away to heaven before dawn, better not to let it see the light of day when it had only known night than to risk its lingering here. These hours belonged to Grandmother Night, and it was never wise to draw Grandmother Night's attention to oneself. She was just, but rarely merciful.

The tableau broke. Bakhtiian looked back over his shoulder at Nadine and rose at once. He bent to kiss Tess on either cheek and disengaged his hands from hers.

"I want to see the child, just once, before he goes," she said. Nadine thought her voice surprisingly strong. Ilya nodded. The doctor nodded. Tess shut her eyes and seemed at once to fall back asleep.

Ilya backed three steps away from her, and turned and left the chamber. The prince moved to close the curtain behind him. The inner chamber vanished from their sight.

"What news?" demanded Ilya.

Nadine could see that his temper was uncertain. "I brought a courier. He's waiting outside."

Without replying, Ilya left the tent. He stopped dead at the sight of Joanna Singh holding the shrouded child, and then walked past her over to Gennady Besselov. Singh went back into the tent. Bakhtiian grilled the courier for a long while. After a bit, Zvertkov appeared and listened in on the discussion, asking a few questions himself. When Sonia arrived, she brought Josef Raevsky with her, and the Orzhekov children, who immediately ran off to help build the pyre. The stack of wood rose rapidly. More commanders filtered in, holding their council there, out beyond the awning of Dr. Hierakis's tent while riders and children built the pyre. And there-damn it all anyway- there came Feodor.

"Dina! What's going on? Is it true that Tess Soerensen lost the child? Gods!" He stared at the pyre. "And there's a force riding north? A khaja army?"

"Yes, Feodor. Now will you hush? I'm trying to listen." The discussion ran fast and furious, but for once Nadine could hear her uncle steering it forcefully in one direction. He wanted to ride out now, destroy the Habakar prince's army in the field, and then return to deal with Karkand. For once, others objected and he thrust aside their arguments.

"But the distance-"

"We'll take remounts, of course. We can surprise him. He'll never expect us to meet him so quickly."

"What if there's stiffer resistance from Karkand? What if they've a strong force holed up inside that attacks while the bulk of the army is gone?"

"Zvertkov will remain here to deal with them. He can decoy them into thinking the army is as large as ever. And-" He cast a look around, and it lit on Feodor. "Grekov! You'll remain here as well. Your uncle will be riding in soon, and his force and the auxiliaries can keep them quiet until we return. The siege engineers can keep up their firing. If we destroy much of the inner city without fighting, that will only demoralize them more."

"But-"

"There, Dina," said Feodor in an undertone. "We'll stay in camp. He's half crazed with grief, can't you see that?"

Nadine surveyed her husband with disgust. "I'm not staying in camp. I'm riding with him."

"You can't know that! And anyway, you're married now. You can't put yourself at risk."

"He didn't take away my command. Gods, Feodor, my jahar is still my jahar."

"He left me in charge of the army here. I can order you to stay."

"He didn't leave you in charge of the army! I'm beginning to think you only married me as a ploy to advance your family. Now leave me alone!" She shouldered him aside and pushed through the crowd to stand beside her uncle. Bakhtiian glanced down at her, marking her attendance.

"I'll want your jahar, too, Orzhekov. With Vershinin's troops, my own, and Sakhalin's two thousand, that will give us almost equal numbers, and enough armored to carry the center. Very well, we'll leave as soon as-" But here he stopped suddenly, just broke off, and could not go on. The commanders attending him glanced each at the others, and as one, without further words, they retreated, leaving him alone.

"It's ready," said Aleksi, corning back from the flat field about fifty paces in front of the tent.

The prince came out of the tent, bearing the child. They had changed the shroud to one of fine damask linen, folded in an elaborately elegant pattern, so neatly tucked in to itself that it seemed more the work of an artist than anything. He handed the bundle to Bakhtiian. At once, Ilya walked away from the others, out to the pyre. Everyone shrank away from him, his expression was so grim. Farther, like a muted, gleaming shoreline, Anatoly Sakhalin's guard stood watch.

Soerensen followed him out, bearing two torches. They flared in the darkness. Their fitful light illuminated the scene.

Ilya halted at the base of the pyre. He did not move for the longest time, as if he simply could not bear to let go of the child. At last he put one foot on the pyre. Then he took hold of a corner of the shroud, to unwrap it for one last look.

The prince stepped forward so quickly that the torch flames shuddered and danced. Ilya flung his head up, but whatever Soerensen said convinced him to leave the child undisturbed.

He climbed up onto the stack and laid the child down in the very center. Kneeling, he remained there for a long while. Whether he spoke, to the gods, to the baby, or stayed silent, Nadine could not tell from this distance. But his back seemed bowed under the weight of his grief.

At last he stood up and climbed back down. Soerensen handed him a torch. They stood, each at one end of the pyre, and Nadine felt, watching them, that between themselves this gesture had a meaning that the rest of those watching could not fathom. Josef Raevsky held one arm around Sonia, who wept. Kirill stood silent to one side, next to Aleksi. Niko Sibirin had come up from the hospital, and he wiped a tear from his eye and hugged his wife. The children-Mitya, Galina, Ivan, Katerina, and Kolia- all stared, but only Galina cried. Vasha Kireyevsky waited farther out, half hidden in the darkness, and Nadine could not see the expression on his face. Feodor loitered to one side, attention caught between the men at the pyre and Nadine.

They put the torches to the wood. Flame leapt up. The pyre burned.

They walked back together, the two men. For an instant, Nadine thought their expressions a perfect match. Then Bakhtiian caught sight of Mitya.

"Cousin, my armor," he snapped. His armor was brought, and in the roaring light of the bonfire, he tied on his cuirass and slung his helmet over his shoulder. Konstans appeared, leading his horse, and Vladimir and one hundred of his jahar waited, lit by torches, in the half-light thrown off by his son's funeral pyre. A thin thread of light limned the eastern horizon.

"Nadine?" he demanded. "You'll attend me."

She cast a glance back to see Feodor fuming, hands clenched, before she mounted on a horse brought by Anatoly Sakhalin himself.

"You will watch over my wife," said Bakhtiian to Sakhalin.

"At your command," said Sakhalin. His eyes glinted, reflecting off the firelight. Nadine wondered if he was disappointed to be left behind.

They rode. Dawn came, and they picked up the pace, switching mounts frequently. They rode steadily throughout that day. The clouds burned off and the sun glared down, unseasonably hot. When night came, Bakhtiian drove them on. Nadine dozed in her saddle. She woke on and off, once when scouts came in and rode alongside Bakhtiian, delivering a succinct appraisal of the ground between here and the Habakar army. At daybreak, they reached the vanguard of Yaroslav Sakhalin's scouting net, and these scouts gave Bakhtiian a breakdown of the khaja forces and their disposition on the march. It had cooled overnight and they passed easily over several fields before the sun, rising in the sky, broke through the haze to bake down again.

They rode three abreast through a steep defile and over t a range of rolling hills washed green by the rains. Two villages they passed, but nothing stirred there, either because the inhabitants had fled or because they had barred.y themselves within their houses. They traveled through the hills all day, passing twice through broad, flat valleys, changing mounts, driving on.

At dusk, more scouts joined up with them, and they rode south while Bakhtiian conferred with them. Twilight came, and then night, and finally, near midnight, one of V Sakhalin's young commanders rode in and greeted Bakhtiian. Vershinin and his men were sent left, to complete the encirclement. Out there in the darkness, not so far ahead of them, the Habakar army lay bivouacked. A line of scouts went out to watch the khaja army, and the rest hunkered down for what remained of the night. Most simply lay down on the cold ground and slept. The horses huddled in groups.

Nadine could not sleep. She rode out with her uncle and the young Sakhalin commander to the crest of a hill overlooking the broad field on which the Habakar army had camped. Fires burned in two rings around the encampment, one on the outside, one within the tent encampments.

"Every night," said the young commander, "they stop before nightfall and dig a ditch around their encampment and a wall of dirt inside that, and they build fires on the earth wall."

"So that horsemen can't surprise them." Bakhtiian surveyed the field beyond. The night sky was brilliant with stars.

"Their prince must be a wise commander," said the Prince of Jeds" soldier, Ursula.

"Wise, indeed," said Bakhtiian. "We'll pull back before his march in the morning until we reach the first of the valleys we passed, where we'll form for battle."

"Ah," said the young commander, "my scouts know that ground. If we surround him there and leave him only one way to retreat, southward where the path is widest, we can pick off his men as they run."

"If they run," murmured Ursula. "Your men have ridden far, Bakhtiian. They and the horses must be exhausted. Two hundred kilometers in two days!"

"What's a kilometer?" asked Nadine.

"My men and my horsey will do what I ask of them," said llya.

They retreated back to the lines. Before dawn, the army roused and began to pull back the way they'd come. Nadine, in the rearguard, could hear the rattle and pound of the Habakar army as it followed their tracks. Now and again she heard shouts and screams and the sing of arrows as the young commander's men harried them, but as the jaran army struck up into the hills, most of her unit joined up with Bakhtiian, leaving only a line of scouts in the rear.

By midday they fell back into position in a wide field, the armored riders massed in the center, the light troops out on the wings and in the rear. Bakhtiian had brought four units of archers with him, many of them inexperienced girls not much older than Mitya mixed in with riders and those archers who had fought before.

Out of the hills, down into the valley, marched the Habakar army. The prince's banner shone, white with a blue lion, under the noonday sun. At first, to Nadine's sight, the khaja army flashed with a confusing profusion of colors. Men in imperial blue marched in neat ranks. Rank upon rank of chestnut horses caparisoned in gold followed them, and around the prince clustered men in silver and purple surcoats wearing plumed helmets and riding white horses. Their striped pennons drooped from their lances. Rows of shields glinted in the unit behind the prince, stretching out to each side, burnished armor shining in the sun. Spears bristled above the heads of these men, tipped with blades and hooks.

Hya let the khaja army march down onto the field. Already Sakhalin's young commander had drawn his troops back and to either side, far out of range and mostly out of sight, to cast around to eventually encircle the unit.

The Habakar army spread out to take positions, but before they could settle, llya lifted his lance up once, twice, a third time, and the center moved forward to meet the enemy. Archers rode up within their ranks and began firing. Arrows sang into the khaja, and then, just before impact, the archers turned tail back within the ranks. From behind, Vershinin's lighter troops and two units of archers swung around to either flank. It was here that the attack concentrated.

Nadine sat next to her uncle. The noise and cries of soldiers and animals mixed with the sound of weapons clashing. "Orzhekov. There, a gap to the right. I want you to drive through and reach the prince. Konstans-now, the charge."

Nadine lifted her spear and her riders moved forward with her. To her left, she saw the bulk of her uncle's personal guard riding forward parallel to her, gold banner flying, gold and red surcoats a bright glare in the sunlight. The sight of them gave her heart. She stood a little in the saddle, thrusting her legs forward, and tucked her spear under her right arm. An imperial blue infantry unit held its ground in front of her jahar, and behind it rode the blue lion, fluttering in the breeze.

They held to a steady pace, gaining ground, and then some fifty paces from the line she kicked her horse to a pounding gallop and her men howled, a deafening ululation, and they hit the khaja line.

She plowed over the first man, who vanished into the maelstrom, and lost her spear to a flailing hook and pull from a knot of infantry men who had held together under the weight of the charge. Yermolov and Yartseva rode on either side of her, and then a sword cut into Yartseva and a hook dragged him down from his horse. A face, a man thrusting at her horse's head with his spear, appeared to her right. She cut at his arm as she passed but could not look back. As she recovered her saber, blood sprayed her armor-not her own blood but the blood of the soldier she must have hit.

A square of some nine men blocked the path in front of her, but at once four more riders, three still with their spears, joined her and Yermolov. Four of the nine khaja soldiers wavered and scattered, faced with the charge of horses. A spear thrust for her leg; she deflected it. Yermolov shuddered in the saddle, rocked back by a blow, and for an instant Nadine thought he would be toppled from his saddle. She parried; a man with his face screened by mail threw his spear at her. She knocked it away and then he was bowled over from the side by the hooves and spear of another rider. His dark eyes met hers for an instant, pain and anger and fear melded, and then he disappeared beneath the horses.

A moment later she came out into an empty zone. Ahead of her, the blue lion of the prince whirled away in a clot of fighting. Behind, the charge had disintegrated into confusion; unhorsed riders dueled: There was Yartseva, fending off a soldier in imperial blue, but then a line of horses obscured her sight of him, and when they passed, she could not see him.

Shrieks and moans; horses screamed and, to her left, a mare struggled up to its feet and collapsed again in a pool of blood.

"Orzhekov!" That was Yermolov, reining in beside her.

"Form up the men. We've got to reach the prince."

A shower of arrows shaded the sun, arching over her head and falling with a sharp resounding clatter into the ranks of the Habakar prince. She saw, for one instant, Vershinin, far away topping a swell and then he rode down into-what? — she could not tell.

Behind her, bodies littered the field, most of them still moving or writhing, groaning in pain. Riderless horses reared and circled and stumbled over the dead and wounded.

The ranks of her jahar formed around her. Yermolov thrust a spear into her hand, and she sheathed her bloody saber.

They rode into the chaos surrounding the Habakar prince. A line of Habakar horsemen wheeled to meet their charge, but somehow the two units simply passed between each other. Nadine cast a glance back over her shoulder; she caught a glimpse of another wave of her jahar some fifty paces behind, narrowing the gap. The Habakar riders milled, turning this way and then that.

A rider shouted a warning. Nadine parried a blow with the haft of her spear and then thrust hard. The spear stuck in the man's segmented armor and she flung herself back to let it ride past her, and drew her saber. Cut to her right as an unhorsed man attacked her. The Habakar soldiers were mobbed in groups, infantry and cavalry side by side, disorganized, and they began to give way before her troops.

Except there, some hundred paces in front, bobbed the green pennant of Vershinin's jahar, and to her left she saw the gold banner that marked Bakhtiian's own guards. The white horsehair plume of Konstans" helmet trembled as he pressed forward through the ranks. Then he was hidden by a sheet of fighting. The arrow fire had stopped, at least into these ranks. She heard its sound from farther away, accompanying the louder crash of metal weapons.

They battled forward. Here, though disorganized, the Habakar resistance proved fierce. The clot around the prince's blue lion shrank, and shrank, but each gain was hard won. Yermolov fell, and then a rider to her left. All at once, she came up beside Konstans. He grinned at her. Blood spattered his face and surcoat, and blood leaked from an arrow wound in his horse's withers.

"The stubborn bastard won't surrender!" he shouted. She could barely hear him. "Here!" he cried. "Pull your jahar back. We're getting pressed too close together."

Obediently, she shouted aloud and found a flag to signal the withdrawal. Bit by bit, she pulled her jahar back and at last, coming out into the open, they formed back into ranks. What was left of them. She judged she had lost a third of her men.

The field lay open under the sky, churned into mud. Wounded and dead lay everywhere, in some places heaped in piles where they'd fallen over each other; in others, a single form lay tumbled alone on a sodden stretch of ground. From here, Nadine could see off to the north the line of riders and the gold banner that marked Bakhtiian's position. To the south she could not see, but she heard cries and the clamor of battle retreating away up into the hills. The clot around the Habakar prince shrank, and shrank, under the deadly press of two jahars. Abruptly, by a signal Nadine did not see, the jaran riders pulled away and a unit of archers rode up and began firing at will into the last knot of defenders.

"We'll ride south," said Nadine, surveying her men. They rode, and for a while they hunted, cutting down the fleeing Habakar soldiers, those who had gotten that far.

But as afternoon lowered toward evening, Nadine turned them back and returned to the field to hunt for their own wounded and to round up those horses that could be saved. Already many of the light troops wandered the field, killing the Habakar wounded and stripping and marking the dead. A steady line of casualties walked or rode toward Bakhtiian's position, but Nadine noted that his gold banner had moved.

She found him by the corpse of the Habakar prince.

He glanced up, seeing her. He looked tired. "He fought bravely enough," he said, although Nadine was not sure he was really speaking to her, to his niece, at all. She had a strange feeling that he was speaking to less, almost as if he was defending himself to her. "But he refused to surrender. Had he led the army on the field outside Qurat, the victory might not have gone our way so easily."

Vershinin's nephew was stripping the body, and Nadine examined the dead Habakar prince with some interest- with his chest-length black beard, dark hair looped in double braids, and his throat red with his own blood. Not particularly handsome, but so few of the khaja were; still, he looked strong, and the wounds his body had suffered-some fresh, some old scars-proved his courage in battle. Evidently he had cut his own throat rather than surrender to the jaran. Or the arrow in his eye might have killed him. Of his guard, none lived.

"Vershinin," Bakhtiian continued, "I'll leave you to follow after, but I'm returning to Karkand with my guard now. I'll leave you three healers who've been trained by Dr. Hierakis. They'll judge those who can survive the journey back to the hospital, and those it would be more merciful to kill now."

Nadine got leave for a few minutes to find her men among the wounded. She marked them, and was relieved to find over half those who had been missing, although at least one she judged would not make it back to camp. She found Yermolov; a chance cut by a khaja axman had severed the straps of his thigh armor, and a better aimed one had cut his exposed leg down to the bone, but already a healer cleaned mud and cloth out of it, muttering about something called sepsis.

"What is sepsis, Mother?" Nadine asked the elderly woman.

"There, you're done to fight again, young man," said the woman to Yermolov, who wasn't all that young except perhaps in comparison to her. She grunted and got to her feet and crossed a patch of baked-dry mud to crouch down beside a wounded archer. Two young men trailed after her, burdened with strips of cloth, with pouches filled with water, and a paste of herbal ointment. "Commander," she said, looking briefly up at Nadine, "it's what kills most of these men, or used to, at least. Dokhtor Hierakis has shown us how the wounds become infected with dirt and khaja blood, and so if we stop the infection, then the wound is likely to heal cleanly."

"Ah." Nadine left her to her work. "Yermolov, I'll leave you to come with Vershinin. You'll take command of those of my jahar who are wounded."

He nodded, and she changed to a remount and found her uncle again. It was dark by now. He had formed up his unit-most of whom had come through the battle with minor wounds or none at all-and was saying good-bye to the young Sakhalin commander and to Vershinin. Nadine waited patiently through the conference. She had no urgent desire to return to camp, but she could see that Ilya was obsessed with getting back to Karkand.

They started off. Nadine felt numb with exhaustion, and the torches bobbing up and down alongside her and all along the line disoriented her, making her dizzy. She rode without speaking, her jahar strung out in front of her where she rode beside her uncle.

"Dina," said Ilya suddenly. He rode one of his remounts, a shaggy tarpan, and one of his guardsmen walked along to his left, bearing a torch to light the horse's way. "I shouldn't have let you come with me. You're more valuable to me alive than dead."

"Thank you," she said dryly. "Feodor reminds me of that all the time."

"As well he might, since you're more valuable to the Grekov tribe alive than dead, too. But you fought well, in any case." They rode for a while in silence. A new torch-bearer came to take the place of the other one, and they switched mounts and went on.

"Dina." The torchlight illuminated part of his face, shifting on him, highlighting first his eyes, then his mouth, then the straight line of his nose, then his beard, then his eyes again. Otherwise, he rode in darkness. "Why should Soerensen offer me Jeds? If Erthe defeats the khepellis, then won't Erthe itself be a threat to us?"

"Erthe lies far over the seas, Uncle. Surely they'd need many ships in order to bring an army here."

"But what if it's the khepellis who have these ships? We know they can travel to any port along the coasts we know. And if the khepellis are as great a threat as Soerensen says they are, then we must unite against them. What if they want all the lands where humans now live?"

Nadine found herself a little confused by the conversation, since part of what he said made no sense to her. It sounded as if he had been negotiating with the Prince of Jeds. Over what, she wondered. "Then you really do believe that they're zayinu? I never saw any khepellis. Those that came to Morava at the prince's behest arrived after I left."

"They're zayinu. They're not like us. But how can Soerensen possess the loyalty of one of their merchant houses?" He said nothing for a long while. Nadine dozed.

His voice startled her awake, though he spoke softly. "What if they want all the lands, from the plains north and east along the Golden Road, from Vidiya to Habakar all the way south to Jeds and even the lands that lie south from there? All the armies must unite against them. We must prepare for that. Someone who understands the threat must prepare for that."

The night wore on. At last he called a halt and let them rest, men and horses alike, but in the morning they set off again, driven by Bakhtiian at a steady pace back toward Karkand.