Jaran

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Yuri told her that it was autumn, by their reckoning, and she looked for signs of the change of season. It was bitter cold at night, but that could have been the altitude. Streams spilling down from the heights fed the gorge, feeding green to the thickets and the meadows of thin grass. Smaller plants that neither she nor any of the jaran had a name for grew abundantly. Colors she never saw on the plains, crimson and olive and mustard, dappled the rocks, growing sparser the higher they rode. And yet the eye quickly grew accustomed to the variety. How monotonous the plains were in comparison.

The first night they rode until the moon set, changing mounts as the horses tired, slept in shifts, tentless, fireless. Not even the Chapalii demurred. Even the thermals in her Earth clothing barely kept Tess warm. The gorge angled right, a narrow scar that cut up into the mountains as though some long-dead giant had left this furrow in the wake of his planting. It was cool and damp between the high walls of stone, moss and orange-gray lichens everywhere. They did not see the sun until mid-morning. A stream rushed down one side of the defile, more white than water. It was shockingly cold to the touch.

They followed a road littered with rocks, but a road for all that. Paving stones showed here and there under lichens; tufts of grass sprouted in lines too straight to be natural. The gorge narrowed until they could ride only three abreast, then two, then single file. The hooves of the horses echoed strangely in the enclosed spaces. Just when Tess knew they could not possibly ride any farther, the gorge opened out abruptly into a secret glen. They had reached the ruins.

"That was never a temple." Tess moved her mount up beside Bakhtiian as she gazed out and up at the little valley, a large, open area of grass and ruins, sprinkled through with a profusion of tiny white flowers. "That was a fortress."

"That's what I'm counting on," said Bakhtiian.

Except for the defile through which they had ridden, they were surrounded on all sides by the mountains. An avalanche had obliterated the leftmost portion of the ruins. The back of the vale ended in a sheer cliff face that rose cleanly into the mountains for about twenty meters before beginning to climb in stair steps to the huge, snow-capped peak towering behind.

The glen itself rose in three broad stair steps to the cliff face: directly in front of them, a bluff-not quite the height of two men-ran the entire length of the shallow meadow that the neck of the gorge emptied into. A stone wall rose flush from its edge, so that from where Tess and Bakhtiian sat below, they could see only the suggestion of another wall, above and beyond, that marked a higher level. Here and there the bluff had eroded away and a stone tumbled down into the meadow. The remains of the road continued along the base of the bluff to its lowest point, where it snaked up through a stone gate that had once, perhaps, borne a lintel over the two pillars that flanked it.

They guided their horses around stray rocks, along the road to the gate, but in the end they had to lead their horses up the bluff where the last slice of road, badly fallen away, gave access to the next level.

Here, in front and to the left, the ground was littered with the remains of old buildings. To the right the land rose again in an escarpment, ending in that other wall: the second line of defense. Behind it the ground seemed level and empty for a space, and behind that Tess saw the line of escape: a trail twisting upward into the heights, disappearing behind a huge outcropping of veined rock.

Dusk came sooner here, hedged in as they were by rock. Bakhtiian sent them all up to the level area behind the second wall, and put four men on watch below. He even allowed fires. The Chapalii stood huddled beyond the horses, conversing earnestly among themselves. Tess walked to the wall and stared down at the ruins below, and the long line of wall that edged the bluff below them.

Had men or nature destroyed these? On the one side, certainly, the avalanche had been the culprit. But as she studied the ground below, she could not imagine how any army could take this ground; if the defenders had enough people and missile weapons, their position would be virtually unassailable. Surely no human attack could have ruined these buildings-or was it just one huge rambling building? — so thoroughly. Only time, working with storms and harsh winters, could wreak so much havoc. How many thousands of years old must these ruins be to be so extensive and so wracked?

And yet the surface of this wall, chest high and a meter wide, was as smooth as obsidian. She ran her right hand along it, out away from herself and back again. Scars marred it, chips gone, a runnel scored across it in one place, but otherwise cool and even, like a polished stone. She ran her left hand out-and stopped. And stared down.

Symbols, letters, had been traced into the surface. She ran her ringer along them, feeling the dust and debris of long years caught in their track, feeling the eroded edges, blurred by time and wind and rain. The first two, partially eaten away by erosion, she did not recognize. The third she did. The Chapalii glyph for "tai." Duke. She stood frozen for a long moment. The murmur of voices drifted to her on the cold air of evening. Kirill, telling a ribald story about a man who crept into the wrong woman's tent one night. One of the stewards, complaining about not being able to set up the tents. A lower voice, Pavel's, talking about storms.

Breath stuck in her throat, she traced out the fourth symbol with her middle finger. And laughed. The fourth letter was a "w." Or two "v's" linked in the middle. Or the archaic Chapalii glyph for mountains. And the first, going back to it: with a little imagination and a tiny bit of allowance for erosion and time could be the Maya symbol for nought.

"Lord, Tess," she muttered under her breath. "You'll be finding the Rosetta Stone next. There're only so many shapes can be chiseled into stone." Maybe it was cuneiform. She sighed at her own folly and returned to the fire.

Yuri was on watch so she joined Niko and Bakhtiian where they sat together in the half light of one of the fires, arguing good-naturedly about the defensibility of the ruins. Niko smiled as she sat down, but Bakhtiian only glanced at her and continued speaking.

"I can't agree that rain or storm gives the defenders the greatest advantage. Certainly, it ruins footing, but for both the hunter and the hunted. The loss of visibility is a far greater disadvantage for the defender than the attacker.''

"What do you think, Tess?" asked Niko politely.

"I think," said Tess cheerfully, "that this is a terrible place to be holed up in. I feel like a pig trussed up and left in a pen for slaughter. Although I can see that the defending party does have the advantage of fortification and that narrow approach. Especially if they're using spears or bows."

"A jaran man never uses a bow in battle," said Bakhtiian stiffly.

"Good Lord, I wasn't talking about jaran. Sabers alone can't hold this kind of position. I thought that was obvious."

Bakhtiian stood. "Excuse me." He left.

Tess stared after him. "Excuse me! I thought this was a theoretical discussion. Or was it presumptuous of me to have an opinion?"

"My dear girl." Niko laid a hand on her shoulder, a fatherly gesture. "First of all, this is a holy place, and to liken it to a place where one would butcher animals is rather-shall we say-irreverent. Second, you might consider that Bakhtiian was the one who made the decision to lead us all here."

She shut her eyes, wincing. "Oh, God. That was a stupid thing for me to have said." She looked up at Niko. "I suppose I could just as well have said I thought he was a fool for bringing us here."

"Be assured," said Niko softly, "that he is wondering that himself." Then, unexpectedly, he chuckled. "But few people admit their mistakes as readily as you do, my dear."

"I wouldn't learn anything if I always thought I was right. But I will say that he was awfully quick to get angry.''

"He has a heavy burden on him, Tess, and you must remember that."

"I suppose I must. Can you entertain yourself here?"

"Don't mind an old, frail, friendless man. I'll manage."

Tess laughed at him and left. She found Bakhtiian leaning against the wall, staring down at the ruins and beyond them to the neck of the gorge. His form seemed merely an extension of the shadows.

"Ilya?" He didn't move. She put her elbows on that uncannily smooth wall and leaned out, staring down. The wall below stood like a purplish line against a darker background. "I'm sorry. I didn't think."

"No. The things you said were true enough. The khaja will not scruple to use bows against us, when we ride into their lands. And here… well, no man likes to be told something he already knows and doesn't want to hear."

She shifted her elbows to fit into two hollows that marred the level surface of the wall. "And not when he could already be trapped."

"Tess." He turned his head enough to see her. "You have a habit of choosing unfortunate words."

"What-oh, you mean 'trapped'?"

"Among others. I don't-" He reconsidered. "When you return to Jeds, you'll have to be more careful. In khaja lands, people veil their true opinions in a layer of false words."

"Oh, yes." Tess leaned her chin on her intertwined fingers and stared morosely out at the moonlit outlines of the vale. The white ruins looked like a litter of bones on the dark ground. "When I return to Jeds-" She contemplated this event, amazed at her own lack of eagerness. When she returned to Jeds, when she returned to Odys, to be trapped once again by her duty to Charles. She pushed the traitorous thought away. "Why did you agree to bring me along?"

"You're not going to admit that I was right all along?"

"You weren't."

"And you're not going to tell me that now we've been run into a trap worthy of the fire-keeper's daughter herself that you're sorry you came?" He was, she realized, laughing at her.

"No." She found she was blushing. "I'm glad I came," she said softly, looking up at a bright star that shone above the gorge, glittering in the cold air.

"Yes," he said, as if to himself. "Even for this short time." He blinked, as if he had just realized where he was, and moved his elbows to a different place on the wall. "Of course you would be glad. Yuri and-and Fedya, and the others."

"Yes. Yuri and Fedya and the others. It will be hard to board that ship."

"It is always hard to board ships."

"You haven't answered my question."

"No, I haven't. I should have known better than to try to avoid it. Ishii insisted, finally. I'll always wonder what you said to him.''

"But you're too polite to ask."

"That may be." He smiled. "I also admired your spirit."

"Now there's a very handsome way of telling me that I was a nuisance."

"You were. Jaran women are much better behaved."

"I don't believe that for an instant, Ilya." She laughed. "Are you telling me now that you're sorry I came?"

"Tess." In the silence she heard, far away, the low cry of an animal, followed by a slide of rock, distant and muted. "Tomorrow morning you'll see an army in that gorge."

"What do you mean?"

"They did pursue us. At least one hundred soldiers."

"Oh, God, Ilya. And I said-" He was staring down, his hair and body dark, blending into cliff and wall, his face and hands starkly contrasting with the darkness. "Can you forgive me? I can't believe I said-"

"Stop it, Tess."

She swallowed. "How long have you known?" she asked in something resembling a normal tone of voice.

"Last night I went back down the gorge."

"You might have been caught!"

"I doubt it. They have no more night wit than a crying infant."

"One hundred soldiers." She gazed down at the shadowed gorge. From the rocks came a bird's cry, deep and wailing, like an owl's hoot or a woman's mourning. "The khaja must hate the jaran more than I thought."

"This is their holy place as well. For us to be here no doubt defiles it in their eyes. And jaran have raided a town. Many towns. What did Keregin say? They are like us in that they seek revenge."

"And yet-" She turned her head to look at him. "Yet you rode through their lands and into-into this? Why?''

The dim illumination made his complexion ashen and bloodless except for the shaded hollows of his eyes. "It's a kind of madness," he said, as softly as the merest brush of wind.

"No," she said, equally quietly, because she felt impelled to reassure him. But she knew that to be the kind of man he was, doing what he meant to do, he had indeed to be infected with a kind of madness, a fire that would burn inward and outward until, in the end, he would be consumed and his people transformed on the anvil of change. "No, it's a kind of honor."

He turned his head slowly and met her eyes. "Do you think so?"

"Yes."

"Death should not be unwelcome to the honorable man."

Tess felt her insides tighten. She found it difficult to speak. ' 'You once told me you had no intention of dying in battle.'' He gazed at her, the two of them oblivious for that instant to all that surrounded them. Not me, she thought, I'm not going to get burnt in that fire. And then shook her head, disgusted at her own train of thought.

He shook himself as well and smiled, straightening his back. "Did I mention dying?" he asked, his tone light.

Tess attempted a laugh.

"I sent Josef up the back trail," he continued conversationally, "to discover if it can indeed take us out. The pilgrims can look at the site tonight. In the morning, if the trail is good, we'll ride out that way, though I'll have to leave four archers behind to cover our retreat.''

"Who will you leave?"

"Mikhal, Tadheus, Konstans-"

"I'm better than Konstans."

'' You're not included

"Who's the fourth?"

"l am."

"Of course," she said softly. "Where did you learn to shoot so well?"

"In Jeds. I know how to shoot to kill a man. May the gods forgive me."

"Why don't jaran men use bows and arrows in battle?"

"Arrows in battle. That's a grim thought." Below, at the neck of the gorge, there was a slight movement. Stillness, a flash of light hair. Bakhtiian began to speak again. "The plains are as wide as you can see, and there is space to run. There is nothing to defend, except your kin and your honor, and honor rests in facing your opponent in a land where you could just as well flee."

"In this land, between these walls, you'll be dead before you can reach the man you're trying to kill."

"Do you wonder at our enmity?"

"No. I don't wonder."

"Look. The pilgrims have gone down. Just as I suggested to them. A surprise, don't you agree?"

She looked down to the right, where a light moved among the ruins on the far side, against the slide, dipping up and down. They were looking for something.

"Good God." She felt blood drain from her face. What if the symbols on the wall were Chapalii, worn away by time-but they could not have been here that long-worn away by some inexplicable confrontation, then. She had seen, she had touched, their transmitter with her own hands. She had found a fragment of a metallurgy too sophisticated for Rhuian development. What if the transmitter wasn't a single anomaly set up in the last five years to prepare for this expedition? A whole cluster, perhaps dating from the first years after the League's discovery of the planet, or from immediately after Charles's ennobling and his receipt of the system. Set up to monitor him. And if he was disseminating the odd volume of Newton and Aristotle, what else might he be surreptitiously doing that violated his own interdiction order? What if the Chapalii had set up monitoring positions to incriminate him? It made sense.

She needed proof.

"I have to go," she said, staring down at the light. She took one step away.

"No." He stopped her with his voice alone. "Don't go. Please."

She turned back slowly, her throat tight, flushing along her neck and cheeks. She could just make out his face in the moonlight as he watched her, and she trembled, sure that he was afraid that this might be his last night on earth. What would she do if he asked her to spend it with him? God knows, he's attractive enough, she thought; men like him always are.

"If you don't disturb them now," he continued, "then there will be no trouble about leaving before dawn tomorrow. But if you interrupt them, what will I do to convince them to go?"

She recovered her normal breathing, sure that it was fear that made her overreact in this way, cursing herself inwardly for forgetting everything she knew about jaran men. About this man in particular. "Surely when you tell them about this army, they'll agree to run," she said, knowing that the Chapalii could easily defend themselves against a hundred men, that they would, without hesitation. Missile weapons. She did not know whether to laugh or cry, thinking of it. And which would hurt Charles more-that she not investigate here now, or that she let the confrontation come and force the Chapalii to reveal what kind of magic, what kind of utterly superior weaponry, they possessed?

Bakhtiian stared beyond her at the disembodied, flame-less light moving below them. "It has been said before that the khepellis control great powers. Magical powers. I have no use for magic." He broke off. "Not any more. Can't you wait until the shrine of Morava? We'll be there for a hand of days. Enough time for spying, I should think." But it was said without heat or accusation.

Enough time for spying. In a way, it was almost as if he knew what she was thinking, as if he were offering her a way out, an excuse to follow his lead and exercise restraint now for the promise of a later chance. And she found that against his asking, she could not refuse. "If we get that far," she said, though she knew the very words sealed the agreement, that she would not disturb the Chapalii, not at this time and in this place.

"Be assured," said Bakhtiian coolly, "that I do not intend to die here." He turned away from her to return to the fires, as if, she thought with sudden bitterness, now that he has what he wants, the conversation no longer interests him.

Yuri woke her. It was quiet, damp, cold, and still dark. She lay still for a moment, hearing the soft sound of whispers, and horses, and of leather creaking and rustling against cloth.

"Get up, Tess," Yuri said in a low but urgent voice. "We have to get the horses saddled."

"Are we leaving now? There's barely enough light to see by."

"When Josef gets back."

"Yuri, what if that trail is a dead end?"

"It can't be. It just can't be. Come on, you're one of the last."

"The khepelli?"

"They're ready. I don't even think they slept. Niko has them." He pointed, and Tess could faintly make out a group of men saddling horses, all gray and dim. Then he grabbed her hand and pulled her roughly to her feet. "Tess! Don't you understand? A khaja army is down there, waiting to kill us."

"Are they already attacking?" The last dregs of sleep vanished, obliterated by adrenaline.

"No." He looked back, but all was silence and darkness below. "Not until daybreak. They hate us, but they also fear us. It's bad enough having to come up that path one by one, without it being dark as well. Ilya has fifteen men along the lower wall with him. The rest of us will go when Josef returns, then the fifteen from below-"

"And last the four archers?"

"Yes. Last." A horse whinnied softly. "I'm a better archer than Konstans. But he says I'm to go with you and Niko."

Tess thought, he's doing that for me. She said, "If only you had bows for everyone. If only you could all shoot well."

"It isn't honorable," Yuri began, but he hesitated. "They are only khaja, after all." He put out a hand and Tess took it and laid it on her cheek. It was cold. "I don't know what we'll do if we lose Bakhtiian."

"Neither do I," she replied. They saddled their horses in silence and herded the rest to the base of the trail. 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.

"Everyone go except the archers," said Bakhtiian.

"But-"

At the sudden silence, the priest ceased wailing and lowered his hands from his face.

"Go!"

Twelve left. Tess saw them, quiet and swift, and heard their horses pounding away up the trail. The priest looked up, confused. Then he stood, dropping the spear, and the white cloth fluttered to the ground.

Bakhtiian closed his hand on the thin white fabric of her blouse. And hesitated. "I can't do this."

"Damned male." Tess kicked him, swung with an arm, and squirmed for the edge of the wall. The priest hid his eyes and yelled again at the soldiers behind him to stay back, adding a string of incomprehensible, hysterical words.

Tess's legs lay half off the wall on the upper side, Yuri crouched beneath her. Bakhtiian lay half across her chest, his left arm pinning her to the rock. Cold edges thrust into her back. His head rested two hands above hers, shading her from the sun. He was not looking at her, but staring down at the priest, a small figure in white and blue far below. She noticed how the waves of his dark hair flowed in patterns that had the same sweep and curve and richness as rose petals. A breeze cooled her cheek.

"Now what?" she asked.

Bakhtiian looked down at her. His mouth twitched. "I think I'm going to start laughing."

Tess shut her eyes and choked back a giggle, gulping in the thin air. Six of them left. Someone was not going to make it up that trail. "How long do you think they're going to believe this?" she cried, not at him really but at the fate that had brought them here. She pushed at him, trying to get free. "Yuri!" yelled Bakhtiian. "Get her out of here." To the others: "Ready!"

Yuri hauled her off the wall. Bakhtiian jumped down after. Faintly, she heard yelling from the priest, orders being given. Tears blurred her sight. Yuri dragged her away toward the horses.

"We can't leave them!" Tess pulled away from him. An arrow struck the ground and skittered to a stop a meter from her. Yuri grabbed her at the elbow and yanked her forward, shoving her into Myshla.

"Mount!" he yelled, as if she were deaf. She swung up reflexively. More arrows peppered the packed dirt, too spent to penetrate. "Come on, Tess."

Far below, a man cried out in pain.

"Ilya got one. Damn it, Tess. Ride." He wheeled his horse back and slapped Myshla on the rump. Four arrows hit, and one stuck in the earth. Myshla moved, ears cocked forward. Tess urged her to a trot, hearing the swell of shouts and cries from below. She looked back: four jaran men crouched behind the upper wall, their shirts like blood against the black stone, shooting.

"Yuri!" She waved frantically at him. "They can't hold them!" She reined Myshla back.

"Ride, Tess!" He reined his horse in, waiting for her, impatient, angry, scared. The horses sidestepped, catching their fear. Myshla neighed, calling to those left behind.

"Mikhal. Konstans. Go." Bakhtiian's voice carried easily in the clear air. Bent low, the two men ran for their horses and started after Tess and Yuri. Behind, the last mounts shifted nervously.

"What if they bolt?" she yelled.

"Then they're dead. Damn it, Tess. Damn it. Ride!" He came close enough finally to grab Myshla's bridle and start dragging her. Tess still stared behind. They came to the head of the trail, where it wound up between rocks until a sharp corner hid its path.

"Go!" Yuri waved her ahead. Mikhal and Konstans neared, cantering. She could not see the stretch of wall that sheltered Bakhtiian and Tadheus, only the high, impenetrable barrier of mountain and a tuft of grass fallen, its brown, withering roots exposed, onto a jagged ledge. She kicked Myshla and rounded the corner.

"Yuri!" she screamed.

Black, all in black, like the avenging spirits of the gods. How she turned Myshla and thrust her back through the others to the ruins she never knew. The arenabekh spilled out behind her, out over the cleared area and scrambling down the escarpment to the ruins below. Curses and shouts of fear came from below, and from above, from a man not twenty feet from her, a yell like the scream of a carnivore after blood. The riderless horses bolted but one of the arenabekh caught them and led them over to Bakhtiian and Tadheus. Tasha's shirt bore a wet stain: blood. A broken arrow lay at his feet, its shaft striped with scarlet. The black riders arrayed themselves over the slopes, utter black against gray and gold and green. Like the obsidian walls, they reflected nothing but darkness. From below came only silence. Except for one body lying prone in a shadow, the khaja soldiers had retreated back into the gorge.

Bakhtiian stood and turned. "My own demons from the mountains."

Keregin rode over to Bakhtiian. "Your sweethearts are no longer so eager.''

Bakhtiian looked down at the mouth of the gorge. A few shadows still overlay it, but light descended steadily, and soon enough it would lie fully lit in the glare of the sun. "They don't approve of my relations."

"They'll get over it. Do you want us to entertain them when they return?'' Keregin grinned, peering through halfclosed, heavy-lidded eyes.

"You have no obligation to take on my quarrels."

"The gods have touched your head, Bakhtiian. You send away your jahar to make the odds interesting, and then, because that isn't enough, you send away the last four, so that you can impress the world by beating off-how many?''

"One hundred and seven."

"One hundred and seven! Ah, Bakhtiian, you've taken our fighting from us by uniting the jaran. Whom can we hire ourselves to now? Give us this. Don't be greedy."

"You are only forty riders."

Keregin laughed. "Rather unfair odds against those khaja bastards, don't you think? If we'd wanted to live forever, we'd have married and gotten children. No, let us do this. This day's work alone will make your reputation."

Bakhtiian smiled slightly. "Make my reputation what?"

"Something for you to live with and live up to. And yet, I still have no good idea of your height." He grinned, purposely insulting. "From up here, you still don't seem that impressive."

"I improve as one gets closer."

"Oh, I like you, Bakhtiian." Keregin slapped his thigh. The sound reverberated through the vale, and he chuckled. "If only I were a younger, handsomer man-but no, you wouldn't make that choice, would you? Ho, there, Sergi!" he yelled down to one of the lead riders. "What are our sweethearts up to down there?''

"Cowering," replied the distant man. "Afraid of love, the fools."

"Love!" shouted Keregin. "No. Passion." His shout echoed back at him.

"Keregin, I've never before let others do my work for me."

"If you plan to lead the jaran, Bakhtiian, you'd best get used to it. Other men have made you a devil to our friends below. Why shouldn't you leave us to make you an atrocity that will terrify them for generations?"

"Damn you. Leave a few alive to tell the tale."

The wind was rising. "We'll tell them you called us up from the very depths of your fire-scorched heart."

Tadheus had mounted. Bakhtiian paused, as if to say something, but swung up on his horse without a word. He sat there a moment, while he and Keregin simply looked at one another.

Abruptly, Keregin reined his horse downward and yelled at his riders. They all left the upper level, scattering down into the ruins, and those in the forefront started down to the gate that led onto the meadow and from there to the neck of the gorge. A volley of arrows sprayed out from the gorge. Tess caught her breath, but no one fell.

Not yet. The riders shouted insults at each other, arguing among themselves over who would get to lead the charge. Until Keregin, shouting, "Move aside!" sent his horse down in front, thrusting past the others, through the gate, and plunged down onto the meadow, the rest crowding behind.

Soldiers burst out of the gorge, swords out. Arrows flew.

Two of the riders fell, but four khaja were struck down by the sabers that flashed in the sun. The khaja soldiers retreated in great disorder back into the gorge, and Keregin, to Tess's horror, charged down the neck of the gorge after them, shouting, all in black, like the shadow of death against rock. The rest of the arenabekh followed him, one by one. Shrieks of agony and shrill, exultant cries echoed through the vale.

"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."