Naamah's Curse

SIX

Grass.

Grass, and grass, and grass.

Once the Great Wall was no longer visible behind me, that was all I saw. Grass and sky. Grazing animals here and there, mostly sheep and cattle. Those, I avoided, knowing it meant there were herders nearby. Betimes, herds of wild gazelles.

It was lonely and peaceful.

I gave a wide berth to the Tatar encampments I saw, the distinctive domes of white felt dotting the plain. If Bao was living among the Tatars, sooner or later I would have to come into contact with them and discover if they were as fearsome as their reputation, but I was content to let it be later. There was no need to go begging for trouble, and I had no need to ask if anyone had seen Bao. Always, always, I could sense him ahead of me.

Hoping to catch up with him before the temperature dropped further, I travelled as fast as I dared; but even in the vast, empty plains, there were constraints. Travelling alone as I was, I couldn’t carry much fodder for my mounts. Chen Peng had assured me that the horses would find sufficient grazing to sustain them, but that meant a good portion of each day was devoted to allowing them to graze.

Then there was the matter of water. Again, I had waterskins that allowed me to carry enough for myself to live on for days, but not enough for the horses, too. I didn’t dare go more than a day or two without being in sight of water. When I found rivers winding in Bao’s general direction, I followed them.

Bit by bit, I made progress.

The nights were the hardest. During the day, I had the sun to warm me and lift my spirits.

At night it was different. It was cold-gods, so cold! It frightened me to think how much colder it could get. I slept in my clothing beneath a fur blanket in the small tent of felted wool that was the bulk of the burden my pack-horse, Coal, carried. Inside the tent, the warmth my body generated was enough to sustain me for now, but every night seemed a little colder than the night before.

The Tatars may have lived behind felt walls, but their walls were thicker and they had one gift I lacked: fire.

It wasn’t for lack of skill. I carried a good flint striking kit. And I’d helped my mother tend our hearth since I was four or five years old… but, of course, I’d grown up in a forest.

There were no trees on the empty plain.

From time to time, I passed through an abandoned pasture where I could collect dried dung. Not often, for the Tatars scoured the plains and left little behind when they moved to new pastures. On those occasions when I was able to collect enough to build a campfire, it seemed like a profound luxury. I would fill the little iron pot I carried with water, dried noodles, and bean curd and nestle it amid the burning dung-coals. The resulting soup was chewy and flavorless, but it was wonderfully warm in my belly.

Alone save for the horses, I would huddle over my tiny, smoldering fire, watching the immense sky change colors as the sun sank below the horizon.

Most days, I made do with tough strips of dried yak-meat, gnawing as I rode, chewing and softening it until my jaws ached.

Most nights, I crawled into my narrow tent without the comfort of a fire, tying the flaps tight against the bitter cold and burrowing under my blanket.

It was harder than I had reckoned. Anywhere else in the world, I would have been well equipped to survive. I’d grown up in the wilderness. If there had been edible plants to forage, I would have found them.

There weren’t.

I was skilled with a bow. If there had been game to shoot, I could have shot it. But mostly, there wasn’t. Such birds as I saw were poor eating-buzzards and raptors. The small game mammals of the plains were already hibernating.

There were the occasional wild gazelles, growing shaggy with the increasing cold. If I’d had fodder for a proper fire, it might have been worthwhile.

But I didn’t.

It is a thing we take much for granted, fire. When all is said and done, it is the first, most primordial thing that separates humans from animals. Being children of the Great Bear Herself, the folk of the Maghuin Dhonn are closer than most to the animal realm; and yet, deprived of fire, I craved its reassurance.

I found myself scheming ways to attain it. I eyed the fresh, steaming turds of dung Ember and Coal deposited on the plains, wondering if there were some significance to the fire-names I had given them, wondering if I might rig some manner of woven rack that would allow their dung to dry as it was transported.

Of course, if I had had the materials to build such a rack, I would have had materials to build a fire.

I didn’t.

So I gnawed on my strips of dried yak-meat while we plodded westward, ever westward. I did my best to meditate on the lessons Master Lo had taught me. I cycled through the Five Styles of Breathing. I measured the dwindling distance between my diadh-anam and the spark of Bao’s.

I let my thoughts wander as far away as Terre d’Ange…

Jehanne.

It was at night that I thought of her most, when the immense canopy of stars flung itself across the night sky. As fair as she was, with silver-gilt hair and skin so pale it was nearly translucent, blue-grey eyes that held an impossibly charming sparkle, I’d always thought of Jehanne in terms of starlight and moonlight.

She would have been appalled to find me here.

But she would have understood it.

I pictured her, her fair brows frowning. This peasant-boy, do you love him?

I think so.

Jehanne would have shrugged, her slender shoulders rising and falling. Well, then, mayhap you do. She would have smiled and beckoned to me anyway, her eyes sparkling. But you are still mine for now, my lovely savage.

And I would have gone to her. Once, on the greatship, I had asked Bao why he was jealous of Raphael but not of Jehanne. Might as well be jealous of the moon for shining as that one, he had said in a philosophical tone. There was no one in the world Jehanne couldn’t charm when she chose.

Thoughts of opulent Terre d’Ange were an incongruous thing on the Tatar plain, riding with dung beneath my fingernails, but they helped sustain me. It was good to remember that there had been a time when my world had consisted of more than endless grass plains, frigid, shivering nights, and dried yak-meat. There had been feasts with all manner of delicacies, bottomless pitchers of wine. There had been balls with music and dancing, splendid garments, a thousand shimmering lanterns. I’d had my own quarters at the Palace, the enchanted bower that Jehanne had caused to be made for me, warmed with braziers and filled with every kind of green, growing plant imaginable. Fragrant orange and lemon trees, dwarf firs in pots, tall fronds of ferns casting green shadows over my bed.

Here, there was grass, grass, and more grass.

I missed trees.

One day, I came across an unfamiliar structure. From a distance, it looked like a mound of sticks tied about with blue rags. Wary of human presence, I hesitated to approach it, but I sensed no one, and the prospect of wood drew me.

At closer range, I saw it was true. It was a conical cairn built of weathered branches-wood, firewood, enough for half a dozen merry campfires. I dismounted in haste, already calculating how best to bundle and load it, and how much additional weight Coal could carry, my cold fingers reaching eagerly to dismantle the structure.

And then my diadh-anam stirred in warning, and I hesitated.

Scarves of vibrant blue silk hung from the branches. There were little bowls nestled around the base of the cairn, tucked into niches. Some held a dried residue that might have been milk. Others held what looked to be the petrified remains of some kind of dumpling, pale and smooth as river-stones.

I sighed.

“This is a sacred place, isn’t it?” I said aloud, gazing at the immense blue vault of the sky. A breeze sprang up as if in answer, setting the blue scarves fluttering.

So be it.

I didn’t have milk or dumplings to offer, but I worked a strip of dried yak-meat free from the pouch that hung from my sash. Although I was worried about my stores growing low, I had learned in my travels that it was always wise to offer respect to foreign gods. I bowed and placed the meat in a bowl, hoping that it would not offend the original donor, hoping that whatever gods the Tatars worshipped would not think me stingy.

And then I heaved myself back astride Ember, and we continued on our plodding way across the endless plains, Coal trailing behind us.

It was two or three days afterward that I saw the herders. I saw the cattle first, scores of them ambling from the northwest on a course to intersect mine. I heard the shouts of the boys before I saw them. It was another cold, clear day, and their young voices carried across the plain.

I glanced around, but there was nowhere to hide on the flat, empty expanse of grassland. For the first time in longer than I could recall, I summoned the twilight.

Despite my lack of practice, it came easier than I had reckoned. I had seen dusk fall over the plain many, many times since I had passed through the gate, and the discipline that Master Lo taught me had focused my gift. I breathed the living memory of Tatar dusk deep into my lungs, feeling my diadh-anam flicker and glow. I breathed out the twilight, letting it settle over the horses and me.

The sunlit world turned shadowy and dim, the grass silvered, and the sky filled with deep purple and indigo hues.

With a silent thought, I asked the horses to remain still and quiet. They obeyed willingly, pricking their ears and watching with curiosity as the stream of cattle and the two young Tatar herdsmen passed before us. The boys looked to be thirteen or fourteen, and they rode in the saddle as though born to it, prodding the cattle with long poles, chattering back and forth to one another with cheerful urgency, all unwitting of our presence. A keen-eyed dog trotted alongside one of them.

I smiled quietly.

When they were no more than specks on the horizon, I released the twilight. The bright daylit world returned in a rush of color. Green grass was green once more; the arching sky overhead was blue. Ember tossed his head a few times and blew through his nostrils as though to comment on the phenomenon.

“Come, brave heart.” I patted his withers. “We’ve a league or two to go before we make camp for the night.”

Had I been wiser in the ways of winter in Tatar territory, I might have thought to wonder where the young herdsmen were bound, and why they went about their task with a certain sense of urgency.

I found out soon enough.

Within an hour’s time, the temperature began to drop precipitously. The wind sharpened. It cut through my thick coat of padded cotton, it found its way up my sleeves, it froze my cheeks until my entire face felt stiff. The air began to smell like snow. Toward the west, the sky took on a dark, ominous hue, a tall stack of clouds growing on the horizon.

There was a storm coming.

A very, very big storm.

And ah, gods! It was so sudden. I don’t know what early warning signs I missed, what signs the Tatars were able to read. It was unfamiliar terrain, an unfamiliar climate, unlike any I had known.

I broke to make camp as soon as I saw the clouds massing. It was my custom to tend to the horses first, unsaddling Ember, unloading all of Coal’s packs, checking their hooves, and turning them loose to graze. This time, my heart beating hard in my chest, I begged their forgiveness and set about erecting my sheltering tent, fearful for my vulnerable human flesh.

I couldn’t do it.

It was a task that had grown more difficult every day. Bit by bit, the farther I rode, the colder it got, the more the turf had hardened.

Today, it had hardened further. My wooden mallet skidded futilely off the frayed heads of the wooden tent-stakes. The points of the stakes splintered against the frozen ground, unable to penetrate the sod. I swung and pounded until my arm ached, my chest heaving and my breath rising in frosty puffs, all to no avail.

My eyes stung with frustrated tears. I dragged my padded sleeve over them. “Gods bedamned, Bao! Stupid, stubborn boy! Could you not stay put for one minute? Did you have to put me through this?”

The only thing to answer was the storm.

It descended on us with an unearthly howl, fierce as a dragon’s fury, the wind filled with pellets of ice. It snatched the dense felt of my tent away from me, plucking the fabric and lines and stakes from my helpless fingers, sending it careening across the grassy plains under a glowering sky.

Flee.

The word resounded in my head. I did not know who or what spoke it-whether it was the Maghuin Dhonn Herself, the D’Angeline gods Naamah or Anael, the unknown gods of the Tatars, or merely my own panic speaking.

It didn’t matter.

I fled. I ran toward Ember, hurling myself across his saddle. It struck me hard in the chest. I hauled myself astride, flinging my leg over him. I found the reins, and gave him his head.

“Go!” I shouted. “Go, go, go!”

My valiant chestnut arched his neck and thundered southward; poor Coal, half-unladen, laboring in his wake. All around us, the storm howled, pursuing us.

Flee.

Snow and bits of ice pelted us. I could not tell if it was day or night. All the world was chaos. We rode and rode and rode, trying to outpace the storm. I was a frozen creature, clinging to another frozen creature. The whipping wind howled. Frost gathered on my eyelashes. Ember lost his footing and staggered hard beneath me, pitching me onto his neck. He caught himself from falling, but came up lame, lurching every time he put weight on his left foreleg.

I slipped from the saddle and leant my face against his ice-crusted neck in despair. With an effort, I pushed myself away and set about trying to unbuckle the straps that lashed Coal’s load to his back.

It was impossible. The straps were stiff and frozen, and my fingers were so numb I couldn’t get any purchase.

So I did the only thing I could think to do. I took up Ember’s reins and began trudging on foot, the horses trailing behind me.

How long I walked, I could not say. It felt like an eternity. The storm was like a mighty hand shoving me from behind. I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, convinced that if I stopped moving, I would die.

I don’t doubt that it was true. Allowing my gift to be used in an unwise manner, I’d come close to dying before, but I never felt anything that sapped my will to live the way that bitter, cold wind did. Would that I could say it was hope that kept me going, but no such thing existed in that raging darkness. It was the irrational spark of anger I harbored toward Bao, the sense that this was all his fault, that gave me the will to keep taking one step, then another, long after my legs had begun to feel leaden.

Head down, I trudged blindly-trudged, and trudged, and trudged. Until I bumped into something large.

I went still.

The large thing bumped me back-several large things. A choked sound of fear died in my throat. There were large figures looming in the darkness, and yet I sensed a benign intent. I rubbed the frost from my eyelashes and squinted.

Cattle.

I was surrounded by cattle-big, shaggy cattle with short, curved horns and lambent eyes rimed with frost. They bumped, jostled, and nudged me and my horses, herding us forward, a dim sense of concern in their thoughts. And then, ah, gods!

There was a wall, a stone wall that blocked the worst of the blizzard’s knifing wind. I’d never been so glad to see a man-made wall in my life.

If there was a wall, doubtless there were humans nearby, but I couldn’t make out any of the Tatars’ felt domiciles in the storm; and the cattle were insistent, nudging me into the lee of the wall. I let go of Ember’s reins and slid down the wall in relief, resting my back against the rough stone and huddling into my coat.

With low groans, two of the cattle sank down on either side of me, pressing flanks and haunches against me. Their concerned thoughts gave way to complacent, bovine ones. Within minutes, I could feel the warmth of their shaggy hides penetrating my clothing.

I laughed, and wept tears that froze on my cheeks. “Thank you,” I whispered-to the cattle, to the Maghuin Dhonn Herself, to the D’Angeline pantheon, to the Tatar gods, and to stone and sea and sky and all that they encompassed. “Thank you.”