Shadow Gate

24

Kirya's tribe had never ridden south to see the Golden Road, but she had heard tales of a path

on which foreigners traveled east and west along the southernmost range of the vast grasslands roamed by the tribes. East lay the brutal Qin, and south lay the mud-feet, people

who stank from living in their own garbage all year around. Sometimes the tribes raided them, taking what they could grab. Sometimes the mud people marched into the grass to take vengeance, but any tribe could simply pack up and move; even a child like Danya could outride the mud-feet's boldest warriors.

She paced the gelding, switching off to ride bareback on the piebald at intervals. South of the Vidrini camp, the hills flattened and the grass changed variety, turning brittle with heat. She had a pair of filled leather bottles, but anyway she knew the signs that revealed sinks of water waiting a short dig beneath the surface; she could smell a swale or rivulet before she saw it. Now that she thought about it, Orphan had taught them a lot about surviving in the wasteland. Poor tribes were always driven off the best pasture-lands, pressed toward the deadlands, and maybe Orphan walking into their tribe two years ago had been the gift of the gods after all.

Midway through the afternoon, a long upward slope brought her to a tipping point in the landscape, beyond which lay a dry lake bed so wide she could not see the far side. Clumps of brush dotted the flat. She searched for the golden gleam that must mark the road, but saw only ruts in the hard ground running east and west, so many crisscrossing the dead lake that they tangled like a child's unsteady weaving.

To the east spun a thread of dust.

To the west, a huge herd of sheep spilled over a distant rise, hounded by riders and dogs. Somewhere, west and north of here, a tribe had set up camp. A moment later, a pair of outriders galloped into view. The two youths circled her at a prudent distance and raced back to their tents. She debated whether to ask for shelter within their camp for the night, but she dared not stop. She had to follow what trail she had, lest she lose Kontas entirely. Turning the gelding, with the piebald in tow, she rode down onto the dead lake and turned east.

Hooves kicked up a fine dust, making her cough. Her eyes watered as particles stung her face. Sound echoed oddly, magnifying the fall of hooves into many more than two horses.

She looked over her shoulder. Four riders followed her, three male and the fourth dressed in female garb, long felt jacket reaching to her knees and a quiver slung by one knee.

'What do you think?' she asked the gelding. She wasn't in the sanctity of camp, but after all, what would they do to a lone girl? The laws of the gods forbade any insult done to women; that was how it had always been among the tribes. What if they had news of Kontas, or the eastern merchant?

She reined over and waited for them to catch up.

The males – two she recognized as the youths who had first scouted her – pulled up and let their companion approach, as was proper. She was not much older than Kirya, with her golden hair divided into a trident braid and a headdress adorned with silver atop her head to mark that she was married. She wore necklaces of gold and silver and bronze across her chest, displaying her family's wealth.

'Good riding, stranger,' she said, greeting Kirya. 'I am cousin to the headwoman of the Orzhekov tribe. Are you one of the Vidrini?'

'No, I'm Moroshya.'

'I don't know you,' said the other girl in the formulaic way that meant she'd never heard of that tribe. 'This is dangerous ground, between the grass and the border of demon lands. Why do you ride here?'

Kirya saw nothing to distrust in her open face. 'The Vidrini raiders stole my young brother. I've brought a horse to trade for him, if I can catch the eastern merchant who took him.' She indicated the east and the dying thread of dust spun up from the darkening horizon.

The other one smiled with a twist that made Kirya uncomfortable. 'Your tribe doesn't trade down here, does it?'

She shrugged, realizing how foolish she was, blabbing her errand to these strangers.

'You've seen your mistake now, haven't you? We might track you, and once you have the boy, what's to stop us from stealing him and trading him again to the merchant?'

Kirya indicated her quiver and bow. 'I am not unarmed. Would your riders attack a woman?'

'Don't insult us!' The girl's hard expression softened to one more thoughtful. 'That's the kind of thing the Vidrini might do, now they've raised a foreign woman to be their headwoman. They might do anything, with a hard-hearted Qin woman having put her claws

into their hearts. Still, it's a rash choice on your part, to ride into demon lands.'

'They're not so far away. I can catch them by tomorrow, surely.'

'Take only one step into demon lands, and anything might happen. If you die in demon lands, the gods will never find your spirit and bring you home.'

'He's my younger brother. Our mother is dead.'

'Yes, I can see you are obligated to retrieve him, although I wonder why your war leader has not – well-' As Kirya sucked in a sharp breath and tightened her hand on the reins, the girl broke stride and changed course. 'The Easterners speak words smeared with honey, but you can't trust them.'

'How do you know?' /

'My people trade with the caravans. The Easterners are not people, not like us. Yet I suppose you can do nothing else, not if you want to keep your honor. May the gods ride with you, cousin.'

She signaled to her companions and rode back the way she had come, back to the familiarity of tent, herd, and grass.

Kirya camped that night on the lake bed, staring up at the stars, the campfires of the gods' tribe. Beside which of those fires did her mother now shelter? She could not tell.

She moved out at first light. Not long after dawn she began to taste the caravan's dust. Soon after that, she rode past the disturbed ground where they had camped. Soon after that, she saw firsthand the ponderous creature that foreigners called caravan. This ungainly beast was made up of a tightly controlled herd of sheep and unsaddled horses, a line of grindingly slow-paced wagons dragged by worthless dray beasts a toddler could have outpaced, and various human figures – maybe some demons, although from here it was difficult to tell – walking alongside and within the ranks. Between two wagons, six ranks of boys and youths, most blond, trudged along. She scanned the rows. Was that Kontas? He had his head down, so she couldn't be sure.

Swinging wide, she rode parallel alongside the caravan. She willed Kontas to look up, and the pale head shifted, face rising to look at the heavens… even from this distance, she could see it was not Kontas. She felt as if she'd been kicked.

The caravan guards saw her, but for a while no one seemed to react. The caravan lumbered forward like a beast staggering on its last legs, while her horses made it known they couldn't understand why they must walk here when it was obvious they did not like the bones of the dead lake and the smell of demon lands. It was getting hotter as the sun rose swollen and fat. She licked chapped lips.

'Hoy! Hoy!'

A fat man on a sleek mare rode out from the wagons, waving at her. She kept riding at the same steady walk, and eventually he pushed up beside her. He had a funny complexion, like clay, and he was perspiring and licking moist lips and looking her up and down in a bold way that made her think he must be a demon, since men knew better than to look directly at women. Therefore, she ignored him.

He said, in labored and very precise speech, 'You are a tribeswoman, are you? Never before see I one tribeswoman so close. Whew!' He wiped his dripping forehead with a cloth. 'Why ride you here?'

'I will only speak to a man, not a demon,' she said, trying to shame him by meeting his gaze deliberately, but of course demons cannot feel shame. He did not look away.

'Whew!' He said words in demon language, then thought better of mumbling on in words that only proved he was not a man. 'I say good things about your blue eyes. Very pretty! Your hair! Very pretty! I am a man. I am not a demon. I am obligated to say I am only a-' He spoke a word she did not know. 'For this reason my-' Another demon word. '-sends me out here to speak at you.'

Despite the demon words, he spoke human speech well enough to make her wonder if he might be a human person after all, just a very ill-mannered one.

'I have come for my brother. He was traded to an eastern merchant. I want him back.'

Without turning, he indicated the caravan behind him. 'One of the boys, eh?'

'Yes.'

'Hrm.' He scratched his bare chin. 'I go ask my sarvar if he negotiate with you. You ride here, meantime?'

'I will ride here.'

He rode back to the caravan. He had a heavy seat that disturbed his horse's natural grace. She was trembling as she considered her options. She had two horses. If she could get Kontas up onto the piebald, she and Kontas could outrace them. They wouldn't know how to track her in the grass.

Six armed guards appeared from the vanguard of the beast and rode back to get a look at her. They were Qin, with demon-scratched eyes, coarse black hair pulled up into a funny knot, and broad faces, part human and part demon. Circling her with the easy grace of men raised on horseback, they called to each other in their barking language. They stared rudely, not civilized men at all.

She ignored them. But their ugly faces made her think of the Vidrini headwoman, who might as well be their sister for all that they looked so similar. The Qin were a brutal-hearted, demon-tainted people, always happy to hire themselves out to fight for whatever foreigner paid the most. She doubted she and Kontas could outride these.

'Hoy! Hoy!' The fat man returned, bouncing awkwardly on his trotting horse. Two riders followed him.

The Qin soldiers rode away toward the rear of the caravan.

'Greetings, greetings,' called the younger of the two men. He had a dark face that looked reasonably human, and kept his gaze averted in a mannerly fashion as he kept talking. 'Greetings, tribeswoman. My sarvar say to me, you desire to trade for a boy'

His companion was wiry, sour-mouthed, and funny-looking, his features mismatched. This old man looked her up and down as impertinently as if she were a horse he meant to acquire.

Nervously, she glanced toward the retreating Qin soldiers. T will trade this horse for the boy. That is good value.'

The younger man grinned at his hands, cast a glance at his narrow-eyed companion.

The old man said, 'These horses are shit, ugly as my wife's face.' He scratched at his groin. 'We no take them for the boy. Not worth the boy.'

'Both horses, then,' said Kirya desperately.

'No,' said the old man. 'The horses are shit. No boy.'

The younger one smiled as a man smiles when hearing a pretty

melody that reminds him of a lover. 'We offer a better trade,' he said. 'For you, five boys. You pick, any five boys from the herd.'

'For the two horses? What about my brother?'

'No, no,' said the younger man, chuckling now, although Kirya could not see what anyone might find funny in this situation.

The old man said, irritably, 'You trade your person, for five boys. Including the boy you say is brother to you.'

Dumbfounded, she could not fathom what they meant. 'Trade what?'

'You. You are girl,' said the old man. 'With the ghost hair and the demon eyes, and a female, you are worth five boys. Worth plenty. You want the boy, the brother? Or no boy, and we ride on? We will not wait. Weather changes, hot days comes, we cannot wait. We ride far, go fast. Decide now, or ride away with nothing. Now, now. Decide.'

Now. Now. Decide.

On the caravan rumbled, lurching forward like a wounded beast. A pair of wagons stuck in an irregularity in the track, and the ranks of trudging boys staggered to a halt behind it. One boy, at the end of a row, stumbled, fell to a knee, and hastily jumped up just as a guard closed in with whip raised to strike him on the shoulder.

'Kontas!' she shouted.

He raised an arm to shield his body from the blow. He didn't hear her, and as the whip came down he jerked back, knocking into another boy, who shoved him into yet another, and the guard slashed at their heads with the biting whip until all cowered and wept.

Kirya said, 'Ten boys. I choose them, and another three horses. Also, provisions for their trip. One year I work in servitude to you. Then you release me to return to my tribe.'

It was a desperate gamble.

The younger man laughed.

The older said, as swiftly as a snake striking, 'Done. You hand yourself, of free choice, into our hands. Ten boys of your choosing, and three horses we release of our choosing, in exchange.'

'I serve in your tribe for one year only. No pursuit after the boys. No raid on them. They ride free to the grass.'

'Done, done,' said the old man, his gaze as hard as stones and his mouth pursed as if to keep secrets.

The younger man whistled as folk do at a narrow escape. Then he giggled, an odd sound coming from a grown man. He turned to bark orders at the fat man.

Commands shouted up and down the caravan brought the beast to a jerking halt. The six ranks of lads were chivvied out like so many baffled sheep, about sixty in all, and all but a handful having light hair and blue eyes, like hers. Kontas ducked out from the group and ran to her, and when a guard struck out after him, the old merchant called the man back. The boy was crying as he halted beside the piebald mare, but he grabbed the mare's halter and, looking up at her hopefully, said,

'Are we going home, Kiri?'

'You are going home, Kontas. Now I need you to listen to me, very close and very hard. Any boys there were kind to you? Any were mean? Any who admitted they were orphans? Point them out to me.'

So many faces stared at her, confused, calculating, frightened, tearful, dejected. Some called, asking what was going on. Most remained silent, for those who were traded away by the tribes and handed over to foreigners knew by this token that no one wanted them, or that their own kin could not save them. To be marched into the demon lands was to be damned. You might as well already be dead.

Older boys might turn on Kontas, steal the horses, and run. Younger boys would be a burden to feed until they could do more work themselves. Did Mariya want nine more boys? How would she get them wives? Could Orphan mold them into a war band that could protect the Moroshya tribe?

Did it matter? For one year she would walk into demon land in servitude; she could churn their milk and grease their wagon's axles and scrape their hides and carry buckets of their stinking night soil if indeed they bothered to keep clean. She could eat their leavings and sleep under a wagon instead of in a tent. In exchange, Kontas and nine boys would not lose their souls.

She searched the young faces who turned to look at her, a woman of the tribes like their own sisters and mothers and aunts and cousins. That one was scratch-eyed, that one was snot-nosed, and that youth had too much anger in the set of his shoulders and ugly

fresh whip scars on his face to show he got into trouble frequently. There, a hopeful one, begging pitiably with his stare. There, two little blond boys holding hands, like brothers, looking helpless and frightened. Beside them, a bigger boy, maybe Kirya's age, rested a protective hand on the shoulder of a younger one. The younger was an especially pretty child no older than Danya, one of the few with dark hair.

'Those two were kind to me,' Kontas said suddenly, pointing at the mismatched pair, blond and dark. 'They're orphaned cousins. The Vidrini captured them months ago when they raided the remnants of their tribe. They were traded at the same time as me.'

Those two, then, and the two little blond brothers, who upon being brought across told Kirya that the angry youth had been beaten five times by the guards for helping boys who were faltering, which is why he had those scars. So she must indicate him as well, and he wasn't eager to come until she spoke to him in a low voice and told him what she hoped for, and then he didn't want to believe her because it is fearful to hope for the very thing that is about to be ripped from your hand, but she was a woman of the tribes after all, willing to walk into demon land to free her brother. Once started, he told her a great deal quickly: he had walked with the merchants for many days; he had watched them bargaining for horses and hides and flesh; he had seen them desperately trying to coax girls, especially blond girls, out of the tribes, but of course not even the Vidrini would hand females over to foreigners.

'Swear to me that you and this other youth will help my brother sneak past the Vidrini and reach my cousin,' she said to him. 'That you'll obey Orphan, who is the war leader of our tribe. Swear to me that you'll become Moroshya.'

'I'm an orphan,' he said. 'I'm ill-fortuned. The gods cursed me and left me alive when my kin died. No one wants an orphan except the demons, and they are cruel, and they hate us.'

'You're not an orphan. You are Moroshya.'

He was a fierce boy, with bright eyes and so much anger, which she saw now was strength, not a bully's weakness. 'I am Moroshya, then. I swear this oath: Your tribe will never die, because you are our mother, and gave us life.'

'What is your name?'

'Ilia. What is yours?' He had a western twang to his speech, but he was as human as she was. He was a lad she might marry.

'I am named Kirya. Four more boys I can choose. Hurry.'

Hurry.

Too quickly she assembled the little war band. The fat man brought saddlebags crammed with provisions, dried meat and also slabs and balls of tasteless grain that the boys assured her were edible. She approved three horses; with five all together, the ten boys might ride doubled-up. With some coaxing and after one frustrated kick, the gelding agreed to accept Kontas and Ilia. In an odd exuberance of generosity, the- old merchant gave them leather bottles filled with foreign drink, which anyway could be used for water later.

'There, now,' he said, 'give the boy back his weapons and let them go.'

What was this demon yammering about? 'The boy has no weapons. He is too young to be a rider.'

'You carry his bow and quiver.'

'They are mine.'

The young merchant laughed. 'How can a woman say so?'

She did not see what was so funny, but the old merchant looked thoughtful.

'Servants cannot carry weapons. We take, or you give to the boy. Your choice.'

'No woman gives up her bow!'

'No man touch you,' said the old man.

What a strange thing to say! What man would dare to touch a woman of the tribes without her permission? None would! Once a tribe was marked by such a shameful act, they were condemned to death and every neighboring tribe would certainly do their part to make sure their name was nevermore spoken and all their goods and innocent children taken into a tribe whose people obeyed the laws of the gods.

Yet if she wanted to save Kontas, what choice did she have? She handed quiver and bow to him.

'And the knife,' said the old man.

And the knife. 'Remember everything I told you, Kontas,' she said in a choked voice. 'Now go. Be quick.'

He was an obedient boy. He wept, but he rode away nonetheless with the band moving tightly behind him as the angry youth turned to shout, 'We will keep them safely for you. I swear it.'

The old merchant cackled, and the younger merchant smirked. The Qin soldiers trotted over. When they were up on their horses and she was standing down on the ground, she trembled. This fear had a sharp tang that ran through her entire body and into her groin and made her shudder as if with desire only it was more like having a knife at your throat.

The old man stopped laughing abruptly, patted his hands a few times as though wiping off dust, and said, 'Good, good.' The young one burst into a passionate demand in demon language, and the old one stepped right up into his face and slapped him so hard it made his dark cheek red. The fat man bawled out orders, and the caravan by stages jolted into forward motion until the entire sluggish beast shambled eastward. The younger man sulked to his horse; the soldiers trotted away to oversee the rear guard.

The old man snapped his fingers, and the fat man rode away and returned with a pretty mare already saddled and caparisoned, a handsome horse fit for a headwoman's daughter.

The old man indicated the horse, to show she should mount.

She would stay strong. She could hold on to her soul for one year. Careful to show no emotion, she took the reins and mounted.