Storm Bride (3 page)

“Come on,” Nei said. “Just a little—”

“No,” Saotse said.

The ground trembled. It groaned. It wept.
Alone.
It felt for a moment like the beginning of an earthquake, though the dust that lay on her feet was undisturbed. Saotse’s toenails scratched at the ground. A gust of wind stirred the tops of the trees.

“What do you hear?” Nei asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t understand.” She took two unsteady steps forward. The soft sound of wings passed overhead, and Saotse turned toward the top of the lodge.

Nei drew a breath.

“What do you see?” Saotse begged.

“A white owl.”

The owl mourned
hoo hoo
twice from its perch on the peak of the lodge. An owl was an evil omen in the best of times. An owl in the day even more so.

Nei’s hand closed over Saotse’s and pulled her forward. The cheer in the Eldest’s voice sounded forced. “Let’s find our hammocks in the women’s alcove. Let the omens worry about themselves.”

Chapter 3

Keshlik

T
he traders’ road was little
more than a horse path that wound up the bottom of a ravine toward a low point in the bluffs, guarded by sage and horsebrush and shaded by blood-colored rocks. The little creek that ran beside the path wormed through a narrow defile at both ends of a green-floored gully, creating a convenient choke point for ambush. Yet there were no sentries apparent in the caravan’s train, no spears or bows ready beside the drivers of the front and rear carts, and no nervous glances upward to the crevices in the stone.

“Perhaps they’re just reckless,” Juyut said. “Or very greedy.”

“Reckless, maybe, but not because of greed,” Keshlik said. “Greedy ones carry double sentries to ensure that their goods aren’t stolen.”

“Do you think they’re just stupid?”

“They’re reckless with
peace
. Like the Guza.”

Juyut grinned. “Then they’ll fall easily.”

Keshlik did not raise his eyes from the line of the caravan below. The traders gave every indication of being as indolent and incautious as the Guza, who had been poorly defended and quickly slaughtered. The Guza had fallen to Keshlik and the Yakhat war bands just before the first snows, in time for the Yakhat to take shelter in their homes straddling the Gap. The raiding party that Keshlik led today was the first to descend to the plains on the far side of the mountains since the spring thaw. Judging by appearances, the land on this side of the Gap hadn’t seen war for so long that the people had nearly forgotten how to wage it.

But he would assume nothing.
The leopard’s soft paw hides its claws.

Half of the carts had entered the defile and continued on the narrow shore of the creek. Their ponies were fat and slow. The traders might carry knives at their waists, but he saw no bigger blades.

“So shall I set out with my half of the band?” Juyut asked.

“Go. Save your boasting for when the battle is over.”

“Ha!” Juyut smiled viciously. “A single caravan plundered barely gives reason to boast. I’m going.” He pushed away from the edge of the ravine and ran crouching to where his horse waited, quietly grazing. He leapt onto her back and spurred her forward with a tap of his heels. Juyut and his mount were swift but silent, Keshlik noted with pride. Juyut had learned well.

Keshlik crawled back from the cliff’s edge, dusted off his pants, and walked slowly to Lashkat, his horse. She was nibbling on the spring growth that was greening even here on the higher grasslands, and she gave him a look that suggested he not disturb her just yet. There was good, sweet grass here. It reminded Keshlik of the summer grasses between the Bans, and he hoped that the Yakhat women would find it acceptable for the cattle. The herds had thinned in the last winter, and neither the Guza nor these lowland folk seemed to have any stock that might replace them.

He rested his hand on his mare’s flank. She whinnied and wagged her ears at him, then lifted her head and gave him a doleful stare. She shook her head, the yellow cords of her mane dancing like lightning bolts around her head, then stepped forward and touched her nose to his face.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

Lashkat chuffed. She seemed to smell the battle on him, in the lines of rouged and blackened grease drawn on his face, in the incense of sweat and blood that rose from his skin. Battle was an old friend to them. Keshlik would trust her to carry him alone into battle with a thousand foes, and she would drag his dead and broken body back to the yurts rather than flee without him. Only Juyut was a better companion in battle, though he spoiled it by being proud and wrathful and too quick with his tongue. The horse at least knew when to keep quiet.

Keshlik climbed onto her back, and she loped forward with her head low without any nudge from him. A short ways to the south, in the shade of an outcropping of rock, waited the other three of Keshlik’s party. At the sound of his approach, they scrambled to their feet and grabbed the spears that rested beside them.

Bhaalit, the eldest of the band, stepped forward. “Are we going?”

Keshlik grunted. The three mounted their horses and fell in behind him.

There was no path along the top of the ravine, but they did not require one. The plain was a sea of grass, yellow billows undulating like waves across the surface, with outcrops of sandy stone peeking above the surf like the fins of monsters. Green showed at the roots of the waves, where the wind bent the heads of the winter grass to show the upsurge of spring, and here and there an early flower made itself known as a stripe of purple or yellow. A gentler plain for the horses to tread Keshlik could hardly imagine.

He couldn’t figure why the traders kept to the ravine. On a plain like that one, you could see your enemy approaching when he was still on the horizon, and you could give your horses rein to gallop at wind speed, to flank and circle back with all the martial skill that a well-trained mount should learn.

The ravine, on the other hand, was an invitation to be ambushed. It saved them a few hours of walking, but why would that matter to these people? Their languid pace suggested they were in no hurry. The horses moseyed down the gentle incline that led to the entrance to the ravine. The rutted trail that the caravan followed grew clear in the broad plain below, and the last of the wagons’ dust drifted to the ground. Keshlik pointed forward, tapping his mare’s ribs with his boots. She broke into a run, tossing her mane and stretching her legs, and the other mounts followed. With a brief skip, their horses leapt the wagon ruts and turned to the left, following the trail into the entrance of the ravine. Dust stung Keshlik’s eyes. The stone rose above their heads, hiding the sun. Ahead he could see nothing but the dust following the wagons, but he heard the distant clattering wheels and shouting voices that echoed off the canyon walls. Keshlik slowed his mare to a trot, then a halt. Behind him, the other three drew up and stopped.

“What now?” Bhaalit asked. “We wait?”

“We wait,” Keshlik said. “Juyut has his company at the canyon exit. They’ll attack the head of the caravan and drive them toward us. We just make sure no one gets away.”

Bhaalit nodded. He prodded his horse to the far side of the canyon floor and leaned forward to watch the approach. The other two, Rushyak and Danut, were young warriors, not even a hundred years old. They would fight like a whirlwind once the time to draw spears came, but they shared Juyut’s impulsiveness and fervor. Bhaalit was older than Keshlik, the only one so old who still carried a spear, who still remembered Khaat Ban.

The dust fell and the sounds of the caravan receded. Crows cawed overhead. Rushyak and Danut began to fidget, but Bhaalit, with more than a century of practice with patience, was as still as stone. The sun rose higher in the sky and began to tickle the lip of the canyon.

Quickly now.
Keshlik could fight in the shade and he could fight in the sun, but he didn’t welcome the prospect of a battle with men weaving in and out of the canyon’s shadow.

Someone was running toward them on the road ahead. As soon as he heard it, he snapped to attention. A young man, on foot, his pace wild with terror.

To his left, the two young warriors tensed and glanced at him. Keshlik nodded and pointed forward. Rushyak cantered his mare forward, his spear held ready. He aligned the runner with the spear, crouched forward, and tensed. The lad at first didn’t seem to see them, then he began to shout and wave his arms as if seeking their aid.

Keshlik saw the moment the boy spotted the stripes on their faces, the speed with which the mounted warrior approached, and the glint of the spearhead. He froze in mid-stride, fell to a knee in the dirt, then attempted to scramble to the right.

It was far too late. With a flick of his knees, Rushyak angled the horse to intercept then split the lad’s back with a spear-strike. He pulled his spear loose from the victim’s back as his horse thundered over the boy, and he circled back and planted three more holes between his victim’s ribs.

A rumble sounded off the canyon’s walls as the main body of the retreat approached. Two men on foot running toward them, with a wagon driver frantically beating his draft ponies not far behind them. Keshlik nodded at Danut, the other young man, then trotted his own mare forward. Bhaalit moved of his own accord. Keshlik’s mare trotted, her ears back, ready to charge, waiting for the cry.

It was time to fight.

Keshlik raised his spear and screamed, and his horse bolted forward. He leaned forward into his horse’s neck, one hand in her striped mane, the other clutching his spear. A man retreating on foot had peeled off to the right, and Danut chased after him into the dimness of the dust. The wagon driver, his face white with panic, saw Keshlik approaching and veered to the creek bank, but Keshlik’s spear found his throat anyway, driving him from his saddle. The riderless horse fled, and Keshlik wheeled back toward the center of the melee.

Rushyak and Danut flanked the overturned cart, stabbing at the others who came fleeing down the ravine. Bhaalit had already felled two runners and was advancing on another.

Keshlik charged past them and impaled two panicked men with one spear, then trampled a third under his mare’s hooves. Further up the canyon, a man was screaming at his frothing ponies to budge an overturned load. Keshlik relieved the man of his concerns by driving a spear into the man’s eye.

The battle-glad war cries of his brother’s band suddenly surrounded him. He had reached Juyut’s band advancing from the other side, and when he turned to the center of the road, he found himself riding into a reef of bleeding men and crushed wagons. Some fighting still remained, as a few of the caravan drivers had armed themselves with clubs or knives. Keshlik crossed the battlefield twice, stabbing the windpipes of those he saw still moaning on the ground, then found Bhaalit at ease atop his horse.

“Heya!” he shouted and smacked the shaft of his spear. “Did you fight well?”

“Golgoyat himself fought among us,” Bhaalit said, with a laconic gesture at the carnage of blood and dust around them.

“Did any get past you?”

“None. Where’s Juyut?”

“Up ahead. You stay and organize the plunder while I track him down.”

Warriors saluted Keshlik with cries of “Heya!” as he passed, waving bloodied spears over their heads. He picked his way through the path of ruined carts, wagons, and bodies. At the end, he spotted Juyut on horseback in a circle of three others, a bound but living man lying on the ground between them.

“Heya!” Juyut shouted when he saw Keshlik approaching. “We’ve crushed our enemies!”

“Enemies who fled like rabbits.” Keshlik grunted. In truth, Juyut had done well, but it wouldn’t do to praise him too much. “What is this thing on the ground here?”

“A captive,” Juyut said.

“And when did you find the time to take captives?”

“As you said, they fled like rabbits. This one was in the middle of the pack and fell back, then threw himself down and started to weep and beg. I kept him for my amusement.”

Keshlik reined his horse and dismounted. Juyut’s new slave was smeared with dust, and he appeared to have soiled himself. Beneath the dirt, he was paler than the Yakhat, his skin the color of dried yellow clay, coarse black hair cropped close to his head, and his eyes a cloudy green. Keshlik nudged him with his toe. A gush of incomprehensible gibberish spilled from the man’s mouth, combined with several fervent bows and a sob that rattled his shoulders.

“He doesn’t speak any language we know,” Juyut said. “We plan on taking him to the Guza slaves and seeing if one of them can talk to him.”

Keshlik grunted. “Why?”

“The Guza said that a city lies to the south, and he probably came from there. He can tell us how it’s defended, and whether its men will flee like rabbits the way this pack of cowards did.”

Juyut’s reasoning was exactly what Keshlik had hoped to hear. He himself had considered taking a captive for that purpose, but the raid had been Juyut’s. Taking a captive for reconnaissance was more foresight than he had expected of his brother.

But proprieties had to be observed. “Do you take him for your personal slave?”

Juyut shrugged.

Keshlik spat. “Don’t shrug. Only slaves and women shrug. You know that the value of a living slave exceeds whatever lots you were likely to draw in the division of spoils. You’d forfeit all that.”

“Fine, then he’s not mine.” Juyut grunted. “I take him for the commonwealth of the tribes.”

“And what will you do with him after he’s told you everything he knows?”

“Well, if I’m taking him for the commonwealth, wouldn’t that be for the tribal elders to decide?”

Keshlik grinned and nodded.
He slips away like a serpent.
“Bhaalit was overseeing the plundering, and even a laggard like you ought to be able to lead a raid and split the spoils in the same day.”

Juyut nodded and tugged his captive toward Bhaalit and the others. Something glinted in the dirt where the captive had knelt, and Keshlik bent to pick it up. Some kind of fish carved from bone, painted mostly black, with white eyes and belly, and a tall, pointed fin on its back. Its mouth was open and held a tiny chip of mother-of-pearl, polished and shining in the light of the setting sun. Tuulo would like it. He slipped it into his pack and hurried to join Juyut.

The division of spoils was quick and orderly. Bhaalit handed out the lot-sticks, and Keshlik let Juyut draw the lot for their tribe. The goods were plenty, more than they could take back to their camp: long strings of hemp threaded through purple shells, dried fish, casks of salt, carved baubles of turquoise and mother-of-pearl, sealskins, polished whalebone, and papery, dark-green sheets that appeared to be made of dried and pressed leaves. The purpose of those last items was initially mysterious, until someone tasted one and declared them to be edible, a dried form of some lowlander plant. Keshlik drew a sheaf of those to bring home and hoped that Tuulo would find something to do with it.

When the lots of plunder had been divided and moved safely out of the canyon, the band piled the remaining carts and packages and all the slain in a wide place in the ravine. The last duty Keshlik and Bhaalit did themselves. It was not a job for young men. Bhaalit brought a burning brand to Keshlik, and Keshlik set the stack aflame and sang the praises of Golgoyat. When the song finished, the flames licked the sky, and heaven was dirty with smoke.