The Novels of the Jaran (209 page)

The two bandits closed in on her. They shouted, seeing the two boys emerge from the trees, drawing the attention of their comrades. At that instant, Vasha realized that the fugitive must have seen him and the others as they stole the horses, that she was following them, because she veered toward them even though it meant crossing the path of the nearest bandit. She clutched at her waist and drew a long knife, dodged the mounted man and kept running while he jerked his horse around. Four more men broke away from the main group of bandits.

Driving his mare at a dead run, Arkady reached her first. As if they had rehearsed it, she stuck the knife in her teeth, reached up just as Arkady drew his mare in, and he swung her on behind him and turned all at once. Vasha cut across the path of the second bandit. He saw the man’s face, the glint of gold in his teeth, his blue eyes and the bronze embossing on his leather breastplate. Vasha wore no armor at all, except for the thick padding afforded by the embroidery on his sleeves and along the collar of his gold shirt. He felt paralyzed.

The man swung at him, and Vasha parried instinctively. He had never fought anyone before who meant to
kill
him. Parried, and struck back, heard Arkady yell something. Misri sidestepped and Vasha cut again, a head cut that unbalanced the bandit and sent him reeling back… open. An arrow, and then another, skidded past his vision.

As if someone else saw it, Vasha realized in the next instant that four riders were bearing down on him. The gate to the villa swung open and a ragtag, screaming clot of fighters burst out, charging the remaining bandits. But the arrow fire came from
his
side. An arrow lodged in the bandit’s shoulder and dangled there while Vasha stared dumbly and the bandit, righting himself, cursing, fought to stay on his horse.

“Let’s go,” Vasha shouted. Misri moved with him as if with one thought. Arkady was already two lengths in front, headed for the trees. Behind, the bandits hesitated, torn between the sortie from the villa and the lost fugitive.

Out in front of the trees, Ivan sat on his stockstill mare and shot, calmly, accurately, swiftly, just as his sister and cousins had trained him to do.

Arkady was laughing again.

An arrow sprouted in Ivan’s shoulder. Ivan went white and swayed, but he did not drop his bow, although the arrow nocked there slipped over his bay’s withers and fell to the ground. Vasha came up alongside him and grabbed the bow out of Ivan’s hands. Gritting his teeth, Ivan reined his mare around and followed the others into the trees.

Behind, a melee cluttered the muddy ground before the villa. With halberds and scythes, the defenders gave as good as they got, but it was easy to see that before long numbers would win out.

They followed the trail left by the horses. Stefan had encouraged them back up the vale into the hills and along the base of the ridge. Their fugitive said not one word, only watched them with dark eyes, her face hidden by a scarf. After what seemed like forever, they found Stefan, who had run the horses into a shallow defile and boxed them in.

“Ivan,” said Vasha curtly, dismounting. “Let Stefan get the arrow out and bind that wound.”

Ivan obeyed meekly. He bit on a strip of leather, sweating and pale, while Stefan eased the arrow out and staunched the bleeding. Surprisingly, the woman ripped strips of cloth off of her robe and gave them to Stefan to use as a bandage. Otherwise she stayed away from them. Her hands looked soft and smooth, and her nails were tipped with gold paint. She did not speak, and Vasha was not inclined to ask her questions, knowing that pursuit might be close behind.

When they mounted again, she stuck next to Vasha and without words made it obvious she intended to ride with him. She had a decent seat on a horse, but he felt incredibly aware of her close up behind him. Her presence embarrassed him. Why did she choose him now? Why had she run to them at all? Did she know they were jaran? But how could she know, since none of them had yet been granted the privilege of wearing the red shirt of the jahar. They wore boys’ shirts still, green or gray or the gold he wore, with embroidery on the sleeves.

Then he looked closely at Ivan and saw how pale the younger boy was. “Ivan, you can truly ride?” he demanded, his fear making him angry. “You’d better get up behind Stefan.”

Ivan bit down on his lips. “Just because I’m sixteen doesn’t mean I’m a baby. I’m fine. I can ride. It doesn’t hurt too much.”

“It’s a clean wound,” added Stefan, and because he had been trained in healing by his grandfather Niko, Vasha accepted his judgment.

Chastened, they rode on. Before too long, they came across the forward units, battle-hardened veterans who looked more amused than angry to see them out in front of the lines, where they assuredly should not be.

“Look what we’ve caught us, Riasonovsky,” said the man who commandeered them, leading them back to his captain. “It’s Bakhtiian’s son, doing a little horse stealing out in front of the lines.”

Riasonovsky was a light-haired man with steady eyes. Vasha knew his type: Risen from the ranks to command his own hundred, he undoubtedly did not suffer fools gladly, nor did he have to. Bakhtiian gave his generals complete authority over their own armies, and the general of this army, Yaroslav Sakhalin, was notorious for strict discipline and an unswerving instinct for the right men to promote. Everyone knew that he had thrown a Suvorin prince out of a command and into the ranks for not following orders to his satisfaction during a battle. So Riasonovsky, wherever he might have come from before, was not afraid of Vassily.

“Bakhtiian’s son must be all of six years old now,” said Riasonovsky calmly. “What’s that to do with these four boys?”

Vasha flushed.

“How dare you—!” began Arkady.

“I am Bakhtiian’s son,” cut in Vasha, “as you well know.”

“You are Vassily Kireyevsky, and if Bakhtiian was ever married to your mother, I wasn’t aware of it.”

“I do not expect to be insulted like this!”

“I do not expect to have boys out in front of my lines causing trouble for me! And I expect you to hold a civil tongue in your head, young man.”

Vasha was furious, but he knew better than to say anything that would put him in a worse light, and, mercifully, Arkady said nothing stupid. Stefan kept quiet, and Ivan just looked white and weary. The old veteran snorted, vastly amused, and Vasha felt humiliated as well.

“Well, Zaytsev,” finished Riasonovsky, who clearly had better things to worry about, “escort him back to Sakhalin, where he’s supposed to be. And don’t trouble us again, Kireyevsky. Gods!” He turned away to talk to his scouts.

Stefan shot Vasha a look, but that was all that was needed to plunge Vasha into a morbid gloom. Stefan would never say so now, not in front of the others, but his eyes spoke as loudly as words:
I told you so.

The veteran, still chuckling, led them to the back of the unit and rode out toward the northeast hills, beyond which the bulk of the army lay. “My cousins and I stole horses from the Vernadsky tribe back when we were lads. Got one of us killed, too. That was before Bakhtiian united the jaran.” But then his gaze slipped to the black-clad figure sitting, silent, behind Vasha. The woman had scarcely stirred and not made a single sound since they had reached the jaran line. “We never stole women, though,” he added, and those words hurt, they were spoken so hard.

“We didn’t steal her!” Vasha was appalled. “We would never do anything like that. She ran after us. If we’d left her, khaja bandits would have taken her, and you know what they would do—!” He broke off, furious and ashamed that any man would think such a thing of him. Especially an old soldier like this: Vasha desperately wanted the old rider to think well of him. He wanted all the riders to think well of him, to think that he was one of them, that he deserved to be.

“Well,” said Zaytsev thoughtfully, “no doubt trouble rides in on its own horse. Sakhalin will have to judge the case.”

They rode the rest of the way in silence. Vasha smothered his dread by riding close by Ivan and asking him if he felt well enough so often that the boy finally set his lips and refused to reply.

The army was on the move, so no one remarked the five riders and seven extra horses passing back through the line. But there was no such luck when the old rider handed them over to one of Sakhalin’s personal guard and went on his way with a casual farewell. Yaroslav Sakhalin was waiting for them. He wasn’t alone.

Sakhalin rode beside the wagon that his much younger cousin drove. Konstantina Sakhalin was Mother Sakhalin of her tribe in all but name: Her grandmother was still etsana, but she had been failing for years now, ever since her favorite grandson had left the tribes, and Konstantina had taken over most of her duties. Worse, far worse, on the other side of the wagon with her bow and quiver rode Katerina Orzhekov. Vasha’s cousin, more or less. Ivan’s sister.

“Ivan!” Katerina exclaimed, seeing them approach.

Sakhalin sighed, looking exasperated. “Where have you been? I do not recall giving you permission to scout. But perhaps you decided to override my authority?”

Vasha rode out in front of the others, to spare them the worst cutting edge of Sakhalin’s anger. Yaroslav Sakhalin was not a man worth angering. “I just—” he began, and faltered. The whole expedition seemed incredibly stupid, now.

“What is that behind you on the horse?” demanded Konstantina Sakhalin.

“Oh, Vasha!” cried Katerina. “What are you doing with a khaja woman? It’s bad enough you’d ride off like an idiot, but this! Ever since Tess took you to Jeds with her, it’s as if you want to be khaja yourself.”

Vasha flinched. “We didn’t
steal
her! Gods, Katya, you can’t possibly think that—”

He broke off when the khaja woman moved. She slipped off the horse and flung herself down before the wagon. Not before the men, of course, but before Konstantina Sakhalin. She spoke, a flood of words. Vasha was mortified to hear how light and youthful her voice sounded and yet how collected.

“Can you understand her?” Konstantina asked Katya.

“I don’t know this language,” said Katya, but she dismounted and went over to the khaja woman and put out her hand. “But of course we must offer her sanctuary. I feel
sure
,” she added scathingly, “that Vasha will explain himself.”

As if Katya’s hand bore a promise, the khaja woman sat back on her heels. She pulled aside her scarf, and all four boys gasped. She was young, no older than they or Katya, and, in an exotic khaja fashion, pretty. She was also laden with gold jewelry, as if she bore her own ransom with her. They stared, until Konstantina sharply reminded them to mind their manners.

“Well,” said Yaroslav Sakhalin curtly. “That’s settled then. My men will take the horses. Kireyevsky, I’ve had enough of you and your insubordination. I’ll give you one hundred riders as escort. I’m sending you back.”

Vasha felt the world go white. He thought his heart would stop. “But you can’t!”

“I can and I will!” snapped Sakhalin. “I don’t have time for any boy’s nonsense, especially not yours.” The words cut like a red-hot blade. “Your companions will stay with me. Perhaps they’ll do better without your bad example, since you always seem to be the ringleader.” His gaze rested briefly on the seven stolen horses. “The prize looks pretty damned worthless in any case.” Not even Arkady, rash though he was, was unthinking enough to protest Sakhalin’s judgments.

But Stefan said quietly, “If Vasha goes back, then so do I.”

“Stefan!” protested Vasha. “Don’t ruin it for yourself. Or you other two, either.” Looking guilty, Arkady said nothing.

“I will go back with you,” said Stefan stubbornly.

Sakhalin shrugged. “So be it.” He turned back to Vasha. “I told Bakhtiian you weren’t ready to ride with the army. I’m not sure you ever will be. Despite what you may have hoped to gain, I don’t find that this little raid of yours has convinced me otherwise.”

“You may go,” echoed Konstantina, whose word was equally law. “Who can you spare to ride with him, Cousin?”

Sakhalin was a brilliant general. Everyone knew that. But he also had an uncanny instinct for how to handle men, either by rewarding them or by making sure their shame was complete. “Riasonovsky’s jahar deserves a rest from the front. I’ll send a rider to call him back in. He can escort the boy back to his—” There, always, the hesitation. He could not bring himself to say the word,
father.
“To Bakhtiian.”

At that moment, Vasha thought, there was nothing, nothing, that could make the situation worse.

Ivan made a choking noise in his throat. He turned paler than pale, swayed and, fainting, fell from his horse.

CHAPTER THREE

Earth:
There

I
LYANA TILTED HER HEAD
back and blinked twice, and at once she was out of the funerary chamber and back walking—floating more, since neither she nor the vision of Egypt she walked within were real—along the terrace colonnade of the temple of Hatshepsut, where huge painted statues of the Queen stood in front of square pillars. Myrrh trees graced the terrace, and the pink-stained limestone cliffs of Deir el-Bahri rose into the stark sky above. The Valley of the Nile lay beyond and below, and farther, the river itself stretched north and south like the trail of some great beast.

Ilyana descended both of the stairways and at a dizzying speed raced out along the causeway across the flood plain toward Karnak. Her bare feet slapped down on the coarse dusty stone of the avenue that led to the great temple of Amon. Ram-headed sphinxes gazed into and beyond her, quiescent but aware. She passed the first great pylon, through a courtyard, and into the great hypostyle hall. Row upon row of huge columns supported the stone and wood roof, all of them covered with the carved and painted reliefs of gods and pharaohs, beasts and birds and cartouches swollen with hieroglyphs. Dust glimmered and swam where light filtered through the stone window gratings.

Around her, the temple unbuilt itself. Columns vanished, and the complex lost parts of itself to the slippage of time running backward until she stood before the vague outlines of the Middle Kingdom temple, square and simple.