To the High Redoubt (29 page)

“Better buy another mule,” she said. “I know it is more than the shoe. It is the hoof.” Her eyes were fixed in the middle distance, as clouded as fine opals.

Arkady did not dispute this. “And if we can't find another mule, what then?”

“An ass, a horse, it doesn't matter. So long as we can travel.”

“What about staying there for the night? It will be late afternoon by the time we get to the village. You need rest, Surata. One of the reasons you're downhearted is that you're exhausted.”

There were tears gathering in her eyes now, very shiny. “I realize that. But it frightens me.”

“Oh, Surata.” He put his arm around her shoulder. “Listen to me, girl. I'm a soldier, I have better sense than you.”

She tried to laugh, sobbed instead, as she rested her head against his neck. “Much better sense.”

“No trooper fights well tired. It's worse than hunger and wounds, because it slows you down, it distorts your judgment and makes you hesitate when you should act. With a foe like this Bundhi, if you hesitate, you're damned. One good night's sleep will make all the difference.”

“Sleep?” she asked, with the hint of provocation in her tone.

“Sleep,” he repeated emphatically. “I need it too.”

She patted his back. “You've convinced me.”

“Good.” He kissed the top of her head and stepped away from her. “I'm going to put you on my horse and I'll lead all of you. We'll make better time that way.”

Though he had not said it, she added for him, “It would be faster, wouldn't it, if you don't have to wait for me to shuffle after you.”

“Stop that,” he ordered her. “I'll take almost anything from you, Surata, but not self-pity.”

This brought her chin up. “I was not being self-pitying, just saying what is obvious.”

“I won't argue about it,” he said firmly as he took the reins of his gelding and led the bay nearer to her. “Get ready to mount.”

“Arkady-immai…” She was uncertain now, and once she said his name, she faltered.

“What is it? We don't have time to waste.” He could sense something in the air, the same sort of tension that he had felt before he learned of the ambush, the same he had felt on the eve of losing a battle. “There's thunder in the air,” he said aloud, to explain his feelings to himself.

“It's not that,” Surata said, her face averted. “Help me up.”

Silently he tossed her into the saddle, then went for the two mules. The irregular clop of the animals' hooves was all that passed between them for most of the walk to the village.

Surprisingly, no barking dogs hearalded their approach. The whole collection of rush-thatched huts was unnaturally still. No livestock bleated or grunted or lowed, no birds shrilled.

“What is it?” Surata asked as Arkady slowed them to a walk.

“I don't know,” he answered. “It's as if…no one's here.”

“How close are we?” Surata said, her head cocked to the side.

“Close enough. Someone should have noticed us by now.” He could see the door of a shed swinging lazily on the summer breeze.

Cautiously they entered the village, only to find it deserted. The squat houses stood untenanted, the barns and pens were empty. Nothing, not a chicken, not a rat, moved in the stillness.

“This is the Bundhi's doing,” Surata said from her seat on the bay, for Arkady had refused to permit her to dismount.

“Surata…” He could not continue; he had no other explanation to offer for what they had found, and it perplexed him to see no reason for the place to be empty.

“An emergency would not take all the animals,” Surata said, anticipating Arkady's protests. “There would be signs that the people had left in a hurry, but not that they had never been here.”

“Maybe there was a battle nearby and they decided to take all that they had. It's happened before.” He did not believe this, but he wanted to.

“Then why are there wagons in the barn? You said you found three of them.” She did not want to ask him this and both of them knew it. “There is food in the houses, and fuel in the sheds, you said so yourself. The water is not brackish in the pails you found, so they cannot have been gone long. The smell of pigs and sheep still lingers.” She shifted in the saddle, patting the bay when he gave an uneasy rumble in his throat.

Arkady felt the same distress that his gelding did, but he would not allow himself to surrender to it. “I'm going to make a thorough search. I haven't examined everything.”

“And what do you think there is to find—skeletons?” She stopped herself. “Forgive me, Arkady-immai. I am not being sensible, am I?”

“I don't blame you,” he responded. “Do you want to come down? It may take me some time to look everywhere.” He held his arms up to her.

“Even if something happened, I could not see where to go, and this poor creature would not know what to do with me,” she said, resigned to their uncertainty. “Let me down, by all means.” She felt for his hands and came out of the saddle. “Find me a place where you will be able to reach me quickly, if you must.”

“By the well,” Arkady said at once. “That's central. There's three houses close to it, and a cattle barn.” He led her and their three animals to the well. “Don't let them drink. You can give them their nosebags, if you want.”

“Better not,” she said as she almost stumbled beside him. “If we must leave quickly, it wouldn't be—”

“You're right,” he interrupted. “Well, watch them for me.”

“Of course,” she said, taking a seat on the wooden bench beside the well where he had led her. “I'll try to find out…anything I can while you search.”

It was almost sunset when he came out of the bathhouse, pale and shaken, to tell her that there was a body. “It's a man,” he went on. “Dead. Young. No more than a day dead.”

“What is it?” she asked sharply, hearing the strain in his voice.

“He…he's pretty horrible.”

“Plague?” she ventured.

“I don't think so,” he replied carefully. “I've never seen a death like this before.” He was shaken, and he sat down beside her abruptly. “He's…very white.”

“Oh?” She wanted to know more but knew better than to press him. “Why does that bother you?”

“There are other marks…” He shut his eyes and swallowed hard. “I…I found him in the bathhouse. He was…just lying there peacefully. He was as calm as an old, old Saint dying in the odor of sanctity.” Automatically he crossed himself, aware that his hand shook as he did it. “But there were marks.”

“What marks?” Surata demanded, her patience almost gone.

“You remember the mosquito bite I had in the other place? The one that looked as if a leech had been at me? They were like that only…much larger. Much, much larger. As big as the palm of my hand, and…deep. They had…sunk into him.” He had not been speaking loudly, and by the time he had finished, he was barely whispering.

“The Bundhi. I said it was the Bundhi,” Surata said, her hands knotted together in her lap. “He took them all. Every one of them. He's taken them and made them…his.”

“A whole village, dogs and all?” Arkady asked in disbelief. “How could he do a thing like that?”

“I've said he's powerful. He yearns for destruction, and each destruction adds to his power.” Suddenly she reached out for him, holding on to him as if he were keeping her from drowning. “If the whole world disappeared, he would be content and pleased.”

Before he found the young man's corpse, Arkady might have doubted her; now he nodded dumbly. He pressed her head to his shoulder, his hand stroking her hair to soothe himself more than her. He could not get the picture of that pallid body out of his mind, nor the red, red circular impression that covered most of his skin.

“He wants us to know he did this. That's why you found that body, just the one.” She shuddered. “The staves took him. They fed on him.”

“The bamboo?” he said numbly. “The bamboo did that?”

She put her arms around his waist, moving closer still. “I didn't know he had advanced so far. It's been little more than a year, and he has gained all that strength.”

Arkady had no answer for her. He did not want to think of facing an enemy capable of making a whole village cease to exist. They sat together as the sky grew darker.

It was twilight when they left the village. “He will know where we're going now, I think,” Surata said listlessly as she got onto their sound mule. Arkady held the animal's head for her, steadying her so she could mount.

“We'll get another in Sarai. We'll get three mules.” He tried not to think about what they had found, but he did not succeed entirely. “We can't go very far tonight, but at least we can get away from here. That's something.”

“For what little it is worth,” she added for him. “There will be other agents. He is amusing himself with us. That's clear. If he thought we might actually be able to fight him, we'd be one with those villagers, wherever they are.”

“Maybe they're with the ghosts in the burned madhouse.” He had intended this to be funny, but it came out badly and he looked away from her. “I'll get mounted.”

“We could turn around, Arkady-immai,” she said in a small voice. “We could go back.”

“To where?” he asked as he mounted his bay. “Where would you be safe?”

“I don't know. There might be somewhere.” There was only a forlorn hope in this, no confidence at all.

He turned in the saddle to face her. “And if you could find this place, could you rest there, Surata?”

She did not answer him at once. “I would try.”

“Well, I wouldn't. I've been dishonored once. I will not be dishonored again, not even for you.” He jabbed his heels into the bay and swayed as the horse lurched into a canter. The mule snorted and brayed as it was dragged after them.

“Arkady-immai!” she shouted, clinging to the saddle desperately. “Arkady-immai!”

He slowed his horse and the mule at once. Behind them he could hear the abandoned lame mule bray to the others as it tried to follow after them, limping painfully.

Surata had steadied herself and turned her head back toward the other mule. “I hate to leave him in this place.”

“So do I. But he will slow us down and…Surata, his hoof is split. There's nothing I can do for him but put my last arrow into his skull.”

“No. Not that.” She held up her hands in protest. “Let him do the best he can. Don't kill him.”

“I won't,” he promised her. “But he might suffer and die, no matter what we do for him.”

“We all suffer and die,” she said, some of her tranquility returning. “Arkady-immai, there is nothing to fear in death. We will come to life again.”

She had told him similar things before, and he always shied away from such heresy. “We will come to life in God,” he said curtly in order to end her comments.

She said nothing for a long moment. “I do not want to turn away from the Bundhi. If he attempts too much, there will be nothing to return to. If I die, then there will be karma that will bring me…whatever I deserve.”

Arkady shrugged. “Whichever of us is right,
I
won't turn away from the Bundhi.”

“You can do nothing against him without me,” she reminded him with a wry smile.

“And you can do nothing without me,” he said, his smile echoing hers. He wondered if she knew it somehow.

“If that is the way it must be,” she said, then added hesitantly, “Arkady-immai, I do not want you to die because of me.”

“And I don't want you to die because of me. You see, Surata? We're in perfect agreement.” He started his gelding moving again, but this time at a walk. “A little way and then we'll find a place to sleep. Tomorrow or the next day, we should reach Sarai, and then we can choose the supplies we'll need.”

“And there is still enough gold?” she asked.

“Enough. Not as much as we might like to have, but yes, certainly enough. I will even have money for arrows.”

“This time, get more then ten,” she suggested. “The ones you bought in Tana did not last long.”

“They never do. Even if I recover them, they are often no longer true.” He remembered the archers he had fought with years ago, all of whom had complained that an arrow once fired could not be counted on to fly straight.

She rode quietly, letting him choose the pace and their direction while she strove to regain her inner peace.

A little while later, as he drew them up beside a wide, shallow stream, he said to her, “I know you better than I have ever known anyone in my life; I see you more clearly than I've seen anyone; I love you more than I've loved anyone: yet you're an enigma to me.” He was not upset and he said this placidly enough, but he knew as he spoke that words alone were inadequate, and that saddened him. “Surata…”

“I know,” she said as he hesitated. “I'm hungry, Arkady-immai, and I'm frightened. Can we sit together and talk about, oh, the games we played when we were children, or what we ate at great feasts? I don't think I can speak of other things yet.”

“Right,” he said, relieved. As he dismounted, he heard the distant sound of the lame mule trying to catch up with them.

The next night they slept within sight of Sarai, and by noon the day after they were in the shadow of its walls. Here, east of the Don, west of the Vulga, the Kazakh city served as a crossroad for Asian merchants bound northward to Moskva and Novgorod and westward to Tana, Venice and Constantinople. A century before it had been ripe with prosperity, but since the men of Islam had taken up the sword against Christians, Sarai had suffered as trade and traffic diminished.

Arkady regarded the battlements with a critical eye. “There hasn't been any real fighting here for a little while. The walls are in good repair and there's only a token Guard on watch.”