Steles of the Sky (36 page)

She nodded against his chest, though all she felt was the chill. “Of course you were.”

Then, later, when they had returned to the bed and lay sleepless on their opposite edges, she added, “Well. At least we have shared our secrets now.”

*   *   *

They passed into a landscape of cultivated fields and farmers who lined the roadside to gawk at the ragtag procession of the empress and what remained of her court passing by. Anil rode beside her, but not as close as he once would have. And the looks he gave her now were warier, reserved—though he still came to her improvised boudoir at night. Within two days, they had sighted the steep pitched roofs and bright walls of Rasa, its prayer banners snapping in the wintry wind.

Yangchen felt herself breathe out as if she would never stop, her spine crackling as she sat abruptly straighter in the saddle.

She felt Anil beside her. His yak leaned close on Lord Shuffle’s shoulder. The friendship between the animals, at least, was intact.

“We lived,” he said.

“We did it and lived,” she answered.

17

In the end, all they took from Kyiv was gold and horses, both in sufficient quantity to carry them to Huacheng if that was what was required. With his reclaimed riches, Ato Tesefahun had paid for twenty geldings and mares—a mount and a remount for each of them, and four spares—and he did not regret the expenditure. He was no judge of horseflesh, but it turned out that several of the Dead Men were, and he had listened to their arguments and judgments and basically, in the end, let them choose and fight it out between themselves, and also drive the bargain.

Tesefahun’s only concern was following the refugees’ trail back to the mother of his great-grandchild before that trail grew cold. While the Dead Men were haggling, he found a woman in the marketplace who would go and spread some coppers and bread among the refugees, listen to their stories, and report back. From this, he learned the details of the destruction in the village of Stechko. And he learned as well that the refugees had come straight and true across the steppe, guided by the stranger who had appeared out of nowhere to lead them to Kyiv, and then disappeared just as quickly.

When Tesefahun rejoined Iskandar and the Dead Men, they introduced him to his mount. The horses were the curly-coated breed of the Kyivvans, round-bodied and hardy to the cold, which seemed a provident choice with winter coming on. And if they did not exactly carry the company across the autumn-golden steppe like the wind, they were hoof-hard and tireless. Tesefahun’s primary mount was a roan gelding whose coat was speckled in shades of pewter, silver, blue, and gray, giving him the appearance of a rough, weathered granite boulder spotted with paler lichen. Other than a white star between his eyes, his heavy head was slate-dark. His heavy mane hung in long coils that had a tendency to tangle in the reins if Tesefahun did not pay strict attention.

The Dead Men complained of the horseflesh (not like their dish-faced Uthman warhorses), the saddles (not at all like their Uthman saddles, which were little more than pads of leather thrown over elaborately tasseled felt blankets), and the cold. Especially the cold. But for all that, they rode like demons, and Tesefahun could see that even the Kyivvan horse dealers, who had their own cavalry culture dating back to the days of Danupati’s empire, respected their knowledge.

As for Tesefahun, it was not his first time in the saddle. But neither was he a young man anymore, and after the first day of riding, he missed the man-carried litter most fiercely. After the second day, he even missed the measured propulsion of his own bony feet.

He never got around to missing that dragon boat, though.

By the third day, the saddle began to wear in to him—or, as he suspected, he began to wear into the saddle.

That was the day they found the burned remains of Stechko, and the fierceness of the suns of Erem. They were fortunate that they came to the border as night was falling, and Tesefahun had the knowledge to recognize what the shape of the black moon low in the sky meant—and why the grass was charred as far as the eye could see before them.

In his youth, he had visited Messaline, the modern City of Jackals, which was built on the ruins of the second Erem. It was in the mountains outside of Messaline that the first Erem, the original City of Jackals, lay. Tesefahun, like many another student wizard, had not been able to resist the dare of visiting its cursed and beautiful ruins.

By the light of the nightsun, he kept Iskandar and the Dead Men moving before the daysuns could burn them where they stood. The horses formed a thundering phalanx across the blackened steppe, crisped stems cracking beneath their hooves, drifts of ash billowing behind them as if their passage raised a smoke of its own.

Iskandar rode up beside him, calling across the space between their mounts. “You know this is crazy, old man!”

“So was the palace I built for you. But I promise you, if we find Edene, my grandson will have sanctuary for you!”

“I could have been kinder to him,” Iskandar said.

“You don’t know a Khagan’s honor. Fight for him, and he may very well put you on your dais again, Uthman once-Caliph.”

Iskandar tossed his head as if shaking his braids from his eyes, and did not respond. But nor did he fall back from his position at Tesefahun’s side.

The burned skeletons of the village were evident long before the riders reached them. They made black lines against a star-thick sky, and Tesefahun realized both at once that they were at the halfway point—and that he did not know how much more night they had to work with before dawn and fire blossomed in the sky. He put his heels to the worthy roan, whose name was Flint, and twined his fingers on the reins and pommel to keep himself from knotting his hands together.

Ride,
Ato Tesefahun whispered to himself. And as if the roan gelding heard him, they
moved
. The night was the thunder of hooves, the ache of Tesefahun’s thighs, the lather of the roan gelding’s neck flying back into his face. Trailing the remounts, faces bent close to straining necks, eight riders and twenty horses moved as if their lives depended on it.

Their lives did.

*   *   *

Edene would have been the last to hear the hooves if it were not for the ring. But as it was, she was the first, and she mustered her jackal-faced troops around her as they turned to make a stand. She had no doubt who was following; Kyivvans bent on vengeance for what she had wrought.

She wondered if she could call down the fire of Eremite suns on those who followed, just by proclaiming this land hers. But that was a weapon of obliteration, and she suspected if dominion over the land was contested, she would have to beat the opposition on the field of battle first.

When she caught sight of them cresting a rolling, grassy hill, she was surprised. There were fewer than a dozen riders, and fewer than two dozen mounts. Enough for a raiding band, were the enemy unready. Not enough to exact any kind of bloody justice on her and her horde of ghulim. Not enough, really, to even press the point.

Her eyesight was keen as an eagle’s. But even without that, she could easily have seen that these men were not Kyivvan, pale-skinned and pale-haired. They were black of hair and brown of skin, and the one at the lead on the roan was as dark as Temur and had the same wooly quality to his uncovered hair, though this man’s hair was a stormcloud. He was a fair enough rider, though not by any means properly one with his mount. The rest rode like demons—not like Qersnyk, tied into the saddle before they could walk, but like men who knew horses and had grown up around them.

Though men such as these should by rights have been riding the delicate, dish-nosed horses of the Asitaneh breed, their mounts were the Kyivvan breed, unmistakable round-bodied creatures with all the abundance of mane and tail that Qersnyk horses lacked. Edene had seen their like before, in the markets of Qarash when the Kyivvan traders came.

This was a mystery. As the ghulim jostled and pressed around her, groping under robes for scimitars and scythes, she raised a hand to hold them back, the Green Ring glinting in the warm gold sun. Her son was in his cradleboard, slung between her shoulders. She thought for a moment of handing him off to Ka-asha Ghul. But who could defend him better than the Lady of the Broken Places, and where under any sun could he be safer than he was upon her back?

The riders oncoming seemed to see her raised hand as a signal to them, and reined back—or perhaps they were only reacting sensibly to the sight of a valley and hillside covered in Edene’s ghulim army. They had spread out side to side, marching across these open steppes, and the curving wings were in sight.

Edene stepped forward, descending the hill she had just climbed, and the ranks of the ghulim parted before her. The grass was trampled from so many feet and a strange, vast reluctance filled her.
Kill them before they destroy you. Kill them before they destroy your son.

But there was the face of the man on the roan. There was the way the others lined up behind him, hands on the hilts of their scimitars, and how he in his own turn stayed them with a gesture. And there was the shape of his nose and the height of his brow, so familiar.

If this was not Temur’s grandfather or his mother’s brother, Edene would eat Ganjin’s cradleboard.

As she reached the bottom of the hill, Besha Ghul stepped from the crush of bodies and reached for Edene’s shoulder. Edene stayed the importunate gesture with a glare, then gritted her teeth in self-loathing as Besha responded with a self-abasing grovel.

It is the ring talking—

You must comport yourself as befits an empress! Allowing yourself to be pawed by jackals is hardly fitting.

The itch was there, strong in her. She almost drew back her foot to kick Besha Ghul in the ribs, or at least to spurn it with a boot, before shifting her weight to plant her foot more firmly.
I am what I am. Whatever I choose to do is fitting.

She crouched down beside Besha and put a hand on its bony shoulder. “I am sorry,” she said. “Please stand.”

The ghul uncoiled slightly from its prostration, raising its head from its arms to blink dewy great eyes at Edene. Edene offered a hand, and Besha took it wincingly, hesitant to touch and even more hesitant to refuse.

Edene pulled it to its feet. “Come.”

Together, they crossed the little swale at the bottom of the hill and started up a long gentle slope that the horsemen had paused upon. In a few moments, Edene stood before the roan.

To her surprise, the man on his back hastily dismounted and walked around the horse, trailing the reins from one hand. But of course, he was not a Qersnyk, and would not know that it was polite to greet a stranger from the saddle.

“Tsareg Edene?” He had a good voice. That wooly hair was shot with gray, and his skin up close had a freckled pattern like the roaning on his horse. Edene decided not to point it out to him.

She nodded.

“I am Ato Tesefahun. The child on your back is my great-grandchild. I have come to guide you to his father.”

Edene pursed her lips, considering. Besha stood beside her, nearly shivering with nervousness. Edene offered the flat of her hand to the gelding. Of course this Wizard Tesefahun had not known enough to introduce her to the gelding too.

Besha spoke in her own language. “Wherever he is, the Grave Roads will take us there, if you still wish to seek him, Lady of Poison Things.”

“Horses too?”

“Horses, if you wish it.”

You cannot trust them. You are the Lady of Broken Places; you travel and fight alone.

Edene switched back to Qersnyk. “I’ll need a mare,” she said, not taking her eyes from Ato Tesefahun.

He smiled before he said, “We have several. May I know the name of my grandson?”

“He is called Re Ganjin,” Edene said. She looked down at her boots. “I would tell you his true name if I knew it.”

Ato Tesefahun’s brows rose. “That sounds like a story.”

“I can tell you underground.” Edene pretended she did not relish the gleam of bewildered curiosity on his face as he tilted his head to one side.

*   *   *

It wasn’t until the door slid shut behind Tsechen-tsa and na-Baryan that Yangchen realized that she had never been alone in the imperial suite before. Previously, she had come here only in attendance upon Songtsan, who as the heir and emperor-in-waiting had occupied these chambers in anticipation of his majority.

Now they were hers. Hers, and Namri’s, to do with as they—as
she—
pleased.

She stood within the doorway, her back to the frame, and just stared. As if she had never seen grandeur before. She finally gathered herself and walked into the apartment, letting her hand trail along this article of furniture and that. There was no dust on anything. All had been kept in readiness for her late husband’s return.

She leaned her shoulders against the wall and stared at the empty bed, the hard pillows lined up against its head. She heard the door open but did not turn. She felt the warmth of Anil standing close against her shoulder and still did not acknowledge him.

He said, “I don’t blame you for hating me.”

She said, “It’s not you I hate.”

He just waited, while she stared away from him. Toward that empty bed. She was the Dowager Empress of Rasa. She could have him removed in an instant if she desired it.

She couldn’t make herself desire it.

“You couldn’t have done what you did without my failings,” she said. “I opened the gate.”

Damnation to say more. Damnation to say as much as she had. And yet the urge to tell him, to admit all the details of her naïve bargaining that had made it possible for all the evils that had befallen Tsarepheth to break through its wards, was blindingly strong.

“Come to bed,” he said. “Then we can decide which room you wish to sacrifice to the nursery.”

She leaned her head against him and smiled. “You don’t hate me.”

“A woman who would not leave me to face a sorcerer-assassin alone? There is nothing to hate there.”