Until the Sun Falls (11 page)

“You knew this was here,” Dmitri said.

Psin nodded, glancing around. He saw a good place to make a fire against a tilted rock and started for it, but Quyuk and Baidar got there first. Arcut was holding a spot almost as good.

“How did you know?” Dmitri said.

“Because I’m a general of reconnaissance.” Psin jogged toward Arcut. He had known that the two roads probably met, but he hadn’t expected anything as fine as this. If Dmitri was overawed, the others would be too, he hoped. He dismounted.

Arcut said, “Kadan isn’t back yet.”

“He’ll come in before dark. Cook something, I’m hungry. And watch him.” He nodded to Dmitri. All around, the men were milling their horses to trample down the snow. Two men riding bareback galloped past with almost forty horses on a string. Quyuk and Baidar were building their fire. Slaves dashed about around them, laden with baskets of dung for fuel.

Dmitri was struggling with the girths on Psin’s saddle, and Psin pushed him away. “I have to ride this camp yet. Stay here. If Kadan comes in while I’m gone, Arcut, tell him to camp to the north a little and see if he can supply us with meat.”

He rode over to Quyuk’s fire, shoving his way through the packed horses and men fighting over good camp spots. Quyuk was walking his horse back and forth to cool it out. He looked over at Psin.

“How long are we going to stay here?”

“Until I find Novgorod.” Psin looked at the bruise on Quyuk’s face. “Did you hit something in the dark, noyon?”

“Yes. But whatever it was will suffer for it.” Quyuk smiled, so that his eyeteeth showed.

“Hunh.” Psin brought his whip down on his horse’s shoulder, careful to let the thongs snap in front of Quyuk’s face. His horse bounded away. Two strides later the horse shied violently. Psin wrestled with it. Something struck him hard in the back of the head. He knew it was a snowball.

He whipped the horse out of range. When Psin got back Buri and Kadan
were both at Quyuk’s fire. He summoned Arcut and the other thousand-commander over and gave them standing orders. “When you ride out, keep extended, so that you can see what there is to see out here. If you are attacked, retreat back here. Send me news so that I can arrange an ambush. If you don’t think your courier will reach me soon enough, send him straight back and retreat on a curve. Don’t engage any Russians on your own.”

Quyuk cleared his throat. “May we perhaps kill a deer if we could find one, Khan?”

Buri laughed. Psin glared at him. “If you think so dangerous a beast safe for you to handle.”

Now Baidar laughed.

“I want sentries out in rings centered on the camp. Kadan, that’s yours to do. The outermost ring will be at least half a day’s ride from the camp. Buri, I want you to ride south, following the road you crossed yesterday. Kadan, take the road leading west out of this camp and follow it until it turns north.”

“Will it? “Kadan said.

“Yes.” Psin looked around at their faces. They were tired, but not so tired as they had been after the first few days’ riding. “In my absence, Baidar will command the camp.”

Quyuk roared and sprang to his feet. Psin said, “In my absence Quyuk will be gone too. I won’t be here much.”

Buri said, “Where Quyuk goes I go.”

“I told you once before, Buri. I can always use extra horses.”

Quyuk thrust his head forward. The firelight turned his eyes deep red.

“Merkit, you talk a lot. Too much. You talked us out here and you’ve talked us gentle so far. I’m sick of talk. What else do you have, Merkit?”

Psin looked at Buri and saw the sinews standing up in his throat and his mouth trembling with eagerness. “Baidar. Watch him for me.” He got up.

“Come on, old man,” Quyuk said. His voice hissed across the fire. “Come and fight me.”

Psin unbuckled his belt. “I should think a boy of your good mind would have learned by now. I don’t go to you, Quyuk. You come to me.”

Quyuk snatched out his dagger and plunged around the fire. His arms were longer than Psin’s. He held the dagger low, aimed at Psin’s belly, and Psin sucked in his breath. He stood still, watching Quyuk prowl toward him. The belt dangled from his hand.

He glanced at Buri again and saw Buri’s hot glittering eyes and Baidar’s, behind him, doubtful. He pulled the belt through his fingers, so that he held it by the tongue end.

“Yaaah!”

Quyuk came in from one side like a leopard. The dagger flashed in the firelight. Psin jumped backward and slashed the belt at Quyuk’s face. The lean brown face jerked back out of range, and Psin rushed forward. Quick, he thought. Make it quick. The dagger’s ruddy blade streaked up between his chest and Quyuk’s, and Psin caught it on his forearm and brought the belt down like a whip. He felt, together, the slice of the dagger across his arm and the belt buckle striking bone.

Somebody shouted. Psin wrapped his bad arm around Quyuk’s waist and threw him hard, away from the fire. Quyuk rolled, his arms crossed in front of his face. Psin with the belt pursued him. He remembered just before he struck to grab the buckle end and swing the other. Quyuk lashed out with his legs and Psin dodged, flogging Quyuk across the arms and head with the belt. He could hear Quyuk’s gasping breath and the flat thudding of the leather on flesh. Quyuk kicked him in the shin, and he grunted, but he brought the belt down so hard that blood popped from the edge of the welt on Quyuk’s hand.

“Stop,” Buri cried.

Psin leapt back, away from Quyuk’s legs, and turned. Buri was on his feet, and his face was taut.

“Quyuk?”

Quyuk had rolled almost into the fire. He pressed his hands against his face. The backs of his hands were ridged with welts. He lurched up onto his knees. Psin stood still, the belt buckle clenched in his fist. Across Quyuk’s forehead a cut oozed blood. Kadan whispered something.

“Get up,” Psin said, quietly.

Lowering his hands, Quyuk rose. Welts streaked his face. He touched his forehead and looked at the blood on his fingers.

“What punishment?” Buri shouted. “What punishment for the man who spilled the blood of the son of the Kha-Khan?”

Baidar thrust at him, spat away from the fire, and went back to his place. Uncertainly, Arcut said, “The Yasa—”

Quyuk straightened. “The Yasa says that the blood of no highborn man shall be spilled.” He reached out and caught Psin by the left arm and held it toward the fire. Psin’s sleeve was sodden with blood from the dagger slash. Quyuk flung down Psin’s hand. “No price against either of us.” More softly, he said, “I’ll get you my own way, Merkit.”

He strode off from the fire. Baidar came up by Psin and looked at the wound. “You could have killed him with that belt buckle.”

“I know.”

Arcut and Baidar led him off to his own camp, and Dmitri without a word brought a long strip of linen for a bandage. Arcut pulled up Psin’s sleeve and wrapped the bandage around his forearm. The blood seeped through at once. Dmitri put a handful of dirty snow on it.

“Buri never tried to help him,” Arcut said softly.

“If he had, Quyuk would have killed him.” Psin tugged his sleeve down. “I won’t die of that. Dmitri, bring me some kumiss. I’m riding out tomorrow, Arcut. Go tell Quyuk that he’s coming with me.”

“You’re out of your head. He’ll kill you as soon as you’re alone with him.”

“Don’t be stupid. He’ll try, but he won’t kill me. Go on, go tell him.” Psin grinned. “And come back and tell me what he says.”

Quyuk rode in absolute silence. His eyes flickered from side to side. Psin’s opinion of him began to rise; very few men could sustain a cold rage for five days solid. Since they’d left the camp, Quyuk had said not one word to him and had looked him in the face only twice.

The welts were subsiding; the cut on his forehead would be healed before Psin’s arm stopped giving him trouble. Psin wished he knew what Quyuk was thinking.

The forest around them shivered in the chilly winter stillness. They heard owls at night, and wolves, and they saw the tracks of huge elk during the day. Every night one or two of the twenty men around them would bring in game, and they would eat it for dinner and sleep under the pine trees, all without more than a few words.

Psin hated the forest. Traveling in a loose pack they covered less ground than he wanted. A man riding within calling distance of his companions could grow absent-minded and realize only after a long while that he’d drifted off and was lost, and no shouting would raise his friends. He could only ride back across the track, his horse plunging and stumbling in the snowdrifts under the trees, until he found a trail to follow. The black boughs that swayed over their heads shut out the sun, and the sky looked much farther away, seen through the trees.

Dmitri, on Psin’s left, sneezed and snuffled. His horse stumbled, and Dmitri jerked him up again. The horse, with all four legs braced, skidded a length across a patch of open snow. Through the gouges in the snow Psin saw a rock face.

“There’s the river again,” a man called; his voice came from Psin’s left, but the trees hid him from view.

“Stay away from it.”

If there were people around, they would be near the river. Dmitri sneezed and Psin looked hard at him. Dmitri had been acting like a man with a cold for three days, but his nose never ran. Psin thought he was preparing a way to warn any Russians they might try to ambush. He whipped his horse up a little incline and reined in. Dismounting, he threw Dmitri his rein and scraped away the snow. On an incline the snow should have been shallow. It was not. He swore, poked at the frozen earth, and mounted again.

Quyuk put one hand to his face and shook his head.

They rode on, crossed a little stream, and floundered through immense drifts on the far side. Looking up, Psin caught a glimpse of one of his men, well ahead, angling his horse across a steeper slope. The trees were thinning out. His horse snorted and backed up, refusing the hill, and Psin had to whip him into taking it. The footing was solid rock and ice. Psin’s horse went to its knees over a fallen log. When Psin got off to let it regain its feet, he glanced at Quyuk.

Quyuk’s eyes looked strange. His horse heaved its way up toward Psin’s, and Psin reached out to catch the rein. “Are you all right?”

Quyuk pressed one hand against his forehead. “No.” His voice was so low Psin could barely hear it.

“What’s wrong?”

“My head hurts. I can’t see.”

He swayed in the saddle. Psin whirled. Dmitri was waiting, sharp-eyed. Psin took two steps away, suspicious suddenly, and shouted up the slope.

“Dai. Come get my Russian. Tie him into the saddle. Keep on going north and leave me sign. I’ll catch up with you by tomorrow night.”

Dmitri said, “Khan, I—”

“Too close to home, Dmitri. Go up to Dai.”

Dmitri’s horse staggered up the rest of the slope. Psin took Quyuk’s rein and his own and led the horses down toward the stream they had just crossed. Where they had crossed, the ground was level but on either side the stream ran through a gorge. Psin led the horses into the gorge heading east and followed it back until the walls straightened up and the sunlight vanished. Quyuk had his eyes shut; he was hanging onto the pommel of his saddle with both hands.

The gorge widened a little, and Psin stopped the horses. He drew Quyuk down out of his saddle. Quyuk groaned and twitched feebly. Psin let him sag onto the ground and got their cloaks from behind their saddles.

“Oh, God,” Quyuk mumbled. Under his tan his skin was pale green. He put his head down, his cheek against the snow, and shut his eyes.

Psin spread out one cloak and helped Quyuk move onto it. Quyuk said, “I’m going to be sick.”

“Go ahead.” Psin got a bowl out of his saddlepouch and scooped snow into it.

Quyuk braced himself up on one elbow and vomited into the snow. His hair hung across his cheeks. Psin knelt beside him, wrapped the bowl of snow in the other cloak, and threw one arm around Quyuk’s chest to hold him. Quyuk was trembling. His body strained to retch. They had eaten little that morning and he had nothing to throw up. Psin’s arm began to ache, down along the wound. Quyuk hung there, almost sobbing.

“Are you all right?” Psin said.

Quyuk gasped something that sounded like yes. Psin laid him back against the cloak, unwrapped the bowl of snow, and threw the other cloak over Quyuk. The snow was melting. He went to his horse for a piece of cloth. When he came back Quyuk’s eyes were shut tight and his breath came in whimpers, but his color was better. Psin dampened the cloth in the melted snow and washed Quyuk’s face.

“Good,” Quyuk whispered. “The cold.”

Psin soaked the cloth and put it over Quyuk’s forehead. “Lie still. Go to sleep. I can’t stay down here. If anybody catches us here we’re ended. I’m going up to the top of the bank. If you want something, don’t yell. Whistle.”

“Hunh.”

Psin loosened the girths on the horses, slipped the bits out of their mouths, and tied the reins up over the pommels of their saddles. There was no grass, but the horses started gnawing at the bark of some stunted shrubs that grew out of the gorge wall. He took his bow and quiver and climbed up the wall. The rocks were slippery and when he tried to use the shrubs for handholds, they pulled loose and he nearly fell. He took off his gloves, and the cold struck at his hands like a snake. When he finally flung himself over the edge and lay on the top of the bank his hands were bleeding. He walked along to a place where a pine grew close to the ravine, crawled into the low branches, and sat still, his bow across his knees, watching north.

Tshant cursed steadily. His men were scattered all along the riverbank, galloping flat out over ground as rough and broken as the worst stretches of the Gobi. Behind them and finally falling back, a huge army of Russians was screaming insults and daring them to turn and face them.

The ground opened up right under his horse’s hoofs. The horse bunched and leapt. Tshant clung to the mane. The horse landed and somersaulted completely over, and Tshant sailed off and crashed into the far bank of the little stream. He lay still a moment, everything white before his eyes, and staggered up. His horse was hobbling toward the bank. One foreleg hung. A white shard of bone thrust out just above the fetlock.