Shadow of the Horsemen (Kalie's Journey) (5 page)

In the torchlit night, Kalie slipped away from the crowd of warriors, and another storyteller took her place. Her tale of a traitor who murdered his king in the hope of ruling through the king’s foolish heir had not gone over well. Probably because anyone with half a brain could see that that was precisely what was happening within the tribe. She really had to stop viewing her enemies as stupid.

They would reach the summer gathering the next day. Nights now brought little relief to the heat—and the dust. Kalie stared into the sable sky, awash with stars in a way the sky above her home never was. It was beautiful, she thought, trying to loose herself in its endless depths.

A coughing fit forced her back into the dry brown grass, burning dung and press of more than three hundred unwashed bodies. She sighed. Even the constant steppe wind couldn’t make that smell good.

Looking around, Kalie relished another moment of invisibility, as the nightlife of the travelers swirled around her. Not all the warriors were listening to the storyteller. There were dice games and wrestling matches occurring by the light of the stars and the various braziers that marked individual family territory. Across the camp, Kalie could see a pair of talented slave girls dancing for one of the chiefs and his guests, while men who did not rate an invitation looked on enviously from a distance. Wives and daughters were about as well, finishing chores and settling down to sleep. Odd, she thought, how even without tents they were somehow still invisible; as hidden from sight as ever.

Kalie sighed. She had to get back to Maalke’s campsite before the dust choked her. She’d had nothing to drink since the evening meal, and the story had been a long one, for all that it was unsuccessful. She was thirsty enough to drink whatever she could get her hands on.

A man stepped into her path. Kalie flinched, then steadied herself. It was Riyik.

“A sad story,” he said. “Sadder still, that it might be prophetic. But you told it well.”

“Thank you,” Kalie said warily.

“I would think it difficult to speak so long without a drink.”

At once, Kalie’s thirst intensified, as did her fear. What kind of game was this beastman playing? “I am on my way back to my master and his wife. I’m sure one of them will give me something to drink if I plead hard enough. Although what that will be…”

“Then please accept this, and have no fear of their cruelty.” Riyik held out a water skin. It was a thing of beauty: softly tooled leather with sun symbols and stars worked through it. The tanned hide would keep the sheep’s bladder inside it cool, while absorbing any water that might leak out. Although it was so well made that Kalie doubted any would.

“And if I accept this…?” Kalie hated how much she wanted it.

“You owe me nothing. I merely hope that one day, you will look upon me with favor.” Then, clearly reading the alarm in Kalie’s eyes, “And if you do not, the gift is still yours to keep.”

To cover her consternation, she took a drink. The water was sweet and cool and felt wonderful on her parched throat.

“Thank you,” she said, offering Riyik a sip, relieved when he accepted. “Did you work the leather yourself?”

Riyik nodded. “Not as good as the craftsmen from your world, of course, but I enjoyed making it. It is perhaps time for me to give up carving wooden horses and return to more practical applications.”

“It’s very good,” said Kalie. “Uh, what about the bladder inside?”

Riyik laughed. “Don’t worry, Brenia helped me with that part! It’s perfectly safe.”

Kalie laughed too, although she refrained from saying aloud what they both knew: preparing an animal bladder for transporting water was a woman’s job. While she found it touching that he sought to make her something with his own hands, she would not have liked drinking from a bladder than might not have been thoroughly cleaned.

Before she could think of anything else to say, Riyik turned and disappeared into the night.

“We praise wise Aahk for a safe deliverance at our journey’s end…” The singing of the women continued all day. But if it meant they could stop walking in this stifling heat, Kalie thought, they could praise whomever they wanted.

She smelled, before she saw, the reason for the rejoicing. The beastmen’s summer camp was on the shores of a small lake. It was nothing like the lakes back home, where often one could not even see the other side, and strong swimming ability was a necessity. This lake was shallow and brown, choked with reeds and barely a stone’s throw across at its widest point.

Still, Kalie found she was picking up her pace, hurrying towards it like the others. She wanted to tear off her sweaty, stifling garments and plunge into the water’s cool embrace; to feel clean and free and unencumbered. It was all she could do to restrain herself.

A noisy flock of waterfowl took wing as the even noisier people invaded their territory. Fools! Kalie wanted to shout. That’s food flying away, and no one’s in position to bring it down! If you keep scaring the birds, they won’t come back!

Then she realized: of course they would. This was probably the only water of any size for miles, and it was the time for ducks to fly north. There was no place else to rest and feed. And Kalie’s captors knew it.

The camps of many of the clans were already established. As Kalie followed Altia and Cassia into the deafening chaos, she realized how much she had changed since the clans had last been together. She could easily recognize the king’s tent, in the center of the long stretch of ugly black tents. She could see how Kahlar, and the two chiefs with him fell to jockeying for the best remaining places to set up their own clan’s tents. She could see connections as people eagerly sought familiar faces, even as they fell to the work of establishing a permanent camp. As permanent as beastmen could imagine, at any rate.

As soon as Kalie and the other women had Maalke’s tent set up, she asked Cassia for permission to seek out the women who had come with her from the west. Cassia, who was looking well and feeling stronger than she had in many days agreed, and even wished Kalie luck.

Kalie first went to the lake to fill her water bag. Other women were there on the same errand of course, but none had their own private water source. Funny, what a difference that made. She lingered a moment, washing her hands and face in the cool water, then giving in to the temptation to push up her sleeves and wash her arms as well. Finally, the disapproving stares of the other women drove her away. She fell in step with the chaos, dodging mounted horses, shrieking children, and harried women with practiced ease. With her covered head, small steps and demurely lowered eyes, she was just another Aahken slave girl.

Since she had not had the time, or admittedly, the inclination to get to know very many people before they separated for winter, Kalie headed for the royal compound, guessing that would be the place to find Maylene. And perhaps Maylene would have news of Larren and Kestra. Maybe even Alessa.

Outside the king’s tent, a guard stopped Kalie and demanded to know her business. “I seek my kinswoman, Maylene, concubine to Prince Kariik,” she said, forgetting to be meek and demure.

“The prince’s barbarian whores are none of my concern,” spat the guard. “Go away.”

So Kalie circled the compound until she spotted a slave girl leaving the tent to get water. This time, she was ready with a string of beads to offer in exchange for common courtesy.

“Can you tell me if Maylene still lives with the king’s household?” Kalie asked, after the girl had secured the bauble inside her robe.

Her eyes widened. “The stranger from the West? You mean to say you haven’t heard the story of how the prince has mourned her this whole season?”

“She is dead?” Kalie asked, trying to sound unconcerned, but it came out a choked whisper.

“She died giving the prince a son,” the girl said haughtily. “Just as well she didn’t survive, I suppose. She was weak, and never even so much as learned to make kumis or shear a sheep. She could never have been a woman of Aahk! Still, Kariik forgave her for all that when she gave him his first son. Who knows? Maybe he even would have married her. It would have been quite the scandal, a barbarian for a queen, but…”

“Queen?” Kalie shook aside her grief to garner information. “What of Kariik’s brothers?”

“You really have been living inside a sheep’s ass! Haven’t you heard of how Melaak was slain in a battle with the Hansi at the start of winter? And how Trobaak was struck down by a fever during the journey here just this last moon span?” The slave lowered her voice. “Although some say it was poison, not fever.”

“But either way, it leaves Kariik next in line.”

The girl nodded, and then lifted her heavy water skins. “I must get back now.”

“Let me help you,” said Kalie, taking two of the bulky containers and arranging them on her shoulders.

The slave looked doubtful. “Why would you want to help?”

“I had hoped for a look at the new prince. He’s my kinsman, after all.”

The girl seemed convinced, even impressed by Kalie’s claim. She followed the nomad girl back to the tent, this time passing easily inside with no attention from the guards. The king’s tent had looked big from the outside: at least eight wooden poles, all of them longer and straighter than the usual five held it up. Inside, it was like a shadowy city. Long sheets of felt had been cleverly draped to form private rooms for the king’s wives. There was even what could be called an actual kitchen, with at least a dozen women laboring to prepare the feast with which the twenty clans would celebrate the beginning of summer.

Kalie thought at first to ask after Maylene’s baby, but instead took the opportunity to slip in beside two scrawny girls, struggling with the carcass of an enormous sheep. She righted it before it tipped one of them over, then helped them with the butchering. No one questioned her presence.

On the other side of the tent, carefully guarded by warriors, a screened off area lay enshrouded by heavy smoke. The incense could not quite cover the stench of illness and decay. Somewhere in there, the king lay dying.

She tried to learn who was who among the women, especially the wives. She thought about offering to tell a story, but the women were busy enough with stories of their own. One in particular, caught her attention.

“Will the king really agree to the alliance?” someone asked. “Embrace the king of the Wolf tribe as a brother? Ride to battle by his side?”

“Shouldn’t you be asking if Kariik will agree to it?” asked another. She was about Varena’s age, but sleek and well fed; probably a woman already, or would be soon. One of the king’s daughters? “After all, he’s the one who will have to marry an animal princess to seal the bargain!” There was general laughter at her jibe at the Wolf tribe.

“It’s also Kariik who will be riding to battle—as king.” There were angry whispers and furtive looks towards the king’s quarters, as women made signs against evil. Still, no one disputed the claim, or suggested that the king might live to lead another battle.

“The new king may keep some of the old king’s women.” Kalie turned from her work, and saw a small group of younger women lounging on felt cushions and applying the now familiar cleansing paste made from ceder and frankencense to their naked bodies. In a land with little water, the paste at least kept the women clean. Kalie wished the men would use it.

The speaker was about sixteen summers, blonde, and her flat unlined stomach suggested she hadn’t borne any children. Women of power, or they would not be so idle. Across from them, two ancient crones supervised the work of the others.

“He must agree to marry only the Wolf princess,” said Kalie’s guide. “And take no other wives until she has borne him a son.” Her eyes raked the naked concubines. “Of course, he can keep as many slaves in his bed as he wants.”

Kalie was so busy watching the interplay she nearly missed what followed. “Kariik will do what is best for his people,” said one of Ahnaak’s ancient wives. Kariik’s mother, perhaps?

A younger wife, closing her eyes as a slave applied cypress paste to her face snorted. “He’ll do what Haraak tells him to. I am to be given to him as a gift.”

Several women looked at her in confusion. “To Prince Kariik?” asked one.

The woman snorted again. “To Haraak! Who do you think will rule this place when Kariik becomes king?”

Kalie finished sewing up a bag of meaty bones and hung it over one of several smoky braziers, then wiped the sweat from her face. She approached the smug young gossip. “And what is your name, lady?” she asked sweetly.

Leaving the tent was not so easy as getting in. Kalie had to wait until she could collect enough garbage to look natural taking it to the long trench dug along the edge of the camp. When that chore was done, she strode purposefully back towards the area where Kahlar was camped. She was nearly there when she realized she had not seen Maylene’s son.

How had it been for Maylene in her last moon spans? She had been a girl of fourteen when she set out to bring salvation to the savages. Had she been able to keep her faith in the Goddess, as Kalie had not? Had her faith sustained her in the end? Or was her mind, like Kestra’s, already broken and empty before her body breathed its last? Was her death even the result of childbirth, or had one of that horde of competing women helped her along?