Silk Road (67 page)

K
HUTELUN TWISTED AROUND
in the saddle. The retreat had degenerated into a score of separate pursuits. She was on her own now, with two riders following her up the slope, their lamellar armour identifying them as men from Khubilai’s
kesig
. They were gaining ground.

Another arrow slapped into her mare’s rump and she screamed and almost fell. She looked back again and saw that a third rider had joined the hunt.

The black shelter of the pines seemed impossibly far.

Josseran’s pony was galloping at breakneck speed across the uneven ground. His charge across the valley had taken him almost into the path of two of Sartaq’s troopers; he was almost close enough to touch them. He saw the rider nearest him raise his bow to his shoulder and take aim.

Josseran swung wildly with his sword, an act of desperation. The blade slashed across the rump of the bowman’s mount. The pony screamed and swerved, throwing his rider’s aim. As Josseran spurred alongside him the bowman looked over his shoulder, his face twisted in anger and surprise.

Josseran swept sideways with the butt of his sword and knocked him from his horse.

Just a hundred paces from the tree line now. Khutelun knew she could lose her pursuers there.

And then her horse staggered and went down, hard.

A
NGRY
M
AN HEARD
a shout behind him and twisted around in the saddle. The barbarian! What was he doing here? He should be safe away from the battle on the other side of the valley.

‘Help me!’ Josseran shouted and sagged in the saddle, clutching his chest.

‘Get away from here!’ Angry Man shouted. ‘Are you mad?’

But he stopped and wheeled around. No more than twenty paces away from him the fallen rebel lay motionless on the grass. Her horse tried to get back to its feet, but finally surrendered to the pain and lay her head down on the grass, exhausted. Satisfied he would not lose his quarry, Angry Man trotted back down the slope. The barbarian cried out again and clutched at his horse’s mane to keep from falling from the saddle.

‘What are you doing here?’ Angry Man shouted at him.

‘Help me . . .’

‘Where are you hurt?’ He grabbed Josseran’s coat in his fist, jerking him upright in the saddle.

Josseran struck him full in the face with his right fist.

Angry Man fell heavily on his back, and lay there, stunned and only half-conscious, blood pouring from his nose.

‘Remember, surprise and feint,’ Josseran said. ‘Your greatest weapons.’

He slapped Angry Man’s mount hard on the rump and sent it cantering away down the mountain. He spurred his own yellow stallion up the slope after Khutelun.

Her mare lay on its side, in its death throes. There was an arrow in
the animal’s shoulder, another in her belly, yet another in her rump. Blood was streaked along her heaving flank. Finally she lay still, eyes wide in death.

Khutelun lay just a few paces away from her. She clutched at her ankle, slowly easing herself to a sitting position. So, she thought. This is my day to die.

She heard the thunder of hooves and saw another of Sartaq’s cavalrymen spurring up the slope towards her. One of Alghu’s irregulars by the look of him, in his brown furs and felt boots. She found her sword in the grass and struggled to her feet, ignoring the searing pain in her leg. She would not let them take her alive for their torments and their pleasure.

He stopped his horse a few paces away from her. She recognized the round eyes, and the fiery beard.
Joss-ran!

He leaned from the saddle and held out his hand. ‘Quickly!’ He pulled her up beside him.

They galloped through a dark forest of spruce and pine, following the ridge along the shoulder of the mountain. Now they were safe Josseran was overcome with the exhilaration that always came in the aftermath of a battle and he shouted aloud, relief and triumph all mixed up together. His voice echoed from the sheer walls of the gorge. From somewhere below them he heard the rushing of a river in torrent.

She turned around in the saddle and he grinned at her. But she did not answer his smile; her face was pale; there was blood seeping under the scarf. ‘Are you hurt?’

‘You should not have come back for me, Joss-ran.’

‘It was a gamble. I won.
We
won. Didn’t we?’

She did not answer him.

They left the trees, emerging into cold sunshine on a stark red ridge, bare of trees and grass. They slowed their pace. The narrow trail became a ledge skirting the edge of a ravine. Suddenly Josseran felt a cold dread settle again in his insides. Spring and the thawing of the ice had brought down an overhang and the way ahead was blocked by a mountain of boulders.

Josseran’s stallion turned up the face of the scree looking for a way through. Too steep. Its unshod hooves slipped on frost-cracked rock and lichen, and loose shale clattered away down the slope. They were trapped. There were cliffs on one side of them and a ravine on the other.

‘Leave me here,’ she said. ‘If you stay you only put yourself in danger.’

‘If they take you alive, you know what they will do.’

‘I will not let them take me alive.’

Below them he heard the rush of black water, a river swollen by the spring floods. Josseran turned his horse, thinking to find some other way around the mountain, but then he heard shouts from the tree line. Sartaq’s soldiers had found them.

Josseran saw the dull gleam of lance points, as one by one they emerged from the forest; steam rose from their horses’ flanks, ice and mud and blood stained their boots and coats. There were a score of them, most of them from Khubilai’s
kesig
, many of them his riding companions from Kashgar. He recognized Sartaq among them.

‘Go back, Joss-ran,’ Khutelun whispered.

‘I shall not leave you.’

‘Go back. It is not you they want. Leave me here.’

They were less than a hundred paces away. One of them had put his bow to his shoulder but Sartaq raised his hand and at his shouted command the man reluctantly removed the arrow from the bowstring.

‘There is a way out,’ Josseran said. He walked the yellow stallion to the edge of the cliff and stared into the foaming river.

‘You are mad,’ Khutelun said, reading his thoughts.

‘I made such a jump once before.’

‘This cliff is ten times as high. This time you will die.’

‘I may die or I may live. But if I live I will have you. Or I can die and it will make no difference for I do not wish to live without you.’ He put his arms around her waist to support her. ‘Tell me that you will marry me and live with me the rest of your days.’

‘There will be no more days.’

‘Just say it then. As a parting gift.’

‘They do not want you,’ she repeated. ‘Go back to them. You do not have to die!’

‘Every man has to die. There is no escape from it. But a lucky few have the opportunity to name the time and the place. Today is my chance. So say it! Say you will have me in marriage.’

He turned the horse to face Sartaq and his Tatars. He saw Sartaq shake his head, bewildered. Then he turned his stallion again, back towards the cliff. Sartaq realized what Josseran intended and he gave a shout of surprise and despair. Suddenly Josseran spurred his horse towards the gorge, and then they were falling, falling down towards the brutal judgement of the river.