Until the Sun Falls

by Cecelia Holland

  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 throu
gh 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.

  Russian voices howled, growing nearer. Tshant had been in the last rank of his column. He scrambled up the bank; his men were racing away, and the Russians, spread out, their armor flashing in the sun, saw him and whooped and threw lances.

  “Father!”

  Djela was galloping toward him, beating his horse with his bow. A lance rattled across the crusted snow between him and Tshant. Djela crouched over his horse’s withers. Far down the river, the Mongols were swinging to charge back. Djela’s horse sat down right before Tshant, and he caught mane in one hand and his son’s belt with the other and swung up behind him.

  “They’re too close,” Djela cried. His hair whipped Tshant across the face.

  Tshant swung around. The Russians were streaking up toward them, their lances raised. One man raced well before the others. Djela’s little chestnut horse ran madly across the plain but the knights were swooping down on them. Tshant pried Djela’s bow out of his hand, grabbed an arrow, and shot back over the horse’s rump. The leading Russian fell off his horse.

  “Here come our men,” Djela called. He raised his voice. “Come on! Come on!”

  The air overhead hummed with arrows. Tshant reached in front of Djela to take the rein out of his hand. Wrapping one arm around Djela’s waist, he spun the chestnut around and charged the Russians.

  The Russians wavered. Their cries rose less triumphantly; on the flank away from the river many circled off to go home. Tshant thought they outnumbered the Mongols easily two to one. He filled his lungs and howled.

  “Eeeeeeeyyyaaaaah!”

  Arrows like narrow birds hurtled into the Russian line. Tshant nocked another of Djela’s child’s arrows to the child’s bow and shot. The chestnut swerved to avoid a corpse and thundered on. Dead men and horses sprawled across the snow. A wounded horse galloped straight for them, and Tshant slowed the chestnut; the riderless horse charged past, bugling, two arrows thrusting from its side and the blood like a banner across the snow in its track. Tshant looked over his shoulder. His men were strung out behind him in a great arc, and the arrows poured like a moving wall into the Russians. Djela squealed happily.

  The Russians were forming up again. The first storm of arrows had riddled them but they were swinging shields up, spurring their great horses forward. They bunched together like a club and drove straight for Tshant.

  With Djela before him hopping madly up and down, Tshant could not shoot. He dragged the chestnut down to a trot and his own line swept up alongside him. The stream opened up before him again. The chestnut almost fell down the bank. Djela screamed. Tshant dropped the rein, ready to jump free, but the chestnut recovered and plunged out over the ice.

  Six Russians in a wild charge bore down on them. A horse shrilled. The ground seemed to heave up under them. Tshant let go of Djela. Russian horses surrounded him. An axe flew past his ear and a salt spray wet his face. The chestnut ran into a Russian horse and staggered. Its mouth gaping, a black-bearded face swam up before Tshant, the eyes filmed over with fighting rage. Tshant drew his dagger and jumped. He caught the Russian around the neck and plunged the dagger in through one armpit. His impact carried the Russian and himself off the horse, and somehow they twisted and the Russian landed hard on top of him on the ice.

  The ice cracked. Cold water spilled over him. He thrust and kicked at the dead man, and his head went under water. The cold wrapped itself around his chest and throat. At last the Russian slid away from him. He thrust his hands over his head, toward the air, and his fingers scratched against ice.

  In his terror he almost opened his mouth and breathed water. He scrabbled at the ice over him, clawing at it. He saw nothing but blinding light and a flash of brilliant colors. His legs, milling frantically, struck the bed of the stream and he thrust himself up. His head struck the ice hard enough to daze him but one arm, outstretched, shot through the water and into the air. Ice water trickled into his lungs. He scrambled up after the arm and dragged himself over the split and bouncing ice.

  There was nobody there but Mongols, and few of them. Far away he heard shouts and a roar like a huge fire. The air against his face felt hot. He began to shiver. Suddenly he was shuddering down to his bones. His teeth rang together so hard they hurt.

  Somebody flung a cloak around him and he clutched at it with hands that would not work. The men around him were shouting about a fire and dry clothes and hot food.

  He said, “Where is my son?”

  The man before him stared a moment and shrugged helplessly.

  Tshant snatched at him. “My son. Where is my son? Damn you—”

  They caught his arms and held him still and dragged him downstream toward a fire. Their voices flowed over him like the icy river. He struggled, snarling, but they only clutched him tighter. Finally, exhausted, he let
them bring him to the fire.

  They stripped off his soaked clothes and rubbed him with snow and dried him off. He submitted. He could see the stream, the ice smashed into blocks, the gaping dark holes that gurgled and sucked at the ice. Horses and dead men strewed the ice and either bank. A head bobbed face down in one of the gaps, dark water lapping at its hair. His mind was frozen. Somebody put a bowl of warm kumiss in his hands and he drank, gulping. Somebody else pulled a woolen tunic over his head, made him stand up, and dressed him.

  “You’re lucky you aren’t dead,” Gregor said. “People who fall into Russian rivers in the winter usually die.”

  Tshant locked both hands in Gregor’s shirt front and shook him. “Where is Djela?”

  “I’m right here,” Djela said. “Ada, are you all right?”

  Tshant shut his eyes. He turned around very slowly and looked down. Djela was standing there, his red coat covered with dirt and dirty snow, chewing on a piece of dried meat. He beamed at Tshant.

  “He went after the army,” Gregor said. “The chestnut horse ran away with him, I suspect.”

  “It was fun,” Djela said.

  “Fun?” Tshant was having trouble speaking. The words forced themselves up through something thick in his throat. “When we fight, boy, you stay by me. Do you hear me?”

  “I couldn’t—”

  Tshant slapped him twice, as hard as he could. Djela fell on his back. Gregor reached out and put his hand on Tshant’s arm, and Tshant whirled. “Keep your hands off me, Russian.”

  Djela got up and stood, very stiffly, his hands at his sides. “I couldn’t stop the horse,” he said. He was trying not to cry. The mark of Tshant’s hand like a ritual scar stood out on either cheek. “I would have stayed. But you’d thrown the reins over his head and I couldn’t reach them.”

  He turned and walked away. Tshant called, “Djela.”

  Djela ignored him. He went to a fire and sat down with a group of men, and one of them handed him a bowl full of kumiss.