Jaran

by Kate Elliott

  “Leave us,” he commanded. Vasil left without a word. Mikhailov lit a lantern and then twitched the entrance flap down with his free hand. The other hand still gripped his crutch. “Yes,” he said, following her eyes to the crutch. “You nearly cut my leg off. I’ll have this hurt for the rest of my life.”

  “Why do you want to kill him?” she asked. The lantern cast shadows high on the dim, sloping walls.

  His mouth was an angled line, like the edge of shadow. “I don’t know that you can understand the complexities of the jaran. His reputation hurts mine. His greatness lessens all. His peace enslaves us to his will. He has great notions, our Bakhtiian, but he will kill us as surely as he saves us.”

  “The old ways must give way before the new,” said Tess quietly. She had a sudden, fierce vision of Charles’s face, still and shadowed, knowing as he must that in time, whether years or centuries, whether in his lifetime or his descendants’, this sanctuary that was Rhui would be breached and flooded, its culture obliterated by the wave of progress brought down from the stars. “But even if you kill Bakhtiian, it will still happen. You are a thousand tribes, and a thousand thousand families, and the lands of the khaja stretch all around you. Another man will come to the jaran, and he will lead them into war against the settled lands.”

  Mikhailov limped over to her, grabbed her shoulders, and jerked her to her feet. He was very strong, and he could stand quite well without the crutch. “Are you a prophet?” he asked, not mocking at all. “Is that why Bakhtiian married you, a holy woman?”

  “Oh, I’m many things, but not a prophet, I don’t think. Let me go, Mikhailov, let me go free, and I’ll see that your family and your riders are forgiven all this.”

  “Not myself?” He smiled.

  “No,” she said even more softly. “You killed my brother.”

  His eyes were a deep blue, deeper than any she had seen, almost green, like the sea. He muttered an oath and let her go. She fell in a heap onto the pillows.

  “Even if what you say is true, I will be dead and burned. But I swore by the gods and by my honor that I would not let Bakhtiian destroy my people while I yet lived. And if your brother died, then only remember, that is the price every sister will pay for Bakhtiian’s dreams.”

  He blew out the lantern and left her in darkness. It was true, of course. Where Bakhtiian commanded, men died. It was true of Charles as well, and if he acted on the information she had given him in the Mushai’s cylinder, many more, humans and Chapalii, would die. And, of course, he would act on that information. He had to.

  “If there is no one to check him, then what will happen to him, and to us?” If she stayed, would Ilya return to the plains and live out his life in peace and quiet, for her? Almost she could laugh at the absurdity of it. Another man would come, another Bakhtiian, another Charles.

  And yet together with them, fires would burn in the night and families would gather and bonds be forged based on duty and loyalty and love. A family would take in an orphan, friends would clasp hands, and a man and a woman would come to know and love one another. How could both these things, death and life, hatred and loyalty, killing and love, exist at the same time? There was no good answer. There never was.

  She pulled up her knees and struggled to untie her ankles, but it was hard to see and her bonds were tight. A breath of wind stirred the tent, moving along the walls, and then abruptly light glared in on her and was as suddenly extinguished.

  A hand caught her chin, and a man kissed her on the mouth. She rolled away from him. He laughed and lit a lantern.

  “You have fire in you,” said Vasil. “I can taste it.”

  “How dare you!”

  “Because I am more a part of Ilya than you can understand, Tess.” He knelt beside her and cut her loose with his knife. “Here are some jahar clothes. You can probably get out of camp without being noticed. You can take the knife but not my saber, I fear. I’ll need it.”

  “Why? Turn around.” Obediently, he turned his back to her, and she slipped into the inner chamber and changed quickly, hooking the curtain back just enough that she could see him. “Why?” she repeated, stripping off her tunic. “You brought me here.”

  “Yes, I brought you here. But now I see it was a mistake. I can’t protect you. Mikhailov will let Vera kill you, or she will find a way to kill you in the confusion of the battle.”

  “That still doesn’t explain why.”

  “You can’t understand. So long as I thought Ilya had never and would never marry because he loved me, so long as I thought that he banished me from his jahar only because he wanted his war more than he wanted me and did it selfishly, knowing the jaran would never follow him believing there might be something between us, so long as that, I could want him dead. But he rode with you down the Avenue.” He laughed again. “Why do you suppose it never occurred to me that he never really loved me except when we were boys, that he had simply not yet found a woman to match him? That he banished me because I forced him to make that choice?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think the answer is that easy.” She pulled on the black trousers. They fit her well enough, once the red shirt was tucked in and belted. “And he would never give up his war for me either.”

  “No, but you wouldn’t ask him to.”

  “Did you? My God, that took a lot of nerve.”

  “Yes, but then, I’m very beautiful, you know.” He turned. “Here is the knife.” He tossed it to her casually but not without malice. She caught it deftly. “Cut out his heart, if it hasn’t all burnt away by now. But leave a corner for me.”

  “Thank you, Vasil.”

  “Oh,” he said with a smile that made him look uncannily like his sister, “I wish you joy of him. Go.”

  She walked past him to the flap and thence out under the awning, not looking back. Men and women moved below, striking the camp. She walked swiftly over the crest of the rise and turned back along it toward the high ridge. Then she ran until she could break into the trees. She had no idea, really, what she ought to do, except that once Mikhailov left this camp, someone, some scout, even Bakhtiian’s entire force, would track him here. And find her waiting. She hiked out of the trees, which gave scant cover, and scrambled up along a ridge of rock to the top of the height.

  There she turned to survey Mikhailov’s camp. Far below, Vasil walked through the camp. Karolla ran up to him and took his arm. He shifted to answer her, then froze, and his face lifted suddenly and he stared.

  Beyond the hollow the sun spread like a flow of water from the crests of hills. Looking out along Vasil’s line of sight, past the hill that marked the other end of the valley, Tess saw a solitary rider emerge on the lit swell of a far rise. He sat there for the space of ten heartbeats before a man shouted off to her right, and the other sentry left his post, running into camp. The rider urged his horse forward.

  “Oh, God,” whispered Tess.

  Men emerged from tents. Horses were saddled. Movement flooded toward the end of the valley where he was about to enter. Alone.

  She should have stayed in the tent. At least she had a knife. She had never imagined he would ride in alone, just for her.

  The sun illuminated Bakhtiian as he crested the last hill and came down the final slope. Men surrounded his horse. Four riders closed in around him. Mikhailov limped out from the crowd. Taking the horse’s reins, he led Bakhtiian through the camp as if he were a king. It was very quiet.

  Quietest of all when they drew up next to Vasil, who had not moved. Something communicated but not spoken passed between them, the dark man tall on his horse and the fair man staring up at him. Tess thought, that is how it has always been between them.

  Vasil stepped forward. He had a hand on his saber but it was his other hand that lifted. He grasped Ilya’s fingers, lifted the dark man’s hand to his lips, and kissed it. Mikhailov said something. For a moment no one moved. Vasil let go of Bakhtiian’s hand and Mikhailov led the horse on. Vasil did not follow. They were halfway th
rough camp, people dropping away from the main escort, heading toward Mikhailov’s tent, before Tess realized where they were going and that they would not find her there.

  “You idiot,” she said aloud. She pushed herself forward and slid along the loose rock. Pebbles slipped and tumbled out from under her boots, and she fell, sitting hard on the stones.

  Out on the plain, riders came.

  A jahar rode in. To its right, a second. To the left, more men rode, their shirts brilliant against the dull grass. In an instant she would hear their cries. In an instant they would reach the camp. But they would never find Ilya in time. She saw neither Bakhtiian nor Mikhailov below. She impelled herself forward, sliding and scrambling down the slope.

  She reached the trees just as the first wave of riders hit. She pushed through, thrusting aside branches without care that they snapped back to whip her face. A woman screamed. Men shouted. Metal rang on metal. She burst out of the copse and ran for the camp—to be almost trampled by a knot of horses. She flung herself aside. A horse pulled up beside her, and she looked up to see Vasil. Blood painted his face, and stained his side and one leg.

  “Veselov, come on. We’re going,” shouted one of the men ahead of him, reining in a half-wild horse.

  “I told you I was a coward,” said Vasil. “But I love my life too well.”

  “Vasil, where did he go?”

  “To Mikhailov’s tent.” He offered her his saber. When she took it, he gave her a brief, bitter smile and rode on, away from the fight.

  Tess ran. The world dissolved into confusion. She dove to one side to avoid the trampling hooves of a line of horses. One of the animals, pressed too close to a tent, caught a leg in the ropes. The horse stumbled, throwing the rider off its neck. The tent shuddered and collapsed. Tess scrambled past it and ran on.

  Two horseless men dueled, an eddy in the current rushing around them. Three women, a child sheltered between them, huddled against the wall of a tent. A sudden shove pitched Tess to her knees, and she ducked her head, flinging up her saber, as a horse galloped past. No blow came. Ten steps from her a man lay groaning. Blood bubbled from his mouth.

  She struggled on. She felt as if she were fighting upstream. Her lungs stung. Riders galloped past. Men ran in twos and threes. Mikhailov’s daughter stared at her, pale-eyed, from the sanctity of a tent. She got a moment’s glimpse of Vladimir, mounted, cutting through a clump of horsemen, his saber tracing an intricate pattern through their midst. Beneath the shouting and the cries of the wounded, she heard the constant, anguished sobbing of a woman. A man cursed, shrill and fluent. There was a confusion of shouting: “Break right; fall back; Tasha, to me, to me.”

  Then she was beyond the fighting. Mikhailov’s tent stood alone before her. With her saber leading, she charged up the hill. She could hear voices from inside the tent. A shout. She was almost there. Her breath came in ragged gasps.

  A man cried out. Something hit the side of the tent. Then a saber, thrust with murderous force, ripped through the tent to gleam for a single, dull moment in the afternoon sun.

  They seemed to be there a year, she and the bloodstained saber, frozen together. It was withdrawn. The form of a body slid down the inside of the tent wall.

  Dead.

  Far below, a man screamed in agony.

  Tess flung herself to the entrance, jerked aside the frayed tent flap, saber raised. Shadows obscured the body slumped against the tent wall. A dark stain spread out on the light rug beneath the limp, tumbled form. The killer stood with his back to her, stiff with tension, arm pulled back as if for another strike, his fingers gripped to whiteness around the hilt.

  She took a step. The flap rustled down behind her. He turned and without a break lunged toward her.

  His movement halted as suddenly as if rope had brought him up short. The saber fell from his hand. She froze.

  He said in the barest whisper: “Tess.”

  She took a single step toward him. Another. With a slight, inarticulate cry, she dropped her saber and ran into him.

  Even at this short distance, he had to take two steps backward to counterbalance the force of their meeting. He had no chance to say anything more because she was kissing him. At first randomly, a cheek, an eye, whatever presented itself, but when he regained his footing he pulled her tight against him and returned her kiss.

  Reality existed where their bodies touched, and where they touched, it was as if they were melding, as earth dissolves into the sea and that, evaporating into air, kindles to fire. He murmured something indistinguishable and kissed her along the curve of her jaw to her neck, to her throat. She pulled his head back and kissed him on the mouth again. What other substance could there be in the world, at this moment, but him? And all of him fire.

  She felt his attention shift away from her, and he broke away and grabbed for a saber. She dropped to her knees and picked up Vasil’s saber and rose to stand beside him.

  “Bakhtiian!”

  They both relaxed. “Niko,” he said. “I’m safe.” His gaze returned to her face, a look comprised of equal parts hunger and disbelief. From outside came a muffled command and the sound of horses riding away.

  The tent flap was swept aside. Niko strode in, halting just past the entrance. Josef and Tasha screened the daylight behind him. “Ilya. Tess! Thank the gods!” His eyes shifted to the slumped form. “So Mikhailov didn’t get away.”

  “Get rid of it,” said Ilya. Without a word, Josef and Tasha carried the body out.

  “The battle is won, Mikhailov’s riders are dead or wounded. A few got away. We need some decision. There’s wounded to be considered, and the camp is already half struck. Anton Veselov thinks—”

  “We’ll stay the night,” said Ilya. “There’s a fire to be built.”

  “Yes,” agreed Niko, “but we can leave a few riders to watch over the pyre while the rest—”

  “Niko,” said Tess. “Go away.”

  An infinitesimal pause. Niko’s gaze came to rest on Tess. He began to speak, looking back at Ilya, but only a meaningless syllable came out. A longer pause as he watched Ilya, whose gaze had not strayed from Tess, some invisible line connecting them down which their gazes were impelled to travel.

  “Yes,” said Niko. “I can see that I have overstayed my welcome.” Then he grinned and retreated quickly, pulling the tent flap shut as he left.

  Outside, men called out, horses neighed, a woman sobbed. Already the first faint smell of ulyan reached them, but it was something far outside her, the sun seen from a brightly lit room. She felt him, a presence palpable as heat.

  Into their silence, he said smoothly, “Where did you get that imperious tone of voice?”

  “From you.” She set down the saber, picked up the lantern, and walked into the inner chamber. He followed her, halting where his boot came to rest against a pillow. The lantern limned him in light where he stood facing her.

  “Tess,” he said softly. “You’re trembling.”

  “How could you have been so stupid? I thought he killed you. You idiot. Why did you ride in here alone?”

  “I took the chance that once they saw me, they would forget for just long enough that I had a jahar behind me.”

  “My God, you’re arrogant.”

  Even shaded as he was, she could see the intensity of his eyes. “Is that what you think of me?” he asked.

  She felt an intangible swelling within her, a tangle of anger, of wild-eyed hope, of exultation. And she felt despair, knowing he would someday far too soon die. “You know what I think of you, damn you.”

  If laughter could be noiseless, could be the set of a body changing, a stance, an arm shifted sideways, she would have said he laughed. At the same moment she became acutely aware of his body, of its sensuality of line, of the curve of his jaw, the cut of his trousers over his hips, the slight caressing lift of the fingers of the hand nearest her, like an enticement. One side of his mouth tugged up into a half-smile. “Gods, Tess,” he said, and everything about
him changed. “How you hate it when I’m right.”

  Four steps took him into her arms.

  He was asleep when she woke. The lantern still burned. It was as silent as death outside. The dim glow on his face gave him a luminous tinge, as if their lovemaking had sparked some smoldering center within him that now flamed forth, investing him in light. She shifted to pillow her head on his shoulder. He woke.

  “You’re all lit,” he murmured, gazing raptly at her. His hand brushed up to her cheek, tracing the line of her jaw, and then as if with a will of its own slid down to the soft rise of her breasts. “I love you.”

  Tess smiled.

  He kissed her.

  They rolled, and their legs got tangled in a blanket. As he sat up to free them, he paused. With the swiftness of intimacy, she felt his attention focus away from her. From outside, she heard a cough and the murmur of words exchanged.

  “Let me go check outside,” he said, standing. Divested of clothing, his body had a simplicity of line that illuminated the grace and slender power of his build.

  Tess watched him walk, entirely unself-conscious of his own beauty, to the curtain. “You’re a very pleasing sight, my husband, but don’t you think you should put something on?”

  He laughed and let her toss him a pair of trousers, which he slipped on. The cloth partition swayed as he pushed past it. She heard his footfalls on the rugs beyond.

  Alone, she became suddenly aware that they were in Mikhailov’s tent—or his daughter’s tent, or his wife’s—did Mikhailov even have a wife? She sat up, pushing the blankets aside, and sorted through the clothing strewn in their haste across the rug, folding what she recognized and stacking it to one side. A sleeping pallet and pillows, and along one wall a pair of boots neither hers nor Ilya’s, together with a stoppered leather flask, a wooden bowl and two cups inlaid with bone and silver, and an old, faded weaving folded into a neat square; that was all. No other possessions, nothing marking what woman lived here, or why this tent had come into Mikhailov’s keeping.