Shadow of the Horsemen (Kalie's Journey)

by Sandra Saidak

  Chapter 29

  For three days, Kalie sat in her tent made her new weapons.

  She had changed her clothes, and gave what she had worn during the rape to one of the servants. But for three days, she did not change the new set, nor did she comb her hair, bathe, or acknowledge anyone in the tent unless she had to.

  Kalie knew that people were looking at her strangely. In rare moments of clarity, she even admitted that many were worried about her; that they wanted to help. But she couldn’t dwell on that. If she did, she might remember what happened at the spring, and try to confide in one of them. And time was too short for that: already final preparations were underway for breaking camp and moving west.

  The Serpent Fangs, as Kalie had named her weapon, had to be ready before that happened.

  On the morning of the third day, someone scratched at the tent door. Kalie was alone in the tent, so she ignored it, and continued with her work. A shaft of sunlight, quickly blocked, surprised her. Against all custom and good manners, Brenia was entering a tent without leave from its mistress. Then she turned back, pulled a heavy basket after her, and let the tent flap close behind her.

  Kalie started to tell her to go away, but one look at her friend and the words died on her lips. The swelling on Brenia’s face had gone down, leaving it a mass of yellow-purple bruises. But she could see, and her eyes shone with a grim determination.

  “You would not leave me in my darkest hour,” the horsewoman said simply. “I will not leave you in yours. So don’t bother telling me to leave.”

  Kalie nodded, trying to find a balance between anger and gratitude. “What have you brought?” she asked, nodding to the basket.

  “Some tea to make you feel better. And a bath, which you sorely need.” Brenia wrinkled her nose and withdrew from the basket the now familiar packets of cypress, cedar and frankincense that the women of the tribe used for bathing.

  Kalie thought about arguing, but found she really didn’t want to. So she let Brenia remove her garments, and apply the fragrant paste to Kalie’s body. Brenia worked gently and efficiently, and to Kalie’s relief, without speaking. Kalie had expected Brenia to ask questions or offer advice, but her sister-by-marriage did neither, and much to her surprise, Kalie found herself feeling better.

  Finally, when Brenia was rubbing Kalie down with a piece of rough felt, and Kalie’s skin felt clean and tingly, Brenia said, “Riyik will not blame you for what Haraak did. He will not love you any less.”

  Kalie was about to ask how Brenia knew, or who else might, then decided it didn’t matter. She only knew that hearing the words made her feel better, and, more importantly, she believed them.

  But still she asked: “How can you know? How can any woman?”

  “I know because he is my brother. That is perhaps a stronger bond than most. Certainly more than what most marriages share. But what you have is special. More, I think than what Riyik had with Yalina. Don’t let your hatred of this place destroy that.”

  A tear slid unnoticed down Kalie’s face. “I don’t hate everything about this place,” Kalie said, surprising herself. “I have found more to love here than I ever thought possible. But why risk loving anything when men like Haraak can take it away in a heartbeat?”

  “Because to refuse what few good things there are in life is to choose death,” Brenia said simply. “But I have known many good things in my life, and I have decided that a few is not enough. And that is why I am coming with you when you leave.”

  Kalie’s heart leapt. “You will steal your son from his father? Against all law and custom?”

  “Yes.”

  “You will give up your fight for Hysaak? Your chance for revenge against Elka?”

  Brenia was silent for a long time. Then she lifted her ravaged face to Kalie and said, “I’ve decided that when a woman steals your husband, sometimes the best revenge of all is to let her keep him.” Her lips twisted into a mischievous smile.

  And for the first time in three days, Kalie smiled too.

  The next day, slaves from Cassia’s tent came with tearful pleas and desperate tugs at her clothing. Kalie followed them out, more to stop their whining than out of any interest in what Cassia wanted. After so long inside the tent, the bright sunlight was blinding. As Kalie walked, she felt as if all eyes were on her; as if they could see her shame.

  Maalke was away, thankfully, when Kalie and the slaves reached the tent. Cassia was clutching her son and praying softly.

  “Help him,” she whispered, when Kalie crawled through the low opening into the place that had been her home more than eight moonspans. She had to fight a rising sense of panic that she would not be allowed to leave.

  “What’s wrong?” Kalie asked, wishing she were anyplace else. Cassia held the baby to her, and Kalie got the answer at once as she took in the baby’s bluish color and weak breathing. Since his birth, she had suspected Enak’s lungs were not strong enough to keep him alive for long. A twinge of emotion fought free from where she had locked it, as she thought of Cassia’s pain at the loss of her only child.

  “Please,” Cassia said, her voice hoarse with fear. “You must save him. I will give you anything!”

  The shield—or possibly madness—that had protected Kalie these last four days crumbled under the baby’s plight and the mother’s desperation. “Sage,” she said. “Do you have any?”

  While one of the slave girls hurried to get some, Kalie shifted the baby’s position to better encourage breathing and began to massage his chest. “Couldn’t Alessa do anything for him while she was here? Her skills are so much greater than mine, I had thought that surely—“

  Cassia’s lips became a bitter line in her face. “She never even saw him. Maalke quarreled with her master the day she was to come and would allow no one from Nelek’s household into our tent.”

  Kalie sighed but said nothing. When the sage arrived, she crushed it into the coals of the brazier and poured onto them a measure of water. Carefully, she held the infant over the brazier, out of range of the heat, but close enough for the herb-laden steam to reach into his nose.

  Almost immediately, his breathing became easier and his color improved.

  But she knew it was only temporary.

  From the look on Cassia’s face, Kalie knew that she knew it too. “I promised you whatever you wanted,” she told Kalie. “Yet we both know there’s little I can give that you would want. I promise the gods the same thing, but what do they care about the pleadings of a woman? I suppose there’s nothing more pathetic than a mother’s struggle to save her child.”

  Kalie laughed bitterly at Cassia last words. “I would have said there’s nothing more noble.”

  “You can’t have nobility without power,” Cassia said sadly.

  “You may have more power than you know,” Kalie muttered under her breath.

  “What did you say?”

  Kalie was already turning to go, but she stopped and looked back at Cassia. Suddenly she asked, “How far would you go to save Enak?”

  Cassia only stared at Kalie, as if willing her to explain herself.

  “Would you leave all this?” Kalie gestured to the tent and everything in it. “Would you cross the steppes alone? Would you travel all the way to my homeland, where the healing magic exists that could save your son?”

  Cassia snorted. “I’m going to do that anyway in a few days’ time. Maalke says we’ll be there before winter and we shall own all the land before spring. But I fear Enak will not survive the journey.” She made the sign against evil as she spoke.

  “Even if he did, you might have trouble finding a healer for him after your men kill them all and burn their medicines!” she said brutally.

  “Then why bring it up in the first place?” Cassia demanded angrily.

  “I was just wondering…” Kalie shook her head in frustration. What was she wondering? If the suffering of innocent people would ever begin to matter to Cassia? “If you would give up all you’ve ever known; chan
ge who you were and adopt a new way of live, if doing so would save your son.”

  “As we once thought you would change?” Cassia asked, too shrewdly.

  “Keep Enak where he can breathe in the steam until morning. Give him hyssop tea before he sleeps and when he wakes up.” She hurried out of the tent without waiting to be dismissed.

  It was only on her way back to Riyik’s tent that Kalie noticed the small but certain change in the activity of the camp. Tucked into the usual bustle of women and children and even men preparing a camp for departure, were the furtive sights of busy hands splitting bones and twisting the splinters into little sharp stars.

  In the doorway of a large tent, where a large woman stood shouting at a cowering slave girl, the slave next to her sat impassively, shaping a sphere of splintered bone.

  Another woman sat telling her children a story as she made similar shapes from bones, nodding approvingly when her oldest daughter took a piece and clumsily began to copy her actions. Kalie kept walking, but thought for a moment she heard the word “Goddess” in the woman’s tale.

  And by the midden, an old woman, recently cast out by an angry husband to live as a Shadow Woman, knelt in the filth, humming to herself as she arranged the pile of bones she had gathered by length and shape.

  “I truly have gone mad,” Kalie muttered. “I’m seeing things that cannot be.” Then she passed by the grand tent of a clan chief, and saw old Danica standing in the doorway, as straight and proud as any warrior, directing her slaves in the gathering and sorting of bones. Sarika and two others knelt inside where the light was the best, a growing pile of Serpent Fangs beside them. As Kalie passed by, Danica smiled at her, a light of grim determination in her eyes.

  And Kalie knew she was not imagining things. But what was going on so defied her imagination she might as well be.

  When she reached the tent, Riyik was waiting for her. He was alone.

  “Where are the others,” Kalie asked seating herself opposite her husband, beside the brazier where the coals were still hot and her cooking knives close at hand in case she should need them.

  “Varena has taken Yarik out for exercise, and the serving women have gone to the midden to gather bones. For stew, they said.”

  Kalie noticed that Riyik no longer referred to them as slaves.

  “You have not been yourself these last few days,” Riyik said.

  “Are you sure?” Kalie countered.

  Riyik had been about to speak again, but stopped. Uncertainly creased his handsome features. “What do you mean?”

  “Can you honestly say you know who I am well enough to know when I am not?”

  Riyik honored her by considering her words and nothing else for at least one hundred heart beats. Then he said, “No, I cannot say that I do. But I can see that something is wrong. And I am asking you, as your husband—as your friend—to tell me what it is.”

  If he had left it as husband, Kalie could have assumed the guise of a horsewoman and come up with a convincing lie. But Riyik had asked her as a friend, and he had proved himself one time and again. Even if the truth destroyed their friendship—or their marriage—Kalie knew she had to tell him.

  “Before I speak, Riyik, you must give me your word as a warrior of Aahk that you will hear all that I have to say, and not leave this tent until I am finished.”

  She saw the tension coil the ropes of strong muscle beneath his skin and his eyes darken as though his worst fears had just been confirmed. But he nodded and said, “I swear in the name of Aahk and by my honor as His warrior that I will listen to all you say and not depart this tent until you give me leave.”

  That was more than she had asked for, but it did not make beginning any easier. Her mouth suddenly dry, Kalie took a drink from the water skin at her waist, stopping to look at it for the first time in a long while. Riyik had made this for her while she still thought of him as her enemy. She took another drink.

  “Four days ago I went out from camp to be alone by a spring I know of. Haraak followed me there and raped me.” Riyik’s hand shot out to grasp his spear. He seemed about to leap up, but stayed where he was, though the effort cost him. Kalie pushed on. “I was foolish; I should have known he would learn of all I was doing to thwart his plans. But I thought I was being so clever, and…” Kalie’s breath caught in her throat. She controlled the tears that threatened and continued. “I allowed rumors of his impotence to convince me I was safe from that particular form of revenge.”

  “Why did you not tell me?” Riyik’s voice was barely audible.

  Kalie fell silent. She had thought of little else since that day, yet now…

  “You already know why, Riyik. I could tell you Haraak’s threats word for word, but…you already know.” Riyik nodded, but did not seem inclined to speak, so Kalie did. “If I told you, I had to risk losing you in combat with Haraak. And I had to risk the possibility that you would not believe me.” Riyik’s head shot up, a look of such hurt on his face that she fairly shouted what should have been the truth. “I knew you would believe me! I know you are not like the others of your kind! But I couldn’t risk him killing you!”

  “Do you think so little of my skill as a warrior?” Riyik demanded.

  “I think too highly of your honor, Riyik. You are the better warrior, but you would have fought fairly. Do you believe for an instant that Haraak would have?”

  Riyik looked away. Kalie pressed her point. “Had he killed you, I would have been his. For the rest of my life, he could have done to me what he did by the spring, and no one would have called it rape. And he would have done it to Varena too.”

  Riyik’s knuckles shone white where he gripped the spear. “You still should have trusted me,” he whispered.

  “Yes, I should have,” Kalie said sadly, suddenly wishing she could bridge the gap between them.

  “I will kill Haraak,” Riyik said, more calmly. “And I will do it without putting you or Varena at risk of falling into his hands.”

  “You will not challenge him, then?”

  “As you pointed out, that is what he is counting on.”

  Kalie began to relax then. Yes, she should have known Riyik would not be like the other men here. With the easing of tension, came a clearing of her mind. “Killing you was always part of Haraak’s plan,” she said. “Even before he chose to use me as the means. Why?”

  Suddenly Riyik looked embarrassed. “I fear he has learned of my plans, as well. Not the part about going west with you, though that is the hardest part. I promised to take you home; to live there with you if your people would accept me. I have come to realize now that I cannot.”

  Kalie had never expected Riyik to come home with her. Yet now she felt as if her heart had been ripped from her chest. I can’t do this without you! she wanted to shout. Instead she took his hand and squeezed it lightly, as one friend offering another support. “What has happened?”

  “I found many followers willing to travel west with us. Men who did not fit in to this life; men who were sick of the corruption and dishonor that Haraak and his kind have brought to our land; men who just wanted the adventure of new sights and new ways. Then, as I got to know them better, I saw they were a more diverse mix than I realized. Like spring water contaminated by dirt and sand. If you set the cup down and wait long enough, the pure water rises to the top, and the sand and grit settles on the bottom.

  “I began to see them as two camps. One consists of men who want to come, but should not. Oh, they listen well enough when I explain what this new life will entail. They say they are eager to meet women who speak their minds and men who have skills at things other than war. But beneath that I sense…”

  “Men of little status on the steppes, who dream of carving out their own kingdoms in a land of easy pickings?”

  Riyik looked startled. Then he laughed ruefully. “I guess you saw all that before I did. Before I even chose them.”

  “I feared it,” Kalie said. “But what of the other camp? Those that a
re the water which rises to the top?”

  “They are men who would make your world proud to ally with the warriors of Aahk. They would teach your people to defend themselves, and die in their defense. But they—we—have all agreed that our duty to our own comes first. We cannot travel west until we have cleansed our tribe of the corruption that poisons it and set it once more on the path of honor.”

  Kalie remembered the day Riyik had offered to go west with her. She had known then that he could not leave his countrymen in the hands of a man like Haraak, and she had been right. That didn’t make hearing it any easier.

  She found she was still holding Riyik’s hand. He lifted hers to his lips. “I love you Kalie. In ways I have never loved anyone. But if I left with you now, I would always know myself for a coward and an oath-breaker. I could never become the kind of man your people could accept, or the husband you deserve.”

  “I know, Riyik. And that is part of why I love you.” With a startled look, they both realized that she had finally said it. She wasn’t sorry.

  “What of the alliance?” she asked. What was left of it, anyway. “And who will be king of the tribe of Aahk?”

  “Reasonable questions. And they create more problems. If we stay on the steppes, and the alliance remains, we will be strong; strong enough, perhaps, to survive the winter, and the hard times beyond.

  “If the alliance fails—and many among us think that it should, that the times ahead are a test by our own gods, for us alone—who knows how many of us will survive the winter? But those who do…they will be like a spear, tempered by fire. Like a fine tool, shaved to its core…” Again Riyik stared at things only he could see.

  “And the new king?” Kalie prompted.

  Riyik brought his full attention back to her. “Some say it should be me.” He looked searchingly at Kalie.

  She was looking for an appropriate reply when a wave of laughter took her. Riyik seemed more puzzled than angry, and when Kalie could finally speak again, she hastened to explain. “What a system of government you people have! You would indeed make the best of kings, my love, but you fear you are not worthy and that the job will corrupt you. Yet of course, that is why it must be you! In this land, only someone who does not want the job is right for it, while those want it are made unfit by the very qualities that make them seek it in the first place!”