David Cook - Horselords

Koja sat alone, staring into the ebbing light. Behind him, he could sense the creature, clawing and scrabbling its way up the hill. Its grasping hands were getting nearer, reaching for him. He wanted to turn but knew he couldn't. The fear that locked his joints had returned.

The thing had reached the top of the rock. Koja could not hear it or see it, but it was there, reaching for him. Sweat poured down his face, dripped off his fingers. Something cold and reptilian lightly brushed his shoulder.

Koja jerked awake and sat bolt upright. Hodj leaped back, terrified at the effect his simple touch had had on his master. The priest was wild-eyed and panting, his robes soaked in sweat.

Hodj stared at his master, then turned back to his work with a slight shrug. Without comment the servant brewed tea and set a cup before the priest. He then began to prepare fresh bags of churned curd. By the time Koja finished his tea, Hodj had the horses ready for the day's ride.

That day the army marched hard. The normal pattern of riding, then grazing, was broken. They stopped only once, long enough for the men to milk their mares. Hodj tended to this task while Koja took the chance to stretch his pained legs.

The respite was over all too soon. "We go!" shouted a yurtchi. Servants hastily finished their work and ran back to their horses. Almost as suddenly as they had stopped, the horsewarriors were on the march again.

By now, it was getting quite dark, but the riders continued into the night. With the sun gone, the warriors took to guiding themselves by the stars. They used the faint moonlight to pick their way along. Throughout the entire mass of men, only a few torches glittered.

Nothing shown as brightly as the khahan's camp. The great tent cart was illuminated for the first time since the journey began. Bright light shone through the doorway, blinking on and off as the door flap swayed. A swarm of quiverbearers rode around the wagon, carrying torches to light the way for messengers. The nightguards hovered in the shadows, ready to spring to their master's defense.

The army traveled long into the night. Moonlit shapes swayed close, then faded away into the darkness. The snorts of the horses and soft conversations drifted through the night. Occasionally there was a thud, followed by a bitter cry or curse and a burst of laughter as a dozing rider fell from his saddle to the amusement of his comrades. Koja lost track of time and place.

"Master, we stop. I've made your bed." Hodj's voice soaked through the fog, slowly bringing Koja back to consciousness. The sun burned brightly overhead, but the air still felt cold and thin. The pain of twenty-four hours in the saddle burned through every one of the priest's muscles, wracked his back, and twisted his hips. Slowly, his feet dragging over the ground, the lama tottered toward his bed.

The images of his latest nightmare came silently to Koja. Who is my lord? he wondered. Ogandi or Yamun?

Does it matter what I do? the priest's exhaustion-numbed mind finally asked. No, came the answer, only sleep matters. The decision made and eyes closed, Koja pitched forward, snoring almost before he hit the coverlets.

Chanar stared at the scene in front of him. A translucent image of the army, strung out over dusty hills, filled the center of the tent. Bayalun stood, half-hidden by the moving images on the opposite side of the yurt. Between them was a small glowing crystal, the source of the magical scene. "So, Bayalun, Yamun's reached Orkhon Oasis. There-you can tell by the cairn next to the spring. Is it time?"

"Not yet. We cannot be too obvious," the second empress cautioned. "If we strike now, the suspicion will fall on me and everything will be undone. Now that we're out of the deadlands, we can watch them closely. When the right time comes-a battle or something else-then my agent will act." She walked through the image to Chanar's side and placed her hand lightly on his chest. "Patience, brave general. Patience will reward us."

Chanar's eyes moved from the mighty army before him to Bayalun and back again. He bit his lip to restrain his impatient desire.

"Soon, very soon," Bayalun assured him. "Until then, have patience."

"Master" Hodj said softly in his nasal voice. "Master, the khahan wishes to see you."

Koja opened his eyes and discovered that he was looking at a broad field of night stars. He blinked and scanned the sky. In one direction the scintillating points swept as far as he could see. Looking the other way, the lights were blocked by a silver-black range of peaks, mountains outlined by the light of the waning moon.

"Lord Yamun summons you, master," Hodj repeated.

"I hear, Hodj," Koja answered. With his arms, he slowly pushed himself up. His shoulders and back were stiff and pained, but not anything like the agony he had felt earlier. Still, he didn't think he'd be leaping and dancing about for a while. In fact, moving with as little bending as possible seemed like a good idea.

"Help me up."

Hodj slid an arm around the priest and pulled the thin lama to his feet. Koja wavered there unsteadily, lightly testing his weight on each leg before releasing the servant. Satisfied that his knees were not going to buckle underneath him, Koja took a few steps to gently stretch his cramped muscles. While he did so, Hodj hurried into the yurt to fetch clean clothes.

It took Koja a little while to realize this camp was different. His yurt was raised. He turned in a circle, looking over the camp. All around were shadowy, moonlit domes, the rounded shapes of the felt tents. Small welcoming fires blazed on the dusty prairie among the tents. Short, squat, Tuigan men wandered among the fires.

Drifting through the night came the wail of a band of musicians, the scraping notes of the khuur and the rhythmic rattle of a yak-hide drum. A singer suddenly added to the cacophony, wailing in the two-voice style peculiar to the steppe. Somehow the man produced both a low, nasal drone and a high-pitched chant at the same time. Koja was glad the musicians were some distance away, as he had not yet learned to appreciate the finer points of Tuigan music. It all sounded like the screeching of evil spirits, or at least what Koja thought evil spirits sounded like, since he had never really heard any screech.

Hodj came out of the tent with Koja's bright orange silk robe, which the priest had packed away for the journey. Although he found his master's insistence on clean clothing odd, Hodj tried to do his best to fulfill the priest's wishes. He helped Koja pull the robe on over his travel-stained garments. It was too cold to take them off, even though the clothes were caked in dried sweat, dust, and grease. Finally somewhat presentable, the priest set out for Yamun's tent.

On his way there, Koja noticed that the soldiers seemed in a very different mood this night. On the surface they were happy and cheerful, but the priest sensed a grim and resolute mood underneath. Around many of the fires, men sprawled against their saddles, drinking ladles of kumiss and swapping stories. At one fire, a thick-mustached trooper held his sword between his legs and scraped along its length with his honing stone. A bright glint of metal caught the priest's eye at another fire. There, another soldier sat cross-legged, a suit of armor stretched out in front of him. It was a fine piece of workmanship, with the same cut as the man's kalat but made of overlapping scales of polished steel. He was carefully checking it over, testing the strength of the stitching that held each metal scale to the thick leather backing.

Yamun's camp was larger and more elaborate than the previous night's. The tent-wagon was gone and, instead, Yamun's white-chalked yurt had been raised. The khahan's standard stood next to it. Nearby was another tent, almost as large, patterned with black and white stripes. A smaller standard, unfamiliar to Koja-a pole topped with a silver crescent and a human skull-stood outside its door. There were more nightguards present than usual, all in full Tuigan-style armor and tensely alert.