Tim Leach - A Winter War

Kai gave no word of command. His order was of thought, and it was answered in kind. For they were as one mind then, in the way that only those steeped in hunting and killing may know. The horses sprang forward, and their riders sounded the war song one last time, and far beyond them the Sarmatian women were charging and giving their own wordless cry of revenge.

Over the roar of the hooves and the chanting of the riders he could not hear the call of Roman horns, but he could see the man at their centre, their captain like some great god of iron in his cuirass and tall helm. Kai could see the cords on that man’s neck standing out as he screamed his orders.

Once more, the sense of falling across the land. Then the rushing crash, the awful screaming that only comes when cavalry charge against cavalry. As if the horses found it a blasphemy to kill their own, and cried out against the crime.

Kai was lost in the press for a moment – a horse rearing before him, an enemy past in the blink of an eye, the sudden pressure and the crack of an unseen blade glancing from his armour. And the hot smell of blood that filled the air, as men and horses began to die around him, the scrabble of hooves sliding upon blood and ice.

Everywhere Kai looked he saw Romans staggering, ripped off their steeds, surrounded. There were men mobbed by three or four riders at a time and hacked from their horses without giving a blow in answer. Kai saw one dragged off his horse, a lasso about his throat, disappearing beneath the kicking feet of the mob. For the Sarmatians had the numbers, the scouts and raiders of Rome were no match for them. Already it was becoming a slaughter.

The Roman captain – Kai could see him, deep within the mob. His helm had been struck off, the pale skin sheened with sweat. Their eyes met through the swirling mob, and in that moment they knew each other.

The duty of the captain to face his counterpart, a hunt that all on the field conspired towards, a parting of the bloody water to bring the two of them together. Kai knew himself as no fine swordsman and he had an unfamiliar mount beneath him, but he trusted in the weight of the horse, and he trusted in fate. The hungry gods had taken much from the Sarmatians, but they always offered recompense for what they took, a bounty paid in blood.

A space cleared. No time to think, only to strike heels to flanks and send the horse forward. The Roman was half turned away when the passage opened – he turned his horse back with an expert snap of the wrist, but he started too late. Kai had the angle, and he had the weight, a killing solved as purely as a riddle.

But something was wrong. The world was struck grey, bleached of colour like bones washed by the sea. Kai’s jaw hung slack, yet there seemed to be no air for him to breathe, a man drowning on dry land. Madness to turn aside, yet still he bore into his horse’s flanks with his knees and pulled the reins away, and the horse felt that madness and fear as though it were its own. Even over the din of battle, he could hear it screaming. And he could see the Roman looming large, close enough for Kai to see the surprise on his face. Almost a kind of regret at seeing an opponent throw away his life, even as the Roman stirred the horse forward and raised the long cavalry sword for the killing cut.

All was still. Many had been the times when Kai had felt the closeness of death, that feeling like being submerged in cold deep water. The duel with Gaevani, the battle on the ice, the endless cattle raids and bloodfeuds that had come before. Always, he had met the moment well. Always, he had remembered to be brave, but not now. He could only turn his head away, the way that cattle marked for death seem to know even when their killer stands out of sight, looking away from the blade about to fall.

There was no cold touch to his neck, no sudden numbness of hand and foot, nor the sudden silence or any other feeling that came with a terrible wound. There was only, somewhere close, a scream of man and horse.

The Roman slipping from the saddle, the red blooming from his side like the breaking of ice in a spring thaw. He pitched over the neck of the horse, arms embracing it for a moment before he tumbled to the earth, dragged by his horse until the reins slipped from unfeeling fingers. The horse skipped and turned and danced and kicked, the smell of blood in its nostrils, seeming to feel the wound of the rider itself.

Beyond the frightened horse and dying rider, he saw which of his people had struck. No war cry given, no curse or chant had he heard. For it was Laimei, a broken spear in her hand, who sat astride her horse. Utterly still, as though she could not quite believe herself what she had done.

For Arite, once the battle was over, it was as though she had woken from a trance. Her throat hoarse from shouting orders she could not remember giving, her spear marked with the blood of a man she could not remember killing.

Tomyris was still on the saddle in front of her, and she clutched the child to her. For a moment there was nothing but that warmth and closeness, the joy in living that seems to speak only through touch.

Then she remembered the others – a jolt to the heart, as she looked upon the warband who had come to their rescue. On their tamgas and banners they bore the marks of wolves and serpents, but no mark of the dragon, no sign of her people. All about her riders pulling their helms from their heads, wisps of steam rising from skin daubed with sweat, but no familiar faces that she could see.

Then a roar from nearby, and the gallop of hooves, and a terrible hope stirring. For the figure who rode towards them bore the mark of the River Dragon on his helm, and in the aftermath of the battle fever, she could almost believe that it was Bahadur. So many times before, he had ridden home to her like that. And as the rider was pulling the helm from his head, for a single, cruel moment, Arite still saw her husband’s face there.

But it was Kai, plucking Tomyris from the saddle as he rode past and holding her to him, burying his face into her neck, seeking the sweet scent that always seemed to hold there. Arite sat tall in the saddle, looking amongst the others for more marks of the dragon, for the two faces she wished to see above all others. But she could not see them.

From close by, Arite heard Tomyris speak. ‘Is the Cruel Spear here?’

‘She is,’ Kai answered. ‘But do not trouble her now. She is in a foul mood.’

‘You always say that, but she never is. Not with me. Can I go to her?’

Arite looked to Kai, asking a silent question with her eyes. And it seemed he understood, for he wet his lips with his tongue, and said to his daughter: ‘Go then, Tomyris. Do not approach her horse on his blind side.’ And they were alone together, as alone as they could be. She waited for him to speak.

So many tales that Kai could have told her – that he had been separated from Bahadur, that he did not know her husband’s fate. That Bahadur lay wounded but safe nearby, waiting for her to ride to his side. The silence spoke of only one thing.

At last, she said: ‘Have you told a story of Bahadur, around the fire?’

He nodded slowly. ‘I have.’

She could not have thought that she could feel so calm. ‘And have you spoken a story of my son as well?’ she said.

A pause – a cruel pause, for it brought hope with it. Then he said: ‘I knew no stories to tell of him.’

‘No,’ Arite answered. ‘He had not earned them yet.’

The pain – swift and sharp, the wound bursting open at last. The world swung upwards, her face against the horse’s mane, wet hair pressed against her cheeks. Thoughts and sensations flowed through her – her son’s little hand encircled by her palm, her husband singing softly beside the embers of a fire, the golden light of the sunset falling upon Bahadur and Chodona as they rode home with the herd. All of the things that could not be and would never be again, like a madness or a fever dream that she could not escape from.