Tim Leach - A Winter War

She watched them riding side by side, at a meandering walk. One might have thought it an idle wandering, a clan carelessly drifting from one grazing ground to another, were it not for the war gear the men and women wore, the scales of metal and horse hoof rattling and shining under the sun, the long spears tipped up towards the sky.

Occasionally a pair of riders would break away at a charge – little brief races, fathers letting their sons win one more time. Others rode slow and close, heads bowed together, and Arite could imagine the words spoken, the last pieces of advice to the daughters who rode beside them. They all rode so naturally together that there was a sense that the parting might never happen, that they would ride together to the west.

But then another signal passed through them, a wordless command. A restless horse tossed its head, one warrior tapped the spear of the rider beside him in challenge. And then they were away, the hooves beating against the sodden ground, and even at a distance Arite could hear the old songs of death singing from the lips as they put their horses to the gallop.

The children gave chase, trying to stay with the warband just a little longer, to steal one more word or moment from those about to be lost. But the foals and yearlings they rode were no match for the warhorses, and soon they were left behind. Then they were still, drawn up in a watchful, ragged formation. Eyes deadened and lips moving, making vows and promises of their own. Of memory, and of revenge.

Arite looked about, to see if there were any who noted the warband passing. A few shaded their eyes and looked towards where dawnlight glittered on spears, but they seemed to give it little regard. The word had gone out that the clans were moving, that each was to return to its lands. The truce between the peoples to be marked for one more day, but after that the old feuds would break open and run with blood once more. And there were sheep to herd, mounts to ready, offerings to give to the gods of horse and sky. They would all have far to travel before the sun rested once more, and it was only her, and Lucius beside her, who were still and watchful of those departing figures.

Arite heard Lucius whisper in his own language, some prayer or curse or wish of good fortune. Words of her own burned on her lips unspoken, as she waited until Kai and the others were far outside the camp, a scattering of shadows on the horizon. For she did not trust herself to speak until then, so certain she was that she would call them back, or cry out a warning. For Kai and Bahadur had seemed so young again – men always did, on the day they rode away.

She saw Tomyris and the other children turning back, racing towards those who stayed, to be with what kin remained to them. For a moment it had seemed that the children would not come back, that they would be a second warband following behind the first, to fight and die with their fathers and mothers. But now they returned, and she would have to speak, if she was going to speak at all.

‘I will tell you why I lied to Kai,’ she said to Lucius. ‘I will tell you what Laimei said.’

‘Why would you speak of this to me?’

‘You chose to stay.’ A catch in her voice, and she spoke again, softer than before. ‘And I must tell it to someone, or I think I shall go mad. And I cannot speak of this to another Sarmatian. It must be a secret that dies with me.’

‘I will keep your secret. You have my word.’

She shaded her eyes against the hard sun, seeing if she could pick out Kai or Bahadur, but they were all mingled together and almost beyond the horizon.

‘She said that she would not see him happy. With me. That she wanted him dead before she would see him content. That she would take my lover away from me, my husband too, and leave me alone.’ A closing sensation around the throat, a choking grasp of fear and shame that she swallowed away, to speak again. ‘I told her that it was not such a thing as that between us, that she misunderstood. But she would not believe me.’

‘An evil thing,’ said Lucius, ‘a feud between brother and sister.’

‘Yes, it is,’ she said. ‘I thought that my killing days were over. But I have killed him, sure enough. I did not know that she could hate him so much.’ She stared out towards the riders once more, and watched the line of the earth swallow them up. ‘I am glad, for he does not know it either.’

‘And what do we do now?’

‘We go south and west with our clan, back to our old lands. To wait for the peace or the war.’ She turned her horse to face that way, paused for a moment. ‘Others can remember them, if they wish to. Tomyris, she shall remember them. But I shall forget them, if I can. Kai, and Laimei. Do not speak of them to me again.’

She set her heels to her horse, in search of the place that every Sarmatian knew. A place where the rushing air quieted all voices, where the earth lay suspended between every hard stroke of the hooves. For at the gallop, one could, for a moment, be taken to another world.

But, like one of the cursed and fated women from the old stories, she found herself looking back one last time. And there, on the horizon, a point of light answered her gaze, the glimmer of sun against metal, a figure that seemed to stand still for a moment even as the others moved on. The sun on the tip of a spear, perhaps. Or a gauntleted hand, waving goodbye.

Kai’s warband rode lightly at first, back across the plains and towards the river, the foothills to the north of them. The touch of warmth from the spring sun upon their faces, the long grass dancing in the wind and no longer stilled by frost. They rode back towards the Romans, and perhaps to death as well, but the company travelled with song and laughter. Later, Kai knew, would come the fear – sharp and quick like the cut of the knife. Shame as well, for they were a people who did not know how to surrender, did not know how it was to be done. But at first there was only a pleasing sense of symmetry, a closing of the circle, as they returned to the west once again and chased the setting sun each day.

It was the horses that seemed to know before the riders. For by the second day they tossed their heads, were dull against the pull of the reins, kicked and bit restlessly even at those who were their close companions. The next day, Kai felt it too – the cold touch that pulled one’s head around, like a hand of ice splayed against the cheek and wrenching at the jaw. The prickle of the skin, a maddening itch that could not be scratched.

The day after that, it had gone beyond an unplaceable feeling. From time to time Kai would shade his eyes and look to the horizon, suddenly cock his head to one side as he heard the distant whicker of a horse. All about him, he could see the others do the same, yet none spoke of it during the day – to speak of it would make it all too real. The formation closed up, from the nomad’s wandering herd to the cavalry wedge, and scouts drifted out to roam the flanks without a command being uttered.

It was only in the evening, when they gathered around for their cold meal of cured meat (for by unspoken agreement they chose not to risk a fire), that they spoke of what they had first felt, and then seen. And it fell to a captain to speak first. Laimei leaned forward, and stared about the riders, and asked the question that they were waiting for.

‘Who amongst you have seen them?’

No answer at first. Then, Tamura spoke, glancing uncertainly to Kai as she did so. ‘I did. Just for a moment. They were trailing us well, staying out of sight. But one of them was over the rise of the hills to the north. Just for a moment, and with the sun at their back, but I saw them.’

Laimei’s mouth twisted, as though she had bitten into something rotten. ‘You are certain?’