Naamah's Curse
Page 6

And then I heaved myself back astride Ember, and we continued on our plodding way across the endless plains, Coal trailing behind us.
It was two or three days afterward that I saw the herders. I saw the cattle first, scores of them ambling from the northwest on a course to intersect mine. I heard the shouts of the boys before I saw them. It was another cold, clear day, and their young voices carried across the plain.
I glanced around, but there was nowhere to hide on the flat, empty expanse of grassland. For the first time in longer than I could recall, I summoned the twilight.
Despite my lack of practice, it came easier than I had reckoned. I had seen dusk fall over the plain many, many times since I had passed through the gate, and the discipline that Master Lo taught me had focused my gift. I breathed the living memory of Tatar dusk deep into my lungs, feeling my diadh-anam flicker and glow. I breathed out the twilight, letting it settle over the horses and me.
The sunlit world turned shadowy and dim, the grass silvered, and the sky filled with deep purple and indigo hues.
With a silent thought, I asked the horses to remain still and quiet. They obeyed willingly, pricking their ears and watching with curiosity as the stream of cattle and the two young Tatar herdsmen passed before us. The boys looked to be thirteen or fourteen, and they rode in the saddle as though born to it, prodding the cattle with long poles, chattering back and forth to one another with cheerful urgency, all unwitting of our presence. A keen-eyed dog trotted alongside one of them.
I smiled quietly.
When they were no more than specks on the horizon, I released the twilight. The bright daylit world returned in a rush of color. Green grass was green once more; the arching sky overhead was blue. Ember tossed his head a few times and blew through his nostrils as though to comment on the phenomenon.
“Come, brave heart.” I patted his withers. “We’ve a league or two to go before we make camp for the night.”
Had I been wiser in the ways of winter in Tatar territory, I might have thought to wonder where the young herdsmen were bound, and why they went about their task with a certain sense of urgency.
I found out soon enough.
Within an hour’s time, the temperature began to drop precipitously. The wind sharpened. It cut through my thick coat of padded cotton, it found its way up my sleeves, it froze my cheeks until my entire face felt stiff. The air began to smell like snow. Toward the west, the sky took on a dark, ominous hue, a tall stack of clouds growing on the horizon.
There was a storm coming.
A very, very big storm.
And ah, gods! It was so sudden. I don’t know what early warning signs I missed, what signs the Tatars were able to read. It was unfamiliar terrain, an unfamiliar climate, unlike any I had known.
I broke to make camp as soon as I saw the clouds massing. It was my custom to tend to the horses first, unsaddling Ember, unloading all of Coal’s packs, checking their hooves, and turning them loose to graze. This time, my heart beating hard in my chest, I begged their forgiveness and set about erecting my sheltering tent, fearful for my vulnerable human flesh.
I couldn’t do it.
It was a task that had grown more difficult every day. Bit by bit, the farther I rode, the colder it got, the more the turf had hardened.
Today, it had hardened further. My wooden mallet skidded futilely off the frayed heads of the wooden tent-stakes. The points of the stakes splintered against the frozen ground, unable to penetrate the sod. I swung and pounded until my arm ached, my chest heaving and my breath rising in frosty puffs, all to no avail.
My eyes stung with frustrated tears. I dragged my padded sleeve over them. “Gods bedamned, Bao! Stupid, stubborn boy! Could you not stay put for one minute? Did you have to put me through this?”
The only thing to answer was the storm.
It descended on us with an unearthly howl, fierce as a dragon’s fury, the wind filled with pellets of ice. It snatched the dense felt of my tent away from me, plucking the fabric and lines and stakes from my helpless fingers, sending it careening across the grassy plains under a glowering sky.
Flee.
The word resounded in my head. I did not know who or what spoke it—whether it was the Maghuin Dhonn Herself, the D’Angeline gods Naamah or Anael, the unknown gods of the Tatars, or merely my own panic speaking.
It didn’t matter.
I fled. I ran toward Ember, hurling myself across his saddle. It struck me hard in the chest. I hauled myself astride, flinging my leg over him. I found the reins, and gave him his head.
“Go!” I shouted. “Go, go, go!”
My valiant chestnut arched his neck and thundered southward; poor Coal, half-unladen, laboring in his wake. All around us, the storm howled, pursuing us.
Flee.
Snow and bits of ice pelted us. I could not tell if it was day or night. All the world was chaos. We rode and rode and rode, trying to outpace the storm. I was a frozen creature, clinging to another frozen creature. The whipping wind howled. Frost gathered on my eyelashes. Ember lost his footing and staggered hard beneath me, pitching me onto his neck. He caught himself from falling, but came up lame, lurching every time he put weight on his left foreleg.
I slipped from the saddle and leant my face against his ice-crusted neck in despair. With an effort, I pushed myself away and set about trying to unbuckle the straps that lashed Coal’s load to his back.
It was impossible. The straps were stiff and frozen, and my fingers were so numb I couldn’t get any purchase.
So I did the only thing I could think to do. I took up Ember’s reins and began trudging on foot, the horses trailing behind me.
How long I walked, I could not say. It felt like an eternity. The storm was like a mighty hand shoving me from behind. I concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, convinced that if I stopped moving, I would die.
I don’t doubt that it was true. Allowing my gift to be used in an unwise manner, I’d come close to dying before, but I never felt anything that sapped my will to live the way that bitter, cold wind did. Would that I could say it was hope that kept me going, but no such thing existed in that raging darkness. It was the irrational spark of anger I harbored toward Bao, the sense that this was all his fault, that gave me the will to keep taking one step, then another, long after my legs had begun to feel leaden.
Head down, I trudged blindly—trudged, and trudged, and trudged. Until I bumped into something large.
I went still.
The large thing bumped me back—several large things. A choked sound of fear died in my throat. There were large figures looming in the darkness, and yet I sensed a benign intent. I rubbed the frost from my eyelashes and squinted.
Cattle.
I was surrounded by cattle—big, shaggy cattle with short, curved horns and lambent eyes rimed with frost. They bumped, jostled, and nudged me and my horses, herding us forward, a dim sense of concern in their thoughts. And then, ah, gods!
There was a wall, a stone wall that blocked the worst of the blizzard’s knifing wind. I’d never been so glad to see a man-made wall in my life.
If there was a wall, doubtless there were humans nearby, but I couldn’t make out any of the Tatars’ felt domiciles in the storm; and the cattle were insistent, nudging me into the lee of the wall. I let go of Ember’s reins and slid down the wall in relief, resting my back against the rough stone and huddling into my coat.
With low groans, two of the cattle sank down on either side of me, pressing flanks and haunches against me. Their concerned thoughts gave way to complacent, bovine ones. Within minutes, I could feel the warmth of their shaggy hides penetrating my clothing.
I laughed, and wept tears that froze on my cheeks. “Thank you,” I whispered—to the cattle, to the Maghuin Dhonn Herself, to the D’Angeline pantheon, to the Tatar gods, and to stone and sea and sky and all that they encompassed. “Thank you.”
SEVEN
Impossible as it may seem, I fell asleep amid the cattle.
I was tired beyond exhaustion, as tired in spirit as though I’d been drained almost to death, and as tired in body as though I’d climbed White Jade Mountain all over again. The presence of the cattle was warm and soothing, and the stone wall blocked the worst of the storm. There was nothing I could do for my horses until the storm passed.
And so I closed my weary eyes, thinking only to rest them a moment, and fell into a black pit of unconsciousness.
I awoke to a startled shout.
I opened my eyes to find calm morning light, and one of the young Tatar herdsmen staring at me. He loosed another shout when I opened my eyes, gripping his herder’s staff with both hands. The dog beside him planted its haunches on the frozen ground and wagged its tail, bright-eyed, its tongue lolling.
I shouted too, scrambling to my feet. The cattle on either side of me heaved themselves upright in their ungainly, rear-end-first way.
The boy yelled questions at me, his voice high and fierce. More cattle milled between us. I shook my head and spread my hands helplessly, eyeing Ember amid the herd and wondering if I could get to the bow and quiver strapped to the saddle.
The boy hesitated, then turned and raced toward the felt dwellings now visible some thirty yards away, shouting all the while.
I hesitated, too.
I was alive, and so were my mounts. It looked as though most of the supplies loaded on Coal were intact.
But I had no tent, and it was ungodly cold. Snow dusted the frozen sod, not as much as I would have expected, but I supposed the fierce wind prevented it from accumulating. I sidled through the cattle and reached Ember’s side, unlashing my bow. My fingers had thawed just enough that I was able to string it.
More folk spilled out of the felt huts—men, women, and children of all ages. I held the bow loosely in my left hand and plucked one arrow from the quiver without nocking it, trying to look calm. I didn’t want to present myself as an enemy, but I didn’t intend to appear an easy victim, either.
The Tatars fanned out as they approached, pointing and exclaiming to one another. I stood my ground uncertainly. A man of middle years whose coat and hat bore finer embroidery than the others beckoned to a young girl and spoke to her. She dashed back to the nearest hut, returning with a thick woolen blanket.
The man took it from her and began to push his way through the cattle toward me, holding out the blanket, uttering a sound such as one might make to soothe a fractious horse. “Ha, ha, ha!”
I eyed him, bow in hand, unable to determine whether he meant to offer the blanket to me or capture me in it.
He clucked his tongue, shaking the blanket at me in a way that could have been inviting or menacing. “Ha, ha!”
“I’m sorry!” I said aloud in the scholar’s tongue. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to do.”
One of the women said somewhat in a sharp tone. The adult Tatars argued amongst themselves. Wide-eyed children with round faces stared at me. I tried smiling at one, and he burst into tears.
Another woman emerged from the felt huts, walking slowly and carefully—in part because her pregnant belly strained against her long coat, and in part because she carried a small bowl of steaming liquid. She paused to dip her fingers in it, scattering droplets on the frozen earth.
All the Tatars murmured in approval.
The pregnant woman and the man with the blanket exchanged glances. He shrugged and stepped backward to let her pass him. She came toward me with those delicate little steps, smiling at me with weary sweetness. This time, the cattle moved out of the way of their own accord.
A few paces away from me, she raised the bowl to her lips and mimed drinking from it, then held it out to me. I paused, then slung my bow over my shoulder and returned the arrow I had drawn from my quiver. The pregnant woman nodded encouragingly. She cradled the bowl in one hand, pointed at it, then pointed at the ground, raising her eyebrows in question.
I felt foolish.
“Thank you,” I murmured, cupping my hands together in a gesture of gratitude. “I recognize an offer of hospitality. You do not need to treat me like a wild creature.”
She beamed, holding out the bowl with both hands.
I bowed in the Ch’in manner and came forward to accept it, taking it in both hands and lifting it to drink.
It was tea, hot and salty, rich with milk-fat. Another time and place, I might have found the taste repugnant. Here, it tasted like heaven. I meant to sip it politely. Instead, I downed the entire bowl.
The Tatars I had been so assiduously avoiding all made sounds of welcome and approval. Still beaming, the pregnant woman turned to her husband—as I later learned he was—and extended her hand for the woolen blanket. He gave it to her with an affectionate, rueful smile. She raised her brows at me once more, offering the blanket to me.
“Thank you,” I said a second time, accepting it with another bow and wrapping it around my shoulders.
She touched my sleeve, then touched my face, her fingertips gentle and inquisitive. I held still and let her. Her dark, angular eyes searched mine. At length, satisfied, she nodded, turned and said somewhat to the others. Her husband nodded and said somewhat more, making a firm gesture of dismissal.
With obvious reluctance, the others began to disperse, returning to their felt huts or setting about various chores.
The couple turned their attention back to me. The woman asked me a question, speaking as slowly and carefully as though to a very young child. I shook my head helplessly. After another exchange with her husband, she pointed toward the felt huts. She mimed eating and sleeping, first raising an imaginary spoon to her lips, then pressing her cheek against folded hands.
Given my fears, I was embarrassed by their kindness. “Thank you,” I said for the third time. “But I must tend to my mounts first.” I pointed to myself and then at Ember and Coal, still saddled and loaded amid the meandering cattle, then mimed awkwardly to indicate what I needed to do.