His Conquering Sword (41 page)

Obediently, she shouted aloud and found a flag to signal the withdrawal. Bit by bit, she pulled her jahar back and at last, coming out into the open, they formed back into ranks. What was left of them. She judged she had lost a third of her men.

The field lay open under the sky, churned into mud. Wounded and dead lay everywhere, in some places heaped in piles where they’d fallen over each other; in others, a single form lay tumbled alone on a sodden stretch of ground. From here, Nadine could see off to the north the line of riders and the gold banner that marked Bakhtiian’s position. To the south she could not see, but she heard cries and the clamor of battle retreating away up into the hills. The clot around the Habakar prince shrank, and shrank, under the deadly press of two jahars. Abruptly, by a signal Nadine did not see, the jaran riders pulled away and a unit of archers rode up and began firing at will into the last knot of defenders.

“We’ll ride south,” said Nadine, surveying her men. They rode, and for a while they hunted, cutting down the fleeing Habakar soldiers, those who had gotten that far.

But as afternoon lowered toward evening, Nadine turned them back and returned to the field to hunt for their own wounded and to round up those horses that could be saved. Already many of the light troops wandered the field, killing the Habakar wounded and stripping and marking the dead. A steady line of casualties walked or rode toward Bakhtiian’s position, but Nadine noted that his gold banner had moved.

She found him by the corpse of the Habakar prince.

He glanced up, seeing her. He looked tired. “He fought bravely enough,” he said, although Nadine was not sure he was really speaking to her, to his niece, at all. She had a strange feeling that he was speaking to Tess, almost as if he was defending himself to her. “But he refused to surrender. Had he led the army on the field outside Qurat, the victory might not have gone our way so easily.”

Vershinin’s nephew was stripping the body, and Nadine examined the dead Habakar prince with some interest—with his chest-length black beard, dark hair looped in double braids, and his throat red with his own blood. Not particularly handsome, but so few of the khaja were; still, he looked strong, and the wounds his body had suffered—some fresh, some old scars—proved his courage in battle. Evidently he had cut his own throat rather than surrender to the jaran. Or the arrow in his eye might have killed him. Of his guard, none lived.

“Vershinin,” Bakhtiian continued, “I’ll leave you to follow after, but I’m returning to Karkand with my guard now. I’ll leave you three healers who’ve been trained by Dr. Hierakis. They’ll judge those who can survive the journey back to the hospital, and those it would be more merciful to kill now.”

Nadine got leave for a few minutes to find her men among the wounded. She marked them, and was relieved to find over half those who had been missing, although at least one she judged would not make it back to camp. She found Yermolov; a chance cut by a khaja axman had severed the straps of his thigh armor, and a better aimed one had cut his exposed leg down to the bone, but already a healer cleaned mud and cloth out of it, muttering about something called
sepsis.

“What is
sepsis,
Mother?” Nadine asked the elderly woman.

“There, you’re done to fight again, young man,” said the woman to Yermolov, who wasn’t all that young except perhaps in comparison to her. She grunted and got to her feet and crossed a patch of baked-dry mud to crouch down beside a wounded archer. Two young men trailed after her, burdened with strips of cloth, with pouches filled with water, and a paste of herbal ointment. “Commander,” she said, looking briefly up at Nadine, “it’s what kills most of these men, or used to, at least. Dokhtor Hierakis has shown us how the wounds become infected with dirt and khaja blood, and so if we stop the infection, then the wound is likely to heal cleanly.”

“Ah.” Nadine left her to her work. “Yermolov, I’ll leave you to come with Vershinin. You’ll take command of those of my jahar who are wounded.”

He nodded, and she changed to a remount and found her uncle again. It was dark by now. He had formed up his unit—most of whom had come through the battle with minor wounds or none at all—and was saying good-bye to the young Sakhalin commander and to Vershinin. Nadine waited patiently through the conference. She had no urgent desire to return to camp, but she could see that Ilya was obsessed with getting back to Karkand.

They started off. Nadine felt numb with exhaustion, and the torches bobbing up and down alongside her and all along the line disoriented her, making her dizzy. She rode without speaking, her jahar strung out in front of her where she rode beside her uncle.

“Dina,” said Ilya suddenly. He rode one of his remounts, a shaggy tarpan, and one of his guardsmen walked along to his left, bearing a torch to light the horse’s way. “I shouldn’t have let you come with me.” You’re more valuable to me alive than dead.”

“Thank you,” she said dryly. “Feodor reminds me of that all the time.”

“As well he might, since you’re more valuable to the Grekov tribe alive than dead, too. But you fought well, in any case.” They rode for a while in silence. A new torch-bearer came to take the place of the other one, and they switched mounts and went on.

“Dina.” The torchlight illuminated part of his face, shifting on him, highlighting first his eyes, then his mouth, then the straight line of his nose, then his beard, then his eyes again. Otherwise, he rode in darkness. “Why should Soerensen offer me Jeds? If Erthe defeats the khepellis, then won’t Erthe itself be a threat to us?”

“Erthe lies far over the seas, Uncle. Surely they’d need many ships in order to bring an army here.”

“But what if it’s the khepellis who have these ships? We know they can travel to any port along the coasts we know. And if the khepellis are as great a threat as Soerensen says they are, then we must unite against them. What if they want all the lands where humans now live?”

Nadine found herself a little confused by the conversation, since part of what he said made no sense to her. It sounded as if he had been negotiating with the Prince of Jeds. Over what, she wondered. “Then you really do believe that they’re zayinu? I never saw any khepellis. Those that came to Morava at the prince’s behest arrived after I left.”

“They’re zayinu. They’re not like us. But how can Soerensen possess the loyalty of one of their merchant houses?” He said nothing for a long while. Nadine dozed.

His voice startled her awake, though he spoke softly. “What if they want all the lands, from the plains north and east along the Golden Road, from Vidiya to Habakar all the way south to Jeds and even the lands that lie south from there? All the armies must unite against them. We must prepare for that. Someone who understands the threat must prepare for that.”

The night wore on. At last he called a halt and let them rest, men and horses alike, but in the morning they set off again, driven by Bakhtiian at a steady pace back toward Karkand.

H
E DREAMED OF A
snow-swept landscape, of a single tree in a hollow, a scrap of cloth lying on the ground and a pathetic little fire burning but giving off no heat. His sister lay unmoving, pale gray, on the ground. For days she had tossed and turned in the grip of some demon, speaking words he could not understand. He had tried desperately to feed her with what little food he could gather from the winter-starved land, had tried to give her water, had tried to keep her warm. But at last the demon had drained her of life and now her last breath leaked out, too weak even to puff steam into the cold air. Her chest stopped moving, and her limbs went flaccid and, later, went stiff. He was alone in the wilderness.

“Don’t leave me!” Aleksi gasped, and jerked up to find himself tangled in his own blankets, in his own tent. Sweat dampened him. The night air cooled his chest and back. He shivered. He forced himself to lie back down, but he could not sleep. At last, he rose and dressed and shrugged on a felt coat and walked outside. In the distance, he heard the arrhythmic thump of the artillery firing and the delayed crash of the missiles landing. In the four days since Bakhtiian had left, the noise had continued at such a constant rate that it was only now, in the predawn quiet of the camp, that Aleksi noticed it.

At Dr. Hierakis’s tent, he hunkered down on his haunches just outside the awning and waited, knowing now that she had machines inside her tent that alerted her to his presence. Soon enough, the bells sounded as the doctor thrust aside the entrance flap and peered out.

“Aleksi! Why do you insist on sitting out there! You may come in without permission from me. I’ve told you time and again—and it would grant me some much-needed sleep.” He rose and smiled sheepishly but did not reply, merely followed her into her tent. “You can hang your coat up over that hook.” He did so gratefully. In her tent he was never too hot or too cold; it was as airy and comfortable as the great felt tents belonging to the etsanas. “Go on in,” she added, impatiently. She lay down on a cot folded out beside the table. “Tess is asleep.”

He went into the inner chamber. The counters gleamed softly in the light from the false lanterns. Tess slept, and beyond, on a black surface set within one countertop, colors pulsed in time to her breathing and her heartbeat. Feeling safe, Aleksi settled down on the floor beside her and rested his head against the couch on which she lay, and dozed.

“Aleksi? Where did you come from?”

He snapped his eyes open and looked up. Tess lay on her right side, gazing down at him. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said.

She sighed and reached down to touch him, but whether to reassure herself or him, Aleksi could not be sure. “What time is it?” she asked.

Since she had fallen under the sleep that the doctor called
anesthesia,
Tess had been obsessed with knowing the time of day. “I don’t know. I came before dawn. Not too long after dawn by now, I’d judge.”

“Then Jo should be coming in—” She stopped and they both listened, hearing the bells and then a conversation. A moment later the doctor came in to them.

“Color’s good,” she said cheerfully. “Readings good. We’re going to take you off the system today. I hereby pronounce you Out of Danger.”

“Insofar as any of us are out of danger,” Tess murmured, and Cara shot her a sharp glance and then smiled wryly.

“A wise observation, my child. Jo will do the dirty work. I’m going to do my rounds at the hospital. Tess, I want you to stay with me today and tonight, and then tomorrow you can return to your tent. You can sit, you can walk a little bit—in fact I recommend it—but nothing more strenuous than that.”

“I obey.” Tess smiled. Aleksi was amazed at how strong she looked. Her face was still rounder than usual, and her skin was pulled taut and shiny on her arms, a little swollen, but the doctor dismissed that as
water retention
and said it would go away in a hand more of days.

Jo came in, and the doctor left. Soon enough, Jo had disengaged Tess from the couch. “Aleksi,” Jo said, leading him over to the black screen, “I’m going back to the hospital. You see this pad here. I’ve coded it specially for you. If you press your right hand over this, it will send a signal to me and to Dr. Hierakis that one of us must return immediately. Only put your hand there if Tess somehow falls ill.”

“I understand.” He examined the pad with interest. It looked more like a kind of false skin, lacquered, except it looked slick as well. Jo left.

“I want to go outside,” said Tess. Aleksi shadowed her, but her legs seemed steady enough. At once he saw where she was headed: to the remains of the funeral pyre that now lay as cold ashes and a few pieces of charred wood fifty paces out from the awning. Nervous, he walked with her, but when she stopped she simply surveyed the circle of ground dispassionately. There were, thank the gods, no bones; either someone had raked the coals or an early baby burned more completely then an adult. All at once Tess bent down and rummaged in the ashes. She held up a scrap of damask linen, smaller than her palm. The singed edges framed a single red rose. She stared at it for a long while and then closed her hand over it and turned away.

“Bakhtiian wept,” said Aleksi in a low voice.

Her mouth pinched tight, but she showed no other emotion as they walked back to the doctor’s tent. He brought a folding chair out for her and she sat. As soon as she sat down, Anatoly Sakhalin approached to pay his respects. Others filtered by, and eventually Sonia appeared and chased everyone else away.

“You’re looking well,” Sonia said carefully.

“I’m feeling well. Is there any news from the army?”

“None yet, that I know of. Aleksi, sit down. Tess, I’ve been giving some thought to Aleksi marrying. Indeed, I’ve had my eye on a particular young woman for some time now. Her name is Svetlana Tagansky. She’s from one of the Veselov granddaughter tribes, and her husband died in the fighting at Hazjan. She was brought in to wet-nurse Lavrenti while Arina was so weak—Svetlana lost her own infant to a fever—” Sonia broke off. “Oh, Tess.” She laid a hand on Tess’s arm, but Tess’s expression remained blank. Her distraction worried Aleksi. Sonia exchanged a glance with him, but Aleksi could only shrug. Sonia withdrew her hand, looking troubled. “But I need your permission to approach her, Tess.”

“Oh.” Tess blinked. Aleksi wondered if she had heard a word that Sonia had said. He held his breath, hoping she would agree. “But Aleksi can’t marry. He has to have his own tent.” The disappointment felt sharp, but he said nothing.

“But men don’t own their own tents. I would have thought you’d want him to get married and have a respectable wife.”

Tess twisted around and regarded Aleksi. “What do you want, Aleksi?”

“Every man ought to be married,” he said slowly, “if he can be.”

“Yes, that’s what the jaran say, but what do you
want?”

Aleksi had a sudden feeling that Tess did not want him to get married. He didn’t know what to do: tell her the truth and possibly offend her, or placate her with a lie? Like a wave, the memory of his nightmare washed over him. Tess was all he had; of course he must do what she wished. “Of … of course I don’t care about being married,” he stammered. “I’d much rather have my own tent—”