The Horse Road (20 page)

‘We were going to eat him!' shouted the man holding the lead rope. ‘But you can make me an offer for him!'

I reached under my chain mail, up inside the rough sleeve of my tunic, and pulled out three golden armbands inlaid with Egyptian emeralds.

‘I can't eat these!' the man shouted with an oath but he took them anyway.

‘Horse armour?' I asked, holding up a fourth armband, and he turned away, muttering, to a tent. After a pause, he reappeared with a long thick felt which he threw over the appaloosa, covering him from poll to croup. I took the horse's rope and led him away to where Sayeh waited with Nomad. We unfastened my saddle from the mare and fastened it on to the appaloosa as he swung heavily around, almost knocking a slave down. I bridled him with my extra bridle, the one of plain leather, and attached a
weighted tassel beneath the reins so that, when I dropped them to shoot arrows, they would not fly around and trip my horse but would hang taut from the bit. I boosted Sayeh on to Nomad's bare back.

‘Take her straight home, and water them all!' I cried and for one moment her eyes locked on to mine.

‘Yes,' she said, as solemnly as if she were taking an oath, and then the crowd swallowed her small straight back and the mare's golden gleam, and I was alone with the hard-mouthed gelding and my devouring fear. I kicked the horse towards where the cavalry was already beginning to move through the hippodrome's far gate into the street beyond. With a dull roar of voices, with a thunder of hooves, with a clash of spears upon shields, we poured through the streets of Ershi towards the south gate.

I am riding to war
, I thought.
I am going to faint and fall off.

The appaloosa surged along; he was strong and sturdy and willing even though hard in the mouth.
But untrained
, a voice in my head kept repeating.
Untrained by me, by my mother. A horse that has never learned to gallop straight ahead whilst his rider jumps on or off, hangs from one side, hangs upside down from a loop in the saddle. He is a horse I have no bond with, a horse whose trust I haven't won. But we are trusting each other now with our lives
.

The walls of Ershi loomed above, broken only by
the open gateway and a patch of clear blue sky. A hot breeze puffed in off the plain, and the battle standards lifted and snapped, red and purple and golden, and decorated with the symbols of the noble houses: eagles and stags and leopards all soared and ran above our heads as the kettle drums boomed and the tambourines rattled.

Now we were flushing through the gate, faster, the appaloosa's wide shoulders breaking into a rough trot, wind filling my mouth. I wasn't breathing. My heart had stopped. I couldn't swallow. Darkness filled my eyes, then brilliant sunshine, then darkness. I swayed in the saddle, faint with fear. Before me swung the trampled fields, the stripped gardens, the far-off blue thread of a river.

The great mass of the enemy, filling the valley.

I lifted my head, fighting to breathe. Over the appaloosa's dark pricked ears, I glimpsed the line of the mountains, clear and blue with the snow-capped peaks turning to gold as the sun licked them. Strength poured into me and my vision cleared. I gripped tighter with my thighs and urged the horse on faster, neck and neck with the men on either side of me. The edges of my eyes filled with cavalry, with the magnificent plunging gallop of brave horses, with the flap of saddle blankets embroidered with bright patterns, with red tassels flying from reins, with the glitter of silver inlay and glass stones on bridle straps, and the wink of gold-plated bit rings.

The roar and whoop and wild yells of the tribesmen lifted me upwards, out of my dark trap of fear. I soared over the ground. The valley vibrated with our headlong rush, our streaming power. A whoop flew from my own mouth and the appaloosa's stride lengthened. Everything became a blur.

We plunged down and over a drainage ditch, dry and cracked; we hammered between the long avenues of trees in an almond orchard; we sprinted over the hard packed ground of a roadway. Sheep scattered. Far ahead, the enemy gathered itself like a wave, a dark wall, and began to move towards us. I screamed again, a long high note that was swept into the river of the cavalry and surged forward with it.

Now I could see the siege towers rising from the plain; their frameworks of wood stood as tall as the valley's elm trees had once been, before the enemy felled them. The frames were covered in oxhide to protect them from flaming arrows, and at the top of the towers were long pivoting beams ending in sharp metal claws. When the towers were pulled forward by oxen, and rolled up against Ershi on their many wheels, the great claws would dig and gouge into the city's walls of packed mud. Then the cloud ladders would be rolled forward, with their tall tower and high ladders, and with enemy soldiers packed inside them. The men would scale the walls and enter the city through the holes that the claws had broken open.

Get on the flank
, I told myself.
Get on the flank!

Only if I could break free of the main thrust of the cavalry, and make my way to the edge, could I ride away towards the mountain valley where I hoped that Batu still waited. Only then could I ride southwestwards searching for the merchant called Failak who perhaps owned a second golden harness.

We pounded on. Horses were pressed to me, their riders almost touching my knees on either side. I hauled on the appaloosa's bit but he braced his thick neck, and his strong legs didn't waver in their galloping. He opened his mouth, setting his jaw against my pull, and thundered on. Now I could see the enemy soldiers ahead, massing around the bases of their siege towers, sun shining on pikes and the heavy shafts of their deadly crossbows. The bowmen stood behind the kneeling pikemen, covering them, and the sun shone on their armour of lacquered oxhide and of iron. Silken banners rippled in the hot wind. We were wheeling now, turning sideways on to the enemy, horses straining to swing around, legs flashing, necks bending, nostrils flaring wide and red, eyes rolling. Foam flew back from horses' mouths and spattered my cheek. I was pulling the appaloosa around, trying to work my way slowly across the oncoming rush of horses, finding small openings and breaks that I could shoot through like a mouse shooting into a tunnel. Gradually, stride by stride, I manoeuvred for a place on the far flank.

Now everything seemed to be happening at a
speed so blinding I could barely follow it. A shower of glinting arrows, fast and bright as summer stars, flew through the air ahead of me as the lethal enemy crossbows unleashed their volleys. I had heard, in Ershi, that some of the bows were so huge it took twenty men to release them, and that their arrows flew, without feathers on the shafts, for many, many paces. I had heard that the tips of those darts were tipped with a poison so strong that even a scratch from one of them would kill a man.

Just ahead of me, a horse screamed and went down with an arrow embedded in its chest. The appaloosa's front hooves skimmed against the fallen horse's thrashing legs; for a moment, I thought he would be entangled in the reins. Then he jumped strongly upwards, and we were past. A woman beside me took an arrow in the arm; I saw the pain flare in her eyes and whiten her cheeks. Then I dropped my reins and pulled an arrow from my old quiver with its red leather patterns, and began to shoot. I was alongside the enemy now, could see their eyes beneath their helmets, and hear their wild foreign cries as they loosed their shining hail of arrows. I kneed the appaloosa, making him twist and dodge through the shadows of the great siege towers standing like a nightmare forest against the sky. He was neither as nimble as Swan nor as fast as Gryphon, and it took most of my strength and concentration to guide and control him.

Shooting arrows, though, was something I could do without thought; one hand gripped them by the shaft and pulled them smoothly from the quiver; then my other hand notched them to the bow, drew its springing tension back against one shoulder, felt the thrum of the gut as the arrow flew away, released.

Now we were beneath a great siege tower taller than the city wall of Ershi; carpenters were still scrambling down through its framework, seeking the safety of the ground behind the enemy soldiers. I saw a man take an arrow in the leg and fall through the wooden beams, yelling as he plunged head first. Then the appaloosa tripped and I tightened my legs and clung on. He surged to his feet again, and a fresh volley of crossbow arrows flew towards us, hissing like serpents.

I'm going to be killed here
, I thought.
I will never escape to the mountains
.

I threw myself over the appaloosa's back and lay along his off-side, one hand gripping the leather thong at the front of my saddle, and my leg bent beneath me in the foot loop. The horse's blanketed shoulder surged against my face; I could hear his breath whistling. Now we were swinging around again, out of range of the crossbows, and I hauled myself back into the saddle. We dodged motionless bodies and fallen horses writhing on the chewed ground. I wrenched the horse's head around and shot southwards, still trying without success to work
my way on to the cavalry's flank. Once more we came around, shooting arrows at the troops beneath the siege engines, and as we wheeled away this time I saw a tower blossom into flame; our second wave of warriors had been able to come close enough to set it on fire with flaming arrows. Black clouds of pungent smoke billowed into the valley's pure air.

We were wheeling past again, shouting, shooting. We were much closer now. Too close.
Mother!
I cried inside my head, the word echoing.
Help!

The pike men were on their feet, and I saw a great shaft of iron slicing through the air towards me. I kicked free of the saddle, and threw myself from the appaloosa's off-side, my supple boots hitting the ground so hard that the shudder ran through my body. The horse shied and I hauled on his reins, running beside him for three paces with my hands gripping my saddle loop. When I leaped astride again, he was still galloping and the pike man was left behind.

A swell of land lifted up before me, scattered with the stumps of walnut trees; the horses dodged amongst them and opened up into a looser pattern so that I was able to work my way across the slope between them. At last I was riding on the very edge of the cavalry. The appaloosa had slowed to a laboured canter but I lashed him on with the reins into a frenzied gallop. I hoped that he would hold true to his pace and direction when I dropped the reins. If he
circled back to join the other horses, or if he slowed to a walk, my plan would not work.

I waited for several strides until his hooves touched the down slope on the ridge's far side, and then I dived backwards from the saddle, one foot hooked in the leather loop on the far side. Ground rushed at me. Sky spun. My body swung loose, my arms trailing. It had been the hardest thing to master, on the training ground with my mother: the looseness, the ability to let every muscle and bone swing slack as the ground rushed up to meet my head, as my hands brushed against protruding roots and the heads of grass.

I was a dead rider now, being carried along by my crazed horse, one foot tangled in the leather. No one would worry about shooting me, or stopping me.

A last volley of arrows hailed down, making the horse snort and renew his efforts. Then we were dropping down off the ridge, my head inches from the rough slope of a sheep pasture. My right hand banged across a stone. The horse's legs, his great bones stout as tree limbs, rushed past my eyes; my torso twisted and snapped against his ribs. His tail slapped my face with a sting like a whip. I closed my eyes as blood filled my head and everything turned to blackness. Hoof beats replaced the crash of my heart.

When I felt the appaloosa's stride slowing. I kicked upwards with one foot, thumping him behind the forelegs, and he surged on again. I opened my eyes a
crack and saw only a blur of ground rushing past, with green grass and sheep droppings. There were no other horses' legs in view. The world became quieter until only the horse's laboured breathing, and his hoof beats, remained.

‘Whoa, slow down, easy!' I called soothingly to him, and then jerked myself, with one long convulsion of muscle, up towards the saddle again. The horse, unfamiliar with my voice and unused to this manoeuvre, shied violently and I lost my grip and plunged towards the ground, my head snapping on my neck. After this, I waited until the horse slowed of his own accord to a trot, then a walk. Finally, bruised and dizzy, I pulled myself into the saddle long enough to kick my foot from the leather loop and scan my surroundings. A clump of willow trees lay to my right, and I jumped down again and hauled the horse behind me into its shade.

Doubling over my jewel box, I retched into a patch of raspberries. For a long time afterwards, I leaned against the appaloosa's shoulders, panting and shaking. Beneath my armour and tunic, my skin was slick with sweat and my blood tingled in my arms and legs. Roaring filled my ears. The horse blew, his head hanging, and foam dripped from his mouth. I was too breathless to praise him but I ran my hands down his sturdy legs from shoulder to fetlock, noticing his striped hooves.

When I tied the reins to a tree, and crept to the
edge of the willows, I could see down into a shallow valley where dusty stones lay in a dry riverbed. Perhaps this had once been one of Ershi's water sources, and had been diverted by the enemy. A peasant drove a flock of sheep across the far slope, guarded by huge mastiff dogs with drooling jowls. Further down the valley, an enemy encampment of tents stood in a ring, and when I stepped out of my shelter, I could see that many more tents were pitched over the hillside, pale as mushrooms in the trampled alfalfa. I was on the very edge of the army camp, I decided. If I shed my armour, surely no one would stop a girl riding southwards, for only warriors and nobles would be of interest to the men of the Middle Kingdom. I struggled out of the chain mail, glad to be free of its slithering weight, and feeling anonymous in my rough tunic and trousers. Lifting the linen, I retied the sashes holding the jewel case against my stomach.