Markswoman Read online

  Aram lit the stove. Kyra knelt in front of it and held her hands out to the flickering flames. How strange they must look—a small circle of life in the vast, empty darkness of the desert.

  “Tell me,” she said, “what do we do if the wind really gets going tonight? Like in the spring when it can blow the tents away?”

  Aram glanced at her, his face unreadable. “We die,” he said, and put a pan of water on the stove.

  So much for trying to make conversation. Kyra ignored Aram after that, merely thanking him for the cup of tea he gave her. She drank quickly; they all did. At that temperature, the tea would have become cold and useless in half a minute.

  Shurik lit the second stove and Barkav himself made the stew. He tossed in potatoes and onions with the millet, joking and laughing as if they were not in the middle of the most godforsaken place in Asiana. Kyra told him about the Ferghana Valley, the beauty of its tumbling streams, the wooded slopes and wild horses. Even Ghasil and Ishtul unbent sufficiently to ask her about the system of teaching at the Order of Kali, murmuring to each other at the similarities, and exclaiming at the contrasts. The biggest difference, of course, was the wyr-wolf hunts of Kali. The vicious beasts, ubiquitous in the fertile valley and uplands of Ferghana, were absent in the desert. It was the biggest plus point of living there that Kyra could think of.

  As Kyra described the hunt in which she had ridden and the massive wyr-wolf she had killed, the men grew quiet. Finally, sensing that something was amiss, her words petered out and she looked at Barkav, questioning. Had it sounded like she was boasting?

  “Tell me, Kyra,” said Barkav. “Why does your Order hunt wyr-wolves? Is it for sport?”

  “Certainly not!” Kyra was shocked. “Wyr-wolves are dangerous. They aren’t a bit like ordinary wolves. They can kill and carry off a grown man, never mind a small child. They plague the villages of the Ferghana, especially during winter when game is scarce.”

  “Why don’t you tell her?” said Barkav to Aram. “Tell her the story about Zibalik’s wolves.”

  Aram scowled at the stove. A few moments passed before he started to speak, his voice hesitant at first, and gathering confidence as his story progressed:

  “Did you never wonder why they are called wyr-wolves? It was Zibalik who named them so: Zibalik, the founder of Khur and the first Marksman of Asiana. He wanted to learn whatever he could from all the Orders of Asiana before establishing his own, and he first heard the lore of dangerous wolf-beasts from the Markswomen of Kali. But it is said that he understood what they were only when he left the Ferghana Valley and set off to seek the Order of Zorya in the far north.

  “The Zoryan Markswomen played a cruel game with Zibalik; perhaps it was a test. They evaded him for months, leaving tantalizing trails across the bogs and through the forests. As winter darkened the days and stripped the trees, Zibalik began to despair. Snow covered the ground and the lakes froze. If he did not find the Zoryans soon, Zibalik knew he would die. He was almost at the end of hope when the wolves first appeared.”

  Aram paused and glanced at Barkav, his face uncertain, as if asking permission to go on. Kyra held her breath. Barkav inclined his head, and Aram resumed speaking:

  “Zibalik said later that the wolves spoke to him in his dreams and told him where to find the Zoryans. Then he woke one bitter morning to find the wolves sitting in a circle around him. They gave him the warmth of their bodies and shared a buck that they had killed. They saved his life.”

  “That’s impossible,” Kyra burst out, unable to contain herself. “The fangs of a wyr-wolf inject venom that causes paralysis. He’d have died if he’d eaten that buck. If you believe this story, it must be because you have never come face-to-face with a wyr-wolf yourself.”

  Aram glowered and the elders bristled. Even Shurik frowned at her. Kyra squirmed and wished that she had held her tongue.

  But Barkav only said, “Not everything that is passed on is to be taken literally. We believe the essence of it, as do the Zoryans, which is why we follow the injunction Zibalik laid on us to never raise our blades against wyr-wolves.”

  Kyra frowned. Easy for them to say, living as they did in the Empty Place. Try telling a herder in the Ferghana who had lost his finest calves that wyr-wolves were not to be harmed.

  But there was something else Aram had said that she didn’t understand. “That doesn’t explain why Zibalik named them wyr-wolves, though,” she said.

  Shurik spoke fast, before anyone else could: “‘Wyr’ means ‘man’ in the ancient tongue. By giving the wolves this name, Zibalik recognized them as equal parts wolf and human.”

  Barkav gave a slight smile of approval. Ghasil snorted and muttered, “Show-off.”

  Kyra hid a grin at Shurik’s expression and didn’t ask further questions when the topic changed to the Zoryan style of fighting. Although she was curious to know more about Zibalik, she suspected that she would hear more malarkey about how wonderful the wyr-wolves were. The men of Khur were a credulous lot, to believe such a tall tale.

  The dune provided some shelter from the wind, and the camels surrounded them in what Kyra found was a comforting circle, almost as if they were protecting the humans. With the two stoves lit in the middle, one could almost ignore the cold, dark night. After they had eaten, talk petered out. They sat in silence until Barkav announced that they had six hours before dawn and they had better use them to get some sleep. Aram damped down the stoves; the loss of the little light and warmth was almost painful.

  Kyra wrapped herself in all her blankets and, after a moment’s hesitation, rested against her camel as the others were doing. She looked up at the twinkling stars and the crescent moon; it was higher in the sky now, and paler. The night sky was crystal clear; she could see the milky river of light arcing across it that Felda had once explained was the light from stars that could not be individually distinguished.

  What had Astinsai said? There is always a price to pay for beauty. Or for love. Kyra shivered and closed her eyes.

  Of course, sleep was no easier to come by here than it had been in her tent. She wriggled, trying to find a more comfortable spot against the camel’s hard, furry flank. Her thoughts turned to Rustan, as they did every night. Where was he now? Was he safe? Did he think of her at all? Why had he left without even saying goodbye?

  She knew he had merely done what he had been ordered to do, and gone on to another mission. He was a Marksman, after all. And she was a Markswoman. Feelings played no part in that truth.

  It was a long time before Kyra could sleep, and she could not keep Rustan’s face out of her mind. After a while she stopped trying, and let her thoughts wander where they would. What did it matter? She would not see him again. But she could think of him. She could remember what he had taught her. She could remember the way his eyes pierced her when he was trying to make her understand something. Or the rare smiles when she managed to surprise him: a move he did not expect, a punch that he didn’t see coming.

  And she could imagine. She imagined what it would be like to see him again. She would be cool and polite with him, of course. He would ask her if she wanted some practice sparring, and she would agree. She would send him sprawling facedown in the sand, as he had done many times to her. There would be sand in his mouth and hair and he would look at her in surprise and respect. That duel is as good as won, he would tell her. She would laugh lightly, and he would smile that smile of his that made him look not much older than one of the apprentices. He would grasp her hand in his and say that he had missed her. He would bend toward her, and press his lips to hers . . .

  One of the elders coughed and Kyra jerked out of her little dream with a start. Hurriedly she began to count her breaths: breathe in, hold it, hold it, breathe out. It would never do to allow the elders the slightest glimpse into her mind. She breathed and counted until she had calmed enough to try to sleep.

  * * *

  It was on the afternoon of the fifth day that the sandstorm hit. It had been
deathly still since morning. Barkav kept scanning the horizon every few minutes, his brow furrowed.

  They had been on the move since dawn and Kyra’s limbs were stiff, her throat parched. Sand and wind, sun and sky—she felt as if she had never known anything else. When Barkav called for a halt in the shelter of a cliff, she almost fell off in her eagerness to dismount. Two more days and she could get off this camel, guzzle as much water as she wanted, and have a bath.

  Kyra was doing a stretching exercise to loosen her limbs when she heard the cry go up behind her:

  “Calima! Calima comes.”

  She straightened up, and her heart sank. Over to the south, perhaps thirty or forty miles away, sky and sand had merged into a solid, terrifying wall of red-brown dust. Even as she watched, it grew larger, billowing toward them with uncanny speed.

  “We have fifteen or twenty minutes at most,” said Saninda. “Do we run or do we hunker down?”

  Barkav moved his lips; he seemed to be calculating the odds. “We hunker down. We can’t outrun that and this is the only shelter we’ve seen for miles.”

  Even Shurik’s face was grim. He worked with Aram, tethering the camels to the large rocks jutting out of the sand on the leeward side of the cliff. Kyra helped Saninda and Ghasil secure their food and waterskins rapidly, wrapping them in layers of canvas and tying the bulky bundles with ropes to the rocks at the base of the cliff.

  The sky overhead darkened to a dull orange as the wall of dust closed in on them. Kyra kept glancing up at it nervously. It was huge; it looked almost a mile high. How could they possibly outlast it? Despite her dehydration, sweat trickled down her face and back, and she threw up a fervent prayer to the Goddess. Please, let me live, so I can confront Tamsyn in the Hall of Sikandra.

  “Cover yourselves,” Barkav shouted over the wind. “Get as close to the cliff as you can. Lie facedown and hold your blanket over your head. Hold on to each other as well.”

  Kyra obeyed at once, knowing the advice was for her. The others were already moving into position, holding their blankets tightly over their heads. She lay facedown and immediately got sand in her mouth.

  “Keep your eyes and mouth closed,” came Barkav’s muffled voice. “Don’t look up or the sand will blind you.”

  Kyra closed her eyes and pressed her lips together, trying to ignore the sharp bits of rock digging into her skin through her cloak.

  The sandblast hit the cliff in a howl of fury. They were almost swept away with the sheer force of it. Kyra hung on to Shurik and Saninda, who were on either side of her, but her blanket was snatched away. The sand scoured her exposed neck and pelted her on all sides. The wind tore at the cloth tied around her face. She kept her eyes closed, but the sand got into her nose and mouth. Just when she thought she wouldn’t be able to take another breath, Shurik dragged her under his blanket and breathing became a tiny bit easier. She lay quite still, glad of his arm around her.

  It felt like hours before the storm passed. Kyra didn’t dare move until she heard a husky voice saying, “Well, that wasn’t so bad, was it? Nothing like the storm last summer.”

  Nothing like the storm last summer? These men were crazy.

  Kyra coughed out sand and pushed Shurik’s arm away. A mountain of sand had accumulated on them; they staggered to their feet and dusted themselves off. Kyra’s muscles ached from the effort of holding still for so long while being buffeted by the gale. There was sand everywhere: in her hair, mouth, nose, and ears. It had gotten inside her clothes and cut her skin. Her neck and hands, which had been exposed for only a few minutes, were bleeding.

  Aram bent down to examine their provisions. After a moment, he said, “About half our supplies are still here.”

  A ragged cheer went up and Barkav announced that it was time for tea. Five minutes later, after using a bit of the precious water to rinse their mouths and eyes, they were all sitting around the stove, cracking jokes about how Calima, the wicked wind, was getting old and toothless. Kyra sipped her tea and listened in disbelief. Aram had a cut lip and Ishtul had a nasty gash on his cheek where a flying piece of rock had hit him. Shurik had cut his hands in protecting her, but he grinned at her foolishly as if they were at a courting party.

  Finally Kyra could not bear it any longer. She got up, tore her face cloth into strips, and wet them. She didn’t have any ointment and there wasn’t much water to spare, but it was essential to keep wounds clean or they would fester. Even the Marksmen ought to know that, for all that they didn’t consider healing important enough to merit a full class.

  The elders looked up suspiciously as she approached. Ishtul protested that he didn’t need her help, but she ignored him. She wiped his cheek until the grit and sand were gone, and tied a clean strip around his face.

  “There,” she said, stepping back. “That should do until you can see a medicine woman in Kashgar.”

  “I thank you,” said Ishtul, patting his cheek and looking more hook-nosed than ever.

  Aram took a couple of strips from her for Barkav and Saninda. Kyra glanced at Shurik, and he held his hands out to her with a pathetic look. She bit back a smile and bent over them, examining the cuts and cleaning them as gently as possible. Shurik winced several times but didn’t complain, even though it must have hurt.

  The moon had risen when they finally resumed their journey. They had lost half a day and half their provisions, but this was little compared to what might have been.

  Swaying on her camel under the moonlight, feeling the stillness of the night like a blessing, Kyra thought how close she had come to death. All of them could have died that day, their bodies preserved by the desiccation for some unsuspecting nomad to find years later. And there would have been no one left to avenge the death of Shirin Mam.

  But the Goddess had decided their fates otherwise. Kyra was still alive, and her story wasn’t quite finished yet.

  Chapter 27

  In Kashgar

  They arrived in Kashgar the next day, late in the afternoon. The change from the silent emptiness of the desert was abrupt, almost shocking. One minute they were riding between dunes and towering black rocks with the sun beating down on their bowed heads. The next minute they crested a dune and Kashgar lay before them, a vast jumble of adobe buildings dotted with blue-green domes, surrounded by ten-meter-high mud walls. Kyra gawked while Shurik explained that Kashgar was the biggest and oldest town under Khur jurisdiction. It had been settled soon after the Great War ended, eight hundred fifty years ago.

  They passed through the walls by the main gate, a massive arched doorway with iron spikes on top. Burly Kushan guards dressed in ceremonial red and gold robes stood on either side of them, bowing deeply, clearly recognizing the group of Marksmen. Barkav and the elders called out greetings, but Kyra kept her face and katari hidden, though she longed to stare at everything. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself. Several clans and tribes had gathered in Kashgar ahead of the annual clan meeting, and it wouldn’t do to start rumors of a strange Markswoman in the company of the Marksmen of Khur.

  They dismounted outside a large, rectangular two-story building near the main gate with the grand name “Jewel of Kashi” painted on the arch of its entrance. This, Kyra guessed, was the guesthouse where the men of Khur stayed when they were in Kashgar. Certainly they were expected. The proprietress, a middle-aged woman dressed in sober gray, hurried forward to greet them with cups of fragrant mint tea. Two young boys led their camels through the entrance to the open courtyard inside the walls.

  Kyra followed the Marksmen into the vast courtyard, stunned by the size and beauty of the blue and white building. The courtyard was surrounded by dozens of stables, housed between elegant arches. The arches were decorated with a mosaic of glazed blue tiles that gave the effect of intricate floral patterns. The courtyard itself was paved with stone, but in the center was a square garden with a well, overhung with olive trees. Sandstone benches lined the garden on all four sides.

  Most of the stables were
already occupied by horses, mules, or camels. The guest rooms, Kyra deduced, must be on the floor above, arranged along a gallery facing the courtyard. The spicy, fruity smell of the olive trees mixed with the earthy smell of the animals, and Kyra inhaled deep, feeling herself relax.

  The courtyard was crowded with people—merchants and traders for the most part, but clan elders were present as well. All talk and laughter faded as the Marksmen walked past, Barkav in the lead. Everyone fell back and gave space for their little party to pass, bowing and murmuring respectful greetings. Kyra could feel their curious eyes on her, and hear some loud thoughts:

  Who is this strange girl with the untidy hair?

  What is a woman doing with the Marksmen of Khur?

  And, worst of all:

  What are the Marksmen coming to, dragging their floozy to a respectable guesthouse like this?

  Kyra’s cheeks burned with anger but she kept her eyes down. She wished she could disabuse the idiot who had thought that, but now was not the time to reveal herself.

  They climbed a marble staircase to the gallery on the first floor, the proprietress bobbing up and down as she showed them their rooms, urging them to call her if they needed anything. Kyra could make out elaborate gold letters painted on each door. Although she couldn’t read the script, Shurik told her that each room was named after a fruit or a flower. Kyra’s room was called Shisqa, a type of date.

  It was a relief to enter the snug little room she had to herself, and warm her cracked hands in front of the small fire that had already been lit for the evening. Kyra sat on the wooden chair by the fireplace and regarded her room with pleasure. The arched ceiling was of brown sandstone, and the floor was covered with crimson patterned rugs. A narrow bed was pushed against the wall; it had a thick red and yellow patchwork quilt that looked very welcoming. Here the cold and discomfort of the journey could be put aside, the sandstorm forgotten like a bad dream. Kyra wished she could stay longer than the three days that were left before the clan assembly in Sikandra.