“King Tzitzik,” Temur said, without raising his eyes. “I am called Temur; my companions are Samarkar-la, Hrahima, and Brother Hsiung. We have come to you as travelers passing, with news and in the hope you will trade with us.”
The man who had spoken said something—a string of liquid syllables Temur could only assume was the local language. The woman-king answered with a wave of her hand that ended—thankfully—far from her well-polished sword hilt.
The man translated. “What do you have to trade?”
“Salt,” Temur said. “Purple salt from Rasa. And Samarkar-la is a healer. We have her skills, as well.”
“And the news you bring. Is it news of great doings?”
“It’s what news there is,” Temur said.
There was a pause, longer than the pause for translation. “Rise,” she said through her advisor. “You will be brought water and clean clothing, if you need it. You will dine with us, and we will share … what news there is.”
* * *
The food at the woman-king’s table was horse meat, stewed long with onions, and flat, chewy cakes of baked dough. The people had not heard of the ruin of Qeshqer, although news of the Qersnyk war had reached them. Try as he might, Temur never quite found a way to ask the woman-king about her ancestors. The witch will be disappointed in you, he thought.
The Celadon Highway was north; it was not too far to reach, they said, but if Temur and his people were traveling to Asitaneh, it would be more direct to follow the river the Dragon Peoples called the Hard Drinker to the seacoast.
“Two days ride,” they said. And, “You will have to build a signal fire. A ship will put in, and if you can pay, they will carry you across the Strait to Asitaneh.”
They stressed the expense of travel in and near the cities. Temur, having lived in cities in Song as well as Qarash itself, could imagine. And the woman-king herself seemed very taken with him. He sat beside her on one side, Samarkar on the other—the position of honored guests—but she spent more attention on him. She brushed morsels from her plate to his, and once or twice fed him directly from her gold-armored fingers.
Temur found himself uncomfortable with the attention. Or perhaps with Samarkar’s evident amusement, because every time he looked around King Tzitzik, there was the wizard, smirking at him from over the collar of her borrowed coat, her jade and pearls still hidden away in the bottom of a saddlebag. Their own clothing, while not quite worn to rags, was definitely in need of laundering somewhere where it could be boiled with soap.
They were sent to sleep, not along the walls of the hall, as Temur had half expected, but in smaller white-houses scattered within the walls of the stockade.
* * *
Temur awakened in the dark, fighting too many hands to count.
He would have shouted, but a black hood covered his face, and someone larger and stronger twisted his arms behind him. The hood was filled with some muffling fabric. His shout sounded flat and close, even to his own ears. He could tell it had not carried.
They did not drag him but carried him out and slung him over the back of a horse. His head bounced against its hay-smelling ribs, and though he fought and the horse spooked and sidestepped, there were enough hands to hold him in place until the ropes made it impossible to flop himself free. Hemp burned his wrists, his bare ankles. He wore only a breechclout and the hood, but the night was not too cold. The horse’s rough hair pricked his skin.
Someone mounted: He heard the hooves beside his own unwitting steed. Someone jerked the horse into motion from the front, and they were running. His ribs bruised and burned with every bounce. His abdomen was scoured. The horse was unhappy, fighting the lead, fighting the unbalanced weight across its back.
Temur finally gave up struggling. He had to concentrate on his breath and on not giving voice to the whimpers that wanted to bubble from his lips. Crying would only make it worse.
After a long time, they jounced to a stop.
The trot was worse than the gallop, but it was over sooner. Temur lay in wait, feigning docility, until they came and unknotted the ropes that bound him to the horse. He thrashed, fishtailing his feet, and caught someone in the chest hard enough to knock him over. When he toppled backward, though, Temur suffered—the fall from the horse’s back was more severe than whatever he’d dished out to his assailant.
He gasped a mouthful of cloth trying to regain his breath and almost vomited. That would surely improve things.
But he got his knees up, rolled on to them. Would have hopped himself upright with the same move you’d use to leap to the saddle of a running horse, but someone struck him across the chest—it felt like a kick—and he went down. Choking on fabric, light-headed, thinking After everything, this is a pathetic way to die.