She saw the flock upon flock upon flock of birds that suddenly surrounded it, mobbing it like songbirds mob an eagle, pestering and pulling and diving at its head. One bold one even pulled the plumage of its crest.
They were vultures and ravens, carrion beasts, and Samarkar had never been so glad to see them in her life. The rukh swatted at them, snapped and snatched—but it could catch none, and before long they had it running.
* * *
The sound of the gunshot shattered Temur’s mind. He lay stunned, certain he was shot, as the assassin slumped atop him, his temple caved in, blood and gray jelly oozing across the ruin of his face. Bansh was there, then, pushing her pink-spotted nose against Temur’s cheek, whuffing sharply. She might have whickered. Temur felt a vibration but did not hear her. He lay still, panting, as she shoved her muzzle under the dead assassin and pushed him off Temur.
Only then did Temur find the strength to sit up, to draw in a breath that hurt enough to convince him that he was not dead. He knelt; the mare dropped her neck beside him. He threw an arm across it, behind her ears, and clung while she lifted him to his feet. She was filthy and wet with blood and sweat, scraped and battered; he leaned against her and tried to turn so he could watch for anyone that might approach to hurt them.
Smoke drifted on the sky; people—lizard-folk, not Nameless—stood here and there, turning slowly, looking at one another as if expecting an enemy. Temur shook his head; through the ringing, he faintly began to hear the sound of the wind, of the fire, of people talking.
Samarkar came up behind him and spoke softly, said his name, summoned him back from the place he had drifted to. He turned to her, the blood and soot on his body streaked with sweat, eyes aching with smoke and unshed tears.
The wizard put a hand on his shoulder. He slumped against Bansh and closed his eyes. Samarkar was scratched and exhausted, smoke-stained, her hands blistered as if she had been handling naked fire. Who knew? Maybe she had been.
“Come back, Temur,” she said. “We’ve lived through it.”
18
Tzitzik feasted them again, but this time it was a somber affair. There were too many dead and too much to consider for anything to be otherwise.
They ate under the setting sun and the open sky, gathered around campfires, because the ancient hall had burned and many of Tzitzik’s sworn band had burned along with it.
The few who remained—among them Saura, for a mercy—no longer seemed inclined to take offense at anything the easterners did or said or any attention they received. Nothing, though, could alleviate the sorrow of the woman-king over her losses. And to Temur’s distaste, it became his task to further burden her.
“The kurgan of Danupati,” he said, “has been desecrated.”
Saura translated, and Tzitzik turned to Temur with eyes afire with rage. Quickly and down the bare bones, he outlined what had been done to him and what he had discovered—the warlord’s skeleton with its missing head, the infestation of gut-worms. He did not ask what would be done to those who had tried to murder him, but he noticed a significant glance from Samarkar when he brushed past the topic.
“Someone came here to sow war,” Tzitzik said, finally, through Saura. Her chin rested on her fingers. A wooden trencher lay on the grass before her, food untouched. “To sow war all across our ancient domain. Someone incurred the curse, intentionally.”
Hrahima snorted. “You know I have my theories.”
The woman-king pushed a morsel of baked grain around with the point of her knife. “Do you know how Danupati died?”
Temur glanced at Samarkar, who shook her head. “I think not.”
Tzitzik looked about herself. Her sworn band sat close, and Temur knew some of them were probably those who had tried out of jealousy to kill him. But that had been before the battle, in a time that might as well be the width of the world away. He set aside his anger.
She spoke, and Saura translated. “He died not in battle, but of an illness. The Black Bloat, some say, but the truth is no one knows. Except that when he took ill, he mounted up his best mare and rode her into the desert, where he died in the saddle. The mare brought his body back.”
“That is a sad story,” Temur said.
“After a fashion,” Tzitzik said. “Some say he could not sing his death song, being too weak, and so the mare sang it for him. But of course, who could have witnessed such a thing?”
“That would be some mare.”
The woman-king smiled. “They say she was a liver-bay with one white hoof,” she said. “You tell me.”
Their gazes locked. A peculiar shiver ran up Temur’s spine. He sat back, suddenly no more interested in his dinner than Tzitzik was.