Kalinka awoke with a start to find the sleeve of her coat in the stallion’s mouth and that she was being tugged urgently to her feet. Taras and Börte were already standing, ready to leave the cover of the tree canopy.
“What is it?” she asked sleepily. “Why did you wake me? Are the Germans coming back?”
Temüjin stamped his foot.
“I can’t hear anything,” she said. “Couldn’t we stay under here, where it’s dry and out of the wind? I never thought I’d say it, but really, it’s quite comfortable sleeping on needles.”
Temüjin stamped his foot again, only this time with real impatience.
“It’s just that I’m tired. So very tired. I think I could sleep for a hundred years.”
Kalinka leaned across Börte’s back for a moment and closed her eyes, and this time, Temüjin dropped his head and bit her on the thigh.
“Ow,” she said, rubbing her leg. “That really hurt. What’s the big idea? I thought we were supposed to be friends, Temüjin.”
The stallion swung his head around and walked away; then he turned to see if Kalinka was following.
“All right, all right,” she said. “You want us to leave this place. I understand that. Although it beats me why.”
As Temüjin led the way out from under the tree, a branch sprang back and dumped a large deposit of snow on Kalinka’s head; hearing the girl yelp with surprise and discomfort, he looked back and laughed, certain that she was properly awake now. He needed her full attention to reach the sanctuary that, in his bones, he knew to be close at hand.
Kalinka wiped the snow from her hair and off her face without further complaint and mounted Börte. To her surprise, the stallion began to lead them back the way they had come earlier.
“I get it,” she murmured. “We’re doubling back on our own trail. Good idea. That should confuse the Germans. It will be harder for them to track us now. You’re so clever, Temüjin. I’d never have thought of doing something like that.”
Temüjin broke into a trot and Börte followed. Soon they were running past the same trees where the horses had chewed off the bark and up the hill toward the circle of standing stones. Here the stallion paused and then walked off at a tangent toward an inner group of central stones, and it was only now that Kalinka perceived a pattern in the arrangement of the circle: all of the stones were positioned in an elliptical spiral with a clearly identifiable middle point where the stones appeared to become shorter. As they reached this middle point, she realized that it was not that the stones were shorter at all—that was only an illusion—but that the ground was much lower here, and the stones led the way down a cleverly disguised pathway into a deep depression in the hill. From the back of the mare, Kalinka saw how you might have walked straight past this central spiral of stones and never realized that it seemed to lead to a place that must have been of great importance to the ancient people who had built it.
At the bottom of the spiral path, Temüjin stopped and looked around.
“Yes, it’s certainly interesting,” said Kalinka. “All right, we can’t be seen down here, but we’re still outside, in the freezing cold, and I don’t understand how we’re better off here than we were under that tree.”
Temüjin was already digging in the snow with his hoof, which prompted Taras to start digging. Finally Kalinka jumped off Börte’s back, and ignoring the cold in her hands, she began digging, too.
“If this is buried treasure we’re digging for,” she said, “I’m not sure how that’s going to help us. Although I suppose we could always try to bribe the Germans to let us go.”
A couple of times, she had to stop and warm her numb hands underneath her arms.
At last, Temüjin’s hoof struck something hard, and the next second, the remaining snow collapsed to reveal two large standing stones with a stone beam across the top.
“It’s an entrance to something,” said Kalinka. “But how did you know it was here, Temüjin?”
The stallion snorted and then sniffed at the length and breadth of a wooden door as if something lay behind it. The design carved on the door was the same as the one on the stones; and now that Kalinka took a closer look, she could just about make out what it was.
“Why, it’s a horse,” she said. “Of course. Why didn’t I realize that before? It’s an ancient horse like you, Temüjin.”
Temüjin tossed his head up and down, anxious now that the girl should open the door.
“You can smell something in there, is that it?”