Shadow of the Horsemen (Kalie's Journey) (31 page)

Men she knew as allies came to her aid, just as Kalie realized she was out of weapons. Riyik was shouting for her to fall back; that the rest of them could handle things, when a voice shouted, “Hey! We could use some help over here!”

Not far away, Borik stood holding Kariik at knifepoint. Literally holding, Kalie saw, for the king’s feet dangled a good distance off the ground. Borik looked as terrified as his royal hostage.

“It’s about to get very ugly,” Kalie said into the sudden silence. “But if the right person were to take charge, and negotiate…” She looked at Riyik and smiled again.

Riyik nodded, grim resolution in his eyes. He moved fast despite his injuries.

“Kariik!” Riyik shouted as he drew close enough to command the attention of all concerned. “Tell your men to drop their weapons!”

Kariik turned what was probably intended to be a royal snarl in Riyik’s direction, but his chin quivered. “Do it!” Riyik snapped, his tone brooking no dispute.

“Drop your weapons!” Kariik ordered through shut teeth. His men glanced warily at each other, but slowly complied. Kalie knew they would have to conclude this business quickly, for most of them kept knives up their sleeves, and would be looking for an opportunity to use them.

“I’ll make this simple,” Riyik said, his gaze somehow holding both the king and the surviving warriors who surrounded him. “Either we leave your territory safely, or you die now.”

“I’m well rid of you all!” snapped Kariik, as Borik slowly lowered him to the ground at a signal from Riyik. “You, Riyik, and your followers and whichever women you’ve chosen are free to go. You have my word.”

“Thank you,” said Riyik, not relaxing in the least. “But unfortunately, your word is not worth what a king’s should be. That, I’m afraid, is what began all this.” Kariik and the men around him stiffened. “Collect the horses!” Riyik shouted to his men. “Run off those who are strong enough to chase us. Leave the injured to be walked back to camp for the food and rest they need.” He turned back to Kariik. “By tomorrow, you’ll have regained most of your herd, and we will be well rid of each other.”

As the men hurried to comply, Alessa came to stand beside Kalie and Riyik.

“Riyik, what of the wounded men?” Alessa asked. “We should leave enough horses to get them back to camp.”

“Why?” asked Borik.

Riyik smiled. “Kalie, what do you think?”

She glanced at Alessa, then nodded.

Kariik’s wounded were loaded on the least winded of their horses and sent on their way, over the loud objections of some of Riyik’s men. But no one made a move to prevent it. They simply gathered up their own wounded and the weapons taken from their enemies. They also carried bodies, Kalie saw. Four who rode with Riyik would never see the West. Men who would have been a threat to her people? Or simply the fortunes of war?

Riyik held Kariik until Borik brought Thunder and Blossom to where he and Kalie waited. “The gods will curse you for betraying your king!” Kariik spat.

“As they will curse you for taking a crown that was not yours and allowing yourself to be ruled by evil men?” Riyik shot back. “Wake up, Kariik! The man who used you, who murdered your father and brothers, has fled—doubtless looking for another weak leader he can use. It’s time for you to grow up and become the king these people need, before it’s too late!”

“And how will I do that?” Kariik cried. “The alliance is destroyed! We’ve stayed too long at our summer pastures! Our winter camps may well have been taken by others and we lack the strength to fight for them! And now you say the west is closed to us! So you tell me, Riyik: what are we to do?”

He sounded so desperate, so honestly lost, that Kalie almost felt sorry for him. And she could see that Riyik truly did. But no one spoke until Alessa stepped forward.

“Consider this possibility,” she said, her voice carrying as easily as Kalie’s had when she told her story. “Your numbers are depleted, so combine the clans—two for each winter camp. If others have occupied some of those places, then leave them! Don’t start a fight you can’t win. We have taken few of your animals. You will have enough to survive the winter.”

Kariik stared down at her from his horse, as did the men around him.

“It is a good plan,” Riyik said. His gaze locked with Kariik’s. “And a good leader recognizes a good plan.”

“It might help us survive the winter,” Kariik conceded, but he was looking at Riyik, not Alessa. “But what then?” Despite her desperate wish to be gone from this place, Kalie began to smile.

Riyik looked at Alessa. “What do you suggest, Priestess? What will happen in the spring?”

“Spring will be hard,” Alessa agreed. “The grass is drying up. There will be much fighting over water. One solution would be to kill more of your animals. It will reduce your need for water and pasture, the extra meat will strengthen your people, and you will have a surplus of leather and fur which might be used in trade for--“

“Then what do we eat next winter?” cried Kariik. “Where will the milk for cheese and kumis come from?”

“Listen to this foreign slave and we will all be dead by next winter!” shouted one of Kariik’s warriors.

“That may be.” Alessa shrugged as if it was no concern of hers. Then her eyes bored into those of the king. “But there is another possibility. Maylene’s son is in your keeping, Kariik. If you want to try leading your people down a different path, then come next summer, bring them west. Give the boy to his mother’s kin to raise. Watch him grow up and see how a man can still be a man without murder and torture for his daily fare.”

“Alessa, what are you doing?” Kalie cried, but it came out a whisper.
         

“What I came here to do,” the priestess answered softly. “This tribe will be desperate. And desperate people will try anything.” She met Kariik’s puzzled gaze. “It’s up to you, King of Aahk. Come in friendship—and kinship—and we will help you start over.” Then she turned to Kalie, who realized it was her turn to speak.

Kalie gracefully raised her arm and held a Serpent Fang before Kariik’s face. “But come in haughty arrogance, thinking to take what others have built, and you will be met with these. And you will be met by people who know what life under your rule is like. We will kill every one of you before we let you harm one inch of our world.” She grinned wolfishly. “And what’s more, we will take your women—and make them like us!”

Kariik actually flinched at that, along with several of his men. Alessa merely nodded her approval. “The future will involve grave risks for all of us,” she said.

“But that would have been the case anyway,” said Riyik. “You will have a year to decide, and a Western wife to teach you all you will need to know—“

“What!” Two shouts echoed together. Kalie looked to see who the other voice belonged to, and found herself staring at Kariik—whose confused expression mirrored her own. A ripple of laughter encircled the gathering, easing some of the tension.

Riyik explained. “Alessa is a priestess of high rank. Her words carry great weight with her people. And as the wife of the king, she will have influence here, as well. Perhaps enough to prepare our people for what you yourself have rightly called our great destiny.”

“It could work,” muttered one of Kariik’s warriors. “He’s already got a taste for Western women…”

Kalie moved closer to Alessa. “You can’t stay here!”

Alessa smiled. “I have to, Kalie. It is here I will find my Goddess again. And it’s here that I will atone for my part in all those deaths.” She looked at Kalie with a calm certainty, greater than even what Kalie was used to from her. “You and Larren must return to our people. I must stay here, and prepare the horsemen to join them—in partnership. And perhaps, I can help poor Kestra find her way back as well.”

“Alessa, I can’t just leave you with them!”

“As you so recently said to me,” Riyik whispered in her ear. “It is not your decision to make.”

“Now I really hate it when you’re right!” she snapped.

“I must return to the camp to care for the wounded—“ Alessa was saying when Kalie caught a movement out of the corner of her eye. “Alessa, look out!” she screamed, as a creature from a nightmare rode into the gathering, a spear poised and ready to impale the priestess.

Riyik reacted at once, casting his own spear, injuring the intruder, and spoiling his aim. The spear missed Alessa, but only just, and clattered to the mud at their feet.

“Haraak!” Kalie shouted raising her own spear. Her old enemy bled from a dozen wounds, although none appeared fatal.

“Kalie, don’t!” Riyik cried, pushing her spear down. Men and horses shifted nervously, as the threat to the fragile peace established just moments ago became apparent to all.

“We can’t let him live!” Kalie hissed. “And no, this is not just about personal revenge! If he regains control of Kariik—“

“That is why we must wait. Believe me, I want Haraak dead just as much as you—and he will die today, I promise! But Kariik is on the verge of becoming his own man—but only if he can stand up to Haraak now, by himself, in front of his men…”

Kalie understood, but she didn’t like the odds.

Already, Kariik’s face was clouding, his newfound confidence ebbing. Haraak saw it, but instead of speaking to his puppet, turned to the men.

“These foreign witches are more dangerous than any of us supposed!” he shouted, and again, Kalie was impressed by his skill at storytelling. “You all just saw Riyik—once our brother—shed the blood of the king’s own advisor, while I sought to free our king from the spell this witch has placed him under!” He raised his bloody arm, ignoring the pain he was surely in, and pointed at Alessa. “Riyik, too, is under a spell.” Haraak glared at Kalie. “One I thought I had broken. But I shall do so now, before all of you…”

“Enough of your manipulations, Haraak!” Kariik said, and Kalie saw with amazement that he was angry. To a man, his assembled warriors stiffened in surprise, but none as much as Haraak. He froze, and barely recovered in time to stop his jaw from dropping. “I am king,” Kariik declared, as if puzzling out the meaning of the words.

“Yes,” said Haraak, turning the full force of his charm on his puppet. “You are king, and you will lead us to a glorious conquest of the lands to the West! Once these witches are dead, you will remember your great destiny! Men will sing of your deeds for—“

“I am king,” Kariik repeated. “Which means that I will do what I must for the good of my people. It is not a task I sought, nor one I willingly accepted—even after you murdered my two brothers, for the sole purpose of making yourself king through me—“

An angry hiss erupted from the frightened warriors, but no one knew exactly where to point his spear. Haraak, for once, was speechless. “Oh, yes, I knew,” Kariik continued. “I may lack the strength of my father, and the courage of my brothers, but I have at least as much wisdom as the gods gave a horse. I simply thought it was safer—and easier—to be the witless tool everyone thought I was. But I can’t be that any longer. This tribe—what’s left of it—cannot afford it.” The grin that Kalie was trying to smother appeared on Kariik’s face. “But you were right about one thing, Haraak: our destiny does lie in the west.” He smiled at Alessa, who made no attempt to hide her grin. “Just not in the way you foresaw.”

Haraak’s face grew even redder than his hair. “You sniveling whelp!” he screamed. “I did not put you where you are so some foreign whore could lead to by your cock and turn our warriors into geldings!”

“That may well be,” said Kariik, not sounding at all like the whining boy of just the day before. “But in case you haven’t noticed, Haraak, nearly a third of our warriors are dead. The grasslands are drying and a slave girl has devised a weapon that could turn us into slaves if her Goddess was so inclined. I would say the time for conquest is over.”

Kalie could no longer contain her laughter. “Come now, Haraak!” she taunted. “This is what you have wanted since the day you first came to my land! It is what you have murdered and manipulated and sold yourself for! Your entire tribe is finally moving to the west!”

“Yes!” cried Alessa. “And once there, they will swear allegiance to the Great Goddess, and atone for generations of abuse, cowardice and deceit! You’re getting what you wanted—or at least what you deserve!”

When she saw the look on Haraak’s face, Kalie realized she had just gotten all the revenge she needed. His face was nearly purple and he was having trouble breathing. “You will both die for those words!” he finally managed to choke out. Then he laughed, but it was forced, and there was genuine fear in his eyes. “The warriors of Aahk take what they want, and crush all who oppose them. That will not stop because of some witch’s curse.” Haraak turned to the men. “Watch and follow. We will each of us take these whores upon the ground right now and strip them of their powers. Then I will cut out their hearts and tongues and bury them where we stand.”

“Actually,” said Riyik, “we are going to conclude the business at hand, and then you are going to die where we stand, Haraak. For the rape of my wife and the murder of my king.”

Kalie noticed that Riyik had placed the insult to her before the murder of a king, and despite the danger they faced, felt strangely happy.

“Please do so, Riyik” said Kariik.

Haraak whipped around to face the king, his face mottled with rage. Then he drew his dagger and with an incoherent roar, flung himself at Kariik. “You are no king!” Haraak spat. “ It was always my destiny anyway! I will lead our people to—“