The Year of the Horsetails by R. F. Tapsell

Prologue 4

Steep, bare mountains rose up on either side of the narrow ravine, so that Bardiya had to gaze almost vertically upwards to see the sky. Yarosh and his men were making their way in single file through this deep, winding, gloomy valley that seemed to cut across the crest of the mountains. At dawn the previous day they had already penetrated far into the foothills.

West of the river, the steppe had gradually given way to forest. First, isolated oak groves appeared in low-lying places; followed by more extensive wooded areas which finally merged to form a continuous barrier of trees. The route skirted marshes and impenetrable thickets, but it followed a general south-westerly direction. Not another human being did the travellers see. Bardiya was well aware that this region must form a buffer zone between the ruthless, predatory nomads and the settled people beyond their immediate reach.

As the ground sloped up towards the mountains, oak and hornbeam had yielded to beech trees and silver birches. Ultimately, near the summit of the range, stark rock faces emerged, from which soil had been stripped by wind and rain, except where pockets of earth were trapped in stony crevices.

Yarosh and some of his men rode captured Tugar ponies, with varying degrees of skill; Bardiya had instantly observed that they were not all practised horsemen. He rode his own mount with the relaxed ease of a lifetime’s practice. The walkers strode effortlessly as they had done since dawn, apparently hardened to a steady pace that would have reduced him to blistered exhaustion much earlier.

Bardiya had now had ample opportunity to study his companions carefully since the fight by the cataract: they were sturdy, fair-haired men, mostly bearded, tall and large-limbed in contrast to the short, wiry Tugars, though none were substantially larger than Bardiya himself. They carried thick, voluminous cloaks slung over the shoulder or strapped to the saddles of the riders. Used to the near-uniform arms and armament of the Tugar armies, their new companion would have been contemptuous of their varied weapons, had these not recently saved his life- long straight swords, spears, big axes. They each seemed to possess a large all-purpose dagger attached to the belt. The captured nomad weapons had been shared out among them; Yarosh had acquired the best of the ponies, besides a bow and quiver. Unlike the others, he did not carry a net of salted fish among his possessions.

Bardiya’s own position remained undefined. He was not sure whether he should consider himself a prisoner, and with the astute diplomacy learnt during years of plotting in the Tugar imperial camp, he postponed a test of his rescuers' intentions by a pretence of attaching himself to their party voluntarily. In fact he could see no preferable alternative even if they let him go: he was friendless and alone; he could not return to the steppe. These mountains and what might lie beyond were unknown to him; he doubted whether even the Kagan’s far-ranging spies would have bothered to investigate them. The circumstances in which he had encountered these people had been exceptionally lucky. Had he ventured into their country alone, identifiable as a stranger from the steppes, they would probably have killed him on sight. Instead, the hostility between himself and the Tugars was proved beyond doubt and he was being taken over the mountains in safe if somewhat ambiguous custody.

He wondered whether the Tugar squadron-commander had found the few traces that had been left of the sudden end of his patrol. The bodies had been thrown into the fast-moving river, together with two of Yarosh’s men who had also been killed. In all likelihood the affair would remain a mystery to the nomads; there were a hundred reasons why one man or two should vanish without trace in the steppe, but an entire patrol was another matter.

　

　

Bardiya’s companions had acted as though free from danger as soon as they were well into the forest country, and he had thought it politic to remove his mail-coat and helmet, thereby drawing attention to his fair hair, his loose cloth shirt and generally un-Tugarlike appearance.