銘心刻骨
Míng xīn kè gǔ.
Engraved in one's heart and carved on one's bones.
To remember a benefactor as long as one lives.
*~*~*~*~*~*
The following day Dunya brought Zakhar to another dull, dusty outpost town. The only difference from all the ones previously is that they had somehow reached the edge of the plains. Mountains, great forested mountains, rose suddenly behind the town, like protective elder siblings peering down on a younger brother.
The town had most amenities, a small market, a black smith, a scribe's office, and a worn down inn that a sign out front proclaimed 'The Lone Pine'.
This'll be my last stop, Zakhar decided.
As he was riding into the town he saw a few traders who knew what a good horse looked like, judging by their own mounts. They would recognize what a valuable horse Dunya was, and take good care of her. He would sell her tomorrow. And then head into the mountains on foot to... to...
Zakhar stabled Dunya himself at the inn, unsaddling her, cleaning her hooves, then rubbing her down and covering her carefully with her thick rug.
"Make sure she gets the best feed you have, and plenty of it," Zakhar said, flipping a coin to the stable boy. The boy nodded his shaggy head.
Inside the inn was much more welcoming than the tavern he had been in the day before. A merry fire burned in the hearth, crackling with fresh pine logs. The tables and benches were clean, and polished with age, rather than grease, and the patrons sat at them looked respectable, if poor.
Behind the bar was a selection of different drinks, some in bottles, some in barrels. There was also a pretty barmaid. At least, the twinkle in her spry eye was pretty, and her kind, motherly smile.
"What can I get you, young'un?" The old woman cackled amicably, wrinkles around her eyes crinkling.
"Food and a room for the night, please. And a bottle of your best drink. By best I mean strongest."
The woman fished under the bar and drew out a clear bottle of amber liquid sealed with red wax. "Half a this'll lay your horse out."
"I'll have the whole bottle."
Zakhar paid for his room and his drink, and went up the narrow stairs to his room.
Inside it was similarly cheerful to downstairs. A crackling fire in a hearth, polished wood furniture, and a small bed with a patchwork quilt thrown across it.
Zakhar stripped off his jacket, hung his saddle bags over a chair, and then threw himself across the quilt, bottle still in hand.
Rolling onto his back, he peeled off a ribbon of wax, and uncorked the bottle.
One sip and the liquid burned all the way down to his gut. Two or three sips later the world dulled, and all Zakhar could see was the blurry light of the fire dancing on the ceiling above his head.
But the feelings didn't dull. Zakhar took another swig, but they were still there. Zakhar felt so many things. Fear, sadness. Longing. But mostly he felt guilt.
Ao's face, angry and hurt, swam into his mind. How could I have made her so unhappy?
"Sanli was right... I shouldn't have gotten so close," Zakhar took a long swig.
He had gotten carried away, by the comfort Ao gave. Now he had memories to warm him. But what had Ao gotten in return?
About half the bottle later, there was a knock at the door. Zakhar opened it, after missing the doorknob several times, and looked up and down the hallway. No one was there.
A cough brought his eyes down. The wrinkled barmaid stood there, so much shorter than him she barely came up to his belt.
"A friend a' yours is in the courtyard," the woman said. "Asked if I could get you."
Zakhar frowned. Friend? He grabbed his jacket and tried to put it on, arm missing the sleeve twice before it slid home. The other arm was even harder.
He didn't have any friends. Unless...
He swayed, then jerked out the door, stumbling past the old woman and down the hall.
It couldn't be...
The narrow staircase almost ended him. The steps rose up to meet his feet too quickly or sank away from them like waves on a treacherous sea. Zakhar stumbled down them, saved from falling headfirst only by his large hands braced against the wall.
The bar downstairs was empty of patrons, and the fire had burned low, suggesting it was later than Zakhar had realized.
How did she find me? Zakhar fought between excitement at seeing Ao again and terror at the thought of having to confront her.
How can I convince her to leave? She is not safe with me. I need to trick her into-
Zakhar shuddered to a stop in the doorway to the courtyard, vision whirling after his quick movement.
A tall figure stood there. Too tall to be Ao. Zakhar recognized him as one of the men who had been watching him from the corner of the tavern the day before. One of the men who had stared at his tattoos.
The man had a sharp look to him, with eyes that shone like flint.
"You're not my friend," Zakhar said, disgruntled.
"No," the man said reasonably. "But we could be friends. Do you think you could help me?"
Zakhar swayed one step, then another, catching a hand on the doorframe to steady himself. "How-"
Suddenly a weight hit him between the shoulder blades, driving him toward the ground. Zakhar stumbled under it, recognizing it as a knee. He reached back to pull off whoever had just landed on his back—
—and fell forward as the snare he had not noticed coiled around his feet.
Zakhar hit the stones of the courtyard, hard. Near all the breath was forced from his body, with the impact, and the rest of it followed as the knee drove him down.
Before he could recover from his shock, bonds looped around his wrists, tying them securely behind his back.
"You see, the Green Throne just issued a bounty for the Black Lord's men. 50 gold for a hand, and 100 gold if we take you alive," the flint-eyed man said, crouching in Zakhar's eye line.
Zakhar tried to still his circling vision. Wait 50 gold for a head or a hand, that meant-
The flint-eyed man laughed as a rough cloth gag was forced into Zakhar's mouth. "Yep, you guessed it. You're worth as much to us dead as alive." He gestured to his men. "Get him up!"
The two other men Zakhar had seen the day before heaved Zakhar to his unsteady feet. One, a small man with a long moustache, led Dunya from the stables. The other, a big man near the size of Zakhar with the look of the northern tribes, heaved Zakhar across the saddle.
"Here are his things," the old barmaid said from the door. She handed over Zakhar's saddle bag and half-drunk bottle of liquor. "Are you sure he's dangerous? He seemed like such a nice young man."
"We're sure grandma," said the flint-eyed man, swinging onto his own horse. His two allies did the same. "He's sold his soul to the Lord of Death. Can't trust someone like that."
*~*~*~*~*~*
They left the small town and headed north, the mountains on their right.
Zakhar hung across the saddle, left to look down at Dunya's hooves and stomach and the dark grass of the plains. The position was horribly uncomfortable, but with the amount of liquor he had consumed, Zakhar's discomfort was blunted.
"Can't you lead that damn horse any faster?" The flint-eyed man yelled back.
"She's stubborn," complained the mustached man, who had Dunya's bridle tied to the saddle of his own horse. "Or just slow. Why don't we just kill him here? It'll be a lot easier to just take his hands to the fortress."
"I don't want to smell rotting flesh for a week," the flint-eyed man replied. "Hurry it up, or your share gets smaller."
The flint-eyed man drove his horse on, and the moustached man turned back to berate Dunya.
"Stupid, beast, move faster." He raised his crop, causing Dunya to flinch and whicker angrily. "Move faster or I'll—"
There was a hiss and a thud. A familiar sound. An arrow had appeared, quivering in the moustached bounty hunter's thigh.
"GRagh!" Moustache cried out, tipping forward and out of his saddle as he curled in pain.
"What happened?" The other two men turned.
Beneath Zakhar Dunya spooked, rearing up so that Zakhar slid backwards...
...and fell from the saddle, the star strewn sky whirling over him followed by the grass of the plains.
Oooof. For the second time that night Zakhar fell. The ground was hard, like icy metal beneath him. Ow... might have broken a rib this time.
From where he lay on the cold ground he could see to the horizon, where the person who had shot the arrow sat atop their horse.
The rider was just a silhouette against the night sky. But he recognized the white and brown coat of the horse. He had named the mare after all. In'yii, after the frost her coat resembled.
Ao.
Zakhar laughed against his gag, and his bruised chest throbbed.
Ao kicked In'yii, and the two came galloping down the hill, toward the three men.
As she came closer, it was as if the starlight brightened, and Zakhar could see Ao so clearly. Every feature, from her arched eyebrows to her pale cheeks to her lips. Lips that Zakhar now knew felt soft as new velvet when touched with a finger or his own.
So beautiful.
She was dressed in the same clothes she had worn during their travels north. Her fur cape was thrown about her shoulders, thick boots on her feet. She did not carry a tent across her saddle, which meant she had been staying in inns, or riding through the night to catch him.
It's her. She's here.
He knew he should be afraid. Should be worried for Ao, that she might be hurt, at the hands of these men, or himself. But he could only feel relief.
He had been so afraid. But now he wasn't.
Zakhar rolled to sit up. It was hard, with his hands behind his back, and his head still reeling from drink. But he managed it.
Not far away the moustached man lay where he had also fallen from the saddle, moaning and clutching at his leg. The two other men had turned their horses and watched, uncertain, as Ao came riding toward them.
Ao halted In'yii with a squeeze of her legs ten lengths from where Zakhar lay. Her bow was held steady, arrow knocked, trained on the flint-eyed man's throat.
"What do you think you're doing?" the man growled.
"You, get the foreigner onto his horse." Ao gestured to the big tribesman, with her chin. The man looked to his leader for confirmation.
The flint-eyed man glowered, then nodded, and the big tribesman slipped from his saddle to do as told. With much grunting and heaving, Zakhar somehow went from the ground to Dunya's saddle, this time sitting astride.
"Lash his hands to the saddle. We have a ways to go and I don't want him falling," Ao commanded. Zakhar felt a tug on his wrists, still tied behind his back, as the big man lashed them to the back of Dunya's saddle.
"You are stealing OUR mark, boy. You will regret it," the flint-eyed man growled.
Zakhar swayed in his saddle, surprised. How could these men ever mistake Ao for a boy? Surely she was the most beautiful thing they had ever seen, out on these plains.
"I'll take my chances," said Ao, starlight catching the sharp angles of her face. "Now, dismount and walk your horses back to town, and count yourselves lucky I don't take them as well."
The flint-eyed man snarled something vulgar at Ao, and Zakhar growled against his gag. He wished could sink a fist into that rude mouth.
The flint-eyed man dismounted and started to lead his horse back toward the town. The other two men followed, the moustached man limping and crying in pain at the arrow still sticking from his thigh.
Ao kicked In'yii, following them to the crest of the hill.
"Look back only if you want an arrow in your eye!" she yelled after them.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity, Ao put her bow back in a leather case hanging from her saddle and rode to Zakhar.
Her hands reached up to pull the gag from his mouth.
Zakhar swayed in his saddle, even with his hands tied to it. "Ao, I'm so sorry. I never meant for you to come after me." His words rushed out in a drunken flurry. "You should not be here. You shouldn't have—"
But all his words were lost, for Ao reigned In'yii close beside Dunya, rose up in her stirrups and pressed her lips to his.
Zakhar almost sobbed as her lips touched his once more. How I missed this.
So soft, so warm. So familiar. Hadn't he kissed a hundred soft mouths? But why was Ao's the only one he could remember?
It reminded Zakhar of that kiss they had shared that day in the snow before the dead god's shrine. "May I?" she had asked him, putting one gloved hand to his jaw.
I should have told her no then. Then maybe she would not be here now. I was too weak.
But even guilt slipped away, as he was washed in the wonderful comforting warmth Ao brought. Her strange scent filled his senses, jasmine and something else. The soft brush of her hair against his cheek, the feel of her nose against his.
The plains, the mountains, the starry sky, everything swung around them, suddenly beautiful and full of color even in the black of night.
I am sorry Ao. But I am so glad you are with me.
Ao's tongue slipped between his lips and Zakhar moaned. Her hands ran over his chest. She liked to feel the muscle there, he knew, but always pretended that wasn't what she was doing.
Wait, that isn't what she's doing. She isn't feeling my chest, she's—
He broke their kiss, almost falling backward out of the saddle without his arms to help balance him. "Ao, stop!"
Ao sat back, smug smile on her face. She triumphantly shook the scribed pouch containing Kageyama's bottle of poison she had slipped from his jacket, before tucking it into her own tunic.
"I didn't think you'd make it so easy for me," she said, reaching forward to grab Dunya's hanging reins. She pulled the stubborn horse forward.
"Ao, wait," Zakhar said. His hands behind his back grabbed at the saddle for balance as Dunya started to walk. "I don't have long. You can't be near me. That poison, it's the only guarantee I have I won't becom-"
Ao reached back, and pulled the gag up over his mouth again.
"Hmm. Better."
Zakhar grunted with frustration, trying to talk around the gag.
Ao caught and held his eye, and her own were steely in the starlight. "Was there something you wanted to say? Some other lie to deceive me, all in your misplaced attempt to give me protection I never asked for?"
She is angry Zakhar realized. Very angry.
Her face was different. Ao's laughing smile, her flirtatious guise was gone. In its place was cold determination and anger.
It is like she is a different person. It reminded Zakhar of Sanli, and the mask the little prince always wore.
Except Zakhar was not sure which of Ao's faces was the mask. The face he knew or the one she wore right now.
The words he wanted to say died before they could even be muffled by the gag.
"No more complaints? Good." Ao turned and kicked In'yii on, pulling Dunya along behind. "Come, we are going north."
*~*~*~*~*~*