The northman shrugged. “That’s simply how it feels to me. I have no evidence to point at.”
“Will they attack us then?”
“Perhaps a few of the older boys may come,” Nils replied. ‘We’ll see.”
We’ll see! Baver collapsed in on himself. The northman had said it as if discussing the possibility of showers. He could imagine a dozen boys, twelve and thirteen years old, coming out on horses with bows and arrows, to surround and skewer them.
He lay down on top of his sleeping bag and closed his eyes. He’d grown used to sleeping among mosquitoes, which at any rate were far fewer here on the dry steppe, and mostly he slept readily when they camped. Tonight, though, he was sure that sleep would be impossible. Still, perhaps if he lay on his back with his eyes open, and focused on a star …
He was asleep in minutes.
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Achikh had already noted the layout of the Kazakh camp and the location of the horse herd. Earlier it had been more dispersed than he’d cared for, especially for working by himself. Now, by starlight, it seemed more concentrated. It was also closer to camp than he liked. As if wolves had worked here recently: horses will crowd camp at night when wolves are around, for the security it offers.
As he neared, he let his horse move pretty much at its own pace, muttering to it occasionally, tapping its barrel with a hard heel from time to time. Alone he could not simply startle the band and drive them to his own camp; they might go anywhere. He’d have to cut out half a dozen, rope them together and lead them, which meant a relaxed and quiet approach.
In the darkness, he didn’t see the Kazakhs who were waiting, lying low on the backs of their horses, till after one of them raised his catching pole and dropped a noose over Achikh’s head from behind. Then he yanked it tight around the Buriat’s neck and they were on him, two adolescent boys with quick wiry strength, and two older men, no longer quick but strongly muscled. Others had moved up too, arrows nocked, in case Achikh wasn’t alone.
Normally he would have fought till dead or unconscious. But Nils had said he’d see what might be done to rescue him, and he remembered what a powerful wizard the giant Northman was. Thus, after his first violent resistance, Achikh went slack and let them tie him.
The halfmoon was well up when Nils shook Baver awake. “Come. Put on your boots. Something has happened to Achikh. We will go to the Kazakh camp and see if we can help him.”
Baver struggled out of a dream of captivity, sat up and looked around. We will go to the Kazakh camp! Repeating it mentally brought him fully awake. Achikh wasn’t with them; his shelter tent hadn’t even been set up. And there was more than just moonlight to see by
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now, he realized. The eastern sky was silvering; in another hour or so the sun would rise. Somehow even a little daylight made the Kazakhs seem less dangerous, less deadly. Though deadly enough.
They remained just long enough to eat some of a marmot that had half dried, half smoked on a rack over last evening’s fire. Then they each drank a few swallows of mare’s milk, bought a few days earlier, thickening and souring in a sack made of horse gut. Baver washed his down with tepid creek water, and they left on foot, leaving their hobbled horses behind, not even packing their gear.
After walking the better part of a kilometer, they topped a small rise. From it they could see the tents, dismal-looking humps on the steppe, lined up in rows in the half-light. Each, Baver knew, was made of felt mats tied over a bowl-shaped frame of slender poles, like the other semi-permanent camps they’d visited. There was no sign of activity, surely not outdoors, and no smoke visible from the smokeholes in the roofs. Even to Baver that meant the camp slept. Now, he thought, Nils will decide which tent Achikh is held in. We’ll go to it, and Nils and Hans will slip inside to free him, maybe kill the Kazakhs there. I’ll stand by the door with my pistol, in case anyone comes. He felt grimly pleased with his analysis, and at the same time surprised at it.