They made no morning or noon fire, eating leftover marmot for breakfast as they rode, with curds and semi-liquid airag at their midday break. Most mornings were cold now. Sometimes there was frost on the grass, and one morning slivers of ice on the edge of the waterhole they’d camped by.
But except for a three-day span of showers that were not especially cold, the days were bright and warm, and virtually cloudless. The diet no longer bothered Baver, and the occasional diarrhea he’d been troubled with, early in their trek, was long past. He found himself en-
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joying this part of the journey, despite getting up and breaking camp in the morning chill.
From time to time he wondered about Nikko and Matthew, but now without frustration. He’d become somewhat fatalistic; he’d get back to them when Nils did, if Nils did. Meanwhile there were further lessons in Achikh’s language and in wildland ecology. It seemed that Nils and Hans understood the steppes nearly as well as they did their forests, as if the same principles operated in both. The landforms, the orientation of streams, had more meaning for Baver now. Actually he’d known much about them before. His problem had been in relating the information to the reality around him.
Now it seemed to him that if he found himself alone here, he might well make his way back to the country of the Northmen by himself, though he’d have to beg his food.
The country had been unusually flat for a time, and they made excellent progress. Now it became rolling, and judging from the direction of stream flow, they were gradually climbing. One day as they topped a hill, he glimpsed distant mountains, a faint bluish line peeking over the horizon of tawny, early autumn grass. The next day he watched them grow, slowly but clearly. That afternoon, crossing a small ravine, the travelers found scrubby pines on the northeast-facing slope, the first pines they’d seen since leaving the Balkans. By sundown the mountains, though still far off, were near enough to show snowfields near the crest.
The next day Achikh changed direction, angling more to the north, putting the mountains somewhat off his right shoulder. Still they grew gradually nearer. Occasional other ravines had pines now. A couple of days later, the mountains, the Altai, lined the eastern distance as far as one could see to north and south.
Far to the north, they could just see a high snowpeak that Achikh judged was three days ride ahead. This peak, he said, must be Belukha, the great mountain that Shakir had told them of. They’d cross the Altai to the north of it.
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The next day they topped a rise to see a broad basin in front of them. Near its center, perhaps four kilometers away, lay an extensive camp of round felt tents, several times as many as in Shakir’s camp. Bands of cattle grazed the basin’s bottom and slopes, tended by men on horseback. Achikh swore, and gestured the others back, joining them behind the hillcrest a minute later.
“They are Kalmuls,” he said. “Their tents are laid out in the Mongol way. I didn’t think they’d be so far this side of the mountains.”
They turned southeast then, keeping the crest between themselves and the basin. “Why should we fear the Kalmuls more than we do the Kazakhs?” Baver asked.
“The Kalmuls are thieves,” Achikh said. “Not just in time of need, but always. It is their way. It is also their way to kill those they rob. And always they encroach, if they see the chance. If some Kazakh band was grazing this area this year, the Kalmul scouts would have told their chief, and they would have stayed away. Next year they will probably leave, expecting the Kazakhs to learn of them by then.”
Baver shivered. “And if they knew we were here, they’d kill us?”
Achikh grunted a yes. “And with a camp this large, we’re likely to find more of them. Side-camps at least. We’ll go straight toward the mountains, ride till dark, and ride again when the moon rises. When we get to the foothills, we’ll turn north through the forest. It will slow us, but . . .” He shrugged.