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“Indeed! And where are these men now?”
“In the steppe on the other side of the Altai, traveling northward toward the taiga.”
“Northward? With winter coming? Why?”
“The raven did not have that knowledge, Your Magnificence.”
“Hmh! How was that? You told me it would be able to read the barbarian’s mind.”
“I had not counted on the barbarian’s powers being as strong as they are, Your Magnificence. He seems to protect himself and those with him from being read. But we know where they are now, and as long as the raven retains contact, we’ll continue to know.”
“Ah! Well … I am extremely interested in this giant barbarian; he has caught my curiosity strongly. Be sure your bird does retain contact with him.”
The emperor pursed his lips, and his voice became more commanding, losing its mildly interrogative tone. “Now that you’ve succeeded in creating a raven elemental, I have another job for you. I want you to create a yeti elemental to serve as my personal bodyguard. It must be more intelligent and perceptive than any other yeti, and altogether superior in energy and strength.”
Again Tenzin bowed. “‘Your Magnificence, my experience in creating elementals of animals is limited to—a bird.”
The emperor brushed the comment aside. “This yeti elemental must be dominant over all other yetis and completely devoted to me.” He raised one eyebrow meaningfully. “I would not have it equivocate as some of my human servants do.”
Tenzin Geshe bowed low and held it. “Of course, Your Magnificence.”
“Then do it. Wait here while I call the captain of my yeti guard. I will instruct him to review the entire guard with you, and also the young yetis in training. You may pick whichever one you wish as the receptacle. Keeping its purpose in mind of course.”
He struck a small gong, and almost at once a runner
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entered. The emperor instructed him, and the runnerbacked out.
Tenzin carefully avoided thought; screening in the emperor’s presence would be a dangerous affront. But later, in the gomba, he allowed himself to think that things were seldom as simple as His Magnificence seemed to imagine. Manipulating the mental energies of large, intelligent, and sometimes truculent predators was not the same as manipulating those of peaceful birds. Birds which, if more intelligent than other birds, fell well short of yetis.
Still, if he could, he would. It was never a good idea to disappoint the emperor.
NINETEEN
After the first snowstorm, the travelers had a sixteen-day return to mild weather. The nights were cold though; a chill wind flowed down off the snow-covered mountains every evening after sunset, freezing the ground by morning.
They worked incessently from dawn till after dark. At the end of the seventh day, the rude hut had a low roof of poles, and bark held down by more poles. There was no chimneyed fireplace; the local mud was unsuitable for making one. Instead they had a fire circle in the middle of the floor, and at each end of the hut beneath the ridgepole, an opening beneath the roof. Through these openings the wind would blow, when there was wind, carrying out the worst of the smoke.
After the seventh day, while Hans and Baver cut and dragged firewood, Nils and Achikh hunted. Achikh said he’d never seen a luckier hunter than Nils. The raven helped; it found a moose for them, and then another.
Baver learned to scrape hides till the last bits of flesh and fat were gone, then to rub them with tallow and pound it in with the sides of his fists, to make them pliant for clothing and winter boots.
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There was a meadow along the stream, where the horses grazed the coarse dead grass and sedge. Achikh feared they wouldn’t live through the winter without hay, so the men harvested grass, great armfuls of it. They d use it as bedding till the horses’ situation became desperate, then as a supplement to whatever the horses found to eat.
From the beginning, the Buriat and the two Northmen set snares and deadfalls in the taiga, and began to harvest snowshoe hares, which were numerous, and lynx; even sable. One night wolves howled, and in the morning the horses were close outside the hut. Meanwhile a wolf had triggered a deadfall, and contributed his pelt.