The ice went out and the stream rose further, but not enough to cover all the meadow. Fortunately, because the snow had melted on it, and the scarecrow horses were eating last summer’s dead grass and sedge there. None had died, but another month of winter would surely have killed them all.
At Achikh’s suggestion, Nils felled another large birch and split wide thin planks from it. Then they each began to carve a wooden shovel. In the high passes, Achikh believed, they’d have to dig paths for the horses in the worse places, or wait halfway through the summer.
Baver accepted the thought without a shudder.
PART III
THE BURIAT GREAT COUNCIL
TWENTY
It was high summer. A slave was tending a band of cattle grazing between two rolling hills near the Tola River. The sun was hot, and he sweated. Just now he watched four men riding eastward toward and past him, along the ancient road. Such traffic was not unusual, but even at some distance, his sharp herdsman’s eyes found more than a little unusual about these four. None were dressed in Mongol garb. One was a giant who rode naked to the waist, as did one of the others; foreigners, obviously. Also, though clearly they seemed to be travelers, they had neither pack animals nor remounts.
A great dark bird rode the withers of the giant’s horse, perhaps an eagle trained to falconry. He’d heard of such.
A long hour would take them to the great encampment at Urga, a buried city site long mined for its steel and copper. There, just now, the four Buriat tribes were gathered in congress, to council, trade, and drink. And perhaps elect a Great Khan who would lead the entire Buriat people.
It seemed to the slave, who was also a Mongol, that his master should be told of these foreigners. Turning
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his horse, he cantered off over a hill to the freeman who supervised him, and reported what he’d seen. The freeman, in turn, sent a messenger to Urga.
From Urga, a marshal was dispatched with an arban of men—more than enough to deal with four foreigners—and they cantered off westward down the ancient, grassgrown road. Shortly the four came into sight over a rise a kilometer ahead, and two of them did appear shiftless. Foreigners certainly!
The marshal barked an order. His ten men kicked their horses into a gallop, then drew bows from their saddle boots and fitted arrows to them.
Baver felt instant alarm as the group of Mongols charged toward them. Svartvinge raised his broad wings and sprang lightly from the withers of Nils’s horse, wing-strokes making hard whooshing sounds as he rose. Baver turned his attention to Achikh, who led them; seen from behind, the husky Buriat showed no reaction. Nor did Nils seem perturbed, and surely he would know if the oncomers intended to skewer them.
A second later Achikh spoke, and the four stopped to wait. Baver’s guts clenched as the Mongols came on. At some twenty meters the arban drew up before them in a cloud of dust, arrows still nocked but the short, thick bows unbent.
“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” the marshall barked.
“I am Achikh, son of Kokchü. And you are my old friend, Elbek. I have come to see my eldest brother, Kaidu.”
For just a moment the man’s mouth was a round O. Then, ‘Achikh!” he shouted, and grinning rode his horse up beside Achikh’s, where the two men embraced, both talking at once. The arban’s ferocity and tension were gone; most of them were grinning too. When their leader had completed his greeting, two of the others also rode up and embraced Achikh as an old friend.
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Then Elbek assembled his duty face. “And those with you,” he said. “Who are they?”
Achikh had them identify themselves, which they did in Mongol, at once a strong point in their favor. “We are friends, Achikh went on, ‘ who have traveled together for a year now. They were out adventuring when we met. I had already known Nils Hammarsson as a famous fighting man, the most famous in the west.”