Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey [258]
There was a dirt road stretching eastward before us. Kebek and I glanced at one another. He pointed at the road. I shrugged. Ethan of Ommsmeer had said Miroslas lay to the east. Insofar as I knew, our paths were aligned, at least for now. I wasn't happy about it, but it was the only road available to us. I swung myself astride. Kebek dug his heels into his mount's flanks, clicking his tongue.
We rode throughout the night, under the starlight. There was no pursuit. No one in Tarkov knew we were gone yet. It was quiet and peaceful, and a little surreal. I was a fugitive in a strange land, riding beside a young Tatar man.
Kebek looked happy.
Elua, I should have left him there.
We rode through a wood, but it wasn't as dense as the one between Kargad and Tarkov. By dawn, we had emerged. There was a stream with a skin of ice on it. We broke the ice and watered our horses and ourselves. In the daylight, I could see that Kebek had chosen wisely. The horses we'd stolen were at once sturdy and elegant, with short legs and shapely heads, calm and quiet. They looked capable of going long distances.
"You're no Bastard," I said to mine. "But you'll do.”
It was a league or so after we emerged from the woods that the road forked. One path, the more faint of the two, continued eastward. The other veered south. Kebek pointed to the latter, raising his brows.
I shrugged. "Miroslas?”
His mouth twisted. His folk were nomadic, but he was in the service of Fedor Vral and he knew the lay of the land. Reluctantly, he nodded toward the eastern road. I tapped my chest and pointed at it. He tapped his own chest and pointed toward the south, saying somewhat in his own tongue.
"So we part ways." I put my fists together, then separated them.
Kebek nodded sadly.
We divided our things. Whatever he'd had to begin with, it had been seized in Tarkov. I gave him the warm coat we'd stolen and one of the blankets. A sack of grain, half the half-eaten loaf of bread. A few coins I wasn't sure he'd be able to use. I didn't have a waterskin to spare, and I couldn't afford to give him my sword or the hunting bow. Kebek shrugged. I wrestled with my conscience and gave him one of my daggers, the one I wore in a boot-sheath. It hurt to part with it, but I didn't think much of his odds of survival crossing hostile territory without a single weapon. There wasn't much point to freeing him if he didn't stand a fighting chance of living.
"Treasure it," I said to him. "It was a gift, too." I smiled a little. "Try not to use it for bad things, will you? I don't care who wins this war, Fedor or Tadeuz, but don't kill anyone who isn't trying to kill you. Just…go home and make love to your girl." I shaped her figure in the air. "In the end, nothing else matters.”
Kebek nodded, then grinned. "Shut up," he said, mimicking me in passable D'Angeline.
I laughed. "Fair enough." I put out my hand, but he ignored it, stepping forward to give me another hard embrace. I returned it. "Good luck.”
He said somewhat else; much the same, I daresay. And then I mounted my stolen horse and he mounted his, and we rode our separate ways. I glanced back a few times, and caught Kebek doing the same, but it wasn't long before my path headed into another wood and he was out of sight.
I wondered if he would make it safely home to his plump-bottomed girl. As much as I'd thought I disliked Tatars, I'd come to harbor a sneaking fondness for Kebek. I hoped he'd survive.
And I very much hoped that freeing him didn't get me killed.
I needed to find Berlik and finish my quest. After that, I could tell the truth and suffer the consequences. It wouldn't matter then, the deed would be done. And if nothing else, it would lend credence to the truth of my story; and there was Urist to back me up, and the story of the slain Albans that Micah ben Ximon had kept quiet, too.
All I could do was