Naamah's Curse - Jacqueline Carey [17]
Here, there was grass, grass, and more grass.
I missed trees.
One day, I came across an unfamiliar structure. From a distance, it looked like a mound of sticks tied about with blue rags. Wary of human presence, I hesitated to approach it, but I sensed no one, and the prospect of wood drew me.
At closer range, I saw it was true. It was a conical cairn built of weathered branches—wood, firewood, enough for half a dozen merry campfires. I dismounted in haste, already calculating how best to bundle and load it, and how much additional weight Coal could carry, my cold fingers reaching eagerly to dismantle the structure.
And then my diadh-anam stirred in warning, and I hesitated.
Scarves of vibrant blue silk hung from the branches. There were little bowls nestled around the base of the cairn, tucked into niches. Some held a dried residue that might have been milk. Others held what looked to be the petrified remains of some kind of dumpling, pale and smooth as river-stones.
I sighed.
“This is a sacred place, isn’t it?” I said aloud, gazing at the immense blue vault of the sky. A breeze sprang up as if in answer, setting the blue scarves fluttering.
So be it.
I didn’t have milk or dumplings to offer, but I worked a strip of dried yak-meat free from the pouch that hung from my sash. Although I was worried about my stores growing low, I had learned in my travels that it was always wise to offer respect to foreign gods. I bowed and placed the meat in a bowl, hoping that it would not offend the original donor, hoping that whatever gods the Tatars worshipped would not think me stingy.
And then I heaved myself back astride Ember, and we continued on our plodding way across the endless plains, Coal trailing behind us.
It was two or three days afterward that I saw the herders. I saw the cattle first, scores of them ambling from the northwest on a course to intersect mine. I heard the shouts of the boys before I saw them. It was another cold, clear day, and their young voices carried across the plain.
I glanced around, but there was nowhere to hide on the flat, empty expanse of grassland. For the first time in longer than I could recall, I summoned the twilight.
Despite my lack of practice, it came easier than I had reckoned. I had seen dusk fall over the plain many, many times since I had passed through the gate, and the discipline that Master Lo taught me had focused my gift. I breathed the living memory of Tatar dusk deep into my lungs, feeling my diadh-anam flicker and glow. I breathed out the twilight, letting it settle over the horses and me.
The sunlit world turned shadowy and dim, the grass silvered, and the sky filled with deep purple and indigo hues.
With a silent thought, I asked the horses to remain still and quiet. They obeyed willingly, pricking their ears and watching with curiosity as the stream of cattle and the two young Tatar herdsmen passed before us. The boys looked to be thirteen or fourteen, and they rode in the saddle as though born to it, prodding the cattle with long poles, chattering back and forth to one another with cheerful urgency, all unwitting of our presence. A keen-eyed dog trotted alongside one of them.
I smiled quietly.
When they were no more than specks on the horizon, I released the twilight. The bright daylit world returned in a rush of color. Green grass was green once more; the arching sky overhead was blue. Ember tossed his head a few times and blew through his nostrils as though to comment on the phenomenon.
“Come, brave heart.” I patted his withers. “We’ve a league or two to go before we make camp for the night.”
Had I been wiser in the ways of winter in Tatar territory, I might have thought to wonder where the young herdsmen were bound, and why they went about their task with a certain sense of urgency.
I found out soon enough.
Within an hour’s time, the temperature began to drop precipitously. The wind sharpened. It cut through my thick coat of padded cotton, it found its way up my sleeves, it froze my cheeks