“That is very gracious of you, Shamal-pe-Uzmar,” said Zangi-Ragozh, rising and heading off for the barn and a night in the straw.
Ro-shei, following close behind him, asked, “Shall you or I remain awake?” in Imperial Latin. He stopped next to the cart and laid his hand protectively on the largest crate in its bed.
“I will,” said Zangi-Ragozh.
“You seem wary.” Ro-shei went back to close the rough door behind them as they stepped into the barn, which smelled of goats and ponies and camels. “You anticipate some mischief on their part?”
“Oh, yes; I think they may steal our animals’ food if we sleep, or perhaps something worse,” said Zangi-Ragozh.
“Then we should depart before the family rises,” said Ro-shei, resting his hand on the down-turning quillons of his Roman dagger.
By morning they were a good distance from the goat-farm, having left well before dawn. They kept on steadily, avoiding the worst of the mud, and taking great care when passing along a steep or narrow part of the road. Throughout the morning they continued to climb, the river falling away beneath them until it was little more than a frothy stripe at the bottom of the canyon.
Osarkand was tucked into a fold of the mountain, on the leeward side of the rocky flank, which afforded enough protection that there was some small amount of neglected grass growing in the sheltered meadow behind the town, which was protected by high, stone walls and a stout gate of thick planks.
“Do you notice there are no animals grazing, although there is grass?” Ro-shei pointed out as they came around the bend in the road; they stopped to survey any activity around the town; after a half day of observation while their animals did their best to graze on the desiccated grasses at the edge of the remaining swaths of snow, they realized that there was nothing to be seen: no sign of any life, either human or animal. They moved a bit closer to the little town, into the shelter of an overhanging boulder the size of a large building. “You see? No animals. Not even fresh dung.”
“They might be in the barns, to stay out of the rain,” Zangi-Ragozh said, dubiety coloring his voice.
“So they might, but there is also no smoke from the chimneys, and that is—”
“A bad sign,” Zangi-Ragozh finished for him. “Taken with the rest, yes, it is a bad sign.”
“What do you want to do?” Ro-shei asked.
“The road goes through the village, and we have no other passage up this canyon.”
“There is no road on the other side,” Ro-shei reminded him.
“That was my point, old friend,” said Zangi-Ragozh with a hard stare toward the little town. “I will go closer. This is most odd.”
“Do you think it is a trap?”
“It may be; it may be, but it may also be something else,” said Zangi-Ragozh without elaborating. He studied town walls for a short while, then handed the lead he held to Ro-shei. “I should not be long. If I do not return before sundown, retreat to the deserted way-station and wait there. If I am not back in three days, look for the Amber Trail, and take it into India. If I am able, I will look for you in my ancestral home.”
“In the Carpathians? The old castle?” Ro-shei asked, all emotion leached from his demeanor.
“Yes. If I am not there in a year, search out Olivia and remain with her as long as she will have you. She will know if I am still walking the earth.” He cocked his head as if listening to a soft, distant conversation. “She, at least, still survives.”
Ro-shei had seen Zangi-Ragozh perform that listening before, and it no longer perplexed him as it once had. “Hearing with the blood?”
“Yes,” said Zangi-Ragozh. “It is the nature of the Blood Bond.”
Ro-shei stood aside so that Zangi-Ragozh could pass. “You’ll give the usual signal?”
“I will. Watch the gate. It is where I will come to give the signal if the town is safe to enter. If I signal from anywhere else, assume there is danger and go back.”
“I will,” said Ro-shei, and watched Zangi-Ragozh as he began his climb up the slope, a darker shadow moving through the shadows cast by the mountains.
Zangi-Ragozh approached Osarkand on what he assumed were goat tracks. He ignored the discomfort from the constant film of running water coming from the melting snows above and put all his attention on the cluster of buildings and the vacant pasture. He did his best to concentrate on everything—the sights, the sounds, the smells, the feelings the place evoked in him. He reached the rear of the pasture and climbed over the wall. Then he saw the remains of a goat lying near the base of the wall, and he knew that Osarkand was empty. Still, he remained cautious, for there were other hunters than humans who might be waiting inside the walls; he stopped beside the picked and pulled skeleton and examined the marks on the bones. “Bear,” he muttered, “and some kind of bird of prey; an eagle, perhaps—or lammergeier, if they came through the winter.” He stayed in the shelter of the wall and walked toward the barns, pausing frequently to listen for any hint of activity in the town. When he reached the first barn, he found a small window to peer in before attempting the door. Satisfied that the barn was empty, he went to ease the door open and found himself staring at a row of empty mangers. He made an inspection of the place and discovered under a heap of old straw, a last sack of old grain. Mice had been at it, but there was enough left that could be salvaged; he took it with him as he went to the next barn, which was larger and emptier than the first. Here there was clear evidence that bears had ransacked the place, for the double row of mangers were broken, and the wood was marked by gouges from long, curved claws.
The sun was starting to slide below the horizon by the time Zangi-Ragozh opened the gate and waved his short, improvised torch in a circle first to the left and then to the right. That done, he braced the gate open and went to light the butter-lamps in the house he had chosen to occupy for the next two days. He had a fire going in the hearth when he heard Ro-shei and their ponies and camels come down the narrow stone street. “In here!” he called out.
“I was beginning to fret,” Ro-shei said as he opened the door.
“There are barns behind the houses; take the smallest one—it is the least disturbed.” He picked up the half sack of grain. “This was left behind. I reclaimed it from a family of mice and cleaned out most of their droppings. The ponies will need it more than the camels.”
“I will; what will you do?”
“Try to secure this house so that you and I can rest. I will try to find a bolt for the gate, for what protection that can provide. You may have the night to sleep—I will take the day.” Zangi-Ragozh lowered his head and pointed to a straw-filled mattress on a low pallet. “I will make that usable for you: I will sleep on a chest of my native earth.”
“The smaller chest is almost empty,” Ro-shei reminded him as he started back for the door.
Zangi-Ragozh thought a moment. “Once we reach the plains of Kushan, if we travel by night and rest during the height of the day, my supply of earth will last longer. At least the sun is not at full strength, or I would have to spend most of the daylight hours resting in whatever dark I could find.”
“Then it is fortunate that this calamity has not strengthened the sun,” said Ro-shei.
“It is,” Zangi-Ragozh said quietly.
Ro-shei went to lead their animals to the smaller barn, where he busied himself unloading them, stowing the cart, stacking their burdens along the wall, except for the chest of clothing and the larger chest of Zangi-Ragozh’s native earth, both of which he placed near the door, anticipating carrying them to the house Zangi-Ragozh had selected for their use.
It was dark by the time Ro-shei came back to the house, his chores taken care of; he was moving more slowly than usual, as if the long climb was telling upon him at last. He had washed his hands and face and unclubbed his sandy hair and was using his Byzantine comb as he entered the house, which was now neat and warm. His mababa he carried over his arm, it being too cumbersome for wearing anywhere but in the open or in the saddle. “This is very pleasant,” he said to Zangi-Ragozh. “A fire in the furnace, lamps lit, and a good bed ready.”
“It should suffice for two or three days, until our ponies and camels have eaten all the grass in the pasture—what little there is of it.” Zangi-Ragozh had just finished sorting through a small stack of sectioned wood. “We will have to replenish this supply tomorrow.”
“Neither you nor I need heat,” Ro-shei remarked.
“We both like it,” Zangi-Ragozh said, and put another branch into the stone furnace. “Our clothes and gear should dry out.”
“So they should,” Ro-shei conceded. “Very well; I will plan to look for wood.” He finished combing his hair and clubbed it up again.
“As will I.” Zangi-Ragozh went to secure a plank-shutter over the window. “We can keep the house warm until we leave.” He pointed to a broken jug that had been left behind, set on the single shelf near the furnace.
“What do you think happened?” Ro-shei asked, curious to know how Zangi-Ragozh had reached that conclusion.
“Everyone fled, or so it appears to me,” said Zangi-Ragozh. “You can tell by what little they left behind: there are large items, like that bed and the furnace, and useless items, like this broken jug. I have found a few raw bear-skins; they are half-rotten and not much use, and in the grainery, there was a tub of washed rice; it may have been meant for fermentation, but it is wasted now. The counting-house has a few tally-sticks left. In my search, I discovered nothing that might provide us comfort beyond what you see here. The town packed up what it had and has gone elsewhere. They were not driven out—there is no sign of haste or fighting. There is no evidence of grain illness—the few remaining beds show no sign of sickness, and there are no mass graves outside the walls, as there would be with a deadly fever.”
“Then why did they leave?” That was the greater puzzle to Ro-shei. “The walls are sound enough, and the houses look to be sturdy.”
Zangi-Ragozh shook his head. “I have been about the town, and I think perhaps their animals were being affected by the weather and inadequate food. Between that sort of trouble, and the sharp decline in merchants passing along the Silk Road, I reckon that the people could no longer sustain themselves here, and so they went to find better pastures.”
“May they have good fortune,” said Ro-shei, a hint of bitterness in his wish.
“May they, indeed,” Zangi-Ragozh said sincerely.
“Do you think they went east, or west?” Ro-shei pursued his piqued interest; he was somewhat surprised that it mattered to him.
“I would guess they went east; that direction is downhill and away from the snow. They may have gone on the Amber Trail, if they reached the desert,” said Zangi-Ragozh. “We might have encountered them had we arrived at Kashgar a week earlier.”
“Kashgar,” said Ro-shei significantly. “Would they have gone into the town, do you think?”
“For their sake, I hope they did not.” Zangi-Ragozh answered Ro-shei.
“And I,” he said, and held out his mababa, so that Zangi-Ragozh could position it near the furnace to dry. “I will be glad of a chance to sleep.”
“It is the result of being hungry, this exhaustion.”
“Yes,” said Ro-shei as he took off his sen-cha, which he folded and put on the shelf. Next he removed his boots, and last of all, his leather britches. When all these were folded and put on the shelf, he went to stretch out on the bed, pulling two skins around him. “Wake me before dawn.”
“I will,” Zangi-Ragozh promised, and pulled on his mababa before going out into the cold of the night. He returned in the last quarter of the night, a small pig hanging from thongs. He woke Ro-shei and hefted the pig into view. “I took my portion. The rest is yours.”
“And welcome it is,” said Ro-shei.
“I have a little wood, as well; enough to keep the house warm until nightfall. I left it by the door outside.” He seemed a bit distracted, and he regarded the pig for a short while. “I thought at first that was a shoat, but now I doubt it. The pig is at least a year old. Hardship kept it small.” Zangi-Ragozh sat on the chest that contained his native earth. “I saw a temple of sorts near the highest part of the wall, with the remains of five newborn kids on the altar.” He fell silent again, watching Ro-shei cut up the little pig.
Ro-shei turned away as he began to cut up the undersized sow. “Pigs and birds are not sufficient for you. They suit me well, but you need more than blood to—”
“I am aware of it,” said Zangi-Ragozh, and went to bring in the wood from outside the door before stretching out on his chest of native earth.
Text of a letter from Chu Sung-Neong, Undersecretary of the Prefecture of Holin-Gol, to the Regional Army Commander, General Dan Gieh-Gon, carried by courier; never delivered.
To the most well-reputed and honorable Regional Army Commander General Dan Gieh-Gon, this greeting from Chu Sung-Neong, the Undersecretary of the Prefecture of Holin-Gol, with the authorization of Magistrate Ngo Hai-Ming, the Magistrate of Holin-Gol, acting Prefect of the city and supervisor of the local garrison.