Chapter 44
Lands beyond the river, Zagadka
Saga Volsik was delirious with fatigue, yet refused to give in to sleep’s pull.
Her cheek rested on the tent’s timber floor, and she’d curled herself around her tied wrists.
Beneath the ropes, her skin was rubbed raw.
For hours now, she’d tried to loosen her binds, but the horsemaidens clearly knew their way around a knot.
“Please!” Saga cried into the darkness. “I’ll do anything!”
Her voice was hoarse, her throat scratched raw. Saga’s hope had extinguished hours ago, yet she refused to give up. But in the silence, Saga could not keep her mind from drifting to the east. Was she already too late? Was the fortress still standing? Did Kassandr Rurik still breathe?
This last thought made her despair grow deeper and higher.
Kassandr couldn’t be dead, because she’d never met someone so alive.
In this dark, silent moment, Saga was filled with the desire to tell him that he was right.
That the girl he’d taken from Askaborg Castle hadn’t been ready to walk freely in this world.
But the girl she was now—the queen he’d shown her she could be—was ready.
She wanted to show him what he’d done for her. She wanted to thank him.
But it was too late.
Her eyes burned, a tear rolling off the bridge of her nose and spattering the floor.
Saga couldn’t even be mad at herself for crying.
Because she was only just realizing how dreary the world would be without Kassandr in it.
But it wasn’t just Kassandr; there was also Elisava’s fire and Rovgolod’s lazy humor.
The tent flap burst open, and Saga scrambled upright. There stood a silhouette, barely distinguishable from the darkness. For a moment she thought this a phantom vision, but the thud of Khiva’s boots against the floorboards told her it was real.
“You are honest?” came Khiva’s low voice in Zagadkian. “You swear you do not lie to me?”
“Why would I lie?” croaked Saga. “What I said was truth.”
“My mother,” said Khiva, “holds a grudge tighter than a horse to its apple.”
Saga blinked at the revelation—the clansmother was Khiva’s mother?—but she dared not move for fear she’d break this strange spell.
“I will not sit idle if what you say is true. I will not risk the children of my clan for my own pride.” Khiva crouched low before Saga, a long-bladed knife gleaming in the darkness as she lifted it between them. Saga’s pulse thrummed at the sight of it.
“I promise you, queen of íseldur,” Khiva warned, “should I discover treachery, you will find this blade buried in your neck.”
A laugh fell from Saga, part disbelief, part pure madness. “If I deceive you, I’ll bury it there myself, Khiva.”
Khiva huffed. “You are bold, I will give you that.”
Saga smiled a secret smile. What would Kassandr say to that? Perhaps his brashness had rubbed off on her. She could only hope some of her caution had transferred to him.
“I have two dozen horsewomen, armed and ready,” said Khiva in a low voice.
Saga tried to quell her rising disappointment. Two dozen horsewomen were nothing to scoff at, and yet she’d hoped for more—for hundreds.
“I could not muster more without alerting my mother. She has ears all over this city, always listening and reporting back to her. But if we move swiftly, we can avoid her detection.”
The blade shicked through Saga’s bonds, freeing her wrists.
“Come. You will disguise yourself in this armor.” Khiva proffered a shirt of chain mail, a pair of buckskin boots, a helm, and a feathered cloak, then helped Saga slip into them.
Saga allowed herself a moment to examine the attire.
She looked like a warrior—like a woman to be feared. And in that moment, she felt it.
They exited the tent, Saga’s new boots crunching on a layer of freshly fallen snow.
Slowly, she looked up. A few lazy snowflakes drifted down in the dark skies, and beyond them lay a blanket of stars.
Saga gazed up as they walked, spellbound by the sheer number of them.
Had she ever seen stars so vivid as this?
“Stjarna, light my path,” she whispered to the Mother Star before scurrying after Khiva. The cookfires were long dead, the citizens who’d once gathered around them having long ago retreated to their tents.
“We go to the fields,” Khiva whispered. “There the horses have been readied.”
Saga’s heart swelled with gratitude for the brave horsemaidens willing to hear her warnings—willing to look past their strife with the easterners and provide aid.
After several long minutes trailing Khiva between shadowed tents, Saga saw the expanse of a snowy field come into view, punctuated by two dozen dark figures and their winged horses.
Her heart thumped in anticipation, and she wondered if flight would be less frightening in the dark of night.
A horse nickered, another mouthing at the snow, and then Khiva was tugging her toward a black stallion.
There was no more space in her heart for fear, and no time to be afraid.
“You will ride with me,” whispered Khiva, cupping her hands to help Saga onto the horse’s back. But no sooner had her snowy boot landed in Khiva’s palms than a voice cut through the darkness.
“My own daughter deceives me!” came the clansmother’s voice.
Khiva swore, then straightened her back.
“You have freed my prisoner!” At least twenty horsemaidens had gathered around her, arrows nocked and trained toward Silla and Khiva. “You’ve colluded with others to undermine my rule!”
Hopelessness eddied in Saga’s blood, but her anger boiled forth with startling force. This woman would hold her grudge against the easterners while they died—would put her children and grandchildren and each glorious winged horse on this steppe at risk.
“She wishes to fight!” Saga shouted with such fervor, Khiva startled beside her. “As do all these brave women! Their eyes are open to what you refuse to see, clansmother. Come with us. See what the future holds.”
People had begun to gather, drawn from their tents by the commotion.
Good, thought Saga. Let them all hear what threat loomed nearer and nearer.
Her Zagadkian grew more fluent as she fell into the speech she’d practiced with Elisava.
“The Urkans murdered my parents and stole my throne! They dismantled my kingdom stone by stone until all bent the knee to their Bear God and king. I know these people! I was raised by them. They take and they take and they take, until there is nothing left, and then they move on to the next isle! How long after the east is pillaged before they turn their eye on your clans?”
Cries rose up at her blunt words, and though Saga did not understand their tongue, she guessed they did not like what they’d heard. There was a tumult as more clanspeople were drawn by the noise. One of the horsemaidens was jostled to the side, and Saga heard the distinctive twang of a bowstring.
“Arrow!” shouted the maiden.
Saga was no warrior—today was the first time she’d ever set foot on the battlefield—and yet she sensed that the arrow flew straight for her. Shock held her frozen in place as death whipped toward her upon a fledged arrow.
But an enormous beast crashed down from above, knocking the arrow clean out of the skies. Havoc landed with an earth-shaking thud, then reared back with a scream of rage.
For a moment, Saga could not speak against the thundering in her skull. But then she stepped toward the infernal creature. “Where have you been, you wretched horse?”
The crowd had grown still, but before Saga could question it, the winged stallion knelt low and bent his wing. She hesitated for only a moment before clambering atop him and gazing out at the clanspeople.
“I will not lose another minute quarreling while east is slaughtered!” she shouted. “I invite anyone who wants to help—”
Saga’s voice broke off, and she gazed around in confusion—from the clansmother, whose eyes were wide, to Khiva, dropped to one knee and staring at Saga in wonder.
Slowly, the rest of the clanspeople followed suit, until every single one of them knelt before her.
The clansmother was the last to drop to her knee, bowing her head in deference.
“She has tamed the untamable!” shouted Khiva, banging a fist against her chain mail. “She is the great warrior of whom the oracle spoke!”
Saga’s mind replayed Kassandr’s words. One day a great warrior would climb atop Havoc’s back and usher in a new era of prosperity.
Had this oracle foretold the prophecy to the clans as well? Saga would laugh off such a ridiculous notion were she not so desperate for their help.
“Let clans and east unite as once was!” shouted Saga. “I ask for swords and arrows! Let us rain death on Urkans! With your help, we will force them away!”
Her words rang out across the silent steppe. But then Khiva stood and drew her sword, lifting it into the sky.
“For our children!”
A resounding cry rose up, lifting Saga’s spirits. Havoc hoofed at the snow, and she could sense his restless energy—his need to take to the skies.
The clansmother stepped forward, silver braids gleaming in the moonlight. She eyed Saga not with admiration, but with a resigned sort of acceptance.
“I will join you, tamer of horses.”
The rest went quickly from there—horses were readied, armor was donned. And within twenty minutes, a horde of three hundred horsewomen had gathered behind Saga on the snowy steppe.
Khiva directed her stallion beside Saga and reached into her pocket. Saga stared in shock for a moment at the fire flask held in her palm. “You might need this, queen of íseldur.”
With a murmur of thanks, Saga slid it carefully into her pocket.
The clansmother edged up on Saga’s other side, watching her with stern, dark eyes. “What say you, horse tamer, to my warrior maidens?”
Again Saga felt herself in the strange position—hundreds of fierce horsewomen looking to her for an answer. This time, it was easy to push her uncertainty aside.
“To battle!” shouted Saga.
“To battle!” the clansmother called in reply, the roar of the horsemaidens lifting into the skies and carrying across the snow-swept plains.
Saga’s heart hammered ferociously in her skull as her hands curled tightly into Havoc’s mane.
Somehow, under darkness of night, the steppe felt a little less open; the skies less broad.
Though she fought against the urge to bury her face in Havoc’s neck, Saga managed.
And as the winged stallion launched into the skies, she looked east, toward the city of Kovograd.
“Hold on, Kass,” she whispered into the wind. “We’re coming.”