Page 15 of The Tainted Khan (The Soulbound Saga #2)

I n the days that followed, Kiran and Jai rode out each morning, practising amid the long grass. It was a painful training, but no worse than Rufus’s had been, and one that Jai relished, even as he tried to find a comfortable position for his bruised body to sleep.

By now his sithosi was returning far faster, and he even found himself thinking in sithosi on occasion. It was just as well, for the camp was now moving with greater urgency at the bowl’s discovery, and Jai struggled to keep up with the demands of the day.

Nobody knew how long the bowl had been there exactly, but the crusted food within told them it could have been recent. Either way, it was a good sign, for it was common for the largest of tribes to follow the same paths year after year.

As it turned out, the khiroi were the ones who decided where to go, following some unknown instinct, whether it was scent, the stars or memory, to guide the tribe on. Zayn led the way, but was actually letting his Alkhara go where it willed. It was proof of the trust between Jai’s people and these great beasts, and Jai was once again reminded of how important the khiroi were to his people. They followed the ancient migrations of the beasts, walking paths across the Great Steppe that none but the khiroi could see, like great currents in an ocean, carrying them ever deeper into its depths. If they followed their course, Feng was sure they would catch up with the Kidara eventually, for both tribes were on the same path.

As the days passed, they found further artefacts. Tribes as large as the Kidara left a trail in their wake. Lately, the Valor had even spotted fires on the horizon. But with each glimpse of the small flames, no sooner were they seen, did they disappear. He soon learned that these fires could not belong to the Kidara, for a tribe of that size had no need to hide. Only the smaller ones, such as the Valor or Keldar, would quench their fires upon seeing those of another.

What this told them was that they were not the only ones migrating east. Clearly, word of the legions was spreading. And Jai knew, from Leonid’s diary, that this would be a problem for Titus’s legion. Alone, and far from supply lines, they would struggle to catch up to any tribes they wished to fight, whatever their size. It seemed like hubris to send a single legion to invade the Great Steppe, diminished though the tribes of old now were. They would commit evils untold, but one legion could never truly conquer its vast lands.

Though, with the now more numerous Gryphon Guard in tow, he doubted they were as troubled as Leonid had first been.

The Sithia marked no territory, nor upheld any borders. To them, Titus’s encroachment into their lands was no more a danger than the arrival of a new tribe – if left well enough alone, they hoped the legion would return the favour. But to Jai, this was capitulation.

More, he knew that when Titus didn’t get his fight, he’d send Magnus and his goons out to provoke one. And it would be the smaller tribes that would suffer most.

Yet what could he do? Even if the Kidara welcomed him with open arms, would they follow him into a war they could not win alone? Would the other Great Tribes even grant him an audience, let alone join him as allies?

He was getting ahead of himself, yet he felt responsible. He could have ended this. All those days ago, standing there with that blunted sword, the doorknob rattling as Titus made his return.

Yet he’d run, like a coward. And now his people would suffer the consequences. Unless he stopped it.

An outcry came from ahead, and Jai’s hand drifted to his empty scabbard. Yet, as he spurred Navi to the head of the column, he realised they were shouts of joy.

At first, he had thought another tribe was headed for them, as he made out the humped forms of khiroi, spread across the plains before them. But as Jai and the Valor drew closer, spurring ahead of their baggage train, he recognised the sight before them was not an approaching tribe, but a wild herd of khiroi.

There must have been two score of the massive, woolly creatures, ranging from small, frolicking calves to great bulls and even a towering Alkhara at its head.

The wild khiroi were far from oblivious to the approaching Valor riders. As the distance between them diminished, the creatures grew visibly agitated; their ears flicking back and forth, and their nostrils flaring as they caught the scent of the humans and their mounts. The Alkhara issued a deep, resonant call, urging the herd to turn in unison.

Meanwhile, the Valor riders were tossed bundles of bamboo and rope by the children, tying them hastily onto their saddles and peeling away.

They spread out, whooping and spurring their khiroi, excitement palpable from the thrill of the chase and what a success could mean for them. Jai did not wait to find out what the bundles were for, instead urging Navi faster as the riders drew away.

The massive creatures ahead moved with a lumbering gait, their thick, pillar-like legs carrying them with that strangely even stride that made them almost glide over the grassland. Hindered by the slower pace of the young ones, whose short legs laboured to keep up, the Alkhara soon turned back, joining the doe mothers in urging the little ones onward with gentle nudges of their lips.

At last, though, the Alkhara’s mournful call brought the herd to a halt. The adult khiroi formed a barrier around their young, their horns lowered like a row of pikes.

As the Valor riders closed in, their ranks fanned wide, encircling the herd with seemingly rehearsed ease.

Jai’s heart raced as he watched the scene unfold before him. Unsure of what to do but eager to help, he urged Navi on, joining the charge with the last of the stragglers, those that had been slowed as they threw off their baggage.

Jai whooped, feeling the thundering hooves of Navi beneath him, the wind whipping through his hair. He knew in his blood that this was what it was to be a Sithian. To ride the steppe, and lay claim to whatever riches he could take.

As Jai drew closer to the encircled herd, he could see the Valor riders come to a halt, the herd contained, for now.

The adult khiroi bellowed and snorted, mock-charging at the riders in a desperate attempt to protect their offspring. Jai could almost smell their fear, seeing the foam upon the beasts’ lips, their wrinkled eyes swivelling wildly.

Sindri barked a command, and the riders raised their sharpened bamboo stakes, notched like the teeth of a saw. For a heart-stopping moment, Jai feared they would hurl the stakes like javelins at the living wall of flesh and horn. Instead, they drove the stakes deep into the grass, anchoring them with boot and fist until they barely peeked out above the green expanse.

It was hardly much of a barrier, and twice Zayn had to race his Alkhara and ward off the herd moving from their place. The Valor began to gather the ropes, looping them about their arms and chests, swinging them in lazy circles. Soon, the air was filled with a menacing thrum nearly setting the herd into a panicked stampede. Only the skilled movements of the hunters headed it off before it could breach their makeshift pen.

And now the riders began to circle, at first at a slow trot, and then faster and faster, until the very air began to yellow with dust. Jai could do little but watch, devouring the scene with his eyes. He had never imagined a hunt like this.

One rider, a lean and agile woman with sun-weathered skin, expertly twirled a lasso above her head. With a flick of her wrist, she let the loop fly, and it sailed through the air, landing around the neck of a young khiro. The calf bleated in surprise, eyes wide with fear. It bolted, nearly yanking the rider from her perch as she let the rope unspool like a fisherman’s reel, twisting her body to let the line loose.

Moments later, though, she’d whipped the rope around a stake, and not a moment too soon, for it snapped taut with a whip crack. Jai knew had her arm been caught, she’d have ridden off without it. As it was, the stake nearly tore from the ground, and only the calf’s trembling, splay-footed halt stopped it from coming free before Kiran reinforced the anchor. She rode by, twisting a stake through the rope in another loop, and stabbing the earth deep in one deft motion.

The success spurred on the Valor, and more lassos sailed into the herd. Few made their mark. The horns, so easy to catch, slipped the ropes easily enough, and the shrill shrieks of the calf were setting the herd mad.

And then it happened: the wild Alkhara reared, a rope tangled in its horn. Jai caught a glimpse of a brown body tumbling, and the beast’s great feet thundering the earth in a furious dance.

With a cry from Sindri the Valor circle split, creating an opening for the wild herd to escape. The beasts moved as one, even as the Valor erupted into screams, their voices cracking.

Jai lent his voice to the chorus, Navi heaving beneath him at her own volition, joining the tribe in a final pursuit. But it did not last long.

For once the herd broke the circle, and had gone some ways into the grassland, the Valor wheeled back, and Navi with them.

Jai coughed from the dust that still hazed the air. He raised his fist in triumph, only to falter as Navi slowed, returning to the scene of the hunt. It was no less than a battlefield, a wreckage of tangled ropes and broken spars of bamboo. The ground was torn up, a cratered, muddied no man’s land.

Men and women wailed, clutching broken limbs and nursing rope-burned palms. Two calves, each hardly larger than a potbellied pig, were all they had to show for it. Small, pitiful things, bleating for their mothers.

The smile on Jai’s lips faded, as he made out Sindri, crouched alongside a group of men. Zayn knelt in the mud, a limp body hanging in his arms.

It was an old man, almost as old as Leonid, though Jai only knew this from memory. He had hardly a face to speak of... for it had been caved into a single, gaping hole.

Jai felt his gorge rise, even as Sindri covered the man’s head with her saddlecloth. She straightened, and wiped blood from her hands.

‘Mount up!’ she called. ‘We go again!’