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F inally able to sleep, Jai dreamed of his mother’s face. Or rather, the lack of it. He followed her, through the tall grass, seeing golden hair flashing through the stems. She called his name, even as she ran from him.

And behind, the rumble of a khiro, and the ululation of a warrior. His father, calling his name. Calling him back...

‘—We must break away now! Before the Tejinder regroup. They will come for us.’

Gurveer was adamant, leaning over the table, his hands spread. His voice broke through Jai’s remembered dream, and he rubbed his eyes, returning to the task at hand. The Small Council.

Another week. Another empty horizon. Their passage was too slow.

If they stopped now, his people would know that the pursuit was abandoned. A weak move, if there ever was one.

But so too could they not keep up this punishing pace. The tribe was not used to it, and the old and infirm could not bear it much longer. Not to mention, it was getting them nowhere. They were just too slow.

By now, the Keldar knew they were being followed. No matter how hard he pushed his tribe, they could not catch up to the smaller one, only keep pace with it. Already, they were nearing the Phoenix Empire’s borders, though they would have to travel weeks longer to try and trap them there. Weeks he could ill afford.

‘We leave two hundred with the tribe,’ Harleen said, snatching at the pointer stick in Gurveer’s hand. He held it out of reach, and she abandoned the effort, instead stabbing a finger at the map in front of them. ‘The same and eighty more follow the Keldar. Three days there, two days back.’

‘Two days back?’ Jai asked.

‘The tribe will have caught up by then,’ Feng explained. Jai caught Gurveer’s eye roll, and realised once again, he had shown his ignorance.

But the question had sparked an idea. He let it percolate, then asked, ‘They are that far?’

‘Kiran is now sure of it,’ Sindri said. ‘Three days’ ride – including riding through the last night – and we’ll have them.’

‘There must be more than this,’ Jai muttered.

‘How do you mean, my khan?’ Harleen asked, catching his words.

Jai gestured to the map, pointing at the oases that scattered it. Already, they had stopped at one, replenishing their fast-dwindling supplies, a small detour that put them even further behind. He’d had little time to enjoy the beauty of their placid pools, nor the forests of bamboo and fruit that sprang up around it, instead bathing where it was safe in his room.

The duties of a khan were never done, as dispute after dispute were brought to his chamber, many between the Valor and the Kidara. Some nights, the queue would be longer than it had started by the time he had finished, collapsing upon his bed only for the queue to be waiting again in the morning.

Every choice seemed to make an ally and an enemy. Half the time, he couldn’t decide either way, choosing based on gut instinct more than anything. It was a thankless task, and without Harleen and Feng in his ear, he might have collapsed beneath the stress of it.

‘My khan?’ Harleen asked, interrupting his thoughts.

‘A good general uses the terrain to his advantage,’ Jai said. ‘We have not the wood to build walls, as the legions do. And the little trick we used upon Teji would never work against a different enemy – they would not hesitate to put the camp to fire and slaughter.’

He lowered his chin to his hands, staring at the table as if something might leap out at him.

‘Is there anything in the vicinity that isn’t an oasis or more grassland?’ he said.

All eyes turned to their newly minted cartographer, a young, timid-looking man named Sony who had stayed with them during the tribe’s division more out of indecision than anything else.

‘My lord, by now, we near the Phoenix Empire’s edge,’ Sony said, his voice high and querulous. ‘Another few weeks east, and we will reach their borders. The Kashmere Road lies south, not far from your throne, as the roq flies.’

He flashed a smile, but saw Jai’s expectant eyes.

Tapping his chin, Sony hurried to clear the table, his hands shaking as he swept aside the game pieces. This time, he piled rocks along the edge of the map, huffing as he carried armful after armful, apologising as the Small Council shifted back to make room for him. He arranged them as swiftly as he dared, closing his eyes at times to try to remember.

‘To the north are the Yaltai Mountains,’ he finally said, pointing to the rocks. ‘They stretch from the east to the west, where they join the Petrus Mountain Range that divides the Sabine Empire from the Great Steppe.’

Jai steepled his fingers, looking closely.

‘And beyond?’

‘They are impassable from the steppe,’ the cartographer said, motioning at where much of the Small Council sat, beyond the map’s edge. ‘The Frostweald. Ice, and more ice. Nothing to hunt, nothing to grow. Even the Dansk leave it alone.’

‘So we hide our vulnerable in the mountains,’ Jai said. ‘Get our people where enemy khiroi cannot manoeuvre, while we hunt down the Keldar.’

Sony’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, and he stuttered until Harleen held up a hand and spoke.

‘The Yaltai Mountains are not the Great Steppe,’ Harleen said. ‘There are still tribes there. Our cousins. Sithians, true, but of a different kind.’

‘Oh?’ Jai asked.

‘The Mahmut tribe, and their mammoths, call its eastern ranges home,’ she said. ‘And the Caelite tribe too, further west, in the mountains themselves.’

Jai perked up at that. Even he had heard of the Caelite, though they had long faded into obscurity, unseen or heard of since his father’s War of the Steppe.

The mammoth riders of the Mahmut were legend too, their great beasts breaking the walls of Leonid’s camp in a bloody battle that had left no victor, but forced Leonid to end his siege. Jai had only seen one, slaughtered for entertainment in Latium’s Colosseum.

It had been far bigger than even Chak.

But a Caelite... he knew only that they too had done their part in the war.

They were bird-folk. Terror birds, native to the mountains’ lowlands, were what they rode into battle. But their soulbound... they flew. Riding the great roqs, eagle-like beasts, as large as gryphons, such that they might snatch a khiro calf from the ground. In time, they had helped Rohan resist Leonid’s dominance of the skies.

‘The Caelite allied with my father once,’ Jai said, screwing up his eyes as he tried to remember. ‘Both of them. I am not their enemy.’

Leonid had rarely spoken of the War of the Steppe, for he knew how it upset Jai. But he had heard the Gryphon Guard speak of them, those times he had served them in their mess halls. They were but snatches of conversation, half-heard tales from grizzled knights who had long since retired. But it was enough, now, to spark hope.

Harleen nodded, though she looked hesitant.

‘An alliance is perhaps too strong a word,’ she said. ‘I was still a young woman then, but I remember it was Leonid that brought their ire upon himself. His Gryphon Guard... they were a terror. Thousands of innocents, slaughtered across the lands. They left every tribe no choice, no choice at all. But when Rohan followed Leonid back into the empire, to defeat him once and for all... they did not follow. Too many dead, so the tale goes.’

Jai sighed, letting his head thud against the throne as he leaned back. Rohan’s name seemed worth little, in the aftermath of his defeat. Jai had hoped the tribes of the steppe would flock to him, to fight this returned threat. Instead, they flocked east, hoping the problem would go away, in time.

Politics. He was sick of this game. What must he do to convince the Sithia of Titus’s danger?

Jai rubbed his eyes, turning back to the task at hand.

‘How many days to the mountains?’ he asked.

The cartographer stared, wide-eyed, but answered readily enough.

‘Two days. Perhaps one, if we ride through the night.’

Jai stared at where the young man had pointed, a rocky outcrop jutting into the Great Steppe. And between, an oasis.

‘Do the Great Tribes range the Yaltai Mountains?’ Jai asked.

‘No, my khan,’ he said, bowing his head. ‘The grasses are poor there, and the danger of roqs carrying away calves is far greater. There are more predators there too, direwolves, sabretooths. They hunt the ibex that call the mountains their home.’

Jai leaned forward, staring.

‘How much bamboo have we left?’ Jai asked.

At this, even the Small Council looked surprised.

‘Hardly any,’ Feng allowed, checking through papers piled upon his lap. ‘We used most of it for the spears, and the barricades.’

Jai chewed his lip, thinking.

‘The tribe will head for the Yaltai Mountains,’ Jai said. ‘Two hundred and fifty warriors will go with them. They will camp with their backs to the cliffs, in this hollow here. They will stop at the oases here, and here, gather as much bamboo as they can. This, and earthworks, will be used to build a wall, here.’

Jai used the pointer to cut across a valley between two jutting cliffs.

Then he turned to the Keldar, their game pieces forlorn, far ahead of them.

‘I will take two hundred riders,’ Jai said. ‘Thirty shall scout for the tribe, keep an eye for enemies that approach, send word to us. If they lay siege or are spotted soon enough, we might return in time.

‘Harleen?’ Jai said, prompting her to take up the idea.

‘We will need to strip the oasis bare to have even half of what we need for a wall such as this,’ she said. ‘Most of what we had was used for the spears.’

‘Make do,’ Jai said. ‘Use the tent poles if you have to, sleep under the stars.’

‘A wall such as you describe will do little to stop the Mahmut, or the Caelite from attacking,’ Sindri noted. ‘Only khiroi might be stopped. Might .’

‘What have we that they desire?’ Jai asked. ‘Such that they would break down our walls and face the two hundred and fifty riders we left behind, and spear-armed citizenry? They have no use for our khiroi, nor do we have much gold for trade.’

He saw understanding spark in their eyes, and even Gurveer uncrossed his arms to look more closely at the map.

‘It is the Great Tribes of the steppe we must fear,’ Jai said. ‘So let us go where they will not follow. I’m sure the Yaltai’s tribes will not begrudge us a visit for... what, six days?’

‘Seven,’ the cartographer said, eyeing the map carefully.

‘Even three hundred would not be enough,’ Sindri said. ‘They have a hundred and fifty warriors by my estimation. They would never surrender to a force hardly larger than their own.’

‘Perhaps for surrender,’ Jai said. ‘But I will offer them the same deal I offered the Valor. Join me, or be crushed. You will come with me. Make them see reason.’

He settled back, his mind made up as the chaos of dissent descended once more around the table.

No matter. The dance of rulers required a sure foot. And he was sure.