Wind whipped tears from Jin’s eyes as she leaned forwards in her saddle, the feathers of an arrow tickling her cheek as she drew and loosed. Two more arrows followed in quick succession before the first one hit its mark, a Sirak warrior standing open-mouthed before the opening to his ger. She imagined him with Bleda’s face. He fell back into the tent, clutching the arrow sprouting from his chest.
She rode on, slowing her mount with her knees, loosing an arrow into the darkness of the tent opening, just in case someone else was about to emerge. A scream followed her as she sped past the ger, telling her she had guessed right. Slowing again, she reached for another handful of arrows, searching for her next target. There was no shortage of them, Sirak all about her stumbling from their tents in the cold half-light of dawn. Men, women, children. She saw two of them fall with her arrows in them. The drum of hooves, Gerel appearing to her right, a blazing torch in his fist. He tossed it onto the roof of a ger; flames leaped skywards as the felt started to crackle and burn. All about, Cheren riders overtook her, forming a line of torches, some thrown, trailing flames through the air. In a dozen heartbeats the camp was on fire, entering its death-throes as her warriors carved their way through another Sirak encampment.
Jin reined in, looking around. This was the seventh Sirak holding she had struck. She had lost count of those that had died by her own hand, each death a personal message to Bleda.
It is not enough.
She reached for another fistful of arrows.
It was midday before they were done, the sun a furnace in the sky, sweat running from Jin’s face. The elation of battle had dimmed, leaving her tired and thirsty. Gerel offered her a water skin and she took it without comment, drinking deeply, and watching as Tark rode towards her. The old scout had a rope tied to his saddle, a score of Sirak bound to it by their wrists, being dragged across the plain. Behind them their camp burned, bodies cooking in the flames.
Tark rode up and reined in, yanked on the rope and warriors stumbled to their knees before Jin.
“Kneel before your Queen,” Tark said.
One of the Sirak, a woman with grey in her warrior braid, her body lean and striated with muscle, looked up at Jin and spat at her.
Tark’s spear stabbed her in the throat, in and out like a fast punch.
The woman swayed, tried to say something but only blood issued from her mouth. She fell on her face, a twitch of her foot and then she was still.
“Be respectful, or die,” Tark said. He looked at Jin. “We have saved some, as you wished,” he said.
“So I see,” Jin said. “Put them with the others.”
Tark slipped from his saddle and took an axe from his weapons-belt. He calmly chopped at the wrists of the dead Sirak, hacking through meat and bone. When he was done, he climbed back into his saddle and led the prisoners away, towards a row of wains that were rolling into view, ten of them, already stuffed full of Sirak prisoners.
At first Jin and her people had glutted themselves on the slaughter of the Sirak, the fulfilment of a dream long hoped for. Seven camps they had put to steel and flame, a frenzy of killing, their bloodlust an endless wave. But Jin had realized that this would soon come to an end. It was almost too easy. She decided to take some prisoners, just a handful from each camp, so that once all of the Sirak camps had been hunted down and destroyed, they would have something to do during their celebration feast.
I will miss the screams of the Sirak, but no matter how many I hear, they do not take away my pain, or my hatred for Bleda.
I wish he were here, so that he could see the destruction of his people. I will wipe their name from this earth, so that there is no thought or memory left of them.
Her warband were moving out of the Sirak camp now. Close to a thousand riders. An overwhelming number for any of the Sirak camps they had come upon, the largest only numbering a hundred and seventy souls. The rest of her Cheren war-host she had split into bands of two hundred and cast them wide. Like a net they had set upon the Sirak borderlands, a net sixty leagues wide, and together they had swept into the Sirak lands, all travelling inwards, towards the Heartland. The Sirak were like the Cheren, with a nomadic life, extended families living and moving in camps. Setting up for a ten-night or a moon, then moving on. But they had a Heartland, just like the Cheren did. A traditional, holy place where they would gather, for a coronation, or a royal wedding, or a birth.
That is where we shall end this. Where we shall end the Sirak.
Jin sat looking into the fire-pit. A pot hung over it; Tark was stirring porridge. Grey light was seeping into the world, darker shadows shifting into the outlines of men and women, the silhouettes of gers beyond them. They had set up their site in the shadow of another fallen camp, little more now than ashes and blood beneath her hooves. There had been more resistance this time, Jin’s slower pace allowing for word to run ahead of her charge towards the Sirak Heartland. They had faced mounted warriors, a pitched battle half a league before the camp, but it had helped the Sirak little. Jin liked to think that it was Cheren skill that had prevailed, but in truth she knew it was their numbers. The Sirak had been a hundred and sixty, against Jin’s thousand. It had been over almost before it had started, although she had lost twenty-seven riders.
Jin had sat at this fire-pit last night and drunk with her warriors. She had been too inebriated to make her way to a ger and had fallen asleep beside the fire, listening to them drinking and toasting their victory. Toasting her.
“Great Queen,” a voice said, Tark offering her a bowl of porridge.
Great Queen, they are calling me. Because I have led them to the greatest victory the Cheren have ever known. Even if we stopped now, got on our horses and rode away, this moment will live in the Cheren Clan forever. When we swept like wildfire through our enemy’s land.
She felt relief, that she had led her Clan to this, that she had not failed.
I think Father would have been proud of me.
That thought caused something to hitch in her chest, and for a moment tears threatened.
No. She took a long, deep breath and pushed that emotion away.
“My thanks,” she said, taking the bowl from Tark. It was hot, so she blew on it and stirred it with a wooden spoon.
She noticed Tark staring at her and raised an eyebrow.
“You are not like the Cheren,” he said. “Your skin, it is smooth, soft.”
Jin scowled. “I am like the Cheren, in here,” she said, putting a hand over her heart. “Just because I do not look like a weathered saddlebag, like you.”
Tark’s lips twitched a smile, his moustache jumping.
Gerel shifted beside her, leaning forwards to ladle a bowl of porridge for himself. He blew on his porridge and spooned up a mouthful, slurping and huffing because it was too hot.
“You should wait for it to cool,” Tark said to him.
“I know, but I hate waiting,” Gerel said. “And my belly is cold, so the heat is no bad thing.”
“Ha, tell that to the skin peeling from your lips,” Tark said.
Jin snorted a laugh, the first she could remember in a long time.
“Today is the day, my Queen,” Gerel said to her, smiling good-naturedly at Tark’s comment.
She looked at him.
“Today we shall take the Sirak’s Heartland,” he said.
“Yes, we will,” Jin said. There was no doubt in her mind about that. There were not enough Sirak left to stop her.
Even knowing this, Jin felt an emptiness. A knowledge deep in her belly that taking the Sirak’s Heartland was not enough.
“Something troubles you?” Gerel said to her.
She sighed.
“There is more to be done,” she muttered.
“More? What more?” Tark said.
“My father’s vengeance,” she said quietly. “This is not finished. It never will be; not while Bleda still lives.”
Tark shrugged, a pragmatic gesture. “First one sows, then one reaps,” he said.
“Aye. One step at a time,” Jin said. “I know. But I am like Gerel. I hate waiting. I want Bleda’s head on a spike now.”
“If that were so you would have nothing left in life to look forward to,” Tark said. “It will be the greatest revenge, my Queen.” He looked at her over his bowl. “And it will happen. You are the Great Queen, she who has raised the Cheren up higher than a thousand generations. We will follow you to the ends of the earth, kill a nation of enemies to bring you joy.”
That made Jin’s blood quicken. The Cheren were a hard people, weathered by a hard life on the Sea of Grass. To hear them speak of her like this, it was another dream come true.
She smiled, an act of trust, her gift to Tark.
He looked away into the distance and ate some more porridge.
“Here comes Hulan with his riders,” he said.
Jin followed his eyes, saw the shimmer of riders on the grassland, a banner in the breeze. Hulan led one of the smaller bands Jin had sent into the Sirak borderlands. If the plan had worked, all ten bands would join her today. And then they would strike the Heartland together.
Jin sat on her horse, looking into the distance. Tark and Gerel were mounted beside her, her warband gathered and waiting. Six more captains had ridden into her camp after Hulan, all with tales of victory and slaughter, but the other three groups had not been seen. No one had arrived since midday, and the sun was now sinking into the horizon.
“We can wait no longer,” Tark said quietly, as Jin scanned the grasslands.
Where are they? she thought, looking to the west.
Only the sinking sun and leagues of undulating grassland.
“I know,” she said. “We must ride without them.” She raised her fist and Tark put a horn to his lips. With a sound like rumbling thunder, the war-host of the Cheren began to move, Jin leading them. She gave one more glance over her shoulder, hoping to see riders with the hawk banner on the horizon, but they did not appear.
Where are they?