Bai:

The next morning brought a sunlit wind with the hint of future frosts in it nonetheless. Bai sat on his caravan steps and breathed it in, separating each scent with a renewed appreciation for the world: sheep’s milk porridge and mutton from the cooking fires, incense and oils from the women’s caravans; the sweet, dry grasses crushed beneath hooves, wheels and feet; and the ever-present smell of dung and smoke. It didn’t matter where they were on the Cherndorozh, the smells never changed. Neither did the sounds. Bai listened, smiling, to silver bells on braided bridles, the clamouring and caterwauling of children, the barking of the sheepdogs, and, sweet on the morning wind, a silver-strung zither.

Bai rubbed his eyes. He’d spent all night listening to that music.

The zither ceased its gentle cascade and Lute dropped to his haunches by the caravan steps. Koth had come with him, a brown Southern man of middle years, his peat-brown hair sun-lightened at the edges and wrinkles at the corners of his wide brown eyes. He held out a cloth filled with steaming rice-flour pancakes, golden around the edges and drizzled with sticky, sweet-and-salty sauce. Bai noticed that several splotches of the sauce had dripped onto Koth’s green coat, once so intricately-stitched in the swirling patterns of their Northern cousins the Lyr Blaed, and now frayed and riddled with holes. He’d have to see to the purchase of new bolts of cloth from the markets, and get needles into skilled hands.

Lute snatched a cake before his war-rider could and dimpled a cheeky grin at Bai. Koth slapped his hand down again but not before a cake had, indeed, made its way into the brazen thief’s long-fingered hand.

Koth scowled at him, then bowed to Bai. ‘Sól henazhi, Bai penvarzhahoy. You look like shit. Didn’t you sleep?’

Bai took a cake. ‘Sól fehru azhtán Au. I did not. I want the caravan on the move within the hour.’

He deliberately did not look at Lute, who knew very well why he had not got a wink of sleep. That damn zither wasn’t all he could dance his fey fingers over. The pipe was hoarse from lack of use but Lute played it exceptionally well. Bai cleared his throat.

Lute grinned and flung his hands wide. ‘Pfft. Always asking the impossible! How do you think eight hundred people are going to get moving in under an hour? Magic?’

‘If that’s what it takes!’

‘You couldn’t do it, anyway!’ Lute snatched the whole cloth of rice cakes and waved them under Bai’s nose, laughing. ‘Or shall I help? Is that it? You think you’ll move the first four hundred layabouts and I’ll move the rest?’

‘Can you? And what about the livestock?’

Lute grunted. ‘If you want them counted, no. If you’re happy to wait and count them at sunset, then yes.’

‘Count them on the move. The tallies from the last count should be with the rhón. And I want a word with you at sunset.’

‘Hm. Shall I fetch you some tea before I bully the caravan into action?’

‘No. I’ll come to the fires myself.’

‘I can fetch you tea, Bai cará…penvarzhavoy.’

He caught his own mistake in time. This time.

‘Go,’ he said. ‘Fetch me whatever you want, and bring it to me at the fires, and a thousand years in hell may you rot! I am too tired to deal with you today.’

‘Still want me at sunset?’ Lute teased.

‘I said I want a word with you and I mean it.’

He noted how Koth backed discretely away, and Bai rolled his eyes. Not a word, he begged silently. Not a bloody word, curse you!

He unfolded himself from the steps and stretched, then wrapped his coat tighter around himself. The breeze had suddenly turned cold, the sun gone behind grey clouds. Beside him, Lute polished off the rest of the cakes, then sucked each of his fingers clean and stuffed the soiled cloth down the front of his tanshán.

Bai eyed the sticky red stain on the flat-stitched edging. ‘Your mother will tan my hide for that, Lute.’

‘Why should she? She can’t blame you for all my scrapes.’

‘She will say it’s my fault anyway, since you spend all your time with me,’ Bai said. ‘I should speak to her soon about your marriage.’

‘Don’t you dare!’

Bai laughed at the look of pure horror on Lute’s face, fetched a cup of hot tea for himself and didn’t allow Lute to do it, and wandered along the line of black-painted wooden caravans. The Cherndorozh got its name from these wheeled homes, although some said the Black Road was named for the dung that they left in their wake. Certainly, the road was on fertile land, and it was widely acknowledged that it was down to the animal manure. It wouldn’t be long before the poselenech banned the caravans and fenced the land for wheat and barley. Bai dreaded that day. The Black Road would shift, and if he knew men, they’d force them to shift to a new route through the hills on Vartjastafel’s border.

That would be a dangerous, nightmarish ride. But they’d have to do it if the Black Road and the river that ran alongside it were banned to them.

Some of the caravans had designs painted on them these days. Catkins, willows, fluid grasses, blossoms, waves. Some only had their trims and fittings painted in a colour other than black. The majority were black. Why, no-one could quite remember. Some held that it was in mourning for their ancestral cousins, the Lyr Blaed, and the terrible fate they’d met. They’d tried to stand against the Lady and her Weaver, and failed. Others said it was because the Tethiri had once had cause to flee a monstrous hunter who hunted only by night, and they’d painted their caravans black in order to escape detection. Either way, the tradition was gradually fading, and brighter colours were creeping in.

Bai finished his tea, greeted the last caravan he could reach that day and left his rhón to finish the rest, and went back to his own caravan. That one was adorned along its base with a design of foam-flecked blue and silver and white waves that gleamed in the sun. Inside was pale wood, a thick grass mat on the floor, colourful blankets on the bed. Silver spirit-bells jangled a sparkling cascade of music from the ceiling and Ward Runes glowed faintly at window and door, and above his bed. It was a small enough palace for a war-rider, but he didn’t mind. It was home. The rest of his domain was the vast land of golden grass, as far as he could see.

He set the blankets straight, pulled up the steps, locked them down, and shut the door. Then he went to find Koth, his driver; and his horses. It was time to move. As war-rider, he didn’t drive his own wagon, as he needed to be at the head of the column, armed and ready for any trouble that might come their way. It seldom did, but it wasn’t unknown.

He saw Koth coming toward him, two horses in tow. ‘Ready?’

‘Hitch them up,’ said Bai. ‘I’ll give the order to move out now.’

He raised his voice and his call to mount up and move out rang out. 

Lute was already in his saddle, a clean grey tanshán on under his grey-wool coat. For a man with such a colourful soul, Lute could look really drab at times.

‘When we get to the next town, I’ll buy you a shirt of red silk,’ Bai told him, mounting his horse.

‘Blue,’ countered Lute. ‘With some of that silver stitching yours has.’

‘Done,’ Bai laughed.

He heeled Lezhnaiáth forward. If they kept a good pace, they’d reach the town of Kolmvoyna by an hour or two after dark. They’d be able offload several hundred head of young sheep, bales of silk, and a coffer of blackleaf tea. The rest would be taken all the way to Silverheim for the Midwinter Dark festival in two months’ time. He always looked forward to that. It was a chance to meet with other Tethiri caravans, although they often ran into them on the Cherndorozh anyway. And Sorrel would be there. He saw his cousin once a year there and he was keen to see how the young man had grown.

It was an impressive sight, three hundred caravans trundling along a pitted, black road; horses, dogs, sheep and riders contributing to a sense of organised chaos. Some men rode a little way with their children in their arms; whole families walked until they grew weary, not wanting to spend the whole day in their wagons. The column cut a swathe through the grasses almost a mile wide, and easily ten miles long. Bai rode at its head with the rest of the rhón, another rhón at the rear, keeping trouble at bay, keeping their folk within their protection as much as they could.

He eased Lezhnaiáth into a canter and went a little ahead, wanting some distance between him and the main caravan. There was too much noise, too much dust and bustle. There was quiet and clean air ahead. His dogs ran fleet and silent at his side. He put Lezhnaiáth to a gallop. A little more distance, a little more peace. The wind had risen again, and grown colder. Only two months to Midwinter Dark, the winter festival of fire, feasting, and fear. These days, the fear was only a memory, relived in tales and songs. People burned effigies of the great Darag Seren, the dragon that had once plagued the Northern lands from the Serenthyr. That had been centuries ago, though. Now, people told each ghost stories and tales of that war, safe by their fires, and ate sugared apples and butter-twists and drank and danced too much.

Fierce enjoyment lifted his spirits. It was a good festival. Two months, and he’d see Sorrel there again.

That alone was worth riding this stinking road.