Naamah's Curse by Jacqueline Carey Read Free Book Online Page B

remain still and quiet. They obeyed willingly, pricking their ears and watching with curiosity as the stream of cattle and the two young Tatar herdsmen passed before us. The boys looked to be thirteen or fourteen, and they rode in the saddle as though born to it, prodding the cattle with long poles, chattering back and forth to one another with cheerful urgency, all unwitting of our presence. A keen-eyed dog trotted alongside one of them.
    I smiled quietly.
    When they were no more than specks on the horizon, I released the twilight. The bright daylit world returned in a rush of color. Green grass was green once more; the arching sky overhead was blue. Ember tossed his head a few times and blew through his nostrils as though to comment on the phenomenon.
    “Come, brave heart.” I patted his withers. “We’ve a league or two to go before we make camp for the night.”
    Had I been wiser in the ways of winter in Tatar territory, I might have thought to wonder where the young herdsmen were bound, and why they went about their task with a certain sense of urgency.
    I found out soon enough.
    Within an hour’s time, the temperature began to drop precipitously. The wind sharpened. It cut through my thick coat of padded cotton, it found its way up my sleeves, it froze my cheeks until my entire face felt stiff. The air began to smell like snow. Toward the west, the sky took on a dark, ominous hue, a tall stack of clouds growing on the horizon.
    There was a storm coming.
    A very, very big storm.
    And ah, gods! It was so
sudden
. I don’t know what early warning signs I missed, what signs the Tatars were able to read. It was unfamiliar terrain, an unfamiliar climate, unlike any I had known.
    I broke to make camp as soon as I saw the clouds massing. It was my custom to tend to the horses first, unsaddling Ember, unloading all of Coal’s packs, checking their hooves, and turning them loose to graze. This time, my heart beating hard in my chest, I begged their forgiveness and set about erecting my sheltering tent, fearful for my vulnerable human flesh.
    I couldn’t do it.
    It was a task that had grown more difficult every day. Bit by bit, the farther I rode, the colder it got, the more the turf had hardened.
    Today, it had hardened further. My wooden mallet skidded futilely off the frayed heads of the wooden tent-stakes. The points of the stakes splintered against the frozen ground, unable to penetrate the sod. I swung and pounded until my arm ached, my chest heaving and my breath rising in frosty puffs, all to no avail.
    My eyes stung with frustrated tears. I dragged my padded sleeve over them. “Gods bedamned, Bao! Stupid, stubborn boy! Could you not stay put for one minute? Did you
have
to put me through this?”
    The only thing to answer was the storm.
    It descended on us with an unearthly howl, fierce as a dragon’s fury, the wind filled with pellets of ice. It snatched the dense felt of my tent away from me, plucking the fabric and lines and stakes from my helpless fingers, sending it careening across the grassy plains under a glowering sky.
    Flee
.
    The word resounded in my head. I did not know who or what spoke it—whether it was the Maghuin Dhonn Herself, the D’Angeline gods Naamah or Anael, the unknown gods of the Tatars, or merely my own panic speaking.
    It didn’t matter.
    I fled. I ran toward Ember, hurling myself across his saddle. It struck me hard in the chest. I hauled myself astride, flinging my leg over him. I found the reins, and gave him his head.
    “Go!” I shouted. “Go, go, go!”
    My valiant chestnut arched his neck and thundered southward; poor Coal, half-unladen, laboring in his wake. All around us, the storm howled, pursuing us.
    Flee
.
    Snow and bits of ice pelted us. I could not tell if it was day or night. All the world was chaos. We rode and rode and rode, trying to outpace the storm. I was a frozen creature, clinging to another frozen creature. The whipping wind howled. Frost gathered on my