Until the Sun Falls by Cecelia Holland Read Free Book Online

long road with cliffs on both sides. The cliffs made shadows on the road. And in front of us ran black dogs, black bulls and black horses, in and out of the places where the sun was bright.”
    Tshant pressed his arm against Djela. “It was only a dream.” The horse wallowed through a drift and started up the other side of this little ravine. Its hoofs skidded on rock or ice, and it stumbled. Tshant reined in.
    “But they were ghosts, Ada. The black dogs and horses and bulls.”
    Tshant unwrapped the sash around the cloak. “You were only dreaming. I have to clear this rat-eaten nag’s hoofs out again.”
    Djela wiggled out from under the cloak, and Tshant dismounted. The slopes and the low shrubs were covered with snow, blinding white under the sky so blue it hurt Tshant’s eyes. Djela’s green coat made a great patch in the midst of it. The boy slid down from the horse and began to leap through the drifts, splashing the snow with his hands and shouting. Tshant picked up one of the horse’s forefeet. The ice had balled up in the hoof so that the horse stood not on its own feet but on a pad of rock-hard snow.
    “Ada, can you see me?”
    Tshant glanced around. “No. Where are you?”
    “In the snow.”
    Tshant dug out the ice with his knife. “Come back.”
    “I’m here.”
    “Don’t run around like that. If you sweat you’ll freeze.”
    “I know. But I’m tired of riding.”
    “We’ll be there soon.” Tshant tended to the horse’s hind hoofs and straightened up. He picked up Djela and set him in the saddle, mounted behind him, and draped his cloak around them again. Djela snatched up the reins. “Let me do it.”
    “Good. I’ll sleep.”
    He put his arms around the boy and shut his eyes. The glare of the sun on the snow made his eyelids red-gold. They bumped up the slope and along a level stretch. The waystation captain had said that they were within a day’s ride of the Volga camp, if the snow didn’t slow them down too much.
    “There are no more stations,” the man had called after them. “Take another horse.”
    Tshant dozed. The vigorous warmth of the child pressed against his chest. He dreamt of the winter pasture by the Lake, of Kerulu murmuring in the twilight; he saw Djela riding a black bull down a wide sunlit road.
    The horse lurched, and Tshant jerked awake. Djela said, “He stumbled again.”
    Tshant looked around. They were on a plain that stretched limitless to the sky. Here and there a low shrub had thrown off the snow and stood stark against it. The wind stirred, and long streamers of snow rose from the ground and marched across their track. Behind them their trail was already filling. The snow rose into the sky and the blue vanished behind a thin mist. The sun shrank to a silver disk.
    “It’s going to storm.”
    “I’m hungry.”
    Tshant took dried meat from the pouch under the pommel of his saddle and gave it to him. Djela gnawed at it, growling. He had taken up pretending he was a dog before they left the Lake. They lumbered on, the horse’s breath like smoke.
    “Will we be there tonight?”
    “I don’t know.” Tshant frowned. The plain up ahead, where it dipped, was covered with irregular lumps. He reined in.
    “Is it a camp?” Djela said. “Are they men sleeping?”
    “It looks like that,” Tshant said. But men would not lie so, covered with snow, not in the middle of the day. He reached behind him and took his bow from the case. “Hold the horse.”
    Djela bounced a little, eagerly. Tshant strung his bow and pulled the top off his quiver. “Now, slowly, ride in among them.”
    The horse started forward willingly enough but when they were close stopped and would not go farther. Tshant muttered. He dismounted, holding his bow with an arrow nocked, and walked to the nearest lump. The snow was crusted over it. He kicked it, and the snow burst, and the frozen body of a man tumbled over the snow. Djela yelled, surprised.
    The horse reared, whirling, trying to