Free Until the Sun Falls by Cecelia Holland Page B

just—”
    Tshant snorted. “Unsound? A horse we’d slaughter for meat would look good next to these. Foundered. Windbroken. Bad backs. I saw one horse out in the remount herd urinate pure blood —bad kidneys. Mange. I could have pulled the winter coat off one of those nags with my hands. Bowed tendons, active splints, running sores. Half of them are so underweight I’d give them two years on pasture before I tried to ride one.”
    Psin chewed his mustaches. Of all the armies, Tshant’s had the farthest to ride. “The Altun have private herds, off near the hills. Take them. They’re crossbreds and they’re bigger than these.”
    Kaidu said, “But those are our horses.”
    “They’ll carry your men. Tshant, take them.”
    “Quyuk won’t like it.”
    Tshant laughed. “Quyuk hasn’t liked anything much for the past few days, I understand.” He dragged Djela into his lap, and the child murmured in his sleep. “I’ll take his horses first.”
     
    Psin had intended the Altun herds for his own remounts. The next day, after Mongke left Bulgar with a great thundering of drums, he rode out and told his thousand-commanders to see that each of the men he would take to Novgorod had at least one sound horse to ride. Both thousand-commanders looked skeptical.
    “We’ll steal others on the way, if we can,” Psin said. “Have you seen Quyuk Noyon? “
    One of them grinned. “The word is that he’s drunk. Kadan Noyon is over across the camp.”
    “Ah?” Psin turned his horse and rode over east.
    Kadan was talking to the commander of his personal tuman. When Psin rode up they both rose. Psin dismounted. He could hardly believe that Kadan was sober; he’d never seen him less than stumbling drunk. Kadan said, “What do you think of our camp, Khan?”
    “Don’t remind me.” The camp was filthy and ill-kept. “We’re leaving tomorrow, you know.”
    “I know.”
    Psin looked around, at the camp. “When Sabotai gets here he’ll tend to this. He’ll probably burn it and start out fresh.”
    “It was bad when we got here, Khan.” Kadan smiled apologetically.
    “You should have cleaned it up, instead of letting it get worse.”
    “Quyuk said it was too much trouble.”
    “Quyuk had better learn that taking trouble is easier than taking Sabotai or me.” Psin sat down and pulled off his hat. Meat was cooking in a covered pot, and his mouth watered at the scent.
    “Aren’t you going to remark that I’m sober?” Kadan said.
    “It’s the most extraordinary thing I’ve ever seen. Why?”
    Kadan grinned. “Because I’m not as clever as Quyuk. For me, it’s easier to do things properly the first time. I’ll be no hindrance to you, Khan. In fact, I intend to enjoy seeing my brother take orders for once.”
    “I don’t need help from you.”
    Kadan huffed; it was a way of laughing without opening his mouth. “You’ll get none. I’m like Mongke. I’ll sit back and watch and in the end… well. Quyuk has a long unsettled debt with me.
    Psin spat and turned to his horse. Kadan was staring into the cookfire, smiling. Psin put one foot in his stirrup and swung up. “Kadan.”
    Kadan looked up.
    “While I command, nobody quarrels. If you fight Quyuk, you fight me. Understand?”
    He turned his horse and cantered off without an answer. 
     
     
     

 
     
     
    “They won’t come to us, not so many of us,” Baidar said.
    “The Mordvins are natural cowards.” He stood in his stirrups to ease his back. Quyuk, beside him, was paring his nails, his rein on his horse’s neck. Psin looked all around; the snowfields stretched on a little way before they met the black forest. Behind him two thousand men rested their horses.
    “Kadan,” Psin said. He disliked the emptiness of the fields. They were two days from Bulgar and they had seen no hoofprint, no trace of the Mordvins.
    Kadan trotted up. Psin pointed ahead of them. “Take five hundred men and ride advance guard. Push them. I want you half a day’s