And with that, he whipped his quirt against his horse’s side and galloped off to rejoin his kith and kin.
My friends and I took only a few moments longer to urge our mounts forward and gain speed across the uneven terrain. Karimah and her twelve Manslayers rode close behind us, like a shield of flaxen-haired women and bounding horseflesh. And behind them, scarcely a mile away, the Red Knights charged at us, and they seemed intent at last upon closing the distance between us. I heard them blowing their warhorns and felt the beating of their horses’ hooves upon grassy ground; I felt, too, the beating of the heart of the man who was their master. He pushed his men forward with all his spite and will, even as my blood pushed at me with a fierce, quick fire that I had learned to hate.
So began our wild flight toward the mountains. I rode beside Daj and close to Estrella, for I worried that she might be too tired to sustain such a chase. But she kept her horse moving quickly and showed no sign of slumping into exhaustion or falling off. Master Juwain and Liljana watched her, too; they were now experienced campaigners, if not warriors, and they rode nearly as well as the Danladi to our left and the Manslayers behind us. Maram, though, labored almost as heavily as his sweating horse. I felt the strain in his great body as a bone-crushing weariness in my own.
It did not surprise me that the Red Knights seemed to gain on us. But they did not gain much: perhaps a hundred yards with every mile that we covered. And we put these miles behind us quickly, with the wind whipping at our faces, to the drumming of hooves against the ground. A mile of grassy terrain vanished behind us, and then two and three. The rocks called the Ass’s Ears loomed larger and larger. This close to them, I could see more than just their edges. It seemed that Master Juwain’s Way Rhymes had told true, for the rocks were indeed like great, elongated triangles of stone rising up into the sky. Behind them, layers of the White Mountains built up into even greater heights toward the clouds. Between them flowed a stream. A rocky ridge ran along the Ear to the north nearest us. A smaller ridge across the stream seemed to protect the approach to the second and southern Ear. The ground between the great rocks, I saw, was broken and strewn with boulders: very bad terrain for any horse to negotiate at speed.
Bajorak, upon studying the lay of the land here, saw its obvious advantages for defense – though he came to a different conclusion than I as to what our strategy should be. With only a mile to cover before we reached this gateway into the mountains, he dropped back to me and shouted out above the pounding and snorting of our horses: ‘My warriors and I will dismount and set up behind that ridge!’
Here, with a lifetime of coordinating such motions to the beat and bound of his horse, he held out his finger pointing steadily toward the northern ridge.
‘Any who try to force their way between the Shields, we will kill with arrows!’ he shouted. ‘You will have time to escape into this Kul Kavaakurk Gorge – if there really is such a gorge!’
As Altaru charged forward with rhythmic surges of his great muscles, I gazed between the red rocks, at the rushing stream. If this narrow gap opened into a gorge, I could not tell, for great boulders and the curves of the mountains’ wooded slopes obscured it.
‘No!’ I called back to Bajorak. ‘You have chosen not to desert us, and so we will not desert you!’
‘Don’t be a fool!’ he said. ‘Think of the children! Think of the Shining One!’
Even though each moment of our dash across the steppe seemed to jolt any thoughts from my mind, I was thinking of both Daj and Estrella, as well as the need of our quest. I did not, however, have time to argue with Bajorak – or the heart to dispirit him. For I was sure that if my friends and I fled with the children into the mountains, Bajorak’s warriors would inevitably be overwhelmed, and then Morjin and his Red Knights would trap us in the gorge.
‘Here is what we’ll do!’ I called back to him. ‘As you have said, you will set up with your warriors behind the ridge – all except Kashak and his squadron!’
I quickly shouted out the rest of the battle plan that I had devised. It seemed that Bajorak might dispute with me over who would take command here. But after gazing into my eyes for a long moment, he looked away and nodded his head as he said, ‘All right.’
We continued our charge toward the Ass’s Ears, slowing to a trot and then a quick walk as the ground broke up and rose steeply. I turned to see that the Red Knights and the Zayak warriors had halted about half a mile behind us. Clearly, they saw that they could not overtake us before we established ourselves behind the rocky ridge. Clearly, too, they awaited the arrival of the new companies of Red Knights and Zayak that Ossop had told of.
When the ground grew too rotten for riding, we dismounted and led our horses along either side of the wooded stream. It was hard work over rocks and up shrub-covered slopes, but necessity drove us to move like demons of speed. Bajorak and twenty-three of his warriors turned up behind the rocky ridge and deployed at the wall-like crest along its length, as would archers behind a castle’s battlements. They hated fighting on foot, away from their horses tethered behind them, but there was no help for it. I led the rest of our force – Karimah’s Manslayers, Kashak’s seven warriors and my friends – behind the smaller ridge fronting the second Ass’s Ear to the south. The trees there and humps of ground obscured our movement from our enemy, or so I prayed.
While Kashak stood with his men behind some trees and Karimah waited with her Manslaying women nearby, I turned to speak with my companions and friends. I called Liljanja closer to me. I whispered to her: ‘Here is what we must do.’
I cupped my hands over her ears and she slowly nodded her head. Then she brought forth her blue gelstei, cast into a whale-shaped figurine. She held this powerful crystal up to the side of her head. With a gasp that tore through me like a spear puncturing my lungs, she suddenly grimaced and cried out in pain. Then she jerked her hand away from her head and opened it. The blue gelstei gleamed in the strong sun. As Liljana’s eyes cleared, she stared at me and said, ‘It is done.’
After that I called Master Juwain, Daj and Estrella over as well. I said to Master Juwain: ‘You and Liljana will take the children into the mountains. We will follow when we can. And if we can’t, it will be upon you to find the Brotherhood school – and the Maitreya.’
‘No!’ Daj cried out, laying his hand upon the little sword that he wore. ‘I want to stay here with you and fight!’
Estrella, too, did not like this new turn of things. She came up to my side and wrapped her arms around my waist, and would not let go.
‘Here, now,’ I said as I pulled away her hands as gently as I could. ‘You must go with Master Juwain – everything depends upon it.’
She shook the dark curls out of her eyes and looked up at me. The bright noon light glinted off her fine-boned cheeks and the slightly crooked nose that must have once been broken. She smiled at me, and I felt all her trust in me pouring through me like a river of light. I promised her that I would rejoin her and Daj in the mountains, and soon. Then I lifted her up to kiss her goodbye.
‘Karimah!’ I called out, motioning this sturdy woman over to us. Despite her bulk, she came at a run, gripping her strung bow. ‘Would you be willing to appoint two of your warriors to escort Master Juwain and the children into the mountains, a few miles perhaps, until they find a safe place?’
‘I will, Lord Valashu,’ she agreed. She pulled at her jowly chin as she looked at me. ‘But no more than two – we shall need the rest of my sisters here before long.’
She turned to choose two of her sister Manslayers for this task. I quickly said goodbye to Master Juwain, Liljana and Daj. And so did Maram, Atara and Kane. I watched as a young lioness of a woman named Surya led the way up the stream between the Ass’s Ears. My friends, walking their horses beside them, hurried after her and so did another of the Manslayers whose name I did not know.
A few moments later, they disappeared behind the curve of a great sandstone buttress and were lost