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.Qaidu wanted him to escape, and relieve him of the responsibility for his ultimate fate.They would make a show of coming after him, of course, but the khan would ensure that they did not catch him.Khutelun would have her victory and this night they would laugh about the barbarian around their fires, while the mutton grease and koumiss shone on their chins.He reined in his horse and watched her go.He wondered if she had loved him at all.He saw her turn in the saddle and look back up the ridge.She raised a hand into the air.In farewell, or in triumph?And then her horse stumbled.CXIIIHE WAS SILHOUETTED against the sun, a hundred feet above her.She felt a momentary stab of pain at what she had done.But this way was best.She had saved his life and also acted in the best interests of her father and the clan.As a Tatar princess it was the only choice.She saw him turn his horse around, abandoning the chase.She twisted further around in her saddle for one last glimpse of him.It was all that was needed to change everything.If she had been watching the way ahead she would have seen the loose scree and guided her mare around it.Or perhaps her twisting in the saddle unsettled the pony.But moments later she felt a jolt as her mare lost her footing.Khutelun leaped clear to prevent them both sliding headlong down the slope.It was the mare’s instincts as well as her own agility that saved them.She jumped back to her feet, grabbing for the reins while the pony scrambled to keep its footing on the crumbling shale.Khutelun felt the rocks slip away beneath her boots and she fell hard on to her back.But she held on to the trailing rein, keeping the terrified animal in check.With a final effort the mare scrambled back on to the path.Khutelun lay there, winded by the fall.She got slowly to her feet, gasped at the pain in her ribs where she had fallen on a jagged rock.And then he was on top of her.She heard him galloping along the narrow trail, the fleece of the goat carcass slapping against his pony’s flanks.He was going too fast, but somehow he kept himself in the saddle.Her hand went to her belt and the plaited leather whip appeared in her right hand.It arced through the air with a crack like a falling tree.Josseran’s pony shied and bucked and Josseran slid to the ground.She quickly recovered her own mare and jumped into the saddle.Josseran scrambled to his feet and watched her ride away down the trail, numb with disbelief.He looked down at his left hand, at the bloody weal left by the whip.It had even shredded the fabric of his coat.His shoulder was on fire again; he could feel fresh blood running down his arm.His pony was skittering a few yards away, kicking its hind legs, its nerves and its temper not improved by this most recent experience.Josseran ran after him, caught the reins and tried to gentle him.It was still not too late to ride back up the trail and across the ridge.He could still get away, as he was sure they had all intended.No, damn her.He remounted swiftly and spurred the pony down the trail.Khutelun looked over her shoulder yet again, hoping this time he had taken the lifeline she had thrown him.Surely he had abandoned the chase.She could not believe her eyes.He was still in pursuit.‘Get away!’ she shouted at him in frustration.‘Get away!’ Her voice echoed around the mountain, along the defile, through the forest of spruce and fir, across the deep black pool at the foot of the ridge.‘Go back! Go back to Kashgar! Save yourself! Go back!’He reined in his pony, was silhouetted for a moment on the ledge above her.She waited to see what he would do.Finally he turned away.As she watched him retreat she experienced a flood of relief, mingled with bitter disappointment.He was just a man like any other, after all.He knew he could not catch her.His little pony was fighting for every step on the loose rock.If he pushed him too hard he would eventually stumble and send them both sliding to their deaths down the side of the mountain.He had reached a broad ledge, and between the walls of the gorge he could make out the dun-coloured steppe and the black yurts of the Tatar encampment.A stream rushed down the mountain, foaming into a black pool far below.The sedge at the lake’s edge was still hardened with the night frost; the surface of the lake was black, afloat with sheets of ice.Patches of hardened snow clung to the hollows of the tarn where the sun could not reach.He peered over the lip of the cliff, heard the clatter of hooves echoing from the rock face on the trail below him.Khutelun’s voice echoed along the valley: ‘Get away, Joss-ran! Go back!’Go back.Go back with the mark of my whip on your face, Jossran.Go back without me, wonder about me for the rest of your life.‘Better to drown in that cold black lake than boil in your damned father’s pot,’ Josseran said, aloud.He dug in his heels and tried to spur the pony towards the ledge.He would not move.So he took his dirk from his boot and slammed it into the pony’s rump.A wild leap into space.As they tumbled through the air Josseran threw himself from the saddle, still clutching the goat’s carcass in his right fist.He thought he saw the shadow of rocks hidden beneath the surface.He hit the water feet first.If death it was, then by some mercy he prayed it would be swift.There was horror in such spectacle, but wonder as well; wonder at his courage and his pride.One moment she had been staring upwards, shielding her eyes against the glare of the sun, thinking he was gone.Then suddenly there was a great mushrooming of water in the tarn below as the pony disappeared into the black water, and another, smaller splash as Josseran followed.Khutelun gasped.She had never imagined he might do something like this.The shock waves from where horse and rider had plunged in rushed towards the rocky shallows, where they lapped and foamed.How could anyone do such a thing?The pony’s head broke the surface first, and it swam desperately for the far bank.It struggled out of the water on tottering legs, blood streaking down its flank from a dagger wound in its rump.Still no sign of Josseran though.She choked back a cry of grief.CXIVAND THEN SHE saw him.His head bobbed to the surface, streaked with blood.He struck out for the bank with his good arm.He dragged himself from the water and lay gasping on the rocks.He still clutched the goat carcass to his body in the crook of his injured arm.Then he dragged himself back to his feet, reclaimed his horse’s reins, and scrambled back into the saddle.The pony, defeated by this madman, shocked and probably in pain, was compliant as a lamb.Khutelun cursed under her breath.It would have been better for them both if Josseran had died.Now there was no hope for him, or for her.She could try and swim across the tarn, or she could ride around it; whatever she did he had an unassailable advantage.So instead she just walked her horse along the trail, knowing she could not catch him now.Josseran was slumped over the poll of his horse, blood streaked down his face from a new laceration on his scalp, fresh blood dripping from the tips of his fingers where the wound on his shoulder had opened again.He was shivering so that his teeth chattered, soaked from the icy waters of the tarn.His horse, too, had blood streaked along its rump, and a mist of steam rose from its flanks.He walked the pony through the human corridor the Tatars had formed on the plain, directly to the doorway of Qaidu’s yurt
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