Читать книгу Warrior: - Zoe Archer - Страница 10

Though it was only September, the predawn air was bitterly cold. Huntley stood in the darkness, hidden from view by a fence surrounding one of the large felt tents, his breath curling in warm puffs before dissipating in the chill. He kept his icy hands in his pockets and didn’t stamp his feet to warm his almost-numb toes, since he was too well trained to make any noise while lying in wait.

The same couldn’t be said for his horse. The animal chuffed softly behind him, moving restlessly and tugging on the reins. You’ve gone through the trouble to get me awake, she seemed to say, so why not make use of me? Huntley stroked the horse’s softly bristled muzzle and murmured soothing words into her ear to quiet her. The mare seemed appeased, but only slightly. She wanted to move. He couldn’t blame her.

Huntley had spent the better part of yesterday evening tracking down a horse large enough for him to ride comfortably. Mongol horses were sturdy beasts, adapted well for the steppes and hard weather, but they were also remarkably small, almost the size of ponies, and unless Huntley wanted his knees knocking against his jaw as he rode, he needed to find a horse that could fit his tall frame. He’d also bought himself a Russian saddle of soft leather. The wooden Mongol saddles were beautifully ornamented, but deuced uncomfortable.

He hadn’t any idea how many miles he would cover on the journey ahead, but he wanted to be prepared for any eventuality. He tried to think of anything that could happen, be ready for whatever came his way, for good or ill. That was something else that had enabled him to rise to the rank of officer when others who’d enlisted at the same time languished as sergeants.

Huntley was no longer an officer, no longer a soldier, but his senses in the frigid morning were still sharply alive as he kept watch over Franklin Burgess’s compound. After sleeping a few hours in a hospitable Mongol’s tent in exchange for splitting firewood, Huntley had taken up position opposite Burgess’s own group of tents to wait. The man had insisted that he didn’t need Huntley’s assistance, but it was clear that the blasted message Huntley had delivered yesterday meant that trouble was coming, and a middle-aged man with a badly broken leg wouldn’t be able to face it properly on his own.

Though Burgess wasn’t entirely on his own. There had been his daughter, too. Julia. No, that wasn’t her name. Thalia. A young woman with bold eyes and a bolder mouth, neither of which he had been able to forget, even while he had slept. His mind also kept circling back to those muddy boots peeking out from under the hem of her dress, what they meant, and why he’d even care about some girl’s boots.

He hadn’t expected to find a young Englishwoman in such a wild place as Urga, and her presence inside Burgess’s tent immediately threw him when he entered. He had been so focused on delivering the message, finally learning what it meant, that Huntley had never considered that Burgess might not be a single man like himself, but a father, and worse, the father of a daughter. Huntley didn’t like having genteel ladies around. He didn’t know what to say, where to look. Genteel ladies seldom had much to do with enlisted men, but when he had become an officer, he’d had to associate with the other officers’ wives. Their fripperies and fragility made him nervous. Somehow, he almost always wound up offending them, though God only knew how.

Strangely, he hadn’t offended Thalia Burgess, but they riled each other. He wasn’t used to being questioned. Fifteen years of steady and good service for Her Majesty meant something.

Damned aggravating, how difficult it had been to tear his eyes from her, how, from the moment he had set foot inside Franklin Burgess’s tent, Huntley had been aware of her, every movement, every word, even, for the love of the devil, her breathing.

His only explanation was that it had been six months since he’d taken a woman to bed. He had to think for a moment, and then only barely remembered Felicia, Lieutenant Colonel Calvin’s wife. Huntley generally avoided sleeping with married women, but everyone in the camp knew that Calvin kept at least two native mistresses and had given each of them a handful of babies. When Huntley had sold out, he finally gave in to Felicia’s advances. They’d spent a single pleasant, but not particularly remarkable, night together. And that was really six months ago? Great Gideon! Being near any woman was bound to attract his attention, and Thalia Burgess was definitely a woman. That had to be the reason.

He’d found her manner to be a peculiar mix: on one hand, she was trussed up in a dress that looked ill-fitting. Wrinkled and seldom worn. The fabric had been tight across her bosom, but he’d tried like hell not to look. He’d tried, and failed. She could fit quite nicely in his large hands, filling them but not spilling over.

He clenched his hands into fists, as if the feeling of his fingers curling into his palm might erase the desire to peel that damned dress off Thalia and see if his intuition was right.

That didn’t stop his mind from wandering back to her, though. It didn’t help that he had nothing to do but wait, no task to keep his thoughts busy but think of her.

Thick, dark hair, meant for tangling in a man’s fingers. Her cheeks were so full of lively color, her green eyes so vivid and brilliant, she must wear some of the womanly paint that ladies always claimed they never used but often did. And then there were those boots, spattered with mud and soft from use, though the dress’s hem was clean. A strange tangle of contradictions.

Besides the way she looked, he had also been struck by her manner. He remembered the officers’ wives, even Felicia, complaining about the heat or their servants, and trying so hard to be genteel and pleasant and proper in the middle of “heathen backwaters,” as they called them. Thalia Burgess had said nothing derogatory about Mongolia, never apologized, and didn’t yell at her native servants.

He and Thalia Burgess had stood close to each other, within touching distance. His body had reacted immediately to her nearness as he saw that she was tall for a woman and prodigiously pretty. She wasn’t a smooth and oval-faced porcelain doll, but had high, clear cheekbones, a strong chin, and an equally strong, straight nose. A full, rosy mouth. Even her annoying mistrust of him couldn’t shake his interest.

Damn it, he needed to get a hold of himself, and he needed to do it now. Which meant he couldn’t think about Thalia Burgess any longer.

Think about the message, he told himself. It was important, whatever it meant, and Franklin Burgess was going to do something about it. And when he did, Huntley would be right there, giving the stubborn man and his even more stubborn daughter the help they needed. He couldn’t just turn around and head back to England, to Leeds, which probably had more than its fair share of textile merchants. He was needed here, halfway around the bloody world, picking apart dangerous enigmas that had already cost one man his life. Despite Burgess’s insisting that Huntley had performed his duty to Anthony Morris, there was too much unresolved in Urga.

To keep his fingers from freezing off, Huntley counted the number of bullets in his kit, and reviewed his preparations from the night before, including taking his guns apart and cleaning them thoroughly. All routines he’d done more times than he could remember.

It didn’t seem likely that the task at hand, whatever it was, would be done in the chaotic maze of the city. Broken leg or no, Burgess would be traveling, and when he did, Huntley would be shadowing him. He’d be remiss in his duty if he let Burgess venture out into danger without reliable protection.

With that in mind, Huntley now waited near Burgess’s compound, eyes adjusted to the dark, trying to calm an impatient horse, freezing his goddamned rump off, and looking for signs of activity from the tents.

Finally, there was movement. The door to Burgess’s tent opened and a man in native dress came out. Huntley recognized him as Burgess’s Mongol servant. The servant walked quickly to where several horses were tethered and began saddling two of them. As he did this, another man came out of the tent. Huntley didn’t recognize him; he was taller than the servant, but he wore native dress, also, and carried saddlebags. It couldn’t be Burgess, since this man walked easily and confidently, not a crutch in sight. His long, dark hair was pulled back, and he wore a small wool hat. In the quiet of the morning, Huntley heard the man speak softly to the other in Mongolian, and realized with a start that it wasn’t a man, but a woman, and no ordinary woman, but Thalia Burgess.

She moved much more comfortably now than she had the day before, striding around the yard that surrounded the tent, confident and intent. She made several trips to and from the tent, easily carrying bags and equipment, as the servant finished saddling the horses. The final time she emerged from the tent, she carried a rifle, the same heavy old Beattie that Burgess had pointed at Huntley yesterday. She put the rifle in a scabbard hung on her saddle. The servant took an ancient muzzleloader and also hung it from his saddle. Thalia Burgess and the servant loaded the horses together, hardly speaking, working quickly. They put most of the bags onto a third, unsaddled horse, keeping the smaller items for the horses they planned on riding. It was clear they had packed for a journey before.

As they were finishing, Burgess himself came out of the tent, a crutch propped under one arm and using the other to lean on a Mongol woman beside him. His daughter gave her reins to the male servant before stepping forward, just in front of her father. Burgess handed her something, and she stared at the object in her hands for a moment. Burgess then wrapped one arm around his daughter’s straight shoulders and held her tightly as her arms came up to clasp him. She pressed her face against his shoulder, and he struggled with his crutch as he caressed the back of her head with a loving and protective hand. It was the embrace any parent, regardless of nationality or race, gives his child before he or she sets off on a dangerous journey. The servants watched, emotion plain in their faces. The female servant dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve. Feeling like an interloper, Huntley almost looked away from the intimate family scene.

He reminded himself that whatever that message meant, it surely was something important if Burgess was willing to let his daughter embark on the mission, since he could not. That meant that Huntley was going to be stuck with her for some time now. May the Archangel Michael descend from the skies and kick Huntley straight in the rocks.

After finally breaking away from her father’s embrace, Thalia put the object her father had given her into her pocket. She then moved without hesitation toward one of the saddled horses, taking back the reins. She put her booted foot into the stirrup and swung herself up into the saddle with a fluid ease that would make any cavalryman proud. The male servant also mounted up. Burgess raised his hand in a farewell as his daughter and servant wheeled their horses about and kicked them into a canter. They disappeared into the remaining night.

Huntley waited until Burgess and the female servant went back inside before mounting up on his own horse. The mare responded eagerly to the press of his heels into her flanks, leaping into her gallop and ready to run. Mongol horses needed movement, needed freedom. For Huntley, the feeling was mutual. He wasn’t familiar with this city, and knew nothing of this country; however, despite all this and the darkness, he could find Thalia Burgess’s trail.

She may have been one of the more confounding women he’d ever known, but, whether she wanted his help or not, he was sticking with her. No matter where the journey took them.

“We’re being followed.”

Batu turned in his saddle and looked around, but aside from the rolling hills full of gently browning grass and the huge expanse of blue sky, they seemed to be alone as they rode west from Urga. The sun had risen several hours ago, and they had slowed their horses to a brisk trot to conserve the animals’ energy.

“I see no one, Thalia guai,” Batu said.

“He’s too skilled to let us see him,” Thalia answered. She kept her eyes moving across the landscape, touching the undulating hills, the scattered rocky outcroppings, the shadows of clouds slipping over the steppe, blown on dry winds from the northwest. She breathed in deeply, felt the crisp autumn air fill her and cleanse away the dirt of Urga. God, it was good to be out of the city!

“Who?”

“Captain Huntley.”

“The man with the golden hair and golden eyes? He seemed fierce.”

Thalia gave a clipped nod, remembering darkly not only the captain’s extraordinary appearance and manner, but his immediate effect on her, as well. “He’s been following us since we left Urga,” she explained. She tried to tell herself that what she was feeling was irritation. She had not the time nor energy to worry about an annoyingly persistent soldier. And she had even less room for her own unwanted reaction to him. “It seems he did not take my father’s refusal of help to heart. The captain is determined to sneak after us and force his assistance on us.”

She briefly entertained the idea that perhaps her father had sent Captain Huntley after them to ensure that she and Batu were protected on their mission, but just as quickly rejected the idea. As much as Franklin Burgess didn’t like it, the safety and secrecy of the Blades came first.

“Are you sure?” Batu looked around again. “We seem quite alone.”

“I am sure.” Thalia patted the neck of her horse in encouragement. They had only just begun their voyage, and the animals would need their spirits bolstered to make it the whole distance. She pointed to a rise, and she knew that a small, clear stream flowed at the base on the other side, sheltered in a small valley. “We’ll stop and water the horses once we reach there, maybe have a little something to eat, ourselves. Once we do, we’ll wait for the captain to catch up and politely but firmly tell him to leave us alone.”

Batu still looked dubious that anyone was on the steppe besides themselves and the occasional herd of gazelle, but Thalia’s instincts for such things were seldom wrong, so he did not pursue the matter any further.

She had become aware of someone’s presence behind them shortly after they had ridden past the outskirts of Urga, when the gers had begun to thin into more and more remote ails, or encampments. It could only be Captain Huntley, and though he had been very good at remaining quiet, keeping his horse from kicking up too much telltale dust, she had known he was there.

She had been all too aware of him since he stepped into her father’s ger. He was big and commanding and unapologetic about both of those qualities, and though Thalia had always been at ease in the presence of men, there was something about Captain Huntley, something so specifically masculine, that she could not feel comfortable around him. His golden eyes, his whiskey voice, his very physical nature that the tent could barely contain—these things combined like a drug in her body, a drug on which she could not become dependent. She could never trust such an opiate as Captain Huntley. Her swift and strong reaction to him was unnerving. The very fact that he did bother her bothered her even more, until she felt as though she was chasing her own ghost, grabbing at something that would always slip from her grasp.

In a few more minutes, it would no longer matter. She would confront Captain Huntley and insist that he return to England. Truthfully, it didn’t matter where he went, Brazil or the Maldives or anywhere else, so long as he wasn’t following her in Mongolia. And then her interest in him would disappear, as it must.

She and Batu crested the rise, then rode down into the small valley where she planned on watering and resting the horses. Water was always scarce, even far north of the vast Gobi desert. It would not benefit her and Batu to push the horses, despite the time concerns, since thirsty horses tired quickly. Better to lose a few minutes here and there than to face a larger obstacle later on.

The valley that contained the stream was shaped like a cup, surrounded on all sides by low, rocky hills. A few larch trees dotted the valley, most of them clustered near the water’s edge. As they approached the stream, she and Batu dismounted and led the horses to the water. The animals gratefully dipped their muzzles into the cold, fresh stream, and Thalia crouched near the bank, cupping her hands to take her own drink. She closed her eyes, tasting the sweet and bracing water. Its purity was never in doubt. To pollute a lake or stream was a great sin for a Mongol, and all nomads took great care to preserve the cleanliness of the water, since it was so precious. Drinking deeply from the stream, Thalia remembered the sludge and rubbish floating in the Thames, the children and women walking up and down its muddy banks, looking for anything of value that had been discarded and then churned up. She had heard tales, too, of a noxious fog that rose up from the Thames, blanketing London with a thick yellow haze that made it impossible to see or breathe. She had no idea how anyone could live like that, why Londoners never saw the direct relationship between clean water and the health of themselves and their city.

As if her thoughts had conjured up another Englishman, Thalia heard the rattle of rocks kicked up from the ground behind her. It had to be the captain. She rose, preparing to be very polite but exceedingly firm in her assertions that she and her servant would proceed alone. As she turned, the polite refusal vanished as her blood chilled.

Henry Lamb stood twenty feet away. Impeccably groomed and blond, he smiled without warmth. He was accompanied by an unsmiling Jonas Edgeworth, his black hair gleaming with tonic, his moustache clipped and severe. They were both attired in the most expensive expedition clothing that Bond Street could provide, as well as armed with revolvers on their hips. Nearby stood three Mongols of dubious appearance holding the reins of a half dozen saddled and packed horses. One of the Mongols was exceedingly big—a barrel-chested man with powerful arms and a rapacious look. His del was threadbare, and he wore a battered European hat, with a wicked hunting knife hanging from his belt. He could probably tear a camel apart with his bare hands. However, the large Mongol did not frighten her nearly as much as the well-groomed Englishmen. She instinctively stepped back, trying to reach the rifle strapped to her saddle.

“Please, Miss Burgess,” Lamb said, holding up his hands and giving her another bland smile, “it isn’t necessary to resort to base violence.”

“I believe Tony Morris might disagree with you,” Thalia answered. She tried to hold her voice level, keep the fear out of her words, but she couldn’t keep her thoughts from Tony, lying dead in an alley in Southampton, with only Captain Huntley to bear witness to his passage from this world to the next. Would Batu play the same role for her?

Lamb’s smile faltered only slightly. “An unfortunate, but necessary, casualty.” He took a step toward her, and she lunged toward her rifle. Before she could pull the gun from its scabbard, Jonas Edgeworth and two of the Mongols had their own guns pointed at her and Batu. Lamb did not bother to draw his own weapon, and actually looked a little bored as he drawled, “I think it will be much more civilized if we conduct our conversation without your being armed, don’t you agree? Take your hand off of your gun.”

Thalia obeyed but did not bother to answer. Her mind whirled, trying to figure out how she and Batu could get away, if she could pull her rifle in time. She understood that it had been Lamb and Edgeworth, along with their hired muscle, that she had observed following her, and not Captain Huntley. If only it had been him. She would much rather tell the attractive, persistent captain to go away than face down two Heirs and their brutes.

“What do you want?” she asked, stalling.

“You know what we want, girl,” Edgeworth barked. Unlike Lamb, he hadn’t mastered the art of polished menace, and his pale skin was already reddening with anger.

Again, Lamb held up one finely manicured hand. “Enough, Edgeworth. We don’t have to resort to anything unpleasant. Yet.” Edgeworth reddened further, but clamped his lips together to keep his silence. Lamb continued, tipping his head toward the giant Mongol, “Our friend came to us a few months ago with a riddle about where to find the Source.”

“Then you know where to find it,” Thalia answered.

“Not quite. But you know this miserable country very well.” He picked at a minuscule piece of dirt on his lapel. Thalia nearly smiled at the Sisyphean labor. “Come now, Miss Burgess,” Lamb added, attempting to sound appealing, “don’t be difficult. You can prove yourself a credit to your sex, and do your country a great service as well, by telling us where the Source is. I am prepared to make it worth your while.”

“So you can enslave the people of Outer Mongolia?”

“With the power of the Source at our disposal, Mongolia would be conquered,” Lamb snapped. “We’d force these shiftless nomads into real work. Mining.”

“And those that resisted?”

“Disposed of.”

“Killed, you mean.”

Lamb shrugged, unconcerned about the possibility of slaughter. “Yellow barbarians don’t matter.”

Instead of answering Lamb, or running up and shoving her knee into his groin as she longed to do, Thalia turned toward the three Mongols standing nearby. “Do you know what these Englishmen mean to do?” she asked them in Mongolian. “They will steal the heart of your homeland and use it against you, to subjugate you, murder you if you resist them.”

Two of the Mongols shifted uneasily. But the large Mongol grunted in an approximation of a laugh. “Who do you think sold them the information about the prize in the first place?” he said.

“But your country,” Thalia protested, shocked, “your way of life as a nomad—”

“Doesn’t buy me a herd of camels,” the Mongol said. “Or put mutton in my belly or women in my ger.”

Batu looked disgusted, and Thalia could not blame him. She was horrified that someone could trade his life and culture for a handful of pound sterling.

“That’s enough of that,” Lamb cut in, speaking in English. He was irritated and impatient, his polish beginning to rub away, revealing greed, ambition, and something uglier, something cruel and brutal, beneath. “I’m tired of niceties. I’ll let my men get the answer out of you.” He gestured toward the Mongols, waving them forward. His men leered at her, concerns about their way of life forgotten in exchange for a chance to assault her, and began to advance. Thalia knew she couldn’t get to her rifle in time, so she went for the knife at her waist just as one of the Mongols reached out to grab her.

He never touched her. There was a loud crack, and the man fell to the ground, blood seeping from a hole in the middle of his chest. He was dead within seconds. Everyone, including Thalia, whirled around, looking for the source of the gunfire. She and Batu immediately drew their weapons from the scabbards on their saddles and crouched low, having no time to register shock.

Lamb ran for the shelter of his horses. A bullet whined, and a small patch of ground exploded near his feet as he sprinted. Edgeworth began firing wildly at the top of the valley as he, too, headed toward the cluster of agitated horses. The large Mongol unshouldered his Russian rifle as he squatted behind some brush. When another gunshot pierced the air, grazing the Mongol’s cheek, the man merely dabbed at the line of blood on his face and shouted at the remaining Mongol thug. The big Mongol pointed at the rise of the hills to the east, and ordered his compatriot to ride up there and take out the marksman while he provided cover fire.

The man looked dubious at first, but the large Mongol shouted that he would tear his insides out and feed them to the hawks, and looked as though he meant every bloodthirsty word. So the man leapt into the saddle to obey. The giant Mongol began firing at the crest of the hill as the other rode closer to whomever was shooting from the valley’s rim. It wasn’t a deep valley, and the rider would reach the crest within a moment. The marksman, whoever he was, could not defend himself against the rider and the huge Mongol’s fire at the same time, and then Thalia and Batu would be on their own.

Another shot rang out, and the rider was pitched from his horse. He groaned, clutching his chest, and went still. The animal reared in fright and sped away, leaving behind the body of its rider. The large Mongol turned toward Thalia with a snarl as she swung the barrel of her rifle away from the dead rider and toward the Mongol’s head.

“My accuracy is even better at this distance,” she said to him as more shots rang out from the top of the valley.

With a vicious sneer, he began to unfold from his crouch, heading toward her.

“Tsend!” Lamb shouted at the big Mongol. He and Edgeworth were struggling to keep the horses under control, the animals snorting and shoving each other as they tried to break free and run away. “We’ll get her later!”

The Mongol, Tsend, looked torn. He clearly wanted to smash the butt of his rifle into her face, and maybe do worse, but another shot from the sniper just missed Tsend’s head. The lure of coin and threat of bullets from the hidden marksman both won out, and the Mongol ran for his own mount. The two Englishmen and their Mongol brawn rode furiously away, bent low over the saddles and casting fearful, angry glances over their shoulders. Batu tried to fire at them, but his muzzleloader was too old and slow to be very accurate when he was hurried. It did not seem to matter as the Heirs disappeared over the ridge, the sounds of their horses’ hooves echoing in retreat.

As soon as they vanished, Thalia leapt to her feet but kept her rifle close. She shielded her eyes from the sun as a figure of a man appeared at the top of the valley, the light behind him turning him into a golden-ringed titan.

“Nice shot,” he said with a familiar gruff voice as he made his way quickly down the side of the hill. “But I could’ve taken him with my revolver had he made it over the ridge.”

Thalia lowered her rifle and tried not to sigh with relief.

“You are an extremely stubborn man, Captain,” she said.

He came down into the valley with long-legged strides, forming from a shape of light into a very real man. A man who was almost smiling as he approached her and she almost smiled back.

“In your case,” he answered, “that’s a very good thing.”

She wanted to say something clever and stoic, something a battle-hardened veteran might pronounce while calmly lighting a celebratory cheroot, but that was precisely the moment her mind and body both realized that she had just shot a man. Killed him. Not an animal, but a human. Her legs gave out from under her as her vision dimmed. She was a murderer. Nausea clutched her stomach.

But then she felt something warm and solid beside her, around her, as she was lowered gently to the ground. “All right. Everything’s right, lovely,” the captain murmured, his arms cradling her as he eased her onto the grass. She let him hold her as she tried to find some air but couldn’t find enough anywhere in the world to fill her lungs, let alone take a simple breath. The world retreated. She felt the rifle slip from her fingers, and it was only the quick reflexes of Batu that kept it from clattering to the ground.

“Now, just be calm, lass,” the captain said, quiet and steady. “Have a look at me and be calm.” With one large, callused hand cupped around her head, he turned her to face him. His hat was off, and, through the mists that gathered inside her head, she could see him, as close as he had been the other day, no, closer. She could see the hard planes of his face that seemed, at that moment, just a little softer, the bump on the bridge of his nose that revealed at least one break, the contrast with his beautifully formed mouth, and the small lines that fanned out from the corners of his amber eyes. His eyes, she realized, were not nearly as cold as she had first thought them, but full of living energy, almost animalistic in its intensity. It was that immediate connection to life that started to bring her back from wherever she had been drifting.

“Tell me something,” the captain said.

Thalia tried to make her mind focus. “What?”

“Tell me about your first pet,” he said. “You had one, I’d wager. A cat, perhaps.”

“No…,” Thalia murmured. “It was…a dog.”

Her brain kept trying to bring her back to the dead man on the hill, but Captain Huntley wouldn’t allow it as his voice interrupted her thoughts.

“A dog then. Was he small? A little lap dog?”

Thalia heard herself laugh. “No, God, no. Thief was huge. Paws the size of wagon wheels.” Her thoughts shifted away from death and toward the animal that had been her constant companion for years. “He was…some kind of mastiff. No one knew what he was, maybe part bear. The least subtle dog you ever met. Bashed into everything. Could knock you over with just a wag of his tail.” She laughed again, remembering.

“That’s why he was called Thief,” the captain deduced.

She smiled at him. “Yes. Exactly.” She finally drew in a breath. Her vision cleared. And she became aware that the captain was practically cradling her against the hard breadth of his chest while her hands had managed to grip his jacket, holding him as tightly as one might hold a vow. She pried her fingers loose and tried to move away from him, but, given the strength of his arms, it was no simple task.

“I’m perfectly well,” she said, and hated the slight tremor in her voice.

“You are, at that,” the captain answered easily, “but you’ve also killed someone, which you don’t have much experience with. Give yourself some time.”

“Do you?” She was breathing better now. And she was loathe to believe it was because of him, his reassuring presence, but she had a bad feeling that that was the very reason.

“Do I what?”

“Have much experience killing people?”

“I didn’t become a captain by knitting socks,” he said, and Thalia had no answer to that. He loosened his hold on her, taking her by her shoulders. “Come on, let’s try and get you on your feet.”

“I can stand on my own,” she said immediately.

His mouth quirked. “Indulge me.”

So she allowed herself to be raised up, trying to bear as much of her own weight as she could. The ground wobbled slightly, but not for long. The captain stepped away, which made her sorry. At last, everything had righted itself. Even so, she could not look at the form of the fallen man’s body as it slumped on the hillside.

Captain Huntley stared at her for a few moments, as if waiting for her to crumple to the ground again, but then he seemed satisfied. He turned to Batu.

“Speak English?” he demanded.

“Russian, too,” Batu answered.

The captain gave a clipped nod. “Good.” He pointed at Thalia. “Keep an eye on her. I’ll return in five minutes.”

“Where are you going?” Batu asked.

“I hobbled my horse on the other side of this valley,” was the reply. “I’ll get her and then I’m coming back.”

Thalia stopped as she was reaching down to retrieve her rifle. “Back?”

“Yes, back.” He took up his hat and set it on his head, the broad brim shading his face. She felt, rather than saw, his eyes on her, the interplay of determination and, oddly, humor. “You aren’t taking another step on this journey of yours without me. Someone’s got to knit the socks.”