Until the Sun Falls by Cecelia Holland

These rapids are part of that river. It’s obviously steeper here than there. How much more?”
    “The ice was smooth.”
    Tshant ducked under his horse’s neck and scrubbed from the far side. Kaidu could see no sign of approval on his face—no expression at all.
    “What do they grow in their fields?”
    “The fields were covered with snow.”
    “Any herds?”
    “I didn’t see any.”
    “Any people outside the walls?”
    “No.”
    “What were they burning?”
    “I… don’t know.”
    Across the horse’s back Tshant’s stare was too even. “Wood? Vegetables? Grain? Old clothes, dead Mongols?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Use your nose. Was there a road?”
    “I didn’t see one.”
    Djela in his gold-hooked coat came by, tugged at Kaidu’s sleeve, said, “Gregor is teaching me more Russian,” and ran off.
    “Gregor,” Tshant bawled. “Keep watch on him.” His eyes followed his son’s progress through the camp. Gregor plunged off in pursuit, and Tshant walked to the horse’s head and wiped out its nostrils.
    “I’m sorry about the smoke,” Kaidu said.
    “The Russians don’t signal with smoke. They don’t camp their fighting men outside the walls, either.” Tshant turned the horse loose and let it find its own way to the grass. He shook the snow out of his saddlecloths and stretched them over a frame near the fire to dry. “My father’s first campaign under the Genghis Khan was in China. He told me the first time they attacked a Chinese city, the Chinese set off rockets and burning lights. He says if he’d been in command the army wouldn’t have stopped running until the Gobi turned to pure water.”
    Kaidu laughed, thinking of Psin, solid, immovable, running from burning lights. “He must have been young.”
    “He was younger than you.”
    Djela ran back, shouting Russian words at the top of his lungs. Behind him, carrying a skin of kumiss, Gregor strode. Djela rushed up to Tshant and hugged him, thrusting his head under Tshant’s arm. “I’m happy.”
    “Good. Gregor—”
    Tshant sat down with a thump; Djela had tripped him. Djela danced out of reach, dodged a snowball, and caught another square in the mouth. Tshant pointed to the ground. “Sit, will you? If you don’t behave, I’m sending you to the Volga camp.”
    Gregor came over with bowls of kumiss and handed one to Tshant. Kaidu opened his mouth to ask Tshant what he thought of the city they had passed, but before he could speak a white flake dribbled down onto his chin. He looked up; the sky was darker, and snow floated down toward his face.
    “Rough going tomorrow,” Tshant said. “Sleep.”
     
    Psin and his column plowed through the forest, headed northwest. The road was off to their right, but it was so narrow that only half a dozen men could ride abreast down it, and Psin wanted to stretch out. He was sure there were other roads.
    “It’s getting hilly,” Baidar said.
    “And rocky.” Psin took his feet out of the stirrups and worked them to get the blood back into his toes. Immediately his feet warmed up. In Russian, he said, “Novgorod is on a lake in the middle of hills. Isn’t that right, Dmitri?”
    Dmitri looked around, startled; he said, “I’ve never been to Novgorod.”
    “Why do I speak Russian with a Novgorod accent, then?”
    “How do you know you do?”
    Psin laughed. His progress in the language amused him. It wasn’t as easy as Chinese, but it wasn’t as hard as Arabic. “When you know the language a man speaks, you can think like him. I am from Novgorod.” 
    “God help us.”
    Baidar and Quyuk beside them couldn’t understand, and rode staring straight ahead, affronted. Quyuk’s right cheekbone was bruised. In the darkness the night before he had tried to shove Psin under a horse, and Psin had clubbed him across the side of the head with a convenient rock.
    “Khan,” Arcut shouted. “Message coming.”
    Psin turned and looked back. Through the trees he could see men riding