Until the Sun Falls by Cecelia Holland Page A

together. The message was coming up from the southwestern flank, from man to man. Finally one rode into the center and said, “There is another road, parallel to the one north of us.”
    “Tell Buri to send a scouting party along it. Twenty men.”
    The man trotted off through the trees with his message. Psin and the others rode up a steep slope and angled down the other side.
    “Are we going to keep on like this?” Quyuk said.
    “No,” Psin said. “We’ll make a camp before tomorrow night and use that as a base.”
    “Where?”
    “Up ahead.”
    “Where up ahead?”
    “I don’t know yet.”
    Quyuk reeled in false dismay. “Is there something Psin Khan doesn’t know? Can it be?”
    “Shut your mouth,” Baidar said.
     
    At noon of the next day they found the place where the two roads met; three others met there too. It was a wide stretch of open ground, large enough to pasture their horses, high enough not to get sloppy when the snow melted around their fires. Psin ordered the flanks to make a camp.
    “You knew this was here,” Dmitri said.
    Psin nodded, glancing around. He saw a good place to make a fire against a tilted rock and started for it, but Quyuk and Baidar got there first. Arcut was holding a spot almost as good.
    “How did you know?” Dmitri said.
    “Because I’m a general of reconnaissance.” Psin jogged toward Arcut. He had known that the two roads probably met, but he hadn’t expected anything as fine as this. If Dmitri was overawed, the others would be too, he hoped. He dismounted.
    Arcut said, “Kadan isn’t back yet.”
    “He’ll come in before dark. Cook something, I’m hungry. And watch him.” He nodded to Dmitri. All around, the men were milling their horses to trample down the snow. Two men riding bareback galloped past with almost forty horses on a string. Quyuk and Baidar were building their fire. Slaves dashed about around them, laden with baskets of dung for fuel.
    Dmitri was struggling with the girths on Psin’s saddle, and Psin pushed him away. “I have to ride this camp yet. Stay here. If Kadan comes in while I’m gone, Arcut, tell him to camp to the north a little and see if he can supply us with meat.”
    He rode over to Quyuk’s fire, shoving his way through the packed horses and men fighting over good camp spots. Quyuk was walking his horse back and forth to cool it out. He looked over at Psin.
    “How long are we going to stay here?”
    “Until I find Novgorod.” Psin looked at the bruise on Quyuk’s face. “Did you hit something in the dark, noyon?”
    “Yes. But whatever it was will suffer for it.” Quyuk smiled, so that his eyeteeth showed.
    “Hunh.” Psin brought his whip down on his horse’s shoulder, careful to let the thongs snap in front of Quyuk’s face. His horse bounded away. Two strides later the horse shied violently. Psin wrestled with it. Something struck him hard in the back of the head. He knew it was a snowball.
     
     

 
     
     
    He whipped the horse out of range. When Psin got back Buri and Kadan were both at Quyuk’s fire. He summoned Arcut and the other thousand-commander over and gave them standing orders. “When you ride out, keep extended, so that you can see what there is to see out here. If you are attacked, retreat back here. Send me news so that I can arrange an ambush. If you don’t think your courier will reach me soon enough, send him straight back and retreat on a curve. Don’t engage any Russians on your own.”
    Quyuk cleared his throat. “May we perhaps kill a deer if we could find one, Khan?”
    Buri laughed. Psin glared at him. “If you think so dangerous a beast safe for you to handle.”
    Now Baidar laughed.
    “I want sentries out in rings centered on the camp. Kadan, that’s yours to do. The outermost ring will be at least half a day’s ride from the camp. Buri, I want you to ride south, following the road you crossed yesterday. Kadan, take the road leading west out of this camp and follow it until