Under a newborn sun and a darkling sky Cyrmic mounted the hilltop, his breath misting in the morning air. The wilderness gaped before him, half-lighted and stirring. Leopards made final pounces before their daylong naps; spotted deer cantered from the bush to sip from a watering hole; and far off in the stinkwood scrub a tusker trumpeted long and shrill, casting the sound of his awakened displeasure to every corner of the morning savannah.
His horse was dead. Three months ago he had stolen her from a caravan of gypsies near the River Hanamsagar. She had carried him across entire nations, across Surda, Ghor, and Lahauri. They crossed deserts that daunted camels, scaled mountains that ibex shuddered at climbing.
A lifetime ago, in faraway Prythain, a gypsy had told him that if he ever was to steal a horse, he should steal a Seglawi mare. "Remember, little man," the huge redheaded beggar told him, sipping a cup of tea that Cymric had bought for him. "If you're ever to pinch another man's horse, make sure it's a Seglawi mare. Back in the day, long before I even set foot in this country, I was peddling saltpeter, oranges, raisins, and ganja across the Gap of Ginnunga, back when the emperor Skandar settled it with veterans from your last rebellion. You northmen never bloody know when to quit! I'm sure some of your relations fought in that war. Hopefully on the king's side. Hopefully they survived. Heh."
"What in God's name does that have to do with Seglawi mares?" Cymric had asked.
"What? Oh, nothing at all. But they're damned fine horses. The finest in the known world. Hardier than Tartar ponies, faster than Lahauri firestallions, stronger than those damned huge beasts from the Skuanmark. Once my cousin Kostas rustled four Seglawi mares from some nomads from the desert. By every god yet to be invented, you should have seen their reaction. We had thirty, forty of the buggers after us on camelback. You should have heard the bloody names they called us. But we were on Seglawi mares, and they were like snails chasing a cheetah. Ah! I miss the warmth and the sunshine. My friend, you asked for advice. Before you die, grow a beard, dye it black, and travel the south, from Gilead to Ghor. You might despise the emperor Skandar, but he rules a magnificent country. And if you do venture there, my friend," the gypsy said with a wink. "Try your best to do it on a Seglawi mare."
Cymric had to grin at the memory. That bloody gypsy bastard. One of the best men he'd met in his life. And Cymric had followed his advice. He'd sipped stolen wine on beaches that gleamed auburn and turquoise, slept under desert skies carpeted with nebulae, kissed women with skin blacker than slate. By God. What a life! What a damned life! Most of it done on a Seglawi mare, too.
How much ganja had he smoked in the dawn hours? He had reeled out of that evil woodland on foot. Some foul thing had happened there and it deserved to stay there, out of sight, out of mind. He was high out of his mind. It would be good to die now, he supposed. His horse was dead and he'd abandoned Arya. And he'd seen the entire bloody world. He hadn't ventured even further eastward, into the steppes of Tartar-e-stan, but who wanted to go there, really? He'd met Tartars in the empire. The women were ugly, their food was atrocious, and this was within the empire, within civilized country. He had no desire to visit them in their own land, where, as various gypsies had reported, men copulated with their horses and scarred themselves for entertainment.
He'd abandoned Arya.
He abandoned that thought.
Was Durza chasing him? Who the hell cared? He was smoking ganja pilfered from the fields of Farkhar, the finest on earth. The dawnlight burned amber and red and purple and gold and the morning breeze felt good on his skin. He'd rustle another horse. He'd find a way into the forests of the north where Arya's people lived, and once he gave them the egg, they'd make him a prince. That or he would die, but his mind flew the sky like eagles in the eye of a hurricane, so what did it matter?
Cymric walked downhill without aim or purpose. A creek babbled nearby.
Slowly the ganja glow faded from his mind. Within minutes he was sitting under a tamarind tree, weeping. His friends. Oh gods, his friends. Little Cerdic, the Skuan of Skuanmark. They'd marched together, twelve years ago, when the White Druid led them against the southern emigres who treated the northerners worse than beasts. They'd smashed the havelis of rich Ghoris who slashed their serfs with whips of elephant hide, stripped their wives naked, sacrificed she-cows in their shrines to Almighty Khuda. Together they'd walked through fields of biting snow, slept sweating by huge firesides, charged halfnaked into thundering gunfire. They'd fled from the ramheaded cannon known as Fortbreaker after it buried the entire Conn clan in a hailstorm of fire and lead. For four years they fought and bled together and sometimes they even had nightmares on the same nights. Oh, Lir, Cuchulainn, and Morrigan, Cymric thought, praying to the northern gods. Let my brother Cerdic into Tir na nOg, the Delightful Plain, where southerners never go.
What about his brothers, his mother, his father? It had been six years since he'd left the north. Were any of them still alive? He'd written them a thousand letters. He'd never see them again. He didn't deserve to.
Cymric couldn't even bring himself to think about Arya.
Alone under the tamarind tree, he wept like a child.