Katabasis by Mark Teppo

Author:Mark Teppo [Teppo, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Historical
ISBN: 9781477848210
Amazon: 1477848215
Goodreads: 18184309
Publisher: 47North
Published: 2013-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

They split up, riding away from the rock in opposite directions and then circling around until they were approaching from the other side of the monolith. Gansukh’s horse needed little encouragement to gallop; the steppe-bred horses enjoyed running across the open spaces and he hadn’t let his run free for several days. He crouched low in his saddle, the wind whistling in his ears. His eyes scanned the area around the rock for any sign of movement—any sign that a living person was aware of his approach. As he got close enough to the rock to scan the empty ground, he urged his horse to his left, circling back around to the southern side of the rock.

He spotted signs of human habitation. Strips of cloth tied to wooden stakes fluttered in the afternoon breeze. A sheet of canvas was stretched between an upright rock taller than a man and a pair of wooden poles that might have once been spear shafts. A length of rope hung between other poles, outlining a patch of ground for a horse corral.

Alchiq was already in the camp, off his horse and stalking toward the lean-to with his sword in his hand. Gansukh slowed his horse and raised his bow, nocking an arrow. He spotted a circular ring of stones that was most likely the camp’s fire pit. He circled around the lean-to, his stomach muscles tightening as he passed across the opening that faced south.

He let out the breath he had been holding. The lean-to was empty. He lowered his bow and stood in his stirrups to take one last look around the deserted camp. Nothing. He tugged on the reins, slowing his horse, and as the animal circled around to the back of the lean-to, he threw a leg over his saddle and slid off.

He could smell the dead bodies now, and he lowered his bow as he approached the lean-to. Alchiq was already there, and having seen what they were both smelling, had sheathed his sword. “Three,” Alchiq said as Gansukh came around the side of the lean-to, and he stumped off toward the fire pit.

Gansukh looked anyway, his curiosity pushing him to look on the bodies. He had to know who they were, or who they weren’t.

The three were all men, dark-haired and dark-skinned. It was hard to tell from the condition of the bodies, but Gansukh thought they had all died from multiple arrow wounds. He examined the arrangement of the bodies and then scanned the ground around the lean-to. “They didn’t die there,” he said to Alchiq as he caught up with the old hunter.

“Dragged,” Alchiq said. He pointed at a stretch of open ground where several wooden stakes had been pounded into the ground. They were almost in line, an arrangement that wasn’t conducive to their being tent stakes. As Gansukh was trying to puzzle out the significance of the stakes, he realized what Alchiq was directing his attention to was the confusion of hoof prints on the ground.

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