The woman’s amusement evaporated at that.
“I ask for help,” Saga repeated. “Together is chance to win—”
“Enough, girl!” snarled the woman, dragging her sword point up to rest in the hollow of Saga’s throat. “Where do you come from to speak so boldly?”
Saga swallowed, trying to quell her racing heart. “Íseldur.”
A murmur rose among the clanswomen behind the black-haired woman, their hostility shifting to curiosity. “Íseldur? How did you get here? Our shores are closed to outsiders.”
Saga rolled her lips together, trying to choose her words.
“What are you doing on my steppe, foreigner?” said the woman, her words sharpened to a deadly point. Saga’s heart skittered, her breaths quickening. She had to be careful. Had to choose the right words, else they might be the last she spoke.
“I ask for—”
“Help,” finished the woman, holding up a hand. “Never mind it. You will stand before the clansmother. It is she who will decide your fate.”
And with that ominous statement, the woman turned her back on Saga, and her clanswomen closed in.
They patted Saga down and found her fire flask immediately. After Saga explained what the flask was, the horsewomen sought counsel with their leader, whom she’d learned was namedKhiva. Saga watched Khiva examine the fire flask before sliding it into her pocket.
Next Saga was tossed rather roughly onto the back of a chestnut winged horse, a burly, red-haired horsemaiden climbing up behind her. Khiva barked orders in the clanswomen’s tongue, and the horsemaiden behind her sighed.
“Give to me your hands,” she said in rough Zagadkian, before securing a length of rope around them. Saga glanced desperately about for Havoc, but it seemed the stallion had abandoned her.
“Who is the clansmother?” she whispered to her captor. “Willshesend help?”
Her captor did not deign to answer, most likely because Khiva’s sharp gaze had fallen upon them. Saga’s heart was accelerating, her chest constricting. Soon they’d be in the air, and Saga was bound—no escape. No exits. But there was also no turning back. She leaned forward, bracing her forehead on the horse’s withers as she thought of Kassandr and Elisava. Of Rov and Alasa. This was for them.
The horsewomen chattered around her, the whinny and flap of wings signaling the horde taking to the skies. Her vision danced with starlight, and she was glad for her captor’s freckled arm around her waist as their horse leaped into flight.
And then there were only the sounds of rushing winds in her ears. They were airborne and flying to an unknown location.Hold on, Kass,Saga thought over and over, as the seconds stretched into minutes. She wasn’t certain when the first whoop met her ears, but she soon learned it signaled that their destination was near.
Saga could sense the horse descending and pried one eyelid open to take in a city of tents. These were no flimsy, temporary tents, but great, sturdy things built on wooden planks and with smoke twisting up from within. Campfires glowed in the looming darkness, and as the scent of sizzling meat reached Saga’s nose, her stomach finally felt something aside from nausea.
Children cried out, rushing toward the horsemaidens as they landed on the outskirts of the city. The winged horses lifted their tails, the silver bells braided into their manes jingling as theypranced for the youngsters. At the head of the procession, Khiva bent low, scooping up a young girl and placing her in front of her on the winged horse. But the joy in the children’s faces turned to suspicion as they noted Saga, and several began whispering among themselves.
Being back on firm ground made Saga feel somewhat more stable, and she focused on the sights around her to keep her panic at bay. The horses were led to a series of wooden troughs, male horse minders filling them with oats, while others readied brushes and an assortment of grooming implements. The rolling fields beyond were not enclosed by fencing, but Saga supposed there would be no point to a paddock when the horses had wings.
Saga was pulled from the saddle, but the movement jostled her queasy stomach. Her captor jumped back with a cry as Saga bent double and retched. She yearned for the comfort of a roof and four walls—for a break from the ceaseless fear roiling through her. But as Saga wiped her mouth, she found Khiva’s hard eyes scowling at her and she reminded herself this was not about her comfort.
“With me,” Khiva snapped, and Saga was led by her bound hands through the strange city of tents. The clanspeople gathered in groups around cookfires under thick fur jackets while rabbits and fowl roasted on spits. Children rushed about, bells jingling from their ankles, and a dark form soared overhead. Against her better judgment, Saga craned her neck in time to catch a pair of winged horses taking to the skies.
“What is this place?” she murmured in amazement, more to herself than to the clanswomen. It was jarring to see children playing and people going about their regular lives when only this morning she’d left a place of such misery and despair. Saga bit down on her lip, wondering yet again if she’d made the right choice by climbing on Havoc’s back. She could have detonated that fire flask and killed King Ivar. What if she’d missed the chance to turn the tides of battle?
Saga was led to a quiet tent, the flaps thrown back to reveal planked wooden flooring and a fire crackling softly in a centralhearth. As she stepped inside and the tent walls surrounded her, Saga’s heart immediately calmed, the tension in her chest beginning to loosen. She peered up at a smoke hole cut in the roof, then down at the iron loops secured in the floor. Her mind’s eye showed her Havoc, shackled in the stables by a loop much like this, and Saga couldn’t help but laugh. What else could she do?
“What is funny?” demanded Khiva. She’d folded her arms, supervising as the red-haired horsemaiden secured Saga’s hands to the loop in the floor.
“It is nothing,” Saga replied wearily.
And with that, Khiva and the horsemaiden departed, leaving Saga alone in the tent.
Saga curled on the floor, facing the fire as she tried to wrangle her thoughts. Her pulse had eased slightly with the comfort of walls and a roof, but her body tingled with the lingering effects of the day. She was bone-weary and craved nothing but to collapse into a long, deep sleep. Yet time was a luxury Saga did not have. How much time had passed on the steppe? The sun was near setting as they’d landed at the city of tents. Saga had to speak to this clansmother. Needed to convince her to fight for the easterners.
Hours seemed to pass before the tent flap was pulled aside and a trio of women stepped into the tent. Saga struggled to a sitting position and faced the women with as much dignity as she could muster. Immediately, she knew which one was the clansmother. With silver braids that contrasted against her brown skin, this woman’s feather-trimmed cloak was more ornate than the others. As the clansmother stepped deeper into the tent, firelight caught on the silver torcs at her collarbones and wrists.
The woman’s eyes narrowed as she examined Saga’s torn and singed clothing. The clansmother paused a few paces away as her ladies gathered on either side of her. Khiva, Saga noted, scowled from the tent doorway.
