Lords of Grass and Thunder by Curt Benjamin Page B

put their differences aside for the more important task of defending their prince as his guardsmen. The division of the recent prize, however, seemed to have added chips to the flame of their animosity.
    “I’d have thought fighting a war together would have . . .” Tayy started to say to his cousin. But Qutula, who had lately escaped a bloody death at the jaws of the maddened bear, had fallen into a brooding silence that the prince recognized only too well. Like the two quarreling guardsmen, they had been to war together in the Golden City. Fighting hand to hand in the squares and down streets both wide and narrow, they’d had to worry about an arrow in the back or a monster swooping down on them from the air.
    On the battlefield, memories of the tent city of the Qubal Khan must have filled Qutula with a sense of safety and warmth just as it had Tayy. Neither of them had expected to find his life hanging in the balance on their own ground. The realization that they would find no safety even here at home heightened battle nerves more happily left behind. The prince took a breath to say some word of sympathy, but his cousin’s brooding, closed-in silence rejected any comfort before it could be spoken.
    They were passing through the outskirts of the tent city. Qutula’s hooded gaze ranged over the camps, smaller and more widely scattered here than they were closer to the ger-tent palace of the khan. Tayy did the same, saw the gaps and absences of a city eroding at its edges as clans with no particular wealth or political connections packed their tents. They would follow the horses grazing afield on the rich grasslands that rolled away from the river in a sea of green and wildflower blue. Soon there would be nothing left but the political center around the khan, and his army of young fighters.
    Against these lowering thoughts, only Bekter seemed to have an antidote. He held his bow in the position of a lute and muttered nonsense words under his breath while he fingered imaginary strings, working out a tune. He’d want the story out of his brother before Great Sun set, Tayy suspected; they might have the first performance after the feasting.
    “So,” he said, directing his comments to Bekter, but speaking loud enough for all his companions to hear. “Do you think our bear is bigger than the one Nogai presented to the khan on his wedding night?”
    Qutula looked at him strangely, but Bekter had perked up at the reference to the old story. As Tayy had hoped, he recited the first exaggerated description of the bear that Nogai killed.
“Old Brown raised up on his feet
Twice taller than the center pole
On which the silver palace stood,
In girth, wider than the lattices around.”
     
    Songs often called the ger-tent of the khan “the silver palace” for the glittering silver embroideries that covered the white felt. Tayy would have had the recitation end there, with the bear, but Jumal, with his usual absence of tact, picked up the tale where Nogai entered it.
“The khan called Nogai to his side
His eyes aglisten with the dew of tears.
‘All I have is yours, good friend, but
find for me what I have lost.’ ”
     
    “Our own tale reversed!” he said, pleased that he had made the connection. In the tale, the bear had stolen the khan’s new bride. Nogai had caught up with the bear and in a savage battle killed it. At the end of the tale he presents his khan with the huge bearskin, in which he has wrapped the rescued bride. “Instead of the friend saving the heir, the heir has saved the friend!”
    Qutula glared murderously at his fellow guardsman and Tayy groaned under his breath. He’d have been annoyed enough if Jumal had compared him to the khan’s wife. But Jumal meant what happened next. Nine months after her return, the bride had produced a son and heir for the khan, thus Nogai had saved not only the bride, but the heir as well. The Nogai cycle didn’t end there, of course. The heir, it turned out, was