Xorai's Hand

Xorai Tsetgerel punched her way out her mother’s womb with a force that instantly killed the poor woman.

You gasp, children, but at that time, death was as much a part of life as food and water. But then, so was magic. In those days there were demons who would steal children from their tents if they misbehaved—and devour them! Those were the days of great evil, and great courage. Those were the days of heroes.

And, yes, heroines too.

As Xorai kicked and flailed her muscular limbs, her father, Tsetgerel Jaqhar of the Khavsar horde, carried her out of the tent. His clan had already gathered outside in anticipation. The Jaqhar shed no tears for the death of his second wife, even though he loved her with his life. All his emotion was in his arms as he thrust the screaming infant up into the boundless blue sky.

“Today,” he bellowed, “the Boundless Blue has given me a daughter.”

Faces fell; he ignored them. “My daughter battled death itself to come to us. See how her fists clench, dripping blood! The might of the Khavsar pounds through her veins. Through her, our rule will extend far and wide. No man shall match her in strength!” The Jaqhar glared around at his clan, and the horde cheered and stamped their feet. Even the elders began to smile, as the Jaqhar promised to arrange for Xorai a strategic betrothal—one that would not merely sell her away like chattel, but that would bring another horde under Khavsar rule.

Xorai grew up strong and beautiful. She had her father’s piercing eyes, fierce and slanting, and her hair was long and black, woven into forty thick braids. Her thighs were as sturdy as saksaul trees, and her skin bronzed by long days riding beneath the Boundless Blue. By her sixth birthday, she was riding on a khraal, and her wild laugh rang across the plain as the stinging winds whipped her hair. By nine, she could shoot a hare from three leagues away without wasting a single arrow, and at twelve she wrestled a werewolf and won, ripping it from neck to groin with nothing but a blade of flint.

Xorai had no one to play with, for all the other children were afraid of her, but she had plenty of love from her father. She gave the Jaqhar endless amusement with her wit and valour, far more than any of his good-for-nothing sons. Xorai’s brothers by the Jaqhar’s first wife had all, over the years, gotten themselves killed—by plague, by werewolf or wild khraal, by falling off a cliff.

As I said, children, survival was not easy for our ancestors.

Indeed, Xorai’s father grew so attached to his daughter—now his only child—that he dreaded the day of her marriage. For then she would have to leave his camp, to make her home in another. Every day, when they were not hounding him to sire an heir, the elders pestered him about Xorai’s betrothal.

Now the Shamaness was grumbling in his ear again. It was an otherwise quiet night, although it was a full moon. The werewolves and wild khraal had learned to steer clear of their camp, in no small part thanks to Xorai. The Jaqhar chewed thoughtfully on a yak shank, pretending to nod respectfully while the elders discussed who should be given Xorai’s hand. Inwardly, the Jaqhar sneered. What man was worthy of his daughter? Look at her, stirring the broth on the other side of the tent, clad in the distinctive black pelt of a werewolf. Its snout lay over her head as a hood, its eyes still glowing red with the demon-magic that enabled its transformation. That wolf had been the last of its pack, and the Khavsar could breathe more easily until the next full moon transformed more men. Why should he send her away to rule another horde, when she herself did not want to? She was listening intently with her head bowed, and he knew she was shuddering at all the prospective husbands the elders had named. And what need had he to sire an heir—another fragile babe—when his daughter did all the womanly duties without complaint and yet protected the Khavsar with the strength of ten men?

His daughter, he decided, would do whatever she wanted to do.

“Fine,” the Jaqhar grunted, and the elders fell quiet in surprise. Before they could sigh with relief, however, the Jaqhar narrowed his eyes. “The man who defeats my daughter in a fight will have her hand in marriage.”

Xorai snorted. The elders’ jaws dropped. Impossible! It was said that the Boundless Blue had blessed Xorai with supernatural strength to make up for the loss of the Jaqhar’s wife. Xorai was only thirteen, and already in wrestling she was unrivalled among the hordes. They had all seen, at the last trade fair, how all the boys she’d beaten straggled home like wilted, storm-tossed flowers. The elders lauded Xorai’s prowess, but her skills on the battlefield were scaring all the eligible bachelors away. Besides, they argued, Xorai’s husband should be submissive, since Xorai would be ruling his horde in his stead.

“How dull he would be,” said Xorai scornfully. “I would despise him. I would not want a weak man to be the father of my children.”

“You heard the lady.” The Jaqhar shrugged. “If Xorai cannot find a husband, then I will just have to make her my heir.”

The elders reeled in horror. It was one thing to conquer another horde by making Xorai their queen—ultimately, Xorai would still be under Tsetgerel’s thumb, as would her husband. But it was another thing entirely to make Xorai herself the Jaqhar! How could she lead hunts and raids when she conceived, when she had to rear children and organise all the complicated logistics of migration? Did the Jaqhar intend to find her husbands who would willingly take to the wifely and queenly duties? They scoffed. Would any woman even respect such a man?

The old women tutted, shaking their heads. Laying the burdens of a Jaqhar on a woman’s shoulders would doom her to a life of loneliness, without husband and children to warm her tent—or worse, with sullen husbands and children sundered from her, closer to their nurses than to their own birth-mother. It was best to leave the fighting to the men. No woman would find glory in it.

Xorai leapt to her feet. “There is no glory in bloodshed!” Above her head, the eyes of the werewolf glittered. “This”—she grabbed the wolf’s snout—“was a shameful necessity.”

The elders exchanged knowing glances. Khavsar women were groomed to be compassionate, like Earthmother. Xorai would make a good queen. As mother of a horde, she had the benevolent strength needed to separate squabbling children and a gentle firmness that people could rely on. It took a different set of traits to be Jaqhar.

“Sit,” her father growled. “Is there no glory in defending your own?”

It was a savage land they lived in, where resources came only to those with the strength to take it.

Xorai sat slowly, but her mouth was a stubborn line. “Blood is sacred. You taught me that. The spilling of blood is an offence to Earthmother.”

The elders sighed, like dry grass in the wind.

“But when you must choose whose blood to spill?” the old Shamaness rasped. She shook one gnarled finger at Xorai. “Whom will you defend, and whom will you kill?”

Xorai raised her chin. “I defend the weak against the strong.”

“Foolishness,” the Shamaness hissed. “What if the Khavsar grow mighty?” The long beaded strings in her grey braids quivered. “Will you fight against us as we conquer?”

“She is young—she will learn.” The Jaqhar stood up briskly. “Send a message to the hordes. We will hold a contest for her suitors, and the top three will fight my daughter for her hand. But Xorai will join the Anulakh next summer.” Some of the elders opened their mouths; the Jaqhar raised a hand. “She will have no aid as a woman. She will prove herself with the rest of the boys, and earn the men’s respect.”

The wrestlers circled each other, their skins sweat-licked, their growls feral. In the background festive tunes rose from snakeskin fiddles, undergirded by the pounding of khraal-hide drums and rhythm bones that evoked the thunderous hooves of migrating yaks; the sleek, snarling power of the raptor-like creatures that herded them; and the terrible grandeur of vast plains and scorching deserts under an endless sky.

This was the third day of the contest, and they were down to the last five men.

Xorai sighed, excusing herself. These were supposedly the best wrestlers among the hordes. She had been looking forward to a challenge, but so far the turnout was disappointing.

She walked, restless, away from the crowd. Women hovered around the simmering vats of meat at the edges of the camp, each vat large enough to hold a goat. Xorai’s stomach rumbled. The men would be tired after fighting; she would not be wrestling anyone today. She grabbed a bowl and held it out as Duya, an aunt on her mother’s side, ladled in the broth.

“We saved the yak’s heart for you,” said Duya, smiling. “For extra strength and courage.”

After sating her appetite, Xorai wandered toward the wooden posts the khraal were tied to, their thick necks bound in rope. They were fearsome creatures, the khraal. All serrated teeth and sickle claws, like a cross between a large eagle and a lizard, with leathery skin and a dusting of fine feather over the head and spine. Some of them were feeding, grasping a carcass with their sinewy forelimbs, but when Xorai walked past they stood still as soldiers on their brawny hind legs, amber eyes staring straight ahead. These khraal were all battle-trained, taken from their mothers when young and honed into killing machines for hunting and war.

Once upon a time, the shamans said, the people of the steppes could speak with khraal and understand them. Human and khraal were of one mind, one heart, connected through a bond deeper than husband and wife. But when a khraal shed the blood of man, the Skyfather took language from the khraal. As dumb beasts they would serve their penance, until Merciful Skyfather saw fit to grant them speech again.

In the Anulakh she would have to capture a wild one, a khraal old enough to hunt, yet young enough to adapt to human society.

“Xorai Tsetgerel,” said a rough voice behind her.

She whirled. One of the finalists stood staring at her—Yarsav, the adopted son of the Khorul’s Shamaness. He was a tsagashür, a white-devil. It was said his mother had lain with a demon. Unlike the steppe-people, he was not tan but unnaturally pale, the exact shade of noon-time snow. His face was cut like an iceberg, his eyes an icy blue, his braids stark white against his black silk tunic.

“Xorai Tsetgerel,” he said again, tasting her name between his teeth. “Where is your strength?”

She laughed. The shamans said that those who were blessed with uncommon gifts, whether divine or demonic, had a seat of strength wherein they kept this power. “In my hair,” she said, tossing her forty braids at him as she turned back to saddle a khraal. “Where’s yours?”

Yarsav smiled, thin lips pulling back over too-sharp teeth. “In my mouth.” Then his hands flared white like miniature suns and he hurled the flames at her.

Either his aim was poor or he did not really seek to injure; the suns flew wide and exploded somewhere beyond the camp. The crowd surged around them, gasping. Yarsav charged toward her. His strong arms locked around her neck, but she pushed him back, back, their feet kicking up sand. She drove one foot behind his leg and was about to knock him over when she hissed and recoiled, pain searing her arms. His skin was smouldering, sparks of blue crackling over it where she’d touched him.

“Shüraagdzen,” she spat. Demon-curse—his power an unholy thing.

She darted left, right, glimpsed the flash of a blade and swooped low. There was a shearing sound. She grabbed the sides of his tunic and slammed him to the ground.

When she stood up her hair was loose over her shoulders, her braids in his hands.

Xorai Tsetgerel laughed long and loud.

“I lied,” she said to Yarsav. “My strength is in my hands.”

Yarsav watched her as she strode away, his eyes hard and cold as frostbite.

The people muttered fearfully. Yarsav had used demonic power. He was shüraagdzen, bound to bring doom to them all. The Khorul should never have taken in a white-devil.

A group of Khavsar men gathered to rail at the Khorul. Yarsav had fought dishonourably; the Khorul must make up for this slight. The Khorul bristled. Xorai’s strength was unnatural, they claimed, so it was only fair.

Xorai decided not to care. She had won. In a match, the ring provided a false sense of security. In life, the only rule was survival.

She mounted a khraal and galloped off, tearing over the plain with loose bridle, easy seat, corded whip in hand. On the horizon, the setting sun gilt the summer fields in gold, and the peaks of the Seven Kings blazed red in its light. The wind flung her hair back, so much lighter without her braids. As the familiar exhilaration flooded her veins, she was filled with a desire to ride forever. She thought of her father having to mediate now between the hordes, and did not envy him. She did not want to be him. She had fought in battles, she had killed in defence; she had seen her father slay her uncle’s entire family when he’d rebelled. The executioner had snapped her uncle’s back while she held her cousin’s hand. The boy had been too young, too brave, too much his father’s son. He’d rounded on the Jaqhar: I will kill you! I will kill you! She remembered her aunt, panic-stricken as she clamped a hand over her son’s mouth; the Jaqhar’s face grimly resolute as he marched forward and calmly twisted first the boy’s neck, then his mother’s.

She did not blame her father. The message had to be sent. But she dreaded the day she would face such a choice.

She heard a soft pounding behind her and glanced back to see Araban, a bastard-child of the Khorul horde, riding toward her. She scowled, driving her khraal forward, but to her surprise he kept gaining on her.

“What do you want?” she yelled, as he came abreast. For the past two days he had been challenging her to a duel. She had declined at first, but when he’d insisted, she’d knocked him over with the ease of a finger-flick. He was undeterred.

He grinned. “Another match!”

Xorai sped up. But when he outpaced her, she yanked her khraal to an abrupt halt. “I won’t marry you,” she snapped.

“Fine. Just fight me.”

“Do you like being flung about?”

“Only if you’re doing the flinging.”

“I came here to be alone,” said Xorai coldly.

Araban sighed. “Actually, I came to apologise.” He swung himself off his khraal and gave a deep bow. “I am sorry for my brother’s misdemeanour. Yarsav is … unusual. Please do not hold it against the Khorul.”

Xorai eyed him warily. “You are loyal.”

“My horde is not kind to children of adulterers. Yarsav and I are alike, in this way. Before he grew into his power, he was often bullied.”

“Does he not have the Shamaness’ protection?” According to the laws of the steppe, adulteresses were stoned or cast out of their horde, but children were innocent. The children of adulteresses were usually allowed to stay if another woman agreed to take them.

“He is a demon-child. He will always be feared, and thus he always seeks power. He chases power as a refuge, but it only makes people fear him more.” Araban shrugged. “Nevertheless, he is Khorul. He and I are of one womb, one blood.”

Xorai swung herself off the khraal. “One match,” she said, dropping to a crouch.

Araban smiled, mimicking her. “How about two?”

“You test my patience.”

He launched herself at her. She recognised the move—she had used it against him the first time they’d wrestled. She deflected; he gripped her back with one hand and her elbow with another. She let him hang there for a while, let him test his strength against hers, before sweeping him to the ground.

He grinned and hopped up, drawing a scimitar from his belt. The curved blade glinted like a crescent moon. Xorai raised her eyebrow and drew hers, too. He lunged, she parried, and less than a minute later his sword was flying through the air.

“Will you teach me?” said Araban, sprawled on the ground and panting.

He looked skinny, underfed. Xorai knew how cruel people could be, even within the same clan.

She offered him a hand.

The top three contestants fought Xorai the next day, and none lasted more than two minutes.

The rules should be changed, the hordes complained. Let Xorai pick the best fighter among them all, whether or not he could defeat her. Or let Xorai fight Yarsav again.

“You’re popular,” Araban teased. “Strong wives beget strong children.”

Xorai shut him up with a punch that made him double over. She winced; she hadn’t intended to hit him that hard.

“They want to cement an alliance,” she explained, “against the southern hordes.”

“You’re also beautiful,” said Araban.

Xorai smiled.

“Your seat beside me has made me the envy of all the men.”

“Hone your blade, Araban, not your tongue.”

“Why not both?”

Finally, the Jaqhar held his daughter’s hand and raised her arm. “My daughter remains undefeated!” he declared. Only Xorai knew him well enough to hear the trace of smugness in his voice.

Araban was a fast learner, and Xorai found that she liked teaching. It was a different sort of challenge. They met often over the summer, Xorai bursting with pride when she saw Araban’s chest and arms lean out, his grip strengthening, his footwork acquiring a serpent’s grace. It was her grace, her moves, but he also added something of himself in it.

Then came autumn, and the Khorul and Khavsar had to part. The Khorul would be taking their herds south. Xorai and Araban agreed to meet at the foot of Blacktooth Mountain the following summer, when they would both take part in the Anulakh.

“Be my blood-brother,” Araban said, the day before he left. Xorai saw resilience in his gaze, an iron will. She felt kindness in his calloused hand.

“Sister,” she corrected.

So it was that Xorai Tsetgerel and Araban the Bastard raised their swords together beneath the Boundless Blue, and by the mingling of their blood in the womb of Earthmother, swore that for as long as they lived their hands and hearts would belong unfailingly to each other.

The following summer, the youths of the Khavsar and Khorul hordes rode to the Seven Kings, the craggy mountains that bordered the northern steppe where the khraal liked to nest. They journeyed on trained khraal of breeding age, meant to be released back into the wild once they had taken a younger one.

The boys, if they returned, would be recognised as men. The girls kept pace with them, shrieking with excitement. At sundown they would return to their camps while the boys continued.

Araban waved when he saw Xorai streaking toward him on her khraal, and Xorai cried his name, forgetting herself in her joy. They clasped each other’s arms, grinning stupidly. Araban had grown over the winter, and was lankier now than ever, though his limbs were no longer soft as a fawn’s. Xorai punched him in the stomach, and found to her surprise that it was hard. “You’ve been practising,” she said with satisfaction, and laughed when he doubled over with a grunt.

“Still as feisty as ever, Elder Sister. Have you caught yourself a husband yet?”

Xorai pulled a face and exaggerated a sigh. “Ah, woe is me! The warrior-princess doomed to a life without love! Remember me when I die, Araban!”

Thus they bantered up the rugged scrubland, brimming with the sure-footed confidence of youth. They travelled at a leisurely pace, keen-eyed Araban leading the way. He spotted signs Xorai would never have. Occasionally he would dismount to peer at something in the underbrush, or cock his head and listen. He pointed out broken twigs, misshapen ferns, a downy feather caught on a thorn. He noted the sound and movement of prey. Then just before dawn, behind an outcrop of rock, they saw them: a mother with two young.

Xorai would not have noticed them if the smallest had not moved, flicking its long tail as it darted behind a bush. They were camouflaged by the grey-browns of their scaly armour.

“Beautiful, aren’t they,” Araban murmured. “Look at them play.”

The smallest of the khraal—a male, judging from its thicker, golden-brown crest—pounced on its sister and growled. The larger female whipped round, snarling. Its jaws clamped over its brother’s neck and tossed it casually aside. The poor male landed in a cloud of sand, blinked, then sheepishly scrambled to its feet and ran up beside his sister, head bowed.

“A sign of submission,” Araban whispered. “Moving downwind, head lowered.”

Xorai watched in fascination. The khraal at home never behaved like that.

Araban beckoned. They crept closer. Araban raised a finger to his lips.

The mother lifted her head and sniffed the air.

They would have to separate the young from their mother. Xorai and Araban placed a hand on their khraals’ necks, and their mounts dropped to a crouch.

At Xorai’s signal they exploded from the brush, ululating. The wild khraal bolted, hemmed in by Xorai on the left and Araban on the right. Lassos swung, and Xorai laughed as she gained on the smallest khraal, then overtook it—she would leave that for Araban. She was neck-and-neck now with the mother and she could almost taste its panic, hear its fury in the thunder of talons on the ground. With a powerful leap sideways Xorai landed on its back, her own khraal falling behind. The mother raced downhill, roaring with rage, zigzagging and bucking while Xorai bared her teeth and whooped, clinging on to the khraal’s neck with arms of iron. Down came her whip on the khraal’s behind, and the khraal shrieked in pain and terror. For a day and a night Xorai held on, her grip never slackening.

At last, the khraal stopped by a stream, its chest heaving, mouth foaming, head bent in defeat. As Xorai led it to drink, a moan sounded deep in its throat, and its amber eyes were bleak with sorrow.

The thudding of khraal feet made Xorai spin around. There was no mistaking that hair, streaming white under the pre-dawn moon—Yarsav. But what was that dark bundle flopping over the saddle in front of him? Xorai frowned.

“An exchange, Xorai!” Yarsav bellowed, bone-white face stretched into a terrible grin. “Your strength for your blood-brother’s life!”

Yarsav tossed the flopping heap that was Araban onto the ground. Araban landed with a yell and twisted himself around, eyes wide with panic; his hands and feet were bound, his forehead bruised and bleeding. Xorai rushed forward, but at a gesture from Yarsav a ring of blue fire shot up around her brother and a wave of heat blasted into her face.

So Yarsav needed his hands to call up power. If Xorai kept them occupied, she would stand a fighting chance. She catapulted towards Yarsav, then they were a morass of earth-juddering blows and blue-white sparks. Steel clashed with steel as they chased each other across the highland plains, two silhouettes whirling in a furious dance against a magenta sky. “The truth, Xorai!” Yarsav thundered. “Where is your strength?”

Xorai gave a harsh bark of laughter. “I told you—it’s in my hand!”

His voice was the howling of the wind. “Which hand?”

“The one that fights! The one that will be your death!”

She stuck to him like yak grease, never letting the gap between them widen, giving him no time to think, no chance to summon his demon-fire. Whenever his skin crackled she would rear back and lunge again; he could not hold the heat for long.

“I will defeat you,” he hissed, his eyes spitting blue flame as their swords met with a resounding clang, “and win your hand by right.”

The sun rose over the mountains, just as Yarsav’s sabre blazed white. For a fraction of a second Xorai paused, blinded; a whump, and when she could see again her sword was on the ground and her hand was in Yarsav’s, sliced off at the wrist—bloodless, smoking, the flesh instantly cauterised.

She screamed, and as Yarsav was about to sink his teeth into her severed hand her scream turned to mad laughter, and through a haze of fury and defiance she shrieked, “I lied! You took the wrong hand!” And she hurled herself at him.

With a snarl of frustration and disgust, Yarsav raised his arms to meet her. Xorai’s sword crashed down, and her hand flew through the air like a frightened sparrow.

The khraal opened wide its mouth. She was hungry; with three young to feed, she had not eaten in days. Her teeth snapped shut, and Xorai’s hand disappeared down her gullet without so much as a flutter.

Xorai gave a cry of anguish and then she was on Yarsav again, their blows raining on each other as they vaulted over birch and boulder, sweat drenching their tunics as the sun reached its zenith in the sky.

The khraal seemed to have developed a taste for human flesh. She charged after them, the light back in her amber eyes. As Xorai slung her left fist at Yarsav’s cheek and Yarsav blocked and dodged, the khraal’s hefty hind legs bunched and sprang. Her talons swiped down and dug into his chest; her jaws crunched down on his jugular and she tore out a bloody chunk, lines of drool and red tissue running thick between her teeth.

She had never been tamed; she had only pretended to submit. The khraal stood with one talon on Yarsav and turned toward Xorai, her fiery eyes narrowed.

Xorai heard Araban shift behind her, and his soft, quivering rasp, “Don’t move.”

Fear drummed a discordant beat in Xorai’s chest.

The khraal’s glare was bitter and terrible, but Xorai’s gaze was fiercer.

“You destroyed my hand,” said Xorai to the beast. “I would have destroyed your life, but you saved mine.” She lowered her head, took a few steps back and to the right, and slowly moved forward again toward the khraal, back facing the wind.

The khraal’s tongue flicked out, two thick tines tasting the air. Her snout was spattered with blood. Xorai smelled the sharp, iron tang of blood in the khraal’s breath. The long tongue whisked out again, dripping red, brushing Xorai’s temple like a feather.

It was as if in a flash she tasted the world as a khraal, yet she was also herself. All its ancient, instinctive knowledge was hers, written in blood and bone and passed on from mother to egg to hatchling. The wind spoke to her with a universe of smells: the scent of dry grass on her tongue, the wet earth of a riverbank miles away, the musk of small burrowing animals on the roof of her mouth. Colours sharpened into shades she had never seen before. The khraal before her was magnified and far away she could see an ant crawling up a blade of grass, and a glowing smear on the ground which she knew was a rodent’s urine trail.

The khraal’s eye was a golden furnace, unnervingly large and near. Xorai saw herself reflected in them, a tiny figure that brought to mind both fear and an old, familiar comfort.

She had hunted with men as a khraal, occasionally sharing her kill with humans, killing for men and women who had loved her. She felt the happy sensation of a full belly and the temporary safety of a human camp where werewolf-packs and larger predators could not hurt her children.

Her precious, fragile children, yielding to the sting of whips, the humans’ demand for more control. She ripped open a man’s neck, did not care that he was not full-grown. They were tearing her children from her and she was mad with rage. They were breaking her children, teaching them all the wrong things and she did not understand why, why they now had to work for their food, why they could no longer hunt whenever and wherever they liked, why they had to run after cattle and hunt other humans. Seasons later when she saw her children again they were no longer recognisable. She had to teach them, slowly, how to be khraal again. To be the wind and caprice, the lightning in the sky and the thunder on the plain, instead of smooth, flat pebbles worn down by the stream.

In time her children found mates and lay children of their own, and she taught them all to fear. Stay together, avoid the humans. It took time, to learn how to be khraal. It was not only about eating and hunting and mating. Did the humans think they were merely borrowing a few years of the khraal’s lives? These years were not theirs to borrow.

All this flashed across Xorai’s mind in an instant, a momentary shift in perspective before she was herself again, leaving only an impression of salt on a forked tongue. Xorai realised her cheeks were wet.

“Go,” she told the khraal. “When I am Jaqhari, you and your kind need no longer serve.”

She did not know if the khraal understood. Xorai wanted to ask her for her name, but sensed she would not be able to use it. It was a scent, a subtle tinting of the air that no human nose could discern. It was a cry no human throat could make. The khraal snorted. Her mouth yawned wide to reveal jagged rows of teeth, and her bloody breath gusted warm on Xorai’s neck. Every muscle in Xorai screamed at her to run, but she held herself still. Then the khraal turned, and Xorai felt the rush of air from her tail as she took off running.

Xorai squinted into the blinding sun, watching the fading outline of a creature she almost understood. There was a feeling in her chest threatening to explode—awe, perhaps, but also a wrenching sense of loss.

Yarsav’s flames had died with him, and now a ring of charred earth scarred the land. Xorai sliced the ropes holding Araban and helped him up.

“I owe you my life,” he said, taking it. He stared at the stump where her other hand used to be, and his face was etched with grief.

Xorai shook her head. “You are my blood; your life is mine.”

They took Yarsav’s khraal and set off at a slow lope, each deep in thought. Araban held the reins. Xorai slumped, exhausted, in front of him, nestled in his arms.

“The people of the steppes have always had khraal,” said Araban quietly. “Without them, we cannot survive.”

“In the past, we did.”

“In the past, other hordes did not use khraal as they do now. The Khavsar will be nothing without khraal. Your horde will be devoured by others. You will be devoured by your horde, who will not accept you as Jaqhar. You need the khraal.”

“Brother,” said Xorai. “Will you stand with or against me?”

“I will be your right hand, Elder Sister. Always.”

The wind moaned across the shrubland, bringing triumphant ululations to their ears. They proceeded warily, creeping up behind a slope. “The Aangut,” Araban whispered. In the distance a gang of masked riders galloped in a circle, surrounding a group of people huddled on the ground. One of their headscarves fell, revealing a long braid of snow-white hair.

“Tsagashür,” said Xorai, her voice hardening.

“Children,” said Araban with wonder. “Perhaps there are more like Yarsav. Perhaps these are his people, travelling from behind the mountains.”

Xorai blinked. Araban was right; his sharp eyes had spotted a toddler and an infant, hidden under their mother’s cloak. Beside them a man lay fallen.

Xorai snatched the reins and was about to urge the khraal forward when Araban grabbed her hand. “It could be a trap.”

Yarsav’s pale face loomed in her mind. Who knew what that demon was capable of, even in death?

Then the baby’s thin wail cut through the air like a fraying thread, and Xorai did not hesitate.

The khraal sprang forward and they moved as one; Araban drew his bow and Xorai her scimitar. Two men fell forward on their khraal, Araban’s arrows sticking out of their backs. Xorai’s blade flashed faster than the eye could see, deflecting the rain of arrows that the men threw back at them. Steel met steel again in a wash of blood. Araban guarded the right flank, Xorai the left.

But there were twelve men against them and Xorai and Araban were weary. Araban could only hold them off for so long with bow and arrow, and when they neared he fumbled with his sword. And though Xorai’s left arm still had the strength of three men it felt clumsy to her, slow and inflexible. She cut down mask after painted mask, each with an expression more dreadful than the last, but they seemed to keep coming, bushy red brows and yellow fangs, hollow eyes and gaping maws, and her body screamed with pain and fatigue.

Her arm flagged. She hissed as an arrow stabbed her side. Then an echo of a smell came on the wind, and there came the soft pounding of taloned feet. And Xorai laughed, for she knew her friends had come.

They leapt into the fray, the khraal who had eaten her hand charging forward with an army of wild khraal. Claws tore into flesh. Teeth sank into necks. The Aangut’s khraal roared in confusion.

In their exchange perhaps the khraal had taken more from Xorai than she’d realised, become a bit more human just as she’d become a bit more khraal. The khraal seemed to speak to one another now, more clearly than before—or perhaps she was just noticing them more. To Xorai, watching them as she fought, the wild khraal seemed to speak to the trained ones in their mysterious way, through body and wind; for suddenly the latter went mad, bucking and twisting, and the moment their wild peers pulled the Aangut off their saddles the once-disciplined steeds turned on their masters and ripped out their throats. Blood and sinew flew in crimson sprays. Only one khraal remained loyal, biting at the other khraal and hurling them aside in defence of his master. Or perhaps his master was defending him, shooting arrow after arrow despite his bleeding arm, some lodging fatally in a khraal’s eye or mouth, most bouncing harmlessly off their rugged skins.

Two khraal pounced. The Aangut screamed as talons lacerated his shoulder. He swung his scimitar at the creature and it swerved and slid off, but his khraal toppled as shards of teeth pierced her scaly neck, dying the feathers on her back red. Xorai expected the man to run—anyone would, in his shoes—but with a roar he hacked at the assailant, covering his khraal’s wounds with his hands in a desperate bid to staunch the bleeding, his body a fragile shield over hers.

It was no good. Another two khraal attacked, and the man collapsed over his khraal, their blood mingling in a pool that soaked the earth.

Xorai closed her eyes. Around her the clash and clamour of battle had been replaced by the quieter sounds of gnawing and tearing flesh. A scent came to her from upwind—imperceptible by her human nose, but Xorai felt it nonetheless in a gentle tug of the spirit. Xorai dismounted, bowing to greet the khraal who had saved her life yet again.

In the khraal’s blazing eyes Xorai saw herself, wrought small in the black slits of her pupils. As she moved downwind with her, Xorai reached out a hand to touch her neck, and the khraal blinked once, slowly.

“Xorai Jaqhari,” said Araban with awe in his voice, and a hint of fear. “Queen of khraal.”

“No,” Xorai murmured. “Just a hand of the khraal.”

But as her shoulder touched the khraal’s and she breathed in the creature’s scent, something like dry earth and grass and the rust of blood, Xorai felt it keenly in her heart—not so much words as an impression, as clear as if the khraal had spoken: Xorai Tsetgerel, friend of the khraal.

Thus Xorai returned home with not one but twelve khraal, one of which carried three tsagashür, much to the consternation of her horde. Her father ran up to embrace her, and the Shamaness cried out in concern when she saw Xorai’s missing hand.

Xorai knelt before the Jaqhar. “Father,” she said, “let the khraal go.”

Tsetgerel stared at her for a long moment.

“I would give you anything under the sky, daughter, but I cannot give you this.”

“Think, girl,” the Shamaness pled. “How can you ask this of your father? The horde will revolt. Without the khraal, do you think the Khavsar can survive? The other hordes will waste no time in attacking.”

“The khraal will help us. As friends, not as slaves.”

“How can we trust them?”

The khraal growled, stepping forward. Swords flashed out around the Jaqhar, his men braced to defend him with their lives. Xorai felt the khraal’s bloodlust as if it were her own.

Kill them. Lead the Khavsar. We will help you conquer the steppe.

Xorai frowned. No.

The silence was fraught with tension. Xorai stood with her friends on one side and her family on the other, and waited to see what the khraal would do.

They were her friends. They did not make her choose. One by one they stepped back, turning to lope back across the plain.

And Xorai wept, for the world had lost its simplicity. She could not ride forever, she realised. Sooner or later she would have to decide where to camp.

Some say Xorai stayed to persuade her horde, to teach them about the khraal, but the Khavsar eventually cast her out, for the way that she was proposing did not suit their needs. Others say Xorai did not return home at all, but lived wild in the mountains as one of the khraal. Still others say that one of the tsagashür she rescued was not a child at all but a charming young man, whom Xorai fell in love with and followed to distant lands.

Only a few storytellers know the truth, though all perhaps tell the truth in one form or other. What do I know? I am just an old woman, peering dimly through history in search of some wisdom. This is the truth I tell: that Xorai took a few of the Khavsar with her and, with Araban as her right hand and the khraal as her friends, began her own horde together with the tsagashür. For these blue-eyed, white-haired folk were not demons at all, you see. They were people of the ice, refugees from the harsh land beyond the mountains—as ordinary as you and me, save for the occasional few who, like Yarsav and Xorai, were blessed with special strengths. She named her horde the Khraalin’aizuud, meaning “friends of the khraal,” and they roamed the Seven Kings, giving aid to any of the ice-people who stumbled through from time to time. Whether or whom she eventually gave her hand to in marriage is unimportant, for she loved generously and was loved in turn, and she treated all her horde, man and beast, as her very own children.

As for where Xorai’s strength was, no one ever found out—except perhaps the khraal who ate her hand, who does not speak our language and would never tell, even if she could. Whenever Araban asked, Xorai would slip her hand in his and smile. “I told you,” Xorai Tsetgerel would say, as the howling winds flung back her forty thick braids and the feathers in her hair, “my strength is in my hand.”

—The End—

Please provide honest feedback! Is the plot engaging? How is the pacing? Are the characters and their relationships sufficiently developed? Does anything not make sense to you? Does the framing narrative work? are the themes clearly conveyed?