I led them into the dismal dark woods that began a bare half mile from the city’s walls. Concentrating with an intensity I had never known before, I uttered a silent plea for help to Anya as I tried to focus all the energy I could tap for the translation through spacetime.
The woods grew misty. A soft gray billowing fog rose from the ground and wrapped us in its chill tendrils. Our mounts trotted ahead slowly, Subotai at my side, his bodyguards behind me, close enough to slice me to ribbons at the slightest provocation. The fog grew thicker, blanketing sound as well as sight. I could hear the muffled tread of the horse’s hooves in the muddy ground, an occasional snort, the jangle of a sword hilt against a steel buckle.
I ignored all distractions. I even ignored Subotai himself as I gathered my mental strength and forced the entire group of us across the continuum. I felt the familiar moment of utter cold, but it was over almost before it began.
I realized that I had squeezed my eyes shut. Opening them, I saw that we were still in a forest. But the mist was dissolving, evaporating. The ground beneath us was firm and dry. The sunlight filtering through the tall leafy trees was strong and bright.
We were now in the forest of Paradise, I realized, riding north by east toward the edge of the woods. The time was the early Neolithic. This was the place and the time where Set had determined to make his stand: to wipe out the human race while it was still small and weak, to wreak vengeance upon me and the Creators for destroying his home world, to seize the planet Earth and make it his own forever.
I glanced at Subotai. He rode his pony quietly, his face impassive. But his eyes were darting everywhere. He knew we were no longer in the chill, dank land of the Muscovites. The sun was warm, even under the magnificent trees. He was noting every tree, every rock, every tiny animal that darted through the underbrush. He was building up a map inside his head as we rode through this land that was completely new to him.
At last he asked me, “You say there are no other men here?”
“There are a few scattered tribes, my lord. But they are small and weak. They possess no weapons except crude wooden spears and bows that have not the range of the Mongol bow.”
“And few women, also?”
“Very few, I fear.”
He grunted. “And the monsters? How are they armed?”
“They use giant lizards to do their fighting for them—dragons bigger than ten horses, with sharp claws and ferocious teeth.”
“Animals,” Subotai muttered.
I corrected, “Animals that are controlled by the minds of their masters, so that they fight with intelligence and courage.”
He fell silent at that.
For most of the day we rode through the forest, the Mongol warriors behind us filtering through the trees as silently as wraiths. There was no pause for a meal, we chewed dried meat and drank water from our canteens while in the saddle.
It was nearly sundown when we reached the edge of the forest and saw the endless expanse of grass stretching out beyond the horizon.
Subotai actually grinned. He nosed his pony out from under the trees and rode a hundred yards or so onto the grassy plain.
“How far does this land extend?” he called back to me.
Making a quick mental calculation, I shouted back, “About the same as the distance between Baghdad and Karakorum!”
He gave a wild shout and spurred his mount into a gallop. His bodyguards, startled, went yowling and charging after him, leaving me sitting in my saddle, staring at the unusual sight of Mongols whooping like boys wild with joyful exhilaration.
Then I saw a pterosaur gliding against the bright blue sky, high above.
“I welcome your return, Orion.” Set’s cold voice rang inside my head. “You have brought more noisy monkeys to annoy me, I see. Good. Slaughtering them will please me very much.”
I clamped down on my thoughts. The less Set knew about who these men were, the better. I had to fight him in the time and place of his choosing, but whatever element of surprise I could hold on to was vital to me.
Subotai returned at a trot after nearly half an hour of hard joyriding, his normally doughty face split by a wide grin.
“You have done well, Orion. This land is like the Gobi in springtime.”
“It is like this all year round,” I said. In a few thousand years it would become the most arid desert on Earth, as the ice sheets covering Europe in this era retreated and the nourishing rains moved north with them. But for now, for as long as Subotai and his sons and his sons’ sons lived, the grass would be green and abundant.
“We must bring the rest of the army here, and our families with their yurts and herds,” Subotai said enthusiastically. “Then we can deal with these demons and dragons of yours.”
I was about to agree when I spotted the lumpy brown shape of a four-legged sauropod on the horizon.
Pointing, I said, “There is one of the beasts. It is not a fighting dragon, but it can be dangerous.”
Subotai immediately spurred his horse into a charge toward the sauropod. A dozen of his guard charged out after him. I urged my mount into a gallop, too, and we all dashed for the hump-backed brown and dun dinosaur as it plodded slowly away from us. I felt the wind in my face and the straining muscles of my pony beneath me; it was exhilarating.
As we neared the sauropod, its head turned on its long, snaky neck to look at us. I realized that Set was using the beast as a scout, examining us through the reptile’s eyes. I could sense him hissing with his equivalent of amused laughter.
The animal lumbered off toward a small rise in the land, little more than a grassy knoll where some thick berry bushes grew.
“Be careful!” I shouted to Subotai over the pounding of our horses’ hooves. “There may be others.”
He was already unlimbering the compact double-curved bow that had been slung across his back, his horse’s reins clamped in his grinning teeth. The other Mongols were also fitting arrows to their bows without slowing their charge in the slightest.
I got the strong mental impression of Shaydanians hiding in those bushes and behind the knoll. Mounted on dragons. I kicked my horse into a harder gallop and tried to catch up with the impetuous Subotai.
The sauropod reached the rise of the knoll and, instead of climbing it or going around it, turned to face us. It made a screeching, whistling hoot and raised itself up on its hind legs, its head rearing more than forty feet above us, the talons of its forefeet glinting viciously in the sunlight.
Subotai let loose an arrow that struck the beast squarely in its exposed chest. It screamed and lunged toward him. Subotai’s horse panicked and reared up. A lesser man would have been thrown from his saddle, but Subotai, practically born on horseback, held his seat.
A dozen more arrows flew at the monster, striking its chest, belly, neck. I was close enough to hear the solid chunking thud each missile made as it penetrated the reptile’s scales. My sword was in my hand and I drove my horse to Subotai’s side, ready to protect him as he regained control of his mount.
Then the trap was sprung. From both sides of the knoll half a dozen fighting dragons sprang, with Shaydanians mounted on their backs, guiding them. All the horses panicked at the sight of these fierce, terrifying carnosaurs dashing toward them. Several of the men were thrown. My own horse bucked and reared, wanting desperately to get away from the sharp teeth and claws of these ferocious monsters.
I controlled my mount mentally, blocking out the vision of the dreadful devils as I drove it headlong into the nearest of the carnosaurs. My one thought was to protect Subotai. Already dragons were crunching some of the downed men in their voracious jaws, their screams rising over the dragons’ hissing snarls.