The Fifth Beast (ManxMan Chinese/Celtic Fantasy Story)

Chapter 25

The journey to Khanbaliq took a month, and during that month Niall saw and learned more than he did during all one hundred and twenty-two years of his previous life. The lands of the blessed realm of Mag Tuired were rather monotonous: green hills, meadows and forests, blue rivers, lakes and ponds, cultivated fields, everywhere green, blue, or gold of wheat and rye. Only in the east, in the domain of Roigh Mac Rowan, Lord of Stone, were there steep, precipitous peaks and impenetrable mountain ranges.

Here, in the lands of the Kirinches, one landscape was replaced by a second, a third, a tenth. The coast was cut by picturesque fjords; rocks of bizarre shape rose from the water. Almost nothing grew here, except for small shrubs clinging to the stones. The merchants brought all their food with them. Further on, for a whole week of the journey, stretched a waterless rocky desert, strewn here and there with animal and human bones. And only after that did the steppe begin, full of the same wild charm, that was already familiar to Niall.

Before, he thought that the Kirinches didn't cultivate land out of natural stupidity, or they could consider that occupation unworthy of a warrior, it would have been quite typical of them. The steppe, it would seem, was huge — plow it all up, and you won't have to buy grain in the South. But at the first roadside inn, Niall noticed a small field, no larger than that of the poorest peasant in his domain. Although, the fence around that field was neither picket nor wattle, but a real stone wall nearly waist-high, made of big and small pebbles. The pebbles were so skillfully matched one to one that they stuck together without any kind of mortar.

While Niall was looking at it curiously, Fergus came up and happily enlightened him why there was such a wall here. "You see, their land is barren, rocky. If you try to plow it, the plow will break right away, even if it's made of the strongest steel. So the poor fellows first pick up all the stones with their bare hands, to a depth of a yard or even two. And those stones are just enough to make that fence. A field this big might take a year or two of hard work before planting anything."

Niall looked at the stone wall with new respect. Later he noticed a few more similar fields, reclaimed from the harsh nature. But the vast expanse of the steppe was mostly grazed on by flocks of sheep and thin, long-horned cows, which were quite unlike the well-fed dairy cattle of the Tuaths. There were also herds of horses, but rarely. The cattle were always guarded by several armed shepherds, and Niall was not surprised at all. He had already heard, in the same roadside inn (the first one on the trade route), the heroic song describing a historical war raid for a wonderful white bull. Of course, he didn't understand everything, but the song basically consisted of colorful description of the kirins and weapons of the heroes, as well as their single combats with each other. It was quite clear that stealing cattle from a neighbor was a national sport and a source of pride for the Kirinches.

Sometimes the steppe was cut through by wide and slow-running rivers, and they had to look for a ford. The Kirinches did not build bridges, but allowed merchants to build ferry crossings here and there. The barbarians, with complete disregard for personal comfort, could simply throw themselves into the water with their kirin, swim across to the other side, so far away that they were barely visible, shake themselves off and go on as if nothing had happened. The Kirinches were a hardened people. Even their half-breed guide did not sleep in the inn, in the bed, but somewhere in the hayloft in the stable, where he put his horse. Niall's tongue itched somewhat terribly to ask why the guide didn't have a kirin and whether it was necessary to be a full-blooded Kirinch in order to summon one, but he knew perfectly well that he would get punched in the face without preamble for such a question.

Those who could summon a kirin were proud of them, showed them off, boasted of them, sang heroic songs about them. Niall quickly learned to distinguish kirins from ordinary horses, although there were relatively few barbarians on kirins on the trade route from Anzhou to Khanbaliq, it was used mostly by foreigners. Niall had never seen such a mixture of races and languages ​​in his life: swarthy raven-haired Kirinches mixed with dark-skinned merchants from the far South, sometimes there could be seen a red-haired or fair-haired Tuath among them. There were unusual combinations occasionally, for example, someone with jet-black hair and fair skin, or a barbarian with light-colored eyes, which shined on his swarthy face like precious stones.