The First Fortress

Chapter 2 ~ Right of the Kayi

Ten minutes later, Kizilboga and Dultekin were about eight hundred metres north of where Kizilboga had caught the deer. It still lay limply over his right shoulder, the weight only just beginning to wear him down. He shifted its position to his left shoulder and tensed his right shoulder for a few moments before relaxing it with a satisfied grunt.

"I could carry it, you know," Dultekin spoke up from a couple of metres behind Kizilboga. The suggestion had already been made a good half dozen times since the catch.

"No need," Kizilboga gave the same answer a seventh time.

Dultekin shrugged, also for the seventh time. This time, he didn't push it. He didn't exactly envy the weight on Kizilboga's shoulders. Plus, he was carrying a rabbit of his own and a grouse which Kizilboga had caught a few minutes earlier.

Kizilboga sniffed in exasperation. "It's like the more we look for prey," he complained, "the less we find." He looked up at the sky. "We should head back to the meeting spot now," he suggested. "We'll be late if we don't go back now."

"I doubt the others will be there before us," Dultekin scoffed. "Osman's sense of direction would land him in Erzurum if you told him to travel south." Erzurum was almost five hundred kilometres to the north.

"And I seriously think Mustafa is incapable of focusing on one thing for more than a minute." Kizilboga twisted his neck to stretch the stiff joints. "Like last night, when he started talking about how he'd lost his sword under his mattress for a week once, and in the space of a couple minutes, he'd changed the topic-"

"To how many fish Ghazi ate from the river in Khazaria," Dultekin finished.

Kizilboga laughed and nodded. "At least we're never bored in that tent." Dultekin smiled in agreement. Too much happened in their tent for them to feel bored for even a moment. There was always something lost or a new argument emerging between Osman and Ghazi.

Although they were forty minutes away from the meeting place, the quick pace they walked at allowed Kizilboga and Dultekin to reach their destination in half the time. As Dultekin had foretold, they were the first pair there.

"What do you say, Bey?" Dultekin spoke up after about eight minutes of leaning against a tree, waiting for Mustafa and Osman to show up. "Do you reckon they'll decide to show their faces before the Euphrates and Tigris run dry?"

Kizilboga looked at his friend from where he stroked his horse's nose. "Mustafa's never that punctual."

A few minutes later, the sound of Osman's voice drifted over to the meeting place. By the sound of his voice, the two young men were a minute or two away. "That's practically impossible," Osman argued as they emerged from the trees. "You can't travel in a straight line from here to Samarkand. You'd have to cross the Caspian Sea in the process, and no-one does that."

"You'd have to cross the Azerbaijan Lake as well," Kizilboga voiced. "And no-one does that." Osman and Mustafa looked up from their heated argument in surprise at hearing their bey's voice.

"Bey." Mustafa stopped in his tracks and regarded Kizilboga. "You're here already?"

"No," Dultekin replied sarcastically. "We're running late. We'll be here in five minutes." He snorted. "Yes, we're here. Do you need a bit more proof, maybe? Or a witness? Osman can vouch for us."

"They're here, alright," Osman confirmed, a smile appearing on his young face.

Mustafa regarded the two young men, irritated. "Very funny, brothers," he remarked. "Very funny."

Kizilboga moved from his spot beside Altin, a grin on his face. He walked towards the two alps and stopped a few metres in front of them. He met Osman's gaze, and smiled at the light in his blood-brother's eyes. He turned to Mustafa, who regarded his friends with a fake pained expression, which was replaced by a reluctant smile of his own.