His hand clenched on the knife hilt; he nearly drove the forged blade into his own belly before he realized that what stood over him, filthy in the morning light, was a liver-bay mare whose sparse mane was still braided down between her eyes with red war ribbons. She whuffed again, not startled by his sudden movement, and resumed lipping the fleece that Temur huddled under. She was sucking up the frost from his breath, which hoared his blankets. When Temur pushed himself out of their warmth, cold water ran down his back—melted by the residual heat seeping from the bulk of the dead horse. Every movement ripped pain through the tight muscles of his neck and along his spine. The edges of his wound were hot and thick, stiff as unstretched leather. He pressed his left hand over the cloth he’d used to cover it and felt the wetness of lymph and blood, but there was no reek of pus. The wound was still seeping. The mare must have been numb to the smell of blood by then. As Temur rose, she ambled a few steps off and paused, head hanging, cropping winter-dry grasses where she could find a patch untrampled.
