"Refresh my memory."
"Shake reins."
Remo found the reins and gave them a shake. Desultorily the horse ambled on.
Outside the stable, the others mounted their steeds, and together the three clopped up the street.
"This isn't so bad," Remo said as he got used to the muscular rhythms of his horse. "What's his name?"
"Mongol horses do not have names," Kula spat.
"Shhh," Fang Yu hissed. A trio of PLA solders wearing drab greatcoats sauntered around a corner.
"Cover for me," Remo said. He pulled his cap out and hastily donned it. He snapped the earflaps together under his chin and pretended to discover a loose bit of silver filigree on his saddle. This kept his face averted from the soldiers.
The PLA soldiers cast wary eyes in Kula's direction. He returned their suspicious glares with a bold, challenging look.
The soldiers trudged on through the gathering snow.
They cantered beyond the city limits, where clusters of felt-covered circular tents dotted the flat white plains. Kula steered them clear of these, saying, "Mongol gers. Outsiders call them yurts. Many gers make an ail."
"How you people, keep from freezing to death in this cold?" Remo asked.
"You will see," Kula grunted. "For we will pass the night in a ger if we are lucky enough to find one this night."
"And if we don't?" Remo asked.
Kula shrugged fatalistically. "Then our dead flesh will feed the wolves of the steppes."
Remo looked to Fang Yu. The Chinese woman looked stolidly ahead, controlling her fear. Remo felt no fear. Instead, he felt apart and alone in the great endless steppe.
They had cleared the outer perimeter of yurts when suddenly Remo felt his horse sink under him. His feet touched the ground on either side of the saddle. Hastily he stepped free, one foot tangled in an iron stirrup.
"What the hell is going on?" Remo yelled as he jerked his foot free of the remaining stirrup. Just in time, because with a whinnying and a kicking of his legs, the horse rolled onto his back and started to squirm in the dirt like a dog scratching his back.
Which, as Remo found his feet, was exactly what the horse was doing. It rolled and fling its mighty legs at the falling snow, struggling with its ungainly weight.
Kula and Fang Yu brought their mounts around and watched. Fang Yu covered her mouth with one mittened hand. Her eyes squeezed tight with repressed humor. Kula, less conscientious, roared deep throaty laughter.
Feeling foolish, Remo growled, "How do you get a horse to stop doing that?"
"You do not," Kula rambled. "A Mongol would not let a horse do this in the first place."
"I'm no Mongol."
"That is evident," Kula said with dry impassivity. But there was humor in his twinkling eyes.
Remo turned to Fang Yu. "How about you? Any helpful hints?"
Fang Yu tittered into her hand and looked away.
Finally the horse clambered up to its feet. It waited patiently, flicking snow off its tail.
Remo approached carefully, touching the saddle. It was still cinched tight, so he remounted.
They got under way again.
Several hundred yards further along, the familiar sinking sensation returned.
This time Remo threw himself clear. He hit the steppe and jumped back angrily.
"What is your problem?" he yelled at the squirming horse.
The laughter of the others burned his ears. Remo reached out and grabbed the bit.
"This is getting old fast!" Remo said tightly. And with a quick heave, he pulled the horse to his feet.
To his surprise, the pony responded. Remo mounted again. He nudged the horse's flanks with his heels. It stepped smartly.
"You are learning," Kula said soberly.
"I'm a quick study," Remo said smugly.
"But so is the pony," Kula added.
A little further along, they came to a tussock of yellow grass. Remo's horse paused and, lowering its head, sank its teeth into a tuft.
Angrily Remo pulled up on the reins. The horse snorted, but straightened its muscular neck. He tried again. Remo pulled him back. After several minutes of pulling and nudging its flanks, the horse gave up on the tempting grass.
Remo urged him along, and soon caught up with the others, who had not waited this time.
As he drew alongside the other horses, Kula nodded in silent approval.
"Mongol horse or not," Remo said, "I'm calling him Smitty."
They rode on for hours. The darkness was relieved only by the moon. Clouds obscured it. And still they rode. Remo had gotten tired of his earflaps slapping his neck with each bouncing step of his horse and discovered they could be snapped at the top. This left his ears exposed to the cold dry air, but it also enabled him to hear sounds the others could not.
Distantly a wolf bayed. The wind made constant background sound. With nothing to inhibit its sweep down from the cold north, it blew cold and constant, like a wall pushing a million slim glittering blades before it.
The world was a barren desolation in every direction.
It seemed to Remo that if the Master of Sinanju was anywhere on the steppe, finding him would be more luck that anything else.
He felt very sad, and lonely. Lonelier than he'd felt in a long time. He angled his steed closer to Fang Yu, but other than a sidelong glance cast in his direction, he got nothing from her, not warmth, not comfort, and barely recognition.
"I smell blood," Remo said after a long silence broken only by their mounts' restless snorting.