His mind, however, compensated for his lack of martial dexterity, and he studied assiduously the records maintained by Týrshammar’s lord, learning the more subtle arts of combat—the devious ways in which a commander can forestall engaging an enemy, the violent methods of reducing the number of combatants one must face before ever having to draw one’s sword, and the artful practice of patience. Of waiting for your enemy to blink first.
Fog had rolled into the valley overnight, a damp layer that had clung to the wreckage of the city. His joints ached fiercely, and he had wanted nothing more than to sit by a roaring fire, cradling hot stones wrapped in an old scrap of leather, but the phantasmal fog had made it easier for the Shield-Brethren to slip into the chaotic squalor of Hünern. The sun had slowly burned off the fog without stirring up any wind, and the day had collapsed into a slow, torpid afternoon. After the death of Andreas and the following riots, the city seemed content to lie still, licking its wounds.
The Mongol compound was surrounded by walls built of bricks made from sun-baked mud—the choice of a foreigner clearly, though the weather had been unexpectedly mild over the last few months. A palisade of logs would have been a better permanent solution, but perhaps the use of mud was simply a reminder to all that the Mongols never intended to stay long. The Mongols had cleared a wide pomerium, though had not bothered to dig much of a ditch along the base of the walls. There was one gate—two panels of oak planks covered with hides and iron studs—and it stood between a pair of narrow towers, both made from a combination of brick and lumber. Each tower housed two Mongol guards, and they had spotted Rutger and his wagon almost as soon as he emerged from behind the Black Wall.
He was coming from one of the main routes through the area of Hünern that Hans had called the Lion Quarter, and his route was one taken every day by merchants as they brought their meager wares through the ragged city to the open markets near First Field and the arena. A man and a cart were not unexpected along the edge of the pomerium closest to the ruins of Hünern, and as he had anticipated, his presence did not unduly alarm the watching Mongol guards.
The wagon trundled and bumped along beneath Rutger, its wheels thudding over the uneven ground as he kept the horse moving at a slow, ponderous pace. It hadn’t taken much to disguise himself as a poor laborer, filthy haired and rag-clad, and truth be told it was even less difficult to feign physical weakness when every bump of the wagon made his joints complain. He kept watch on the towers, however, taking stock of the presence of the guards and their attentiveness.
Or lack thereof, which only increased the chance that his plan might actually work.
The odds were against the Shield-Brethren. The Mongols had too many men, and they were all sequestered within a highly defensible compound. A frontal assault would be so damaging to his numbers that they would fail before they even breached the wall. The only possible solution was to trick the Mongols, and given their paranoia—panic and dread in equal parts—such a trick would require as much luck as it would deception.
If it all came down to luck—regardless of how much favor the Virgin gave them—they were already dead, and Rutger tried to keep those thoughts far from his mind.
He expected at least ten guards at the gate—the Mongols ate, slept, shit, and patrolled in groups of ten. Four in the towers meant at least six more inside the gate. Would there be more? He didn’t know, and Hans’s only insight was that there were usually two arban—the Mongol word for the ten-man squad—scattered near the gates during normal circumstances. There was also more foot and cart traffic then, and Rutger would have put more men on the gate himself, but would he keep that same level of security if the gate were closed?
It depended on several factors: the number of able-bodied men at his disposal, the expectation of an attack (and the size of the attacking force), the amount of time the garrison would have to respond to any alarm. Also, in his experience, more men on the wall didn’t increase the chance of spotting sneaky attackers. Too many men, and they would get lazy in their watchfulness, assuming the man next to them would be as watchful or more. Fewer men meant more responsibility, for no man wanted to be the one who missed seeing the enemy approach.
The four sentries were armed with spears, curved swords, and bows. Of the three, only the last caused him any concern, and even though he knew there were twice as many Shield-Brethren archers scattered within the ruins on his left, the range was great enough to stir his blood as he crept along the verge of the pomerium. It was a tricky path to follow: too close and the guards might become suspicious; too far away and they might be suspicious as well. If he had nothing to hide, then why would he be riding as far away from the camp as possible and still be taking this route? When the time came, would he be close enough?
He didn’t dare look over his shoulder, though the urge to do was nigh unbearable. The signal would be plain enough, and it didn’t matter if he saw it. The Mongols were the ones who had to spot the plume of smoke.
It was hard to do nothing. After that fateful day when he had first met Kim in the church, and all during the following weeks when he had sent numerous boys through the gates of the Mongol compound for the sake of passing messages between the Flower Knight and the Shield-Brethren, Hans had been at the center of a secret web of intrigue against the Mongol invaders. He had no illusions about actively fighting the Mongols, but what he had been doing felt just as important. Earlier, when the Shield-Brethren quartermaster, Rutger, had been asking him questions about the layout of the Mongolian compound, he had strained to remember every little detail that the boys had relayed to him. The Shield-Brethren had listened intently, committing it all to memory.
Now, Hans could only watch as the two Shield-Brethren scouts, Styg and Eilif, prepared to scale the wall of the Mongolian compound. The fourth member of their group—a long-faced young man named Maks—crouched next to Hans behind the jumble of brick and burned logs that hid them from sight.
He wanted to be going with them. After all this time of watching others do the dangerous work, Hans chafed at staying behind. He had argued strenuously with the three Shield-Brethren when they had first approached the wall, but Eilif had cut his arguments short with a single statement. If what you have told us is true, we don’t need you; if it isn’t, we’re all dead.
It was a brutal assessment of his value to the Shield-Brethren, coldly delivered, and Hans had been stunned by it.
In the past, there would have been guards patrolling the entire length of the walls. The top of the wall was wide enough for one man to walk along, and sentries patrolled the entire circuit of the wall via a series of easily anchored ladders. Before Styg and Eilif had approached the wall, they had waited and watched for what had seemed like an interminable amount of time, and had seen no sign of a patrol.
Styg thought it was highly likely that the ladders had been taken down on the far side of the wall. The Mongols had decided the height of the walls was security enough, and the presence of men on the walls would only attract archers.
In which case getting up this side of the wall was the easy part. Once at the top, Styg and Eilif could take a quick peek. Hopefully they wouldn’t be peering into a nest of suspicious and angry Mongols, waiting for foolish knights to do exactly what they were doing.
Using a wooden mallet and tent stakes, Styg cautiously ascended the mud-brick wall, leaving behind a trail of hand-and footholds for Eilif to follow. Hans sucked in his breath and held it as Styg reached the top of the wall and—very gingerly—eased his head up until he could peek over the top of the wall. Styg risked a quick glance, and then raised his head slowly to take a longer look at the Mongol camp. Hans half expected the Shield-Brethren’s head to snap back, a Mongol arrow in his eye, but nothing happened. After a slow and methodical examination of the compound, Styg retreated down the stakes to join Eilif at the base of the wall. He looked toward Hans and Maks’s hiding place and flashed them a quick smile.
The route was clear. All they needed was a di
straction.
“That’s it,” Maks breathed. “They’re ready.” Letting out a huge whoosh of pent-up air, he clapped Hans on the shoulder. “Let’s go, my friend. There’s nothing more we can do here.”
Hans hesitated, staring at the series of stakes pounded into the wall. Maks’s hand tightened on Hans’s shoulder, as if he sensed the direction of Hans’s thoughts. He held Hans back like one would hold a hound back from a downed bird.
Hans stared at the stakes. In his mind, he was already scaling them...
Dietrich felt no pain from the arrow, and the fletching bounced in response to the motion of his horse and not in time with it, suggesting that the head of the arrow had failed to fully penetrate the maille of his chausson. He grasped the shaft, and without applying much pressure at all, worked the arrow free. Mongol arrows were shorter than those used by Christian archers, and the tips were less uniform in construction. This one was a ragged shard of white bone lashed to the wooden shaft, and the very tip of it was stained with blood.
A more religious man would have attributed his safety to the hand of God, slowing the arrow’s flight so that it barely creased his flesh, but Dietrich recognized that his luck was more due to the animal between his legs than divine intervention. He threw the arrow away, and squeezed his legs more tightly around his horse’s barrel.
His thoughts went to Father Pius for a moment, and he wondered as to the priest’s fate. There was no point, however, in dwelling on what had happened to the priest. He’s with God now.
What had he said to Tegusgal earlier that afternoon? God willing, he wouldn’t die today. So far, God appeared to be listening, but He was certainly taking others to His breast. How long do I have? Dietrich wondered.
His horse crossed fallow farmland at a gallop. Hopefully the open terrain and his charger’s stride were increasing the lead he had on the Mongols. He glanced back once, but his horse was running so hard that it was difficult to judge distances with the constant juddering motion of the horse. Far enough for now, he thought. As his horse leaped over a narrow streamlet and reached the rougher ground along the river, Dietrich made up his mind and turned his mount south. Back toward Hünern.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
One of Our Khans Is Missing
It was hard to sit and wait. Riding across the endless steppe had been trying for many reasons, and each of the company had dealt with the exhaustion and hardship of the journey in his or her own way, but there was no good way to pass the time while sitting still in enemy territory and waiting.
The Shield-Brethren were camped a half day’s ride from Karakorum, the capital of the Mongol empire. The city sat on a wide plain, not far from a river left shallow and sluggish after a dry fall, its course a deep cut across the flat plain. At night they could see the glow in the south of the many torches, lanterns, and fires from the city, and during the day they walked the horses in the narrow depression where they made their camp, cleaned their gear, and kept watch for any movement on the plain.
They spoke little. They had been in each other’s company for many months now and were all comfortable enough with each other that none felt the need for making idle chatter, which left them alone with their respective thoughts. Some, like Yasper and Istvan, found a great deal of entertainment there; others—and Raphael knew he was guilty of this as much if not more than the rest—dwelled on the past.
The last entry he had written in his journal had been the night at the rock when Feronantus had turned down Benjamin’s offer to guide them to Karakorum. Feronantus had used an old maxim inflicted upon all the trainees during their first year at Petraathen as his rationale, but Raphael suspected Feronantus had said it for the company’s benefit as well.
Each of our lives have no meaning, except that which we give them by our deeds, and by how our comrades remember us.
He had written it down that night, when he had been unable to sleep. Since then, every time he had opened his journal, those words quelled any desire he had to continue the record of his journey.
He did not want to be one upon whom it fell to record the deeds of his fallen comrades.
He had been holding a piece of charcoal for some time, his fingers now black with dust, when his endless reverie was disturbed by a tiny motion on the plain. He propped himself up on his elbows, shading his eyes. Two horses, one rider. Riding north. He waited until he was sure, and then he slid down the bank to tell the others that Cnán was coming back from Karakorum.
Whatever he had meant to write could wait, he decided.
Yasper was ecstatic when he realized the second horse was laden with supplies. In fact, he was so overjoyed that the others stood back and let him single-handedly unburden the horse of its saddlebags, caskets, satchels, and boxes. He arranged everything on the ground beside the horse and proceeded to open every bag and container and take stock of the supplies that Cnán had procured. “By Aristotle’s hairy knuckles,” he swooned as he opened a lacquer box and discovered tiny sugar-glazed cakes. “They’re still warm.”
“What’s the bad news?” Feronantus asked.
Cnán offered him a rolled scroll, and went to sit on the rough-hewn bench that Eleázar and Rædwulf had constructed the other morning in an effort to stave off boredom. Stiffly, she began to unwind the dirty wraps wound around her lower legs. “He’s not there,” she said.
“Who?” Percival asked.
“Where?” Rædwulf asked at the same time.
Feronantus started to unroll the scroll, and waved Raphael over to help him. Together they unwound the long piece of cloth and revealed the map Cnán had acquired. It was beautifully done in watercolor, with the intricate markings that Raphael knew were Chinese. Delicately drawn white and pink blossoms scaled up one side of the map, and nestled in a bramble at the top were three long-beaked birds with red streaks on their wings.
“Ögedei is not in Karakorum,” Cnán explained as she pulled off her boots and wiggled her toes. “He left over a week ago, heading north into the mountains.”
Raphael peered at the map, trying to figure out locations from the few geographical details that were present. He thought he found the Orkhun River, the one that lay a few hundred paces to the west of their current location, and along its bank was Karakorum. He tapped the map, and Feronantus nodded, concurring with his guess. He ran his finger toward the end he held, the top of the map, trying to make sense of the lines and markings.
“Is that where his winter palace is?” Feronantus asked.
Cnán shook her head. “He’s not going to his winter palace. Not yet. He’s off on a pilgrimage.” She finished flexing her toes and looked over at Feronantus with a tiny smile. “The good news is that he didn’t take all of his Imperial Guard with him.”
“Oooh,” Yasper sighed, holding out the lacquer box. “You have got to try these.” He went back to licking his fingers.
After delivering a short version of her scouting trip to Karakorum, Cnán announced she was going to take a nap. She had slept little in the last few days, and not at all since dawn the day before, and it had taken all of her willpower to keep her eyes open long enough to find the Shield-Brethren camp. She knew the cornucopia of salted meats, dried and ripe fruit, and sugared confections would keep the rest of the company occupied for a few hours while she slept.
Plus there were two small casks of ale. With any other group, she suspected her news would be desultory to the company’s morale (in which case the ale would bolster sunken spirits); however, she suspected the Brethren would find her report uplifting and welcome the ale as a surprising bounty.
The sun had fled the sky by the time she woke, and she was drawn to the light of the crackling fire that Eleázar had built in the stone-ringed pit. One of the casks had been opened, and judging from the merriment she heard in a few voices, its contents had been drunk.
“Ho, the Great Provider awakens,” Eleázar chortled as she approached the group gathered around the fire. He passed her a bowl of dried figs and a piece
of salted deer meat. She accepted both, her stomach grumbling with eagerness for sustenance.
Yasper and Raphael were arguing over the ingredients used in the sugar cakes she had brought. She smiled to herself as she listened to their speculations, which grew more and more fanciful. She had not had sweets like this since she was a child, and it had been a childish indulgence on her part when she had run across the baker in Karakorum’s extensive market. The glaze contained spices she had tasted nowhere else but in China, and they reminded her of a tiny period of her life when she had been innocent and happy.
It made her happy now to hear people she would consider friends arguing so vociferously—and with such joy—over the flavors hidden within tiny seedpods, roots, and flowers. This argument suggested the world was not altogether a bleak place, that there were ways in which even those most bereft of home could find family.
“It is cassia, I tell you,” Raphael was arguing. “I have had it before, in the Levant. It has a taste that is neither bitter nor sweet, and somewhat dry. The spiciness comes from this pink strand, a piece of a root is my guess, sliced very thinly.”
Istvan cackled with laughter, drawing everyone’s attention. The Hungarian stared into the fire, not seeing anything but the shivering dance of the flames. “Sliced very thinly,” he whispered.
“Is he—?” Cnán leaned over toward Vera, keeping her voice quiet enough that only the Shield-Maiden could hear her.
Vera shook her head. “I have not seen him under the influence of the freebuttons for months. This is a different madness,” she whispered. She said a word in a language Cnán did not understand, though she nodded anyway. She could surmise what Vera meant. Blood-fever. Istvan’s predilection for the mushrooms had infected his blood, and he would never be truly free of the visions unleashed by the freebuttons.