The Mongol rider was coming back, the long horsehair banner lowered again. Krasniy stood his ground, grinning like a demon, and as the Mongol closed in, Krasniy raised his sword and hurled it one-handed.
Cnán could not believe how eager the man was to throw things. Though, she thought, watching the sword flip end over end, given his aim, it’s a good strategy.
The sword hit the Mongol’s horse in the head, causing the animal to veer and stumble. The Mongol fought to control his mount, which meant he wasn’t paying attention to his target. His lance missed, and Krasniy jumped at the horse as it half galloped, half stumbled past, unhorsing the big Mongol. They hit the ground, flailing at each other in a way that spoke of extensive wrestling experience. They looked like two bears fighting for territorial dominance.
“Look,” Lian shouted in her ear, and Cnán followed her pointed finger.
There were more riders approaching, from the direction that the Khagan and his bodyguard had come. Sunlight glinted off maille and Cnán’s heart leaped. She snapped her reins, and Lian held on as the horse started to run toward the two Shield-Brethren knights.
As the Khagan swept his sword around for another swing, Haakon lunged forward, slapping his sword at the Khagan’s blade before it could complete its revolution. He followed through, reaching over and grabbing at the end of the pommel of the Khagan’s sword. He made contact, then twisted and shoved his body forward, angling his blade down. He thrust his fist forward, the hilt of his weapon clenched as tightly as he could manage with a palm slippery with blood, and he connected with the Khagan’s chin.
Ögedei’s head snapped up and his knees trembled. Haakon felt the Khagan’s grip loosen and he yanked the sword out of Ögedei’s hand. Though Taran had done it to him so many times, he was momentarily surprised that the technique actually worked. For a second he had both swords.
But then Ögedei recovered from the chin punch and bulled into him, knocking him off balance. Haakon stumbled, caught his foot on a protruding knob of rock, and fell on his ass. He tried to hang on to both swords, but lost one, and his head bounced off another rock before he came to a rest. He scrambled to his feet, trying to get his sword pointed at his enemy.
Who was standing still, looking at something behind Haakon. A horse nickered and he heard the chingle of maille.
Trying to keep an eye on the Khagan, he glanced over his shoulder and shouted with surprise at the sight of a pair of Shield-Brethren knights. He recognized both immediately. “Feronantus! Raphael!” Both were haggard; Feronantus’s beard was patchy and ragged, and Raphael leaned awkwardly forward in his saddle.
“Ho, Haakon,” Raphael said, waving a hand, “You should keep an eye on your friend there.”
Haakon whirled back, raising his sword to keep the Khagan at bay. Ögedei had come a few steps closer, but he paused at the sight of Haakon’s ready weapon, raising his hands so that Haakon could see that he was unarmed.
Feronantus was looking farther down the valley, and Haakon spared a quick glance over his shoulder. Cnán’s horse was galloping toward them, and beyond, Feronantus could see Krasniy and Ögedei’s man locked in a furious wrestling match.
“Well, young Haakon,” Feronantus said absently. “We have ridden far, only to find that you have reached our goal before us.”
Raphael let loose a bleak laugh. “All this way and we get to watch the youngster.”
“Do you know who this man is?” Feronantus asked.
“Aye,” Haakon said. “He is Ögedei Khan, the Khagan of the Mongol Empire.”
“Then kill him quickly,” Feronantus said. “We have very little time.” He spurred his horse, passing Cnán who was slowing her own mount as she reached them. For a moment, there were too many moving bodies and Haakon realized he was watching the wrong one. He heard Raphael’s shout almost too late.
He pulled his sword arm in, dropping his weapon across his body, as he danced back across the rocky ground. He heard Ögedei grunt and he felt the cold touch of a knife slide across his back. He twisted away from the blade, wrenching his arm around. His blade hit Ögedei, but the edge was turned the wrong way, and he only battered Ögedei on the side of the head.
Ögedei grabbed his shoulder and tried to keep him from getting away. The knife disappeared and Haakon knew it was coming back. As long as the Khagan had a hand on him, it was going to be very hard to use his sword effectively. He grabbed the blade with his left hand, pinching it tightly between his fingers, and using only a tiny span at the base of the weapon, he tried to draw the weapon across the side of Ögedei’s head.
He felt the blade cut through fur and leather, heard Ögedei roar in pain, and then cried out himself as the Khagan’s knife went deep into his hip. He slashed with his sword again, snapping his right hand out to finish the cut with a pommel strike, and this time he felt something break beneath the metal of his hilt.
They separated, both stumbling and falling to their knees. The Khagan was bleeding profusely from two places on his head, and Haakon’s vision went white as he accidentally bumped his elbow against the hilt of the Khagan’s dagger protruding from his hip. The Khagan shook his head, and when he looked at Haakon, his face was ugly with blood, his left eye already swelling closed.
Sparing a thought to the Virgin, Haakon let go of his sword and grabbed at the dagger stuck in his hip. He howled as he pulled it free, the pain roaring up through his gut and chest. The Khagan raised his hands at Haakon lunged, beating ineffectively at Haakon with a half-closed fist.
Haakon reached over the outstretched arm, and plunged the Khagan’s own dagger into Ögedei’s neck.
Ögedei went away for a moment. He had been fighting the Northerner with his father’s knife, trying to take advantage of the boy’s lack of focus, but something had gone wrong. While his eyes were closed, he tried to remember what had happened, but all that he remembered was a wave of darkness, like a flock of ravens, blotting out everything.
The left side of his face alternated between hot and cold, and whenever it switched, his skin felt slick and damp. He thought he heard a stream running nearby, but when he swallowed, the sound vanished, as if the water were suddenly drawn into a sucking hole in the ground.
Had he been dreaming of flying? That made little sense, for he wasn’t a bird. He was a horse, a four-legged beast of the steppe. All he wanted to do was run and run and run. Run all the way to the sea, with his brothers and sisters at his side. All of their manes streaming behind them in the wind. All he wanted was to run...
He coughed, and the pain was so fierce, he let the ravens take him away for a little while. When he came back, there was someone else there with him. A pale-haired spirit. He tried to tell the spirit what was wrong with him, but the words he spoke were all wrong. Tolui... Tolui... Who was this Tolui? Was that the spirit’s name?
The spirit raised a hand, and when he saw the blood, he screamed. He howled and screeched, and when there was nothing left but a hoarse whimper, Ögedei remembered where he was. He hadn’t been flying at all.
He turned his head—slowly, for the pain stabbing down along his left side—and blinked his right eye heavily at the blurry figure squatting over him. His hands twitched, fumbling for his knife, but he couldn’t find it. Where had it gone? He had just had it...
The boy was talking to him. “Lie still,” he said.
Why should he lie still? He was Khan of Khans. He was... cold.
He tried to tell the boy this, but when he opened his mouth, he felt like nothing came out but water. Thick, foul-tasting water. It ran down his chin, and he coughed as it threatened to fill his mouth.
The ravens came again, and he spent some time wandering in their wake, looking for something. What was it?
His father’s knife.
He shouldn’t lose it. It was important. Genghis had given it to him during his first hunt, when he had shot the deer. He had used it to dress the animal.
There had been so much blood.
One of his father
’s men had helped him carry the meat back to camp. What had that man’s name been? Tolui?
No, Tolui was someone else. Someone he needed to remember. Someone important to him. Tolui? he called out, but Tolui didn’t answer.
Tolui hadn’t answered for many years.
He was gone. So was his father.
He could never be like his father. He had always known he would fail to be as great a man as Genghis Khan. No one could. Genghis stopped being a man the instant his spirit left his body. He was a ghost that grew more powerful every year as those who thought they knew him told stories that were little more than their own wishful thinking. They made him a ghost, yet they expected his son to be stronger and braver. They expected more because they could not face the darkness; they were afraid to admit they did understand Genghis’s vision.
They did not know what to do with his legacy. They dreamed—or thought they dreamed—of the endless sea of horses, and they did not know the meaning of such a vision. They thrust the Spirit Banner into the hands of the sons of Genghis Khan and begged them to be more than their father. They begged him to keep the promise they imagined Genghis had made.
But they couldn’t face the idea that Genghis had made no promise to them. The only love Genghis had ever had was for his family—his wives and his sons. They were all that mattered. They were his true legacy.
Ögedei opened his eyes once more. The Northerner was still there.
“The sea,” Ögedei croaked, and the boy leaned closer. Ögedei remembered the dream he had had, of riding a horse away from the heart of the empire, away from the legacy of his father. Riding until he crossed the entire world and reached the western sea. “All I ever wanted was to see the sea,” he sighed.
The boy nodded. “Aye,” he said. “I have seen it.”
“Tell me,” Ögedei said.
The boy did, using words that Ögedei did not understand. But it didn’t matter. He could read the boy’s face well enough. It was all he could see anyway. The ravens had blotted out the rest of the sky. It was getting colder. Like the sea the boy was talking about. Ögedei closed his eyes, and in the fading twilight of his life, saw the horses again. Running endlessly across the grass of the steppes, running all the way to the end of the world where the sea met the sky.
“You have seen more of the world than I,” Ögedei said just before he died.
EPILOGUE
A Tree Has Many Branches
With Cnán’s help, Raphael dressed the knife wound on Haakon’s hip. Raphael moved stiffly, and Haakon eventually saw why. A tiny stub of a broken arrow protruded from Raphael’s back. When Raphael finished with Haakon, Cnán said something about the arrow.
“It’s fine,” Raphael said.
“It doesn’t look fine,” she argued.
“It’ll keep,” Raphael said, rolling up his medical kit. “I have to take my maille off to get to the rest of it, and there isn’t time.” He stood, trying to hide how stiff he was, and his gaze wandered down the narrow valley. “Where is Feronantus?” he asked.
Haakon, Cnán, and the Chinese woman all looked as well. All they could see was a single horse, cropping the tiny tufts of hardy grass, and a pair of bodies, still tangled together, but unmoving. Of the leader of the Shield-Brethren company there was no sign.
“God damn him,” Raphael swore. “He left us.”
“What?” Cnán said.
“He had a plan, remember?” Raphael said savagely. “It just didn’t include the rest of us.” He stalked back to his horse. “Haakon,” he called. “That horse over there. It’s yours.”
Haakon looked down at the still body of the Khagan. “What about him?” he said. “We can’t just leave him.”
“We can and will,” Raphael said as he swung painfully up into his saddle. He nodded toward the dead body of the Khagan’s horse. “It is a hunting accident. Nothing more. As long as we are not here when the Mongols come.” He snapped his reins and his horse trotted away.
Cnán and the other woman got back on their horse as well, and the Binder motioned for Haakon to follow them. He hesitated, looking back and forth between the dead body of the Khagan and his friends.
Haakon limped over to the body and pulled the Khagan’s knife free. No one was going to think hunting accident with the knife sticking out of his neck, he rationalized. He wiped the blade clean on his own ragged trousers and retrieved the sheath from Ögedei’s belt. He felt like he should cover the body or something, but there was no cloth available and so he settled for making sure the Khagan’s right eye was closed. The left had swollen shut.
He picked up his sword, even though the Khagan’s looked to be a finer blade. He was already keeping the knife. Taking the sword too was tantamount to robbing from the dead.
The knife, he told himself, was a spoil of war. A testament to what had been done.
Painfully, he jogged down the valley until he reached the bodies of Krasniy and the Torguud captain. There was a lot of blood on both men, and it was hard to tell who had died first, but neither had given up. He stopped a moment to offer a prayer to the Virgin for the red-haired giant who had been his only friend in this strange land.
He turned, whistling lightly at the Torguud captain’s pony. It pricked up its ears and regarded him warily. He limped toward it slowly, talking calmly to it. Assuring it he was friendly.
And then he stopped, casting around for something that should have been lying on the ground nearby. He raised his arm and called out to Raphael and Cnán, who circled back.
“It’s missing,” he said when they rode up.
“What is?” Raphael asked.
“The lance that the Torguud captain was carrying,” He said.
Cnán looked around too and nodded. “Haakon’s right. The Khagan’s bodyguard was carrying a banner. There were streamers attached to it, made from hair. Horsehair, I think.”
Lian spoke up from behind Cnán. “Spirit Banner,” she said in the Mongol tongue.
“What did she say?” Raphael demanded.
“She said it was a Spirit Banner,” Haakon translated.
“The symbol of the Mongol Empire,” Cnán supplied. “It belonged to Genghis Khan, Ögedei’s father.”
“Is he the one who first built the empire?” Raphael asked.
“Aye, he was. He united the clans.”
“Of course he did,” Raphael said with a heavy sigh. He shook his head. “Feronantus has it.”
“Why?” Cnán asked.
“You were there,” Raphael said. “At the Kinyen when Istvan spouted his nonsense about the All-Father.”
“All-Father?” Haakon asked. “The Norse All-Father? What are you talking about?”
“Yggdrasil,” Raphael said. “Ragnarok.” His eyes were bright, filled with tears. “Surely you know the stories, Haakon.”
They did not want to talk to him, but Kristaps was persistent. His mood and the alacrity with which his hand fell to the hilt of his sword helped, and finally he found a young Hospitaller who was willing to tell him what had happened at the bridge. He did not believe the story at first, but in the absence of any other evidence, it became the story he would tell.
The Livonians left Hünern at dawn, Kristaps at their head. They had lost half of their knights in the final battle with the Mongols—their losses were commensurate with the losses suffered by the other orders—and the company that rode south, following the river, was somber. They had survived, but the cost of their survival had been great.
It was nothing compared to Schaulen, he wanted to tell them. What had been accomplished at Hünern was a victory that the West would celebrate for generations. The battles at Legnica and Mohi had been disastrous blows to the West, and the blight of those tragedies would never truly be wiped away from the history of Christendom, but the fight at Hünern was a victory against all odds. It was a rallying cry for the rest of Christendom. The Mongol host was still on the verge of the West, and their numbers were undiminished by the loss of men at Hünern, but t
he horde had been bloodied.
The victory at Hünern was a symbol of hope. Evil could be vanquished by Good.
But for Kristaps, when he and his men discovered Dietrich’s horse calmly grazing along the river bank, some miles downstream from the shantytown, he knew Hünern was nothing more than a betrayal.
At Schaulen, they had been destroyed by Volquin’s hubris. He would never say as much to his men, but Kristaps knew the fault lay with the previous Heermeister. Volquin had led the men to the river; he had failed to recognize the danger of the terrain. He had been overconfident and had thought the pagans were too frightened of the Livonian Sword Brothers to band together effectively. He had underestimated what fear could make men do.
Dietrich had made that same mistake, but it was the other orders who had betrayed him.
“We ride for Rome,” he told his men after Dietrich’s horse had been retrieved.
I will destroy all of them, he vowed.
The warm sun slanted brightly through the opened face of the tent; the other three walls were drawn down, both to block the wind and to dampen the constant noise of the tent city being dismantled around them. Already half of the troops were on their way back to Germany. Frederick had ordered his pavilion to be the last one struck. He was engaged in a favorite pastime: playing chess.
It would be more fun, of course, if he actually had an opponent, but Cardinal Fieschi hadn’t responded yet to his latest request for a visit. Sadly enough, he doubted the Cardinal would be responding to any request from the Holy Roman Empire in the near future.