Citadels of Fire

  ***

  Taras sat astride his horse, trying to stay awake. With the storm, no one slept much. Now, in late morning, everyone felt the effects. Skirmishes had been constant since dawn, and both sides had lost men, but Taras hadn't yet engaged in active battle. He’d passed Nikolai several times since sun-up. He looked as tired as Taras felt, but unharmed.

  Waiting often proved the hardest part of a campaign. It exhausted even seasoned officers. Only two things, in Taras’s experience, could be counted on during war: death and waiting.

  “Ambush!” a voice cried, snapping Taras out of his stupor.

  Taras faced the city, but whirled Jasper toward the cry. Hundreds—no thousands—of Tatars streamed out of the Forest of Arsk and fell on the small contingent of men in their path. Mirza warned of the army in the forest, and it had been taken into consideration, but no one expected the Tatars to exploit this avenue so soon. The small part of the main army near the forest was being slaughtered.

  Without waiting for the order, Taras unsheathed his sword. “Soldiers attack!”

  Several other officers ordered their men to do the same, and as one, the army moved forward. The generals would instinctively divide the army in half. The half closest to the city would stay to guard the gates while the other half, including Taras, would go to rescue the men near the woods.

  The pounding of thousands of hooves reverberated in Taras’s chest. The horsemen ahead of him kicked up so much dust, he could barely see the ground in front of his horse. If not for the jarring of Jasper’s hooves, he would have thought they rode on puffs of air.

  As they neared their comrades, more Tatars poured out the forest—thousands upon thousands. It didn’t matter whether half the army stayed by the city gates or not; the entire plain of Arsk would see battle this day. Taras’s vision bounced up and down with the beat of his horse.

  The space between the two armies closed rapidly. The men coming at them were infantry. Behind them, hundreds of cavalrymen on tiny, fit horses, almost small enough to be ponies, thundered forward. They held lances and spears, curved swords and spiked maces. Most wore chain mail, many with it draped over their heads, nearly covering their eyes. The cavalry carried round metal shields, half as big as they were, bordered with colored fringe.

  When the two armies met, the earth shuddered.

  Jasper’s front legs slammed into the wave of enemy foot soldiers. The horse’s entire body jolted. Holding tight to his sword, Taras swung it down on one side of his horse and then the other, making contact often. He felt the spray of blood on his hand, but didn’t look too closely at his enemy. There were too many and they came too fast. Taras rushed headlong into an ocean that closed in rapidly around him, with no end in sight.

  Pushing through the infantry, he aimed for the cavalry and officers behind them. These men would be more skilled and a much greater threat.

  Any horse not war trained would have fallen on the field. Jasper had seen battle before. Rather than trampling the infantry, which might have caused him to trip, he used his chest to slam into them, knocking them to the ground. They were trampled, if not by Jasper, then by horses coming up behind him.

  Finally, Taras reached the cavalry, which fanned out after clearing the woods. A heavily armored man on the back of a colorful pony headed straight for him. The coat atop the Tatar’s chain mail was the color of the plain, which would camouflage him well if he crawled on the ground. He swung a sinister half-moon ax in one hand, screaming through clenched teeth.

  Taras checked his grip on his sword without slowing down. The Tatar’s war cry made Taras’s hands feel cold.

  He set Jasper’s course not to pass beside the Tatar. The man was ready for such a move, and Taras would surely lose his arm. Rather, guided Jasper in at an angle, so the horses would collide head on.

  The Tatar cavalryman expected Taras to come up beside him, as if they jousted. His eyes widened in surprise when he realized Taras’s intention.

  Jasper slammed full force into the Tatar’s horse. The enemy lurched sideways, nearly falling off his animal. He barely kept his saddle.

  Taras pulled back hard on Jasper’s reigns, loosened them, pulled back again, and loosened them. Jasper scrambled back, away from the reeling enemy. As he did, Taras laid his reigns over the horse’s neck. Jasper backed up in a semi-circle. He came up alongside the struggling Tatar’s horse, so both horses faced the same direction.

  Taras managed it in only a few seconds and the Tatar hadn't fully regained his control. His head whipped around and shock registered at finding Taras directly at his elbow. The man brought his weapon up, but found himself at a disadvantage. Taras sat at his left elbow, and the man was right handed. He needed to swing his ax all the way across his body to come anywhere near Taras. He made a valiant effort. As his ax arced toward Taras, Taras hefted his own sword, catching the hilt so the point extended behind him. As the man’s ax neared, Taras leaned out of Jasper’s saddle and caught the swinging ax with his right hand. With his left, he plunged his sword into the man’s chest.

  He dropped the Tatar’s ax on the ground and wrenched his sword free of the man’s body, which fell heavily from its saddle. The man’s horse took off, whinnying and kicking its back legs out behind it.

  All around him, Russian met Tatar in furious combat. Taras turned Jasper toward the forest in time to see another cavalryman coming toward him as fast as his little pony could run.

  Taras turned his horse around before the man reached him. At the last instant, he forced Jasper into the man’s path. The two horses did not collide this time, but Jasper ended up farther on the other side of the Tatar than he intended, so the Tatar attacked Taras from an awkward angle. They brushed past each other and Taras got off a blow with his sword. It glanced off the man’s round shield and did no harm.

  Taras turned Jasper again, knowing the man would return. He stayed so focused on his opponent, he didn’t see the other Tatar coming toward him. A small horse—perhaps two-thirds the size of Jasper—came out of nowhere and crashed into him. The blow shook Taras in his saddle. He was shocked a horse that small could hit so hard. The impact knocked Jasper off his feet. He reared up and fell onto his side. Taras tried to dive free of the falling horse. He got out of the stirrups, but his foot still ended up under Jasper’s meaty flank. He pulled on the reigns with all his might to get Jasper to stand, rather than rolling over top of him. The horse got to his feet, as did Taras. He moved to remount. Another Tatar pony crashed into Jasper, knocking the horse to the ground once more.

  Taras would have to stay on his own two feet, for now. The Tatars and their ponies were too skilled. He didn’t want to be on the ground, fighting to keep from being crushed every moment when he ought to be fighting the enemy.

  Letting Jasper wander, Taras swept his eyes around the field. The ground around him for fifteen feet was clear, save for corpses. Beyond that, ferocious battle raged everywhere he looked. A path cleared in front of him, and Taras caught sight of the man he'd fought before Jasper fell.

  The Tatar rode around, slicing through chests and lopping off heads with no more expression than if he were inspecting livestock. A satisfied smirk played on his lips, and he seemed as at ease with sword and club as he would be with a cup of dice.

  The Tatar approached a wounded Russian on the field. The wounded man was unarmed. The Russian put his hands in front of his face and shuddered, his mouth moving. Taras stood too far away to hear what he said, but the only thing an unarmed man would say in that situation would be to beg for his life. The Tatar smiled down at the man. It almost looked sweet. Then he plunged his sword into the man’s neck.

  The man convulsed once, then slid off the sword, landing on the ground. Blood bubbled up from his wound like a gurgling fountain. The Tatar smiled in a way that made Taras’s hair stand on end, then licked some of the blood from his sword.

  A savage cry came from behind Taras, and he turned in time to cross swords with an infantryman. The infantry were the
least skilled fighters in the army, and Taras had been doing battle for a long time. It didn’t take him long to best the soldier. Then he turned and headed for the murderous Tatar who'd slaughtered the wounded man. The Tatar sat atop his horse, surveying the battlefield with gleeful satisfaction.

  Taras fought half a dozen other soldiers on his way, but finally the path between him and the Tatar cleared. Sheathing his sword, Taras slipped the long-handled ax from his back, and took his saber in his left hand. The Tatar sat on horseback, which put Taras at a disadvantage. As he approached obliquely, unseen by the Tatar, he noticed a cluster of rocks three feet to the side. They were not tall, and hunched farther away than Taras would have preferred, but they might give him the leverage he needed.

  Taras sped up. When he reached the Tatar, he was running at full speed. Zigzagging so he entered the Tatar’s line of sight at the last minute, he ran straight for the small cluster of rocks. He jumped onto the one closest to the Tatar and pushed off with his toes. Taras leapt eight feet into the air, swinging his axe in a wide arc. At the peak of his height, Taras’s head rose an inch or so higher than the Tatar’s.

  The Tatar noticed Taras coming and turned, readying himself for the attack. Taras’s jerky back-and-forth movements threw him off. The Tatar swung his sword too late.

  The ax slammed into the Tatar’s chest. The enemy blade bit into the flesh of Taras’s upper arm, doing little damage. The force of Taras’s weight should have knocked the man off his horse, but the Tatar held onto his saddle and threw the horse off balance. It crashed onto its side, Taras landing atop the Tatar. He rolled with the momentum, praying he could get out of the way before the horse crushed him.

  Barely avoiding a sharp, kicking hoof to the face, he rolled until he got his feet under him and bounced up into a crouch, looking back at the scene he’d left behind.

  The Tatar had landed on his stomach. The horse rolled over its master, grinding the ax deeper into the man’s chest. As Taras watched in amazement, the Tatar lifted his head, put his hands out in front of him, and dragged himself forward. The ax beneath him must have caught on the ground, and the man screamed in agony. Blood trickled from his mouth. He rested his chin on his hands and lay still.

  Taras’s chest heaved. His body shook with the fever of battle. The combat continued to rage around him. The din of clashing swords, screaming horses, and dying men was deafening. Dust covered the plain, and he found it difficult to tell Russian from Tatar.

  Striding forward to recover his ax, Taras’s world lurched. A hollow thump sounded somewhere close by, and his jaw began to throb. It took him a moment to realize he’d been hit in the back of the head and landed on the ground, jaw first.

  An assault from behind was imminent; Taras forced himself to flip over. A Tatar stood above him, his sword already swinging down. Taras dug his heels into the ground and used them to drag his body several inches downward. It allowed him to catch the man’s sword by the hilt instead of the blade. His fingers closed around the hilt and, instead of pushing it away from him as most men would, he yanked it toward him, taking the Tatar by surprise. To the man’s credit, he held on to his sword; then he and Taras came nose to nose.

  Taras looked at the man’s face and stopped. He recognized this man, but his head still rang from the blow. He couldn’t bring a name to mind.

  The Tatar gasped, blinked, then studied him more closely. “Taras?”

  Taras gazed up at a man he hadn’t seen for more than a year.

  “Almas?”

  The two men stared at one another, unsure how to react. Almas had been a friend to Taras. Now they gazed at each other from opposite sides of an eastern Kremlin.

  The sun disappeared behind the clouds, but the sky remained light, and a shadow fell over the two men. With a solid thunk, Almas’s head lurched forward, his eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell heavily to the ground.

  Taras lunged to the side to avoid Almas’s falling weight, and registered surprise to find Nikolai standing there, the hilt of his sword still poised to knock someone over the head.

  He extended his hand. “You all right?”

  Taras nodded, taking Nikolai’s hand. “Yes.”

  “Why did you stop and stare at one another?”

  “I know him. We rode into Moscow together.” Taras could hear the astonishment in his own voice.

  “The tassels on his shoulder name him an officer—relatively high on the military chain of command. We shouldn’t kill him. He’ll make a much more valuable prisoner.”

  Under Nikolai’s direction, two Russian infantrymen picked Almas up and carried him off the field to where other prisoners of war were being held. Taras didn’t know what to think. He’d not been forced to kill Almas, but if the Russians wanted information from him, he’d be tortured for it.

  Nikolai watched him, so Taras went to recover his ax. It was imbedded too deeply in the dead Tatar to be easily removed. Nikolai helped him after a look that said he was impressed with Taras’s kill.

  Taras did not want to be separated from Nikolai the rest of the day. Hand to hand combat could be more easily survived when you had someone to watch your back. He glanced around, surveying the overall damage to the army.

  “So many dead already.”

  “They’re still coming.”

  Taras turned toward the forest. Tatars spilled from its branches. The morning remained young, and there was much blood yet to be spilt.

  He and Nikolai exchanged looks and unsheathed their swords. Together, they ran toward the oncoming tide of destruction.