The Mongoliad: Book Three

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

At the Rose Knight chapter house, Tegusgal could not help but laugh when the sniveling Livonian worm bolted. Where did he think he was going? Did he actually think his horse was fast enough to outrun his Mongol hunters? Tegusgal shook his head as the Livonian Heermeister fled the chapter house grounds, and he gave some thought to letting the man go so as to sweeten the eventual hunt. He eyed his men, as some of them started launching arrows after the fleeing knight, and he sighed. They were restless, tense, and the sport would improve their morale. He whistled, giving them the freedom to chase after the foolish Heermeister.

Yipping like excited hounds, his men drove their horses into the woods.

Tegusgal fingered the hilt of his dagger, eying the quaking priest who remained. “Please, please,” the man begged as Tegusgal kneed his horse. “Spare my life, and God will reward you.”

“I do not believe in your god,” Tegusgal reminded him as he drew abreast.

The priest whimpered, and his horse snorted and shook itself as the man’s bladder let go. Tegusgal wrinkled his nose at the man’s shameful terror, and with a casual swipe of his knife, he silenced the priest.

Eyes bulging, the priest tried to stop the blood from coursing out of the wound in his neck, covering his frock and staining the wooden cross he wore. Tegusgal shoved him, and arms flailing, he fell off his horse.

Tegusgal wiped his knife off on the blanket beneath the priest’s saddle, and then slapped the riderless horse on the rump. It galloped off, assuredly delighted to be rid of its stinking, whimpering rider. He sheathed his knife and spurred his horse after his men, leaving the dying priest and the empty chapter house behind.

His mare thundered through the forest in pursuit of his men and their quarry. The stupid fool of a knight didn’t understand that by running, he was summoning the greatest hunters in the world to give chase. Every Mongol warrior knew how to chase prey on horseback, how to outlast it, and how to bring it down once it had worn itself out. The Heermeister was about to discover how pointless it was to try to outrun the Mongol hunt.

He burst out of the forest, on the heels of his hunters, who had fanned out in a broad arc across the fields. The Heermeister’s horse was large and strong, and on open ground, it could run faster than Mongol ponies. But Tegusgal knew it didn’t have the same stamina. Eventually it would falter, and his men would close the distance. Even now, some of his faster riders were coming into bow range.

The chase wasn’t going to last much longer. In fact, they would be on the Heermeister before he reached the bridge.

Tegusgal frowned. There was smoke, a black plume rising into the late afternoon sky. He slapped his horse with his reins, urging it to run faster, and as he crested the last rise before the bridge to Hunern, he saw the source of the smoke.

There were barrels on the bridge, spewing columns of thick smoke. The Heermeister was off his horse, doing something with one of the barrels. He looked like he was trying to tug it into position.

Tegusgal’s men hadn’t slowed down. They saw the barrels too, and the struggling figure of the foolish knight. Some of his hunters were already standing in their saddles, firing arrows at the knight, trying to stop him from finishing his task.

Tegusgal shook his head. That wasn’t right. The knight hadn’t put the barrels there. He hadn’t the time. He was trying to move them aside so that he could get his horse across the bridge. He was still trying to flee. Who put the barrels there? Tegusgal wondered. And why?

He got his answer when the ground started to shake with the thunder of heavy hooves. From the wood on his right, a host emerged, sunlight gleaming off naked steel and polished helms. The riders-sitting astride tall chargers, Western battle steeds-wore white and black; their shields were covered with red and white crosses. His rallying call was lost beneath the many-throated battle cry of the attacking Western knights.

The ambush was sprung, and Tegusgal’s hunters were unprepared for the massed charge of the Templars and Hospitallers. The host slammed into the flank of his men, scattering riders. Tegusgal’s men were disorganized, caught between the knights’ charge and the river. His numbers and the fabled mobility of the Mongol horse rider meant nothing in the face of this crushing assault. Tegusgal yanked his horse’s head away from the pitched battle. “Fall back to the river,” he shouted as he beat his heels against his horse’s barrel. No one heard him in the pandemonium of battle. Steel clashed on steel. Men shrieked. Horses screamed. Arrows hummed through the air.

His men were all going to die. This was a rout. He had to escape. He had to warn Onghwe Khan. His worst fear was being realized: the knights of Hunern were fighting back.

The ululating war cry of the Shield-Brethren rippled through the air like the charge before a lightning strike as the knights of the Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae clashed with Mongol attackers bent on retaking the gate of their compound. In the front rank of the Shield-Brethren host, Rutger’s sword stroke crashed through a Mongol’s guard, and the blade cut the Mongol from neck to midchest. The man gurgled, clutching at Rutger’s sword as the quartermaster pulled it free, and then he crumpled to the blood-stained ground. Rutger checked the man on his right, making sure he wasn’t in danger of being overrun by his opponent, and then he pivoted to his left, swinging his sword at an overeager Mongol who raised his curved sword over his head. He caught the Mongol in the back-under the armpits, where the armor was weak-and his sword bit deep into the man’s body.

Rutger was exultant. Gathered around him were his brothers, their energy a tangible force weaving them all together into a single fearsome multiarmed monster. They breathed as one; they thrust, parried, and retaliated as one fighter. Each man protected the man next to him, and none felt any pain or exhaustion or fear.

They stood in the narrow throat of the gate, surrounded by the bloody corpses of their enemies. A gleaming ring of swords defended the entryway, rising and falling and dancing left and right, completely synchronous in their movement. Overhead, Shield-Brethren archers in the guard towers harried the stragglers of the Mongol force, making men stumble and flinch as the men next to them would suddenly slip and fall and not get back up.

Eventually the Mongols retreated, falling back to their tents to lick their wounds, count their dead, and consider their next assault. Rutger lowered his arm, the intense pain in his hands finally making itself heard in his brain. He nearly dropped his sword-Andreas’s sword-but he fought the pain and kept his grip tight. I have faced worse, he counseled himself. I still stand. He glanced up and down the line, and saw that it remained intact. None of the Shield-Brethren had fallen, but in so quick a look there was no time to tell how much of the blood that covered every man was that of the enemy. Some wounds, he knew, would not be felt until the battle lust eased.

“Check your weapons and your armor,” he croaked. “Thank the Virgin for your fortune.” He glanced toward the Mongol tents. “And get ready for them to come again.”

They only had to hold the gate until the others arrived, and then they could truly take the battle to the Khan.

As the spear-wielding Mongols approached, Styg pivoted on his left foot, putting one of the Mongol tents at his back. He was outnumbered-fighting against three men who wielded weapons that could keep his sword at bay-but he would not die without taking as many of them with him as possible. He may not be a full knight initiate of the Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae, but he fought for the Virgin nonetheless. His death would be costly for his foes.

During the training sessions at the chapter house, Styg had seen Andreas take on multiple initiates numerous times. Both Feronantus and Taran had drilled in all the young fighters the same fundamental battlefield maxim. More men meant more opportunities for confusion. A single fighter had a distinct advantage: everyone else was an enemy. He didn’t have to worry about where his allies stood or what they were planning.

The middle one attacked first. He was the tallest of the trio, and his reach was longest. Styg sent a silent prayer to the Virgin and lunged toward his attacker. He swept his longsword from right to left, smashing the spear aside with the flat of his blade, which fouled the approach of the Mongol on the left. Styg flicked his sword back, extending his arm as far as he could-much farther than he would if he were facing another swordsman-and his blade sliced across the face of the Mongol on the right, splitting the man’s cheeks and severing the tip of his nose.

The spear he’d knocked aside came back at him as its wielder attempted to recover, a reverse of the arc on which he had sent it. The predictable motion of a fighter’s reflex. Styg had been expecting such a response, and as the weapon swung toward him, he let go of his sword with his left hand and tried to grab the shaft of the spear. The Mongol reacted quickly, yanking his spear back and out of Styg’s reach.

Suddenly Styg was painfully aware that the Mongol whose face he had wrecked was still standing.

The Mongol screamed, his face a horrific mask of blood, as he yanked a dagger free of his sash and lunged at Styg. The blade sliced through Styg’s surcoat, dragging across the maille underneath, and before the Mongol could slash him again, Styg grabbed the Mongol’s armor and pulled the man to him. He smashed his head down, helmet striking the Mongol’s already ruined face with a satisfying crunch, and then shoved the man away. Stay down, was his fleeting thought.

There was little time for much more thought than that. He was out of position, and as he tried to bring his sword up, one of the other two Mongols slammed into him. His grip slackened on his sword as he and the Mongol stumbled back against one of the nearby tents. He wasted no time lamenting the loss of his sword, twisting in the Mongol’s grip in an effort to grapple with the other man. The Mongol growled, showing his teeth, and he shook Styg like a child’s doll. He hauled Styg off the resilient tent and threw him to the ground. Styg tried to roll, but he couldn’t get his hands in front of him in time, and he sprawled awkwardly on the ground.

He spotted his sword and tried to scramble toward it, and got a boot kick in the belly for his efforts. Maille was good protection against sharp weapons, but it did little to diminish the impact of such bludgeoning force; Styg curled up as he felt his stomach try to hurl itself out of his throat.

He had to get up. He couldn’t beat them off from the ground. If he could reach his sword…

It lay out of reach. Tantalizingly out of reach.

The Mongol kicked him again, and he felt something crack along his left side. He flopped on his back, staring up at his attackers. One of them raised his spear, preparing to jab Styg in the face.

The spear-thruster coughed suddenly, spitting out a stream of red blood, and he stared down at the bloodied blade that had sprouted from his chest. He jerked and collapsed to his knees as the curved sword was savagely pulled out, and his friend fumbled for his own sword. He got his blade half out of its scabbard when the bloody sword sliced his throat open. He stumbled and fell, landing on his stomach, head turned toward Styg-staring, his mouth gaping like a dying fish, blood spurting from the mortal gash in his throat.

The sword-wielder who had saved Styg was the fighter he had freed from the post. He was shorter than Styg by half a head, but compactly built, thick muscles crisscrossed with pale, white scars. His face was a study in brutality, like a weathered chunk of wood carved with a dull chisel.

After making sure that the skewed Mongol was expiring, the scarred man shoved the dying man over, and offered Styg his hand. Styg grasped the man’s rough hand and was hauled upright. “Thank you,” Styg said. He made a fist and put it over his heart. The fighter stared at him for a second, searching his face with his dark, emotionless eyes, and then he made a noise in his chest and made a similar motion.

Little more needed to be said.

Styg’s legs shook slightly as he picked up his longsword, the proximity of his death starting to sink in. When he stood up, a wave of dizziness washed over him and he tried to breathe slowly through his nose and mouth. Deep, calming breaths.

The scarred warrior was striding toward the orange tent.

Styg shook himself like a dog, trying to shed the last remnants of the death fear that had nearly gripped him, and then he hurried after the other man.

Tegusgal forced his mount into the river, ignoring the sporadic arrows that splashed nearby in the water. The current rode up on his legs as his horse struggled to keep its footing in the deepening water. Nearing the center of the river, his horse would be forced to swim, and he peered through the acrid haze from the burning barrels, trying to find a flat stretch on the opposite bank where he could drive his mount ashore.

His men were scattered. Trapped against the river and hammered by a ferocious host, his men had fallen back on their traditional tactic of splitting and flowing around the force assaulting them, but there had been nowhere to go. Splitting meant fracturing into smaller groups, and those groups had little chance against the mounted knights. They were being chased up and down the river bank, cut down like wild dogs as they fled. Tegusgal was one of them-a dog running for his life. He struggled to stay in his saddle as the current sloshed angrily around his horse, trying to scoop him free of his mount.

If he let the current take him, his armor would drag him down. The river was too deep and the bank too far. His horse lost its footing and began to swim, and the current pulled him under the bridge, the rushing roar of water blotting out every other sound. A body rushed past him, slamming into one of the wooden piles. The man was still alive, his mouth gaping in a rictus of terror as he tried to hang on to the bridge, but the river threw water over him and he slipped under the surface.

Tegusgal and his horse shot out from under the bridge, buoyed along by the increased churn of the river. His horse struggled, its head straining toward the opposite shore. It needed no encouragement from him. He held on to the reins, and a heartbeat later, he felt the animal’s movement stutter beneath him as its hooves found the bottom again. With a mighty surge the horse rushed the bank and emerged from the river.

He could not think of a more beautiful sound than the noise of hooves against stones. His horse grunted and strained as it clattered up the bank. Water streamed out of his armor, his clothes, and his saddlebags, and he wished it would run out faster. As soon as the horse reached level ground, he pulled back on the reins and forced it to stop. He didn’t want to look, but he had to see what was left of his men. Humiliation and outrage at what he saw ignited a fire in his gut. The knights were massing near the bridge, having completed their destruction of his men. They were moving the barrels already, pairs of men rolling them off the bridge. In a few minutes, the host would ride across the bridge, returning to Hunern.

Tegusgal had little doubt where they intended to go, and he dug his heels into his horse, urging it toward Hunern. He wouldn’t be able to get to his master soon enough to warn him of the coming assault, but he would be able to help Onghwe escape.

Escape. He spat, trying to clear his mouth of the bitterness of the word. If he survived, he would summon the wrath of the entire empire. He would make these knights pay with their lives.