The Mongoliad: Book Two

26

“It is a jaghun,” Cnan said, “which is to say a unit of one hundred, made up of ten arbans of ten men each. The man you call Graymane is named Alchiq. He is new to them. About a week ago, he rode in out of nowhere to a Mongol garrison west of the Volga, where this jaghun and two others were encamped, and simply commandeered it.”

“So he is a man of high rank,” Feronantus said.

Cnan shrugged. “They know little about him, other than what I have just told you.”

As soon as Vera had been able to ride, they had moved beyond the eastern limit of the Khazars’ territory. A few hours before, Cnan had arrived at their camp-proving once again her extraordinary tracking skills.

She had been absent for four days.

Following a wash, a nap, and a bowl of antelope stew, she had gathered the others to convey all she had learned.

She went on now to say a few words about where Alchiq’s jaghun had crossed the Volga and where they had subsequently gone, though as everyone understood, this information was no longer of much use; she had broken contact two days ago, and the Mongols could have covered much distance since then. “Alchiq dispatched an arban up into those hills where the Khazars live,” she said, nodding toward the dark crests rising from the steppe to the west.

“Too small to perpetrate a massacre,” Raphael remarked. “This Alchiq has a light touch, when it suits his purposes.”

Some around the council looked as if they were about to raise objections, but they were silenced by a look from Cnan. She has her own commanding presence, doesn’t she? Raphael thought.

“The arban in question is made up of Turkoman recruits from Kiwa, not all that far from here as distances on the steppe go, and they speak a similar language. They were sent to parley, not to kill. They took no casualties during the action against the Shield-Maidens and do not hunger for revenge, as some of the others do.”

“You have information about casualties?” Vera said. Unlike the others, she had not grown accustomed to Cnan’s ability to move about Mongol-held countryside and gather intelligence.

If Cnan was offended by the skepticism in Vera’s voice, she hid it well. “The brunt of your charge was taken by an arban of men from Barchkenda, which was all but destroyed. Six were killed outright, two died later of wounds, one is permanently disabled, the last has been absorbed into another arban that also took casualties during the fight on the riverbank. The total strength of the jaghun has been reduced to a little more than eighty, now organized in eight arbans. Some of these are unchanged; others are thrown together from survivors.”

“How does that work, in an army where arbans are recruited from specific clans and villages?” Percival asked. Perhaps not so much out of practical curiosity as because he enjoyed watching Cnan’s mind work.

“It depends on everything-language, clan rivalries, customs. Sometimes it goes smoothly; in other cases, the arban is thrown into disarray or even outright conflict.”

“Then, since we are outnumbered, let us make conflict our ally,” Feronantus said.

This was one of these gnomic utterances that threw the group into silence as all waited for Feronantus to make himself clear. Raphael studied their leader during that silence, looking for clues as to the old warrior’s state of mind.

Feronantus’s outburst of rage when Percival had revealed their plan to the Khazars had been replaced by a kind of sullen embarrassment when Percival’s gambit had worked. After that, for a day or two, he had been pensive and withdrawn, but the need to prepare for battle seemed to have focused his mind and pushed into the shadows of whatever was troubling him.

“You said earlier,” Feronantus went on, “that Barchkenda lost nine men to the Shield-Maidens. Now, I know nothing of Barchkenda, but I shall hazard a guess that it is not a large place.”

To this, Cnan responded with a smirk.

“I see from your face that it is even smaller than I imagined,” Feronantus said. “The loss of nine of its young men must be a disaster for them. The men in the surviving arbans, having seen the devastation wreaked upon these soldiers in a brief melee, will be thinking of their own homes and families. Let us so arrange our tactics as to give them even more to brood upon.”

Cnan was flat on her belly, making the most of a scraggly tuft of wormwood scarcely big enough to provide cover for a dog. She had learned that if she lay perfectly still and avoided raising her head from the ground, distant observers would read the silhouette of her rumpled, ragged clothes as a pile of leaves or a scattering of rocks. She might have found better concealment in the tall grass growing out of the lee slope below and to her right, but to go down that way would take her out of view of the small party of Mongols patiently following her trail across the grass to her left.

As usual, she had gone to the Mongol camp before dawn to spy on them. But then she had gone against all her instincts-and not at all to her liking-by leaving an obvious trail for them to follow.

Alchiq, or perhaps one of his commanders, had dispatched a group of seven warriors to investigate. For the last hour, they had been gaining on her. They could have caught her quickly, of course, had they chosen to ride hard. But they knew that they were following a mere pedestrian in wide-open country and that time was on their side, and so they had proceeded at a measured and cautious pace, scanning the country ahead for ambushes and other perils.

Cnan would be in a terrible spot just now, were it not for the fact that, two hundred paces away and down the slope to her right, at the bottom of a dry gully, R?dwulf was patiently waiting in a scatter of stunted trees.

Unaware of her scrutiny, the Briton stretched and let his eyes wander. The sun was warm; the late morning was comfortable. She hoped he wasn’t planning to take a nap.

Cnan had spent most of her life in parts of the world that were not known for producing persons of large stature. She had long been vaguely aware that if one traveled north and west long enough, one would reach a part of the world inhabited by persons with pale skin and strangely colored hair, often taller than other peoples of the world.

The men of the steppes were like their ponies: low to the ground, stocky, agile, hard to kill. Like any other human population, they would from time to time yield a man of unusual height. But this conferred no advantage in the Mongol way of war, which was all about mobility, quickness, and maneuvering. When hand-to-hand combat occurred, it was probably because something had gone awry. The Mongols did have formations of armored cavalry, employed in special circumstances. A big man might find a place in such a unit. But wrestling was the martial art that they held in the highest esteem, and since size, weight, and strength so often determined the outcome of wrestling matches, this was what big, strong Mongols tended to do for a living. The Khans used them as executioners.

The Northmen did not know or practice the steppe way of war; instead, being ignorant of the art of maneuvering, they preferred to fight in big, lumbering formations that clashed head-on in open fields. It was to be expected that the largest men of such societies would cover themselves in armor and ride out on oversized horses to engage their foes in personal combat with heavy weapons. In this respect, Percival had met her expectations precisely.

Percival, however, was not the biggest and strongest man in their party. That distinction fell to R?dwulf. He was two inches taller than Percival, with a rugged, homely face, and-as she’d come to notice-covered all over with muscles. Among the Mongols, he’d have been their greatest wrestler. Among the Franks, he’d have become a cataphract-a mounted soldier in full armor. But R?dwulf came from an island off the northwestern extremity of the world where the warriors were skilled at a peculiar form of archery.

Compared to the bows of the Mongols, R?dwulf’s weapon was huge and primitive, far too unwieldy to be used on horseback. No other man in the party could draw it except for Percival, who could pull the taut, hempen, three-stranded bowstring only partway.

R?dwulf drew his weapon in a peculiar style, not so much pulling the string back as shoving the bow forward. And when he practiced during warm weather, shirtless on the steppe, it was spectacularly obvious to Cnan that every muscle in his huge body was straining to the limit. This apparently was the highest and best use for a Briton of exceptional size and strength: not wrestling, not sword fighting, but drawing a crude bow of unbelievable stiffness, then holding it at full draw long enough to loose a massive arrow, tipped with an iron warhead, into the body of a foe.

His warheads came in various shapes, some made for piercing armor, others with broad heads for slashing through vessels and organs as they passed through the victim’s body. All of them were heavy, which, as Cnan understood, gave them greater range than the lighter and more numerous shafts of the Mongols. But in order to take advantage of that range, it was necessary to shoot them from a bow that could only be handled by the likes of R?dwulf.

The seven Mongols had drawn close enough to make Cnan worried about her choice of cover. Soon, she would have to move, lest some sharp-eyed rider spy her lying at the base of the wormwood shrubs. If she tarried, she might die here.

Writhing on her belly like a snake, keeping her head low to the ground, she crawled down the slope until the top of the rise came between her and the Mongols. Then she pushed herself up and brought her knees below her chin, rising to a squat. R?dwulf, pacing slowly back and forth along a row of ten arrows that he had shoved into the ground, didn’t notice her dark head pop above the ripe seed heads of the grass. But he did hear the whistle of a marmot, or something like it, from farther back in the gully. Finn had been amusing himself by learning to mimic the sounds of the (to him) exotic creatures that lived in these parts. Cnan watched in amusement as the huge Briton’s head swiveled toward Finn, then turned back a moment later, finally seeing Cnan on the slope above him. Moving quickly, for she did not know how long they had before the Mongols came in view, she held up a hand with all five fingers splayed, then made a fist of it, then extended only the thumb and index finger.

R?dwulf nodded and unslung his bow from his shoulder. Then he glanced up past Cnan. Something drew his eyes to the ridgeline behind her.

She rotated on her haunches and followed his line of sight to the Mongols, lance tips and helmets bobbing slowly as they came, their ponies at a walk. Cnan rolled and pressed herself flat against the earth, nestling in the grass. She could hear the soft tread of hooves on turf, Mongol voices calling out to one another.

The trackers were spreading apart, some following her visible trail, others moving to the sides to block any escape and drive her into the center.

She risked pushing up on her elbows and raised her head to look down the slope and watch R?dwulf. She was certain she had brought the Mongols within his range; they had paced it out yesterday when reconnoitering. But this would not save her if his aim was bad.

The archer was breathing deeply, expanding his great chest, flexing his arms. He glanced down at the ten arrows lined up before him, points embedded in the soft soil, ready to grab.

He reached for one, and Cnan tensed, but rather than pulling it up and nocking it, he merely brushed the fletches, smoothing out some irregularity in the alignment of the goose feathers. His eyes flashed white, rolling up in their sockets to peer at the approaching Mongols. The closest was perhaps thirty paces from Cnan.

She sank back down into the cover of the grass and peered at his face through the golden stalks.

The Mongol leader’s eyes wandered over the landscape that had just come into their view, following Cnan’s trail down toward the little copse of trees in the gully. And there his attention locked.

In the open space of the steppes, the Mongols could ride circles around maille-clad Westerners, to either escape or pepper them with arrows. A gully choked with gnarled trees was precisely where he would expect his quarry to hide.

Satisfied, the Mongol muttered to his pony and began to ride ahead at a walking gait along the broken and trampled grass of Cnan’s trail. His men took his cue and followed in a loose gaggle, with the exception of two outriders dividing into parallel courses that would eventually bracket the gully.

Their faces were alert, but it was the alertness of hunters pursuing birds or other innocuous prey. Even had they suspected an ambush waiting in the trees, all their training and experience would tell them they were safe at such a distance.

The waiting made her twitch, then sweat, and finally, knot up all over. Cnan had never imagined that R?dwulf would allow them to come so close to her. She remembered, as a child, sneaking up on a marmot she had spied gathering seeds among a jumble of stones. By the time the marmot had realized that Cnan was stalking her, Cnan had drawn so close that the animal’s instinctive reaction was to freeze rather than run away, and yet freezing only made it possible for Cnan to draw closer.

At some point, the only thing for it was to turn and run. But she didn’t dare stretch her cramping leg.

The riders were within twenty paces, then ten. The only thing that kept them from spotting her was the intent fix of their gazes on the trees below, and the only thing that prevented Cnan from jumping to her feet and bolting like a terrified marmot was the knowledge that it would only earn her a Mongol arrow, or several, in her back.

One of the riders trotted forward to draw abreast of their leader, and the breeze brought her his casual remark, words that at first made no sense to Cnan-a reference, perhaps, to some place they had visited that reminded him of this one, years past.

Without taking his eyes off the trees, the leader smiled and nodded, and in that moment, he looked almost identical to the one who was speaking. They were brothers, she realized-brothers or cousins, reminiscing about past hunts back in their home territories, still far to the east.

Cnan felt a sudden electric quiver, as if all the years and distances were suddenly collapsing around them-destinies joining, death stalking all at once, the last and most perfect of hunters preparing to string all of their skulls on a gore-clotted rope.

At the same moment, the leader-as though sensing her emotions from a distance-glanced down and looked directly into her eyes.

He opened his mouth to raise an alarm, but his eyes flicked up again, drawn by a distant, barely audible twung and an impossible, gently arcing flash of gray and yellow.

In the same instant, his brother, or his cousin, gave a deep, final grunt and fell back over the butt of his horse, as though struck in the middle of his chest by a giant’s invisible mace.

The leader’s expression turned icy cold. Admirable calm, she thought-or the stunned response of a marmot. He let out his breath in a low groan and sidled his pony a few feet, then flicked his eyes between Cnan, the trees in the gully below, and his fallen comrade.

The cause of this sudden death was not obvious. No arrow projected from the fallen man’s chest. R?dwulf’s long shaft had passed right through his body and out the back, leaving only a slot with blood welling out.

The same sound again. On the leader’s opposite side, a Mongol turned his mount toward his fallen comrade, then lurched as a fat arrow buried itself in his shoulder all the way to the fletching. He reached around to claw at the shaft, grimaced, and then looked in stunned dismay at the leader, mouth open. When he decided to scream, the sound was buried in a gargling cough. As if suddenly sleepy, his eyes closed. His head slumped back, and he toppled sideways out of the saddle, hitting the ground with a solid thump.

The leader now understood. His head snapped around toward Cnan, and a murderous look came over his face. He lifted his lance and pivoted his pony to ride toward her, but a third arrow hissed past his ear.

Cnan heard a muffled curse from below-R?dwulf deploring his aim. The leader heard as well, and it sharply focused his attention; throwing a vicious look at Cnan, as if to say, I shall hunt you down and deal with you later, he took off at a gallop down the hill, followed closely by one Mongol and paralleled, off to his right, by a third.

Meanwhile, the two outriders had gained some faint understanding of what was happening and began to ride down toward the verge of the trees, more slowly and uncertainly, as they had to pick their way down the sloping gully walls.

In the time it took Cnan to gather these impressions, R?dwulf had shot the leader out of his saddle. His companion veered to one side, hoping to ride around the little grove, and this forced R?dwulf to step out from cover, draw his bow, and stand his ground, tracking the horseman’s progress and judging how much to lead him.

This one took the arrow near his hip socket but kept riding, keeping stiffly upright. The horse shrieked-the arrow had passed through and embedded in its flank, pinning the rider in place. In agony, neither horse nor rider seemed to know what to do next.

Then, a pause in the action as R?dwulf returned to the trees for more arrows.

The fifth and last Mongol from the central group had made it into those same trees, a dozen yards off, and was thrashing around on his horse between the close-packed trunks, making it impossible for R?dwulf to get a clear shot.

The archer stalked out from cover, pivoting to and fro with a nocked and half-drawn arrow, trying to make out where his foe was.

The Mongol broke free, vigorously kicking his horse, and galloped into the open with his own bow fully drawn and aimed, but drew up and faltered before loosing his arrow. Cnan thought she knew why: he had seen R?dwulf for the first time and was astonished by the man’s outlandish appearance, his incredible size and coloration.

The Mongol’s arrow sang harmlessly over R?dwulf ’s head. Immediately after, the Englishman loosed a shaft that buried itself in the horse’s chest. Screaming, the pony reared-and died, head straight out, falling over as a deadweight. The Mongol dismounted adroitly, landing on his feet, but dropping his bow. He quickly hid himself in a stubble of scrubby bushes that might, in a few years, grow up into more trees.

R?dwulf calmly returned to his arrows and grabbed another. Then he seemed to think better of it. The brush might deflect his shot. And the Mongol, with saber in hand, would be a serious problem if all R?dwulf had was a bow.

He set the bow down, undid his belt, and, before dropping the scabbard, drew out his sword.

Just in time. In a crackling of sticks and brush, the Mongol burst forth into the small, cleared space and swung a scything blow at R?dwulf. R?dwulf stepped forward and deflected the Mongol’s saber to his right, then crashed his left fist into the Mongol’s nose, spraying blood all over and planting him on his arse. Before the Mongol could recover, R?dwulf moved in and with a quick, sidewise cut, slashed the man’s throat, producing a fountain of dark stuff from which Cnan averted her eyes. Just as well. She needed to think about getting out of there.

Only a few paces away, the pony of the first Mongol to die had moved to a clear patch of grass and begun nosing around for forage.

The plan, she knew, called for R?dwulf to recover all of the arrows he could. They were too valuable to waste. But she could not bring herself to approach the bleeding corpse that, only a few moments ago, had been riding with a grin on his face, sharing memories with his brother or cousin-who was dead now as well.

She walked up to the pony instead, speaking to it in the language of the Mongols, making the sounds and saying the words that they used when they wished to put a horse at ease.

This task was not made any easier by terrible noises emanating from the gully below. Finn was harrying the two outriders through the scrub with his bloody lance.

But by the time she had reached the pony, and made friends with it, then clambered up onto its back, Finn and R?dwulf had finished their work in the gully and were riding up the slope on the mounts they had tethered back in the trees. They were coming to collect R?dwulf’s arrows, speaking to each other in low conversational tones. Their calmness had the opposite effect on Cnan.

As they approached, R?dwulf intercepted her piercing glare. He slung his bow over his shoulder and returned her look. “What?” he asked, then glanced at Finn, who was equally puzzled. Finn wiped streaks of blood from his face and hands. “We’ll need a quick sluice,” he observed.

With great difficulty, Cnan managed to bridle her urge to scream.