The Mongoliad: Book Three Read online

  The Shield-Brethren had been here recently, and they had not been gone long. The midafternoon sun shone down on a camp that had been hastily and recently abandoned, put into disarray by the chaos of a rapid departure.

  Through the breach in the forest, the Mongols poured into the camp. Dietrich’s charger snorted and pawed the ground as the Mongols flowed around them as if they were a stone in the midst of the torrential flood that had just broken through a dam. Dietrich tried to calm his horse as Tegusgal passed nearby, barking orders at his men. Mongols slid off their horses and disappeared into the old stone ruins.

  Tegusgal pointed at Dietrich, snapping more orders, and Dietrich didn’t need Pius to translate. The Mongol’s displeasure was readily evident on his face.

  “Wait,” Dietrich shouted, holding up his hands. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw several Mongols raising their bows. He was out of time. “The Shield-Brethren were here,” he said, “But they haven’t run away. They aren’t cowards.” When an arrow didn’t immediately pierce him, he paused long enough to take a breath and look around for the priest. He had to make them understand. If even for only a few minutes more. Long enough for him to...

  Pius was still alive, huddling on his horse like a wet rag draped across a saddle. Dietrich waved his hand at the shivering priest. “Tell him,” he snapped. “Tell him what I just said. Our lives depend on it.”

  Pius began to translate, but his voice was so soft that Dietrich could barely hear him and he shouted at the priest to speak more loudly. Pius flinched, nearly fell off his horse, and started again.

  “Your mighty force outnumbers them,” Dietrich continued when Pius’s translation elicited no arrows. “They would be fools to simply wait for you here. How defensible is that chapel?” He pointed at the broken building behind Tegusgal. “How long could they keep your men from breaching its walls? The history of their order goes back many, many years, and it has never been their way to lie down and die when confronted by hardship. They are at their most dangerous when you think you have them cornered.”

  Dietrich glared at Pius as the priest faltered in his translation. Under Dietrich’s insistent gaze, the priest shuddered and then continued translating.

  While the priest spoke, Dietrich let his reins go slack in his hands, and he tightened his right leg against his charger’s barrel. The horse flicked its ears and shook its head as it started to perambulate.

  Tegusgal frowned, turning in the saddle as the men he’d sent to search the old building reemerged. The look on their faces was all Dietrich needed to see. They tried to make a report, but Tegusgal cut them off with an angry wave.

  “He’s going to kill us,” Pius hissed, and Dietrich waved him quiet.

  As his horse ambled in a wide arc, Dietrich used the animal’s motion to indicate the ring of trees surrounding the ruined monastery. “Where would you hide if you had fewer men?” he asked.

  Tegusgal’s eyes flickered toward the tree line as Pius translated the question. In that instant, when the Mongol commander’s attention—as well as the attention of most of his archers—wasn’t on him, Dietrich snatched up his reins and drummed his heels against his horse’s barrel. He was pointing in almost the right direction—the narrow breach in the woods that was the path they had followed to the Shield-Brethren camp.

  If he could make it that far, he might have a chance.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  The Night of the Fish Gutter

  Night came quickly in the mountains, and as the sky bled to black, the warmth of the day vanished. A half dozen bonfires were built, crackling piles of orange and yellow flame, and their light and heat summoned everyone to the center of the camp. A wooden platform was raised for the Khagan so that he could watch the festivities and all of his subjects could watch him eat and drink. Beside the platform, a gladiator ring had been erected, and already there were clusters of moneylenders haggling over bets.

  The festival would last a good part of the night.

  Master Chucai prowled along the periphery of the long fire pits where the Khagan’s numerous cooks worked furiously. They didn’t have the luxury of the permanent kitchens of the palace at Karakorum, but they were managing to craft an endless variety of baked and stewed and sweetly charred victuals. Occasionally, Chucai would stop a servant, loaded down with a steaming tray of food, and sample something off the top of the plate as he reiterated his desire to speak with the leader of the Darkhat.

  The servant would nod, scurry off to deliver his tray of hot food, and upon his return, he would tell Chucai the same thing as all the others before him: the Khagan was in a most jovial mood and was enjoying Ghaltai’s company; the Darkhat commander felt it was unseemly to excuse himself at this time.

  Chucai chafed at being denied, and what irritated him even further was the fact that he could not simply interrupt the Khagan’s meal and demand to speak—privately—with the Darkhat commander. Ögedei was annoyed with him, and it was likely the Khagan would simply berate him for interrupting the dinner party with what Ögedei—in his addled state—would think was nothing more than Chucai’s constant meddling in the affairs of the empire.

  All of which would make Chucai’s job more difficult.

  His conversation with Alchiq buzzed around the corners of his mind too. The idea that the Khagan might be in danger. If the Chinese raiders had been trying to kill the Khagan, that night would have gone very differently. The Chinese—outnumbered several times over by the Khagan’s Torguud escort—had managed to get far enough into the camp to steal the banner. How safe was the Khagan?

  And the constant confusing complication of the banner. Where had it come from? Why was it important to the Chinese?

  Chucai noticed a pair of men returning from the feast, and realized one of the two was more heavily attired than the other. As they approached the ruddy glow of the cooking pits, he noted the blued shadows of the second man’s cloak. Ghaltai.

  “They are bringing out the fighters,” the Darkhat commander said as he came up to Chucai. “I told the Khagan I needed to take a piss.”

  Chucai nodded sagely at the other man’s duplicity. “I appreciate you coming to see me,” he said. “I have a matter which I would discuss privately with you.”

  Ghaltai grunted. “I do need to piss,” he said gruffly, making as if he was going to walk past Chucai.

  “Do,” Chucai said, laying a hand on the Darkhat’s arm. “I wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable while on your horse.”

  Ghaltai looked at Chucai’s hand. “I am an honored guest of the Khagan,” he said softly.

  “He’s been drinking,” Chucai said, “Plus the fights will have started. He won’t notice you are gone.”

  “Where am I going?”

  “I want you to take me somewhere.”

  Ghaltai shook off Chucai’s hand. “You presume much, Master Chucai. I am not one of your servants.”

  “No, you serve the Khagan. And the empire.” Chucai nodded toward the noise and light of the feast. What had Alchiq said? I’ve never stopped wanting to serve. “Surely you’ve noticed the empire isn’t what it used to be,” Chucai said to the Darkhat leader.

  Ghaltai looked in the opposite direction, his face suffused with shadows. “He may be the only one who doesn’t see it,” he murmured.

  “I want to know where Temujin went,” Chucai said. “I want you to take me to that place.”

  “There is nothing there,” Ghaltai hissed, whirling on Chucai. “Nothing but spider webs and dust.” His eyes were wide, filled with firelight.

  “Then what harm is there in showing me?” Chucai asked. When Ghaltai didn’t answer, he shrugged. “What harm is there in helping the Khagan see what he has lost?”

  Ghaltai spat into a nearby cooking pit, his spittle sizzling as it was vaporized by the heat. “No,” he laughed hollowly, “What harm ever came from knowledge?”

  Shortly after the Khagan had announced the feast celebrating the hunt, Gansukh had started to hear snatch
es of the news as it passed among the Torguud: Munokhoi was no longer commanding the Imperial Guard. There was no official announcement—he knew there wouldn’t be—but like a shadow flitting across the sun, something changed at the camp.

  As the day waned and the feast got underway, Gansukh sensed a presence near him, like a predator slowly stalking its prey. Unlike a nervous deer, he did not stand still and stare about him, wondering from which direction his death would come; he kept moving, wandering and weaving through the maze of tents. He doubled back on his trail—sliding underneath wagons and ducking through the open framework of the half-erected ger. A merchant hollered at him to assist with carrying rugs, and he happily agreed to the task, using the long tube as a shield as he went back and forth along the same route for a half hour.

  On the third trip, he caught sight of Munokhoi. The ex–Torguud captain paced him on the other side of the row of ger on his right. When he dropped off his armload of rugs and returned to the merchant’s wagon, Munokhoi was no longer there. But Gansukh had seen enough of his stormy expression to know he wouldn’t be far away.

  When the crowd started to gather for the fights at the feast, he worried momentarily about the press of bodies. It would be easy to slip up next to a man in the confusion and slip a knife in his back, and so he made sure he stayed on the western side of the gladiator ring where the light from the bonfires was brightest. As the audience grew more excited about the fights, he sidled toward a cluster of Torguud who were clustered around a pair of busy moneylenders.

  “Ho, Gansukh! I hear the blond one is fighting.” The mountain clan archer, Tarbagatai waved him over to the cluster of guards. “Did you bet on him last time?”

  “I did,” Gansukh replied, “And when we return to Karakorum, I believe someone owes me twenty-five cows.”

  “Twenty-five?” Tarbagatai scoffed. “Who was such an idiot to bet that many?” The Torguud standing next to the young archer elbowed him roughly, and Tarbagatai paled as he realized what he had said.

  “Yes, well, that idiot was me,” Gansukh mused, glancing about. “But thankfully someone took my bet. I suppose that makes me clever, doesn’t it? And the other one the idiot—”

  “You boast rather mightily for a man who not only didn’t kill any of the Chinese raiders but also managed to be captured by them.”

  Gansukh looked for Munokhoi and found him standing much too close on the left. The ex–Torguud captain’s eyes were bright, and his head glistened with sweat.

  “Captured?” he laughed at Munokhoi. “I was infiltrating their ranks. My plan was working fine until you rode by, slaughtering anyone who wasn’t on a horse—including fellow Mongol citizens. What was your final tally? More or less Chinese?”

  The crowd shrank as people surreptitiously found excuses to be elsewhere, giving the two rivals ample room for anything that might happen. Not here, Gansukh thought. Not now. There hadn’t been enough provocation—or enough drinking—to warrant drawing his knife.

  “Twenty-five cows are nothing,” Munokhoi sneered, ignoring Gansukh’s question.

  “I am glad you think so because it was more than I had last time,” Gansukh said. “Though, I am happy to have them now. I am going to send them to my father; he’ll be very pleased. That many head will provide nicely for my family all winter,” Gansukh said. “Though if I had double that number, I could marry that girl from the Sakhait clan whom my father always wanted me to.”

  “And your Chinese whore?” Munokhoi spat.

  Gansukh stroked his chin. “She has expensive tastes, doesn’t she? Maybe I will need more than fifty cows,” he said, a touch of alarm in his voice.

  Tarbagatai and several of the Torguud guffawed. One of the moneylenders waved his hands at Gansukh. “Are you placing a wager or not?” he cried.

  “Fifty cows,” Munokhoi snapped.

  Gansukh spread his hands. “I only have the twenty-five,” he apologized.

  Munokhoi’s teeth flashed in the firelight as he grinned. “Pray your man doesn’t lose.”

  This was how differences were settled at court—by wagers and proxies. It was not the way of the steppe, and as he watched the pale Northerner square off against the lean Kitayan, Gansukh reflected on what he had learned about being civilized since he had come to the Khagan’s court. Had he become a better man based on what he had learned?

  He hadn’t slipped up behind Munokhoi and slit the other man’s throat. Yet. Though he wasn’t entirely sure Munokhoi wasn’t still planning on doing the same to him. Would he be remembered as the better man if he didn’t stoop to such a debased level of violence? He wouldn’t care; he’d be dead. Was there any consolation to be found there?

  He’d rather be the one who survived. No amount of courtly learning was going to smooth out that rough edge. He would do what it took to survive. Kozelsk had taught him that. It seemed like a much better lesson to live by than anything he had learned from Lian.

  The crowd surrounding the fighting ring gave a collective gasp, and Gansukh blinked away his idle thoughts, focusing on the pair of fighters. What had he missed?

  The Kitayan had a knife.

  “Hai!” Namkhai shouted from his position next to the Khagan’s platform, and there was a rippling surge through the crowd as newly anointed captain of the Torguud pressed forward, presenting their spears.

  The two fighters paused, though neither lowered their guard nor looked away from each other.

  “My Khan,” Namkhai called out, seeking direction. “The Kitayan man has a knife.”

  The crowd held their breath, and the only sound was the crackling rumble of the bonfires and the low creaking noise of the platform as the Khagan levered himself up from his low seat. “That’s a tiny blade,” he slurred, peering at the fighters. “Is it good for much more than gutting carp?”

  Someone laughed in the audience, and Gansukh knew without looking that it was Munokhoi. Had he given the Kitayan man the knife? The idea was troubling.

  “Gansukh,” Ögedei was standing near the edge of the platform, searching the faces arrayed below him. “Didn’t you win a bet on the pale-haired one last time?”

  Gansukh raised his arm so the Khagan could find him in the crowd. “I did, my Khan.”

  “What did you say about him? Something about tactics making up for a lack of strength?”

  “I may have, my Khan.”

  Ögedei grunted, and swung his head around to peer at the fighters again. “Namkhai,” he called out.

  “Yes, my Khan,” the new Torguud captain exclaimed.

  “I seem to recall you giving me a very poor answer when I asked you about this fighter,” Ögedei said.

  “I said...” Namkhai hesitated. Gansukh caught the big wrestler glancing in his direction. “I said I would be wary of the scrawny ones.”

  The Khagan waggled his finger at Namkhai. “That is what you said when I gave you a second chance,” he corrected. He glared down at Namkhai for a moment, swaying slightly, and then his gaze traveled slowly across the multitude of faces. “A second chance,” he roared suddenly. His face was scarlet, the veins in his neck standing out against his skin. He swiveled his head ponderously on his quivering neck, staring ferociously at the audience as if he dared anyone to challenge his statement.

  “Namkhai, does this man pose a threat to me?” His voice was ragged and strained, his throat still constricted.

  “My Khan?”

  “Does this dog of a Kitayan have the slightest chance of getting within an arm’s length of me with that knife?” The Khagan found his voice again, unleashing his question in a thunderous shout.

  “No, my Khan!” Namkhai replied, trying to match the Khagan in volume.

  “Are you certain? Do I have to ask you a second time?”

  “No, my Khan!”

  Ögedei staggered back to his seat and collapsed on it, gesturing for a servant to bring his wine cup. “Then let him keep his fish gutter,” he said. “Let us see a little blood tonight.”

  Fir
st the spears had been lowered at them, and then the Great Khan had started shouting. Haakon and the Kitayan had remained still throughout the tirade, unsure of what was going to happen. Haakon tried to follow what was being said, but most of his mind was filled with trying to settle on the best defense and offense against the Kitayan’s knife.

  When they weren’t immediately threatened with the spears, Haakon suspected the Kitayan was going to be allowed to keep his knife. He had to be ready. He had already been cut once, and was certainly going to be cut again. He had to figure out how to beat the Kitayan before he lost too much blood.

  Haakon’s wooden sword was longer, but that advantage didn’t match up to the deadly edge of the knife. He could hit the man a dozen times with the sword, and he wouldn’t stop fighting. But one slice of the Kitayan’s knife to his neck or thigh and he’d bleed out.

  The Great Khan’s platform was over his left shoulder, and Haakon couldn’t watch what was going on there and keep a ready defense against the Kitayan at the same time. Holding his sword tightly, he stopped trying to watch for some sign from the Great Khan. The Kitayan was the real threat. He should be giving his opponent his full attention.

  The Kitayan was distracted; the hand with the knife in it was down at his side, held close to his stomach. It wasn’t the best position, but it was ready enough, and Haakon watched the Kitayan’s legs and hands. Waiting for some sign. Should he wait that long?

  He heard a man shout a response, and he distantly realized that was probably the captain of the Khagan’s guard, responding like a good warrior. Haakon exhaled slowly as the Khagan asked his question again. Here it comes, he thought; don’t wait for him to make the first move. The captain replied again, still shouting his acknowledgment of the Khagan’s command, and as soon as the Khagan spoke once more he could feel the audience’s attention shift. Don’t wait, the spirit of his old oplo whispered in his head.

  Haakon struck. He lunged forward, taking an enormous step as he stretched his arms out. The Kitayan was caught off guard by how quickly and dramatically Haakon closed the measure, and he yelped in pain as the wooden sword smacked him on the head with a mighty crack.