The amount of chaos in this place now seemed well beyond anything that they could have hoped for. The few horses that Yasper had had time to cut loose veered to and fro across the camp, starting at each new burst of explosions. Others strained at their lead ropes, some managing to pull their stakes from the ground and gallop off for the wild steppes. Other ponies that were free tripped over the taut ropes of ones still tied. Mongols rolled up to their feet, stumbling over blankets, groping for weapons, converging on the place where Finn and Istvan had been at work.
Still, Cnán felt it would be bad form to return with unused firecrackers, and so she lit the last two packets at the same time and threw them in opposite directions, even while backing away from the scene and toward the shelter of the tree line. Her instinct was simply to turn and run, but she had learned it was sometimes better to know what was chasing you. What she saw, therefore, was Finn and Istvan making a fighting retreat from the camp, pursued by several Mongols who’d had the time and the presence of mind to arm themselves. The melee was eclipsed for a moment by a black shape, impossible to make out in the moonlight. But Cnán understood that Eleázar had moved out of the woods and positioned himself so that Finn and Istvan would lead their pursuers directly toward him. The long blade of his sword glinted like a line of sparks with the flashing bursts of firecrackers. Cnán had seen before what the weapon could do against lightly armed Mongols, and so she did now finally turn her back and make for the shelter of the trees, hoping that the archers would recognize her as a friend.
She reached the tree line without collecting any arrows or crossbow bolts and then could not resist the urge to turn back and look. What she saw, as best as she could make out, was a triangular formation with Eleázar at its apex, facing directly a growing Mongol onslaught, like the prow of a ship beating upstream. Arrayed behind him, protecting his flanks and rear, were Istvan, shooting arrows from a range so close that he could hardly miss, and Finn, wielding his lance. Both kept a wary distance from the blade of Eleázar’s sword, which was describing huge looping arcs; its momentum was too great to be stopped, and so each cut had to be joined to the next like the inward turnings of a Chinese knot. Whenever he felt as though he had the leisure to move, he would call out to the others, who would move back several paces, take new positions, and call back to him; he would then back up until he was told to stop. In this manner, the triad made its way back toward the tree line at a brisk but controlled pace, soon coming within range of the three archers posted in the trees. These began to pick off Mongols who were now trying to outflank Finn and Istvan.
All that had happened thus far was apparently demoralizing enough to bring this phase of their operation to an end. Orders were being called out that Cnán translated for the others: “They’re saying, ‘Fall back into the camp,’” she told them, “‘and regroup by arban.’”
All eyes turned to the Mongol camp, which was now brightly illuminated. The Mongols seemed to have understood that darkness was not their friend, and so fuel had been heaped on the fires and was blazing up, producing, through the shadows of men and horses, a wavering, tossing pool of illuminated ground.
In the center of this, Alchiq stood up in his stirrups, bellowing commands, rallying his troops around him, gesturing. Cnán could not make out his words, but she sensed his impatience. She knew what he was telling them: This is not a bandit raid. Stop treating it as one. This is a military operation. Let us show them what we are made of.
Almost directly above her, she heard the distinctive kerwhack of a crossbow being discharged.
Alchiq’s horse reared up and fell over dead. The leader tumbled roughly to the ground. For a moment, he could not be seen as his men rushed in to surround him. Then he was up on his feet, being dusted off, his teeth gleaming in the firelight as he made some humorous remark that elicited nervous laughter from those around him.
Vera, who had fired the bolt, lowered herself from her tree perch by sliding down a rope. She landed awkwardly, still hampered by her wounds, and paused with hands on knees, breathing deeply.
“I almost had him,” she said.
“It was a great shot,” Cnán said.
“Let’s go,” Vera said, standing. “You shouldn’t even be here.”
None of us should be here, Cnán wanted to say, but she followed Vera through the trees and out toward the riverbank.
Looking to her left, upstream, she saw Percival on his horse with his back to her. Nearby, Rædwulf stalked out of the trees with his bow over his shoulder. Swiveling to look right, downstream, she saw the same thing roughly mirrored by Feronantus and Raphael. All three of the archers were making directly for the riverbank; they entered the stream without breaking stride and headed for the sandbar, a stone’s throw away. Meanwhile, Eleázar and Istvan had emerged from the woods behind Cnán. Istvan headed for the water, following a few strides behind Vera.
Eleázar stood his ground.
A long time passed before Finn emerged. Cnán had decided to get across the river. She heard his voice call out when she was halfway to the island: “Double flanking maneuver,” he said, “probably about one arban to either end.” He waved his hands alternately to the ground in front of Percival and of Feronantus. “Followed by some more up the middle.” He nodded to Eleázar.
“Get to the island,” Feronantus called, “and string your bow, hunter.”
* * *
While the others had been making their own preparations, Percival and Feronantus had been setting up trip ropes between the trees and the riverbank. At least, that was the only explanation Cnán could imagine for the way the arbans, charging at the same moment around the ends of the stand of trees, fell apart and went down in an avalanche of tumbling horseflesh and shouting men.
Percival and Feronantus charged at the same moment, riding opposite ways toward the stalled flankers. Eleázar stood his ground in the middle, waiting for anyone who might try to thrash through the woods.
Cnán froze up, caught between wanting to stare at Percival’s headlong ride into the midst of ten foes, and the need to avert her eyes from the same.
One of her feet came down wrong, and she fell on her arse in the middle of the stream. The water scarcely came up to her navel and was not all that cold, but it shocked her back into the here and now; she turned her back on the scene, planted both hands on the river bottom, and pushed herself up onto her feet, then without looking back, made her way onto the island and into concealment before turning around to see what was happening behind her.
The picture had changed quite a bit. She had expected to see Percival dead, all of the Mongols dead, or both. Instead, Percival was alive, and most of the Mongols were simply gone. Seeing the Frankish knight charging toward them in full armor, the unhorsed ones had apparently darted into the trees, while those lucky enough to stay mounted had wheeled around and retreated.
Percival was wise enough not to pursue them. Shield slung over his back to collect any arrows flying out of the trees, he galloped his mount across the stream toward the little island, leaving showers of silvery hoof splashes.
Feronantus, meanwhile, had found himself in more of a fight. Perhaps he simply wasn’t impressive enough to scare off the Mongols with a mere bluff charge, or perhaps the members of that arban had been more high-spirited. Whatever the cause, several of the attackers now lay dead, and Feronantus had abandoned his wounded horse to slog across the river on foot. A few arrows still whicked through the air around him. He hunched and raised his arm as if to bat at insects, then brought it down in a shooing sweep, stood tall, and scowled defiantly over his shoulder.
Eleázar had staged a fighting retreat from the woods and thereby drawn out a few Mongols who had immediately come under heavy attack from the five archers—Vera, Rædwulf, Raphael, Istvan, and now Finn—directly across the channel from him. The arrows had felled a few and driven the rest back into the woods, and Eleázar was now backing across the stream, his giant sword resting across his shoulder as if he had not
a worry in the world. He had been hit by a few Mongol arrows, but they hung loosely in his maille, unable to penetrate deep enough to wound him.
Thus covered by the five archers, all of the members of the party made their way to the eastern shore of the little island, which was only a few paces distant, and boarded the little riverboat that waited for them there. During his visit to the market, Yasper had made arrangements for a string of ponies to also be waiting for them—on the far bank.
Percival had formed something of an attachment to the big pony he had just ridden through this engagement and managed to swim it across the short stretch of river that was too deep for wading.
And so the entire party reached the opposite side of the Yaik River—and the threshold of the steppe land of the Mongols proper—in good order and with Alchiq’s jaghun in such disarray as to be incapable of following them.
Earlier, Feronantus had said something to the effect that the jaghun must be “destroyed and, if necessary, killed,” which had made no sense to Cnán at the time. Now, though, she understood. She could only guess how many men under Alchiq’s command had been killed tonight. Probably many more were wounded than slain. But that was not important.
What was important was that they had been reduced to a demoralized remnant and that, when the sun rose and the bodies and the injuries were tallied, Alchiq, if he tried to drive the survivors east over the river in pursuit of the Franks, could be facing something like a mutiny.
Feronantus seemed to be of the same view. Of course, his first desire—once they had reached the east bank in good order and paid the boatman—was to put some distance between them and the Mongols, just in case Alchiq did manage to prod some of his surviving arbans over the river. So they rode until dawn, heading generally east, but also bending their course south.
Benjamin had explained to them that the Silk Road was not a single highway but a loose skein of routes taken at different times by different peoples, depending on all manner of contingencies. Most of those routes passed well to the south of them. Many converged on the garrison town of Saray-Jük, which, from here, was several days’ hard riding downriver. But Benjamin knew of one path that wandered north of the main bundle to cross the river near the market where Yasper had bought the firecrackers. It was their plan to find that road and to meet Benjamin there, at a certain remote, woebegone caravanserai on the steppe.
If the directions he had given them were to be credited, then they could expect to reach it by sundown of the second day.
The night had been long and exhausting, and almost all of them were suffering from minor wounds of one kind or another, and they were hungry. So at first light, they stopped and made a little camp on the east slope of a low hill from whose top it was possible to keep an eye back along the way they had just come.
Within moments, several of them were asleep. Raphael and Yasper made the rounds of those who had been injured, cleaning, stitching, and bandaging their wounds. Percival, who had not suffered so much as a scratch, went to the hilltop to take the first watch. Feronantus got a little fire going. Finn, who claimed he could smell water, draped himself with every waterskin and bottle they had and set out on foot—for he was sick of riding—toward the faint suggestion of a gully that was visible a few bowshots to the north of them.
A bit of time—perhaps the better part of an hour—slipped by as they drowsed, mended, or just sat quietly watching the sun rise.
Then the calm was broken by a cry from Vera. They did not understand the words, since she was speaking in her native tongue, but no one could mistake her tone. She had jumped to her feet and was gazing in alarm to the north. She turned her head toward the top of the hill, and Cnán followed her gaze to see Percival leaning back comfortably against the body of his horse, which had lain down to sleep. Percival, gazing fixedly at the sky, looked no more alert than the horse. His movements were those of a man just stirring awake—or coming out of a trance.
Soon enough, they were all awake and on their feet. Feronantus and Istvan, closest to the ponies, snatched up weapons and mounted.
A lone rider had come across the steppe and achieved the difficult feat of sneaking up on Finn.
From Percival’s vantage point, this interloper ought to have been visible from miles away, but Percival had fallen asleep—or what amounted to the same thing, fallen into one of his visions.
Finn, toiling down in the depths of an overgrown gully, filling his water bottles, had been unaware he was being stalked and had clambered up into the open to find himself confronted by the lone Mongol rider, helmeted and armored, with a bladed lance couched under his arm.
Finn, as always, had his own lance; he’d been using it as a sort of hiking staff as he clambered up out of the gully. Startled by the rider—who came right at him—and encumbered by a heavy load of water, he managed to step back and swing the weapon’s tip down, knocking the tip of the Mongol’s lance down and aside just a moment before it would have penetrated his rib cage. The Mongol rode past him. Finn’s body jerked hard and twisted around awkwardly. He was pulled off his feet and dragged for a couple of yards before the Mongol’s horse stumbled to a halt.
The attacker’s lance had missed Finn’s body but became involved in the tangle of straps and ropes by which the water vessels were slung over Finn’s shoulders.
With the horse stopped, Finn might have had his opportunity to regain his footing and to disengage himself. But his foe was already in motion. The Mongol swung down out of his saddle. As he did, his long mane of gray hair billowed around him in the morning sun. For a moment, he was on the opposite side of the horse from Finn, but he ducked under the horse’s neck and came up behind Finn and wrapped him in a wrestling hold with the speed of a striking snake. Finn’s brothers and sisters on the hill above let out a cry of horror, shame, and grief.
Alchiq’s massive arms scissored, then relaxed. Finn’s corpse bounced on the ground at Alchiq’s feet.
Alchiq then turned and gazed up calmly toward Feronantus and Istvan, who were headed for him at a full gallop, both bellowing with rage and pain. He reached down and pulled his lance free, then was up on his pony’s back and galloping north with the adroitness that only a veteran Mongol warrior was capable of.
North across the steppe, he was pursued by the vengeful Shield-Brethren, but the only thing swift enough to catch up with him were the wrenching cries of Finn’s companions.
33
Lucerna Corporis Est Oculus
“DO YOU SMELL something burning?” Colonna asked, rousing from the meditative mood he had fallen into.
Capocci dropped his latest de-stingered scorpion into the clay jar and raised his head to sniff at the musty air of their underground prison. When they had first arrived in the tunnels and broken corridors beneath the Septizodium, the air had been stale and still, a stagnant miasma undisturbed for many years. The effect of their presence, initially, had stirred up the dust and decay of old Rome, clogging the air with tiny particles that caked the insides of their noses.
Da Capua had sneezed nearly constantly for several days before Colonna had offered to cut off the offending part of his face. He had then started to complain that the stench was eating at his soul—presumably, an item more difficult to remove. Since then, the ambient aroma of the tunnels had settled into a faint but unavoidable effluvium of sweat and charcoal.
But Colonna was correct. There was now a pungent scent of burning matter.
“It troubles me to agree with you, my dear Giovanni,” Capocci said. He fit a plug into the top of his clay jar, trapping the unhappy but harmless scorpions inside, and then stripped the leather glove off his hand. “I think we should go see if someone has set his beard on fire.”
“Oh,” Colonna raised his eyes toward the roof and clutched his hands theatrically to his chest, “please let it be Fieschi.”
Capocci chuckled as he scooped up the other glove. “As amusing as I would find such a sight, I pray God is not inclined to listen to you today.” He
put the gloves and the clay jar into a leather satchel. “The theological ramifications would be even more distressing than the sight of our good cardinal, slightly charred.”
As they walked through the halls, not only did the singed odor increase but wispy tendrils of smoke sluggishly curled along the tunnel’s ceiling. And when they heard shouting, they broke into a run.
The central corridor from which branched several of the cardinals’ chambers was filled with greasy, gray smoke. It billowed along the ceiling, crawling and fuming like a living creature, and farther down the hall, a sullen, smoky red maw gaped and snapped, like a yawning, demonic mouth. The air burned Capocci’s throat, and the disturbingly appetizing taste of charred meat filled his mouth. In the haze, someone was coughing and spitting, trying vainly to clear his lungs of the foul air.
Ducking to keep his head out of the smoke, Capocci waddled toward the distressed man. His fingers touched cloth, and he gathered the fabric into his fist. The man felt Capocci pulling on him and staggered into the cardinal’s arms, as if he were throwing himself on Capocci’s mercy. Capocci fell back, dropping his satchel, and tried to lift up and orient the choking man. Who was he?
It was the new one, the strange one—Rodrigo—his face streaked by soot and tears. His eyes were bright, wide and staring, the whites tinted orange and red in the firelit gloom.
The Mongoliad: Book Two Page 39
