Until the Sun Falls

by Cecelia Holland

  “No.”

  The sun was setting. Psin jumped the rest of the distance to the ground and faced Buri. Quyuk was behind him. Soot smeared one of Quyuk’s cheeks, and a long scratch parted one eyebrow. Buri was talking about the fighting for the steps.

  Quyuk said, low, “Are you still going in, Khan?”

  “Yes. At moonrise.”

  “You’re a fool.”

  Quyuk’s slaves were gathering around him. One handed him a cloth, and another held out a jug of kumiss; Quyuk held the cloth in one hand while he drank from the jug, swiped disinterestedly at the dirt on his face, and threw the cloth aside. His fingerprints in soot stood out vividly on the white fabric. He walked away, trailing slaves. The other Altun were riding off to their yurts. Buri had finished his report. Psin looked up at the sky. The red light from the sun climbed from the western horizon toward the summit of the sky, sheer as flame. Under it the fire-blackened snowbanks turned rose-color.

  “Progress enough for one day,” Sabotai said.

  “Do the Altun think so?”

  “Of course not. They say we should have taken the city by now. They are impatient. I don’t think it’s necessary that you go inside the wall tonight.”

  “I’m not sure they’ll do what we wish.”

  Sabotai’s eyes narrowed. “Besides, they’ll fight better if you are there.”

  Psin looked at him, startled. “What makes you think that?”

  “Nothing. Come along, you’ll need sleep.”

  Tshant shook himself awake, yawned, stretched, and stood up. He was alone on the steps; when the fires on the shield ceiling had gone out he had sent most of his men to posts all along the roofed-over section. The night air still smelled of charred, wet wood and old smoke.

  Behind the city wall, fires gleamed, and he saw fires in the Mongol camp, but between them lay nothing but dark. The snowbanks even looked dark. The cold touched him, and he shivered.

  The dead silence made him uneasy. He liked the quiet nights on the steppe, the rare calm of the Gobi, nightbirds and the wind and the whisper of grass or sand, but in this stillness his ears strained and his back prickled as if someone were creeping up behind him. No wind at all, tonight, and the stars looked dimmer than usual.

  He picked up his fur cloak and went down the steps into the roofed-over ring. The six men clustered at the foot of the steps came lazily to attention. Under the ceiling the dark was thick and foul-smelling. He walked back toward the gap, kicking at the shields blocking the tunnels through the inner wall. Tonight those shields came off.

  His father was damned clever. Unless it had really been Mongke’s idea, the whole thing. He doubted that. Mongke was a raider, strike and fly, not capable of something like this. Mongke was too impatient for sieges. He stopped still and listened and heard only the creaking of the timbers.

  He could see little in the darkness. Ahead, far ahead, a small fire burnt in a pot, marking the gap. Boots crunched on the packed snow, and he spun around.

  “Yuba,” a voice called. “Sentry, noyon.”

  “Pass.”

  Yuba strode by him. A timber groaned, and the ceiling seemed to sag. Tshant dodged away. But the shields held, braced up and lashed together. He trotted toward the gap, passing Yuba again. Coming nearer the burnt section he could smell the smoke in the stagnant air, the faint odor of burnt meat: Russian bodies, maybe even Mongol.

  “Who comes?” the sentry hailed from the gap.

  “Tshant Bahadur.”

  The sentry stepped aside. Tshant ducked a jutting beam and slipped into the fresh cold air outside the gap.

  Silent, motionless, a vast army of Mongols waited there. They sat on their heels in even rows, watching the gap; when Tshant came out they gave no sign that they saw him. Tshant took a deep breath. To keep so many men quiet… He looked for his father but didn’t see him.

  The silence tore at him. He wanted to shout, to bang something, just to break the stillness. With the nervousness working in him he stepped farther from the gap and looked around. There was no sign of Psin. But in the east the moon was gliding up over the horizon, huge, bright orange, flooding light over the snow.

  Heavy footsteps. He looked over his shoulder and saw Psin coming, his bow in his hand. His edginess drained away. Psin lifted one hand casually to him and went in through the gap without hesitating. Tshant started after him. Behind him, the rows of the army stood and softly, softly crept into the roofed ring.

  No sense asking if they all knew what they were to do. Tshant caught up with his father and walked beside him, one hand on his sword. Psin said nothing. The roof of shields caught the sound of feet behind them and made them boom. In the dark Tshant could see only Psin’s shape. He shortened stride so that he did not outwalk Psin and wondered if he always did that, or if this was not some new sign of weakness.

  He is old. He must slacken. He was recently sick.

  The familiar anger swept over him, and from long habit he fought it down. He shouldn’t hate a man because he was strong. I don’t hate Psin, he thought. But he wasn’t sure.

  The closed ring pressed down around them. They passed a sentry, answered his low challenge, and walked on. Tshant could hear no one following them. They had passed the steps, they were nearly to the end of the shield ceiling, and the air was like cobwebs around them. Tshant’s nose tickled and he suppressed a sneeze.

  Psin’s hand touched his shoulder. They were at the end, where the roof ended against a wall of snowblocks hacked out of the ring. Here it was utterly dark. Tshant closed his useless eyes and listened.

  Now. Yes. He could hear men behind them, not talking, just moving around. He heard Psin groping along the wall to find the tunnel that was here, and he heard the timbers creak and the shuffle of Psin’s clothes against his body. Something scraped—the shield that blocked the tunnel.

  He opened his eyes. Psin was making a fire in the pot that had hung from his belt, to signal the men down the way that they were ready. The red glow leapt up and settled instantly, and Psin kneeling beside it cast the edge of his cloak over the pot to signal.

  Down the way they had come, another pot winked, and a third. Psin sat easily waiting, his wrists on his bent knees. The glow from the fire lay over the planes of his face. He looked up at Tshant, but his eyes were expressionless and he said nothing.

  The pots were winking again. Psin kicked the pot aside, wheeled, and jerked the shield away from the mouth of the tunnel. He plunged in, still wordless, leaving Tshant to find the shield and follow on hands and knees.

  Psin’s body blocked the far end of the tunnel. Tshant, shivering in the cold from the ice all around, shoved the shield ahead of him.

  Psin took it and thrust it out into the ring before them. There was no sound. Psin waited only long enough to find out that no one was shooting at them before he scurried out of the tunnel. Tshant dove after him.

  All down the wall, Mongols were plunging out of the tunnels into the second ring, into the bright moonlight. There was no sign of the Russians. The ring filled swiftly with Mongols, still quiet, but moving efficiently up and down the ring. The shields they rammed into the mouths of the tunnels in the inner wall facing them. With axes they cut handholds into the ice walls on either side of the ring, and men with bows climbed up to watch the city. Tshant scrambled up onto the inner wall and looked, and saw the city closer, all quiet, unaware that they had only one snowwall left to them.

  Psin said, “No casualties.”

  Tshant slid down. “They didn’t know we were coming,” he said, and immediately cursed himself for not thinking that over. Psin smiled at him.

  “Obviously.”

  This ring swarmed with Mongols. The wall behind them was lined with bowmen, and through each tunnel even more crawled, to jump up and run to their new stations. Tshant followed Psin down the wall.

  “Only one ring left.”

  Psin nodded. “They’ll fight to the death for it. Tomorrow.”

  “Why not now?” />
  “Because I would rather hold the outer and the middle rings, not just the outer and the inner.”

  “We can hold all three.”

  “Not yet.”

  The men creeping through the tunnels all carried shields on their backs, many three or four. They heaped them against the inner wall. Psin turned and held up one arm. Down the ring, someone threw up a hand in answer—Kadan. Psin pointed to the stacks of shields and made a spreading motion, and Kadan gestured again. He ran around tapping men on the shoulders and pointing to the shields.

  “They’ve had plenty of time,” Psin murmured. He jabbed his chin toward the city.

  “For what?”

  “Wait.”

  Already the shield roof was springing up; the Mongols in rows held their lashed shields over their heads, while others dragged timber through the tunnels and braced them. Tshant paced, watching the work. The pine trunks skittered around on the ice, rolling, so that the men had to dodge and leap over them. His father was an old fool and they should be taking the inner ring now.

  “The city,” a man on the snowbank shouted. “They’re doing something in the city—”

  “Find cover,” Psin roared.

  The silence shattered. Tshant, filling his lungs, bellowed orders. Men dove into the tunnels and packed the space beneath the half-erected roof. Psin started toward Tshant, his eyes turned upward. The moonlight flooded the rings. Psin’s shadow licked at the snow wall.

  “Everybody down,” a sentry howled.

  Tshant flinched back against the wall. A massive hailstorm—rocks. They were catapulting rocks from the city into this ring. Psin, running, caught one on the shoulder and reeled and collapsed against the wall. The air thundered with falling rocks. They bounced and rolled on the flat ice, pelted the roof, swept the sentries from the wall over Tshant’s head. Somebody screamed. Tshant dove into a tunnel. Abruptly, the storm of rocks ended and the great silence closed in.

  “See what I meant?” Psin said, just outside the tunnel mouth.

  Tshant crawled out. The ground around him was a field of stones from wall to wall. No sign of the ice below showed through, and in places the stones were piled up into heaps as high as his knees.

  “Shake the roof,” Kadan roared.

  The Mongols crouched beneath the sagging roof charged to the timbers and rocked them. The roof swayed violently. Rocks bounded down, rolling, splitting on the stones beneath. The roof undulated, and most of the stones cascaded harmlessly off. Kadan stood to one side, rubbing his hands on his coat.

  Tshant said, “They must have tested the catapults for distance, back when they built the rings. They knew if they could block us here we’d have trouble getting supplies through.”

  Psin nodded. “Better here than outside or in the closest ring. I’ve changed my mind. We have to take that ring tonight. Kadan?”

  Kadan stumbled across the field of stones. Tshant could see the rocks turning under his feet, and he saw the stray hands, the heads and boots of men crushed under the hail. If they had not been warned…

  “What now?” Kadan said.

  “Send a man back and tell Sabotai that we have to take the inner ring before the Russians can find boulders to shoot at us. We need every man here.”

  “The Khan wishes.” Kadan leered and plunged into a tunnel, shouting.

  Some of the sentries on the outer wall of this ring were running back into position; they had run across the roof on the ring beyond to dodge the fall of stones. One shouted, “Russians coming out the city gate.”

  Psin chewed at his mustaches. His eyes turned toward Tshant, as if he meant to ask something, and Tshant stared back. Psin said nothing.

  “More stones,” a sentry yelled.

  “Inner wall,” Psin called. They plunged across the ring, sliding on the stones, to flatten themselves against the inside wall. Stones pelted down around them—not so strong a shower as the first. A rock bounced from the ground and struck Tshant on the hip. A man gasped, somewhere near. Stones hit something with a sound of splintering bone. They drummed on the roof, and a timber gave way, crashing down.

  Psin said, “The tunnels.” He lifted his great voice over the pounding of the falling rocks. “The tunnels—every man.”

  Tshant, kneeling, rolled away the rocks blocking the tunnel entrance at his feet. He took hold of the shield to pull it free, and the rock shower stopped. Like a voice in his ear he heard someone in the tunnel before him. He snatched out his dagger. Psin was standing just behind him. Tshant rapped him on the knee with the flat of his dagger and tore the shield away.

  No one came out, so he ducked and plunged in. The point of a sword gashed his reaching arm. Like meeting a bear in its cave—he grappled with the Russian. The two of them packed the tunnel. Their shoulders cramped, they muscled each other, grunting, muffled up in their cloaks. Tshant pulled his dagger arm free and stabbed the Russian in the throat. The blood streamed over him, hot and salty, and the Russian sagged, but his hands still plucked at Tshant’s eyes. Tshant stabbed him again.

  “Grishka…”

  The Russian was dead. Tshant kept him upright in the tunnel, to block anybody coming in from the Russian side. There were several; he could hear their voices. They shoved at the dead Russian and Tshant shoved back. Psin was pressing against him.

  Outside there was shouting, there were stones falling again, and a lot of men screamed. Something crashed and the ground shook. Between Psin and the dead Russian Tshant could barely move. His throat constricted. He got his feet up in front of him, planted them in the corpse’s side, and shoved.

  The dead man popped out of the tunnel. Tshant on hands and knees raced after, slipping on the bloody ice. Swords clashed in the ring beyond. A Russian face, yellow-bearded, thrust into the tunnel, and Tshant slashed at it with his dagger. Blood leapt from the Russian’s nose and he scuttled out and vanished. Through the tunnel mouth, Tshant saw the moonlight on the ice and the city wall across the way, nothing else. The shouting had died.

  “Do we stay here or leave?” he said, throwing his words behind him.

  “Stay here,” Psin said. “Everybody else is.”

  Other Mongols, wedged into the tunnels, all along the wall. Just like him. “Do we hold all the tunnels?”

  “I doubt it.”

  A torch thrust into the tunnel. Tshant yelped, fending the blaze off with his hands. His cloak stank abruptly of burning fur. He could not back up and he howled to Psin to move, but Psin did not; Psin flung his own cloak past Tshant, wrapped it around the torch, and pulled it out of the hands of the Russian. He beat at his cloak until the flames died.

  Tshant sat still, panting. He gulped for air. His face stung; the Russian had scratched him, the torch had burnt him. He took great lungfuls of air. The silence closed in again, and he shuddered. He wanted to burst out, to stand, to be in the open. His throat clogged up.

  “Easy,” Psin said. “Easy.” He took Tshant’s left arm in one hand and tore the sleeve of his shirt away. The wound there dribbled blood. Tshant clutched at his father’s hand. He thought he had to hold onto something. He could not get enough air to breathe.

  An arrow bounced into the mouth of the tunnel, but Psin’s cloak, wadded up in front of them, shielded them. More stones pelted the ring behind them.

  Psin’s hand lay passively in Tshant’s grasp. His fingers were cramped from hanging on so tightly, and he let go and pushed away from Psin. He heard Psin move a little.

  “What now?” Tshant said.

  “We wait.”

  “But they’ll—”

  “Ssssh.”

  I sound like a child. He soothes me like a child. He drew himself up. The silence was suddenly bearable.

  Stones rolled and crunched behind them, and a soft voice from the middle ring said, “Quyuk and the rest of the army are in the tunnels.” The stones crunched again, and the voice sounded at the entrance to the next tunnel.

  Psin shifted his weight. “And now—”

  “
We die for the glory of the Kha-Khan,” Tshant said, and gathering his cloak plunged out into the open.

  For two strides he saw nothing and nothing attacked him; he had a chance to fling the cloak around him before the first arrows came. He heard Psin’s voice roaring behind him. Out of the other tunnels Mongols charged, yipping.

  A horde of Russians streamed down on them—mounted, their horses wild-eyed and their swords like scythes. Tshant swung to face them. An arrow thunked into his cloak and the heavy fur stopped it. Only a few Mongols stood between him and the Russian wave. He had his dagger ready; he took a deep breath and ran toward the oncoming horses.

  “Eeeeeeeyyyaaaaah!”

  The horses trampled down two Mongols before Tshant and swept toward him. A sword flashed toward his eyes. He saw thrashing mane, a beard, a heaving shoulder, and jumped. His arms slid along a horse’s neck and he hung on. The horse staggered, and the Russian lurched in his saddle. Something smacked Tshant across the back. He swung his legs up and booted the Russian in the chest. The horse stumbled to its knees. The Russian hurtled off, and Tshant hooked one heel over the saddle’s high cantle. The horse charged on, neighing.

  He waited for the sword to strike off his head, for the axe to cut him in two, but nothing happened and he managed to reach the saddle. He could not find the stirrups, and the reins flew loose around the horse’s knees. All around him riderless horses galloped. He didn’t stop to figure it out. He swept down toward a mass of Mongols, scattering before the charging horses; Russians poured out the gate, and more Mongols bolted from the tunnels. He caught one rein and jerked the horse down a little.

  An arrow took his horse in the neck and he threw himself free just before the horse slammed to the ground. Another horse jumped across his prone body. He rolled to the wall and sat up. Overhead the air was laced with arrows, two streams merging: one from the city wall, one from the top of the snowbank. That explained the empty saddles. The horses galloped madly up and down through the heaving pack of Mongols and Russians.