Until the Sun Falls

by Cecelia Holland

  Djela could see nothing beyond the clanking bodies around him. The sky in front of them was stained with smoke. They were close to the city. He stared at the wide shoulders of the knight directly in front of him, and while he watched a long arrow with blue and yellow fletching thunked into the knight’s spine. He winced. They would surely kill him now. His mouth was full of dust.

  The Poles cried out. Djela wrenched at the arm holding him, but he couldn’t budge it. The knight squeezed him hard and his ribs cracked. He felt sick to his stomach. The knight yelled something in Polish into his ear. Other arrows sliced into the mass of knights, and saddles emptied. There were Mongols in front of them—a yellow standard. Djela screamed for help and the knight clouted him on the side of the head. The Mongols in front of them parted, and the knights charged through the gap between them, and more arrows struck them. Djela prayed that one might hit him, so that he wouldn’t have to go into slavery. His knight grunted; he had a shaft through the elbow. He shifted his reins to the hand that held Djela and yelled to the other Poles.

  A horse surged up alongside, and the Pole on it plucked Djela out from in front of the first knight. The horses turned again, laboring, and started off west. Djela’s face was crushed against a wool cloak. He could barely breathe, but when he tried to pull his face away from the cloth the knight only pressed his head down harder. He thought about dying; he began to cry. He could tell by the way the knights rode that they were running for home.

  The wool in his face made it hard to cry. One of his legs was asleep, and when he shifted the knight whacked him on the head. That hurt. He lost his temper. One of his arms was wedged between his body and the knight’s, but the other was free, dangling down the horse’s side. He reached around in front of his head, caught the knight by the belt, and wrenched himself out of the knight’s grip. The knight yelled. Djela slid headfirst out of the saddle, still clinging to the wide belt. He twisted, got himself right end to, and took a good deep breath. The ground was streaming by. He let his feet hit, bounced, and swung up behind the knight on the horse.

  The others were reining over. Their great paws scrabbled for him. He snatched the dagger out of the knight’s belt and drove it to the hilt into the man’s throat. The Pole screamed, and his horse reared. Djela tossed himself lightly to the ground. A horse vaulted him, and he leapt up and ran.

  He could see only a little in front of him. They were below the crest of a small hill, and the close horizon was of trampled snow. He looked over his shoulder and saw the knights charging after him, but they’d taken so long to turn that he was well ahead. He laughed back at them and settled down to run. His own dagger was still in his belt. He shortened stride to keep from slipping and got to the top of the hill.

  Over by the city, there was still fighting. It was a long way away. He made himself breathe properly. A few Mongols were galloping toward him, still much nearer the city than to him, and he flung up one arm to signal them. The knights pounded along after him. They were catching up, but their horses stumbled with weariness. Djela didn’t lengthen his stride. The Mongols had seen him and were racing forward.

  A Polish voice shouted. He glanced back and saw them wheeling, their horses sluggish and unhandy. They were fleeing. He stopped and watched them go. When they were out of sight beyond the hill, he jogged up to the crest to see. They were headed off as fast as their horses could move. On the slope behind they had left the man Djela had killed. His chest swelled with pride and triumph.

  Jube trotted up. “Thank you.”

  Djela looked up at him, puzzled.

  “For rescuing me,” Jube said. “The Yasa says I can’t leave my position, even to help a fallen companion.” He grinned. “The Yasa doesn’t take into account that the fallen companion might be my commander’s young son. Here, get up behind me. They’re just cleaning up down there, and we can plunder a little.”

  Sabotai said, “You look fit.”

  “Hah.” Psin rose. “I’ve been squatting here for three days waiting for you. We’ve cleared out everything for two days’ ride to the north. Those foothills are full of fighters. It’s like digging out weasels. My southern flank is still half a day east. They chased two or three hundred peasants up here ahead of them, and I let them go through.”

  “Good.”

  “Any word from the north?”

  “Sandomir has fallen. Cracow has been burned. Tshant fought a Polish army that had outridden his scouts, if you can imagine that, and tore them to ribbons. A large army. Kaidu believes they were from both Sandomir and Cracow. You were right. They don’t like to be besieged. That should make it easier. Kadan has run into no trouble at all in the south. His main problem is moving slowly enough that he doesn’t lose contact with us.”

  “Were your couriers from Kaidu or Tshant?”

  “Kaidu. Why?”

  “I was wondering how the divided command was working.”

  “No one’s complained.”

  Batu, flanked by his brothers, galloped up and slid out of his saddle. “I’ve been to the pass. Berke says we have hay enough. When do we fight?”

  Psin looked past him at Berke. “Where is the hay?”

  “Packed up in bundles on the mules,” Berke said. He thrust his hands at the fire. “The wind’s raw. Psin, you rode that path in the summer. It’s covered with ice.”

  Batu said, “It’s not so bad. But the fort at the top—”

  Psin got up. His camp was on a rise higher than the ones around it, and he could see the fires and the men around them all to the northern horizon. He had gone up to the pass. The Hungarians in their fort had yelled at him and thrown rocks and offal. The pass was wide, and the footing decent, if it didn’t snow. But the peaks had been hung with clouds for days now, and the wind rushing down from the heights cut like an icy rope. He looked back at Batu and saw him arguing some point of attack with Sabotai. His brothers behind him looked dissatisfied and wary.

  “If we try to break through without taking the fort,” Batu was saying, “they’ll only cut us in two, leave the half caught inside the mountains to whatever’s waiting below, and starve us off this slope.”

  Sabotai nodded. “But how do we take a fort made out of that rock? We can’t starve them out. The far slope can supply them until we die of old age.”

  Psin walked along the rise until he reached the place where he had cut the trees down; through the gap he could see the upper reaches of the road to the pass. If these were Mongols they fought he would know for certain that they had word of the fighting in Poland, but the Hungarian lines of communication were supposed to be slow and unsure. He went back to the fire. Sabotai was nodding impatiently, waiting for Batu to stop talking.

  “Psin. Have you sent scouts into the mountains? To find other passes?”

  Psin sat on his heels and poured himself wine. His kumiss had gone bad the day before. “They found passes. I’ve sent scouts into Hungary itself. They aren’t back yet.”

  “So,” Sabotai said to Batu. “We will know for certain what waits for us on the other side. If nothing—”

  “Nothing? They know we’re coming.” Batu frowned. “Are they fools?”

  “They don’t fight the way we do,” Sabotai said.

  “That’s mild,” Psin said. “They fight every man for himself, and they are used to choosing the ground and ending the whole war in one battle. I don’t think they’d choose the ground at the foot of a slope, do you?” He sipped the warm wine.

  “When will your scouts be in?” Batu said.

  “By tonight. I hope.”

  Sabotai reached for the wine. “If they don’t come in tonight, we can’t wait for them. We can’t risk a storm.”

  Batu said, “Can we use burning lights?”

  “I’ve only got two left, and they’re both soaked from being dropped in a river when I didn’t take Psin’s advice. We’ll use lanterns.”

  “They’ll see us coming,” Batu said.

  “The path is hung over with trees,”
Psin said. “Until just below the pass.”

  “Good.” Sabotai put his gloves in his belt. “We can use the trees for bannerstaffs.”

  “Where’s Mongke?” Psin said.

  “Sleeping. He rode scout for me last night.”

  “I’m going to get some sleep,” Batu said. He turned his horse and his brothers silently followed.

  Sabotai said, “I don’t want you in the vanguard when we ride. It’s going to be nasty, up there, especially if it snows. That wind’s like a waterfall—you’ve been sitting under it for three days?”

  “Yes.”

  “I wish I trusted Mongke enough to send him up first.”

  “Trust him. Send him.”

  “Psin. If the vanguard falters, we’ll be in a mess. But Batu doesn’t think fast enough.”

  “Send Mongke.”

  Sabotai pursed his lips, his eyes steady on Psin’s.

  “Or send both of us—him and me.”

  “I’ll send Mongke. His honor guard is in my center. If he takes them—”

  “No. They’ve not fought under him for two years, and they were leery of him in Korea. Send my skewbald tuman.”

  “Which of the two you’ve been working with do you want to take to Pesth, when we get across?”

  “The others—on the bays.”

  “Good. Now. Suppose we send him up to the fort, in an attempt to storm it.”

  “Impossible. He can’t.”

  “Just an attempt. In the meanwhile, under the cover of his attack, we move Batu’s men in behind him and to either side. Mongke can retreat, get into some sort of tangle, and fall back through the middle. Would the knights attack?”

  “They might.”

  “Leave the fort?”

  “Maybe.”

  “We can try it, at least. If Mongke’s retreat looks like a complete rout, of course they’ll come out. Don’t you—”

  A horse was cantering up the slope toward them. Psin leapt up. “It’s one of my scouts. Nejai.”

  The horse was staggering in its weariness. The scout sat back, and the horse stopped so abruptly Nejai nearly fell. He slipped down. His face was grey, and his lips were so stiff he could barely talk.

  “I’ve been to the—to the far side. They have a supply sta-station. Knights—no more than twenty. A lot of—of peasants.” He shut his eyes. “Wood. Hay. Grain, and herds. I… went back toward this pass a little. Nothing.”

  “Good,” Psin said. “Go get some sleep. Eat. Don’t even bother to go. Stay here.”

  The scout opened his eyes and grinned. “The Khan wishes.”

  He curled up beside the fire, pulled his cloak over his face, and slept. Psin bellowed to a man passing to take care of the horse. Sabotai said, “How did he get across the mountains?”

  “There’s a gorge half a day’s ride north that leads to a stream bed that goes down the other side. He took four horses with him. From the looks of this one, he rode the others to death.”

  “If he got through, can we suppose it’s unguarded?”

  “The reports say it’s so narrow and the trail so rough nobody ever uses it. They might not even know it’s there.”

  “Ah,” Sabotai said gently. He rocked back on his heels. “But you do.”

  The gorge twisted in through the heart of the mountains, clogged with rocks, slick with ice from the stream that had carved it. They had already lost two horses. Psin kept one eye on his remounts, crowded in behind him, and the other on the trail. So far they had found one place where three horses might walk abreast. Everywhere else was like this: the horses, snugged up on the leadlines, scraped their sides on the rock cliffs.

  Ahead of them, above the spruce trees and the lower slopes, there was a mountain with a sheer rock face that he was heading for. Up there, Nejai had told him, they would find the other trail. He couldn’t see the mountain anymore, because of the dark and the clouds, but Nejai had said it would be dawn before he reached it. He let his dun horse pick its way around a mass of icy rock.

  “Two short flashes,” he said. “There’s a dead horse up here.”

  The man just behind him craned forward. “God. He couldn’t drag them off the trail, could he.”

  “He was in a hurry, damn you.” The dun horse was snorting at the stinking wet body, and Psin kicked him on past. The rocks were coated with ice that glowed dimly, like the waves on Lake Baikal in the dark. The dun slipped and went to his knees.

  “It’s snowing,” someone called.

  “Lovely.”

  He knew why the Hungarians hadn’t bothered to guard this gate into their precious country; no sane man would try to ride through it. Ahead the two sides of the gorge came down to a point. There was no level ground at all. The horses tried to refuse and he whipped at them, leaning back out of his saddle to reach his remounts. Wet snow drifted in under his collar. They scrambled noisily along the naked stone. Lantern light wobbled over the trail in front of them, showing the edges and broad sloping surfaces of the rock. Clumps of moss hung from the cliffs and swept across his cheek. It was almost dawn.

  Probably, out in the open where people were supposed to live, it was dawn. The cliffs towered up over him, but he could see the pine trees along their rims. The horses inched along, swaying from side to side, their heads low. The dun snatched for a mouthful of moss.

  The snow falling in the light of the lantern obscured the trail. He could see rocks thrusting up out of the bed of ice. Ahead, a tree had fallen into the gorge and lay across it, the trunk end still high up the side. He rode toward the high end and bent over, his cheek against the dun’s shoulder, so that the horse could squeeze through. Branches raked his back. The dun missed his footing and almost tripped headlong, and he called back, “Watch out.”

  Beyond the windfall, the gorge made a sudden turn; he reined up to be sure his men were getting through. He had left the camp in the middle of the afternoon, and he was glad he’d pushed the pace. Before the snow had gotten deep enough to stop them, all or nearly all his thousand men would be on the way down the trail. The snow wasn’t falling thickly yet.

  They pushed through the turn, where the cliffs pinched the trail to a thread, and turned into the force of the wind. Tears sprang to Psin’s eyes. He leaned forward, bunching his cloak around his neck, and jammed his hat down hard over his forehead. The dun tucked his nose in to his chest. But the ground was opening up a little, and there was springy moss underfoot. He glanced back and saw the men moving after him gasp when the wind struck them.

  A small furry animal darted out of their way. The dun didn’t shy, but the horses behind him did, reeling around in blind unison. Whips lashed behind him, and the dun threw all his weight against the leadline to drag the horses forward.

  “Call out,” Psin shouted.

  “All straight back here.”

  The snow was falling more thickly; it whitened the front of his coat and built up into a crest along his horse’s mane. Ahead it was light enough to see the trail without the lantern, and he shuttered it. The trail curved. Up ahead, where the gorge walls widened, he could see the horned mountain above the nearer crowns of rock. The snow fell across it and almost shut it out.

  Before them, the trail threaded up a face of ice. He reined the dun to one side of it, and they scrambled up. He could hear the men behind him yelling and whipping their horses. He turned to look back and saw the gorge full of men as far as he could see. The wind froze his ears, and he tucked them deeper under his hat.

  The gorge petered out. The trail drove straight for the mountain over rounded hills. The few trees were sheaves of icicles from the wind and the snow. The dun broke into a jog, but the men behind yelled to Psin to wait, and he drew down again. The snow was still too light to hurt. They wound down a steep slope and up another and came out just below the horned mountain.

  “Ride to the north of it,” the scout had said. Psin started up a snow-covered rise, unshuttered the lantern, and pulled down the red pane. There were no trees; they were abo
ve the timberline. The wind swept down off the crag and sledged into their faces. The dun sank to his knees in the snow.

  “Call out,” he yelled.

  Call out, the echo said. Call out, call out.

  “Behind you,” someone shouted up, and the echo caught it. Every man in line was shouting in turn, so that they would keep together. He glanced back and saw the long snake of riders down this slope, up the next, and over the crest into the one beyond. Swinging back, he tried to see where they were going, but the storm was getting worse.

  The dun staggered along, dragging the remounts behind him. Psin could feel the rough ground beneath his hoofs. The snow was crusted in spots almost thick enough to bear the horse’s weight, but every third step it would break, and the dun would stumble. The horse’s black mane turned dead white.

  Ahead, something like an antelope trotted across their path, stopped, sniffed, and bolted away. Psin shouted again and heard the calls ring out behind him, just a little distance behind him, until the sound was muffled in the falling snow. Now, in front of him, he could see ridges of black rock breaking through the snow. The dun was laboring against the steep slope. Psin squinted against the snow and saw the arched face of the mountain to his left, almost beside him.

  The dun stopped dead in front of the upthrust of black rock. It was too high to climb over. Psin rode along it, fighting his remounts, until they came to a place where the rock had broken. The dun put one forehoof on it, crouched, and jumped across. He skidded through the snow, turned sideways, and fell. Psin landed hard on his shoulder. The bannerstaff snapped under him. He rolled over and stood up. The horse was on its feet, shaking each leg in turn. His men were pushing through the gap in the rock.

  “Look,” one shouted, and pointed.

  Psin turned. The storm ended here, as if there were a wall to stop the clouds. To the west the mountains fell away in a series of sheer drops into the timber. Sunlight glittered on the snow. He could see the trail Nejai had taken, off to the north. He mounted up and rode toward it, trotting the dun a few steps to make sure he wasn’t lame. The trail was steep and icy but if the storm didn’t follow them over the going wouldn’t be as bad. The dun went into the trail without hesitation. Psin worked his shoulder carefully, found nothing broken, and settled down to watch the trail.