Katabasis (The Mongoliad Cycle, Book 4)

by Joseph Brassey

  Nor did he say anything when they discovered the village overrun by a party of yellow-haired marauders, who were systematically looting and burning each building. The sudden presence of the mounted knights created a stir, but the Danish invaders did not appear overly concerned. A trio of blood-spattered men approached the Teutonic company.

  Hermann positioned himself in the center of the front line of knights. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What are you doing?”

  Kristaps thought the answer to the second question was fairly obvious.

  “Who are you?” the middle of the three Danes replied, equally nonplussed about the second question.

  “Hermann of Dorpat, the Prince-Bishop of Riga, and you are…you are…” Hermann sputtered angrily, trying to find words to express his confusion and outrage.

  “They are Danes,” Kristaps said, nudging his horse toward the front of the company. “And they were invited.”

  “Aye,” the Dane replied with a wide grin. “That we were.”

  “What?” Hermann exploded.

  “I invited them,” Kristaps said. “Are the sons of Valdemaar among you?” he asked the Danes.

  “Valdemaar is king no longer,” the Dane said. “Our brother, Eric Ploughpenny, is now king in Denmark.”

  “My condolences to the sons of Valdemaar,” Kristaps said, “and my congratulations to the Ploughpenny family.”

  One of the other two Danes spat on the ground and was rudely elbowed by the spokesman. “You are the one who called for us?” he said to Kristaps. “I would have your name.”

  “I am Kristaps, the First Sword of Fellin. Once I was Volquin’s Dragon,” Kristaps said.

  The Dane nodded. “I have heard of you.” He hooked a thumb at the spitter. “This is Thorvald, and that one is Illugi. I am Svend.”

  Kristaps leaned on the horn of his saddle. “How many of you are there, Svend?”

  “One thousand fighting men,” Svend replied proudly.

  Kristaps glanced over at Hermann, who was staring angrily at him. “And have you met much resistance during your march?” he asked.

  Svend laughed and gestured at the wreckage of the village behind him. “This? This is but an idle afternoon’s work. Barely worth descending from a horse for.”

  “They’re fleeing for Novgorod,” Illugi offered.

  Kristaps nodded. “The Veche has put out the call for the militia then, and the families have fled for the safety of the city walls. Novgorod is building its army, though it will be filled with farmers and fur-traders. They will not be equipped to fight men such as you and me.”

  “Who is?” Svend laughed. “Come,” he said, waving Kristaps forward. “We have raided their winter stores. There is some mead still. I would have you meet my lord. He will, I am certain, be eager to discuss the storming of Novgorod.”

  CHAPTER 18:

  WHAT IS LEFT BEHIND

  “It is a shame to lose the arrow,” Gawain noted, and Cnán choked on the words caught in her throat. The longbowman finished wrapping his bow without another glance at the still form of Haidar. He picked up his arrow bag and started to walk calmly back toward the camp, but Cnán finally managed to clear her throat and bring him up short with a quick yell.

  “We just can’t leave him,” she said, pointing at Haidar.

  “Why not?” Gawain asked. “He would have done the same for you or me. Worse, probably.”

  The excitement of the ambush was still thrumming through Cnán’s body, and she spoke more bravely—more openly—than she would have normally. “You’re better than that,” she said. “You’re not a killer.”

  Gawain glanced at the rock for a moment, considering his response, and then he walked back to her. “What do you know of me?” he asked. “You think that just because I rescued you from freezing to death that I’ll take pity on any wounded creature that I stumble across? In case you don’t remember, he nearly took my head off.” He jerked the collar of his gambeson aside, showing her a bloody gash along the top of his shoulder. “If you hadn’t moved, you would have been trampled. I saved your life. Again.”

  Cnán flushed, but she held her ground. “We’re not monsters,” she said. “Look at him. He’s in pain.”

  As if to buttress her statement, Haidar groaned and tried to lift his head. The area around the flower stuck in his belly was dark with blood as was the ground beneath him.

  Gawain signed and put his bow and arrow bag down. “Would you have me put him out of his misery?” he asked, his hand falling to the knife in his belt.

  “No,” Cnán snorted. “We should…we should…” She didn’t know what they should do.

  “Come here,” Gawain said, roughly grabbing her arm and pulling her along with him as he strode toward Haidar. “My arrow has pierced him all the way through. Men do not recover from wounds like this. They can last several weeks, but eventually their bellies swell up with poisons and they die.”

  He stopped several paces away from Haidar, and while he let go of Cnán’s arm, he kept his other hand on the hilt of his knife. “What would you have me do?” he asked.

  Haidar clenched his teeth and managed to lift his head. There was blood on his lips, and his eyes were already dull. As he tried to sit up, the arrow protruding from his back wiggled obscenely.

  Cnán shook her head, disgusted by the lesson Gawain seemed intent on giving her, but unable to look away from the dying man on the ground.

  Gawain took another step forward and then squatted on his haunches so that his face was closer to Haidar. “What would you have me do?” he asked the wounded man.

  “Die,” Haidar gasped, and he lurched at Gawain, struggling to throw himself upon the longbowman. His right arm, which had been hidden behind his body, appeared suddenly, swinging toward Gawain’s face. Cnán jumped at the sight of the long knife gripped in Haidar’s fist, but she was the only one surprised by Haidar’s desperate act.

  Gawain blocked Haidar’s attack and stood, retaining his grip on the other’s arm, dragging Haidar halfway to his feet. Gawain stripped the knife from Haidar’s slack fingers and released his hold on the other man’s arm. Haidar fell to the ground and tumbled back, the weight of his body snapping the arrow off. He screamed, arching his back and clawing at the broken shaft of the arrow. Gawain kicked him once in the head and he fell silent.

  “Satisfied?” Gawain asked, holding out Haidar’s knife.

  Cnán shook her head. “No,” she whispered.

  Gawain tossed the knife on the ground near Haidar and stalked off to collect his bow and arrow bag.

  Haidar’s chest still moved, a tiny shiver in his frame that suggested he was still alive. His left hand relaxed, and a bloody bubble swelled on his lips.

  Cnán clenched her fists and turned away. Her eyes were burning with tears and she feared she would not be able to hold in the scream that was building in her throat. Her body still hummed with the tension of the battle, and to be so forcefully confronted with the death of another human being threatened to overwhelm her. She was no stranger to killing, not since she had joined the Shield-Brethren, but all of it had happened at arm’s length. This was much too close, too much as though her own hand had held the knife that delivered the final blow.

  Standing on the edge of the gully, his face and hands blackened with soot, was Yasper. He was staring with shock at Haidar’s corpse. He had been in the gully, marshalling his smoke pots, and she hadn’t been aware that he had crawled to the center where she and Gawain had been. Yet, here he was.

  She ran toward him, no longer thinking, and when he raised his arms, she bulled into him, burying her face in his stained jacket. All she could smell was the acrid scent of his phoenix eggs, and all she could feel was his arms encircling her and holding her tight.

  Lian was standing beside the paddock when Percival and Raphael returned. She and Vera had remained at the camp when the pair had ridden out, and though she stood on a rock and tried to see what was happening on the steppe, she saw little more than the
tiny shapes of riders darting like swallows through the drifting smoke from Yasper’s alchemical smoke pots. It was much different than the way the Mongols fought. The company was scattered, and they all had roles to play in the battle, but it was not organized in the same cohesive strategy that Mongol noyon used. These men were used to fighting on their own.

  She had been thinking about Gansukh as Percival dismounted from his horse. “Eight,” he said cheerfully. His helmet was off, and his brown hair was matted with sweat. The front and right side of his surcoat were splashed with blood. “We’ve recovered eight horses.”

  “Marvelous,” Lian said distantly. She put aside the thoughts she had been exploring and smiled at the tall Frank. “And you are unhurt? All of you?”

  “Aye,” Percival said as he draped the reins of his horse over the rope rail of the paddock and began undoing the sequence of knots that held the rope gate shut. He glanced over his shoulder toward the steppe where the fighting had occurred. “Four prisoners too, I believe,” he said. “Haakon and Bruno are bringing them back.”

  “Four?” Lian questioned the number. “What are we going to do with four captives?”

  “They surrendered,” Raphael said from atop his horse. The knight stared down at Lian. “We showed them mercy.”

  “Yes, but—”

  Raphael nudged his horse forward and, even though the animal was still a pace away from her, Lian stepped back, feeling the paddock rope stop her from retreating any farther.

  “You are a guest,” Raphael said. “You will not question my decisions.”

  “My apologies,” Lian said smoothly, dipping her head down in well-practiced contrition. She suppressed the urge to drop to her knees, though her legs did bend slightly before she caught herself.

  She heard Raphael grunt, followed by the sound of his boots striking the ground. “Stop that,” the knight said gently, touching her lightly on the arm. She raised her head and noted that he actually seemed embarrassed by her reaction, and she offered him a fleeting smile, letting him know that all was forgiven.

  “Help…” He cleared his throat and tried again. “Could you help Percival with the horses?” he asked, offering her the reins of his mount.

  “I’d be happy to,” she replied. She curtsied briefly and then accepted the leather straps from him.

  Raphael gave her a funny look, and then glanced over at Percival, who had undone the section of rope and was leading the first horse into the paddock. “I’m going to talk with Gawain and Bruno,” he said. “Join us when you can.” With a final nod at Lian, he walked off, somewhat bow-legged and stiff. Whether it was from sore muscles that were unused to riding and combat or from further embarrassment, Lian couldn’t tell for certain.

  “He doesn’t like being in command, does he?” she noted to Percival as she led Raphael’s horse through the gap in the rope.

  “Few do,” Percival noted.

  Lian thought of Master Yelu Chucai, Ögedei’s senior advisor and her one-time master. As the Khagan’s drinking had worsened, more and more of the administration of the empire had fallen to Master Chucai, and the Kitayan advisor had flourished under the increased workload. Some do, she thought, wondering which of those two types Percival was.

  Fleetingly, she wondered the same about Gansukh.

  Percival set about removing the makeshift saddle from the horse. He spoke in a low voice to the animal as he worked, in a language she did not know. She doubted the horse did either, but the words he was speaking weren’t as important as the soothing tone of his voice. She liked hearing his voice, and imagined he was quite adept at reciting poetry. The ladies of court at Karakorum would find him quite extraordinary, and not simply because of his exotic features. Percival knew he was a beautiful man, and from his carriage and bearing it was clear he was of noble birth. But unlike so many noble-born sons she had seen in China and the Mongol empire, Percival displayed little of the arrogance that typically came with such station and blood.

  Lian blinked, realizing she had been staring, and when she turned her head slightly so that she wasn’t looking at him directly, she was surprised to notice a strange glow of light coming off the Frank. When she looked at him directly, the sun was merely bright in his hair and on his sweat-streaked cheeks, but when she looked at him out of the corner of her eyes, a subtle difference in his countenance was revealed.

  Unconsciously her hand strayed to the place where Gansukh’s lacquer box was hidden, and when her hand pressed against the fabric lying between her flesh and the box, the glow about Percival intensified.

  She must have made a noise because Percival looked up from his work, his brow creased with worry. “Are you alright?” he asked.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “It’s…” She let go of her robe, which she had been clutching tightly, and pointed at his surcoat. “It’s the blood.”

  Percival looked down at his surcoat and seemed to notice the blood stains for the first time. “How unfortunate,” he said. “This was my best robe.”

  Lian smiled at him, leaning lightly against the side of Raphael’s horse. “It’s your only robe,” she pointed out.

  “All the more reason to return to civilization as soon as possible,” he said. He slid the surcoat over his head and let it fall to the ground so that the blood stains were not as visible. His coat of maille was a cascade of dull metal that made him appear as if he were submerged in water up to his neck. “Does this offend your eyes less?” he asked.

  “Very little of you offends my eyes at all,” Lian answered.

  Percival acknowledged her compliment with a bow and he offered her the wooden comb he had been using to brush down his horse. “Perhaps the lady would like to finish while I attend to Raphael’s steed,” he said.

  “I would,” she replied. When she took the comb from him, she utilized one of the old courtesan tricks and ensured that their fingers touched during the transfer. She wasn’t clumsy in receiving the comb from him; she merely allowed several of her fingers to drift across his as she accepted the object.

  The sort of men who gave gifts to courtesans were the sort whose desires were well evident. All they wanted was what was hidden from their eyes by layers of silk robes. A touch—bare skin against skin—reminded them of what they sought.

  Percival’s cheeks colored slightly as he walked past Lian and began fussing with the saddle straps. Lian walked to the far side of the other horse so that she could look over its back at Percival as she brushed the horse.

  He kept his back to her as he worked.

  So like Gansukh, she thought, a little surprised at the wistful melancholy that settled on her.

  The four prisoners had been stripped of their kits and bound, hands behind their backs, to stakes driven into the ground. They were spaced several paces apart. Raphael knew it wasn’t a permanent solution as the stakes could be pulled out of the ground if any man were given enough time to apply the necessary leverage, but the arrangement would do in the meantime.

  Bruno sat on a nearby rock, a water skin dangling in his hands, his attention only vaguely directed at the prisoners. There were a few streaks of dried blood along his left ear.

  “They put up much fight?” Raphael asked as he joined Bruno. He had stripped off his maille and undershirt and changed into a wool gambeson. Using a ladle of water from their stores, he had washed the dirt and blood from his face and hands. It was the closest thing to a real bath he’d had in several months.

  Bruno idly fingered the tip of his left ear. “Not much,” he said as he offered Raphael the water skin.

  Raphael took the offered skin. He was expecting water, but the liquid from the skin burned his lips and he coughed and sputtered, trying not to let it get any farther into his mouth. “What…what is this?” What little he swallowed burned all the way down, as if he had just ingested a hot coal.

  “Yasper and I have been working on the recipe,” Bruno said as he took the skin back and lifted it to his lips. He drank deeply, without any visibl
e stress. “The one on the left there is Mamut,” he said. “I think I did something to his arm.”

  Raphael shook his head as Bruno offered the skin again, and to forestall any more discussion about Bruno and Yasper’s little project, he walked toward Mamut, appraising the sweating man with a practiced eye.

  Mamut’s right shoulder had an unusual lump beneath his tunic and he was visibly quaking from pain. Dislocated, Raphael thought, and compounded by having his hands tied behind his back. He crouched beside Mamut and asked a question to which he already knew the answer. Mamut, understanding Raphael’s Arabic, nodded, his eyelids fluttering rapidly.

  “I’m not going to kill you,” Raphael said gently. “I want to help.” He touched Mamut lightly on the shoulder, above the lump. “I need to move your arm back in place,” he said. “It will hurt more than you are hurting now, but after that, the pain will pass. Do you understand?” When Mamut nodded, Raphael crab-walked around the man and leaned forward to fumble with his bonds. The knots were tight, and after picking at them for a few moments, he cut them with his knife. “Lie down,” he instructed Mamut, pushing against the man’s upper back.

  Mamut did as he was instructed and Raphael waved Bruno over. “When he did sustain this injury?” he asked.

  “Does it matter?” Bruno asked, heaving himself off his rock.

  “It might,” Raphael said.

  “I asked him some questions”—Bruno took a swig from the skin—“and I didn’t like his answers.” He swayed slightly as he did, the spirits starting to take over the function of his legs and torso.

  “Hold him,” Raphael said, and when Bruno knelt down and laid a thick arm across Mamut’s left shoulder, he gently gathered Mamut’s right arm in his hands. Mamut started to squirm, and Raphael put his left knee against Mamut’s torso and quickly straightened Mamut’s arm and leaned back, pulling as hard as he could. A grating noise came from Mamut’s shoulder, soon drowned out by Mamut’s shrieks, and then the arm hopped in Raphael’s grip. The lump disappeared, restoring Mamut’s shoulder to its normal shape, and the injured man pressed his face against the ground, weeping openly.