Katabasis (The Mongoliad Cycle, Book 4)

by Joseph Brassey

  Raphael coaxed him back to the stake and tied his hands again, in front this time, so as to alleviate the stress on his reset shoulder. He wound the extra cord around the stake, which was now between Mamut’s legs. “It’ll do for a little while,” he said to Bruno, who was watching with a raised eyebrow.

  He slipped the skin out of Bruno’s grip and took another drink of the fiery water as he wandered back to the rock and sat down. It didn’t burn as much the second time, and there was a floral hint beneath the acrid taste of ash.

  It felt good to sit and drink, and he wouldn’t have minded doing so for the rest of the afternoon, but there was much to do yet. He caught sight of Vera and Gawain approaching, and he took a final sip—a very small one—before tossing the skin back to Bruno.

  “Eight horses,” he said to Gawain. “It would have been nice to get all twelve.”

  Gawain glanced at the prisoners briefly, checking each face to see if he knew the man, and then nodded at Bruno, who threw him the skin. “One took an arrow. The wind blew it off target,” he said with a shrug. “We can probably round up the rest in a day or two.”

  “We probably shouldn’t wait that long,” Raphael said. “Besides, once these men get loose, they’ll need steeds.”

  Gawain’s face darkened slightly and Raphael wasn’t sure if it was from the spirits or what he had just said. “I am not the only one who has been hiding, am I?”

  Vera gestured for Gawain to share the skin, and Raphael watched her drink the fire water without any visible distress. “Those Mongol riders that Ahmet and Evren spotted might be looking for us,” Raphael said.

  “Might be?”

  “It’s hard to say if it is those Mongols specifically,” Raphael dissembled and Vera laughed.

  “Am I missing something?” Bruno asked.

  “I think we both are,” Gawain added.

  “We’re going to continue north and west,” Raphael said. “North of Saray-Jük. There’s a Khazar village beyond the big river. We’ll resupply there and continue west. We could use a longbowman.” He glanced at Bruno. “Bruno is good with the horses.”

  “Bruno and I have some unfinished business to the south,” Gawain said, but then he noticed that Bruno wouldn’t meet his gaze. “What?” he snapped.

  Bruno shook his head.

  Raphael suddenly understood what questions Bruno had been asking earlier, and he quickly put himself between Gawain and the prisoner. “I suspect there is nothing you can do,” he said gently.

  Gawain glared at Bruno. “What happened?”

  Bruno sighed and looked down at the skin in his hands. “She’s dead, Gawain. They’re all dead. After Haidar ran us off, he went back and—”

  Gawain launched himself at Mamut, but Raphael caught him before he could put his hands on the prisoner. Vera came up behind the Welshman and bound his arms with hers. Gawain struggled against both of them for a moment, and then relented. Tears silently tracked down his cheeks. Raphael carefully released Gawain and let Vera pull him away from the prisoners. Gawain struggled briefly, and then subsided, letting Vera direct him toward the tents.

  Bruno and Raphael watched Gawain stumble away, and Raphael wished he could do more to offset the Welshman’s suffering.

  “Who is chasing you?” Bruno asked, breaking the silence.

  “Mongols,” Vera said.

  “How many?”

  “All of them, probably,” Vera replied casually as if she were commenting on the mild weather they were having.

  The evening meal was a somber affair, and little conversation was shared among the company. While the steppe was showing signs of spring growth, the nights were still bitterly cold, especially when there were no clouds to obscure the stars. The company was making preparations to decamp in the morning, and Cnán had almost nothing to pack. Helping Yasper with his alchemy experiment was an excuse to stay close to the fire, though the usually talkative Dutchman was oddly reticent this evening.

  “So Gawain and Bruno will be joining us,” she said as he finished packing the first of his pots and started tamping ash into a second.

  “Aye,” Yasper said. “And the Seljuks too, I suppose. Though I heard some heated words from their tent earlier. I suspect they’re not happy to learn that those Mongol scouts they spotted are probably going to return with others.”

  When he finished the first layer of ash, he applied himself to the delicate next step: getting the oblong shape of his alchemical egg out of the fire without breaking it. She had been full of questions earlier when he had moved the first one, part of her efforts to engage him, and he had tolerated her inquisitiveness for a while, but eventually he had asked her to stop pestering him.

  And then he had immediately apologized for being rude to her. She had smiled at him, and had actually thought about reaching over and touching his shoulder, but had toyed with her hair instead, telling him no apology was necessary.

  What he really needed was a flat plate of iron, preferably with a handle of some kind. He had had an instrument like that in his kit once, but the horse carrying all of his alchemical instruments had been stolen in Kiev, and she knew it was best to not let him dwell overlong on the theft. He tended to get morose. He had found a piece of shale that was flat on one side and not very thick. As he dug ash out of the fire pit, he made a pit next to the buried cake; once it was deep enough to hold the flat rock, he packed the shale into the ashes, flat side up, and then he filled the empty space around the rock with more ash. He had to work quickly; if he left the stone in place too long, it would get too hot to touch, and then he’d have to dig it out and start over once it had cooled.

  The stone in place, he carefully laid his fire-poking stick along the far side of the cake and pushed it through the ash pit until it was resting atop the stone. He quickly dug the ash away from the edges of the stone and, gritting his teeth, he plucked the stone out of the ash. He held it close to the edge of the pot, and Cnán provided the sole bit of assistance she could by gently poking the cake with a stick so that it slid off the stone and into the pot.

  Yasper dropped the rock, and blew on his fingertips briefly before crossing his arms and shoving his hands into his armpits. “A little hot that time,” he said.

  “Are you hurt?” she asked.

  “No, no,” he shook his head. “I’ll be fine.”

  They sat awkwardly for a moment, and looking at Yasper with his arms crossed over his chest like he was hugging himself, Cnán started thinking about what had happened earlier in the day.

  “Yasper—” she started.

  “Yes, well,” he said, interrupting her, “I suppose I should see to the rest of my gear.” He pulled his hands free and inspected them. “See? They’re not burned.”

  “That’s good,” she said, letting go of the words she had been planning to say.

  He stood, dusting off his knees. “Do you think you could finish covering this?” he asked, pointing at the half full pot. “Equal parts ash and sand.”

  “I could,” Cnán said. There was a lump in her throat.

  “Ah, good, thank you.” He hesitated, at a loss for what to say, which was so unlike him that Cnán found herself starting to smile. “Well, I’m going to pack, then. You can just leave these here when you’re done.”

  “I will,” she said.

  He nodded once more and scampered off, looking like a bushy field mouse as he darted across the camp.

  Cnán watched him go, trying to swallow down the lump in her throat. What a funny little man, she thought, and it was only as she started to layer ash and dirt into the pot that she realized he had left her in charge of his alchemical experiment.

  She swallowed once more, the lump vanishing, and the smile she had been carefully nurturing bloomed.

  CHAPTER 19:

  FINDING THE TRAIL

  “Horse,” said Alchiq.

  Gansukh looked down at the dark brown body. It was indeed a horse.

  A single arrow protruded from the carcass at the b
ase of the neck, and black blood stained its neck and withers. The scavenger birds had taken its eyes already and were starting to work on the rest of the head. The belly of the horse bulged slightly.

  “Dead two or three days,” Gansukh assessed, and his attention returned to the large rock that they’d been riding toward since mid-morning. He’d heard about the rock from a Cuman trader in the village near the Aksu River. It was a camp site used by smugglers and other merchants who wished to avoid the attention garnered by traveling along the Silk Road. The Skjaldbrœður would need supplies and fresh horses, and he did not think they would risk showing their faces in any village where they would stand out as foreigners. The Cuman had been reluctant to tell Gansukh the location of the rock, but after making some faces and offering some coin, Gansukh had learned the Cuman wasn’t entirely sure. You can’t miss it, the trader had pleaded with him, once you get close enough.

  Gansukh knew how expansive the steppe was, and while he knew such a statement would undoubtedly be true, it was not a very helpful one. It was like being told that a hawk could not hide in a cloudless sky.

  And yet, they had managed to find the rock, and, judging from the length of the arrow jutting from the dead horse’s neck, they had found the men from the west as well.

  The carrion birds they had driven off the horse had joined others who were circling the rock, drifting on lazy thermals caused by the massive stone blocking the flow of the winds across the steppe. “More horses?” he asked Alchiq.

  Alchiq shrugged.

  He had been less talkative than normal after recovering from his wounds, as if any conversation should include some mention of gratitude for Gansukh’s ministrations but such acknowledgement was stuck in the older man’s throat. Until the blockage was removed, Alchiq’s ability to speak would be curtailed. Gansukh could have said something himself, but he had realized that to do so would only infuriate Alchiq all the more.

  Alchiq nudged his horse forward and let the beast amble toward the rock. Gansukh pulled his bow out of his quiver and ran a hand through the arrows so they would come out more readily if he needed them. He laid one across his bow and clucked at his horse to follow Alchiq. Both animals were well watered and fed, and it was several hours before sunset. He judged it would take them an hour to get to the rock at this pace. Anyone watching them would grow bored, and they would have time to see any activity before they had to act.

  But he suspected no one was at the rock, and he suspected Alchiq was thinking the same. The carrion birds only came where there was no danger to them. If anyone was alive at the rock, the birds wouldn’t be floating overhead: they’d all be pecking at the dead horse. But they weren’t. There is enough for all of them, Gansukh thought. Would the corpses they were sure to find be human bodies or would there just be more horses?

  Would he recognize any of the bodies?

  He’d been thinking about Lian more often than not since they had left the Aksu River, pondering why she had joined the Skjaldbrœður. He doubted she was a prisoner. There was no reason why they would still be treating her as such after crossing the pass during the winter. The only value she could possibly have for them was her Chinese heritage and they were riding away from China. No, more likely, she was part of their company now, and he had spent hours speculating on what she hoped to find in the West.

  In the one instance when he had mentioned Lian to Alchiq, the old hunter had dismissed her outright. It doesn’t matter, he had said. She isn’t Mongol and she rides with those who killed our Khagan. She will die too.

  Alchiq preferred simplicity in all things. Thinking too much led to inactivity, and inactivity led to death. It was very simple, after all.

  But Gansukh knew that Alchiq’s bluster hid an incredible cunning and determination. They knew the band of Skjaldbrœður they pursued did not have the Spirit Banner; in fact, the leader of the company—the only one of the Westerners whom Alchiq considered his equal—was not present. But they would know where the old Skjaldbrœður was; if they didn’t, it was merely because they hadn’t found him yet. He and Alchiq suspected they were looking for him too, and there would be no wholesale slaughter of the company if they caught up with the Skjaldbrœður. Not until the banner was found. Without it, they couldn’t return to Karakorum. Without it, they were lost.

  Three nights earlier, Gansukh had asked Alchiq if he thought about returning to Karakorum. Why? Alchiq had answered. Easier to slit my own throat now.

  Karakorum, for all of its glory, had been a prison to Gansukh. The walls of the Khagan’s compound had blocked his view of the steppe and the horizon, and the arcane rules of the court were impossible to fathom. Even with Lian’s help, he had barely managed to bluster his way into the Khagan’s confidence. So why did he want to go back? Was he not a son of the steppe?

  But he didn’t want to merely go back. He wanted to turn back the passage of the seasons too. He wanted it to be fall again, and to be at the court of the Khagan, trying to convince him to stop drinking. He wanted to be in the garden where he might chance upon Lian and engage her in some silly excuse for a lesson. He wanted to believe that he could help the empire.

  Instead, the Khagan was dead.

  If Lian had not run, would he have stayed with her? Would they have gone back to Karakorum with the others and participated in the kuraltai. Maybe Chagatai Khan would understand that he, Gansukh, had not failed, but that the empire itself had failed the Khagan. Gansukh allowed the fantasy to blossom in his mind. He would be pardoned by Chagatai Khan, even congratulated, perhaps, for having accomplished as much as he had, and he would be awarded a place in Chagatai’s retinue. While Ögedei’s brother and the other Khans argued over who would succeed the late Khagan, he and Lian would have their own debate. They could compare their impressions of the contenders. Gansukh would, most likely, advocate for Chagatai Khan, but Lian would deftly predict the actual victor of the kuraltai. She was wise in the ways of court.

  He wondered if she had managed to be useful to the Skjaldbrœður.

  Gansukh roused himself from his thoughts and noticed that Alchiq’s horse was missing its rider. He pulled on his reins, scanning the terrain for any sign of the old hunter. Alchiq’s horse was contentedly munching on a bush, and his own horse ambled to a stop and began to crop at the same bush.

  He heard a grunt and glanced down, spying a long gully that lay across their path. It was nearly invisible at any distance, and as he watched, Alchiq clambered awkwardly up the slope, a clay pot clutched in his damaged hand. “Smoker,” Alchiq said as he tossed the pot at Gansukh.

  Gansukh caught the pot and turned it over in his hands. It was a simple pot, but the insides and the rim were blackened as if something acrid had been burned within. He sniffed it cautiously and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. “Chinese powder,” he said. It smelled like the night the Chinese had attacked the Khagan’s caravan during the journey to Burqan-qaldun. The Chinese alchemists had had a device that hurled iron and fire, and the smoke that had come from it had the same bitter scent.

  “The short one,” Alchiq said. He had spotted something to Gansukh’s left and, indicating that Gansukh should bring his horse, he loped along the edge of the gully. Gansukh leaned over and gathered up the reins of the other horse and followed.

  When Alchiq leaped over the gully, Gansukh brought the horses to the same spot and dismounted, draping both sets of reins around the center trunk of a bush. He appraised the distance across the gully and took several steps back to get enough of a running start. He landed easily on the other side and jogged over to where Alchiq was standing beside another body.

  This one was male, and he had died from an arrow to the belly. Alchiq held up the broken tip of the long arrow, and Gansukh took it from him, curious about the arrowhead used by the Westerners. He had seen a Skjaldbrœður bowman put an arrow through men in armor and even a man and a horse together. The arrow that had pierced the corpse at their feet had gone nearly all the way through the man’s
belly. He shivered slightly, remembering the fight at the great bear’s cave.

  “I don’t know him,” Alchiq said.

  “Who?” Gansukh asked.

  “This one.” Alchiq nudged the corpse with his foot. “And we killed the Skjaldbrœður archer already so where did these arrows come from?”

  They split up, riding away from the rock in opposite directions and then circling around until they were approaching from the other side of the monolith. Gansukh’s horse needed little encouragement to gallop; the steppe-bred horses enjoyed running across the open spaces and he hadn’t let his run free for several days. He crouched low in his saddle, the wind whistling in his ears. His eyes scanned the area around the rock for any sign of movement—any sign that a living person was aware of his approach. As he got close enough to the rock to scan the empty ground, he urged his horse to his left, circling back around to the southern side of the rock.

  He spotted signs of human habitation. Strips of cloth tied to wooden stakes fluttered in the afternoon breeze. A sheet of canvas was stretched between an upright rock taller than a man and a pair of wooden poles that might have once been spear shafts. A length of rope hung between other poles, outlining a patch of ground for a horse corral.

  Alchiq was already in the camp, off his horse and stalking toward the lean-to with his sword in his hand. Gansukh slowed his horse and raised his bow, nocking an arrow. He spotted a circular ring of stones that was most likely the camp’s fire pit. He circled around the lean-to, his stomach muscles tightening as he passed across the opening that faced south.

  He let out the breath he had been holding. The lean-to was empty. He lowered his bow and stood in his stirrups to take one last look around the deserted camp. Nothing. He tugged on the reins, slowing his horse, and as the animal circled around to the back of the lean-to, he threw a leg over his saddle and slid off.