Katabasis (The Mongoliad Cycle, Book 4)

by Joseph Brassey

  Gawain and Yasper were on foot. He, Percival, and Bruno were mounted. The others had left hours before, and shortly before sunrise, Ahmet and Evren had ridden north in search of the steppe deer herd that Haakon had spotted the other day. The Seljuks were tasked with stampeding the herd toward the depression. It was a desperate idea, but the more confusion that could be sown on the battlefield, the less organized the Mongols would be. The key to shattering their efficient swarming techniques was to keep them off guard.

  “They’re coming,” Bruno said, pointing with his ax toward an undulating black line to the south.

  “Let’s get ready,” Raphael said, plucking his helmet off the horn of his saddle and settling it on his head. Beside him, Percival stretched in his stirrups, eager for the combat to start. Raphael fleetingly wished he hadn’t sent Vera with the others, but he had needed to send a strong fighter. As soon as we’re done here, we’ll join them, he thought, banging on the top of his helmet to make sure it was seated well. Perhaps we’ll even be in time to intercept Graymane and his arban.

  Since there was no way to hide on the steppe, Alchiq’s arban rode hard for the Skjaldbrœður party. Gansukh counted five riders, and his heart skipped momentarily when he couldn’t pick Lian out of the group. But then he spotted two who were smaller than the others, and his heart started pounding more normally again.

  Alchiq whistled at the others and their group split, dividing into three squads—much like they had when Gansukh and Alchiq had first been discovered by Totukei’s riders. Bows were readied, and they started shouting battle cries as they drove their horses into battle.

  Suddenly the Skjaldbrœður group changed direction, wheeling to the right, and then nearly as quickly came to a complete stop. Riders leaped off their horses and as the small herd of extra animals caught up with the main group, the Skjaldbrœður disappeared into a confusion of legs and manes.

  The trio of Mongol riders on Gansukh’s right were closest and they hesitated, unwilling to fire arrows indiscriminately into the confusion of horses, and as Gansukh watched, two suddenly pitched from their saddles as the Skjaldbrœður picked them off with their shorter-ranged crossbows. The third man pulled his horse away, but it stumbled—Gansukh couldn’t tell if it was from clumsiness or if it had been struck by a crossbow bolt—and the rider leaped out of the saddle before he could be pinned by the falling horse.

  A figure popped up in the midst of the group, standing in a stirrup, and it hurled something in the general direction of the second group. This group reacted more quickly, and the figure jerked as it disappeared, two arrows striking it square in the chest.

  The thrown object turned end over end, a spray of sparks trailing after it, and when it hit the ground, it burst into a sheet of flame.

  “Shoot the horses,” Alchiq screamed. He raised his bow, pulling the string back with his maimed hand, and loosed an arrow into the throat of one of the horses in the front rank. The horse reared, spooking the already frightened horses near it, and when its front legs hit the ground again, they folded and the horse went down.

  A second figure appeared, arm pulled back to throw another incendiary, and Gansukh—knowing the Skjaldbrœður maille was nearly impervious to his arrows—aimed for the figure’s head. The figure brought its arm forward, but its aim was thrown off when an arrow from one of the other Mongols ricocheted off the metal helm. The object arced up instead of being thrown flat. Without thinking, Gansukh shifted his aim and loosed his arrow at the spinning object.

  His arrow struck its target, and the bomb exploded, showering the steppe in a fiery rain.

  Vera had thrown the first of the three alchemical fire bombs that Yasper had concocted for them, and she had taken two Mongol arrows for her effort. They didn’t penetrate her maille, and while Cnán was worrying them out of Vera’s shirt, Haakon grabbed the second fire bomb. They had already taken care of the trio on the left; the group on the right was diverted by the wall of fire, and when he put his foot in the stirrup of his horse and levered himself up to throw the bomb, he was aiming for the group coming right at them.

  The arrow bounced off his helmet, and he tried to correct his aim, but he was already committed. He fell out of his stirrup, staggering to stay on his feet, and through the narrow gaps in his helmet, he tried to spot the ill-thrown bomb.

  Fire erupted overhead, and rivulets of flame cascaded down like a freak spring squall. The horses, which were already spooked, panicked and stampeded away from all the fire. He was struck in the shoulder by a running horse, spun around, and had to dart out of the path of a second horse. A third galloped at him, and when he tried to get out of its way, it shifted direction, still heading right for him.

  He realized this horse had a rider.

  The Mongol swiped at him with a curved sword, and Haakon ducked under the blade, feeling the tip scrape across the back of his maille, and he tried to grab at the Mongol’s leg as the horse flashed past. His fingers encountered heavy cloth, but he couldn’t maintain his grip.

  He stumbled, trying to orient himself in the smoky pandemonium that the battlefield had become. A pair of horses still milled nearby, and beyond them, he saw the body of another horse. A horse and rider were charging him, and as he frantically cast about for something that he might use as a spear, he caught sight of the third fire bomb, lying on its side, its tiny wick still burning.

  He scooped it up, and he felt the clay pot shift and crumble in his hand but he threw it anyway.

  The Mongol tried to turn his horse, but the animal was coming too fast, and the horse screamed as it ran into the spray of fire that was flying from Haakon’s hand. It reared, throwing its rider, and bowled forward, its withers and head crawling with fire.

  Haakon had a glimpse of white teeth and the smell of burning flesh overwhelmed him as he leaped aside, trying to dodge the pain-maddened horse. He realized his gauntlet was on fire and was trying to shake the flames off when someone slammed into him and knocked him sprawling.

  “The Virgin watches over us,” Percival said, drawing Raphael’s attention away from the charging line of Mongols. He turned his head and looked to the north. A hazy cloud indicated that Ahmet and Evren had found the deer herd and had managed to stampede it in the right direction.

  Indeed, he thought, the Virgin does reward us in our time of need.

  “Yasper,” Raphael called. “Time to redirect the herd.”

  The alchemist jogged forward, breaking the line of Shield-Brethren horsemen. In each hand he held a clay pot, stopped with mud and stuffed with a bit of oil-soaked cloth. Clutched in his teeth was a stick, one end of which was still smoldering. The alchemist jogged a dozen paces in front of the group and then stopped, glancing at both of the approaching herds of four-legged animals. He put one of his pots down, took the stick out of his mouth, and applied the hot end to the oil-soaked cloth. It caught fire almost instantly and, after judging distances once more, Yasper threw the pot as hard as he could toward the distant line of charging Mongols.

  The pot hit the ground, broke, and scattered a wash of fire across the steppe. It wasn’t more than a few paces long and not very wide, but it was bright and hot, and the herd of stampeding steppe deer shifted direction immediately.

  Yasper lit the second pot and threw it to his left, spooking the deer again. The running herd was redirected, and the two Seljuks peeled away from chasing the group, no longer needed.

  The stampeding herd of deer was now heading directly at the approaching Mongols.

  “Alalazu!” Raphael shouted, slapping his horse on the rump. His horse leaped forward and he sensed Percival and Bruno spurring their horses as well. They charged after the running herd and the Seljuks fell in with them.

  For God and the Virgin, he thought, steeling himself for battle.

  The only one of their company who was not surprised by the fiery rain was the old man, Feronantus. To Lian, he had been a strange addition to their company. The others clearly held him in high regard, even though he h
ad abandoned them back at Burqan-qaldun, but since they had found him wandering on the steppe, he had been unresponsive and nearly catatonic. Raphael had tried to reach him during the planning of their stand against the Mongols, and she inferred that Feronantus had been some manner of military genius, but for all of Raphael’s efforts, the old man had been monosyllabic in response. Even when Vera had given the command to circle the horses and dismount, he had complied readily and without comment.

  When the arrow struck Haakon’s ill-thrown bomb and the rain had fallen on them, pandemonium had erupted in their cluster of horses and men. Feronantus had remained stock still, staring up at the falling rain, clutching the burned stick that had once been the Khagan’s Spirit Banner. None of the falling streaks of fire had touched him, and as the horses spooked and ran, they instinctively shied away from him.

  And then the Mongols had been on them. Lian had aimed her borrowed crossbow and pulled the trigger, knowing that she wouldn’t have time to reload it. The bolt missed its mark, and she had scrambled out of the path of the charging horse. The rider missed her with his sword and was turning his mount for another try when Feronantus knocked him from his horse with the staff.

  The Mongol flew out of his saddle, turned his fall into a partially successful roll, and charged Feronantus with a drawn knife. Feronantus swept the outstretched arm aside and jabbed the butt of the staff so hard into the man’s face that blood flew when his head snapped back.

  “Get the horse,” Feronantus shouted at her, and she responded without even thinking, such was the strength of his voice.

  The horse shied away from her as she approached it, but it didn’t run, and she managed to grab its dangling reins. Speaking in a calm voice, she tried to soothe it. She tried to hide the terror that was still battering around inside her chest like a trapped bird.

  She spotted Vera and Cnán, the latter being supported by the former, blood running down the side of her head, and she pulled the horse toward the pair. More arrows jutted from Vera’s maille, but the Shield-Maiden did not appear hurt. Cnán, however, couldn’t stand without help, and when Lian reached them, she saw that Cnán’s eyes were glassy and unfocused. Her hat was gone, and the side of her head was sticky with blood.

  “Take the horse,” she said to Vera. Vera tried to argue but Lian shook her head. “She can’t ride by herself, and I can’t ride for two. Take her and go. I’ll get another one.”

  She was grateful that Vera was eternally pragmatic and saw the merit of what she was saying. She helped Vera get the wobbly Cnán up into the saddle, and she held the horse still while Vera got settled behind the wounded Binder. “The Virgin watch you,” Vera said as Lian handed her the reins, and Lian nodded in return as Vera drummed her heels against the barrel of the horse and it ran eagerly from the burning battlefield.

  There were scattered fires all around her, and the smell of burning horse meat. An animal screamed somewhere off to her left, but she couldn’t see anything through the haze. Her eyes watered and she started to cough. A Mongol corpse lay sprawled near her, a curved sword on the ground near his open hand. She scooped the weapon up, juggling the sword until she got it seated well in her hand.

  Hearing muffled grunts, she tracked toward the sound of men straining against one another. She spotted Haakon wrestling with a Mongol, and as she approached the pair, intending to use the sword on the Mongol, they rolled over. The Mongol was on top of Haakon, his hands around Haakon’s throat, his knee pinning Haakon’s right arm against the ground.

  “Gansukh?”

  Hearing her voice, the Mongol looked up, staring at her.

  Haakon pulled his arm free, revealing a knife in his hand. Genghis’s knife, Lian realized, and she watched with horror as the Northerner stabbed Gansukh in the side.

  “No!”

  Between the haze from the clay pot fires and the number of riders, it was difficult for Yasper to follow the battle between the Shield-Brethren and the Mongol riders. He wished, not for the first time, that he had a tree or a battlement to climb so that he could get a better view. As it was, he hopped from foot to foot, nervously waiting for some overt sign of who was winning.

  Beside him, Gawain carefully tracked outliers of the skirmish, watching for patterns in the movement of the Mongol riders that would allow him to anticipate where they would be. They were at the extreme range of his bow; at that distance, luck and the vicarious whimsy of the wind would contribute as much as his own skill at archery to whether his arrow struck its target or not. The Mongols were too smart to bunch up, making for an easier target. A neat line of eleven arrows, their points shoved into the ground, were arrayed next to him. Two similar lines of readied arrows were spaced behind them, a half dozen paces separating each.

  A light wind was coming from the north, and Yasper was hoping that it might switch to the west. Would God bless them with such assistance? he wondered. He glanced over his shoulder at the voluminous shroud raised over the pool in the depression. Attached to the center of the cover was a bundle containing the rest of his alchemical supplies and the second phoenix egg.

  The Shield-Brethren were depending on his alchemy, and he tried not to dwell on how much his experiment relied on speculative philosophy. The canvas of the tents was moderately waterproof and he hoped it was impermeable to invisible vapors as well. If he was right, then the toxic fumes coming off the black pool would be collecting inside the shroud. He hoped the Persian alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan was right about the flammable properties of those fumes when Jabir had written Kitab al-Zuhra, his treatise on alchemy.

  Gawain’s bowstring sang, and Yasper turned around in time to see a Mongol rider tumble off his horse. The tide of the battle had shifted and was coming toward them now, forming a wedge. At the tip were two riders in white tabards.

  Gawain loosed another arrow. “Bruno’s down,” he said as he plucked a third arrow from the line arranged before him. The second arrow struck a horse that went down hard, throwing its rider. Another horse collided with the downed horse, putting another Mongol on the ground.

  A line of riders peeled off from the main wedge, swinging out to Yasper’s right. The Mongols weren’t in arrow range yet for their less powerful bows, but the second group was going to try to flank Gawain, forcing him to split his attention between the two groups.

  Gawain put an arrow through the chest of the lead rider of the flankers. “They’ll be in range in a few seconds,” he said to Yasper. “I could use that cover now.”

  Yasper scrambled over to the long panel of bound branches that Cnán and Lian had assembled during the company’s preparations. It was nothing more than a rectangle of branches lashed together to form a makeshift screen. It was flimsy and had several gaps in it that were wide enough for an arrow to slip through, but it was better than no protection at all. Grunting, Yasper hauled it upright and, using the two handles that stuck out from the back side, he hauled it around to Gawain’s right so that it stood between him and the oncoming archers. Just as he braced it up, he heard a rattling sound like pebbles against a wooden shutter and the panel vibrated slightly against his shoulder.

  Gawain fired his penultimate arrow, and then grabbed the last one from the ground. He flexed his body, pulling the heavy bowstring back, and he held the fletching next to his cheek for what Yasper thought was an interminable moment. A few Mongol arrows stuck in the ground not far from him, and Gawain exhaled—almost sadly, Yasper thought—and the fletching vanished from between his fingers.

  Gawain lowered his bow and ducked behind the panel with Yasper. More arrows fell around them and some rattled against the screen. One flashed through a gap not far from Yasper’s left hand, and he yelped as the fletching buzzed against his skin. “Let’s move,” Gawain shouted and, each holding one of the handles, they retreated in tiny steps, heading for the next line of Gawain’s arrows.

  As soon as they were in range, the Mongols started shooting arrows at them. The next thirty seconds were the most dangerous of their attack.
Their advantage over the Mongols lasted only as long as they could remain as mobile as the horse riders, and if the Mongols targeted their horses, they’d be on foot, and the battle would be very one-sided. Fortunately the stampeding deer were still causing confusion among the Mongol ranks, and the arrows that flew in their direction were not well targeted. A number struck Raphael in the chest and arms, but none of them stuck in his maille.

  And then they had reached the Mongol ranks, and their handheld weapons came to bear. Raphael caught sight of Percival taking a Mongol’s head off with a single stroke of his sword, and then he lost sight of the Frank. A Mongol screamed at him as their horses rushed past each other, and the man’s curved sword slashed his tabard and slid off his maille. Raphael clouted him on the side of the head with his mace, and the man tumbled bonelessly from his saddle.

  A second Mongol came at him from his right side, and he got his mace around enough to deflect the man’s sword so that it rang off the side of his helmet. He leaned over and punched the man in the face with his metal-studded gauntlet, and then followed through with a backhanded sweep of his mace that ended the man’s life.

  On his left, Bruno lost his hand ax in the shoulder of a Mongol, and as the Lombard pulled his sword from its scabbard, he was struck in the shoulder by a Mongol arrow. The arrow went through the leather guard, and Bruno sagged for a moment. He rallied, spurring his horse toward the man who had put the arrow in him, and delivered his revenge with a savage stroke of his blade. The arrow slowed him, though, and he wasn’t quick enough in the saddle to block another Mongol’s sword. Raphael saw blood on the Mongol’s blade as the two combatants separated.