In the gloom, Tsubodai could see that Batu was grinning as he trotted up for orders. He kept his own face stern.
‘Your tuman is to hit the vanguard of their camp, Batu, where their king rests. Catch them asleep and destroy them. If you can reach the sandbag walls, tear them down. Approach as quietly as you can, then let your arrows and swords shout for you.’
‘Your will, orlok,’ Batu replied. For once, there was no mockery as he spoke the title.
‘I will ride with the tumans of Jebe and Chulgetei, to strike against their rear at the same moment. They are certain of our position and they will not expect us tonight. Their walls are worse than useless, for they feel safe within them. I want them in panic, Batu. Everything depends on routing them quickly. Do not forget that they outnumber us still. If they are well led, they could rally and re-form. We will be forced to fight to the last man and the losses will be huge. Do not throw away my army, Batu. Do you understand?’
‘I will treat them as if they were my own sons,’ Batu said.
Tsubodai snorted. ‘Ride then. Dawn is close and you must be in position.’
Tsubodai watched as Batu vanished silently into the darkness. There were no signal horns or naccara drums, not with the enemy so close and unsuspecting. Batu’s tuman formed up without fuss, setting off at a trot towards the Hungarian camp. The Mongol carts and gers and wounded had remained behind with the conscripts, left to fend for themselves. The tumans were unencumbered, able to ride fast and strike hard, as they preferred.
Tsubodai nodded sharply to himself. He had further to ride than Batu’s tuman and time was short. He mounted quickly, feeling his heart beat stronger in his chest. It was rare for him to feel excitement and he showed nothing in his face as he led the last two tumans into the west.
King Bela came awake, starting in his sleep at a crash of sound. He was covered in sweat and rubbed the last wisps of a nightmare from his eyes as he stood. In his blurred thoughts, he could hear the clash and screams of battle and he blinked, becoming aware that the sounds were real. In sudden fear, he stuck his head outside the command tent. It was still dark, but he saw Conrad von Thuringen on his horse, already in full armour. The marshal of the Teutonic Knights did not see Bela as he trotted past, shouting orders Bela could not make out over the tumult. Men were running in all directions, and out beyond the sandbags, he heard battle horns sound in the distance. Bela swallowed drily as he recognised a distant rumble that was growing louder and clearer with every passing moment.
He cursed and turned back to his tent, fumbling for clothes in the darkness. His servants were nowhere to be found and he stumbled over a chair, hissing with pain as he rose. He pulled a pair of heavy trousers from the fallen chair back and yanked them on. It all took precious time. He grabbed the embroidered jacket of his rank, pulling it over his shoulders as he raced out into the night. His horse had been brought and he mounted, needing the height to see.
The first light of dawn had stolen upon them in those moments. The sky to the east was growing pale, and with a shock of horror, Bela could see his ranks boiling in utter chaos. The sandbag walls there had spilled across the grass, worse than useless. His own men were coming through the gap, driven back by the savage riders and arrows slaughtering them outside. He heard Von Thuringen bellow orders to his knights as they rode to shore up the defences there. Desperate hope kindled in him.
The roar of drums began again and the king spun his charger on the spot. The Mongols were somehow behind him. How had they crossed the river? It was impossible, yet the drums rattled and grew.
Stunned, Bela rode through the camp, preferring to move rather than remain still, though his mind was a blank. His Magyars had breached their own camp boundaries in two places, pouring through them to what felt like safety. He could barely comprehend the losses they must have taken to be falling back in such a way.
As he watched, the holes widened and more and more crammed themselves behind the sandbags. Beyond them, the Mongols still tore into his bewildered men, sending them reeling with arrows and lances. In the growing light, there seemed no end to them and Bela wondered if they had somehow hidden an army until then.
Bela struggled to remain calm as the chaos increased around him. He knew he needed to retake the perimeter, to restore the camp and marshal his men within the walls. From there, he would be able to assess the losses, perhaps even begin a counter-attack. He bawled the order to the messengers and they rode out through the milling horsemen, shouting the words to anyone who could hear: ‘Rebuild the walls. Hold the walls.’ If it could be done, he might yet save the day from disaster. His officers would make order from the chaos. He would throw the tumans back.
The knights under Josef Landau heard him. They formed up and charged back across the camp in a solid mass. There were Mongols at the walls by then and a hail of arrows buzzed through the camp. In such a crush, there was no need to aim. Bela could hardly believe the losses, but the knights struggled on like men possessed, knowing as he did that the walls were their only salvation. Von Thuringen led a hundred of his own armoured men, the enormous marshal easy to mark with his beard and longsword.
The knights proved their worth to him then, Landau and Von Thuringen shattering the Mongols who had dared to enter the camp, driving them back towards the wide holes in the walls. They fought with righteous rage, and for once the Mongols did not have room to nip and dart past them. Bela watched with his heart in his mouth as the Teutonic Knights blocked one breach with their horses, holding shields against the arrows still pouring through. Landau was struck by something and Bela had a glimpse of his head lolling limp as his horse bolted away. For a moment, the knight struggled, his arms flailing, then he fell into the churned mud almost at Bela’s feet. There was blood coming from under his neck plates, though Bela could see no wound. Trapped and suffocating in his armour, Landau died slowly, his body buffeted by those running around and over him.
Unhorsed men yanked and sweated at the sandbags, rebuilding the walls as quickly as they could. The Mongols came again, using their horses to ride right up to the walls and then leaping over them, so that they landed tumbling. One by one, those intruders were killed, taken by the same regiment of archers who had assaulted the bridge the night before. Bela began to breathe more easily as the threat of imminent destruction receded. The walls were repaired, his enemies howling outside them. They had taken grievous losses, though nothing like his own. He thanked God he had built the camp large enough to shelter his men.
King Bela stared at the heaps of dead soldiers and horses piled around the edges. They were thick with shafts, some still twitching. The sun was high and he could not believe the time had passed so quickly since the first alarms.
From the back of his horse, he could see the Mongols were still pressing close to the walls. There was only one true gate and he sent archers to cover it against another attack. He saw Von Thuringen gather the knights there in a column and Bela could only watch as they pulled down their visors and readied lances. At a bellow from Von Thuringen, the gate was pulled open. Almost six hundred kicked their chargers into a gallop and rode out into the storm. Bela thought he would not see them again.
He had the wits to send archers to every wall with full quivers. All around him, the snap of bows began and he breathed faster as he heard guttural yells from outside. The Teutonic Knights were in their element, slicing through the Mongol riders, using weight and speed to cut them down as they roared and screamed outside the sandbag walls. Bela could hardly control his fear. Inside the camp, men and horses roiled in a crush, but a great part of his army had been slaughtered in their sleep. Outside, Bela heard the jeers and whoops of the Mongols suddenly choked off as Von Thuringen battered through them. He felt himself grow cold. He would not escape from this place. They had trapped him and he would die with the rest.
It seemed an age before Von Thuringen came back through the gate. The gleaming column of knights had been reduced to no more than eighty, perhaps a hun
dred. The men who returned were battered and bloody, many of them reeling in their saddles with arrows sticking out of their armour. The Magyar horsemen were in awe of the knights and many of them dismounted to help them down from the saddle. Von Thuringen’s huge beard was stained with rusty blood and he looked like some dark god, his blue eyes furious as they fell on the Hungarian king.
Bela needed guidance and he returned the gaze like a deer staring helplessly at a lion. Through the heaving mass of men, Conrad von Thuringen came riding, the marshal’s face as grim as his own.
Batu was panting as he rode up to Tsubodai. The orlok stood by his horse on a ridge of land that stretched across the battlefield, watching the battles he had ordered. Batu had expected the orlok to be furious at the way the attack had gone, but instead Tsubodai smiled to see him. Batu rubbed at a clot of mud sticking to his neck and returned the smile uncertainly.
‘Those knights are impressive,’ Batu said.
Tsubodai nodded. He had seen the bearded giant throw his men back. The Mongol warriors had been too close, unable to manoeuvre when the knights came charging out. Even so, the sudden attack had been unnerving for its discipline and ferocity. The knights had hacked their way through his men like tireless butchers, closing the gaps in their own ranks as arrows found them and sent them falling to the ground. Each one that fell took two or three warriors with him, grunting and kicking out until he was held and cut.
‘There are not so many now,’ Tsubodai replied, though the attack had shaken his certainties. He had not dismissed the threat of the knights, but perhaps he had underestimated their strength in the right time and place. That bearded maniac had found the moment, surprising his tuman just as they were howling for victory. Still, only a few knights made it back. When the volleys of arrows began to snap out from the walls, Tsubodai had given the order to retreat out of range. His own warriors had begun to return the shafts, but the deaths were unequal as Bela’s archers shot from behind a stable wall of sandbags. For an instant, Tsubodai had considered another charge to break the walls, but the cost would have been too high. He had them inside their own walls, weaker than any Chin fortress. He doubted they had enough water for so many crammed into the camp.
The orlok stared out across the plains with its heaps of bodies, some still crawling. The attacks had smashed the Hungarian army, shattering their overconfidence at last. He was pleased, but he bit his lip as he pondered how to finish the work.
‘How long can they hold?’ Batu asked suddenly, echoing his thoughts so closely that Tsubodai looked at him in surprise.
‘A few days before their water runs out, no more,’ he said. ‘But they will not wait until then. The question is how many men and horses, how many arrows and lances, they have left. And how many of those cursed knights.’
It was hard to make a good estimate. The grasslands were littered with the dead, but he could not know how many had survived to reach their king. He closed his eyes for a moment, summoning up the image of the land as if he flew above it. His ragged conscripts were still across the river, no doubt staring balefully at the small contingent who had forced the bridge and held the other side. The king’s camp lay between Tsubodai and the river, trapped and held in one spot.
Once again, Batu had mirrored his thoughts.
‘Let me send a messenger to bring the foot soldiers back across the river,’ Batu said.
Tsubodai ignored him. He did not yet know how many of his Mongol warriors had been killed or wounded that morning. If the king had saved even half his army, he would have enough left to force a battle on equal terms, a battle that Tsubodai could only win by throwing his tumans in hard. The precious army he had brought on the great trek would be reduced, battered against an enemy of equal strength and will. It would not do. He thought furiously, opening his eyes to stare at the land around the camp. Slowly he smiled, and this time Batu was not there before him.
‘What is it, orlok? Shall I send a messenger across the river ford?’
‘Yes. Tell them to slaughter the king’s men across the river. We must retake that bridge, Batu. I do not want the king sending men to the river for water.’
Tsubodai tapped his boot on the ridge beneath him. ‘When that is done, I will pull my tumans further back, another mile from this point. Thirst will make their decision for them.’
Batu could only look on in confusion as Tsubodai showed his teeth in what might have been a grin.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Temuge was sweating, though the air was cold in the courtyard of the palace. He could feel the hard length of the knife he had concealed under his robe. There had been no search of the men summoned there that morning, though he had made sure by hiding the weapon so that it chafed his groin and caused him to shift his weight.
In the distance, Temuge could hear hammering, the sound that filled his days. The fortification of Karakorum went on day and night, as it would do until the banners of Chagatai were seen on the horizon. If Sorhatani and Torogene held the city long enough for Guyuk to return, they would be praised above all women. Men would talk of the way they had girded Karakorum for war for generations to come. The name of Temuge, keeper of the khan’s libraries, would be forgotten.
He stared coldly at Sorhatani as she addressed the small crowd. Alkhun was there as the senior minghaan of the khan’s Guards. Temuge felt the man look strangely at him and ignored him. He breathed deeply of the cold air, thinking, planning, deciding. His brother Genghis had once walked into a khan’s ger and cut his throat. Genghis should not have survived it, but he had quieted the man’s tribe with words and threats. They had stopped to listen. Temuge burned at the thought that the men and women in the courtyard would stop and listen to him.
He fingered the hilt of the knife under his clothes. There was no destiny in life, nothing beyond what a man could take and hold for himself. Temuge had been witness to the bloody birth of a nation. Whether they understood it or not, they owed him their city, their lives, everything. If it had not been for Genghis, the men and women in that cold yard would still be grubby goatherders on the plains, with each tribe at the throat of the next. They were even living longer than the men and women he had known as a boy. Chin and Moslem healers had saved many from illnesses that had once been mortal.
Despite the surging anger, part of him was still terrified of what he planned. Again and again, Temuge let his hands fall open, telling himself the moment had passed: his moment in history. Then the memory of his brothers would surface and he could feel them mocking his indecision. It was just a death, nothing more, certainly nothing to unman him in such a way. He felt sweat trickle down his neck and wiped at it, drawing the gaze of Yao Shu. Their eyes met and Temuge was reminded that he was not alone in his plotting. The chancellor had been more than open with him. The man hid a vicious hatred of Sorhatani that had led Temuge into revealing more of his thoughts and dreams than he had planned.
Sorhatani dismissed the officers of Karakorum to their day’s work and began to turn away. Torogene went with her, already discussing some detail.
‘A moment, my lady,’ Temuge said.
His mouth seemed to work without his volition, spitting out the words. Sorhatani was in a hurry and barely gestured for him to follow her as she stepped down and walked towards the cloistered hallway back into the palace rooms. It was that casual gesture that firmed his nerve with anger. To have such a woman treat him as a supplicant was enough to bring a flush to his features. He hurried to catch up with the women, taking strength from the presence of Yao Shu falling in with them. He glanced back at the open courtyard as they passed into shadow, frowning as he saw Alkhun was still there, staring after him.
Sorhatani had made a mistake in letting him come so close in the shadows. He reached out and took her arm. She shook off his grip.
‘What do you want, Temuge?’ she snapped. ‘I have a thousand things to do this morning.’
It was not a time for words, but he spoke to cover the moment as he reached for
the knife under his deel robe.
‘My brother Genghis would not want a woman to rule his lands,’ he said.
She stiffened and he brought out the blade. Torogene gasped and took a step away, already panicking. Sorhatani’s eyes widened in shock. Temuge grabbed her with his left hand and drew back his arm to drive the dagger into her chest.
He felt his arm gripped with such strength that he stumbled and cried out. Yao Shu held him and the man’s eyes were cold with disdain. Temuge yanked at his arm, but he could not free himself. Panic spread through his chest, making his heart flutter.
‘No,’ he said. Spittle had gathered in two white specks at the corner of his mouth. He could not understand what was happening.
‘You were right after all, Yao Shu,’ Sorhatani said. She did not look at Temuge, as if he had ceased to matter at all. ‘I’m sorry to have doubted you. I just never thought he would truly be so stupid.’
Yao Shu tightened his grip and the dagger fell with a clatter on the stone floor.
‘He has always been a weak man,’ he replied. He shook Temuge suddenly, making him cry out in fear and astonishment. ‘What do you want done with him?’
Sorhatani hesitated and Temuge struggled to find his wits.
‘I am the last brother of Genghis,’ he said. ‘And what are you? Who are you to sit in judgement of me? A Chin monk and two women. You have no right to judge me.’
‘He is no threat,’ Yao Shu went on, as if Temuge had not spoken. ‘You could banish him from the khanate, send him far away like any wanderer.’
‘Yes, send him far away,’ Torogene said. She was shaking, Temuge saw.
Temuge felt Sorhatani’s gaze on him and he took a long, slow breath, knowing his life hung in her hands.
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