Raphael and Rædwulf and Istvan, preoccupied with picking off stray Mongols trying to climb the hedge, had been paying no attention to the end of the field by the forest salient and the old farm hovels. Another squadron of Mongols had found their way through by that route. They were slicing furiously at the neck-high ropes that had been strung from tree to tree. Four riders had passed through and gathered at the head of the field, waiting for several more comrades to join them.
But when they heard Yasper’s shout and saw the archers turn and aim their way, they mounted a direct charge rather than wait to be picked off.
Istvan loosed a single shaft and then spurred his stallion right at them, slinging his bow over his shoulder and drawing his curved sword; he and the foremost of the charging Mongols clashed in the center of the field, blade on blade. The Mongol rode away, upright, but with a dismayed, fading look, missing half of his sword arm.
Two others went down with arrows in neck and chest, but the fourth somehow managed to thread his way through Istvan, the archers, Yasper, and Cnán. He galloped straight for Taran, who had his back turned. In the Mongol’s wake followed half a dozen more who had found their way over the same path as the first four.
The fighters in the smoke cloud had heard the commotion and become aware of the danger. Illarion and Feronantus came running, leaving Percival and Roger to guard what had now become the battle’s rear.
Cnán was captivated for some moments by the sight of Feronantus, on foot, entering into single combat with a charging Mongol knight on a horse. Feronantus tossed his sword into the air as if playing with it, letting it spin lazily end over end, and caught it by the flat of its blade, which he pinched between the balls of his fingers and the heel of his hand. Stepping aside so that the Mongol’s blow whistled past his chin, close enough to sever whiskers, he brought his sword’s hilt up, swinging it like a pickax so that the sharp end of the crossguard jammed upward into the rider’s armpit and caught there, jerking him backward off his horse.
Pinning the downed man with a foot on his neck, Feronantus reversed the sword again and drove it up beneath his helmet.
That was the last of the Mongols to die. But it was not the last of the Mongols.
One remained at the head of the field, near the old hovel. He half squatted on his saddle, bent over, one foot out of its stirrup and raised behind the pommel, elbow on that knee, fist supporting his chin—defiantly casual, confident. Watching. A stocky man, even by Mongol standards, attired in armor that was good but not flashy. He rode an excellent horse but wore no helmet, and his gray hair hung loose beneath the shaved tonsure that all of the Mongol warriors affected.
When Cnán first noticed him, Rædwulf was in the act of shooting an arrow at him, but the gray-haired Mongol leaned back, deftly raised his shield, and caught the shaft just short of his face. He peered over the shield, eyes glinting, and seeing there was not another arrow coming, he held his curved sword high and shook it in what might have been anger, or a salute. Communicating with his horse with guttural shouts and knee-and-heel work, he spun it around and galloped into the woods.
Istvan wheeled as if to give chase, but Feronantus, standing nearby, reached over and grabbed the horse’s rein. “Stop,” he said. “You will never catch him. Your mount is half dead. And besides, for now your rage has accomplished more than enough.”
Istvan seemed proud to have received this compliment, until, noting a grim look on Feronantus’s face, he followed the older man’s gaze to a place about ten strides away, where Taran lay on the ground, facedown, motionless.
CHAPTER 15:
A NOCTURNAL PURSUIT
Gansukh dozed, the rhythmic motion of his horse and the distant sound of the Orkhun River lulling him into a somnambulant state. His lower back and left shoulder still ached—the former having been bruised when he had leaped from the wall and used a ger to break his fall. The structure had collapsed under his weight, preventing him from serious injury, but he had sprawled into a bulky object inside the ger as everything had come tumbling down.
The jump had been the last in a litany of foolish actions undertaken in the last few hours, a list he had had ample time to relive in his mind as he tracked the assassin.
The assassin had fled Karakorum, as Gansukh had suspected he would, via the western gate, though he had opted for a much less traveled route—over the wall instead of through the market gate. A pile of timber and stone—building materials awaiting a location in which to be assembled—had afforded the assassin and Gansukh a shortcut to the outer wall. The assassin had—much more deftly—leaped from the pile of timbers to the crenellations of the wall, clambered up, and leaped again over the far side. When Gansukh—slamming himself against the battlement as if he were a boulder from a catapult—had managed to climb atop the wall, he had seen that the assassin had used a ger to break his fall.
There were many ger to choose from; the population of Karakorum always swelled to a density greater than the walls could hold when the Khagan was in residence. Many a clan pitched their tents in tiny villages along the outside of the walls. What had given Gansukh pause was the height.
He had stared down from a bird’s-eye view as tribespeople began to stir from their tents at the disturbance caused by the assassin landing on—and collapsing—a ger. His muscles had refused to move beyond the wall’s edge, his brain telling him it would be insane to follow, that the chase had to end here.
But he had forced his body to jump, and the rushing air had been exhilarating, so much so that he hadn’t noticed the ache in his back for several hours. Not until the excitement of the chase had given way to the endless drudgery of night tracking. And then his body had threatened to collapse from exhaustion.
The terrain around Karakorum was flat, mostly scrub and pasture; to the west lay the Orkhun River, a broad ribbon of water that bisected the valley. Typically the Khagan stayed at Karakorum for a few weeks during his transition from his summer to his winter residence, and during that time, the population of the city increased a hundredfold. Dozens and dozens of small clans made pilgrimages to the city to pay tribute to the Khagan; long caravans, weighted down with all manner of exotic goods, spilled into the trade district; priests, representing more religious sects than a man could reasonably count, erected shrines—some grandiose, some very austere—as physical manifestations of their spiritual inclinations; princes, courtiers, and displaced nobility sought to curry favor from the Khagan. They all arrived at Karakorum on hooved animals—horses, asses, oxen—and the ground around the city was trampled again and again.
But it had rained a few days ago, driving away the dust and softening the ground, and Gansukh had been able to find a few hoofprints—sharp indentations in the ground pointing away from the city. The river was a natural barrier; the assassin wouldn’t try to ford it at night unless he knew exactly where to cross, and Gansukh doubted the man had that information. The tracks indicated the assassin’s intent: keep the river on his left, the city behind him. Hanging low in the night sky directly ahead were the Seven Gods. A simple route. Gansukh could track the man all night.