Rutger was exultant. Gathered around him were his brothers, their energy a tangible force weaving them all together into a single fearsome multiarmed monster. They breathed as one; they thrust, parried, and retaliated as one fighter. Each man protected the man next to him, and none felt any pain or exhaustion or fear.
They stood in the narrow throat of the gate, surrounded by the bloody corpses of their enemies. A gleaming ring of swords defended the entryway, rising and falling and dancing left and right, completely synchronous in their movement. Overhead, Shield-Brethren archers in the guard towers harried the stragglers of the Mongol force, making men stumble and flinch as the men next to them would suddenly slip and fall and not get back up.
Eventually the Mongols retreated, falling back to their tents to lick their wounds, count their dead, and consider their next assault. Rutger lowered his arm, the intense pain in his hands finally making itself heard in his brain. He nearly dropped his sword-Andreas’s sword-but he fought the pain and kept his grip tight. I have faced worse, he counseled himself. I still stand. He glanced up and down the line, and saw that it remained intact. None of the Shield-Brethren had fallen, but in so quick a look there was no time to tell how much of the blood that covered every man was that of the enemy. Some wounds, he knew, would not be felt until the battle lust eased.
“Check your weapons and your armor,” he croaked. “Thank the Virgin for your fortune.” He glanced toward the Mongol tents. “And get ready for them to come again.”
They only had to hold the gate until the others arrived, and then they could truly take the battle to the Khan.
As the spear-wielding Mongols approached, Styg pivoted on his left foot, putting one of the Mongol tents at his back. He was outnumbered-fighting against three men who wielded weapons that could keep his sword at bay-but he would not die without taking as many of them with him as possible. He may not be a full knight initiate of the Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae, but he fought for the Virgin nonetheless. His death would be costly for his foes.
During the training sessions at the chapter house, Styg had seen Andreas take on multiple initiates numerous times. Both Feronantus and Taran had drilled in all the young fighters the same fundamental battlefield maxim. More men meant more opportunities for confusion. A single fighter had a distinct advantage: everyone else was an enemy. He didn’t have to worry about where his allies stood or what they were planning.
The middle one attacked first. He was the tallest of the trio, and his reach was longest. Styg sent a silent prayer to the Virgin and lunged toward his attacker. He swept his longsword from right to left, smashing the spear aside with the flat of his blade, which fouled the approach of the Mongol on the left. Styg flicked his sword back, extending his arm as far as he could-much farther than he would if he were facing another swordsman-and his blade sliced across the face of the Mongol on the right, splitting the man’s cheeks and severing the tip of his nose.
The spear he’d knocked aside came back at him as its wielder attempted to recover, a reverse of the arc on which he had sent it. The predictable motion of a fighter’s reflex. Styg had been expecting such a response, and as the weapon swung toward him, he let go of his sword with his left hand and tried to grab the shaft of the spear. The Mongol reacted quickly, yanking his spear back and out of Styg’s reach.
Suddenly Styg was painfully aware that the Mongol whose face he had wrecked was still standing.
The Mongol screamed, his face a horrific mask of blood, as he yanked a dagger free of his sash and lunged at Styg. The blade sliced through Styg’s surcoat, dragging across the maille underneath, and before the Mongol could slash him again, Styg grabbed the Mongol’s armor and pulled the man to him. He smashed his head down, helmet striking the Mongol’s already ruined face with a satisfying crunch, and then shoved the man away. Stay down, was his fleeting thought.
There was little time for much more thought than that. He was out of position, and as he tried to bring his sword up, one of the other two Mongols slammed into him. His grip slackened on his sword as he and the Mongol stumbled back against one of the nearby tents. He wasted no time lamenting the loss of his sword, twisting in the Mongol’s grip in an effort to grapple with the other man. The Mongol growled, showing his teeth, and he shook Styg like a child’s doll. He hauled Styg off the resilient tent and threw him to the ground. Styg tried to roll, but he couldn’t get his hands in front of him in time, and he sprawled awkwardly on the ground.
He spotted his sword and tried to scramble toward it, and got a boot kick in the belly for his efforts. Maille was good protection against sharp weapons, but it did little to diminish the impact of such bludgeoning force; Styg curled up as he felt his stomach try to hurl itself out of his throat.
He had to get up. He couldn’t beat them off from the ground. If he could reach his sword…
It lay out of reach. Tantalizingly out of reach.
The Mongol kicked him again, and he felt something crack along his left side. He flopped on his back, staring up at his attackers. One of them raised his spear, preparing to jab Styg in the face.
The spear-thruster coughed suddenly, spitting out a stream of red blood, and he stared down at the bloodied blade that had sprouted from his chest. He jerked and collapsed to his knees as the curved sword was savagely pulled out, and his friend fumbled for his own sword. He got his blade half out of its scabbard when the bloody sword sliced his throat open. He stumbled and fell, landing on his stomach, head turned toward Styg-staring, his mouth gaping like a dying fish, blood spurting from the mortal gash in his throat.
The sword-wielder who had saved Styg was the fighter he had freed from the post. He was shorter than Styg by half a head, but compactly built, thick muscles crisscrossed with pale, white scars. His face was a study in brutality, like a weathered chunk of wood carved with a dull chisel.
After making sure that the skewed Mongol was expiring, the scarred man shoved the dying man over, and offered Styg his hand. Styg grasped the man’s rough hand and was hauled upright. “Thank you,” Styg said. He made a fist and put it over his heart. The fighter stared at him for a second, searching his face with his dark, emotionless eyes, and then he made a noise in his chest and made a similar motion.
Little more needed to be said.
Styg’s legs shook slightly as he picked up his longsword, the proximity of his death starting to sink in. When he stood up, a wave of dizziness washed over him and he tried to breathe slowly through his nose and mouth. Deep, calming breaths.
The scarred warrior was striding toward the orange tent.
Styg shook himself like a dog, trying to shed the last remnants of the death fear that had nearly gripped him, and then he hurried after the other man.
Tegusgal forced his mount into the river, ignoring the sporadic arrows that splashed nearby in the water. The current rode up on his legs as his horse struggled to keep its footing in the deepening water. Nearing the center of the river, his horse would be forced to swim, and he peered through the acrid haze from the burning barrels, trying to find a flat stretch on the opposite bank where he could drive his mount ashore.
His men were scattered. Trapped against the river and hammered by a ferocious host, his men had fallen back on their traditional tactic of splitting and flowing around the force assaulting them, but there had been nowhere to go. Splitting meant fracturing into smaller groups, and those groups had little chance against the mounted knights. They were being chased up and down the river bank, cut down like wild dogs as they fled. Tegusgal was one of them-a dog running for his life. He struggled to stay in his saddle as the current sloshed angrily around his horse, trying to scoop him free of his mount.