CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
Kim took a deep breath as he stepped out of his cage. He’d dreamed of the possibility of freedom, or at least dying in the act of attempting to secure his freedom, and now, he could not quite believe this might come true. The rage he had expected to be coursing through him was strangely absent. As he stood free of the cage, he felt only an all-encompassing certainty of purpose.
It was time to repay what had been done to him, to all of them. He met Lakshaman’s gaze and saw the same unmistakable sense of clarity in the other man’s eyes. He turned to Zug, expecting to see the same expression, but his gaze was arrested by the appearance of several Mongol guards at the entrance to the ger.
The guards, summoned by the Lakshaman’s noisy attempts to break the locks, were not entirely caught off guard by the escaped prisoners, but they were startled by the pair of Rose Knights. They paused a second too long, uncertain who to attack first.
Zug closed with the foremost of the three, intercepting a wild slash of the man’s curved sword by stepping under the cut. Zug seized the Mongol by the wrist, and levered a powerful palm strike to the guard’s elbow joint. The Mongol screamed as his elbow shattered. Zug, seizing the curved sword as the man released his hold on it, delivered a spine-snapping kick to the man’s hip that sent him careening into his companion to the left. The third Mongol’s attack was met with steel, and Zug used the momentum of the bind to wind his sword around and into the side of his enemy’s terrified face.
The uninjured Mongol extricated himself from his screaming friend in time to receive a death blow to the head from the sword of one of the Rose Knights, and Lakshaman pushed past the Rose Knight to shove the remaining Mongol down. He placed a foot on his chest to hold him in place, and then broke his neck with a savage heel kick to the side of his head.
Zug walked out of the tent with a supple insouciance that Kim found both intoxicating and infuriating. The Rose Knights trailed behind him, babbling in their tongue. Zug ignored them, walking with a purpose that seemed to agitate the young knights further with each step. Kim jogged after them, Lakshaman trailing behind him. Finally Zug stopped, looked at the young men, and then quietly shook his head. “Khan,” he said, enunciating the word clearly so that the Rose Knights would understand.
One of the knights nodded, and pointed off toward a line of flags that indicated the location of Onghwe’s massive tent. Zug nodded in a different direction, and the knights started jabbering at him again.
Zug looked at Kim. “Make them understand,” he said.
“Why me?” Kim retorted. “I agree with them. The Khan’s tent is that way.”
“I know where it is,” Zug growled. “But my naginata is stored over there.” He pointed. “I want my skullmaker.”
Tegusgal’s leg was slick with blood, and some of it dripped off the heel of his boot, spattering Hans’s hair. Hans hooked one hand around Tegusgal’s boot, and flailed with his feet, trying to get purchase on the stakes in the wall. Tegusgal shouted, jerking his leg, and as Hans felt the dagger slip, he swung he swung himself to the right, throwing his hand out to grab at Tegusgal’s other foot.
He hung there for a moment, suspended between both of Tegusgal’s legs. The dagger tumbled past his face, falling out of Tegusgal’s leg, and he watched it bounce off the dusty ground. His hands were sweaty, slowly slipping off Tegusgal’s boots, and the blood from the dagger wound was making his grip even more tenuous. He wiggled his legs, trying to reach the spikes in the wall, and Tegusgal made a different sound-a scream of panic rather than rage-as he let go of the wall.
They both landed hard on the packed dirt at the base of the wall, and the breath was knocked out of Hans. His hip hurt from where Tegusgal had landed on him, and he tried to extricate himself from beneath the Mongol captain. His right shoulder ached, and when he tried to use his arm, his wrist complained.
Tegusgal groaned, responding sluggishly. He sensed Hans moving beneath him, and he tried to stop the young boy from escaping, but his grip was weak.
Hans spotted Maks’s dagger and twisted his body in order to reach it. His fingers could almost touch the bloody blade when Tegusgal grabbed his leg with much more conviction this time and held him tight.
“You-” Tegusgal snarled, but his words were cut off when Hans kicked him in the face. He fought back, managing to get a grip on Hans’s pant leg and, from there, gain control of the boy’s flailing leg. He grinned, blood running from his nose.
Hans grinned back. All of this struggling had allowed him to grab Maks’s dagger. He sat up and thrust the dagger with all his strength at Tegusgal’s face.
The Mongol tried to cover his head with his arms, twisting out of the way, and Hans missed Tegusgal’s head. The dagger slid into the gap at the top of Tegusgal’s armor, hitting the soft flesh beneath. Tegusgal shrieked and let go of Hans’s legs. This time, Hans scooted back on his rump as quickly as he could, putting some distance between him and the wounded Mongol captain.
Shivering with pain, Tegusgal yanked the dagger out of his neck, and a squirt of blood spattered across the dirt. Gritting his teeth, the Mongol captain started to push himself upright. “I am going to kill you slowly,” he coughed. On his knees, he fumbled for his sword, his fingers slipping off the hilt. He tried again, getting it half drawn, when a rock bounced off his chest.
He stared at it stupidly, wondering where it had come from. Hans glanced over his shoulder and saw a flash of movement in the rubble behind him. The Rats, he realized giddily.
Tegusgal shook off his confusion and finished drawing his sword. A second rock struck him in the face, and he shouted in pain, his attention finally going to the wreckage behind Hans. More missiles followed, most of them not much bigger than a bird’s egg, but many of them were thrown with precision, battering Tegusgal.
Hans’s Rats-the cadre of boys who had carried messages time and again into the Mongol compound-were shouting now as they threw rocks at the Mongol captain. Jeering and taunting. Fighting back.
Tegusgal raised his sword, trying to protect his face with the blade, and several stones rang off the blade. He was still trying to get to his feet, though Hans could sense that his intent was now to flee.
Hans scrambled for the dagger.
A particularly well-thrown rock caught Tegusgal in the center of the forehead, and the Mongol captain swayed, momentarily stunned.
The fusillade of rocks subsided as the Rats paused to check their handiwork. Tegusgal shook his head, spattering blood, and then he grinned at the urchins watching him from the wreckage. His face was dark with cuts and bruises, and his teeth were stained red. He wasn’t beaten. Not yet.
Hans found himself thinking about Andreas, and he didn’t hesitate. He jumped at the Mongol commander, stabbing with the dagger.
Tegusgal’s mouth changed shape, and his eyes got big.
Styg and Eilif had not been able to follow the conversation between the three escaped prisoners, but after a moment of firm hand gestures, the stern-looking one simply shrugged and started walking. Away from the fluttering flags they could see over the tops of the tents.
“He’s not going toward the Khan’s tent,” Styg said.
“Does it matter?” Eilif asked, clapping him on the arm.
The camp was in an uproar, not because the prisoners had been freed but because Rutger and the other Shield-Brethren had commenced their assault on the gate. As Styg hesitated, listening to the sound of battle, he heard horses as well. The reinforcements had arrived.