R?dwulf nodded and unslung his bow from his shoulder. Then he glanced up past Cnan. Something drew his eyes to the ridgeline behind her.
She rotated on her haunches and followed his line of sight to the Mongols, lance tips and helmets bobbing slowly as they came, their ponies at a walk. Cnan rolled and pressed herself flat against the earth, nestling in the grass. She could hear the soft tread of hooves on turf, Mongol voices calling out to one another.
The trackers were spreading apart, some following her visible trail, others moving to the sides to block any escape and drive her into the center.
She risked pushing up on her elbows and raised her head to look down the slope and watch R?dwulf. She was certain she had brought the Mongols within his range; they had paced it out yesterday when reconnoitering. But this would not save her if his aim was bad.
The archer was breathing deeply, expanding his great chest, flexing his arms. He glanced down at the ten arrows lined up before him, points embedded in the soft soil, ready to grab.
He reached for one, and Cnan tensed, but rather than pulling it up and nocking it, he merely brushed the fletches, smoothing out some irregularity in the alignment of the goose feathers. His eyes flashed white, rolling up in their sockets to peer at the approaching Mongols. The closest was perhaps thirty paces from Cnan.
She sank back down into the cover of the grass and peered at his face through the golden stalks.
The Mongol leader’s eyes wandered over the landscape that had just come into their view, following Cnan’s trail down toward the little copse of trees in the gully. And there his attention locked.
In the open space of the steppes, the Mongols could ride circles around maille-clad Westerners, to either escape or pepper them with arrows. A gully choked with gnarled trees was precisely where he would expect his quarry to hide.
Satisfied, the Mongol muttered to his pony and began to ride ahead at a walking gait along the broken and trampled grass of Cnan’s trail. His men took his cue and followed in a loose gaggle, with the exception of two outriders dividing into parallel courses that would eventually bracket the gully.
Their faces were alert, but it was the alertness of hunters pursuing birds or other innocuous prey. Even had they suspected an ambush waiting in the trees, all their training and experience would tell them they were safe at such a distance.
The waiting made her twitch, then sweat, and finally, knot up all over. Cnan had never imagined that R?dwulf would allow them to come so close to her. She remembered, as a child, sneaking up on a marmot she had spied gathering seeds among a jumble of stones. By the time the marmot had realized that Cnan was stalking her, Cnan had drawn so close that the animal’s instinctive reaction was to freeze rather than run away, and yet freezing only made it possible for Cnan to draw closer.
At some point, the only thing for it was to turn and run. But she didn’t dare stretch her cramping leg.
The riders were within twenty paces, then ten. The only thing that kept them from spotting her was the intent fix of their gazes on the trees below, and the only thing that prevented Cnan from jumping to her feet and bolting like a terrified marmot was the knowledge that it would only earn her a Mongol arrow, or several, in her back.
One of the riders trotted forward to draw abreast of their leader, and the breeze brought her his casual remark, words that at first made no sense to Cnan-a reference, perhaps, to some place they had visited that reminded him of this one, years past.
Without taking his eyes off the trees, the leader smiled and nodded, and in that moment, he looked almost identical to the one who was speaking. They were brothers, she realized-brothers or cousins, reminiscing about past hunts back in their home territories, still far to the east.
Cnan felt a sudden electric quiver, as if all the years and distances were suddenly collapsing around them-destinies joining, death stalking all at once, the last and most perfect of hunters preparing to string all of their skulls on a gore-clotted rope.
At the same moment, the leader-as though sensing her emotions from a distance-glanced down and looked directly into her eyes.
He opened his mouth to raise an alarm, but his eyes flicked up again, drawn by a distant, barely audible twung and an impossible, gently arcing flash of gray and yellow.
In the same instant, his brother, or his cousin, gave a deep, final grunt and fell back over the butt of his horse, as though struck in the middle of his chest by a giant’s invisible mace.
The leader’s expression turned icy cold. Admirable calm, she thought-or the stunned response of a marmot. He let out his breath in a low groan and sidled his pony a few feet, then flicked his eyes between Cnan, the trees in the gully below, and his fallen comrade.
The cause of this sudden death was not obvious. No arrow projected from the fallen man’s chest. R?dwulf’s long shaft had passed right through his body and out the back, leaving only a slot with blood welling out.
The same sound again. On the leader’s opposite side, a Mongol turned his mount toward his fallen comrade, then lurched as a fat arrow buried itself in his shoulder all the way to the fletching. He reached around to claw at the shaft, grimaced, and then looked in stunned dismay at the leader, mouth open. When he decided to scream, the sound was buried in a gargling cough. As if suddenly sleepy, his eyes closed. His head slumped back, and he toppled sideways out of the saddle, hitting the ground with a solid thump.
The leader now understood. His head snapped around toward Cnan, and a murderous look came over his face. He lifted his lance and pivoted his pony to ride toward her, but a third arrow hissed past his ear.
Cnan heard a muffled curse from below-R?dwulf deploring his aim. The leader heard as well, and it sharply focused his attention; throwing a vicious look at Cnan, as if to say, I shall hunt you down and deal with you later, he took off at a gallop down the hill, followed closely by one Mongol and paralleled, off to his right, by a third.
Meanwhile, the two outriders had gained some faint understanding of what was happening and began to ride down toward the verge of the trees, more slowly and uncertainly, as they had to pick their way down the sloping gully walls.
In the time it took Cnan to gather these impressions, R?dwulf had shot the leader out of his saddle. His companion veered to one side, hoping to ride around the little grove, and this forced R?dwulf to step out from cover, draw his bow, and stand his ground, tracking the horseman’s progress and judging how much to lead him.
This one took the arrow near his hip socket but kept riding, keeping stiffly upright. The horse shrieked-the arrow had passed through and embedded in its flank, pinning the rider in place. In agony, neither horse nor rider seemed to know what to do next.
Then, a pause in the action as R?dwulf returned to the trees for more arrows.
The fifth and last Mongol from the central group had made it into those same trees, a dozen yards off, and was thrashing around on his horse between the close-packed trunks, making it impossible for R?dwulf to get a clear shot.
The archer stalked out from cover, pivoting to and fro with a nocked and half-drawn arrow, trying to make out where his foe was.