Until the Sun Falls

by Cecelia Holland

  “Mongke’s,” Psin said.

  The scout dragged his horse to a stop before them, saluted, and said, “We’ve sighted Russians, up ahead. Outriders. We shot three but two got away.”

  “Where were they going?” Psin said.

  “Southwest, Khan.”

  “To Moskva,” Sabotai said.

  “Or Vladimir.”

  Sabotai nodded. He tugged at his beard, which he seemed to have laced up with his coat that morning. “Don’t kill any you see,” he said to the scout. “Let them go back and say we’re coming.”

  Psin choked. The scout whirled and dashed his horse back up the ridge, and Sabotai told Kaidu to send up the white banner.

  “If they know we’re coming,” Sabotai said, “they’ll run to the cities. The more we beat when we take the cities, the fewer we have to run down later.”

  “They might lay ambushes.”

  “No. They’ll run. Let them get into the habit of running from us, and when we have it all they’ll come back begging to be let in again.”

  “If you think so, it must be true.”

  “Delicately phrased.”

  Just before they camped that evening, a courier galloped up from Buri, commanding the rearguard. Tshant and Djela had ridden up to them that morning, and Tshant wanted to know Sabotai’s orders.

  Psin growled. “Is he well?”

  “I didn’t see him, Khan.”

  “He shouldn’t have left Bulgar so soon.”

  Sabotai made a motion with one hand. “He’s here, we can’t send him back. What shall we do with him?”

  “Do whatever you want.”

  “Good.” To the courier, he said, “Ride back tomorrow and tell Tshant he is to stay with your column and share Buri’s command.”

  Psin squawked. Sabotai looked over, his eyebrows cocked in exaggerated surprise. Psin said, “You don’t know my son, if you think he’ll split a command.”

  “Does he command well?”

  “He’s inexperienced. Otherwise, yes.”

  Sabotai waved the courier off.

  “He’ll tear Buri to scraps,” Psin said.

  “Buri can take care of himself.”

  The column was trampling out a campground. Psin rode along beside Sabotai, thinking about Tshant. Finally, he said, “What do you want of them, Sabotai?”

  “I want them to be generals,” Sabotai said. “No man can rule a khanate unless he is a good general. The Kha-Khan cannot command the world unless he has good generals.”

  Psin didn’t bother to ask how pitching two hotheads together would make either of them another Sabotai. He reeled in his remounts on the leadline and called over a slave from the baggage train to take them into the center of the camp.

  “All the Altun are good fighters,” Sabotai said. “But they aren’t flexible enough in command. They need experience more than anything.”

  “At killing one another?”

  Sabotai grinned; he flung one leg across the pommel of his saddle and slid to the ground. “Ah. My ankles are broken.”

  “You sound like Jebe.” Jebe at Psin’s age had complained constantly, mainly of his arthritis. Until the day he died Jebe had handled a bow or a horse as well as any young man; the arthritis had mysteriously healed whenever he had to fight.

  “Still, I never used to be tired.”

  Mongke galloped up to them and jammed his horse to a halt. Snow flew across Sabotai. Psin said, “What are you doing back here?”

  “The vanguard is within half a day’s march of Moskva. Kadan won’t keep riding without Sabotai’s command.”

  Sabotai was drinking kumiss mixed with honey. He put the bowl down and climbed up on the tailgate. “You left your post.”

  Mongke spat. “My post is everywhere: I’m a scout. If we keep riding—”

  Psin dismounted. Dmitri led off his horse. He reached up over the tailgate for the bowl the woman inside was filling; Mongke whipped his horse up and slammed in between Psin and the cart. Psin leapt back.

  Mongke said, “I kill a horse getting here—”

  “I’ll send a messenger to Kadan,” Sabotai said.

  “I’ll go. I—”

  Psin reached up and hauled Mongke out of the saddle. “Don’t you ever do that again.” He shook Mongke hard, threw him into the snow, and slapped the horse’s rump. The horse trotted off. Sabotai had sent a slave after Batu and his brothers.

  “Don’t you realize?” Mongke said. He stood up, covered with snow. “Moskva—”

  “Just because we don’t leap up and down doesn’t mean we can’t do what’s necessary,” Psin said. “Get something to eat and sleep.”

  “Berke,” Sabotai called, to Batu’s brother. “Take four horses and ride to Kadan; tell him to keep moving. Mongke, has he got a scout with him to take him there?”

  Mongke nodded.

  “Good. Berke. He’s to throw his column around the city and seal it off. We’ll storm it when we get there. Hurry. He’s camped for the night.”

  Berke stamped off. Batu said, “How far is it?”

  “Half a day’s ride for the vanguard, Mongke says.”

  “Are we going to follow him?”

  Sabotai looked over at Psin, and Psin shook his head. Sabotai walked around Mongke, took Psin by the shoulder, and drew him a little to one side, standing so that Psin’s bulk hid him from Batu.

  “I think we should. Kadan has a tuman only. If he stretches ten thousand men around a city wall he’ll be open to a strike from inside.”

  “If it were Mongke I’d say yes,” Psin said. “But Kadan has sense enough to keep his line secure.”

  “What good will it do us to hang back?”

  “Give these columns some rest. They’ve fought the snow all the way from Bulgar. Kadan doesn’t need support to invest a city of that size—only to take it.”

  “Unless the Grand Duke’s army is there.”

  “He wouldn’t take his army from Vladimir to Moskva.”

  “I wish I knew where they were.”

  “We’ll find out. Camp here the night. Tomorrow evening we should reach Moskva. If we ride all night we won’t get there until tomorrow morning anyhow.”

  Sabotai pursed his lips. “The moon is full.”

  Psin nodded.

  “We’ll camp here until moonset and leave then.”

  Psin closed his eyes. “In the pitch dark.”

  “Oh, well. They won’t see us coming.” Sabotai slapped him on the shoulder and strode off to talk to Batu.

  “Wake up,” Batu shouted.

  Psin bolted upright. Batu laughed in his ear. The darkness was smothering; through the cart walls Psin could hear horses neighing and the high voices of the men. He threw his robe off and crawled down to the tailgate.

  “Eat something,” Dmitri said. “Something hot.”

  “Later.” He dragged on one boot and reached for a sock to put on over it.

  Sabotai was struggling to get his arms into his coat sleeves and shouting orders that no one seemed to hear. A loose horse galloped by, shrilling. Psin hunted through the cart for his left boot, swearing under his breath. Torchlight flickered weakly in over the tailgate. He found the boot and thrust his foot into it. The two women went on serenely cooking gruel. Dmitri held out his coat.

  “I hate gruel,” Psin said. “Can’t we have something else to eat?”

  “I’ve put honey in it, Khan.” The Kipchak woman handed him a bowl.

  “Eat it,” Batu said. He spooned the stuff into his mouth. “Good for you.”

  “Tepid, weak, stomach-turning—I hear you, Sabotai.”

  “Then why don’t you come out?”

  “I’m not dressed yet.” He poured the gruel down his throat and laced up his boot. Something struck the cart so hard it rocked. Dmitri dodged the flood of gruel when the pot tipped over; hot coals skittered across the floor. The women danced about, scooping them up with horn spoons.

  “Tshant and Buri will bring the baggage train,” Batu said. “We
have to ride like Mongols now.” He walked hunched over to the end of the cart and jumped out. Psin followed on hands and knees.

  “Psin, come catch this brute of a horse.”

  Psin dragged his saddle out from under the cart. “Why, can’t a bunch of Mongols handle a Merkit horse?”

  The horse whistled and kicked out. Its hindhoofs cracked on the side of the cart, which swayed violently. Psin plunged through the men trying to hold the horse; the dun saw him coming and spun around, legs braced.

  “Calm down, lambkin. Easy, sweeting.” Psin took the rope and went quietly to the horse’s head. “You cock-eyed spittle of a perverted dragon.”

  The dun licked his hand. Sabotai was mounted and giving yet more orders. Two couriers flashed through the torchlight. Beyond the light lay only a vast and noisy darkness, full of horses.

  A drover’s whip cracked. They were linking up the baggage train again. Psin forced the bit between the dun’s teeth and jerked his girth tight. The dun would not stand still to be mounted. Psin swung up, and the dun tried to bolt.

  “Ride on the north wing,” Sabotai said. “Carry a green lantern and watch for my signals.”

  Psin nodded. He wheeled the horse over to the nearest cart and took down one of the lanterns hanging from the side. The army was moving. The center of the column was already out of the camp. His remounts jogged up, and he hooked the leadline to his saddle. The last of the column cantered past his cart. He swung out to ride around them and come up on the north side.

  The beech trees on the next ridge crawled with horsemen. Out of the racket and confusion of breaking camp had come the single motion of an army riding. The rumble of the horses’ hoofs drowned out the wind. Lanterns glowed, red, green, blue, white and yellow, and the tossing manes of the horses were like pine branches in the wind. For a while, cantering around to take up his post, he was separate from the great mass of the army. In the middle of the dark night the swarm did not seem like many riders, but one great creature that bounded over the ground and spilled through the stiff and naked trees.

  The dun horse bucked. Psin whipped him and maneuvered him around a clump of rocks that lumped up the snow. The horse lengthened its stride to pass the mob alongside them. Psin gave him his head.

  In the darkness the riding was treacherous. The column spread out far more than in the daylight, because if a horse stumbled or a rider fell the men behind would ride right over him before they saw. Sabotai’s lanterns flashed busily, directing the sides of the column this way and that. Psin acknowledged the orders under his sign by swinging his own lantern. The stars were out, shivering cold, and the wind rose steadily. North of Psin a wolf howled.

  Ahead the green lantern flashed three times. Psin waved his red lantern and bellowed, “Swing out, north wing.” He dropped back a little, yelling, and the north wing spread out toward him. He looked up toward Sabotai and saw the green lantern flashing more complexly.

  “Move up—come up level with the front of the column.” He rode around to the end of the extended wing and galloped forward, and as if he were linked to the line they all burst into a gallop and hurtled along through the total darkness beside him. They swept up a slope and charged down the other side, gaining ground swiftly on the head of the column. Sabotai was turning toward them a little, and Psin corrected his course.

  Light glowed up ahead—watchfires, leaping against the trees. Russians. He pulled his bow out of the case, leaving his rein draped over the dun’s withers, but before he could nock an arrow lanterns winked on and off in the midst of the fires. Mongke’s scouts must have lit them to guide Sabotai in toward the river.

  They plunged down toward the fires. Psin’s remounts loped freely beside the dun; whenever the wind changed a little he could hear them pounding over the snow, the breath whumping out of their nostrils. The lanterns ahead flashed an order and Psin shouted to his wing to slow down.

  They swept in between fires. Men dodged wildly out of their way. Psin, expecting the riverbank, checked the dun hard just before they slid down it. The ice rang like stone beneath the horse’s hoofs. The leadline strained, and a horse ran into the dun from behind. The dun kicked back. Psin’s remounts got tangled up, bit and clawed at each other, and straightened themselves out before they had to scramble up the far bank.

  The column was veering south, and Sabotai’s green lantern flashed again: Psin and his wing held back hard to take up the rear of the swerving column. Faint light streaked across the snow, and the watchfires seemed paler. The eastern sky bristled with the dawn. Psin relaxed a little. He leaned out to whip his remounts into line again. The snow was blue, the air itself was blue, and the watchfires they passed on the far bank shrank down to puddles of weak light. The wind shrieked around his ears.

  Some of the men around him were changing horses already—leaping onto the bare backs of their nearest remounts and leaving the saddled horse to gallop along beside them. They hadn’t been riding long enough to change horses, and Psin started to yell at them. But the green lantern started to wink and he had to charge out of the midst of the rearguard to see.

  The lantern winked four times quickly and twice slowly. Psin swore. He shuttered his lantern to show that he didn’t understand. The green lantern flashed off entirely. Sabotai was definitely getting old if he couldn’t even send signals anymore. Now the yellow lantern was winking, and the center of the column slackened speed.

  They were coming up to a thick stretch of trees. The column thinned down to pass between it and the river, along the bare space there. Psin swore again and swung the dun horse into the thick of his men; he flung his leadrope to one and dashed off again. He galloped the dun straight through the thick trees. The horse leapt like a deer over a windfall, smashed Psin’s knee against a tree, and plowed through a clump of birches. Psin held his hat on with one hand. The dun thrashed out of the wood and Psin lashed him once to keep him settled. The horse flattened out, racing at top speed toward Sabotai.

  The snow, still glittering blue in the dawn light, flew past under the horse’s reaching hoofs. The main column fell behind as if they weren’t moving at all. Sabotai was playing with the green lantern again. Psin could see him clearly, his features unnaturally distinct in the fresh light. He charged the dun up to him and slowed the horse to Sabotai’s pace.

  “What in God’s name do you want me to do?”

  Sabotai shouted, “I was warning you about the trees ahead.”

  “Four short and two long? Did you just make it up?”

  “Three long to slow down.”

  “I read four short and two long, Sabotai. It may be fun to invent new signals but—”

  The dun collected himself and jumped a small stream. Psin rocked back in his saddle.

  “I told him three long.”

  Sabotai sounded angry. Psin shouted, “I definitely saw six flashes.” A tree branch might have gotten in the way, so that a long flash seemed two short ones. He spun the horse around and galloped back along the line of the column. The green lantern flashed two long.

  “Sabotai. This is no time for lantern drill.”

  He fell back to his own wing and collected his remounts; they picked up speed, obeying the order. But Sabotai had forgotten to tell the center of the column to move out, and Psin’s wing began to run up on the center’s heels.

  “Batu,” Psin roared. “Move up.”

  Batu was galloping along beside the center, a little apart from the main group. He waved. “Sabotai gave me no signal.”

  “Damn Sabotai. He’s a—”

  The white lantern flashed, and Batu answered it with his own. The center plunged on, finally drawing ahead of the rearguard. It was full day, and the lanterns were getting hard to see. Psin thought perhaps Sabotai had signaled and Batu hadn’t caught it.

  He rode in close to the nearest of his remounts, kicked his feet out of the stirrups, and jumped. The horse shied away from him and he landed off center, his arms around the horse’s neck. The horse staggered. Psin ha
uled himself up onto the heaving back and steered over closer to the dun. The dun reached out to nip Psin’s new mount, and he grabbed his rein, whipped his horse up ahead of the dun so that he could kick the dun in the nose, and settled down. Ahead, Sabotai was raising the banners, and in the east the first long rays of the sun shot across the horizon.

  They rode down on Moskva well before noon. Kadan was already camped around the city, on the frozen swamp at the foot of its low hill. The main army washed in like a flood, split exactly down the middle, and swung around to embrace everything, Kadan, hill, city and all. They crashed through the heavy woods opposite one gate and spilled out over the narrow strip of fields, and the two wings came together precisely before the tall stone main gate into the city. Psin’s wing, charging around the east side, packed the river from bank to bank with racing horses.

  The Mongols already there cheered, and the Mongols coming in cheered, and the people on the city wall screamed insults; the horses neighed, the wind howled, and the pine around the hill moaned. In the uproar Psin halted his column and posted them into camps, two on the city’s side of the river, one in the middle on the far bank. The ice between the city and the far camp was trampled free of snow and blazed under the high sun. Psin jogged across it to find Sabotai.

  From the peaks of the city’s towers pennants flew. People crowded the walls and the roofs of the buildings near the gate. The snow at the foot of the hill was flecked with arrows. Just below a gate lay half a dozen dead and frozen knights and two horses with their guts strung over the ground. Psin’s horse shied, and he realized that he was still riding bareback, with only a halter and leadrope for bridle.

  “Psin.”

  Kadan jogged up. His face glowed, and he smiled.

  “Have you lost that strange horse of yours? I could have taken this pile six times by now. Did you see the bodies? They tried to run off. Sabotai’s over there.”

  Psin looked up at the city. “It doesn’t look like any problem, does it?”