Until the Sun Falls

by Cecelia Holland

  Psin crawled under a tree whose branches grew close to the ground and wrapped himself in his cloak. The spongy cushion of needles under him was dry and warm. He thought about what his scouts had told him—ahead, more hills, flattening out a little, and the river grew a little wider. A city great as Tver or Vladimir, with a wall. The scouts had said there was little grassland, but beyond, the merchants had said, there was a plain.

  He rested his chin in his hands. If the Mongols bypassed Vienna and took the plain beyond, they would have graze, and they could starve the city out. But these hills were full of stone towers and knights, and the stretch of ground between Hungary and the plain was so hilly and close that the knights would have no trouble cutting the Mongol lines of communication. Rough terrain always bothered him.

  On the other hand, if the Polish plain extended on far west of this point—

  Mongke crept in under the branches. “You’re too clever to live. Ah. It’s warm in here. What’s the matter?”

  “I was worrying about taking Vienna.”

  Mongke settled down and pulled the hem of his cloak over his feet. “Um. Yes, with a six-day ride through country like this between Hungary and the city—Sabotai will have fun working this out.”

  “If we could clear the knights out of these hills—”

  “We’d have to siege the towers and it would take a while. And you’ve noticed, I assume, that the towers stand wherever the road is narrow and the slopes alongside steep.”

  “Let Sabotai worry about it. You said you thought the summers are mild.”

  Mongke nodded. “There’s game, too, even in the winter, although the deer I’ve seen are undersized and ribby. How do you suppose they fed their horses? Those stallions must eat twice what our horses do.”

  “Arnulf said that they grain them.”

  “Ah? What do the people eat, then?”

  “They raise enough food for themselves and their horses.”

  “Are there other roads?”

  “There’s one a day’s ride north of us that seems to come from Poland. And another north of that, but it’s through a forest and badly kept up. Windfalls and the like.”

  Mongke nodded and settled back, with his hands inside his cloak. “Have you ever wondered what we’re doing here?”

  For a moment Psin said nothing. Mongke lowered his eyes, taking it as a reproof, and Psin said, “Yes. Sometimes. Last summer, after I’d come here with the embassy.”

  “Did you… figure it out?”

  “No. Temujin said that we should conquer the world. So we are.”

  Mongke’s eyes rose. “We hold all the ground from here to China. Isn’t it enough?”

  “You know the reasoning. If we don’t attack them, they’ll attack us.”

  “So I’ve been told.” Mongke stretched his arms out. “It says little for us, though, that we keep going just because we started. Sometimes I wonder if we could stop.”

  “I think we could. If we had to.”

  “Why should we have to? Why can’t we just say, ‘This is enough, we don’t want any more,’ and stop?”

  Psin shrugged. “There can be only one overlord on the earth.”

  “I know. Temujin said so. Is there no compromise?”

  Psin said nothing. He could feel the tension in Mongke, although he looked relaxed and even comfortable.

  Mongke said, “The black lantern, you know. There are the four colors for the four directions. If you raised a green banner no one would know what you were talking about. But there can be no black light, so we use green lanterns to mean north.”

  “Why should we stop?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just… Your German, you know. He wasn’t happy with us. Why should everybody else be like us? And —don’t you ever wonder what will happen to us if—when—we forget why we’re doing it?”

  Psin said, “We’ll be beaten. I was beaten once, you know. I was conquered. It’s not so terrible. Everything works toward God’s ends or fails, and it’s not all that important whether the ends of God are amenable to us.”

  “We have shed blood enough to choke us all, if we had let it in our own name and not God’s.”

  “Yes.” Psin looked at his hands. It was so pleasant to come up with smooth, well-modulated answers; why couldn’t he think of any for the important questions? In the quiet he heard the horses chewing on pine bark, just outside his shelter.

  “My father was a wicked man,” Mongke said, finally.

  “No.”

  “How can you deny it? Since I was born I’ve heard stories of his doings—”

  Mongke’s voice broke. Psin looked into his troubled eyes. “Did you know that he and I were friends?”

  Mongke smiled. “No. I always assumed—you’re so different. You’re more like Jagatai.”

  Psin laughed and swatted at him. “That’s no compliment. Of them all, Tuli was the most brilliant. I’ve never known anyone with more energy, except Temujin himself. He had Jagatai’s temper, but he wasn’t as arrogant.”

  Mongke looked down. His hands moved restlessly over his coat.

  “Had you done what he did, you would be wicked,” Psin said. “But in Tuli ... He was more just than merciful, that’s all.”

  “How can you call it justice, what he did? The massacres and the destroying—”

  “What we all did. He and your uncles and your grandfather and Kasar and Sabotai and Jebe Noyon and Mukali and I…” They are most of them dead now. He put his hand to his forehead. “To us it is sin, this disorder in the world. We had to make it right. How could we know the world is so much larger than it seemed?”

  “If God had wished it different, it would have been made different long ago.”

  But Temujin had not been born…. “You know I can’t answer you. Talk to Quyuk. Talk to Tshant. How could a man my age answer any of you? You’re all much more different from me than I was from my father.”

  Mongke smiled at him. “Is that so foul?”

  “No. Go away and let me sleep.” He dropped his hands in his lap. “Why ask me such questions? Can’t your own kind say anything?”

  “No. Them I fight with. You I talk to.” Mongke crawled out through the branches. “Don’t freeze to death. Who would I talk to, then?”

  When they rode into sight of Vienna the city’s bells began to ring. The gates were shut, and the wall was crowded with people. Psin galloped his column down to the riverbank just east of the city. To its south, the hills rose into sharp peaks, like the tops of the towers. He could see children scrambling up onto the red-tiled roofs of the houses inside the wall.

  The men on the wall began to throw things and shoot arrows. Psin looked across the river, saw that it was mostly flat, grassy plain until the forest closed in again, and led his men across to it. The plain tilted up into a little hillcrest, and he left his men behind to make a camp and rode to the height and looked west. The river wound like a strip of copper under the sun, down through trees and low hills. Against the hazy sky he could just see the tip of another tower, on this side of the river. In the south the hills rose toward the mountains, heavy with pine forest.

  His men were walking their horses back and forth, shouting things at the Germans in the city. He jogged back to them and gave orders to set out sentries. “We’ll ride out at sundown,” he said. “Make sure the horses rest and eat.” While they took the remounts up the slope, he rode west along the river to a place where the ice looked solid and crossed again.

  People came running along the ramparts to follow him. He wondered how long it would take them to get some knights together. The wall was as thick as a man was tall, and small bushes grew out of the mortar. On this side there was another gate.

  When he was just past it the gate opened, and a dozen men on horseback charged out. They weren’t knights—they wore no armor. He lifted his horse into a gallop, not quite flat out, and moved along ahead of them. They did a lot of shouting. He swung back around the east end of the city, toward the river.
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  The gate there was already open. He grabbed his bow and three arrows. A mass of horses and men, half mounted, half waiting on the ground, filled the wide gate. He shot his three arrows one right after another. Horses collapsed in the road, blocking the way. The men behind him yowled. He whipped his horse into a dead run and leapt it onto the river ice.

  The horse landed with all four feet braced and slid over the ice. Psin clamped his legs around its barrel. The horse bowed its neck and pricked up its ears, coasted to a gentle stop, and took three sliding steps toward the bank. Two short arrows smacked into the snow just to Psin’s right. He kicked the horse, and it bounded forward, slipping, went to its knees, heaved up, and flung itself up the bank.

  On the city’s bank the Germans cheered and shook their fists. He shouted, “Cowardly, soft, whining Germans, come chase me. Water for blood, that’s what you have.”

  Their voices doubled. He made a sign at them and rode up to his camp. When they attacked him here, he would take some prisoners to question. He was beginning to see how Vienna could be taken.

  Kerulu said, doubtfully, “He’s a cute little baby.”

  Tulugai gurgled. Artai juggled him, crooned part of a lullaby, and flipped him over so that she could undo his coat. “Djela’s very fond of him. Aren’t you, Djela.”

  Djela said, “Oh, he’s all right. For a baby. I don’t see why I—”

  “Couldn’t go with your father,” Kerulu said. “Because we are only women and must be protected.” She pulled his hair playfully. To Artai, she said, “He has a long nose, this baby.”

  “He’s part Russian.”

  “Here. Let me have him.”

  Chan said, “I don’t like babies.”

  “I don’t see why,” Artai said. “Yours were all so good.” She turned to Kerulu. “Chan’s babies never cried or got sick.”

  Kerulu rocked Tulugai. “Djela had croup all the time when he was this one’s age.”

  Chan said, “My babies were all good because they knew if they cried or got sick I wouldn’t go near them.”

  “Have you told Tshant yet?” Artai said to Kerulu.

  “No. I’m not sure.” Kerulu put her hand on her belly. She was sure; she felt pregnant.

  “Tell me when I can tell Psin.”

  “When I tell Tshant, he won’t let me ride. He’s terrible when I’m pregnant, he thinks I’ll break.”

  “Or lose the baby,” Artai said sharply. “I should think after the others died you’d be more careful.”

  Chan glanced at her. “You said the same thing when I was going to have Malekai, and I hadn’t even lost one.”

  Kerulu remembered the others. Her throat tightened. “I hope this one is a girl.” Her first baby had been a girl. Her heart beat and beat, but she couldn’t breathe, and she died.

  Chan said, “Don’t worry. You were too young, the other times. That’s why. Did you see the rings Psin brought me for my ears?”

  “No,” Kerulu said. Chan got up and went into the back of her yurt. Artai glanced after her and turned back.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m an old woman. I don’t mean to make you unhappy.”

  Kerulu smiled. “You don’t.” This one she would not lose. Chan came back with the earrings; they were huge gold oblongs made of filigree. Chan put them on, and the other women exclaimed over them. Chan’s eyes met Kerulu’s, and Kerulu smiled, but Chan’s face showed no expression at all, as usual.

  Psin woke up with a start. Beyond the tops of the trees, the night sky was full of stars; the wind curled the trees over. His muscles were drawn tight, and he knew that something was wrong. He got up, shook the snow off his cloak, and slung it over his shoulders.

  All around the fires, his men were only lumps under their cloaks. He got his standardbearer awake and whispered, “Do you hear anything?”

  The standardbearer sat bolt upright. Psin straightened. Down the slope, in the meadow, the dark shapes of the horses stood hipshot, their heads sunk toward their knees. While he watched one horse jerked his head up—the dun. Its ears pricked and it looked east.

  “Wake everybody up. Hurry.”

  By twos and threes, the other horses were lifting their heads; they all looked east. An owl hooted in the trees beside the meadow, and Psin caught a glimpse of the thick wings, the bulk of its body, swooping. He heaved his saddle up onto his shoulder and started down toward the horses.

  The Mongols woke up smoothly, getting to their feet without a word. Those who had German prisoners roped to their wrists knelt to check the bindings. The dun horse snuffled and neighed.

  Halfway to the horses, Psin whirled and shouted, “Scatter. Go home.” He ran awkwardly through the rumpled snow to the dun. The horses were shifting, nickering and kicking at each other. He caught the dun and swung the saddle onto its back.

  Now he could hear them. Armor clinked, and they wore spurs, even if they were on foot. Their horses were tethered to the east but the knights were slipping down on the camp from all sides. He wondered what had happened to the sentries. The dun fought the cold bit and he rammed it between its teeth.

  “Watch, watch, watch—”

  That was a sentry. Two Mongols raced down through the trees from the north, plunged into the midst of the horses, and leapt up bareback. Psin pulled the dun’s tail through the crupper and hauled his girths tight. Half of his men were mounted. One dismounted to help another throw a prisoner face-down across a saddleless horse and tie him there.

  A trumpet blew. Psin stepped into his saddle, got out his bow, and swept his eyes around. Men on foot were charging down the slopes on three sides. He thought, They want us to run east, right into their charge. Most of his men were mounted—all were—and the loose remounts were bunched in the middle.

  “Scatter. Go home.”

  He spun the dun horse and charged west. A dozen men followed him. The knights, gleaming in their chain armor, faltered and waited, right at the edge of the trees. Horses neighed frantically behind him. He turned the dun and circled back, behind the remounts, and herded them up toward the knights. In a wide line a batch of Mongols burst into the trees to the south, and he heard the ring of iron and the high yelps of his men.

  The remounts stretched out. Their tails streamed behind them, and their eyes rolled. Psin cased his bow and called to the men following him, and they moved around to keep the loose horses together and running. Their whips curled over their shoulders. The owl beat its wings heavily in the brush, fighting to get out of the way. Ahead, the knights broke and ran.

  They pounded into the trees, and knights dropped on them like snow from the lower branches. Arms wrapped around Psin’s neck. He dropped his rein and dragged at the fingers locked under his chin. The knight was breathing heavily in his ear. He could feel him trying to get a grip with one hand so that he could use the dagger in the other. The dun horse was getting ready to buck. Psin kicked away his stirrups and wrapped his legs around the horse’s barrel, and the dun slammed to a stop, threw its head down, and bounded twisting into the air.

  The knight fell heavily to the left. Psin clung to his saddle with one hand. The knight would not let go; he hung by his arms around Psin’s neck, while the dun bucked and whirled and scraped up against trees. Branches flogged them. Psin caught a glimpse of wide pale eyes and a gaping mouth. The dun spun all the way around and smashed the knight into a rock, and the knight fell. Psin was half out of the saddle, and the saddle was slipping sideways. He lurched back. The breastplate was jammed against the dun’s neck. With a scream the dun bolted into the deep wood, kicking and changing leads every three strides. Psin got back his right stirrup and drove his weight into it, and the saddle slid back into position. A branch smacked him in the face.

  He could hear fighting, to the right and to the left, but behind him. He pulled the dun to a halt and looked around. He was headed northwest, and ahead was a high ridge. He could see horses moving along it—two loose, three ridden. Mongols. He headed the dun toward them, bending
so that his nose brushed the dun’s mane to duck the branches.

  The three Mongols grinned at him. “It’s wild down there,” one said. “Look.” He pointed.

  Psin looked over his shoulder. Through the trees he could see the empty meadow, and among the trees the men struggling. Two Mongols broke loose and galloped due east through deep brush. The knights made a close ring around the meadow, but the Mongols were beating their way through to the outer edge and running, and on foot the knights couldn’t follow. He could see dead men in clumps under the trees at the edge of the meadow.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “There are more in the east, and mounted.”

  They started off, single file, east along the ridge. The two loose horses followed without being led. Before they had gone out of earshot of the fighting, four more Mongols joined them, two with prisoners draped in front of their saddles. The ridge tapered off into a low hill, and they rode down its north slope toward the narrow valley beyond. In the trees at the foot of the slope they collected six more loose horses and a wounded Mongol. Psin ordered a halt while the wounded man was tended and with his dagger cut gashes in the bark of six trees, where anyone passing would see.

  When they moved on again it was dawn. They followed the valley north until it ended in another ridge, climbed the ridge, and rode east along it, through trees with dead leaves clinging to the branches. When the sun was up they made a fireless camp.

  All that morning, more horses and Mongols found them. Several of the horses had saddles but no riders; one was carrying the mangled body of a prisoner, still lashed in place but torn by swords until there seemed to be no blood left in it.

  Halfway through the day it began to snow; just before nightfall, when they rode on, the snow turned to ice. They rode all night through the storm, their teeth chattering, their hands frozen to senseless lumps. The ice falling made the whole forest hiss. The horses hated it. One of the wounded Mongols died, and they tied him onto his horse and went on.