The Mongoliad: Book Three tfs-3

by Neal Stephenson

  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.

  If he let the current take him, his armor would drag him down. The river was too deep and the bank too far. His horse lost its footing and began to swim, and the current pulled him under the bridge, the rushing roar of water blotting out every other sound. A body rushed past him, slamming into one of the wooden piles. The man was still alive, his mouth gaping in a rictus of terror as he tried to hang on to the bridge, but the river threw water over him and he slipped under the surface.

  Tegusgal and his horse shot out from under the bridge, buoyed along by the increased churn of the river. His horse struggled, its head straining toward the opposite shore. It needed no encouragement from him. He held on to the reins, and a heartbeat later, he felt the animal’s movement stutter beneath him as its hooves found the bottom again. With a mighty surge the horse rushed the bank and emerged from the river.

  He could not think of a more beautiful sound than the noise of hooves against stones. His horse grunted and strained as it clattered up the bank. Water streamed out of his armor, his clothes, and his saddlebags, and he wished it would run out faster. As soon as the horse reached level ground, he pulled back on the reins and forced it to stop. He didn’t want to look, but he had to see what was left of his men. Humiliation and outrage at what he saw ignited a fire in his gut. The knights were massing near the bridge, having completed their destruction of his men. They were moving the barrels already, pairs of men rolling them off the bridge. In a few minutes, the host would ride across the bridge, returning to Hunern.

  Tegusgal had little doubt where they intended to go, and he dug his heels into his horse, urging it toward Hunern. He wouldn’t be able to get to his master soon enough to warn him of the coming assault, but he would be able to help Onghwe escape.

  Escape. He spat, trying to clear his mouth of the bitterness of the word. If he survived, he would summon the wrath of the entire empire. He would make these knights pay with their lives.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  The Company, Divided

  They followed the Khagan’s caravan. The track of hundreds of men and horses, along with an endless number of carts, was easy to follow. After two weeks of constant riding, they left the steppes behind and followed the tracks into a forest around the base of a tall mountain. The following day, the forward riders found sign of an extensive camp, and the company sequestered themselves in the forest while Cnan slipped into the camp to find news of the Khagan’s plan.

  R?dwulf and Yasper were on watch, and they were surprised to see her so quickly. As she rode past their hiding place, they continued to eye the forest suspiciously. “Were you followed?” R?dwulf asked.

  “No,” Cnan said breathlessly. “There is something else I have to tell Feronantus.”

  “What?” Yasper asked.

  “I found Haakon,” she said.

  “Haakon?” Yasper was incredulous.

  She nodded. “He’s a prisoner in the Khagan’s camp.”

  The others, when they heard the news, immediately began to discuss plans for rescuing the boy. Feronantus cut that discussion short with a chop of his hand. “The Khagan,” he said. “What of his plans?”

  “He is going to hunt a bear,” Cnan said. “In a valley north of here. They had an enormous feast last night, which means they are planning on heading out soon. Probably in the morning.”

  “Then we leave immediately, and find the bear first,” Feronantus said. “That will be our opportunity-our only opportunity.”

  The company fell silent, and though Cnan could tell that Feronantus wanted them to be moving, to be getting on their horses and riding north to find the bear and lay a trap for the Khagan, she had been with the Shield-Brethren long enough to sense why Feronantus was waiting. The company would ride faster once they were all thinking of the same goal.

  Right now, there was another matter still on their minds…

  “What about Haakon?” Raphael asked.

  Feronantus stared at him, his gaze hard and unflinching, as if he was disappointed that it was Raphael who had finally voiced the question.

  And yet, at the same time, Cnan knew Raphael was the only one who would have voiced the question on everyone’s mind. It wasn’t insolence that led Raphael to question Feronantus’s orders, it was a different quality entirely.

  “Our mission is to kill the Khagan,” Feronantus said softly. “How does risking ourselves and exposing our presence aid our mission?”

  “What happens after?” Cnan asked, surprised that it was her voice that broke the somber silence.

  “After?” Feronantus asked her in return.

  “Aye,” Raphael said. “After we kill the Khagan.”

  Yasper groaned. “Do we really have to talk about this now?”

  “We should never talk about it,” Vera said, her face hard. “It only creates fear. We all know what happens.”

  Yasper stroked his beard. “Well, if you’re going to put it that way, now is the right time to talk about it.” He peered at Feronantus. “What does happen after we kill the Khagan?”

  “Does it
matter?” Feronantus asked.

  “Look, you Shield-Brethren are an exceptional lot. Stoic. Iron-willed. Ready to die every time you draw your swords. Suicide missions like this are the sort of thing that brings everlasting glory to your name. But me?” Yasper tapped his chest. “I wouldn’t mind seeing the cities of the West again. Paris, I hear, is spectacular in the spring.”

  Istvan snorted and spat. “Buda,” he said. “Paris is a shithole in comparison.”

  Yasper pointed at Istvan. “This is the sort of impassioned discourse that makes this company so charming. Paris or Buda? Don’t you want to be able to see both and decide for yourself?”

  “I have seen both,” Feronantus said quietly. His face was impassive, carved from stone.

  “As have I,” Eleazar said. “And I would not mind seeing them again.”

  Something in Eleazar’s tone touched Feronantus and his eyes flickered toward the Spaniard. “We have to find the bear first,” he said. “It is our only opportunity to lay a trap for the Khagan.”

  “None of us are disagreeing with you on that point, Feronantus,” Raphael pointed out. “We joined with you on this desperate mission because we believed it was the right choice. We trusted you to lead us, to see us to victory. But we are not young initiates-wet behind the ears-who know little about soldiering. Our goal-as much as Yasper thinks otherwise-is not to die gloriously, but to live. A successful mission means going home again. All of us.”

  “They’re going to kill Haakon,” Cnan said. “You know they will. After the Khagan dies, they’re going to kill every Westerner they can find.” When Feronantus did not speak, she grew angry. “You’re leaving him to die!” she shouted at him.

  Feronantus whirled on her, his eyes blazing, and with a thick hand, he grabbed the front of her jacket and pulled her close to his face. “I have sent many-many-men under my command to their deaths. I have watched a good number of them die. Do not presume to lecture me on the morality of my actions, little Binder. I, alone, carry the weight of my decisions, and you have no idea how heavy that burden is.” He squeezed his hand, gathering the fabric of her shirt in his fist. “Yes,” he growled, “I am leaving the boy to die, because I must in order to save thousands of other lives. Lives of men, women, and children who I will never meet. These people will never know my name; they will never even know what I have done for them. What others have sacrificed for them. But in order to save them, I must let the boy die.”

  He shoved her away and turned toward the remainder of the company. “If the success of our mission depended upon it, I would let all of you die,” he snarled. “You knew this risk when you agreed to follow me east. You have had months to face this truth and prepare yourselves. We have traveled thousands of miles together. We are deep in the heart of the empire of our enemies. We are hopelessly outnumbered. Yes, it is highly likely that we are all going to die.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “We all took the oath,” he said, his voice gentler. “We all gave ourselves to the Virgin, knowing that few-very few-who so swear are allowed the luxury of dying in their beds. And those of you”-he opened his eyes and looked directly at Yasper-“who have not sworn the same vow are braver by far.”

  Yasper looked away, his mouth twisting. Cnan was glad Feronantus did not look at her. She wasn’t sure she could withstand the force of his gaze. She didn’t want to acknowledge what he had just said.

  “I would be honored to die beside any one of you,” Feronantus said. “I have seen Paris, Buda, London, the Levant. I have spent decades in the North, watching generation after generation of boys leave Tyrshammar to take their oaths and become men at Petraathen. Few of them ever return. And now I have seen the other half of the world. It has been a good life, and if I were to die in the course of our mission, it would be a good death. But”-and he looked at each of them in turn-“dying in the next few days is not my plan.”

  Raphael made a noise in his throat. “So, you do have a plan,” he said. He cocked his head to the side. “Or is it a vision?”

  Feronantus gave Raphael a hard stare, and out of the corner of her eye, Cnan saw Percival glaring at Raphael too.

  “Get on your horses,” Feronantus said, the tone of his voice signaling an end to the discussion. “We have one last hard ride ahead of us.”

  “No,” Cnan said quietly.

  Feronantus walked to his horse as if he hadn’t heard her, put his foot in the stirrup, and rose into his saddle. Gathering his reins, he raised his craggy head and gazed at her. She met his stare, and didn’t blink. She didn’t look away.

  “I’m not going,” she said. “You don’t need me. I’m not a fighter. I will only be in the way when you prepare your ambush.”

  She expected more of an argument, and she even steeled herself for a cold dismissal from Feronantus, which made his reaction all the more confusing. “May the Virgin protect you, little leaf,” Feronantus said with unexpected tenderness. His face changed, loosing some of its ferocity, and she was startled to read a deep longing in his gaze. “We have been enriched by your company, and you are always welcome at any fire or hearth that we call home. I speak for myself-and I hope I speak for the others as well-when I say that what is mine is yours, Cnan.”

  Cnan opened her mouth to speak, and found her throat wouldn’t work. She nodded dumbly, fighting back the tears that were threatening to run down her cheeks. She raised her hand awkwardly. After all they had been through together, to be bereft of each other’s company so suddenly was more painful than she had imagined it would be. Judging by the expression on more than a few of the faces of the company, she was not alone in her despair.

  “I do ask one favor,” Feronantus said.

  Cnan nodded. “Yes,” she managed.

  “Do nothing to rescue the boy until after the Khagan has departed for his hunt.”

  She laughed, the sound hiccupping out of her body. She wiped at her face. “Of course,” she said.

  Feronantus smiled at her, and she wanted to run to him and leap into his arms. “Good luck,” he said. “We’ll see you again.” He said it simply, but there was a stark finality to his words, as if there was no question in his mind.

  “You will,” she said, trying to match his resolve.

  He snapped his reins against his horse and left the glade without looking back. The others lingered, each one offering her a farewell, and she managed to hold her tears in check until they were all gone.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  The Exodus

  Ferenc was confident that, given time, he could find his own route to the city walls. But Father Rodrigo had sagely suggested they trust Ocyrhoe’s map instead. She knew the bolt holes, the unmarked alleys, the routes taken by the city watch. The map’s route was easy to follow, more so because the city streets were mostly deserted and, sooner than he expected, they were outside the city walls.

  So much easier when the city guard wasn’t chasing them.

  Father Rodrigo walked as if he had been hitched to a wagon; each step seemed incredibly laborious, and only after his foot came down did the rest of his body follow.

  Ferenc was exhausted as well. The excitement of his reunion with Father Rodrigo and their subsequent escape had worn off. They had little in the way of supplies-one blanket he had grabbed from the room before they had left, a water skin, and his flint, all shoved into a ragged satchel the priest was carrying. In the morning, they would have to find sustenance. In the morning…

  Ferenc wondered again why the priest had been so intent on escaping. There was food, a roof over his head, and-if he understood correctly what had transpired-the entirety of the Vatican was at Father Rodrigo’s disposal. Why then the urgent need to slip out of the city? Had they just spent months traveling to the city?

  He did not entirely understand Father Rodrigo’s thinking, and since the priest had been in the Septizodium, he had found the man’s attitude and awareness disturbing. It was as if a different man had come out from the one that had gone in. This one-the haggard priest s
taggering along the moonlit track ahead of him-was almost like a stranger to him.

  “We should rest, Father Rodrigo,” he said gently, “though we must not light a fire. We do not want to attract anyone’s attention. But if we bundle ourselves together in the blanket, we may keep warm through the night.”

  Father Rodrigo’s response had been a wordless grunt, a reminder of the way they had communicated in the first months after Mohi, when the priest had been terribly sick. But, unlike then, he came willingly when Ferenc led him to the shelter of a tall tree, and he fell asleep almost immediately upon lying down on the ground. Ferenc arranged the blanket as best he could to cover both of them, and he stared up at the night sky, listening to the priest’s breathing.

  The weight is gone, Ferenc thought as his eyelids grew heavy. Whatever he carried from Mohi to Rome is no longer with him. There was something else-a lighter burden, but one no less valuable than the message he had carried previously.

  With that thought Ferenc fell into a fitful sleep of his own. He dreamed about cavernous tunnels whose openings were covered by red curtains, and of the women who kept disappearing into these tunnels-women who wore long coats of maille. They wore no helms, and their long, unbound hair flowed down their backs, like the manes of horses.

  In the morning, there was dew clinging to everything, and even with a flint Ferenc doubted he could have started a fire. They were, as he feared, cold, hungry, and damp. It would be easier to find an outlying village and offer his labor in exchange for breakfast.

  “Why did we run away from Rome, Father?” he asked as he stretched, letting his gaze wander about the countryside.

  “We did not run away, my son,” said Father Rodrigo simply, as if this was all the answer that Ferenc could possibly need. “We have a task to perform. One that we could not have accomplished inside the city walls.”