Mark Teppo - The Mongoliad - Book Two

Yasper seemed to have spent a stimulating afternoon wandering about the makeshift market, which had attracted an assortment of outlandish-looking sorts from various parts of the continent that stretched before them on the opposing bank, as well as a few Westerners-even a Khazar or two. They had come to trade silver money and valuable goods from faraway places for the produce of the local farms, which they loaded onto river barges or oxcarts. Cnan, infiltrating the place after nightfall, smelled what was unquestionably Cathayan food being cooked and was ambushed by something like homesickness. Not a useful emotion for a Binder.

Rather later-an hour or two past midnight, she guessed-she and Yasper hiked up a gentle sandy slope toward the village, which was tiny and despicable compared to the seasonal market. In doing so, they left the savory smells of the cooking behind them. Certain odors, however, seemed to follow them wherever they went: the fruity aroma of alcohol on Yasper’s breath and a sharper tang that reminded her a bit of rotten eggs, but sharper, like pepper. The latter emanated from a capacious wicker basket filled with rustling objects-but apparently not too heavy-that Yasper kept slung over his shoulder. He patted it nervously from time to time.

The village was an oval compound of small thatch-roofed houses up on stilts, surrounded by a wooden stockade. They circumvented it, taking care not to expose themselves to the view of the Cuman standing guard at its gate, and made their way through a strip of scrub brush and tall grass to the verge of the field that Alchiq had claimed for the night’s camping place.

The Mongols’ ponies, numbering well over a hundred, had been staked out in a wide belt surrounding an inner core speckled with small campfires and the indistinct forms of Mongols lying asleep on the ground, rolled up in their blankets. Cnan had learned that there tended to be about one campfire per arban , and the rule seemed to hold true here, since there were seven such fires. Most were only smoldering since no one was awake to feed them, and the night was warm enough that their heat was not needed.

She numbered the sentries at half a dozen, and as usual in a well-ordered camp, they were all on their feet, moving about, only rarely gathering to converse.

Feronantus had said that nothing would happen until the moon’s crescent touched the western horizon. It was two fingers away from doing so, and so Cnan left Yasper to his preparations, and stole away from the camp back toward the river along the route she expected to retrace later. She had studied the way hastily before sundown, but it seemed prudent to reconnoiter it once in the dark.

North of the village, a screen of trees-the tallest they had seen in weeks-grew between the Mongols’ camp and the bank of the river. It was only ten paces in breadth, but its undergrowth was dense enough for Cnan to become lost in it for a few moments, and she made enough noise passing through to alert Eleazar, who was lurking nearby, almost completely invisible in armor that had been blackened with a mixture of grease and char.

Thinking about that overlong sword of his, Cnan did her best to simulate the sweet song of a lark, which they had chosen as a sort of password. A moment later, she heard the call echoed from the branches of a tree over her head. Her call hadn’t been convincing enough to fool a real bird; this was Vera, perched somewhere nearby, no doubt with her crossbow. R?dwulf and Rafael would be up in other trees, ensconced in shooting positions with clear views of the ground between here and the Mongols’ camp.

Having been thus announced and heralded, she passed out of the tree belt and into open, sandy ground beyond to find Feronantus and Percival, fully armed and armored, standing silently next to their horses and brooding over the river, which ran shallow, and hence rather noisily, through a channel about twenty paces away. This was not its main branch. It divided around a long, slender island, a sandbar that had been colonized and reinforced by leggy trees that thrust from the water and sand like bristles in a brush. The fork they looked over now was the inferior branch, easily forded this time of year. On the opposite side of the little island, it ran deeper. Much of its breadth was suitable for wading, but the middle stretch would require swimming or a boat. A boat ought to be drawn up on that shore. Feronantus had paid for it and offered to pay the same amount again after the boatman delivered them to the far bank-to Asia.

“What news, Vaetha ?” asked Feronantus, using the false name that Cnan had given him the first time they had met-this had become a perverse, affectionate habit.

“None,” she said. “Yet.”

“Where does the moon stand?”

“One finger to go.”

“Yasper found what he wanted?”

“The market seems to have satisfied him in many ways.”

Feronantus enjoyed this, but Percival threw her a wounded look.

“One day, your skills as an observer will get you into trouble,” Feronantus said.”

“If this is not trouble,” Cnan returned, “then what is?”

Feronantus considered it, then shrugged. “It is what we do.”

“Attacking sleeping, unarmed men?”

“This undertaking is difficult enough to begin with,” Feronantus said. “You yourself have told us many times that it is nothing more than a slow form of suicide. If we were to forgo the use of stealth and surprise, and restrict ourselves to frontal assaults in broad daylight…” He shook his head. “They will all be awake soon enough,” he said, “and making them so is your responsibility; if you are so concerned with making it a fair fight, then go and do your job.”

With a parting glance at Percival-who declined to meet her eye-she turned back into the belt of woods and slipped through it as quietly as she could. Emerging from its western side, she got a clear view of the moon, just now touching the horizon, and felt shame for being late, followed by annoyance that these men had the power to make her feel shame.

The breeze was light, but unquestionably out of the west, and this told her where to find Yasper-near the eastern edge of the broad oval where the Mongols had staked out their ponies. Downwind, in other words, so that the ponies would not scent him and whinny in alarm. He was expecting her, glancing back nervously in her direction as she scurried among the moon shadows of shrubs and low trees. As she drew closer, her nose detected a new stink: Yasper had put fire to something that was smoldering rather than burning, and spinning out a long braided thread of smoke.

As she crouched next to him, he gripped her upper arm and pointed toward the Mongols’ camp. It was difficult to see much, given that it was dark and that she was peering through numerous ponies. Some of these had lain down so that they could sleep deeply, while others dozed standing up. But her eye was drawn by a flickering in the nearest of the campfires. This, she realized, was caused by the movement of at least one person who was on his feet and stealing toward it. Either Finn or Istvan.

Yasper began huffing and puffing on a twist of some fibrous material, causing the feeble wax to glow bright orange. He was working with a punk that burned slowly once lit. As she watched, he touched another punk to it and blew some more, igniting the second one, which he handed to Cnan. He then set his punk on the ground at a safe remove from his basket, into which he reached with both hands and pulled out a stack of flat packages wrapped in paper. This occasioned a lot of rustling and drew the attention of a nearby pony, but Yasper did not seem to care. He handed the packages to Cnan. “Remember, wait until you hear me-what I’ll do,” he whispered and then stood up in the moonlight and began to walk openly among the ponies, bending from time to time to sever a rope with a knife. This created minor commotion among the horses, which swung about and pawed the ground, snorting, but none bolted.