Neal Stephenson - The Mongoliad - Book One

Cnán was about to release the breath in her tight chest when, directly ahead of her, pale and vivid in the twilight, Finn’s hand flew up like a falcon ready to swoop down on prey. She had learned to respect that gesture; it meant that his ears had picked up a trace of something so faint that he risked losing it by shushing them.

The party drew to a halt to let him listen.

Finn’s hand descended and made the prancing gesture that meant horses . Then, thumb pinching quick against two raised fingers: small . He was hearing ponies. A great many ponies.

Cnán dismounted. She knew better than to try to outride what was coming. Haakon drew his greatsword.

Finn’s hands now told them by darts and swoops that the ponies were not in one place, but all around. Cnán could finally hear their hooves, then the low voices of the men who had been quietly riding to surround their party. She bent her knees, dropping to a squat, and then to all fours, pulling her dark cape around her. They had drawn the attention of a scouting party. Perhaps a sentry had sighted them or some scavenger had ratted them out, hoping to purloin some small item of value once the Mongols were finished. Or perhaps someone had reported Finn’s attack on the gleaner.

No matter. Cnán could see it clearly. Her companions would end up like hedgehogs, bristling with arrows, but she would hide among their corpses, then scurry to the woods before the sentinels caught her.

Raphael nudged his mount forward and laid his hand on Haakon’s forearm. The boy’s drawn sword, shining like an icicle in the twilight, would make him the first target of the archers. Haakon lowered the blade, nodding.

A little squadron of Mongols filed into position between the rescue party and the trees. Cnán reckoned she might still be able to steal past them during the confusion of the fight, but some troubled part of her soul was telling her to stay with her comrades.

“The second one, in the armor that looks like fish scales,” she said in low tones. “He is rich. Their leader.”

“We charge him, then,” Haakon proposed.

“And die in a cloud of arrows before we get halfway,” Raphael said.

“On me ,” Illarion suddenly commanded, surprising them all. He spurred his horse forward. Unsettled by the corpses and by the tension in the voices, the mount startled, but then, at a soothing word from his gaunt rider, dropped into a slow walk. “Follow. Single file. Slow. Like a funeral procession. Vaetha, walk your horse. All of you, hood yourselves.”

They did as Illarion instructed. The Ruthenian rode stiffly, steadily, at a plodding pace, his great hollow eyes staring straight ahead.

A single armored Mongol rode ahead of the band, grinning, striped bow held out in one hand, as if signaling peace, friendship. A chief, no doubt. Cnán counted their opponents. Fifteen horse-mounted bowmen.

Less than a hundred paces now separated the groups.

To bar the Ruthenian’s path, the chief crabbed his pony sideways.

Illarion continued straight on, his horse snorting and tossing his head.

She thought she understood Illarion’s strategy: by moving so, he projected dogged purpose, hopefully slowing the Mongols from making a pincered feint to scatter their smaller party. If the Ruthenian turned or rode too quickly, the Mongols would instinctively rush in and give chase like dogs coursing a hind.

The chief twitched his bow left, right, then up. He dropped back. The Mongol squadron finally split to the right and left, then began to draw in like a slow snare or a purse string against their flanks and rear, fifty paces, thirty paces… close enough that their first arrows would be certain to strike home, yet not close enough to bring them within range of Haakon’s bright sword.

The chief deftly spun his pony, as if daring them to chase after and catch him, him personally, with his back turned and everything. Grinning all the while.

Cnán did not understand what Illarion proposed to do when he reached the chief. Perhaps swing on him and die, giving the others some chance of reaching the woods?

Less than five paces now separated Illarion and the chief.

With a sweep of his arm, Illarion drew back the cloak that had swathed him for much of the last two days and hurled it aside, where it spun and flew for an uncanny number of yards, like a bat, then fell—to precisely drape the picked skeleton and conical helm of a Polish knight.

A knight who had almost made it to the forest before taking three arrows in the back.

All heads turned, mesmerized by this.

Bones rattled. The round hump of the skull shifted under the cloak, as if finding new life.

Illarion reined his horse just to the left of the Mongol chief and canted his head with a careless jerk, exposing the swollen, earless right side of his face. Not once did his eyes meet the man’s.

Now understanding the Mongol’s reaction, Cnán watched him further, seeing first curiosity, then a twist of lip and brow—signaling alarm and confusion. The chief’s features went pale and his mouth opened as if to scream. Frantic, heels kicking the pony’s flanks, he spun about and dog-yelped to his comrades. His pony bucked and turned but did not know which way to go.

Illarion rode steadily on. His missing ear dripped black blood. His hollow eyes knew death as an intimate comrade; nothing living could stop him…or would wish to.

Leaning over his pony’s neck, reining it in, the chief jerked its head left and spurred it even harder, leaving a gap through which Illarion rode without pause and without betraying the slightest awareness that the Mongols were even there. The Ruthenian did not need to act to appear to ride from beyond humanity, beyond life.

The chief gawped in terror. His pony stumbled in the muck.

On the left and right and behind, the Mongols turned and drew back, muttering and shouting.

Behind Illarion, Raphael leaned to one side and cupped his hand to his ear, imitating the gaunt Ruthenian—but with a grim and toothy smile. He swiveled in his saddle to leer at the Mongols.

The entire squadron broke and scattered into the mist.

The rescue party rode on at the same pace. At Finn’s gesture, Cnán remounted. She could see that Haakon’s shoulders were drawn in, flexing and flinching just like her own.

The trees came up none too soon, and the horses parted to accommodate them. Cold, clean night air swirled from the west, bringing more rain and mist, and water dripped in pattering, rhythmic showers from the leaves and branches, as if to cleanse them of all they had seen.

“You speak Mongol, don’t you?” Haakon asked Cnán when they had counted a hundred paces deep into the woods.

“Tartaric, Turkic, some Tungus,” she said.

“What did the leader say?”

“You should know,” Cnán said, “even if you ken not a word.”

Haakon frowned. “You think I’m an oaf.”

Cnán grimaced and dropped her chin.

Haakon flicked his damp hair back. “Tell me,” he persisted. “I want to hear it anyway.”

Cnán touched her right ear. “ We are unclean spirits of the fallen ,” she said, “ returning to the forests of the West from which we came .”

“Ghosts,” Finn said.

“Ghosts,” she confirmed.

Once in the woods, two hours of picking their way along leaf-littered paths in broken moonlight brought them back to the clearing and the old monastery. By then they had shaken off the clammy dread that had overtaken them during their journey and had begun to converse about topics other than death and how to avoid it. They were received warmly by the Skjaldbræður , whose numbers, during their absence, had increased to something like a score. Illarion, of course, was embraced and even wept over. Cnán had expected this. But she was surprised by the hospitality that some of the knights were now showing toward her. In a courtly style that struck her as ridiculous, Feronantus asked whether she would consider gracing their camp with her presence for a while and directed her attention toward a tent that had been pitched, somewhat aloof from the others, and made ready for her. This at first struck Cnán as amusing, since there was no shortage of buildings in the compound, though most lacked roofs.