Conn Iggulden - Empire of Silver

Bela needed guidance and he returned the gaze like a deer staring helplessly at a lion. Through the heaving mass of men, Conrad von Thuringen came riding, the marshal's face as grim as his own. Batu was panting as he rode up to Tsubodai. The orlok stood by his horse on a ridge of land that stretched across the battlefield, watching the battles he had ordered. Batu had expected the orlok to be furious at the way the attack had gone, but instead Tsubodai smiled to see him. Batu rubbed at a clot of mud sticking to his neck and returned the smile uncertainly.

'Those knights are impressive,' Batu said.

Tsubodai nodded. He had seen the bearded giant throw his men back. The Mongol warriors had been too close, unable to manoeuvre when the knights came charging out. Even so, the sudden attack had been unnerving for its discipline and ferocity. The knights had hacked their way through his men like tireless butchers, closing the gaps in their own ranks as arrows found them and sent them falling to the ground. Each one that fell took two or three warriors with him, grunting and kicking out until he was held and cut.

'There are not so many now,' Tsubodai replied, though the attack had shaken his certainties. He had not dismissed the threat of the knights, but perhaps he had underestimated their strength in the right time and place. That bearded maniac had found the moment, surprising his tuman just as they were howling for victory. Still, only a few knights made it back. When the volleys of arrows began to snap out from the walls, Tsubodai had given the order to retreat out of range. His own warriors had begun to return the shafts, but the deaths were unequal as Bela's archers shot from behind a stable wall of sandbags. For an instant, Tsubodai had considered another charge to break the walls, but the cost would have been too high. He had them inside their own walls, weaker than any Chin fortress. He doubted they had enough water for so many crammed into the camp.

The orlok stared out across the plains with its heaps of bodies, some still crawling. The attacks had smashed the Hungarian army, shattering their overconfidence at last. He was pleased, but he bit his lip as he pondered how to finish the work.

'How long can they hold?' Batu asked suddenly, echoing his thoughts so closely that Tsubodai looked at him in surprise.

'A few days before their water runs out, no more,' he said. 'But they will not wait until then. The question is how many men and horses, how many arrows and lances, they have left. And how many of those cursed knights.'

It was hard to make a good estimate. The grasslands were littered with the dead, but he could not know how many had survived to reach their king. He closed his eyes for a moment, summoning up the image of the land as if he flew above it. His ragged conscripts were still across the river, no doubt staring balefully at the small contingent who had forced the bridge and held the other side. The king's camp lay between Tsubodai and the river, trapped and held in one spot.

Once again, Batu had mirrored his thoughts.

'Let me send a messenger to bring the foot soldiers back across the river,' Batu said.

Tsubodai ignored him. He did not yet know how many of his Mongol warriors had been killed or wounded that morning. If the king had saved even half his army, he would have enough left to force a battle on equal terms, a battle that Tsubodai could only win by throwing his tumans in hard. The precious army he had brought on the great trek would be reduced, battered against an enemy of equal strength and will. It would not do. He thought furiously, opening his eyes to stare at the land around the camp. Slowly he smiled, and this time Batu was not there before him.

'What is it, orlok? Shall I send a messenger across the river ford?'

'Yes. Tell them to slaughter the king's men across the river. We must retake that bridge, Batu. I do not want the king sending men to the river for water.'

Tsubodai tapped his boot on the ridge beneath him. 'When that is done, I will pull my tumans further back, another mile from this point. Thirst will make their decision for them.'

Batu could only look on in confusion as Tsubodai showed his teeth in what might have been a grin.

Temuge was sweating, though the air was cold in the courtyard of the palace. He could feel the hard length of the knife he had concealed under his robe. There had been no search of the men summoned there that morning, though he had made sure by hiding the weapon so that it chafed his groin and caused him to shift his weight.

In the distance, Temuge could hear hammering, the sound that filled his days. The fortification of Karakorum went on day and night, as it would do until the banners of Chagatai were seen on the horizon. If Sorhatani and Torogene held the city long enough for Guyuk to return, they would be praised above all women. Men would talk of the way they had girded Karakorum for war for generations to come. The name of Temuge, keeper of the khan's libraries, would be forgotten.

He stared coldly at Sorhatani as she addressed the small crowd. Alkhun was there as the senior minghaan of the khan's Guards. Temuge felt the man look strangely at him and ignored him. He breathed deeply of the cold air, thinking, planning, deciding. His brother Genghis had once walked into a khan's ger and cut his throat. Genghis should not have survived it, but he had quieted the man's tribe with words and threats. They had stopped to listen. Temuge burned at the thought that the men and women in the courtyard would stop and listen to him.

He fingered the hilt of the knife under his clothes. There was no destiny in life, nothing beyond what a man could take and hold for himself. Temuge had been witness to the bloody birth of a nation. Whether they understood it or not, they owed him their city, their lives, everything. If it had not been for Genghis, the men and women in that cold yard would still be grubby goatherders on the plains, with each tribe at the throat of the next. They were even living longer than the men and women he had known as a boy. Chin and Moslem healers had saved many from illnesses that had once been mortal.

Despite the surging anger, part of him was still terrified of what he planned. Again and again, Temuge let his hands fall open, telling himself the moment had passed: his moment in history. Then the memory of his brothers would surface and he could feel them mocking his indecision. It was just a death, nothing more, certainly nothing to unman him in such a way. He felt sweat trickle down his neck and wiped at it, drawing the gaze of Yao Shu. Their eyes met and Temuge was reminded that he was not alone in his plotting. The chancellor had been more than open with him. The man hid a vicious hatred of Sorhatani that had led Temuge into revealing more of his thoughts and dreams than he had planned.

Sorhatani dismissed the officers of Karakorum to their day's work and began to turn away. Torogene went with her, already discussing some detail.

'A moment, my lady,' Temuge said.

His mouth seemed to work without his volition, spitting out the words. Sorhatani was in a hurry and barely gestured for him to follow her as she stepped down and walked towards the cloistered hallway back into the palace rooms. It was that casual gesture that firmed his nerve with anger. To have such a woman treat him as a supplicant was enough to bring a flush to his features. He hurried to catch up with the women, taking strength from the presence of Yao Shu falling in with them. He glanced back at the open courtyard as they passed into shadow, frowning as he saw Alkhun was still there, staring after him.

Sorhatani had made a mistake in letting him come so close in the shadows. He reached out and took her arm. She shook off his grip.