Conn Iggulden - Lords of the Bow

Kachiun held back the gallop to the last possible moment before leaning into the wind and yelling for his mount to stretch its gait. He loved the thunder that sounded around him as he stood in the stirrups. Over such a distance, they seemed to close slowly, then everything was rushing toward him. His heart pounded as he reached the Chin column and sent his first arrow snapping through the air. He saw the Chin bolts streak out, falling uselessly into the grass. To ride along that endless line was to be untouchable, and Kachiun laughed aloud at the joy of it, sending shaft after shaft. He hardly had to aim with five thousand men on either side of the column, pinching it between them in whipping strikes.

The Chin cavalry hardly managed to reach full gallop before they were annihilated to a man, smashed from their mounts. Kachiun grinned when he saw not one of the enemy horses had been killed. His men were being careful, especially now they had seen how few riders the Chin had brought to the field.

When the cavalry were broken, Kachiun chose his targets with precision, aiming at any officer he could see. Within sixty heartbeats, his tuman loosed a hundred thousand shafts at the column. Despite the lacquered Chin armor, thousands were felled in their tracks, with those behind stumbling over them.

Kachiun could hear the cattle lowing in distress and panic, and to his pleasure, he saw the herd stampede, crushing more than a hundred of the Chin soldiers and breaking a hole in the column before they lumbered off into the distance. He had reached the end of the tail and swung in a little further, ready to double back. Crossbow bolts rattled off his chest, near spent. After the months of tedious training, it was simply wonderful to be riding against an enemy, and better, one who could not touch them but only die. He wished he'd known to bring more quivers. His grasping fingers found the first one empty and began his last fifty shafts, taking a Chin bannerman off his feet with the first.

Kachiun blinked wind-tears out of his eyes. He had thinned the column enough to see through it to the second five thousand on the eastern flank. They too were riding with impunity, striking at will. Another sixty heartbeats and a hundred thousand arrows followed the rest. The Chin soldiers could not hide and the neat column began to disintegrate. Men who trudged near carts threw themselves under them for protection while their colleagues died around them. A great wail of fear went up from the pikemen, and there were no officers left alive to rally them or keep them on the road to Yenking.

Kachiun began his second run, this time too far from the column to waste a shot. The lines reversed with the ease that comes of ceaseless hours of drill, and fresh quivers were emptied quickly. Kachiun galloped flat out along the lines, glancing back at the trail of dead they left behind as the column pushed onwards through the storm. The soldiers had kept their discipline, though the pace was slowing. Other men bawled orders in the place of dead officers, knowing that to panic was to invite complete destruction.

Kachiun grunted to himself in grudging admiration. He had seen many forces who would have broken before this. He reached the head of the column and swung back to the inside line once more, feeling his shoulders burn as he bent the bow again at full speed. He imagined his brother's face when the straggling remnants reached the welcome they had prepared at Yenking. Kachiun barked a laugh at the thought, his fingers growing sore as he scrabbled in the fast-emptying quiver. Ten more at most, but the column seemed to shudder as panic spread again through the ranks. The crossbow bolts had not stopped and Kachiun had to make a decision. He could feel his men looking to him for the order that would have them draw swords and carve the column to pieces. They were all running low on shafts, and when the last massed volley was fired, their work was over. They knew the orders as well as he did, but still they watched him, hoping.

Kachiun tensed his jaw. Yenking was far away and Genghis would surely forgive him if he finished the column on his own. He could feel how close they were to breaking. Everything he had learned over the years of war made it something he could almost taste.

He grimaced, chewing his own cheek as the moment swelled around him. At last he shook his head and drew a wide circle in the air with his fist. Every officer in sight repeated the gesture and the lines fell back from the shattered remnants of the column.

Kachiun watched his men form up in panting lines, exhilarated. Those who still had arrows loosed them with enormous care, taking men as they pleased. Kachiun could see their frustration as they reined in behind the column and watched it move away from them. Many of them patted the necks of their mounts and stared at their officers, furious at being called back from the killing. It made no sense and Kachiun had to be deaf to the shouts of complaint from all quarters.

As the column put distance between them, many of the soldiers looked back in terror, convinced they were going to be attacked from behind. Kachiun let a gap open, then walked his pony forward. He ordered the right and left wings to move up, so that they cupped the rear of the column and herded it onwards to Yenking.

Behind them, they left a trail of dead men over more than a mile, with fluttering pennants and pikes in piles. Kachiun sent a hundred warriors to loot the bodies and dispatch wounded men, but his gaze didn't leave the column as it made its way to his waiting brother.

It took until late afternoon for the battered column to sight the city it had come to relieve. By that point, the Chin soldiers who had survived the slaughter walked with their heads down, their spirits broken after so long with death at their backs. When they saw another ten thousand barring their way, fresh men with lances and bows, they sent up a moan of utter misery. The column shuddered again as they hesitated, knowing they could not fight their way through. Without a signal, they halted at last and Kachiun raised a fist to stop his men riding too close. In the gathering gloom, he waited for his brother to approach. He was pleased he had not denied Genghis this moment when he saw him ride apart from the tuman of warriors and come cantering across the grass.

The dull-eyed Chin soldiers watched him, panting and exhausted at the pace they had been forced to set. The carts of goods had drifted back through the hurrying ranks, left behind while Kachiun peeled men off to investigate the contents.

In a deliberate show, Genghis judged the mood of the column and rode right along the edge of it. Kachiun heard his men murmur in pleasure at the khan's display of courage. Perhaps there was still a risk that crossbows might take him from the saddle, but Genghis did not look at the Chin soldiers as he passed, seemingly unaware of the thousands of men turning to watch him from under lowered brows.

"You have not left me with many, brother," Genghis said. Kachiun could see he was pale and sweating from the ride. On impulse, Kachiun dismounted and touched his head to his brother's foot.

"I wish you could have been there to see the faces of their officers," Kachiun replied. "We are truly wolves in a world of sheep, brother."

Genghis nodded, his weariness preventing him from sharing Kachiun's light spirits. "I see no supplies here," he said.

"They have left them all behind, including as fine a herd of oxen as you will ever see."

Genghis perked up at that. "I have not eaten beef in a long time. We will roast them before Yenking and waft the smell of the meat over the walls. You have done well, brother. Shall we finish them?" Both men looked over the grim column of soldiers, now no more than half the original size.

Kachiun shrugged. "They are too many mouths to feed, unless you will give them the supplies they brought to this place. Let me try to disarm them first, or they could still fight."