Until the Sun Falls (50 page)

Psin sat on his heels, looking at the map. “I never saw them fight, these knights. But if they are anything like the Russians, and if what I overheard is any indication, they don’t take orders on a battlefield. They charge, and the fighting breaks up into individual combats. They are not very mobile, either. They ride stallions—”

Tshant snorted. “Can they control them?”

“I said I didn’t see them fight. Can you control a stallion when he’s hot? I’d guess they just gallop around bashing each other’s brains out. They use bits that would make you go white—solid-mouthed things with shanks this long.”

Baidar said, “Can they defend against siege?”

Psin glared at him. “I’ve said about six times I’ve never seen them fight. I should think that if they were besieged they’d die before they hid behind their walls. What good is a horseman behind walls anyway? They’re like stallions themselves: in a siege they’ll fret and get hot and take the first chance they’re given to attack whatever’s besieging them.”

Baidar grinned. “Easy.”

“Not so. Just because they ride stallions and use monstrous bits don’t think they can’t ride. They do things with those big horses you’d never dream of teaching yours.”

“What?” Mongke said, interested.

“I saw one knight pick his horse up into a rear and make it hop six strides on its hindlegs. I suppose if they’re in the middle of a fight and want to get out they do that. And the horses rear up and kick out behind. Don’t get too close behind them.”

“Tell them about the bows,” Sabotai murmured.

“Yes.” Psin held out his hands in front of him. “Their bows are about this long, and they have boxes on them perpendicular to the grip and cranks to wind up the string to the nocking point. They shoot much flatter than ours do, and their range is about one third our bows, but I think their arrows will go through almost anything within range. It takes them a long time to load.”

“Have all these areas been scouted?” Mongke said.

Psin shook his head. “I scouted the pass through the mountains. Merchants told me the rest. I don’t trust them, so I checked everything carefully with as many different men as I could find. You’ll have to do your own scouting in the south and the north.”

Sabotai said, “Exactly. Now. Batu’s brothers are coming south with the best of the troops we left north of the Volga. We’ll have fifteen tumans. The Kipchaks, Alans and Bulgars have cut their herds early to provide us with remounts. They should be here within a few days.”

“By tomorrow,” Batu said. “I passed them, riding in from the Volga camp.”

“Good. Three tumans will invade Poland across the Vistula, having taken the cities Psin mentioned, and drive west. One wing will raid into Lithuania to keep them busy. The main army will locate and destroy the Polish armies and anybody who comes to help them.”

“Who commands?” Mongke said.

“Kaidu and Baidar.”

Tshant growled. Psin almost laughed. Batu had demanded that Kaidu be given a command; since Quyuk had left he’d grown bolder. Mongke looked at Psin, and Psin nodded.

Kaidu said, “I want Tshant with me.” His eyes were bright with pride.

“I’m not going to fight Lithuanians,” Tshant said.

Baidar said, “We want Tshant to command our vanguard, if he cares to come with us.”

Kaidu nodded happily. Baidar glanced over at him, curled his lip, and immediately pulled his face straight. His eyes and Tshant’s met, and they both nodded.

Psin said, “Tshant will have to do your reconnaissance. I’m not sure where either of the cities are, and I’ve not got the faintest idea how far west you should go.”

“To the sea,” Mongke said. “Eventually. All right. What else?”

Sabotai lifted his head. “Where is Kadan?”

Mongke looked around. “He was—”

“He’s in back of you, on the couch,” Tshant said. “Under the yak skin.”

Mongke and Kaidu pounced, delighted. Kadan had curled up behind them and gone to sleep. They shook him until he sat up again, groaning and striking at them.

“Kadan will command the southern wing,” Sabotai said. “Kadan, are you listening?”

Kadan nodded. “Give me something to drink.”

“Not unless you listen,” Sabotai said. “You are to take three tumans and go south until you reach the Danube and follow it west, locating and destroying all resistance to us.”

“Oh,” Kadan said. “Of course. Certainly. Give me something to drink.”

Batu said, “How can he—”

“Shut up.” Baidar thrust a bowl of kumiss into Kadan’s hands. To Sabotai he said, “He wants his brothers to command, doesn’t he. I say we ought to vote on the commands and who should have them.”

Sabotai drew himself up angrily. “The commands have already been decided. If you have any objections, take them to Karakorum. The Kha-Khan—”

“Just so long as Batu’s brothers don’t command,” Baidar said.

“What’s wrong with my brothers?” Batu shouted.

Mongke looked up. “This is a joint campaign. All of us are equals. If your kin command all the wings of the army, it’s unbalanced. Besides, your brothers take orders from no one but you.”

Psin said, “Stop fighting. Nobody has any more power in this than anyone else of the Altun. Kaidu needs the experience, so we send him north with capable advisers.”

Batu said, “It’s my ulus. And I’m the only one of you with the rank of khan.”

“That’s not so,” Mongke said. “Psin is a khan. So am I.”

Batu said, “Well, Psin isn’t of the Altun, and—”

“Pick at straws some other time,” Sabotai said. “This is a kuriltai, not a session to discuss rank. The main army will invade Hungary through the pass Psin mentioned. Immediately we reach the steppe, we will divide into four separate columns. Mongke will command one, to raid through the south of Hungary to the Danube and meet Kadan there before turning north. Batu will lead another group, with his brothers, which will swing through the north along the foothills. I will take the third and ride straight toward the Hungarian capital, destroying whatever resistance we find. Psin with the vanguard will head to the capital at all speed and invest it and cut their lines of communication and supply.”

“If they attack him,” Mongke said, “does he fight them?”

Psin shook his head. “I will retreat until the rest of you reach me. They’ll have a large army, and I’m not going to fight them with only one tuman.”

“Is that clear?” Sabotai said.

Everybody nodded; Kaidu said, “Yes.”

“Good. Go back to your yurts. Tomorrow, at your convenience, bring your tuman-commanders and thousand-commanders to Psin for a conference. He’ll explain each situation in detail. I’ll be here most of the day to listen and comment. The northern wing will take the three tumans camped northwest of here and move out within three days. Questions? Good. Go home.”

Psin reined up. The plain stretched on to the western horizon, ridged and furrowed with snow. “I’ll leave you here. Whatever you do, don’t let Kaidu get carried away with his new opportunities.”

Tshant nodded. He looked back at the army that jogged after them. “Baidar and I get along well enough to control him.” He looked again at his father. Under the grease, the scars on Psin’s face were almost invisible.

“You’ve got the best of the thousand-commanders, although I don’t like any of your tuman-commanders,” Psin said. “But three of you should be able to keep them to one side.”

“I’d feel better if you’d done some reconnaissance up there.”

Psin looked surprised. “Do it yourself. You’re good at it.” He lifted his reins. “Just keep moving, that’s all. You know.”

Djela said, “Be careful, Grandfather.”

“I will.” Psin wheeled his horse and started back south. Tshant watched him go. In his session with Psin the day before, Psin had stressed that all his information came from merchants whom he did not trust. “Just keep moving.” To go into country no one knew anything about… “You know.”

Father. I do not know. Damn you.

He swung around to follow the vanguard, already well past him. Djela pattered along beside him. The sky was overcast and the wind was getting colder.

Djela began to sing, and Tshant said, “Stop that.”

“No.”

“Go away, then. Let me think.”

“What are you thinking about?”

“Kaidu.” Tshant looked north, trying to pick out the front edge of the vanguard. His scouts were due to report.

“You said you didn’t like Kaidu.”

“I don’t.” He settled back. “When did I say that?”

“To Grandfather. After we took Kiev. You know.”

“Don’t tell anybody.”

“I won’t.” Djela grinned.

Tshant looked at him doubtfully. Djela had never yet told anybody anything he shouldn’t have. When he talked to his grownup cousins he usually made up elaborate lies about his adventures. Everybody but Mongke ignored him; Mongke invented even more elaborate stories, which Djela took for solid truth because Mongke told them with a perfectly straight face. Tshant wished that Mongke had come with them.

“You know most of the things Mongke tells you are lies,” he said.

Djela shook his head. “Oh, no. I like Mongke. He wouldn’t lie to me.”

Tshant threw his head back and laughed. He kicked up his horse into a canter. Djela began to sing again, Russian songs. Tshant opened his mouth to tell him to stop, changed his mind, and listened. Djela must have learned the songs from Ana.

She shouldn’t have died, he thought. She was going to be happy.

No. She had not been happy, and she wouldn’t have been happy. He felt as if he had a stone in his stomach. It wasn’t my fault. How could I have done anything?

“Ada, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

He thought, She was unlucky. Anybody but me. Anybody else she might have… He did not know what she might have done, what might have happened. It was a blank in his mind, like the Muslim sign that meant nothing. He rode away from Djela to keep him from seeing his face. His nerves were leaping in his face. There was something wrong with him, if he could not—

He didn’t know what it was he was trying to think. It was something entirely new. It wasn’t fair; nothing the elders had told him fit, and they were supposed to… protect him.

“Ada, are you all right?”

“Yes. I’m fine. Go away. I’m thinking.”

The sky was immense, and the plain stretched on almost featureless in all directions; in the middle of it he felt helpless and small. He was not in the middle. It looked that way to him, but to someone standing on the far horizon, he was on the edge and that someone was in the middle.

“Ada. Here come the scouts.”

“Good.”

He slowed his horse. The action cleared his mind. He gulped in the crisp air. The fear that had slipped into his head vanished. He wouldn’t think about it again. Whatever it had been that he had thought about.

The snow had stopped falling before noon,
and a sick pale
sun coasted through the flying clouds. Psin with his standard-bearer and five couriers stopped to change horses; the main body of the vanguard was stretched out across the plain to the northwest. Psin had two tumans, one mounted on bays, the other on skewbalds. He threw his saddle onto his remount and said, “Any sign of the scouts?”

The two couriers already mounted stood in their stirrups and looked around. “Not yet.”

“Hunh.” He swung up. “We’ll canter to get back into position.”

They loped off. The sky was a dull, smoky color, and the wind lifted the fresh snow like dust. The dun horse, flying along at the end of Psin’s lead rope, snuffled and kicked at the horse nearest him.

Since leaving Kiev they had met nothing, no enemy scouts, no enemy messengers come to deliver up this territory without a struggle—no people at all. They had ridden into one village but it was deserted. Newly deserted, with some of the fires warm and fresh dung in the horse pens. The tracks had run off west. They were still following them.

“Scouts,” a man near him said.

Psin looked up. Across the treeless steppe a horseman was galloping toward them. Psin threw up one hand, and the horseman reined in and turned sideways to the oncoming army. All down the front line of the vanguard horses neighed and men called out. The scout stood in his stirrups and gestured hugely, carefully. Psin squinted to see.

“Read it,” he said.

The standardbearer cleared his throat. “Villages. Just ahead. A string of them. Three—four. Running north to south. No resistance.”

“Signal it read. We’ll lope.”

One of the couriers pulled out of the group around Psin, so that the scout could see, and gestured to him. The standardbearer dipped the white banner twice. Psin looked north and saw that the standards all down the front line were dipping. The vanguard shifted smoothly into a slow canter.

The scout had whirled and ridden off west. The sun was breaking through the clouds, and the wind veered around. In the snapping wind the banner crackled as if it were frozen. West, where the white steppe met the white sky, the horizon was uneven. The villages. Or village; he probably would see no more than one.

“Speed,” Sabotai had said. “Strike them quickly and go on, don’t stop until you reach the mountains. You know what to do. Let them think nothing travels faster than a Mongol army.”

“Do I let them run?”

“Oh, naturally. Let them run and tell the people in the west what terrors we are.”

The southern wing of the vanguard was out of sight and, hopefully, riding half a day behind Psin, a little ahead of Kadan’s army far to the south. The whole design was elaborate enough to entertain a Muslim. Sabotai had said, smiling, “If we can’t have fun fighting, we may as well enjoy the deployment.”

“Why do we have to enjoy it at all?”

“Psin. How petty of you.” That had been Mongke, curled like a mink on the couch.

“Fields,” the standardbearer said. “Look at the snow up ahead.”

The snow was rippled evenly from just before them to the horizon. Psin nodded. Now he could see the separate huts of the village, the pens for the animals. There were no stockades. No resistance, the scout had said. “Hang the sign for torches.”