Ahead, the smoke bridge collapsed, spilling dozens of bodies onto the pengs below. Men and horses tumbled in all directions, but the Army of Kao Shan did not slow. The lead ranks closed to within thirty yards of the gate. Barbarian arrows began to pour down from the bell tower and the city's ramparts. A column of Tuigan riders rushed away from the gate to meet the Shou charge head to head.
A moment later, Batu saw another group of horsewarriors—perhaps five thousand in all—ride toward the gate. This second group passed easily through the Tuigan rushing to meet the Shou charge. Immediately, he knew the retreating formation was the khahan's bodyguard, for they were uniformly dressed in fine black armor and rode white horses. Even the wealthiest emperor could only afford to outfit his best troops in such a manner.
Apparently, the general from Chukei realized, Yamun Khahan had still been outside Shou Kuan when the Shou attacked. The barbarian emperor had probably been waiting for his men to wipe out the last pockets of resistance before entering the city.
As Batu started down the hill, clanging steel and furious yells sounded from the base of the knoll. The Army of Kao Shan had met the enemy charge.
On the city walls, the Tuigan archers shifted their fire toward the charging Shou. Arrows began raining down around Batu. A scream sounded nearby, then the veteran to the general's left tumbled out of his saddle.
A black streak flashed past Batu's head, then something slapped the leather armor over his collarbone. He gasped in alarm, but felt no pain. Instinctively, he transferred his reins to his sword arm and felt for a wound with his free hand. He found a deep cut in the leather where an arrow had grazed his hauberk. As he realized how close he had come to perishing, the general's chest tightened.
In the next instant, he left the deadly shower of arrows and entered the melee in front of the gate. A rider leveled a saber at his head. The general dropped his reins and raised his tao in a desperate block. As the two swords met, a terrific jolt ran along his arm. The barbarian found himself holding the hilt of a broken sword. Batu countered with a slash and felt his blade cut through the man's leather armor.
Screaming, the Tuigan slid out of his saddle.
Batu grasped at his loose reins, but lost them. He was unsettled by the thought of having no control over his beast during the melee, but another barbarian slashed at him and the general gave up any hope of recovering the reins.
Batu turned the enemy blow aside, then slipped his blade along the Tuigan's shoulder and opened a wound in the enemy's throat. The barbarian gurgled and dropped his weapon, then kicked his horse onward. The melee became a whirl of flashing blades and dying men. Time after time, Batu blocked and countered, more often than not barely aware of whom he was fighting. Once, he barely ducked a blow from a soldier he had thought to be Shou until the man's curved blade sailed past his head. Twice, only the glimpse of a double-edged chien stopped him from slaying one of his own men.
As the general lifted his aching arm for what felt like the thousandth time, the deep reverberating rumble of Tuigan signal drums rolled from the city. Batu's opponent sliced at him with a wild cross-body swing, then wheeled his horse around and sprang away. The man was out of reach before the general could react.
To all sides, the Tuigan were following the lead of Batu's adversary and turning away from the battle. A few pengs reacted quickly, downing the fleeing horsewarriors with vicious hacks or beheading them with efficient slashes. More often, however, the stunned Shou found themselves swinging at empty air while their foes galloped toward the city gates.
An instant later, a spontaneous shout of triumph rose from the Shou pengs. Though Batu suspected otherwise, to his soldiers the sudden withdrawal seemed as though the enemy had been routed. Screaming their war cries, the Shou tried to pursue.
When they set their heels to their horses, however, the result was pandemonium. Like Batu, most of them had dropped their reins during the battle, so they had little control over the excited beasts. The horses bolted in all directions, crashing into each other or sprinting away from the throng altogether.
Anxious to avoid being carried away by the anarchy plaguing his ranks, Batu quickly recovered his own horse's reins. Once he felt in control of his mount, he turned his attention to Shou Kuan. The last of the Tuigan were slipping between the closing gates. There was no sign of Yamun Khahan or his bodyguard, and Batu realized that the enemy commander had reached the relative safety of the city.
The battle, for now, was over. Dead and wounded soldiers, both Tuigan and Shou, blanketed the ground between the knoll and the gate. Already, over a hundred pengs had dismounted and were efficiently dispatching the Tuigan wounded. It did not even cross their minds to take prisoners, save for the few officers who would prove useful for interrogation.
Atop the walls of Shou Kuan, thousands of Tuigan had gathered on the ramparts to watch the slaughter of their wounded comrades. Their faces betrayed no anger or shock, only cool detachment. Batu had no doubt that if the horsewarriors had been the ones outside the city, they would have done the same thing to the Shou survivors.
As the general scanned Shou Kuan's rampart, however, he was interested in more than Tuigan faces. He was searching the brick-lined walls for a weakness that he could use to bring a quick end to the coming siege.
As Batu studied the fortifications, the Tuigan on the ramparts raised their bows. An instant later, a rain of black-shafted arrows brought an end to his inspection. Amidst a chorus of anguished wails and cries, he wheeled his horse about and galloped away from the city gate.
15
A Caged Tiger
The morning sun touched the exterior of the tent, kindling an orange light inside. In his ire last night, Batu had driven away the engineers before they could stake the pavilion, so now its unsecured flaps slapped wildly in the late summer wind. The general's silk shirt was soaked with sweat, but he barely noticed. As he had been doing since before dawn, he stood motionless, staring out the tent's door.
The pavilion rested on a ridge overlooking Shou Kuan, giving Batu a clear view of the city's walls and towers. The general was trying to think of a way to bypass those fortifications, but he kept losing his thoughts. Over sixty thousand dead and wounded soldiers, both Shou and Tuigan, lay in front of the city. They had fallen in a triangular pattern that reminded Batu of an arrow pointing at the main gate.
A cloud of vultures and other carrion birds were already savoring the feast, Tuigan archers stood atop the bell tower, using tethered arrows to pick off the fattest birds. They were meeting with uncanny success, but the horsewarriors' accuracy did not surprise Batu. Yesterday, after the gate had closed on his unsuccessful bid to take the battle into the city, the enemy archers had killed ten thousand of his men in less than a minute. Given the precision of the barbarian bows, Batu counted himself lucky to be alive. He had dropped his sword as he fled, but that seemed a small price to pay for his life.
The other generals who had also ridden in the charge had not been so fortunate, however. Wang Kuo's general lay outside, awaiting a proper cremation. Kao Shan's fate remained unknown, though it was hardly a mystery. If the general had still been alive, someone would have brought him to the pavilion by now. The commanders of the Armies of Wak'an and Hai Yuan had both survived, for they had not been involved in the charge. They were seated on the far side of the tent, waiting for their new orders.
Kei Bot was not present, but Batu doubted that his second-in-command had fallen in battle, for the general should have been nowhere near the heavy fighting. Batu suspected Kei Bot was intentionally avoiding him, fearing retribution for his part in yesterday's setback. The tactic irritated Batu almost as much as the failure itself, so the general from Chukei had sent his adjutant to find the missing commander.