Out of the corner of his eye, Ferenc saw Ocyrhoe’s frightened face and her mouth, opening and closing like that of a fish pulled out of the water. He felt the muscles in his arms tremble, and he tightened his embrace. He had to be strong.
“Release her,” he said, his arms firm. “She is an innocent girl. When you wake from this madness, you will know yourself again. You will never forgive yourself if you do not let her go.” His heart hammered in his chest, and he silently prayed that the part of Father Rodrigo that he had just heard cry out could hear him.
When he had hunted in the woods outside of Buda, he had, on occasion, needed to mercifully end the life of a wounded animal.
Don’t make me do this, he pleaded silently.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
Raphael caught the Mongol’s sword on his shield, and as his horse thundered past, he pushed his shield down and swung his sword in a heavy chopping motion. It bit through leather and flesh, tugging as it caught on bone, and then his opponent was behind him. Another Mongol rider was galloping past on his right, and he angled his horse after the man. He passed behind the other’s horse, and the Mongol twisted adroitly in his saddle, loosing an arrow at close range. He pulled his upper body down toward his gut, tightening in his saddle in an effort to hide behind his shield. The arrow smacked hard into his shield, breaching its surface and protruding a few inches out the other side. He rose out of his crouch, swinging his sword, and the Mongol spun away, blood rising in a plume.
He caught sight of Percival smashing a Mongol’s shoulder to a bloody pulp with his mace and following through with a merciful stroke across the enemy’s throat. He looked for Vera and Eleazar-didn’t see either of them-and then caught sight of Feronantus being unhorsed by a broad Mongol wielding a long pole, festooned with a plethora of horsehair braids. As he watched, the broad Mongol caught up with a pony laboring under the weight of its rider, a man wearing plum-colored clothing, and in a maneuver that bespoke a life spent on horseback, the pony lost its rider to the other horse.
The Khagan, Raphael realized.
Ignoring the other pair of Mongol riders nearby, he kicked his mount toward the fleeing horse. They had to catch the Khagan before he managed to reach the vale leading out of the valley.
Something kicked him in the ribs and he pitched forward across the horn of his saddle. He knew, without contorting himself to check, that he had just been hit with an arrow. A second arrow passed through the maille on his shoulder, grazing his neck, and he cursed his foolishness.
He shouldn’t have turned his back on the Mongols. He had forgotten their skill with bows. But he couldn’t turn back now. He had to keep riding. He had to catch the Khagan…
Yasper, his ears still ringing, slid down the hillside on his rump. The second explosion had scattered the horses, and the remaining Mongols were either wounded or dazed. A few horses were trotting aimlessly about the floor of the valley. If he could catch one, he could go find the others. Maybe even lend a hand.
He drew up several paces short of the valley floor as he heard the sound of a horse approaching. As he crouched beside a flattened rock, the horse came into view, burdened by a pair of riders. He recognized the one wearing the fanciful outfit, and as he watched, they leaped off their weary horse. He couldn’t help but marvel at how quickly and effortlessly they caught two of the other horses, leaped into their saddles, and galloped off again.
Yasper stared after the fleeing pair, realizing he had just let the Khagan slip through his fingers.
Scrambling to his feet, he started toward the other horses and stopped as he realized he was about to run through a wide smear of gore. Gulping back his queasy stomach, he diverted his course, skirting the glistening patch of blood and body parts.
Some of the other Mongols were moving toward the horses too. The sight of the Khagan had broken their confusion. Yasper was going to have some competition for a steed.
Eleazar saw the huge Mongol unhorse Feronantus, and he mentally clucked his tongue at the elder warrior’s clumsiness. The Mongol had battered the Shield-Brethren with the horsehair lance he carried, the sort of clumsy buffeting employed by an initiate who knew little about fighting from horseback, and Feronantus should have been able to stay in the saddle. Eleazar squeezed his horse with his knees, guiding the animal toward the fallen Shield-Brethren master.
A mounted Mongol warrior charged toward him, bow drawn, and Eleazar raised his shield to block the horseman’s arrow. He felt the arrow hit his shield, and then the Mongol rider was behind him. Twisting in his saddle, Eleazar caught the second arrow in his shield too. The Mongols were really good at shooting their bows from horseback, and he had seen them twist their bodies and shoot arrows behind them.
He swept his shield around, in time to intercept a Mongol sword. He had seen the second rider coming, and knew the pair had been setting him up for a trap. The archer had wanted Eleazar to pay attention to him, so that he wouldn’t notice the other rider coming. Eleazar wasn’t that sort of fool, and he shoved his shield hard at the oncoming rider, bashing the warrior right out of his saddle.
He circled Feronantus, putting himself between the unhorsed knight and a trio of approaching Mongols. “Get on your horse, old man,” he shouted.
Feronantus shouted something in return, but his words were lost in the battlefield noise. Eleazar took several more arrows in his shield, and kneed his horse toward the three archers. They felt they were far enough away for another volley, and Eleazar grinned as he spotted Percival coming from their rear. We know how to distract our enemies too, he thought, holding his shield ready as if he were trying to hide behind it as he charged. Percival broke through them, catching one in the back of the skull with his mace and slicing the throat of another with a backhanded swing of his sword.
The third, distracted by the sudden death of his companions, released his arrow too early and it flew harmlessly past Eleazar’s head. He thrust with his sword as his horse galloped past, feeling the blade slide up the man’s leather armor and catch momentarily on the archer’s jaw. And then it kept moving, opening up the man’s throat.
“The Khagan has fled,” Percival shouted at him. “Waste no more time on this field.” He pointed toward the end of the valley. Eleazar wheeled his horse around and slapped the flat of his blade against his horse’s rump. The animal started, recovering quickly and running hard toward the end of the valley. There were still scattered groups of Mongols, but they looked unorganized. Percival and Vera could take care of them.
As he rode, body moving in concert with his horse’s steady gallop, the occasional Mongol arrow would come his way. Most of them fell short, but a few struck his maille, failing to do much more than get tangled in the chain. Eleazar had lived through a barrage of Mongol arrows before, at the river crossing battle. He laughed. That had been a battle, he thought.
He approached the narrow vale where the alchemist had planned his ambush, and he spotted the wreckage of broken stone and-his stomach tightened at the sight of the carnage wreaked by Yasper’s incendiaries. The route narrowed, and on the left side of the cleft, he spotted a number of unclaimed ponies and a few scattered Mongols.