He snapped the head and a few inches of wood off the charred shaft, and shifted around in his cage until he was closer to Krasniy’s cage. The giant was watching him, and when Haakon tossed the arrowhead over to his cage, he grinned at the young Northerner.
Just as Krasniy was twisting himself in his cage to get at the ropes, a group of Mongol warriors sprinted out of the line of ger. Krasniy froze, but the men were not interested in what the prisoners were doing. As quickly as they appeared, they were gone, and both of the prisoners relaxed. Krasniy stared at the piece of arrow in his hands-it appeared almost like a child’s toy in his thick fingers-and then he shook his head.
Haakon nodded. When the attack had first started, the confusion had seemed like a perfect opportunity for them to try to escape, but the chaos also meant guards could wander by at any time. It would take time to saw through the ropes, and without knowing they would be undisturbed, it would be a risk. As frustrating as it was, it was better to wait.
Cradling his hand in his lap, Haakon arranged himself as comfortably as he could in his cage. In the weeks he had had to watch his captors, there had been almost no opportunities to see them in combat. He had learned a great deal by watching how they rode their horses, how they organized their patrols, and the type of armor and weapons they carried, but he hadn’t actually seen them fight.
The flights of flaming arrows had stopped, and Haakon suspected this meant the attackers were launching their ground offensive. The rain of fire was meant to disorient and confuse the Khagan’s men, a tactic that would reduce their effectiveness. Perhaps this meant the attackers did not have so many numbers that they were going to overwhelm the camp. While it was likely that most of the fighting would happen near the perimeter of the camp, Haakon sat near the bars of his cage and watched. He saw men and women running about in a chaotic effort to put out fires, and occasionally he would spot the glint of firelight off steel as armed warriors moved through the ger, intent on finding invaders.
Stories of Feronantus’s insight into battlefield tactics were told and retold among the initiates at Tyrshammar, and here was an opportunity for Haakon to observe-to learn something of his enemy that might be useful knowledge. Yet he could see so very little.
As he strained to get a better glimpse of the fighting, he wondered if there was any leader in the West that could command such willing sacrifice-not just from his soldiers, but from all of his subjects. Soldiers would fight to protect their lord-that was their commission, after all-but civilians, for the most part, suffered whatever rule was impressed upon them. Some kings did manage to instill some devotion in their subjects, and the landed nobility might be inclined to take up arms for their ruler out of a similar devotion, but the wholesale fixation of a people on their leader on the scale that was the Mongol Empire dwarfed any kingdom Haakon had ever heard of in the West. Not even the Pope enjoyed this kind of fervor from his flock.
The Mongolian devotion to their Khagan was… daunting.
But he does have enemies, Haakon thought. He could hear men fighting. He flexed his singed fingers, wishing he had a real weapon.
Munokhoi paid little attention to the wild faces that rushed at him from the gloom. The night was filled with twisting strands of smoke, which disgorged screaming Chinese men at random intervals. Some of them had weapons-swords and spears he brushed aside like seed pods floating on a breeze-and others were wide-mouthed phantoms that he silenced with a quick thrust of his blood-drenched sword. They came and went, and their deaths were but tiny sparks that vanished instantly in the raging fire of his bloodlust.
He wanted the Chinese fire thrower.
He had seen its fiery exhalation a moment ago, a spurt of purple flame that had appeared like a tear in the night. The men fighting near him had been knocked down, and when he raised his right arm, he felt jagged jolts of pain run down his side. Tiny bits of metal hissed and steamed in his armor, and his elbow gleamed with fresh blood. But he didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. Not now.
He was so close.
There were two of them-Chinese alchemists-hunched together like two whores tittering to one another. One held a tiny covered lantern that let slip tiny shards of firelight; the other was frantically trying to wipe down a long misshapen tube. There were a number of pots and satchels scattered around them, the cumbersome tools of the nefarious device.
With a shout, Munokhoi dashed toward them. The one carrying the lantern looked up, and light from his lantern glinted off Munokhoi’s upraised sword. He brought his arm down, felt the blade bite into flesh, and then he yanked the sword toward him, pulling the Chinese man off balance.
The first alchemist dropped the lantern, and its cover was knocked askew. The other alchemist froze, the whites of his eyes glowing in the dim light.
Munokhoi twisted his blade and pulled it free. The first alchemist made a wet coughing sound, and fell to his knees, vainly trying to stem the steady stream of blood coming from a mortal wound in his neck. Munokhoi kicked him out of the way, and pointed his dripping blade at the second alchemist.
“Show me how it works,” Munokhoi snapped, speaking Chinese.
The alchemist shook his head, trying to pretend he didn’t understand Munokhoi’s words. The tube in his hands looked like a piece of swollen bamboo, though it was made from iron; one end was dark with soot. The alchemist’s hands were stained black as well, and he was missing two fingers from his left hand.
Munokhoi flicked the point of his sword, letting it ring off the tube, and then he flicked it up. The man jerked his head back, but not quickly enough, and the sword point opened up a line on his cheek from which blood immediately started to well.
“Show me,” Munokhoi said again, all trace of humor gone from his voice.
His body shaking, the Chinese alchemist lowered himself to his knees and started to comply. Munokhoi watched closely as the man loaded the ingredients from the pouches and pots into the mouth of the tube, trying to keep them straight in his mind. A thick plug with a thin tail went first, the tail emerging from the back side of the tube. Then, two handfuls of black powder. Shards of metal went next, and Munokhoi felt the muscles in his side and lower back twitch as he heard them rattle into the dark mouth of the weapon. He knew that when he had his wounds examined later, similar pieces of ragged metal would be found embedded in his armor and skin. Last was another piece of flat metal, almost like a cap, that the Chinese man lowered carefully so that it filled the mouth of the barrel before sliding in.
Munokhoi nodded, his tongue flicking over his dry lips. Yes, he could remember that sequence. Eagerly, he gestured with his empty hand for the Chinese alchemist to give him the loaded weapon, and to his surprise, the man flung the tube directly at his face.
Caught off guard, Munokhoi reared back instead of intercepting the clumsily hurled missile. He found his pulse racing at the thought that the weapon was going to explode in his face, but the tube struck him in the chest-nothing more than an inert, heavy object-and then fell to the ground.
The Chinese alchemist was gone, having taken that split-second opportunity to flee.
Munokhoi stared into the night for a moment, idly rubbing his chest where the weapon had hit him, and then he retrieved the tube from the ground. Peering at it carefully, he decided it was unharmed. The man had distracted him with it long enough to make his own escape, and Munokhoi couldn’t help but chuckle at the man’s well-timed cowardice.
He had been planning on using the weapon on the man anyway.
He examined the string hanging from its back, and determined that it was a fuse. He retrieved the discarded lantern, checked on the tiny stub of a candle that provided its illumination, and looked about for a suitable target.