The Mongoliad: Book One Read online

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Text copyright © 2012 by FOREWORLD LLC

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by 47North

  P.O. Box 400818

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  ISBN: 978-1-61218-236-0

  TO MICHAEL “TINKER” PEARCE,

  ANGUS TRIM & GUY WINDSOR

  THEY PUT SWORDS IN

  OUR HANDS AND TAUGHT

  US HOW TO USE THEM.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1: NEW GROWTH AMONGST OLD STONES

  CHAPTER 2: THE KHAN OF KHANS

  CHAPTER 3: THE GHOST OF RUS

  CHAPTER 4: THE YOUNG PONY

  CHAPTER 5: THE KINYEN

  CHAPTER 6: IN THE GARDEN

  CHAPTER 7: THE JOURNEY BEGINS

  CHAPTER 8: THIS IS HOW MY FATHER HUNTED

  CHAPTER 9: THE MADNESS OF THE MUSHROOMS

  CHAPTER 10: THE ARCHERY LESSON

  CHAPTER 11: THE BANKHAR

  CHAPTER 12: CHASING SHADOWS

  CHAPTER 13: WEST MEETS EAST

  CHAPTER 14: THE WAY OF THE LAPWING

  CHAPTER 15: A NOCTURNAL PURSUIT

  CHAPTER 16: THE MAN FROM ROME

  CHAPTER 17: THE MYSTERY OF THE ASSASSIN

  CHAPTER 18: THE PARTING OF THE VEIL

  CHAPTER 19: MY FATHER’S LEGACY

  CHAPTER 20: THE DEATH OF A FRIEND

  CHAPTER 21: A PLEASANT STROLL

  CHAPTER 22: TO SAVE THE EMPIRE

  CHAPTER 23: A CHANGE OF PLANS

  CHAPTER 24: THE BRAWL AT THE BRIDGE

  CHAPTER 25: THE SUBTLETIES OF WRESTLING

  CHAPTER 26: OVER THE WRECKAGE AND THROUGH THE RUINS

  CHAPTER 27: A GIFT FOR THE KHAGAN

  CHAPTER 28: ILL-MET IN KIEV

  CHAPTER 29: A BROTHER’S SACRIFICE

  CHAPTER 30: PILGRIMS’ PROGRESS

  CHAPTER 31: DANGEROUS BEAUTY

  CHAPTER 32: THE SECRET OF THE CAVES

  CHAPTER 33: AND THEN THERE WAS LIGHT…

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  CHAPTER 1:

  NEW GROWTH AMONGST OLD STONES

  Cnán halted just outside the clearing surrounding the stone monastery and dropped to a crouch. She knew how to move silently in the dense woods of the North, and she had approached the isolated ruins more quietly than the breeze in the branches or the insects scuttling under last year’s leaves.

  Through the uneven morning mist, she could make out the ruin of the monastery on the northern verge. The broken, roofless walls of outbuildings stretched south of the main ruins in a broken curve. Birches and a few young oaks had grown up where monks had likely once raised vegetables. The rest of the clearing was filled with grass and brambles cut through with newly blazed paths. Four lean-tos had been erected just beyond the stone fence of an overgrown graveyard.

  She had found a camp—that much was certain. But whose camp?

  From far away came the rattle of a woodpecker gathering breakfast, interrupted by a closer and louder clash of steel—the unnatural sound that had drawn her attention. This close, she could hear men talking—many men—but she had yet to see the monastery’s new guests.

  Two days before, a band of black bone Mongols had chased her like a deer to the edge of the thick forest, where they had jerked up short, cursing in bastard Turkic and peppering the trees with arrows. Steppe-bred warriors loathed thrashing through cluttered groves where they could neither gallop freely nor swivel quickly on their powerful ponies. The deep woods were still safe, though traveling through them was slow.

  It was just after the solstice: three months since the dissolute Khan known as Onghwe had defeated the armies of Christendom at Legnica, just a few miles from here, and a bit more than one month since he had issued his challenge.

  She shifted to her left, darting behind the trunk of an elder oak. She stroked the bark lightly as if to ask the oak for guidance, then passed her fingers over her eyes in an old Binder prayer. The mist was clearing already; she could wait. In these lands, a well-trained adept knew to be patient.

  Snatches of a conversation came to her, a back-and-forth argument that sounded like it hadn’t started this morning, nor would it be finished anytime soon. Cnán recognized the cadences of Latin, which she had not heard in a while and had not spoken since childhood.

  “—relax your vision. You know where the blade is. Stop looking at it—”

  “—don’t close your eyes! You might as well throw down your sword altogether. Are you a dumb lamb?”

  “—if you watch his blade, it is too late. You can’t see his eyes, so why are you—”

  Less than a stone’s throw away, a young man, no more than twenty years of age and crowned with hair so blond it was almost white, was facing an older man—a bulky, battle-scarred redhead. Both were carrying great swords of war, and their repetitive exercises were being observed by a man dressed like a monk.

  These men were likely knights of the Shield-Brethren—the ones she had been instructed to find. If there were anything to their reputation, they would have responded within days to the Khan’s unlikely invitation. The Shield-Brethren were scattered all about, but their closest branch was in Petraathen, an ancient crag-fort in the mountains south of Kraków, just a few days’ journey from here. Their instinct—the reverse of the Mongols—was to camp in the woods, and their scouts had spied this old monastery, long since abandoned. To her, it had the look of a pagan temple, reminding her of the subterranean mithraeum, the hidden temple wherein her people had once held their arcane rites. This ruin, whatever its original purpose, had been converted into an impromptu chapter house, a sanctuary where these knights could wait and train while they reconnoitered the territory around the blood-soaked battlefield of Legnica and the great, stinking tent city that Onghwe had built there.

  A horseman emerged from behind the graveyard wall riding a big blue roan stallion. Cnán flinched at the sight of a Mongol-style bow, striped and jointed like the leg of an insect, held out in the man’s hands. But this was no Mongol: his hair was brown, long and full, and below his sharp nose drooped a luxuriant mustache. He pivoted his mount and galloped along the curve of outbuildings, then pivoted again and rode back and forth through the grass. His apparently aimless movements made no sense until she understood that he was practicing archery. When his eye fell on something that looked like it might serve as a target, he loosed an arrow from the bow, sometimes galloping past, sometimes away, or jerking his horse up short and shooting from a standstill.

  She did not know these knights other than by reputation, but she saw the rider as one who had suffered under the power of the Mongols and had learned from them, adopting and adapting their weapons.

  Farther back in the clearing, visible through dispersing curtains of fog and over the tumbled walls of a refectory, a young man was striking at an upright log with a sword, repeating the same attack over and over again. Near him, two others sparred with carved wooden sticks while another paced around them, sidestepping as necessary. To her left, in the green shade of a sapling oak, two men sat at a table assembled from half-rotted lumber, sharing refreshment from battered brass cups. Both wore trim dark hair. One sported a dark beard and had black eyes to match—a kind of Sa
racen, she thought—his Syrian heritage apparent also in the cut of his clothes.

  The other, rounder of face and lively, flashed pale eyes as his nervous fingers fidgeted, and he whispered in short bursts as if laying out plans he knew the dark-eyed one would not approve.

  Nine that she could see, then. A strong crew, but mostly young—and not the sorts of men usually found in close company. This was either good and expected or very bad indeed—for in the Land of Skulls, this region that had been devastated by the passage of the Mongol hordes, desperation and evil intent often united the most diverse stragglers.

  Still, they seemed to be the ones she had been sent to find.

  Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae now claimed to be Christian, so hiding near a monastery would come naturally to them. There were stories, however, of how, in older days, the knights of Petraathen had practiced a cult of death, harboring strange ideas about the benefits accruing in the afterlife to warriors who went down bloody and swinging. These brethren then might also take comfort from sharing quarters with the heroic and blessed warrior dead. From where she squatted, she counted seven big granite Crusader crosses in the monastery’s overgrown graveyard, erected perhaps a century and a half before.

  Cnán picked at her teeth with a twig, then shifted on her knees, practicing quiet breath, quiet heart—confident in her stealth, contented to watch unobserved.

  Or so she told herself until she heard a flicking noise behind her head. A twang, a hiss, and something jerked her off her feet, slamming her head against a tree with a thunk that rang her skull like a bell.

  She reached around desperately and felt a smooth, long shaft. A broad-headed arrow had snagged the hood of her cloak and pinned it to the bole of an aged birch. She struggled to yank herself free. Two years of running from Mongols had taught her that another arrow, better aimed, would soon fly, and she had best leave the garment behind and make a run for it.

  But a voice—like the voice of her mother, only far away and sad—spoke as if in her ear: “First arrow perfectly timed, perfectly aimed.”

  Cnán understood immediately. She lowered her hand. The archer had accomplished precisely what he had intended. Likely he had left camp even before she arrived, to circle around, guard, and observe.

  Running was useless. She was dealing not with Mongols or their jackals, nor with ill-trained bandits, but with men born and raised in the woods. At any false move, that second arrow could strip through the green branches and split her spine.

  Cnán quieted herself. Her eyes twitched at more rustling, faint, very close. She had been tracked through the trees by at least two men: the archer, still unseen, off to her right, and the stalker, now approaching from behind. Both were almost certainly from the camp, posted in the woods as sentries.

  The hunter behind her began to move freely, making plenty of noise, but she could not yet see his face, nor he hers, because of the pinned-up hood and the dense cowl of mud-crusted black hair falling from the part in the middle of her head. He circled her warily, and when he finally came into full view, they spent a few moments gauging each other.

  Cnán had seen some wild-looking men during her long trek across the lands of the Ruthenians, but this fellow—clothed entirely in things he’d killed, sporting a matted beard thick as a bear’s pelt—looked half animal. Nothing woven—no womanly arts for him. Green eyes, sun-wrinkled at the corners, lent him a glimmer of youthful amusement.

  No need to guess what he saw in her, since he announced it. His language was unfamiliar, but some of the words came from familiar roots. She recognized “woman” and “Mongol” and “spy”—the last a word very like her real name, in Tocharian.

  She could have framed a denial in words he might vaguely recognize, but there were more effective languages that did not involve words.

  Cnán shrugged out of her cloak, drew herself up, made a derisive snort, and fixed him with a glare.

  It was better than slapping him in the face. The hunter recoiled half a step, then recovered with a mock stagger. Now the green eyes really were laughing. He glanced to his right, gathering a third party into the unspoken conversation: the archer, using the end of his bow to push a branch out of his way and step closer.

  This was the tallest man Cnán had seen in years, possibly in her whole life. She knew that the men of Christendom were of greater stature than those of the steppes, but this one was likely a giant—even among his own kind. His hair and beard were red-blond. He was not handsome, but there was a strength in his face that demanded respect. He examined her for a few moments, then faced the hunter, who was still chuckling. They exchanged some halting banter that included a few more repetitions of the words “Mongol” and “spy.” Their languages sounded the same to Cnán, but must, in fact, have differed, since they were not communicating very well.

  After a few misunderstandings, the archer broke into Latin. But the hunter only shook his head and held up his hands.

  Time to take charge, clearly.

  “I am Vaetha,” she lied—in Latin. The words from her mother’s second tongue rolled forth with surprising ease. “I come from lands far to the East with tidings for Christendom. I would deliver this news to the master of your Order. Please take me to him.”

  The hunter shook his head again, grinned, then heeled about and sauntered back to the compound.

  “Don’t move,” said the archer. He unsheathed his knife and warily moved in and around her, eyes narrow and glittering. He roughly cut the hood from the arrow, ripping the fabric in the process. Apparently the iron head of the arrow was more important, as he then carved away bark and pried it from the tree with the delicacy of a surgeon.

  “I am Rædwulf,” he said, tossing the cloak to her feet. “What manner of person are you, and why do you speak Latin?”

  “She is of the Bindings,” said a new voice, hollow and deep between the trees.

  Cnán spun to discover that the older man had come upon them silently. He wore the robes of a Christian monk. His face was creased and rugged, counting at least threescore years, but age had not brought frailty. As he solemnly inspected her, he held his hand to his chest and drummed his sternum with his fingers. A chingle of mail suggested a hauberk under his travel-worn tunic.

  All the activity had drawn the attention of the others in the clearing, even the younger ones busy hacking each other with sticks. They called a halt to the mock combat and took time to salute each other and shake hands before turning to amble in Cnán’s direction.

  The horseman cantered past them and drew his horse up short, just at the edge of the woods, then sidled close behind the older man. He looked down on her, his huge mustache flicking in disgust, as if she were an engorged tick just plucked from his inner thigh.

  “Mongol!” he proclaimed.

  Without turning, the older man countered, “No, Istvan. She has the cheekbones, it’s true, but take a closer look at her eyes.”

  “Bandit or corpse robber, then. Either way, kill her.” The horseman, Istvan, spat on the ground near her feet, expertly swung the stallion around, and cantered away.

  The older man came closer and bent before her to pick up the torn cloak. Unafraid, polite, but far from humble, he handed it to her.

  “I am Feronantus,” he introduced himself, “of the Skjaldbræður.” He used not their newer Christian name, but an older one, in the tongue of the Northmen: Shield-Brethren.

  “I am Vaetha,” she said. “As you judged, I am a messenger.”

  “‘One who sees,’” Feronantus translated. “From the Tocharian. Wordplay for ‘spy.’ Of course, you are lying about your name—we expect that. But Vaetha will serve until you trust me well enough to tell me who you really are.”

  She tried to best his steady gaze but could not.

  “Come,” said Feronantus. He turned his back on her and walked away. She followed him into the compound. The giant archer Rædwulf trailed after them both, clutching his precious arrow and smoothing the fletches as if it were a living
thing in need of the master’s comforting touch.

  The young blond watched with dumfounded amazement as she passed, then whirled on the others. They laughed at his astonishment.

  The pell fighter leaned forward and stretched out a clutching hand toward the blond’s crotch. “She could have cut your balls off,” he chided. “No great loss!”

  “Did you see her?” the boy asked sharply. He tagged along after Feronantus, his sidewise gait that of a whelp. “I’m called Haakon,” he said to her. “How do you say your name again?” Clearly he had never seen a dark woman before.

  “Don’t bother,” Feronantus said. “She’ll be gone before you glean any truth from her. And remember your vows.”

  The boy’s feckless astonishment disgusted Cnán. This Feronantus might be of the ancient school, but the others—the Saracen-looking fellow, the men still clutching their cups of country beer, the stick-swinging, rowdy youngsters, this rudely staring blond—appeared far more raggle-taggle than her mother’s tales of steel and glory had led her to expect. Clearly the warrior monks of Petraathen had fallen on hard times.