The Mongoliad: Book One

and hurled it aside, where it spun and flew for an uncanny number of yards, like a bat, then fell—to precisely drape the picked skeleton and conical helm of a Polish knight.

A knight who had almost made it to the forest before taking three arrows in the back.

All heads turned, mesmerized by this.

Bones rattled. The round hump of the skull shifted under the cloak, as if finding new life.

Illarion reined his horse just to the left of the Mongol chief and canted his head with a careless jerk, exposing the swollen, earless right side of his face. Not once did his eyes meet the man’s.

Now understanding the Mongol’s reaction, Cnan watched him further, seeing first curiosity, then a twist of lip and brow—signaling alarm and confusion. The chief’s features went pale and his mouth opened as if to scream. Frantic, heels kicking the pony’s flanks, he spun about and dog-yelped to his comrades. His pony bucked and turned but did not know which way to go.

Illarion rode steadily on. His missing ear dripped black blood. His hollow eyes knew death as an intimate comrade; nothing living could stop him…or would wish to.

Leaning over his pony’s neck, reining it in, the chief jerked its head left and spurred it even harder, leaving a gap through which Illarion rode without pause and without betraying the slightest awareness that the Mongols were even there. The Ruthenian did not need to act to appear to ride from beyond humanity, beyond life.

The chief gawped in terror. His pony stumbled in the muck.

On the left and right and behind, the Mongols turned and drew back, muttering and shouting.

Behind Illarion, Raphael leaned to one side and cupped his hand to his ear, imitating the gaunt Ruthenian— but with a grim and toothy smile. He swiveled in his saddle to leer at the Mongols.

The entire squadron broke and scattered into the mist.

The rescue party rode on at the same pace. At Finn’s gesture, Cnan remounted. She could see that Haakon’s shoulders were drawn in, flexing and flinching just like her own.

The trees came up none too soon, and the horses parted to accommodate them. Cold, clean night air swirled from the west, bringing more rain and mist, and water dripped in pattering, rhythmic showers from the leaves and branches, as if to cleanse them of all they had seen.

“You speak Mongol, don’t you?” Haakon asked Cnan when they had counted a hundred paces deep into the woods.

“Tartaric, Turkic, some Tungus,” she said.

“What did the leader say?”

“You should know,” Cnan said, “even if you ken not a word.”

Haakon frowned. “You think I’m an oaf.”

Cnan grimaced and dropped her chin.

Haakon flicked his damp hair back. “Tell me,” he persisted. “I want to hear it anyway.”

Cnan touched her right ear. “We are unclean spirits of the fallen,” she said, “returning to the forests of the West from which we came.”

“Ghosts,” Finn said.

“Ghosts,” she confirmed.

Once in the woods, two hours of picking their way along leaf-littered paths in broken moonlight brought them back to the clearing and the old monastery. By then they had shaken off the clammy dread that had overtaken them during their journey and had begun to converse about topics other than death and how to avoid it. They were received warmly by the Skjaldbr??ur, whose numbers, during their absence, had increased to something like a score. Illarion, of course, was embraced and even wept over. Cnan had expected this. But she was surprised by the hospitality that some of the knights were now showing toward her. In a courtly style that struck her as ridiculous, Feronantus asked whether she would consider gracing their camp with her presence for a while and directed her attention toward a tent that had been pitched, somewhat aloof from the others, and made ready for her. This at first struck Cnan as amusing, since there was no shortage of buildings in the compound, though most lacked roofs.

But when she pulled back the tent’s flap and found the interior clean and tidy, with a floor of dry green grass and a raised cot with a fresh straw tick for her to lie on, she better understood the gesture. The buildings of the old monastery were ancient and tumbledown, infested by vermin, stinking in diverse ways.

Peering out the back flap, instinctively checking for an escape route, she saw moonlight reflecting from water about a stone’s throw away and knew that she was not far from the monks’ old fish pond—the only place around here she could get anything like a bath.

She accepted Feronantus’s invitation. The knights retreated to their chapter house, whence she heard the popping of bungs and pouring of ale. She stripped and made a direct line for the pond. Drawing closer to it, she moved faster, since an impressive number of bugs seemed to be landing on her exposed skin. By the time she reached the shore, she was at the core of a humming swarm of mosquitoes and biting flies and had to dive into the water, if only to save her life. But it was worth it to feel the dirt of the road being rinsed from her skin and her hair. She swam for a while, bobbing her head up out of the water just long enough to breathe in air and mosquitoes, then diving before the bugs could do more serious damage.

The way back to the tent was a headlong sprint through an almost tangible mass of aroused insects. Bats swooped as well, making her groan when they squeaked too close. Unable to really see where she was going, she plunged through a group of knights who were on their way to the chapter house. Being seen naked meant nothing to her, but some of the knights gasped and looked the other way, imagining that she’d be mortified. The tallest of the group—Cnan instantly recognized him as Percival—took stock of the situation, moved adroitly to the entrance of her tent, peeled back the flap, and then stood there as if carved in marble, modestly averting his gaze. She dove through the opening. He let the flap drop.

The knights, now feeling free to speak their minds, issued a few good-natured complaints about her ungenerously having drawn so many insects into their camp. “At least I am clean!” she shouted from her enclosed fastness, “which is more than I can say for any of you.” This silenced them. Not, she guessed, because her words had struck home, but because they simply had no conception of what she was talking about.

She spent a few moments rolling around on the grass, slicking the water and the bugs from her skin. It was actually not the worst bath she’d ever had. Then she dressed in a linen tunic and doeskin breeches from her kit— clothes she had been saving against the unlikely possibility that she might have to costume herself as something other than a scurrying wretch.

Some part of her was wondering how she would look in the eyes of Percival. He had, in general, paid her no attention whatsoever. And yet there had been more than simple consideration in his act of holding the tent open. There had been…nobility? Brotherhood? She flung her short wet hair briskly at that thought.

She wanted Percival to see her in some better condition than wet and naked and covered with bugs. But another part of her—speaking, curiously, in the voice of her mother—was reminding her just how dangerous it was to feel any such desire. Emotion led to attachment; attachment led to…

While she was dressing, the jovial chitchat in the chapter house ceased. Someone protested he was not ready—voice too drunk and muffled to identify. Moments later, she heard a man howl, then scream long and loud. The murmur of conversation was slow to resume after that. But the aroma of cooking meat drew her to the place anyway. As she approached the door, Raphael came out, shoulders square, flexing his fingers. The fingers were stained green at the tips. He had been crushing more herbs.

His posture spoke of satisfaction, a job well done.

“Was it Illarion who cried out?” she asked.

“Yes. His ear—what’s left of it—is fine.”

“Fine? One side of his face is twice the size of the other.”

“That actually had little to do with the ear,” he insisted. “Thank the maggots and that poor girl and her poultice. I finally took the trouble to look in his mouth. The man had an abscessed molar.”

The words were unfamiliar.

“A toothache,” Raphael said. He lifted a sheathed dagger and pulled from one pocket a metal tool with long pincers, still stained with blood. “I yanked it out. The man has a jawbone like that of