The Mongoliad: Book One

save us all if this…if this…”—he cast his eyes once more on Istvan—“mad dog cannot be kept to leash. He is nothing to me—no companion, no warrior. He is a demon-ridden butcher, and I am done with him. He should be staked to a tree and left for the Mongols.”

Istvan received this imprecation with a courtly nod, his assurance unbroken, his arrogance galling to all around him—with the exception of Feronantus.

Disgusted, Roger turned on his heel and stalked away. The group slowly dropped their shoulders, shrugged them out, and then set to breaking camp.

Only Istvan seemed to notice Cnan’s arrival, though she raised her shoulder to avert his look. A demon- beleaguered man, cursed by his comrades, yet still defiant and proud. She understood nothing, clearly, about Feronantus and his intentions.

When Percival returned, they set about the finality of laying their comrade deep under foreign soil. Together, two on each side, they grasped Taran’s cloak, carried him a few steps, and lowered him into the fresh-dug grave, then wrapped him against the coming fall of dirt.

Slowly and in silence, the oplo’s comrades, eyes downcast, gathered around the grave. Feronantus spoke a quiet eulogy. Cnan understood the old Latin words well enough. She had some passing familiarity with the ways Christians buried and blessed their dead. She knew that they laid the bodies in the earth intact, in the belief that, upon the final Day of Judgment, their God would raise them up again and that any whose body was destroyed would have no vessel in which to return. It was a strange practice to her, no less so having now seen it, so unlike the burials she had witnessed in the East. Though in truth, one way of disputing the finality of death was as odd and pointless to her as the next.

Feronantus’s speech was short, but imbued with an ardent affection and sense of loss in every word. “God keep you, Taran, oplo to many, and best amongst us. The world may not remember, but we will never forget.”

Now he began to speak in a different language, one she had seldom heard before and only sparingly. Low- voiced, yet strong, he chanted rhythmically in the tongue of the Northmen who had given the fortress on the rock its name. She knew nothing of what was being chanted, but soon the others joined their leader. Something in the rhythm and the hard guttural words of the chant told Cnan that this was also an old, old ritual, perhaps older than Christianity itself—a ritual of which the Church they supposedly served would never approve.

When the chant was finished, all had tears in their eyes, and one by one they knelt, and each dropped a handful of earth into the grave.

It struck her then, the true meaning of the word they used to refer to him: oplo. Taran had been their friend, but for some of them, he had been more: their teacher, their confidante, their calm and patient tutor. In the way they lingered at the grave, and in the way they let their loss wash over them, she saw the first hints of uncertainty. One of the best warriors amongst them had fallen. No amount of confidence would remove the hard truth that they all faced this same fate—if not on this journey, then on another. Miles of hardship and toil, with nothing at the end but a ragged hole in the ground. What dirges would be sung would be voiced by fewer and fewer still.

Cnan watched as Feronantus quietly took Taran’s battle-scarred sword, removing the scabbard from the fallen man’s horse and affixing it to his own saddle, clasping the hilt with closed eyes and whispering a prayer.

The others finished filling the grave and built a cairn of stones over it, then pounded a cut shaft of wood, tall enough to serve as a staff, at its center. The shaft rose from the ground, already ancient looking, their pronouncement of ageless grief.

Cnan remembered Percival’s whispered words to Tonnerre. Only now was it sinking in to all of the group that, on this journey, they were all expendable—no different from horses.

“I need a drink,” Yasper said as he brought his horse in line with Raphael’s. They had been riding for several hours, traveling more south than east by Raphael’s reckoning, and the company had been lost in their own thoughts. Raphael had been reflecting on the siege of Cordoba, remembering those—both Moorish and Castilian— whom he counted as friends, and he was glad to be interrupted by the Dutchman. The litany of loss that always came on the heels of battle was the perpetual wound sustained by the survivors.

“A drink, you say,” he replied, glancing shrewdly at Yasper. “I suspect that you are not seeking permission to drink so much as to inquire if I would like to join you.”

Yasper nodded, his eyes twinkling. His hair was still stained by the smoke from his alchemical smoke pots, and Raphael smelled the acrid aroma of his chemical reagents. If it was not evident from the proliferation of pouches and pots as well as the curling spouts and narrow mouths of other arcane containers that peeked from his bulging saddlebags, then the pervasive smell that surrounded the smiling Dutchman was ample clue enough as to his profession. “Of course, Raphael. You and I have traveled together long enough that my preferences are well known to you.” He thrust a round object at Raphael.

It was a leather skin, and Raphael noted that, among the panoply of equipment burdening Yasper’s mount, there were several others just like it, each hanging from a cleverly tied loop, identical to the strap on the one in his hand. The skin—horsehide from the feel of it—was oblong, narrow at the top, much like their own water skins, and when Raphael lifted it to his lips, his nose was assaulted by the smell of the liquid within.

“This is putrid,” he said.

“That is the point, I believe,” Yasper chuckled. He motioned with his hands, indicating that Raphael should drink.

Dubiously, Raphael tried again, expecting the taste to be as foul as the smell. The liquid was thicker than he expected, though not unpleasant, and it tasted like… “Almonds,” he noted. “Where did you get it?”

“The Mongols. Each of them had a skin, as well as…” Yasper shuddered.

“What?”

“Under their saddles.” Yasper made a face and indicated Raphael should either drink again or give back the skin. “Meat, wrapped in oiled rags.”

“Raw?”

Yasper took a huge pull from the skin and nodded as he wiped his mouth. “It was,” he said, and Raphael noted there was a note of admiration mixed in with the revulsion in his voice, “the most tender meat I have ever seen. But…” He handed the skin back to Raphael.

“We are not that hungry,” Raphael said. He tried the drink again, noting that the back of his throat tingled as he swallowed.

“Not yet,” Yasper agreed. He leaned toward Raphael, lowering his voice. “But this”—he indicated the skin —“this is pretty good. Not strong enough, in my opinion.”

“Can you make it stronger?” Raphael asked.

“Probably. But I will need assistance. And some supplies.”

Raphael glanced over at Istvan, who was riding ahead and to the right of the main party. Far enough away to be out of range of simple conversation but close enough that they were aware of his presence. “We already have one member of our company who wanders off, looking for supplies. I do not think another will be tolerated.”

Yasper snorted. “Nothing as illicit as what he seeks. I can find what I need in any good-sized settlement. Provided we travel near one.”

“I hesitate to offer any hope in that matter, my friend. We are far from any settlement I would call friendly.”

Yasper took the offered skin. “I agree, and in reflecting on the matter, I have begun to wonder about this journey of ours.”

“Begun?” Raphael responded.

Yasper quirked his lips. “If, as you say, we are far from friendly lands, and as I judge, we are but a fraction of the way to our destination, what is our plan for the supplies and aid that we might require?” He drank from the skin of Mongolian liquor. “We are accustomed to long marches and sleeping under the stars, but after this morning’s… loss, a man’s mood darkens. It becomes more difficult with each passing hour to sustain his… enthusiasm. A man begins to think of a warm fire and a bed—a roof overhead, even. If only for one night.”