on a gore-clotted rope.
At the same moment, the leader-as though sensing her emotions from a distance-glanced down and looked directly into her eyes.
He opened his mouth to raise an alarm, but his eyes flicked up again, drawn by a distant, barely audible
In the same instant, his brother, or his cousin, gave a deep, final grunt and fell back over the butt of his horse, as though struck in the middle of his chest by a giant’s invisible mace.
The leader’s expression turned icy cold.
The cause of this sudden death was not obvious. No arrow projected from the fallen man’s chest. R?dwulf’s long shaft had passed right through his body and out the back, leaving only a slot with blood welling out.
The same sound again. On the leader’s opposite side, a Mongol turned his mount toward his fallen comrade, then lurched as a fat arrow buried itself in his shoulder all the way to the fletching. He reached around to claw at the shaft, grimaced, and then looked in stunned dismay at the leader, mouth open. When he decided to scream, the sound was buried in a gargling cough. As if suddenly sleepy, his eyes closed. His head slumped back, and he toppled sideways out of the saddle, hitting the ground with a solid thump.
The leader now understood. His head snapped around toward Cnan, and a murderous look came over his face. He lifted his lance and pivoted his pony to ride toward her, but a third arrow hissed past his ear.
Cnan heard a muffled curse from below-R?dwulf deploring his aim. The leader heard as well, and it sharply focused his attention; throwing a vicious look at Cnan, as if to say,
Meanwhile, the two outriders had gained some faint understanding of what was happening and began to ride down toward the verge of the trees, more slowly and uncertainly, as they had to pick their way down the sloping gully walls.
In the time it took Cnan to gather these impressions, R?dwulf had shot the leader out of his saddle. His companion veered to one side, hoping to ride around the little grove, and this forced R?dwulf to step out from cover, draw his bow, and stand his ground, tracking the horseman’s progress and judging how much to lead him.
This one took the arrow near his hip socket but kept riding, keeping stiffly upright. The horse shrieked-the arrow had passed through and embedded in its flank, pinning the rider in place. In agony, neither horse nor rider seemed to know what to do next.
Then, a pause in the action as R?dwulf returned to the trees for more arrows.
The fifth and last Mongol from the central group had made it into those same trees, a dozen yards off, and was thrashing around on his horse between the close-packed trunks, making it impossible for R?dwulf to get a clear shot.
The archer stalked out from cover, pivoting to and fro with a nocked and half-drawn arrow, trying to make out where his foe was.
The Mongol broke free, vigorously kicking his horse, and galloped into the open with his own bow fully drawn and aimed, but drew up and faltered before loosing his arrow. Cnan thought she knew why: he had seen R?dwulf for the first time and was astonished by the man’s outlandish appearance, his incredible size and coloration.
The Mongol’s arrow sang harmlessly over R?dwulf ’s head. Immediately after, the Englishman loosed a shaft that buried itself in the horse’s chest. Screaming, the pony reared-and died, head straight out, falling over as a deadweight. The Mongol dismounted adroitly, landing on his feet, but dropping his bow. He quickly hid himself in a stubble of scrubby bushes that might, in a few years, grow up into more trees.
R?dwulf calmly returned to his arrows and grabbed another. Then he seemed to think better of it. The brush might deflect his shot. And the Mongol, with saber in hand, would be a serious problem if all R?dwulf had was a bow.
He set the bow down, undid his belt, and, before dropping the scabbard, drew out his sword.
Just in time. In a crackling of sticks and brush, the Mongol burst forth into the small, cleared space and swung a scything blow at R?dwulf. R?dwulf stepped forward and deflected the Mongol’s saber to his right, then crashed his left fist into the Mongol’s nose, spraying blood all over and planting him on his arse. Before the Mongol could recover, R?dwulf moved in and with a quick, sidewise cut, slashed the man’s throat, producing a fountain of dark stuff from which Cnan averted her eyes. Just as well. She needed to think about getting out of there.
Only a few paces away, the pony of the first Mongol to die had moved to a clear patch of grass and begun nosing around for forage.
The plan, she knew, called for R?dwulf to recover all of the arrows he could. They were too valuable to waste. But she could not bring herself to approach the bleeding corpse that, only a few moments ago, had been riding with a grin on his face, sharing memories with his brother or cousin-who was dead now as well.
She walked up to the pony instead, speaking to it in the language of the Mongols, making the sounds and saying the words that they used when they wished to put a horse at ease.
This task was not made any easier by terrible noises emanating from the gully below. Finn was harrying the two outriders through the scrub with his bloody lance.
But by the time she had reached the pony, and made friends with it, then clambered up onto its back, Finn and R?dwulf had finished their work in the gully and were riding up the slope on the mounts they had tethered back in the trees. They were coming to collect R?dwulf’s arrows, speaking to each other in low conversational tones. Their calmness had the opposite effect on Cnan.
As they approached, R?dwulf intercepted her piercing glare. He slung his bow over his shoulder and returned her look. “What?” he asked, then glanced at Finn, who was equally puzzled. Finn wiped streaks of blood from his face and hands. “We’ll need a quick sluice,” he observed.
With great difficulty, Cnan managed to bridle her urge to scream.
27
The sky over Hunern was overcast and gray but no less hot for that.
Kim experimentally flexed the hand that had taken Andreas’s blow a week ago. The fingers still ached. That he could move them at all was fortunate. They would take a little longer to heal completely, and he hoped he would not have to fight before then.
Slavery could be endured, but slavery with no chance of escape-due to his own mistakes-was more than he wanted to think about right now.
He stood in the shadow of a canvas awning propped up on two wooden stakes, watching as Two Dogs sat opposite a massive, heavily scarred wrestler with dusky skin and thickly callused hands. The pair was too far away for Kim to hear what they were saying, but their intent expressions and nods said that at least Zug had managed to find a way to speak to the man most of the camp referred to as Madhukar.
The large, dark-skinned wrestler abruptly raised his thick hands and gesticulated wildly. Zug neither flinched nor fled in alarm when the giant of a man began flailing about.
The progress of their plan had been slow. Onghwe was sharp-eyed as a tiger, and evading his notice took meticulous care. Each person they approached was carefully considered beforehand. If the group was sufficiently large, they could tip the Circus into chaos and rouse the complacent to fight with them. If the conspirators were few, they would be put down like dogs before the others even noticed. The fighters of the Circus were a varied lot, and some of them were more comfortable in their captivity than others. Worse, some had learned long ago that being spies for their master was a quick way to gain extra comforts.
So far, their judgment had held; their choices were solid. None of the fighters they approached languished in the comforts of the Khan’s graces. Every one of them longed for freedom-better yet, for revenge.
