The Mongoliad: Book Two

During the endless caravan ride, he had seen, firsthand, the aftermath of Mongol victories. From the older Shield-Brethren who had gone to the Levant to take part in the Crusades, he had heard stories about the atrocities perpetrated by the conquering armies (with the exception of the legendary Salah-ad-Deen, whose name Haakon could barely pronounce, though Raphael had spoken it several times). The reality, however, was much starker than his imagination.

Everything and everyone in these dying lands seemed to have become a prize to be split up, argued over, and ultimately taken away, killed, or enslaved. A Mongol commander’s worth became measured in how much treasure he controlled, and Haakon could imagine how the constant lure of fresh conquests would be irresistible to those hungry to prove themselves to their generals. One bowl was not much in and of itself, but when wagons laden with such prizes returned to the Khagan, the wealth became substantial. One man made little difference, but cart after cart of prisoners made the victory all the greater.

In Haakon’s dream, he imagined using the long-lost bowl to escape, beating a guard who came too close to his cage, smashing it over the Mongol’s head until bone broke. The bowl itself was too knotty to break, a twisted piece of an ancient tree that was older than any living Mongol today.

Haakon dreamed even while awake. Once free of the cage, he would find a blade. How many could he kill with blade and bowl before the Mongol archers filled him with arrows? Could he steal a horse and ride away?

How far from Legnica was he?

Free of his cage, surrounded by dead Mongols, he found himself in possession of a map, a yellowed piece of parchment like the old map of the known world the Shield-Brethren kept in the great hall at Tyrshammar. The eastern edge of the map was the great winding length of a Ruthenian river. The Volga? That name sounded right, but he wasn’t sure. He had only seen the map once after word of Onghwe’s challenge had come to Tyrshammar’s cold rock. Feronantus had used it to show the Shield-Brethren where they were going, but had only gestured at the eastern edge of the map to show where the invaders were coming from. None of them had imagined they would ever actually go there.

Still free of his cage, the bloody bowl clutched in one hand, he found himself riding one of the squat Mongol ponies, his body rocking back and forth as the pony galloped free. Did it know where it was going? In Haakon’s other hand the parchment map streamed out like a banner; he tried to look at it as the pony fled through the sea of grass. The moon was a pale sliver in the dark sky, and the markings on the map were faint lines in the ghost light. Here was a river, there a mountain range, and then-the rest of the parchment rippled out like an endless ribbon of moon-white blankness.

Still, Haakon kept riding, hoping the pony was going in the right direction, toward the river and the mountains.

Otherwise, he was going to tumble over the edge of the map, into the endless, frozen depths of Hel’s terrible domain…

A voice.

Haakon opened his eyes and stared at the cage’s slatted ceiling for a few moments, then shivered to toss off the fleeting, terrible fragments of his dream. Hel herself had gripped him with hideous claws of icicles and bone. Her tangled gray-white hair had been crusted with the frozen brine of mourners’ tears…

He lurched and cried out in abject misery. Such a fool he had been, riding that stupid pony over the edge of the known world! Why hadn’t he checked the stars? If he had put the Dvalinn, the sleeping deer, on his right, then he would have been heading west.

He looked away from the cage ceiling, trying blearily to recall the open night sky.

“Wake up, fool,” the voice said again. Something banged against the bars, and Haakon turned his head. One of the Mongolian short-legged ponies trotted alongside the slowly rolling cart. Its rider was leaning over and banging a bowl against the bars to get Haakon’s attention. White liquid slopped out, and Haakon scrambled up to the bars, his throat constricting in panic at the sight. The rider grinned and let his horse drift away from the cage so that Haakon had to squeeze himself against the bars and strain to reach the bowl.

The horseman finally relented, with a grunt. Haakon grabbed the bowl and tugged it into the cage, where he held it in wonder for a few seconds. The bowl contained thickened rice paste, a strip of meat, and a residue of sweet rice water. Using the piece of meat as a utensil, Haakon scooped the paste into his mouth. His belly, shrunken to almost nothing, filled quickly, so he chewed the piece of meat slowly, taking his time with it, and made sure to suck down every drop of rice water-and then to lick the bowl clean.

Gruel and meat. And the rider did not come back to take away the bowl. Something had changed. The caravan was going to halt soon.

The terrain had changed again. A few days ago, they had passed within sight of a small village nestled in the crook of a long and glittering track of river, and since then, isolated patches of pasture had started to break up the endless expanse of steppe grass.

During his long journey, Haakon had come to understand just how nomadic the Mongolian people were, and the familiar signs of civilization struck him as oddities on the steppes.

At first, they had passed through regions conquered by the Mongol Horde, savaged lands that had been stripped of any value by the voracious appetite of the raiders. And then came the desolate places, lands too sere or remote for any people to find hospitable.

His belly full, Haakon wedged his shoulder against the bars of his cage to brace against the motion of the cart, steadying his eyes to watch these strange scenes pass by. They had certainly gone off the edge of any map he knew, of any map anyone he had ever met might have known-with the exception of the Binder girl, perhaps.

He stared at the wandering clumps of herd animals-sheep, goats, camels, the occasional yipping dogs and shaggy cows-and the tiny clusters of ger that sprouted from the grasslands like gray mushrooms. He was the first of his brothers to come to this place, and for the first time in many days, he found himself looking forward to what lay beyond the horizon.

Does Zug’s home lie out there? he wondered.

When the rider returned for the bowl, Haakon asked him if this place had a name. The Mongol answered brusquely, and Haakon repeated the single word to himself for the rest of that day, trying to dispel the unease it left in his belly.

It sounded like the noise ravens made. Kara-kora-hoom. He couldn’t stop thinking about the black birds he had seen on the ruined walls of Legnica. Ominous harbingers.

The Shield-Brethren swore their oaths to the Virgin Defender, a warrior maiden whose face they would never truly see until they died. She was Skuld, and yet she was not. Some of the other boys from his tribe clung tenaciously to the stories they had absorbed from their mothers’ breasts, but Haakon had looked on the vastly different faces of the students at Tyrshammar and understood each knew the Virgin in his own way. When the priest in the Christian temple spoke of “Mary,” he was talking about the same goddess.

Even back then, before Haakon had learned how to hold a sword and how to carry a shield, he suspected the world was larger and more mysterious than he could ever truly imagine.

Hearing the raven-squawk name of the place where he was being taken, he found comfort in the idea that the world, in all its cruel vastness, was but a grain of sand in the Virgin’s palm. It did not matter where he died. As long as he died in the Virgin’s service, he would finally see her glorious face.

After his inevitable and bloody warrior’s death, the icy fingers of Hel would twitch empty, and the queen of the dead would scream in disappointment.

The Virgin herself would be waiting for Haakon. She would garland his neck with a wreath of cornflowers and clasp him to her spring-sweet bosom.

This he knew, and it gave him strength.

3

Thirsty Work

Before the battle of Legnica, Hunern was little more than a collection of farms clustered haphazardly around a