The Mongoliad: Book Two

as if seeing it all for the first time, that he couldn’t simply walk away from the room as if nothing had happened. Bits of straw clung to his robes. His right hand was red and raw. No one could connect his appearance with what had happened here. Had anyone seem him with Somercotes?

The mad priest.

He could deal with him later. Right now, he had to get out of Somercotes’s room. He had to get rid of the robe he was wearing-the same plain vestment he had worn when he snuck into the city. It smelled too much like sweat and piss and shit. Like violent death.

His gaze was drawn to the small metal lantern that provided the illumination for the room, the flickering flame like a single, blinking eye. More of a wink, in fact, as if it knew some deadly secret it would impart to him if he would only pick it up.

Stepping around Somercotes’s body, he scooped up the lantern and went to the door. Placing the lantern on the floor, he lifted and removed the door’s timber bar, then carefully opened the door a few inches to check the hallway. Satisfied it was empty, he bent over and delicately plucked the small stub of candle from the lantern’s metal shell. The candle’s flame danced eagerly.

Fieschi tossed the candle into the scattered straw. The candle bounced once, then lay on its side. The flame grew brighter as it spread into the straw.

With a grim smile, he left the room, pulling the door shut behind him. No one would know of his handiwork, not until it was too late.

Omnis arbor, quae non facit fructum bonum, excidetur, he thought as he walked, and thrown to the fire…

Ferenc twisted and angled his body as he fell. He saw, out of the corner of his eye, Ocyrhoe’s open mouth and wide eyes as he flashed by her, but there was no time to tell her his plan. There was no time to do anything but pull his arms and legs in before he collided with the guard. He felt the guard’s head against his arm and side, and then the two of them were falling, a mass of flailing arms and legs.

They hit the ground, Ferenc on top, and the impact drove the air out of his lungs. He rolled off, then stood, wincing as he tried to put weight on his left leg. He had twisted his ankle. It wasn’t a bad sprain-he could walk, albeit it with a bit of a limp, and if he was careful, it would stop hurting in a day or so.

The guard groaned, eyelids fluttering, and his arms and legs jerked in uncoordinated spasms. He was stunned but not senseless. In a few moments, he would regain his wits.

Ocyrhoe landed lightly nearby and started jabbering at Ferenc. Ferenc shook his head and tried to grip her arm, but she yanked it from his grasp, poked his chest with an angry finger, and then pointed to the wall. Ferenc shook his head again and touched his left leg, taking a limping step. “I can’t climb,” he said. “Not quickly.” He grabbed at her arm again, with both hands this time, and held her fast while he signed. “We have to go. Unless you want to kill this guard.”

She snapped her mouth shut and glared at him. Her eyes darted back and forth like the tiny swallows Ferenc had once watched hunt and swoop across the flower meadows in the spring, and then she nodded. “Sequere,” she said, disengaging her arm from his grip. She took his hand and pressed her fingers against the top of his wrist. “We’ll find another spot to climb,” she signed.

He began to walk as fast as his rapidly swelling ankle allowed. He reversed their hands-now holding her-and began to sign. “Hard to climb now. Harder to jump. Can climb this side, but how to get down?”

She shrugged and shook her head, clearly not understanding his question.

Just before they turned a corner, he glanced over his shoulder. The guard was still on his back, feebly waving his arms and kicking his legs. He looked like a bug. In a moment, they would be out of his sight.

“Wall keeps people out,” Ferenc signed. “Have you ever been outside?”

She blushed and looked away, and he could feel her arm tense as she thought about pulling away. He had embarrassed her and was surprised at his reaction to her pain. He squeezed her arm, trying to tell her he did not mean to cause distress with the question. But he knew the answer.

Ocyrhoe had never been outside of Rome. She didn’t know what the other side of the wall looked like, much less the world beyond-but judging by her reaction, she understood why he had asked.

It didn’t matter how easy it was to climb the inside of the walls of Rome; the inside might be left to decay, but the outward-facing rampart must be kept reasonably strong and smooth, or it would not be any sort of barrier against enemies.

He had injured himself falling not much more than three times the height of a man. Jumping from three stories? Neither of them would survive.

“Need different route,” Ferenc signed. He thought of the dark places they had recently visited, the tunnels under the old temples of the city. His fingers curled and tapped her forearm. “Underground. Can you find a way?”

30

Waiting For the Storm

Andreas sat on his pallet with a grunt of pain. The stone walls were a mercy during the rain and the wind, but in the murderous heat of summer, they made little difference, especially when it was a gray heat-a steaming, sunless heat. There was no breeze without or within, and little for him to do other than sweat.

In all the stories singers told of heroics and of battle, they rarely, if ever, spoke of the waiting or the coming down afterward. Unless it served the story, they didn’t speak of the wounds either. He tried to straighten his aching back and felt muscles move beneath skin so tight from exertion that he wanted only to fall into a deep slumber and never move again.

The bruises he had received on the First Field overlaid their own dull throbbing upon previous layers of older pains. Battle rush and focus on opponents permitted a man to ignore these irritations, but after battle, they came rushing back with an angry vengeance.

At Petraathen, Taran had taught them numerous exercises designed to drive away fatigue, as well as stretches that kept abused muscles and ligaments from seizing up, and he would need to do more of those soon or else suffer the consequences.

Still, Andreas sat, feeling the sweat pour down his face, acutely aware of his own mortality.

The fight against the Flower Knight a week ago had taken more out of him than it should have, and now he was staring at his sword hand, listening with a grimace as the finger bones clicked uncomfortably as he opened and closed his fist. That’s new, he thought.

“You look like hell,” Rutger said from the doorway. Even against the gray of the outside, the quartermaster was a dark silhouette. “I warned you this was dangerous.”

“Someone has to reap what I sowed,” Andreas replied with a rueful attempt at a smile, quickly distorted by a grunt of pain. Unless he got up and did his exercises, come morning he would barely be able to move at all. “Better the consequences fall on my head,” he said.

“You sound like Percival,” Rutger chuckled, pulling up a chair.

“Percival? God and the Virgin, I hope not,” Andreas laughed in return. It hurt the tensed muscles in his midsection. Everything hurt just then. “Was he here before I arrived? Did he go with the others?”

Rutger nodded.

“Ach, I am sorry to have missed him,” Andreas said, “more so because we could use his sword arm right about now.” He leaned back and raised his own sword arm experimentally. The knuckles clicked again. Cracking roasted pigs’ feet-that’s what his knuckles sounded like. “At least now I can rest for a little while.”

Rutger shifted in his seat. His worn expression immediately told Andreas that something was wrong. “I don’t like that look, Rutger,” he said. “That look says no sleep and no food for a week, or worse. What’s happened?”

“We’ve just had word from Hunern,” Rutger sighed. “Your show of audacity has sufficed to intrigue the Khan. The gates to the arena open tomorrow.” He paused. “Your name is on the lists-high on the lists.”

The news hit Andreas like a fresh punch to the stomach. He stared blankly for a moment. He’d known in the