The Mongoliad: Book Three

were very intent in their conversation.

Waiting, Lian glanced back nervously over her shoulder. The flames were a little taller than before. She didn’t have as much time as she thought.

As soon as the men were out of earshot, she ducked out of the ger, laid the flaps carefully over one another, and strode off quickly for the horse pasture.

On her way there, she passed the row of cages that housed the prisoners from the West. She stumbled to a halt when she realized one of the cages was empty. The blond-haired Westerner was housed in the adjacent cage, and he was staring at her eagerly, almost as if she had caught him doing something illicit.

Her breath caught in her throat. The prisoners were trying to escape.

Krasniy sawed savagely at the thick rope that looped around the door of his cage while Haakon kept watch. After the excitement of the Khagan’s departure, the camp became very quiet, and after a heated discussion, they decided this was the best opportunity they were going to have for escape.

Krasniy went to work on the rope, and when the arrowhead didn’t cut through the thick rope quickly, Haakon’s apprehension started to mount.

If they were discovered…

It was best to not worry about such possibilities. They were committed to their course of action now, and as fraught as the spontaneous plan was, they were actively attempting to escape. They were fighting for their freedom, and as the first rope parted and Krasniy began work on the second, Haakon’s fear was replaced with a growing elation.

Freedom.

The last rope parted, and with a hoarse shout, Krasniy shoved the door of his cage open. Moving stiffly, he lumbered over to Haakon’s cage and shoved the arrowhead through the bars to him. As Haakon picked up the tiny saw and went to work on his ropes, Krasniy indicated he was going to look for weapons. Haakon nodded absently, his attention focused on keeping the slippery arrowhead moving back and forth along the same axis of the hempen rope.

He had just finished sawing through the first rope when the dark-haired woman appeared not far from his cage. He hadn’t heard her coming, and he could only stand there stupidly, the arrowhead hidden in his fist, staring at her. Beside him, Krasniy’s empty cage with its open door was all the evidence anyone needed to understand what was going on.

Haakon stared at the woman, quickly trying to figure out what he could do-if anything-to keep her from raising an alarm. And when voices did go up in the camp beyond the first row of ger, he flinched. They had been discovered already! He wanted to bang his head against the cage door in frustration.

Much to his surprise, the dark-haired woman quickly strode toward his cage, pulling a knife out of her robes. He stood back from the bars and watched-both mystified and elated-as she hacked at the rope holding his cage closed. Her knife cut through the rope very quickly in comparison to the laborious effort it had been taking with the arrowhead. “Escape?” the woman said in the Mongol tongue as she pulled open the door of his cage. She motioned to him, pointing off to his left. “Now,” she said.

Behind her, he spotted Krasniy returning, a bloody sword in his hand. The woman sensed his attention shifting to behind her and she turned around, quickly backing a few steps away from the cage, trying to both he and Krasniy in her field of view.

“We have to go,” the woman said. “Now. There is very little time.”

Krasniy looked at Haakon, who could only shrug. He had no idea where the woman had come from, but the fact that she had helped him with the ropes on his cage suggested the three of them had the same plan in mind.

“Okay,” Haakon said, ducking out of his cage. He stood upright, feeling his spine rattle and crack, and he filled his lungs with air. It felt good to stretch, even though time was of the essence. Off to his right, he noticed a lazy finger of smoke drifting into the air, and the sound of excited voices drifted toward them from that direction.

A diversion? he wondered. His gaze was drawn to movement and he saw a tiny woman, her head swathed in a red scarf, watching them from the row of ger. She stood awkwardly, staring at the cages, and there was something about her bearing that struck Haakon as familiar.

She looked in his direction as she reached up and removed the scarf from her head. Haakon stared, shocked to recognize her. “Cnan…?”

The Chinese woman complicated the situation, especially when the other prisoners started to make noises about being freed as well. Cnan gestured at Haakon to follow her, and started walking briskly toward the tree line to the west of the camp. The young Northerner would either follow her or not, and she couldn’t really do anything about the others-the giant man covered in red hair or the Chinese woman who had helped Haakon escape. In her mind, she could already hear Feronantus admonishing her for the number of strays she had picked up, and she felt her face flushing with embarrassment as she strode out of the camp.

She hadn’t thought through Haakon’s escape. She hadn’t really considered the complications that would arise with trying to free just one of the prisoners. She glanced over her shoulder-happy to see that Haakon was following her, not as happy to see the other two coming as well. As least, they’d moved away from the cages before other prisoners made too much noise.

They had to move quickly.

She picked up her pace when she reached the tree line, and behind her she heard Haakon hiss at her, trying to get her attention. She didn’t slow down, not wanting to stop until they were some distance into the woods.

The red-haired one, she heard, was not very good at moving quietly through the woods.

“Cnan!” Haakon grabbed her shoulder and pulled her to a stop.

“We can’t stay here,” she said. “We have to keep moving.”

“In a moment,” he said. He was slightly out of breath, his cheeks flushed with excitement. His beard had come in more fully and he seemed taller. Perhaps that was only her memory of him-thinking of him as a mere boy, even though he hadn’t been.

“I wasn’t expecting your friends,” Cnan said.

Haakon looked over his shoulder. “That one is Krasniy,” he said, nodding at the red-haired man who was clumsily making his way through the forest. “I do not know the other one.” He smiled. “I never expected to see you again.”

She flushed at his attention, and gently removed herself from his grasp. “I couldn’t…” she started.

“You aren’t here alone,” Haakon said. “One of the Mongols talked about the Shield-Brethren. Like he knew them.”

Cnan started. “Alchiq?”

“Aye,” Haakon nodded. “I think that is his name. Older man. Gray hair.”

“That is the one,” Cnan said. She suppressed a shiver. If Alchiq was with the Khagan, the Shield-Brethren might be walking into a trap.

“Excuse me,” the Chinese woman said in the Mongol tongue, having caught up. “We cannot stay here. We have to move farther into the woods.”

Cnan glared at her. “Who are you?” she demanded.

“I am Lian. Like your friends, I wish to escape the Khagan’s reach.”

“You can’t come with us,” Cnan said. “I don’t know you.”

“Nor I you,” the woman responded. She glanced at Haakon. “But I know him.”

Cnan noted that Haakon appeared to be following their conversation. “But I don’t know you,” he said to the woman.

“I like your new friends, Haakon,” Krasniy boomed as he joined them. “Very pretty.” He laughed at Cnan’s expression.

Cnan shook her head. “Come on,” she said. “We need to far away by nightfall.”

“Where are we going?” Haakon asked.

“Anywhere but here,” Cnan muttered.

Haakon didn’t budge as she started to walk away, and she stopped too, looking back at him. “We have to go,” she reiterated.