The Mongoliad: Book Three

the plan far in advance, and now they only had a few minutes before Tegusgal’s men arrived and escorted the wrestler to his bout. By the time they reached the tent, Zug and Kim were both winded.

Gasping for breath, Kim flipped back the flap on the wrestler’s tent and stared in shock. Madhukar was calmly seated on a mat, a girl massaging each of his massive arms while a third tried to dig her delicate hands into the hard muscles of his shoulders and neck. He was wearing a narrow loincloth that was only a token nod toward modesty. He was not even remotely ready to fight in the arena.

“What has happened?” Kim asked, and Zug could hear the strain in his voice. Zug felt at a loss as well, and he struggled to keep his panic in check.

Madhukar glanced up, his face twisting into a dour mask of displeasure as he did. He gave a gesture with his right arm, speaking bluntly in his halting grasp of the Mongol tongue. “Tegusgal changed his mind,” he grunted. “Said other man would fight instead.”

A cold fist wrapped itself around Zug’s gut and tightened into a viselike grip. Did the Khan’s man know something of what they were planning? No, he pushed that fear aside, if he knew, Madhukar would be locked in a cage now, not having his limbs massaged by lithe slave-girls. Tegusgal might toy with them, but he would not take any chances. If he knew, he would have come for Kim and himself already.

“Why?” Zug asked; at the same time Kim asked, “Who?”

Madhukar answered both of them with a shrug that only confirmed what they already feared. Why would Tegusgal have explained anything to the big wrestler? He barely treated the fighters in the Circus as anything above well-bred dogs, even at his most generous.

As there was nothing else to be learned from the taciturn wrestler, Kim and Zug turned away from Madhukar’s tent. They wandered, somewhat aimlessly, toward the middle of the camp, somewhat stunned and unsure what to do about the chance for freedom that might, even as they stood there, be slipping away like grains of sand through their open fingers. Zug felt a fury boiling inside him. It was a reaction to the futility of their circumstances, he knew, a response that was distracting to a warrior, but it was not unexpected. He wanted to scream, to grab any of the slaves and other oppressed fighters wandering blithely past and shake them. Grab them by their hair and force them to face the visceral truth of their circumstances. He inhaled slowly and deeply, drawing air in through his nose and letting it back out even more slowly through his pursed lips. Embracing such a fury would be a fatal mistake, and all chances of their plan ever succeeding would vanish.

“The boy,” Zug said, looking at Kim. “We could still get word back to the Rose Knights.”

Kim’s face was drained of color, the ashen pallor of death. “He’s already come and gone,” the Flower Knight said, as though hope were a delicate vase suddenly dropped and shattered on the ground, the reality only now sinking in.

“Then everything rests on him,” Zug said, looking toward the arena. “One man. Fighting alone.”

Kim jerked his head back, a smile fighting its way onto his lips. “We tried to make it otherwise, didn’t we? But that is the way it always is, in the end.”

There was cheering in the streets when he came. Hunern was a town inundated with violent men and aggressive souls whose lust for battle had brought them from lands far and wide. Where the fighters passed, common men got out of their path, women hid themselves, and children stepped aside.

Not so with the Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae. The people raised their faces to look up at the banner of the Rose Knights as it passed. Every story they had heard was instantly solidified as an unassailable truth in their minds. Every hope they had ever harbored in secret was suddenly given new life. Even those who had not been there when Andreas had come to First Field and demanded to be allowed to fight for all of Christendom would remember that day as if they had stood next to the knight when he had issued his challenge. The crowds looked upon the Shield-Brethren, and loved them.

The memory of the crowds was a balm on Andreas’s mind as he walked down the long tunnel of the arena. His mind was agitated, more so than usual, spinning around on all the aspects of the plan that were out of his control. When he had dismounted from his horse and had been about to enter the arena, a small figure had launched himself out of the crowd and thrown himself into Andreas’s arms. Hans had held him tight and whispered a message into his ear. You will be facing a friend. He will guard your back as you do what must be done.

Despite his courage, there was fear written plainly across the boy’s face. Only a fool would presume that whomever went into the arena with such intentions would walk out again, whether the Khan lived or died.

The plan-like all good plans-was simple, and Andreas’s fingers flexed about the shaft of his spear. When he and his ally stood opposite one another, they would have the opportunity to strike at the Khan directly. Andreas was well practiced at hurling shafts, and that practice had not stopped since the arena fights began. He had a good arm for throwing, even battered as he was. With a man to guard his back, the only other thing he would need was a wind that was kind.

“Be careful,” Hans had said as the crowd separated them. Andreas had not had time to answer, and he could only nod grimly before the boy’s tear-streaked face vanished into the press of bodies.

The light at the far end of the tunnel summoned him. His heart quickened as his thoughts became less hurried, less confused. The plan was simple. His action would be clear. Now was the time when the Shield-Brethren would live up to the legends spoken of them. They had accounted heroically for themselves in the lists, and Andreas had endured blow after blow at First Field, holding onto their place long enough to buy their allies the time they needed to gather what friends they could. Now, at last the efforts were coming to fruition. Their days of hiding were coming to an end, and today would be the spark that ignited all of Hunern.

He had only to throw his spear, and throw it well. The rest would be in the hands of the Virgin.

He reached the final archway, and paused for a final quick prayer, and then he stepped into the arena proper, where he was immediately assaulted by the deafening roar of an aroused crowd. Distantly, he marveled at the physical weight of the sound that fell upon him, glad of the thickness of his helm, and he tried to push all of that confusion aside as he looked around the killing ground for his opponent.

Andreas drew in a sharp breath at what he saw. Across the sand stood a tall, broad shouldered knight, wearing full maille armor and a steel helm that gleamed in the sunlight. Steel plates of the sort many knights had begun to add to their maille adorned his shoulders, and his steel-sheathed hands rested upon the hilt of an unsheathed, broad-bladed greatsword, its point resting in the dirt. A white surcoat draped across his chest, reaching down to above his knees.

Stitched on the unblemished fabric was the red cross and sword of the Fratres Militiae Christi Livoniae.

Andreas blinked several times, glancing around the arena with some vain hope that he was mistaken in what he saw. Or what he didn’t see. There was no one else. He was alone before the Livonian.

The man raised his sword in a formal, seamless salute. Andreas’s heart was now pounding in his ears as he faced his unexpected foe. Memories of the alehouse, of staring down at the Livonian Heermeister from the saddle of a stolen horse flashed through his mind. Had their allies in the Mongol camp been compromised? Had Hans? Was this a deliberate gambit on the part of the Khan, or merely the revenge of a Grand Master humiliated in the street? Uncertainty started to give way to something else, something less noble.

With a calming breath and a tightening of his grip on his weapon, Andreas forced the fear away as he returned his opponent’s salute. This was not the first time in his life that Andreas had endured an ambush, nor the first time that he had been taken unawares. When thrust into an unfamiliar situation against expectation, it was the way of the untrained novice to falter in the face of reactive terror. Andreas was a knight initiate of the Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae-branded, blooded, and proven. This was a complication, and not a failure of the plan.

The roaring chant of the crowd faded to a distant din as Andreas focused his attention on the task at hand. Had they stood in the open field, the greater length of Andreas’s spear would have been more than enough to keep his foe at bay. Here in the arena, the space was smaller, limited. He would not have the room necessary to keep the Livonian at bay forever, and the thick maille that swathed the man from head to toe would be an obstacle even in the face of strong thrusts. It made no sense to wait, then. Time was not his ally today.

He exploded forward, charging across the sand, and as he closed the distance he unleashed a series of rapid