While he waited for his adjutant to return, Batu inspected the marsh. Except for a thin screen that remained at the battlefield's edge, the cavalrymen had cut down all the reeds. Bundles lay stacked in great heaps, easily accessible and ready for use.
When Pe returned, the general gave another order. 'The cavalry can stop cutting rushes. They are to remove the tack from their horses and fasten it to a reed bundle. Then they must release their mounts.'
The general was not issuing the order out of sympathy for the beasts. If events proceeded as he expected, five hundred horses would be an unwelcome hindrance in the reed bed.
Pe balked. 'How will we counterattack?'
'If the minister's plan works, there will be no need to counterattack,' Batu replied, glancing at the hilltop behind him. 'If it doesn't, there will be no opportunity.'
Pe nodded and sent a runner with the order.
After the messenger left, Batu said, 'Come, Pe. We'll need a better vantage point to see what happens next.' He started toward the hill.
The ground began to tremble.
Pe stared at his feet in wide-eyed fear. 'What is it?'
Batu frowned, looking first at his own feet, then at the battlefield. The surviving archers, fewer than a hundred men, were hurrying toward the marsh. They stopped and looked at the ground, then turned around. A murmur ran down the battle line. The infantrymen looked west, toward the exposed flank. Those who still had crossbows began reloading them. The others drew their swords.
'War magic?' Pe asked, barely able to keep the terror from his voice.
Batu shook his head. 'More cavalry-much more.' The general started up the hill at a sprint, Pe and a handful of messengers close behind.
They stopped one hundred feet up the slope. The ground was shaking as if it were in the grip of an earth tremor, and the sound of pounding hooves rolled across the field like thunder. Beyond the exposed flank, a horde of horsemen was charging at full gallop. Their dark figures covered the entire plain. From Batu's perspective, they looked more like a swarm of locust than an invading army. At the least, he estimated their number to be twenty-five thousand.
'Why send so many?' Batu wondered aloud, unable to tear his gaze away from the host. 'We could not have hoped to stop a third the number.'
Pe was too awe-stricken to respond, but Batu understood the answer to his own question as soon as he had asked it.
The enemy commander knew he was sending his riders into an ambush. He had sent in extra troops to protect himself.
'They know it's a trap,' Batu said, turning to his adjutant. 'They want to lure our other armies into the open.'
Still mesmerized by the charge, Pe did not respond. The barbarians were two hundred yards away from the exposed flank, which was curling back to meet the charge.
The general grabbed his adjutant roughly, shaking the boy out of his trance. 'Send runners to Kwan, Shengti, and Ching Tung. The message is: 'The barbarians know our plans. Withdrawal without contact may be wisest course.' '
'We'll be left to face them alone!' Pe stammered.
'We're alone now,' Batu growled, noting that the Tuigan swarm would be on them long before reinforcements could arrive. 'Send the message!'
As his adjutant obeyed, Batu watched the charge. The cavalry closed to a hundred yards. Determined not to reveal their commander's strategy until the last minute, the officers on the exposed flank did not order the retreat. For the first time in his life, Batu wished his subordinates were not so brave. If they did not withdraw soon, it would be too late. The riders would overrun them and cut them down from behind.
Pe returned to Batu's side. 'The message is sent,' the adjutant reported. He pointed at the hilltop. 'But we're too late.'
The general looked up and saw the advance formations of the Shengti and Ching Tung armies cresting the summit. They had brought their bulky artillery with them, and thirty catapults of moderate size lined the hilltop. Behind each catapult were several wagons filled with steaming pitch. The artillerymen carried torches.
'Fools,' Batu said, pointing at the sea of Tuigan. 'Do they think a brush fire will stop that?'
'Perhaps they intend to burn the artillery and push it down the hill to obstruct the charge,' Pe suggested mockingly.
'They'd kill more barbarians,' Batu replied, eyeing the catapults angrily.
An urgent din of voices rose from the western end of the field. At last, with the enemy horses less than fifty yards away, the flank began its retreat. As the line folded, companies along its entire length began to withdraw. Batu cursed. He had intended the line to turn back on itself neatly, not in a mass, but he had not had the opportunity to explain his plan in person. Now, the officers in the middle of the line were giving their orders prematurely, and the general had no doubt the result would be grave.
Within seconds, the Shou lines had become a jumble as retiring units ran headlong into each other. In indignant confusion, the officers began cursing at their men, then at each other. The disarray of the commanders quickly took its toll on the morale of the infantrymen. They began to flee away from the horsewarriors in any available direction. As Batu had ordered, the officers tried to guide their panicked charges toward the marsh, but hundreds of men were instinctively fleeing uphill, toward the reinforcements.
Batu could not save those men. When the armies of Shengti and Ching Tung charged down the hill, the cowards who had disobeyed their officers would be trampled-a fate Batu felt they deserved.
On the other hand, those who had kept their heads would need him when they reached the marsh. Batu sprinted for the reeds, calling for Pe and the runners to follow. As they descended the hill, the ground quaked more violently. Screams of horror and anguish came from the far end of the field. Without looking, the general knew the enemy's first line had caught his men.
As he approached the bottom of the hill, Batu saw a mass of Shou infantrymen gathered in the marsh. The general stopped thirty feet up the hill, directly above the reed bed, and pointed at the bundles of bound rushes.
Addressing the runners himself, he said, 'Tell those men to take reed bundles and jump into the river.'
The runners glanced at each other, but quickly bowed and rushed to transmit Batu's command to the throng.
Looking at the turbulent waters of the river, Pe asked, 'Do you really think the men will follow your order?'
Batu looked west. The horsewarriors were charging down his line almost unimpeded, trampling and slaying every living thing in their path. 'Do you think they won't?' he countered.
A series of booms sounded from the hilltop. Batu looked up and saw several catapult-spoons crash against their cross bars. Dozens of flaming pitchballs streaked overhead, landing on the far side of the battlefield and setting fire to the sorghum grass.
A less experienced officer might have thought the catapults had overshot their targets, but the general knew that it would have been impossible to miss the Tuigan horde. The artillerymen had been instructed to aim past the barbarians, trapping the enemy between a wall of fire and the armies of Shengti and Ching Tung.
Though the tactic blatantly sacrificed Batu's army, the plan was a good one-or it would have been, had Kwan taken the time to scout his enemies. As it was, however, the minister had trapped a tiger in a paper cage.
While the artillerymen cranked the catapult spoons down for reloading, four thousand archers rushed over the hilltop. They took a position overlooking the sorghum field and began to fire volleys at the Tuigan riders. The routed soldiers that had been fleeing uphill stopped in their tracks and crouched in grass, fearful of putting themselves between the bowmen and their targets.
The barbarians ignored these developments and continued to charge. Batu's soldiers were dying by the dozens.
'My general!' Pe gasped, staring in open-mouthed horror at the destruction of the Army of Chukei.
Batu laid a hand on his adjutant's shoulder. 'Don't despair, Nii Pe. Isn't this what armies are for?'
In the minutes that followed, perhaps two thousand pengs reached the marsh and dove into the swollen
