Alexander wondered if he should tell the knight that the army had ridden across a subtle line of sorcerously charged pebbles a half mile back. While Alexander hadn’t been able to determine the exact nature of the enchantment, he was certain that it meant Qarakh knew they were coming. He had considered keeping this knowledge from Rudiger, knowing that it would make little difference in their strategy at this point. Besides, he wanted to see the look on Rudiger’s face when he realized the pagans had somehow known about their attack ahead of time.
But as pleasurable as that would be, Alexander decided it would be a petty indulgence, and while he was not above petty indulgences in the least—in fact, they were one of the main things that kept him going after two millennia of unlife—he’d rather see this campaign completed swiftly and successfully. And despite Qarakh’s relative youth, Alexander sensed that he was not a man to be taken lightly. So he told Rudiger, and when he was finished, the knight cursed.
“Scheisse! No wonder there are no sentries—the Mongol doesn’t need them!”
“He doesn’t need them here, but he does need them elsewhere, or he would have allowed some to remain in order not to arouse our suspicions. This tells us that he does not have the number of warriors to match our own.”
Rudiger looked at Alexander. “I’m impressed, your highness.”
Alexander did not fail to note that the knight had added an honorific this time. “I’ve fought in and survived so many battles, both large and small, over the centuries that I quite literally cannot remember them all.”
A shout came from someone riding in the vanguard, interrupting Alexander. He turned his attention forward, but because the land was flat here—and because even seated upon a stallion he still was shorter than the average knight who rode before him—he couldn’t see what was happening. But he could well guess: The Mongol was making his move.
Alexander smiled. So the alliance dies without ever being truly born.
“Stay here!” Rudiger said, and before Alexander could tell him that he didn’t take kindly to being ordered by one who was supposed to be serving him, the knight snapped his horse’s reins, kicked his heels into the animal’s side, and the mount surged forward. Rudiger guided his steed through the ranks with an ease born of long practice.
Alexander understood why Rudiger had “requested” he remain in the battle formation. Here, he was surrounded by the highest-ranking and most skilled Black Cross knights—Cainites all. Alexander would be protected here, as much as any soldier could be when the enemy had been engaged. He was a prince, a Methuselah and supreme commander of this force. As such, he could hardly ride into combat like a common frontline soldier, as much as he might have preferred to. So he remained where he was, in the exact center of his army, surrounded by one hundred and twenty-three warriors. He told himself that he tolerated staying here because it was the most logical course of action (or inaction), at least for the moment. His acceptance of Rudiger’s advice had nothing to do with a dream of floating upon a crimson sea as a mirror image of himself spoke prophecies of doom.
Nothing at all.
Alessandro rode at the forefront of the tribe’s assault force, which was comprised of four arbans, or squadrons of ten, making for forty riders altogether. The warriors rode side by side in the Mongol fashion. They would be able to fire arrows more easily and—if the need arose—turn and retreat. The tactical withdrawal, shunned as it was by Europeans, was considered an honorable and useful maneuver by Mongols. Alessandro rode standing in the stirrups, as Mongolian horsemen did, another technique that permitted a mounted warrior to fire arrows more efficiently. Only a third of the assault force’s riders employed this technique, though. Some were too new to the tribe to have mastered it, while some had never been able to do it, no matter how much training they had received.
Hooves pounded across the plain like rolling thunder as the four arbans rode toward Alexander’s army, but the warriors themselves remained silent. It was not the Mongol way to shout battle cries in an attempt to bolster one’s courage or rattle one’s foe. The Mongol warrior preferred to let his strength and skill do the talking for him.
The Iberian judged the distance to the vanguard of Alexander’s army to be approximately two thousand yards. Cainites were able to draw bows and loose arrows with greater speed, distance and accuracy than either ghouls or mortals. But three-quarters of this attack force—by design—was made up of ghouls, so Alessandro knew they would have to get closer before firing.
Closer…
“Nock arrows!” he ordered.
Closer…
“Get ready!”
The tribesmen pointed their bows skyward.
Closer… “First volley, fire!”
Bowstrings twanged in almost perfect unison. Arrows shot into the air, howling as they arced into the night sky.
The knight on Rudiger’s left said, “What is that sound?’ And then, with a howling like a thousand ravening demons, a rain of arrows fell upon the vanguard.
Helmets and hauberks protected most of the knights, but many of those who were foolish enough to look skyward, curious to see what was making such an eerie noise, received arrow wounds to their faces and necks. If they were particularly unlucky, a wooden shaft now protruded from the socket where one of their eyes had been. The knight riding next to Rudiger was one of the unlucky ones. The idiot looked up, lost his right eye to a falling arrow, and shrieked in pain as he slipped off his mount and fell to the ground. Throughout the vanguard knights were crying out in agony or terror, the wounded often falling out of their saddles and the fearful pulling back on their reins, cursing horses that were too frightened or in too much pain from their own arrow wounds to obey.
It was a cowardly attack, but Rudiger had to admit it
