“No,” Hans said quietly. “I can’t leave. They need me.”
Ernust closed his eyes. Overhead, the sun slipped out from behind a cloud, and the tree’s shadow reached across the sanctuary, the branches seeming to grab for his uncle’s feet.
“You’re daft, boy,” Ernust said, squinting at Hans. “Who needs you? The knights? They already know they are in danger.”
“The others—the ones the Khan keeps in cages—I can help them.” I need to help them.
“What can you possibly do?” Ernust asked.
He had had a lot of time to think about what Kim and the Rose Knights were up to. The messages passed back and forth had been purposefully cryptic, but it had been clear to him that their plan was to defeat the Mongols. He wasn’t sure how killing the Khan would have accomplished that goal. As important as Onghwe was, he was only one man; the rest of the Mongols wouldn’t simply run in terror if their Khan died.
“The knights are going to fight back,” he explained. “They don’t have any other choice. They won’t run. It is not in their nature to run.”
Ernust raised his shoulders and sucked at his teeth. “That is why they’ll die,” he said with some frustration. “That is why everyone will die. That is why we have to go.”
“But they’re not alone,” Hans said. “They have allies.” He smiled. “Friends who can strike at the Mongols from behind.”
“No,” Ernust shook his head, understanding what Hans was suggesting. “You can’t do that, boy.”
“I have to,” Hans insisted. “Otherwise—” his voice broke, and he shook his head angrily. “I can tell them where the cages are. I can tell them how to free their friends.”
The city was eerily quiet. The aftermath of the riot following Kristaps’s fight with the Shield-Brethren had imbued the entire settlement with the gravid sense of an impending storm. A stillness hung over every street, ramshackle house, and building like a smothering blanket. Even the priests and monks remained hidden as he and his men had stopped by the church to retrieve the terrified Father Pius.
It would not do to find himself unable to communicate with the Khan’s commander when the need was most great.
They did not reach the Mongol compound. Dietrich heard the horses coming before he saw them, felt his own steed stir at the vibrations that were sent through the earth when many hooves pounded it in unison.
The Mongol host flowed through the streets like water around rocks, blending together in a mass of maille and lamellar-armored bodies, the fletching of innumerable arrows protruding from quivers in a plethora of varying colors. Dietrich also saw spears and curved swords, as well as many, many faces glaring at the four of them with naked hatred.
Dietrich raised his arms away from his weapons as they approached and quietly instructed Burchard and Sigeberht to do the same. Pius trembled beside him, and he hissed at the priest, telling him to remain still. “Translate what I say,” he instructed.
Tegusgal rode at the front of the host, a tall banner rising from the back of his saddle. His lamellar armor was painted red, and around his neck was a thick necklace of gold links, the only marking that distinguished him from the mob of mounted warriors.
“I am not your enemy!” Dietrich called across the open space between them, and he waited nervously, his right palm itching to touch his sword hilt, as Pius stuttered a translation.
Tegusgal stared flatly at Pius, giving no indication he had understood the priest’s words. Pius started muttering under his breath, a Latin prayer, and just as Dietrich was about to command him to be silent, the Mongol commander responded.
“He says that with so few men, you could hardly hope to be,” Pius translated. The priest swallowed heavily as Tegusgal continued. “He asks if you have come here to beg for your life with more gold.”
Dietrich refused to be riled by the comment, even though he felt a somnambulant sense of pride struggle to awaken in the back of his mind. “Tell him I have something of infinitely greater value,” Dietrich said. “I know he rides to battle with the knights. But does he know which are the ones he seeks?”
Tegusgal laughed when he heard the priest’s words, and his men guffawed and howled with laughter in the wake of his response.
“He doesn’t care,” Pius said. “He says you are all going to die.”
Dietrich smiled. “God willing,” he said with a nod in Pius’s direction. “But not today.”
Pius hesitated.
“Tell him,” Dietrich thundered.
Shivering, Pius stuttered a translation of Dietrich’s words, crossing himself as he spoke the words.
Tegusgal rose up his stirrups, his face darkening, and several of the warriors in the first rank behind him reached for their bows.