He was not alone in the cage. Huddled against the bars was another sack of flesh. Black hair, matted with blood. Face swollen and purple with bruises. Did he look that bad?
The other figure peered at him with one eye, the other hidden beneath a mass of puffy purple flesh. “Zzzzuuuuggg...” The voice issuing from the man’s throat was a ragged whisper that slowly crawled across the sandy floor of the cage.
“Kiiii—” Was that his voice? He didn’t recognize it, but the noise brought a smile to the other man’s face. A blood-stained smile.
“Still here,” Kim whispered. He coughed, or maybe he laughed. It was hard to tell. “They should have killed us.”
Zug swallowed, his throat raw and parched. “They made a mistake,” he managed.
In his head, the old ghost laughed.
May God have mercy on me for my lies, Dietrich prayed as he rode in the midst of the Mongol raiding party. All he had wanted was to save his men from the same ignoble defeat that had slain so many at Schaulen, and all he had accomplished so far was the ugly deaths of his bodyguards—two of the most loyal and trusty knights in his command. It was as if God was punishing him already for his hubris. How dare he think his order more worthy of salvation than any other knights of Christendom. Did they not worship the same God? Yet, he had offered to sacrifice them in order to save his own. Was such an act worthy of a Christian soldier?
These are the decisions a Grandmaster must make, he reminded himself, recalling his last visit to Rome and his audience with the Pope. Gregory IX had offered his ring for Dietrich to kiss, and the Heermeister had gotten down on one knee and kissed the old man’s hand. Sacrifices must be made, the Pope had said, offering Dietrich his other hand, and Dietrich had kissed the smaller gold ring as well. The one with the broken sigil. He had sworn fealty not only to the Church and the Pope, but to something older than both.
Beside Dietrich, Father Pius clung to his horse like a wet rag. The priest had not stopped whimpering since the Mongols had swept both of them into their column, and the way the priest was quivering in his saddle, Dietrich was surprised the coward hadn’t pissed himself.
“They will release us,” Pius squeaked, his voice thin and shrill. Dietrich wasn’t sure if the priest was asking him what was—in his mind—an entirely rhetorical and pointless question, or if the priest thought that endless repetition would make the words true. Twice now the priest had tried to engage the Mongols in some sort of discourse, but the warriors closest to them had only laughed at the priest’s timorous words. The second time, one of the warriors had whacked Pius about the head and shoulders with his bow, finding even more amusement in the noises the priest made with each blow. Eventually Pius realized the only way to make the man stop his abuse was to stop shrieking.
“They will kill us, as soon as they remember we’re not useful to them,” Dietrich growled. He didn’t say it to frighten the priest even more, but to focus the man’s attention. “More specifically, they will kill you as soon as they no longer need my words translated. Your survival depends on mine. Do you understand?”
The priest stared at Dietrich, eyes frozen with fear. Pius’s horse snorted and danced a few jerky steps as the priest lost control of his bladder.
The Shield-Brethren were housed in an old monastery north of the ruins of Koischwitz, and while Dietrich surmised it was possible to approach the chapter house through the woods between the destroyed hamlet and the old ruins, that approach would be noisy and difficult for a host of riders. By fielding a sizable war party, the Mongols had sacrificed stealth and speed for numbers. Dietrich did not know how many Shield-Brethren were at the chapter house—this was one of the many details they had kept hidden by virtue of their distance from Hünern—but he suspected Tegusgal had more than double the numbers of warriors. In which case, a direct approach made sense. Dietrich had made no suggestions as Tegusgal had led the party across the narrow bridge spanning the sluggish river that lay to the west of Hünern.
The bridge had been a narrow span occasioned by local herdsmen and the isolated merchant prior to the Mongols’ arrival, and as the influx began around the arena, some effort had been applied to shoring up the old pillars and replacing the more rotten planks. Once improved, the bridge became more used, which led to more wear and tear on the timbers, necessitating yet another pass at repairing it. The second time, Mongol engineers got involved; nearly overnight, the bridge doubled in width, and a small shack was erected on the Hünern side.