Onghwe Khan knew the value in controlling the roads. While the man had a reputation for being dissolute, he was also cannily aware of the fundamental ebb and flow of humanity. Dietrich suspected his rumored boredom was nothing more than an affectation, though he never wanted to find out one way or another.
Surrounded by mounted Mongol warriors, Dietrich and Pius galloped across the wide bridge, and the group swung north, putting the river on their right. Dietrich—with some annoyance—marveled at the speed and fluidity with which the host moved, each mount keeping pace with the others with neither thought nor order required. They slowed as they got out into the countryside, allowing themselves to be seen by any who still moved out in the open. Tegusgal was intentionally projecting power by way of visible force, Dietrich realized, to garner fear. It was not enough to destroy his enemies; it needed to be seen and left undisputed.
Dietrich’s charger, larger than the tallest of the Mongol horses by several hands, chewed on its bit at being trapped in the center of a mass that moved slower than it liked, but Dietrich held it steady. For the time being, he was a prisoner. There was nowhere to go, and no reason to push the Mongols to ride faster.
His and Pius’s usefulness would come to an end soon enough.
The Mongols began to shift around him, and Dietrich found his horse being nudged toward the front of the formation. The Mongol party slipped past him like beads of water sliding off a broad leaf, and in short order, he was in front of the host. He felt like a game beast hunted for the sport of some bored nobleman in his own lands, and some of his apprehension about what was to come next drained away, leaving only the burning shame and humiliation of his position.
He was riding to his death. His plan had been flawed from the outset, the feeble machinations of a tiny mind that could only react in fear. What did he really know of the Shield-Brethren’s location? Of their defenses and their armament? He was going to ride right into the camp of the Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae. God would decide what happened next. He had no other option. The longer he tarried, the more obvious it would be the Mongols that he had no idea how to deliver on what he had offered them.
When that happened, Tegusgal’s archers would fill him with arrows. The image of Burchard and Sigeberht dead in the street flashed unbidden across his thoughts, and an involuntary shudder shook his frame. He was almost as bad as Pius.
He bent his thoughts toward the Shield-Brethren instead of dwelling on the dead. They were using an abandoned monastery, and he tried to imagine how they would apportion themselves throughout the ruins. They would need some open ground where they could pasture and exercise their horses. Would they set up an archery range? They would have to forage for food, and they had enough mouths to feed that they would have to use some of the horses as pack animals. Horses would balk at continually moving through dense undergrowth. There would be paths in the forest, tracks made by the constant coming and going of the hunting teams. Dietrich started to pay closer attention to the gaps between the trees as the woods grew thicker around him and his Mongolian entourage.
He tried not to think about the bow that each man carried, about how quickly he had seen them nock and shoot an arrow. The small of his back itched. Even in armor, he felt naked.
His eye was drawn to a gap between a trio of mature oak trees. On one of the trees, he spotted a series of too-regular markings. At a distance, it would have been easy to miss the cuts, dismissing them as happenstance, but up close, he could see they were made by a knife blade. They were at the right height too for a man riding on a horse. The branches of the tree on the left side of the gap didn’t reach across the opening as they should either. There was one, curling low in the front, but behind it, there was a suspicious dearth.
Dietrich nudged his horse toward the gap, ducking beneath the leafy screen of the foremost branch. Once past, it was easy where someone had taken a blade to other branches, cutting them back from the path. Still leaning forward, he cast his eyes across the track, noticing the confusion of marks left by numerous horses coming and going.
Should he follow this path? It was a narrow track, wide enough for one horse only. If it led right to the Shield-Brethren chapter house, he didn’t want to be in the lead. That would only make his betrayal more evident. The Shield-Brethren would see him first—a knight of the West—and then the Mongols would come pouring out of the woods. They would all know he had led the enemy to them.
Not that any of them are going to survive.