“It is too risky.”
Styg laughed, and Hans was surprised to see Rutger recoil from the younger man’s reaction. “What difference will two men make?” Styg asked. “If we are that desperate to hold the gate, then we have already lost. Let Eilif and I go. If we can free the prisoners, then the Mongols will be fighting on two fronts. There are—how many? Two dozen?” He glanced at Hans, who nodded. “Was this not the reason Andreas wanted to make contact with them? They have the same enemy. Given the chance, I know they will fight at our sides.” Styg gestured at Hans. “He knows as well. These men are our allies. We can trust them.” He thrust his chin toward the sprawl, away from the Mongol camp. “What if the others do not come?”
“By the Virgin,” Rutger swore, “you are going to haunt me forever, aren’t you?”
Hans did not follow Rutger’s speech, and as he glanced at the other Rose Knights, he saw that many of them did not understand their master’s question either. Rutger passed his hand across his face, covering his eyes for a brief moment. His fingers were bent and crooked, and they shook. “Very well,” he sighed, lowering his hand.
“But not the boy,” he amended, cutting off Styg’s enthusiastic reply. “The boy stays on this side of the wall, with someone to watch over him.”
Styg nodded, curbing his tongue.
“Go,” Rutger said. “Before I change my mind. Wait for us to draw their attention.”
Before he saw the chapter house, Dietrich expected to smell it: the burning fragrance of green wood, the crisp tang of smoldering meat, the hearty aroma of baking bread. But as his horse trotted along the narrow path, he smelled none of that. There was only the scent of wet ash in the air, the morning dew still damp on partially burned logs that had lost their heat during the night.
Concerned, he snapped his reins against his horse’s neck. There was only one reason why he would be smelling cold fires, and as he broke through the edge of the clearing, he quickly saw that his fear was well-founded.
The chapter house was deserted.
The central building of the old monastery was a pile of rubble scattered across the northern verge of the clearing as if the chapel had been knocked over a half century ago by the idle hand of God, and an arc of roofless outbuildings abutted the ragged front porch of the chapel. A small graveyard bounded with a low stone wall lay to the east, and the forest encroached from the west, taking over what had once been the monastery’s pasture; Dietrich spied a number of stout trunks arranged along the leading edge of the birch and oak trees. Archery stands, he noted, his eyes picking up other signs that the ruins had recently been inhabited. A thin strand of white smoke curled up slowly from one of the circular fire pits on his left. Picket stakes, minus the rope between them, had been driven into the ground next to the graveyard. Other bits of wood sticking out of the ground indicated where the tents had been, and a long scrap of dirty cloth still clung to the jagged stones of a large gap in one of the walls of the chapel.
The Shield-Brethren had been here recently, and they had not been gone long. The midafternoon sun shone down on a camp that had been hastily and recently abandoned, put into disarray by the chaos of a rapid departure.
Through the breach in the forest, the Mongols poured into the camp. Dietrich’s charger snorted and pawed the ground as the Mongols flowed around them as if they were a stone in the midst of the torrential flood that had just broken through a dam. Dietrich tried to calm his horse as Tegusgal passed nearby, barking orders at his men. Mongols slid off their horses and disappeared into the old stone ruins.
Tegusgal pointed at Dietrich, snapping more orders, and Dietrich didn’t need Pius to translate. The Mongol’s displeasure was readily evident on his face.
“Wait,” Dietrich shouted, holding up his hands. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw several Mongols raising their bows. He was out of time. “The Shield-Brethren were here,” he said, “But they haven’t run away. They aren’t cowards.” When an arrow didn’t immediately pierce him, he paused long enough to take a breath and look around for the priest. He had to make them understand. If even for only a few minutes more. Long enough for him to...
Pius was still alive, huddling on his horse like a wet rag draped across a saddle. Dietrich waved his hand at the shivering priest. “Tell him,” he snapped. “Tell him what I just said. Our lives depend on it.”