Dietrich had to run. If he paused to consider his flight from the abandoned Shield-Brethren chapter house, Tegusgal’s Mongol archers would end his life. Was that not justification enough for his actions? To flee meant to live. His brothers-in-arms had not fled at Schaulen, and they had died. Was that not the ultimate lesson the Fratres Militiae Christi Livoniae should have taken from that morning at the river crossing? Outnumbered, overwhelmed, and caught in the open: the enemy had surprised them. Retreating so as to find better ground, to face the Samogitian rabble another day, was an expedient solution. A practical one.
But his predecessor, Volquin, had stood his ground. Lithuanian light cavalry, much more nimble in the swampy lowlands around the river, had shattered the main body of the order’s cavalry, and as the Livonian Heermeister had tried to rally his men into an effective wedge against the approaching infantry, he had been struck by an errant spear. Before he could regain his footing in the muck, the pagan foot soldiers clashed with his men. Volquin was struck again and again, beaten by sword and club until his armor split. Until the river turned red with his blood and the blood of his faithful.
Dietrich von Grüningen was not Volquin. Nor did he aspire to be. He simply wanted to live.
His horse wanted to dally as it approached the verge of the forest, and Dietrich beat his heels against its barrel, drumming his desire mercilessly into the reluctant animal beneath him. An arrow whistled past his right ear, burying itself into the knobby trunk of an oak instead of the back of his head. He mentally cursed his hubris for not wearing a helm, and his shoulders tightened instinctively as if they could collapse in on themselves and make his body a smaller target. He ducked lower across his horse’s neck as the first branches of the forest whipped by, and he heard the desultory thunk thunk of arrows striking the trees around him.
He missed the first curve of the path, his horse plunging into the undergrowth. He cursed as the unruly branches of the oak trees clawed at him. Holding the reins tight in one hand, he struggled with the clasp of his cloak before a branch snagged it. Such an ignoble death: to be pulled off his horse by a tree branch. His horse, grunting and snorting, blundered through a tangle of ferns and spindly shrubs—leaves and branches alike slashing and whipping at the animal’s flanks.
A heavy bough loomed, and Dietrich threw himself flat against his horse’s back. His cloak went tight against his throat, and he clenched his neck muscles. Digging his fingers between the tight fabric and his neck, he felt it tear and the pressure against his neck vanished. Gasping, he sat up and looked back. His abandoned cloak hung from the thick branch, a ghostly shadow of the man he once was.
His horse stumbled across the path, and he jerked its head to keep it from blundering into the undergrowth again. His horse was bigger than the Mongol steeds, and while keeping to the forest made him a harder target, he couldn’t move as fast.
Was he only delaying the inevitable? Once he broke free of the woods, there was nothing but open land between him and Hünern. Could he outrun the Mongols? And then what? Run back to the Livonian compound like a wounded animal and cower in the shadows of the wrecked barn? He couldn’t imagine his men—especially Kristaps!—cowering with him.
As he weighed his choices, his mount reached the narrow gap he and the Mongol party had recently used to enter the forest. His horse leaped through the slot between the trees, leaving the forest behind, and he blinked heavily in the sudden light. The sun had passed its zenith and was starting its long tumble toward the horizon. It hung in the western sky, God’s dazzling eye, and he felt himself being pulled toward it. There were a few hours of daylight left. The ruins of Legnica lay to the west. Could he find somewhere else to hide until nightfall?
He turned in his saddle, blinking away the radiance of yellow and white spots that suffused his vision. The forest shook behind him, the trees seeming to caper and dance in his wake. A rank of many-armed monsters, gesticulating wildly so as to frighten him away. He swiped at the tears clouding his sight, and noticed the arrow caught in the links of his chausson.