They heard a booming noise, and Yasper thought it was too singular and too close to be thunder, especially given the lack of cloud cover in the sky. Keenly aware that they were not alone in the woods, they dismounted and carefully led their horses through the trees. After the second rumbling echo, Yasper was sure the source of the sound was an alchemical explosion.
They nearly interrupted the duel between the two Mongol hunters, and had the pair not been so intent on killing one another they would have surely spotted the trio of Westerners. Istvan had wanted to kill them both, but Raphael had held him back, and after one had dashed off and the other followed, Yasper had been able to creep into the clearing and retrieve the dropped satchel.
He had nearly wept with joy when he opened it and examined its contents.
By nightfall, his joy had withered to consternation. Some of the powders were foreign to him, and he had no time for practical research. He woke often during the night, shivering with a sensation nearing panic, and in the morning when the rest of the company departed for their hidden positions within the valley, he was left alone. Just Yasper and the mystery of the powders and God, who wasn’t offering any insight.
The white crystals, sweet to the taste, were a salt of some kind. The metal shards had no function as part of the alchemical explosive. It was only after catching his finger on a rough burr and drawing blood that he had realized their purpose. They were tiny projectiles, meant to be packed in with the powders. When the incendiary device ignited, the alchemical energies released would hurl the shards in every direction.
He shuddered, imagining the effect they would have on unarmored flesh, and then shuddered even more as he divined how the Chinese used these powders. Feeling befouled, like he had just accepted a deal with some infernal demon to allow these thoughts into his head, he laid the ingredients out in a line, seeing their arrangement in a different light.
The dark powder tasted bitter, not unlike the calcinate that a sand bath would draw out of a cow’s urine, and the red crystals turned to blue flame when he had tossed a pinch into the campfire. He recognized the ash readily enough, though it came from a pleasantly fragrant wood.
As he was wrestling with the ratios, the Khagan and his hunting party passed below his hiding place.
Yasper pressed himself flat against the rocks, and with an oath, he kicked sand over his tiny fire, trying to put it out. He inched to the edge of the rock and peered down, desperately hoping no one noticed the thin line of smoke.
He counted heads, and was taken aback when he passed forty. He figured the one on the black horse, wearing the gaudy plum-colored outfit, was ?gedei, the Khan of Khans. Yasper stifled a grin. R?dwulf will be so jealous, he thought, when he learns how close I was. He was not a very skilled bowman, but he thought he could hit the Khagan with an arrow from his position.
As he watched, one of the honor guard—a tall muscular Mongol—gave orders to the men, splitting the group into two. More than half were to stay at the mouth of the valley. A rearguard, Yasper surmised, to ensure the bear did not accidentally escape. Little chance of that, he thought, recalling the display that Percival and R?dwulf had erected. Shooting the arrow into the bear’s chest after it had been strung up had been a masterful idea on Feronantus’s part. A taunting flourish on top of an already arrogant display of defiance. It was bound to enrage the Khagan.
“Oh, shit!” The words hissed out of Yasper’s mouth before he could stop them. He had recognized one of the riders in the group that was continuing on with the Khagan.
Graymane.
There was nothing he could do but watch as the Khagan and his much smaller hunting party—including the gray-haired rider who had plagued them so incessantly during their journey—rode into valley. The twenty or so left behind milled about for a while, uncertain of the best way to prevent a charging bear from leaving the valley. After a half hour or so, they settled down. As Yasper kept his vigil, his heart continuing to pound in his chest, they fell into the same routine as bored soldiers anywhere. They ate and drank, sharing among themselves, and eventually someone produced a bag containing some manner of marked bones. While three of them remained mounted, keeping a bored watch, the others passed the time by betting on the bones.
Yasper still had to figure out how to make an alchemical incendiary. The guards had positioned themselves on his side of the vale, making it somewhat easier if he managed to figure out how to send a cascade of rocks down upon them. He had marked a few he thought would bring along other rocks when they tumbled down the hill, and his plan had been to dislodge them by packing a mixture into key cracks. However, in order to ignite them in the right order, he would need a long fuse, one that burned at the right speed and with the right amount of flame.