Kim pushed past the others and rushed to Hans’s side. He knelt and put his hands on the young boy’s shoulders. Kim’s face was dirty and bloody, and Hans flinched as he looked in the Flower Knight’s eyes and saw a flickering reminder of what he had done.
“It’s okay,” Kim said, nodding slowly. “Did you have any choice?”
Hans shook his head.
“Then you did the right thing,” Kim said.
“Te... Tegusgal,” Hans stammered. He started to cry again.
Kim wrapped his arms around the boy and squeezed him tight. “You most certainly did the right thing,” he said. There was a note of pride in his voice, and Hans clung to that sentiment as firmly as he held on to the Flower Knight.
CHAPTER SEVENTY
?gedei’s Legacy
They reached a rocky spur that sliced through the forest like a ragged cut left by a dull sword. Over the years, a stream had dug a track along the base of the rocky shelf, and it held water now, though it was little more than a trickle. On their right, the forest was dense, filled with grassy hillocks and tightly bunched clumps of alder trees. It wasn’t the easiest terrain for their single horse (weighed down with both Cnán and the Chinese woman, Lian), though the lack of trees made it easier to see and avoid the crevasses and gaps in the rock.
They moved quickly across the open terrain, and Cnán kept her horse close to the tree line where the ground was safer.
Sound carried well along the shelf, caught between the trees and the rocks, and they heard the horses coming a while before they spotted them. Haakon and Krasniy made no move to hide themselves. Cnán’s heart beat faster, and she tried to not let her apprehension pass to her horse. The echoes tripped over each other, confounding the number of animals approaching, and Cnán doubted the riders approaching were friendly.
Haakon and Krasniy each had a sword, and Krasniy had managed to pick up a spear as well on their way out of the camp, but neither wore any armor. They weren’t very well equipped to stand against a host of any size.
The riders came into view, and both parties paused, catching sight of one another. Cnán peered at the pair facing them, noting they were Mongolian and that one—the broader one—appeared to be injured. The other she recognized after a moment as the Khagan himself.
“?gedei,” Haakon called out, having recognized the man in plum too. He raised his hand and beckoned, waving the Khagan toward him.
The broad Mongol kneed his horse forward, lowering the tall pole he carried until it was pointed at the pair of Westerners like a lance. The horsehair braids danced as his horse charged.
Krasniy laughed, a rolling sound that came deep from his belly. He motioned Haakon to stand aside as he stepped forward, raising his spear.
At the mouth of the valley, ?gedei and Namkhai had stopped for fresher mounts, taking them from the scattered Torguud who appeared to have been ambushed. Namkhai urged ?gedei to keep riding, and while a part of him was angered by the idea of fleeing, prudence won out and he followed Namkhai. The Torguud’s responsibility was to protect him, and leaving them behind to fight the assassins who had sprung out of the woods was the right thing to do.
?gedei followed Namkhai through the woods, retracing the route they had taken the day before. The clearing near the river where they had camped flashed past, and then Namkhai turned north, heading up a slow incline toward rockier terrain. For a while, he simply focused on Namkhai’s broad back and the fluttering horsehair braids of the Spirit Banner, letting his horse run at its own pace.
And then Namkhai slowed his horse, cutting to the side, and ?gedei looked ahead. He saw a horse carrying two riders and a pair of men, standing in the open. He squinted at them, knowing he knew who the men were, but unable to comprehend why he was meeting them on this trackless rock. “Who—?” he began, and then one of the pair called out his name.
With a shout, Namkhai urged his horse forward, couching the Spirit Banner like a long spear, leaving ?gedei to puzzle out the presence of men whom he thought were caged back at the camp. How had they gotten out? he wondered. Why were they here?
The giant, the red-haired one who had fought like a crazed bear in the gladiatorial matches, carried a spear, and as Namkhai charged, the giant trotted forward, his arm moving back for a long throw. Namkhai suddenly changed his tactic, realizing the giant’s target, and he swept the Spirit Banner to the side. With a final spurt of speed, the giant lunged forward, releasing the spear in an overhanded throw. A second later, the shaft of the Spirit Banner slammed into his chest and hurled him off his feet.
?gedei’s attention snapped to the flying spear. The giant hadn’t thrown it at Namkhai. He had hurled it, like it weighed not much more than an arrow, past Namkhai.