The trackers were spreading apart, some following her visible trail, others moving to the sides to block any escape and drive her into the center.
She risked pushing up on her elbows and raised her head to look down the slope and watch R?dwulf. She was certain she had brought the Mongols within his range; they had paced it out yesterday when reconnoitering. But this would not save her if his aim was bad.
The archer was breathing deeply, expanding his great chest, flexing his arms. He glanced down at the ten arrows lined up before him, points embedded in the soft soil, ready to grab.
He reached for one, and Cnán tensed, but rather than pulling it up and nocking it, he merely brushed the fletches, smoothing out some irregularity in the alignment of the goose feathers. His eyes flashed white, rolling up in their sockets to peer at the approaching Mongols. The closest was perhaps thirty paces from Cnán.
She sank back down into the cover of the grass and peered at his face through the golden stalks.
The Mongol leader’s eyes wandered over the landscape that had just come into their view, following Cnán’s trail down toward the little copse of trees in the gully. And there his attention locked.
In the open space of the steppes, the Mongols could ride circles around maille-clad Westerners, to either escape or pepper them with arrows. A gully choked with gnarled trees was precisely where he would expect his quarry to hide.
Satisfied, the Mongol muttered to his pony and began to ride ahead at a walking gait along the broken and trampled grass of Cnán’s trail. His men took his cue and followed in a loose gaggle, with the exception of two outriders dividing into parallel courses that would eventually bracket the gully.
Their faces were alert, but it was the alertness of hunters pursuing birds or other innocuous prey. Even had they suspected an ambush waiting in the trees, all their training and experience would tell them they were safe at such a distance.
The waiting made her twitch, then sweat, and finally, knot up all over. Cnán had never imagined that R?dwulf would allow them to come so close to her. She remembered, as a child, sneaking up on a marmot she had spied gathering seeds among a jumble of stones. By the time the marmot had realized that Cnán was stalking her, Cnán had drawn so close that the animal’s instinctive reaction was to freeze rather than run away, and yet freezing only made it possible for Cnán to draw closer.
At some point, the only thing for it was to turn and run. But she didn’t dare stretch her cramping leg.
The riders were within twenty paces, then ten. The only thing that kept them from spotting her was the intent fix of their gazes on the trees below, and the only thing that prevented Cnán from jumping to her feet and bolting like a terrified marmot was the knowledge that it would only earn her a Mongol arrow, or several, in her back.
One of the riders trotted forward to draw abreast of their leader, and the breeze brought her his casual remark, words that at first made no sense to Cnán—a reference, perhaps, to some place they had visited that reminded him of this one, years past.
Without taking his eyes off the trees, the leader smiled and nodded, and in that moment, he looked almost identical to the one who was speaking. They were brothers, she realized—brothers or cousins, reminiscing about past hunts back in their home territories, still far to the east.
Cnán felt a sudden electric quiver, as if all the years and distances were suddenly collapsing around them—destinies joining, death stalking all at once, the last and most perfect of hunters preparing to string all of their skulls on a gore-clotted rope.
At the same moment, the leader—as though sensing her emotions from a distance—glanced down and looked directly into her eyes.
He opened his mouth to raise an alarm, but his eyes flicked up again, drawn by a distant, barely audible twung and an impossible, gently arcing flash of gray and yellow.
In the same instant, his brother, or his cousin, gave a deep, final grunt and fell back over the butt of his horse, as though struck in the middle of his chest by a giant’s invisible mace.
The leader’s expression turned icy cold. Admirable calm, she thought—or the stunned response of a marmot. He let out his breath in a low groan and sidled his pony a few feet, then flicked his eyes between Cnán, the trees in the gully below, and his fallen comrade.
The cause of this sudden death was not obvious. No arrow projected from the fallen man’s chest. R?dwulf’s long shaft had passed right through his body and out the back, leaving only a slot with blood welling out.
The same sound again. On the leader’s opposite side, a Mongol turned his mount toward his fallen comrade, then lurched as a fat arrow buried itself in his shoulder all the way to the fletching. He reached around to claw at the shaft, grimaced, and then looked in stunned dismay at the leader, mouth open. When he decided to scream, the sound was buried in a gargling cough. As if suddenly sleepy, his eyes closed. His head slumped back, and he toppled sideways out of the saddle, hitting the ground with a solid thump.
The leader now understood. His head snapped around toward Cnán, and a murderous look came over his face. He lifted his lance and pivoted his pony to ride toward her, but a third arrow hissed past his ear.
Cnán heard a muffled curse from below—R?dwulf deploring his aim. The leader heard as well, and it sharply focused his attention; throwing a vicious look at Cnán, as if to say, I shall hunt you down and deal with you later, he took off at a gallop down the hill, followed closely by one Mongol and paralleled, off to his right, by a third.