Possibly the townspeople had harbored a faint hope of arousing pity within the Mongols or their lackeys, but that was impossible, Cnán knew. The tiger would pity the fawn, the wolf would weep over its lamb before Mongol would cringe at the corpse of a child.
Haakon made small sounds deep in his throat. Surely hell itself lay not far below this stinking ossuary, bubbling up toward the world’s incomprehensible evil. None of the rescue party wanted to tarry among these dead. The vengeance of their young, unshaped ghosts might be worse than that of any Mongol.
They rode away from the wall and the bones as quickly as they could—corrupt mud spattering from the hooves of the horses and flecking their faces and armor—to reach the shelter of the thick woods before nightfall.
Cnán wiped a dollop of ooze from her cheek. It was tinted red with blood.
Dusk and more mist stole over them as they crossed the glacis of cleared land. The refugees had flowed south, and the old field of battle seemed deserted of all but the scattered bones of Legnica’s defenders. Their path was clear.
Cnán was about to release the breath in her tight chest when, directly ahead of her, pale and vivid in the twilight, Finn’s hand flew up like a falcon ready to swoop down on prey. She had learned to respect that gesture; it meant that his ears had picked up a trace of something so faint that he risked losing it by shushing them.
The party drew to a halt to let him listen.
Finn’s hand descended and made the prancing gesture that meant horses. Then, thumb pinching quick against two raised fingers: small. He was hearing ponies. A great many ponies.
Cnán dismounted. She knew better than to try to outride what was coming. Haakon drew his greatsword.
Finn’s hands now told them by darts and swoops that the ponies were not in one place, but all around. Cnán could finally hear their hooves, then the low voices of the men who had been quietly riding to surround their party. She bent her knees, dropping to a squat, and then to all fours, pulling her dark cape around her. They had drawn the attention of a scouting party. Perhaps a sentry had sighted them or some scavenger had ratted them out, hoping to purloin some small item of value once the Mongols were finished. Or perhaps someone had reported Finn’s attack on the gleaner.
No matter. Cnán could see it clearly. Her companions would end up like hedgehogs, bristling with arrows, but she would hide among their corpses, then scurry to the woods before the sentinels caught her.
Raphael nudged his mount forward and laid his hand on Haakon’s forearm. The boy’s drawn sword, shining like an icicle in the twilight, would make him the first target of the archers. Haakon lowered the blade, nodding.
A little squadron of Mongols filed into position between the rescue party and the trees. Cnán reckoned she might still be able to steal past them during the confusion of the fight, but some troubled part of her soul was telling her to stay with her comrades.
“The second one, in the armor that looks like fish scales,” she said in low tones. “He is rich. Their leader.”
“We charge him, then,” Haakon proposed.
“And die in a cloud of arrows before we get halfway,” Raphael said.
“On me,” Illarion suddenly commanded, surprising them all. He spurred his horse forward. Unsettled by the corpses and by the tension in the voices, the mount startled, but then, at a soothing word from his gaunt rider, dropped into a slow walk. “Follow. Single file. Slow. Like a funeral procession. Vaetha, walk your horse. All of you, hood yourselves.”
They did as Illarion instructed. The Ruthenian rode stiffly, steadily, at a plodding pace, his great hollow eyes staring straight ahead.
A single armored Mongol rode ahead of the band, grinning, striped bow held out in one hand, as if signaling peace, friendship. A chief, no doubt. Cnán counted their opponents. Fifteen horse-mounted bowmen.
Less than a hundred paces now separated the groups.
To bar the Ruthenian’s path, the chief crabbed his pony sideways.
Illarion continued straight on, his horse snorting and tossing his head.
She thought she understood Illarion’s strategy: by moving so, he projected dogged purpose, hopefully slowing the Mongols from making a pincered feint to scatter their smaller party. If the Ruthenian turned or rode too quickly, the Mongols would instinctively rush in and give chase like dogs coursing a hind.
The chief twitched his bow left, right, then up. He dropped back. The Mongol squadron finally split to the right and left, then began to draw in like a slow snare or a purse string against their flanks and rear, fifty paces, thirty paces… close enough that their first arrows would be certain to strike home, yet not close enough to bring them within range of Haakon’s bright sword.
The chief deftly spun his pony, as if daring them to chase after and catch him, him personally, with his back turned and everything. Grinning all the while.
Cnán did not understand what Illarion proposed to do when he reached the chief. Perhaps swing on him and die, giving the others some chance of reaching the woods?