It was all well and good that the current competitors were thrilling the audience with their shenanigans, but he knew this wouldn’t last. Even the most experienced court jester eventually ran out of means to entertain his increasingly jaded audience.
Dietrich fumed silently, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, as he watched the Shield-Brethren knight try to spear the Mongolian champion to the red sand with the pole-arm.
CHAPTER 17:
THE MYSTERY OF THE ASSASSIN
As Munokhoi and the other riders approached, Gansukh got to his feet, the tip of the sword reminding his captive to remain still.
Munokhoi reached the pair first. He looked like a hungry wolf, relishing the moment before he sank his teeth in the throat of a mortally wounded deer. “Caught in the act,” he said, though he didn’t clarify what act he was referring to.
“She’s my prisoner,” Gansukh said.
The other riders formed a semicircle around Munokhoi, dust from their horses’ hooves rolling across Gansukh and the woman. By the white fur trim on their deel, they weren’t Night Guard, but Torguud, Day Guard. Members of Munokhoi’s jaghun.
Munokhoi leaned against his saddle. The torchlight made shadows scurry across his face. “She?” he said. His tongue touched his lips as if he were savoring the word, and Gansukh regretted having spoken. Munokhoi slipped out of his saddle and approached the pair. “She is a prisoner of the Imperial Guard, pup.”
Gansukh bristled at the derogatory word, more so because he knew Munokhoi said it to engender precisely the reaction he was having. He wasn’t much younger than the other man, but “pup” implied a vast difference between them. Gansukh swallowed the angry words in his throat, realizing they would do nothing but give Munokhoi the excuse he clearly wanted.
Munokhoi pulled a long blade from his belt and looked down at the captive. He toyed with the tip of the knife with an unconscious familiarity. “Step back, pup,” he said to Gansukh, his attention fully on the woman.
The woman was staring up at Gansukh, blinking heavily—whether from fear or from the dust that had settled on her, Gansukh couldn’t tell. Her mouth was open, and she was breathing rapidly. He knew what she was going to do as soon as he moved the point of the sword away from her back.
“Very well,” he said, and he lifted the sword.
She sprang up, like a deer bolting from brush, and sprinted away, trying to disappear in the darkness beyond the torchlight. One of the men on horseback dropped his torch as he scrambled for his bow, and sparks scattered on the ground, startling the horses. They moved, jostling each other, and the men started shouting at the one who had dropped his torch.
Munokhoi threw his knife, almost lazily, and from the darkness, Gansukh heard a squeal of pain and then the sound of a body falling. “Hai!” Munokhoi shouted at his men. “Control your horses.”
The riders brought their mounts under control, moving them away from the guttering torch on the ground, where a tiny grass fire was starting to spread. As the animals calmed down, Gansukh heard a guttural moaning from beyond the circle of torchlight.
Munokhoi glanced at him, his face suffused with the feral grin again.
“Now she has your knife,” Gansukh said, enjoying the change in Munokhoi’s expression that his words caused.
Munokhoi stalked over to the fallen torch. He stamped out the grass fire and scooped up the torch. “Careful, pup,” he snarled. “When I get it back, I might use it on you.” Munokhoi walked quickly in the direction he had thrown his knife, and after a moment, his torch swept down as if he were sweeping a stone floor clear of debris. The woman screamed, a long wail that collapsed into a sob.
Who is she? Gansukh hadn’t had a chance to consider the woman’s claim that she wasn’t an assassin. If what she said was true, then what had she been doing in the palace? Was she a thief? What had she stolen?
They needed answers, and the discovery of the woman and subsequent chase had been fraught with confusion, including, Gansukh realized, some of the guards mistaking him for the woman’s companion.
He glanced at Munokhoi’s men, his throat suddenly tight. Even though the men were Torguud, sworn to protect the Khagan, they were Munokhoi’s handpicked warriors. We’re far from court, he thought, away from the eyes of the Khagan. It would be easy for there to be an accident. No one would claim otherwise.
“She’s not an assassin,” Gansukh shouted. “How can we protect the Khagan if we don’t learn what she was doing at the palace?”
Two of the riders stiffened in their saddles, their body language changing with Gansukh’s reminder of the Torguud’s primary purpose. He had just bought himself a little breathing room. As long as he kept their focus on the woman, the rivalry between him and Munokhoi would be an awkward distraction to the issue at hand. His men wouldn’t tolerate Munokhoi indulging in petty revenge.