Dietrich glanced up at the walls surrounding the arena, looking for the Mongolian archers. They were tracking the crazed fighter down below, and one loosed an arrow. Zug lifted his arms, spinning his weapon in a circle between himself and the archer, and the arrow deflected off the ash of the pole-arm shaft.
Burchard grunted in admiration. “Look,” he said, pointing at the pavilion. The pair of archers stationed there had arrows nocked in their bows, but they weren’t drawing them. “The Khan is not ready to lose his champion.”
The pair of archers stationed farther away finally heard the shouted command to hold. The crowd was turning into a clashing sea of opinions: some were chanting Zug’s name; some were raising a cry for clemency; others were chanting for blood, anyone’s blood; and a small part of the crowd was starting to get angry. Down below the Livonians, near the wall, a fight broke out, and from this grunting mass, a body was ejected over the rail.
The body—a Northerner, judging by the pale color of his hair—collapsed bonelessly on the sand. There was blood on his face. His limbs twitched; he was still alive, but knocked senseless by the blow that had catapulted him into the arena. What happened next was not his fault, but he was the one who opened the floodgate.
Two Mongols dropped to the sand, and while one hunched over the supine Northerner to finish him off, the other scrambled across the arena floor, heading for the knight’s discarded sword.
Having scared the two remaining pole-wielding guards back as far as the eastern gate (which had been summarily closed behind them as soon as Zug had attacked the first of the four and which wasn’t being opened no matter the pleas they made to the men on the other side of it), Zug charged back toward the center of the arena, and his pole-arm caught the running Mongol in the back, nearly severing his legs from his trunk.
More bodies dropped into the arena from several locations, and Dietrich realized they weren’t all Mongolian. The archers began shooting. The audience—no longer giving vent to a cry of “Zug! Zug!”—were now responding with fear and anger. They started hurling their own missiles—rocks, mostly—and some were directed down at the men in the arena, but a larger number were directed at the archers and the occupants of the pavilion. The archers responded, turning their attention toward the surging masses around them, shooting into the mob.
Sigeberht pulled at Dietrich’s arm, a clear signal that it was time to leave. Somewhat reluctantly, Dietrich allowed himself to be pulled away from the chaos of the rioting audience. “Fascinating,” he murmured as Sigeberht shoved his way through the crowd, clearing a path toward the stairs at the back of the stands. An idea was beginning to suggest itself, an answer to his nightly prayers to God for insight.
For all their bluster and military superiority, the Mongols were still men. Men who were far from their homes, occupying a foreign land. These men—the fighters who would be doing the bloody work of the Khan—were starting to lose their edge. The army was getting tired, and a tired army was more readily frightened.
Yes, he thought, and frightened men lash out at the things they fear. Dietrich saw the standard of the Ordo Militum Vindicis Intactae in his mind’s eye, snapping in the wind above the ruined monastery, and he smiled.
CHAPTER 19:
MY FATHER’S LEGACY
Lian found Gansukh in the garden, stripped to his light pants, practicing his swordplay against a hapless tree. Such practice was technically not allowed in the Khagan’s garden, but Lian had sensed the young man’s fury as soon as she heard the sound of metal against bark. The gardeners were equally sensitive, and they were scarce from this corner of the garden. Cut leaves and branches were strewn all over the ground, and with each flashing stroke of the blade, another flew off. He stopped when he saw her coming, planted the tip of his sword against the short grass, and leaned on it, panting and sweaty.
“I have heard…stories…from some of the servants,” she said.
He grunted wordlessly and turned back to the tree, intending his brusque attitude to be read as a dismissal.
“I heard it was a woman,” she said.
He stood still, sword in hand. “Did they tell you what happened to her?” he asked.
She shook her head and took a few steps closer. She could almost touch his naked back. “No,” she said, which wasn’t entirely true. The servants had been reluctant to speak clearly about what had happened in the throne room, which spoke quite plainly about what had happened.
With sudden rage, he jabbed his sword into the heart of the tree. His fury startled Lian, made her jump back like a frightened animal. “What am I doing here?” he said, whirling on her. His face was distorted by his anger and confusion.
Lian chose her words with care. “You were sent by the Khagan’s brother, to help the empire.”
“How?” Gansukh demanded. “By becoming a lapdog of the Khagan’s court? Am I supposed to be more like…like him?”