The vanguard of Sabotai’s army reached Tver in the mid-afternoon and pitched a camp opposite the east gate of the city; the clatter of their arrival lasted until nightfall. Batu and half the tumans had stayed in the north to comb out the last resistance. At sunset, Sabotai himself and Baidar and Kadan rode into Psin’s camp.

“You don’t know how glad I am to find you standing on your own feet,” Sabotai said. He embraced Psin. “When I left you were screaming and thrashing around.”

“Weakness comes to us all. Have you seen Tver’s defenses?”

“Yes. Imaginative.” Sabotai sat down on Psin’s couch. “Ah. You heard about the battle?”

“Quyuk told us.”

“All we need do now is accept the submission of some minor towns.”

“The army is tired,” Baidar said. ‘‘Let them rest—Psin, we are all down to two horses apiece.”

“I brought a herd. And cattle and reindeer.”

Kadan looked up from his wine. “Good.”

“There are dispatches from Karakorum.” Psin reached for the wine jug.

Baidar rose. “Shall we leave?”

“No. This concerns you.” Psin looked at Kadan, and Kadan’s face grew wary. “Your father is dying.”

Silence. Kadan’s mouth trembled; he glanced around. Sabotai got up. “Where is Quyuk?”

“In Tshant’s camp, stone drunk.”

“How old are the dispatches?” Kadan said.

“A month and a half.”

“Then he maybe—”

“Where are they?” Sabotai said.

“With Tshant.”

Kadan said, “He may be dead already.”

“No. We would have heard.” Psin took him by the arm and made him sit down. “He’s not an old man. He’s not yet so sick he can’t recover.”

“My father ...”

Psin handed him some wine, and Kadan took it. His hands shook. Psin went around the fire and sat down. “He’s been very sick before, Kadan. And lived.”

“I know. Quyuk is drunk, you said.”

“Yes.”

“Does he know?”

“No. Jagatai sent to me to keep him here.”

“When my father falls sick they take the drink away from him and he gets well very soon. Doesn’t he.” Kadan licked his lips. “Doesn’t he?”

“He has before.”

“But the women are there. My brother’s wife and—”

“And your mother. Oghul Ghaimish may be a witch but she can’t suborn your mother.”

Kadan drank the wine. “I have to go see to my men.”

Psin nodded. Kadan paused at the door and looked out.

“I would sooner be a slave than the Kha-Khan,” Kadan said. “I would sooner be dead.”

He went out. Psin followed him to the door and watched Kadan ride off. The dusk was thickening, blotting out Tver’s walls. He felt sorry for Kadan, and he tried to think that it was stupid because Kadan was what he was by choice, but that only made him feel worse.

Mongke was riding up toward him. Psin stepped outside. The cold wind touched him. Mongke trotted up and dismounted.

“Psin. How pleasant to see you alive.”

Faced with Mongke, he could not think about Kadan. “Come inside. It’s going to rain.”

“Yes. Splendid fortifications, those. Have you been inside them?”

Psin followed him into the yurt and called to Ana for more wine. Mongke sprawled out, sighing.

“Tshant and I went in. We got about one bowshot down the wall and turned around and came back.”

“Why?”

“The walls are full of tunnels, and the Russians duck in and out and shoot at you when you aren’t looking. Tshant got an arrow in the hand.”

“Pity it missed his head. What will we do?” 

“Don’t be so eager, child. We may have to wait until the walls melt.”

“That would be too bad, because we should miss Novgorod for sure, then. Where is Quyuk?”

Mongke’s face was bland, his eyes wide with innocence. Psin watched Ana pour the wine. She looked even redder around the eyes than before.

“Quyuk is in Tshant’s camp.”

“I thought perhaps he might have gone back to the Gobi. After he and Batu had the argument. It was a display, Psin. You should have been there.”

Psin studied him. Mongke’s wife and his mother Sorghoktani lived in Karakorum, and because Mongke was a khan they would have certain power. The women always had ways of getting news out. “How much do you know?” he said.

Mongke arched his brows. “Why, less than you.”

“That’s an answer. Get out. I’m going to Tshant’s camp.”

“Someday, Psin, you’re going to have to learn how to speak to princes, you know.” Mongke got to his feet in one supple motion. “I overlook it, in view of your rough but useful qualities. Other people are not so forbearing.”

Psin put on his coat. “A man has to keep his self-respect somehow.”

“Why, how humble of you. I might be tempted to believe that, if I didn’t know you better.”

“Would you.”

He went out and pulled the reins of his horse loose from the tether pin. Mongke strolled along behind him. The wind filled the darkness, and Mongke sniffed; his face in the torchlight looked suddenly tense and watchful. His nostrils flared.

“Psin,” Mongke said. “When you need help, Psin, come to me.”

Psin rolled back in his saddle and looked down at him. “When I need the kind of help you can give me.” He kicked the dun into a trot. Behind him Mongke cursed softly.

The smell of meat cooking and the happy babble of voices followed him to the edge of his camp. Riding out between the watch-fires, he felt the first icy raindrop on his face. Rain wouldn’t help. He gave the dun its head and galloped through the dark toward the clot of fires at the edge of Tshant’s camp. The rain was streaming down, hissing into the snow, and when the wind blew a gust of it into his face he felt the sting of ice.

Before he went to Tshant’s yurt he stopped to see Quyuk. Tshant’s aides had packed themselves into another yurt, leaving Quyuk stretched in solitary abandon on the couch in the middle of the yurt. Under the grate, fire flickered, and a little pot of gruel was steaming over it, but there was nobody else there. Quyuk was snoring. He stank.

Psin sat on his heels beside him and slapped his face. Quyuk groaned, licked his lips, and was still again.

A woman came in from the back and stirred the pot. Psin said, “Does he eat?”

“Sometimes.” She knocked the spoon against the rim of the pot. “When he wakes up.”

“How often?”

“Two, three times a day.”

The yurt was clean, except for an empty jar lying next to Quyuk; a puddle of wine lay on the floor around it. The entire yurt was carpeted in cheap cloth.

“He gets sick,” the woman said. “When he does I take up the cloth and burn it.”

Psin nodded. “He gets no more wine. No kumiss. Water. Feed him meat when he wakes up.”

“He’ll beat me.”

“Tell him it’s my order.”

“The Khan wishes.”

He went outside and rode back to Tshant’s yurt. The rain was steady and ferocious. His shoulders felt each drop like a small mallet. The dun kept its head low, and all around the snow and fires hissed.

Sabotai was eating. He said, “I read them. One was from Ogodai—we have complete charge of the war, you and I and Batu. It was countersealed by everybody he could find. Ye Lui, Jagatai, Siremon, Turakina, Sorghoktani—”

“Oghul Ghaimish?”

“No. She hasn’t got her hands on that much power yet. From Jagatai: they are caring for the Kha-Khan as usual and Jagatai thinks he will recover. This time. He repeated to me his orders to you.”

“Yes. Have you summoned the Altun?”

“They’re coming here. Most of them know already.” Sabotai reached for a knife and cut a slice from the roast on the spit. “I’m glad you brought the reindeer. You recall the story about Jebe and the white-nosed horses.”

Psin pulled his mustaches, smiling. “I was unaware I’d ever shot a reindeer you were riding.”

Djela crawled out of the back of the yurt and sat down by the fire. “A story? What is it?”

Sabotai chewed and swallowed. “You’ve heard it, boy. About how Jebe Noyon won his name, and how he repaid your Ancestor for the horse he had shot with a herd of one thousand white-nosed horses.”

“Oh. I thought it was a new one.”

Tshant said, “About Tver.”

“We can’t do anything until the rain stops,” Sabotai said. “Psin, what do you think?”

“I want to see what the rings look like after the rain.”

“It’s sleet,” Tshant said.

“Maybe the weather will get warmer.”

“Oh, God.” Tshant slammed his fists on the floor. “Maybe. Maybe. The city is there. We have to take it.”

“Wait until the rain ends,” Sabotai said.

“I smell reindeer,” Baidar said. He came into the yurt. Buri followed him, looking pale; he’d been wounded in the battle on the Sit’ River. Sabotai gestured to them to eat and drew Psin to one side.

“Before Mongke gets here, I want to tell you something.” 

“Ah?”

“I sent him and Baidar in to push the Russians against the river— before we all attacked. The charge was late. Baidar will say nothing of it. I think Mongke hesitated.”

Psin put his hand on Sabotai’s shoulder and turned him so that Psin could see the door of the yurt over Sabotai’s shoulder. “I think you jump to conclusions.”

“Are you looking for me?” Mongke said, pleasantly. He walked over from the side of the yurt near Baidar. Psin stepped away from Sabotai.

“No. Quyuk.”

“Oh.” Mongke smiled. He looked at Sabotai and went off.

“He overheard,” Sabotai said.

“He has ears like a cat’s. And whenever you speak of him he appears.” He walked away.

Kadan came in the yurt door, saw Psin, and walked over to him. “I meant to thank you,” he said, in a low voice. “For telling me.”

“Jagatai says he will get well.”

“I know. I heard. Someone else might have… Never mind.” He reached for a cup of kumiss on the low table.

Psin looked around. All the Altun at Tver but Quyuk were here. Tshant leaned up against the cabinet on the far side of the yurt, watching them. He caught Psin’s eye, and Psin went over to him. Halfway there Sabotai joined him.

“What’s wrong?” Psin said to Tshant.

“Nothing.”

Sabotai said, “You should be pleased with the way he handled his command, Psin.”

Psin frowned. “I am.”

“He led the attack on Susdal. I could tell by the way he fought that he meant to have it by sundown, so that you could be cared for.”

Tshant shifted his weight. “He was dying, I thought, and he was making a mess of the cart.”

Psin looked from Sabotai to Tshant and chewed his mustaches. If Sabotai thought this kind of talk would get him Tshant’s favor he didn’t know Tshant very well. He looked back toward the center of the yurt and saw that Mongke was watching them, half-smiling.

Sabotai said, “You’ve never held an independent command before, have you, Tshant?”

That was a subject not to be opened up. Psin started off. Mongke came over to him and said, “Did you know I overheard, when you said that?”

“When I said what?”

“That Sabotai might be wrong when he said I’d faltered. In the battle.”

“I thought you probably were. I hadn’t seen you come in.”

Mongke’s stare wavered. “Oh. But he’s right. I did.”

Psin said nothing. Mongke looked much younger than usual. He looked down, over at Tshant and Sabotai again, and suddenly straight into Psin’s eyes. “Watch Sabotai. Be careful.” He turned and started away.

Quyuk walked in. Psin stiffened. Mongke stopped dead, halfway between Psin and Baidar. Quyuk, so drunk he could barely stand, moved his unsteady gaze around the yurt. The other Altun were motionless and silent. Quyuk saw Psin and came toward him. Psin made his fists unclench. The Altun all watched Quyuk. He walked like a man under a special grace; as if he sensed their fear of him he stopped and turned his head slowly to look all around the yurt. Quyuk seemed much bigger, as if he already wore the power of the Kha-Khan. He could do anything. When he brought his eyes back to him, Psin trembled. Everyone else was far away and could not help him. He set his teeth together.

Quyuk said, “Have you spoken to him yet? About Novgorod.” His voice was clear, in spite of his drunkenness.

“No,” Psin said. “I will.”

Quyuk looked around him again. There was no sound. It was so quiet in the yurt Psin could hear people talking far away.

“You see what they think of me,” Quyuk said.

“Go back and sleep it off,” Psin said. His heart hammered. He will kill me, he thought.

“My father is dying,” Quyuk said.

“Go back to your yurt and sleep.”

Quyuk’s face darkened, and he tried to focus his eyes. He swallowed. “Maybe I’m not so great as Temujin,” he said.

“I gave you an order.”

Quyuk nodded. “You did. You did.” He turned and walked toward the door, and his voice rose with each step. “You did. You did. You did.”

Psin looked at Tshant and pointed his chin after Quyuk. Tshant detached himself from the cabinet and walked swiftly toward the door. Outside, they could hear Quyuk’s voice, blurred suddenly, the words unrecognizable. Psin let his breath out with a deep sigh and sat down heavily on the chair behind him.

“What did he mean?” Sabotai said. “That he’s not so great as Temujin.”

“Nothing,” Psin said.

“He said something about Novgorod.” 

“He said I should ask you to reconsider your plans. If we don’t start for Novgorod now we’ll have trouble when the spring thaw comes. I agree with him.”

“No. We’ll have plenty of time to take it later.”

“I’m not sure we will.”

“I said no. Tell him that.”

“Why not send an expedition up there—half the army. Let—”

“No,” Sabotai said, and scowled. “Why fight so hard? You know I will not.”

“All right.” The low murmur of conversation inside the yurt had started up again. Tshant came inside.

“We should sober him up,” Sabotai said.

“I left orders at his yurt. I’m tired. I’ll sleep here the night.”

Tshant said, “I thought he was going to hit you.”

“If he did I could have handled it. Go away. I’m tired.”

Tshant stared at him a moment, turned and went off. Psin put his head back and looked at the ceiling. Quyuk had frightened him. If the others saw— He shut his eyes. They had not seen. He was sure of that. If they had, by now one of them would have said something.

 

Quyuk leaned his head back against the couch behind him. “God. I feel rotten.”

Tshant spooned chunks of meat into a bowl and handed it to him. Quyuk tried to push it away; Tshant set it on the floor beside him. “Eat it. You’ll need the strength.”

“To ride to Karakorum?”

“You’re not going back. You are to stay here. I saw your dispatches.”

“Which—”

“Both. Even your wife said that you were not to return yet.”

“Reading the messages of a Kha-Khan to his eldest son is a crime punishable by…” Quyuk shut his eyes. “I don’t remember.”

“A heavy fine.” Tshant watched him steadily. “I’ll pay it. Your father will pay it for me.”

“My father is sick. Maybe dead.”

“Until you hear otherwise, you are staying here.”

“Who—” He swallowed. His eyes opened but he seemed to see nothing. “I’m ... I feel terrible.”

“You shouldn’t drink so much.”

“Give me a drink.”

“No.”

“Please.”

“No.”

“Am I the child of a waystation slave to be treated like this?”

Tshant said nothing. He remembered how his father had stood, while all the rest of them shook like leaves, and told Quyuk so calmly to go away.

“Are you my jailer?”

“No. I’m in charge of getting you healthy to fight.”

“So it’s your ox of a father. No, don’t. Your great glorious most excellent—to fight. Where?”

“Here. Tver. We attack the rings tomorrow.”

“Whose…” He gulped again. “I’m going to throw up.”

“Don’t.”

“Whose order?”

“Mine.”

“To attack the city?”

“No. Sabotai’s.”

“He’s mad.”

“Possibly.”

“We can’t take it.”

“Psin and Mongke say we can.”

“Mongke is a coward. He—” 

He lurched to his feet, stumbled across the yurt to the door, and sprawled over the threshold. Tshant followed him. He stood in the door, watching Quyuk on his elbows crawl across the ground to the deep snow and be sick. The bright sunlight shone fiercely over the camp. In the street before the yurt people turned and watched, and Buri cantered up, his face flushed.

“Get him inside,” he called to Tshant. “Will you let everyone see?”

“Yes,” Tshant said.

Buri’s eyes blazed. Tshant shifted his weight, so that he stood on widespread feet, and lifted his fists. Buri looked at Quyuk again.

“He’s done. Take him inside. He’s weeping.”

Tshant went to Quyuk and dragged him back into the yurt. Buri galloped away. His whip rose and fell across his horse’s lathered shoulders.

Quyuk said, “Give me something to drink.”

“No.”

“Tshant. I shall die.”

“Don’t.”

“Were they laughing at me?”

“No.”

“Buri was there. Where is he?”

“He went off.”

Quyuk crept to the couch and knelt beside it, his head buried in the rucked covers, his breathing ragged. Tshant sat down by the fire. Quyuk seemed to sleep; his shoulders trembled a little, not constantly, but often. In a while he would start to talk again. The meat in the bowl by his knee was cold, and Tshant got it and poured it back into the pot and sat back down again, aware of his own patience, to wait for Quyuk’s waking.

 

Psin paced back and forth in front of the tower, watching the gap into the rings. The clang and shrill yelling of the battle had died long before, but no messenger had come, and the rings kept him from seeing what went on inside.

“Sabotai,” he shouted.

“I can see nothing. Control yourself.” Sabotai was pacing back and forth on the platform on top of the tower. “They should hold the outermost ring by now.”

Psin cursed him. The snow, trampled black, slurped under his feet, and the shadow of the banner on the staff above the tower rippled over the ground before him. A cluster of women muttered and watched from the space between the yurts nearby. He glanced over and saw Ana, her lips moving.

“Damned woman.” He paced three strides.

The women shrieked, and he wheeled around. A horseman was galloping up from the crowd around the gap into the rings. It was Buri, his face filthy with blood and sweat, his coat half ripped off. Sabotai shouted something, but Psin refused to hear. He ran to meet the galloping horse.

Buri reined in hard. “We hold the outer ring. They are shooting at us from the walls. It’s slow, building the roof.”

Psin caught the horse’s rein before Buri could wheel and said, “Losses?”

“Few. It’s just—” Buri grimaced. “So slow.”

“Go back.” Psin stepped aside and turned to relay the news to Sabotai.

“Good. Good.” Sabotai grinned. He was sitting cross-legged on the platform, very near the edge. “Listen.”

A great roar had gone up from the rings. The women howled and called the names of their men into the bitter air. Sabotai’s voice lifted over the shouting, over the rising clang of swords and shields: “The Russians are on the steps. They are trying to beat us down—”

Psin swore, ran two steps to the tower, and leapt. His hands caught the second crossbar on the tower’s side and he climbed awkwardly up. The tower swayed and tipped under his weight. Sabotai roared at him, and he scrambled up onto the platform just before the tower would have fallen. Sabotai and the aide with the banners stood on the far side, balancing.

“Grandfather,” Djela called, from the ground. “Can I—”

“No.” Psin shaded his eyes and looked in the direction of the city.

The great rings throbbed with running men. Mongols filled the outermost, a river of warriors, their shields raised over their heads against arrows. He could see arrows pelting down onto the shields, but he saw no Russians on the wall and he guessed that they were shooting from the floor of the inner ring into the air, pitching their arrows to drop across the intervening wall.

On the steps the Russians were massed. They held great long wooden shields against their shoulders, and they were all armed with swords. The Mongols inside the ring were shooting at them. Psin could see almost to the bottom step, and there the Mongols were fighting the Russians hand to hand.

“Slow,” Sabotai murmured.

“We’re gaining ground.”

The Mongol shields like a ceiling filled the outermost ring, and more Mongols poured in through the gap under the shield cover.

The shouting dimmed for an instant, as if everyone paused at once to take a breath, and Psin could hear the sound of mallets. A cart lumbered away empty from the gap, and another, full of timber, took its place. A whip curled across the backs of the oxen, and they lowed.

“Grandfather—”

“Ssssh.”

A great yowl went up from the area around the steps. Psin tensed; he took a deep breath. The Russians dashed backward up the steps. Mongols charged after them. The swords flashed like the ice rings, and a cloud of lances streaked into the pack of Russians. Bodies slipped down off the wall.

“White banner,” Sabotai said. “Psin, look.”

“I see.”

Russians were running nimbly along the wall toward the steps, coming from the west, and while Psin watched several leapt down onto the ceiling of shields. They bounced up and down on it, testing its strength. Arrows thumped the shields all around them. Some of the Russians had torches.

The Mongols on the steps knelt to shoot, but the Russians paid no attention. A single file stood on the shield ceiling. Buckets passed swiftly along it. The arrows slit into the line and here and there Russians fell, but the buckets emptied over the ceiling, and the torches fell onto the soaked shields, and flames sprang up. Djela murmured something; he had crawled up onto the platform and stood watching, one hand clutching Psin’s coat.

Sabotai spoke to the aide with the banners, and Psin patted Djela on the head. “This we foresaw, noyon.”

Three banners stood out from the staff. Carts lurched hastily away from the gap, and Mongols streamed out, four abreast. The ceiling remained standing behind them, shored up from underneath and braced with timbers. The fires burning on it drove the Russians back as well as the Mongols, and the men on the steps were swiftly rigging their own shelter of shields.

Outside the wall, the Mongols leaned pine trunks up against the snowbank and scampered up with buckets to douse the flames. Arrows met them, and they ducked, but the flames rose like a wall between them and the Russians. Psin could see both sides—the Russians feeding the fires, the Mongols drenching them. The flight of the Mongols from beneath the burning ceiling continued unslackened. On either side of the steps stood a shield wall, and Psin could see the men sitting safe in it, far from the fires, relaxed and talking. Their bows lay on their knees.

Buri, Quyuk and Kadan were circling around near the gap; their banners dipped suddenly. Psin said, “They’re asking for orders.”

“Yes. Bring them in.”

To the aide with the banners, Psin said, “Raise the gold.” He turned back, frowning, to look at the rings. The fires were dying slowly. Most of the Russians were gone.

The yellow flag ran up the staff, and the Mongols around the gap turned and jogged on foot back into the camp for dinner. Djela tugged at Psin’s sleeve. “Is Ada coming back?”

“No. He’s in command of the steps.”

“But he’s hungry.”

“He’s got food with him.”

Buri was riding up, no cleaner than before. Sabotai said, “We’ll have to go down and hear his report. When do you want to go in?”

“Are you going in there?” Djela’s mouth described an O.

Psin nodded. “Let’s get onto firm ground.”

Several men were stationed at each corner of the tower to hold it steady. Sabotai lowered himself cautiously from crossbar to crossbar, his feet groping beneath him. Djela said softly, “Grandfather, maybe—”

“Ssssh.”

He started down; Djela maneuvered around the tower’s side just above him, nonchalantly clinging to the crossbars with one hand. “Can I—” 

“No.”

The sun was setting. Psin jumped the rest of the distance to the ground and faced Buri. Quyuk was behind him. Soot smeared one of Quyuk’s cheeks, and a long scratch parted one eyebrow. Buri was talking about the fighting for the steps.

Quyuk said, low, “Are you still going in, Khan?”

“Yes. At moonrise.”

“You’re a fool.”

Quyuk’s slaves were gathering around him. One handed him a cloth, and another held out a jug of kumiss; Quyuk held the cloth in one hand while he drank from the jug, swiped disinterestedly at the dirt on his face, and threw the cloth aside. His fingerprints in soot stood out vividly on the white fabric. He walked away, trailing slaves. The other Altun were riding off to their yurts. Buri had finished his report. Psin looked up at the sky. The red light from the sun climbed from the western horizon toward the summit of the sky, sheer as flame. Under it the fire-blackened snowbanks turned rose-color.

“Progress enough for one day,” Sabotai said.

“Do the Altun think so?”

“Of course not. They say we should have taken the city by now. They are impatient. I don’t think it’s necessary that you go inside the wall tonight.”

“I’m not sure they’ll do what we wish.”

Sabotai’s eyes narrowed. “Besides, they’ll fight better if you are there.”

Psin looked at him, startled. “What makes you think that?”

“Nothing. Come along, you’ll need sleep.”

 

Tshant shook himself awake, yawned, stretched, and stood up. He was alone on the steps; when the fires on the shield ceiling had gone out he had sent most of his men to posts all along the roofed-over section. The night air still smelled of charred, wet wood and old smoke.

Behind the city wall, fires gleamed, and he saw fires in the Mongol camp, but between them lay nothing but dark. The snowbanks even looked dark. The cold touched him, and he shivered.

The dead silence made him uneasy. He liked the quiet nights on the steppe, the rare calm of the Gobi, nightbirds and the wind and the whisper of grass or sand, but in this stillness his ears strained and his back prickled as if someone were creeping up behind him. No wind at all, tonight, and the stars looked dimmer than usual.

He picked up his fur cloak and went down the steps into the roofed-over ring. The six men clustered at the foot of the steps came lazily to attention. Under the ceiling the dark was thick and foul-smelling. He walked back toward the gap, kicking at the shields blocking the tunnels through the inner wall. Tonight those shields came off.

His father was damned clever. Unless it had really been Mongke’s idea, the whole thing. He doubted that. Mongke was a raider, strike and fly, not capable of something like this. Mongke was too impatient for sieges. He stopped still and listened and heard only the creaking of the timbers.

He could see little in the darkness. Ahead, far ahead, a small fire burnt in a pot, marking the gap. Boots crunched on the packed snow, and he spun around.

“Yuba,” a voice called. “Sentry, noyon.”

“Pass.”

Yuba strode by him. A timber groaned, and the ceiling seemed to sag. Tshant dodged away. But the shields held, braced up and lashed together. He trotted toward the gap, passing Yuba again. Coming nearer the burnt section he could smell the smoke in the stagnant air, the faint odor of burnt meat: Russian bodies, maybe even Mongol.

“Who comes?” the sentry hailed from the gap.

“Tshant Bahadur.”

The sentry stepped aside. Tshant ducked a jutting beam and slipped into the fresh cold air outside the gap.

Silent, motionless, a vast army of Mongols waited there. They sat on their heels in even rows, watching the gap; when Tshant came out they gave no sign that they saw him. Tshant took a deep breath. To keep so many men quiet… He looked for his father but didn’t see him.

The silence tore at him. He wanted to shout, to bang something, just to break the stillness. With the nervousness working in him he stepped farther from the gap and looked around. There was no sign of Psin. But in the east the moon was gliding up over the horizon, huge, bright orange, flooding light over the snow.

Heavy footsteps. He looked over his shoulder and saw Psin coming, his bow in his hand. His edginess drained away. Psin lifted one hand casually to him and went in through the gap without hesitating. Tshant started after him. Behind him, the rows of the army stood and softly, softly crept into the roofed ring.

No sense asking if they all knew what they were to do. Tshant caught up with his father and walked beside him, one hand on his sword. Psin said nothing. The roof of shields caught the sound of feet behind them and made them boom. In the dark Tshant could see only Psin’s shape. He shortened stride so that he did not outwalk Psin and wondered if he always did that, or if this was not some new sign of weakness.

He is old. He must slacken. He was recently sick.

The familiar anger swept over him, and from long habit he fought it down. He shouldn’t hate a man because he was strong. I don’t hate Psin, he thought. But he wasn’t sure.

The closed ring pressed down around them. They passed a sentry, answered his low challenge, and walked on. Tshant could hear no one following them. They had passed the steps, they were nearly to the end of the shield ceiling, and the air was like cobwebs around them. Tshant’s nose tickled and he suppressed a sneeze.

Psin’s hand touched his shoulder. They were at the end, where the roof ended against a wall of snowblocks hacked out of the ring. Here it was utterly dark. Tshant closed his useless eyes and listened.

Now. Yes. He could hear men behind them, not talking, just moving around. He heard Psin groping along the wall to find the tunnel that was here, and he heard the timbers creak and the shuffle of Psin’s clothes against his body. Something scraped—the shield that blocked the tunnel.

He opened his eyes. Psin was making a fire in the pot that had hung from his belt, to signal the men down the way that they were ready. The red glow leapt up and settled instantly, and Psin kneeling beside it cast the edge of his cloak over the pot to signal.

Down the way they had come, another pot winked, and a third. Psin sat easily waiting, his wrists on his bent knees. The glow from the fire lay over the planes of his face. He looked up at Tshant, but his eyes were expressionless and he said nothing.

The pots were winking again. Psin kicked the pot aside, wheeled, and jerked the shield away from the mouth of the tunnel. He plunged in, still wordless, leaving Tshant to find the shield and follow on hands and knees.

Psin’s body blocked the far end of the tunnel. Tshant, shivering in the cold from the ice all around, shoved the shield ahead of him.

Psin took it and thrust it out into the ring before them. There was no sound. Psin waited only long enough to find out that no one was shooting at them before he scurried out of the tunnel. Tshant dove after him.

All down the wall, Mongols were plunging out of the tunnels into the second ring, into the bright moonlight. There was no sign of the Russians. The ring filled swiftly with Mongols, still quiet, but moving efficiently up and down the ring. The shields they rammed into the mouths of the tunnels in the inner wall facing them. With axes they cut handholds into the ice walls on either side of the ring, and men with bows climbed up to watch the city. Tshant scrambled up onto the inner wall and looked, and saw the city closer, all quiet, unaware that they had only one snowwall left to them.

Psin said, “No casualties.”

Tshant slid down. “They didn’t know we were coming,” he said, and immediately cursed himself for not thinking that over. Psin smiled at him.

“Obviously.”

This ring swarmed with Mongols. The wall behind them was lined with bowmen, and through each tunnel even more crawled, to jump up and run to their new stations. Tshant followed Psin down the wall.

“Only one ring left.”

Psin nodded. “They’ll fight to the death for it. Tomorrow.”

“Why not now?”

“Because I would rather hold the outer and the middle rings, not just the outer and the inner.”

“We can hold all three.”

“Not yet.”

The men creeping through the tunnels all carried shields on their backs, many three or four. They heaped them against the inner wall. Psin turned and held up one arm. Down the ring, someone threw up a hand in answer—Kadan. Psin pointed to the stacks of shields and made a spreading motion, and Kadan gestured again. He ran around tapping men on the shoulders and pointing to the shields.

“They’ve had plenty of time,” Psin murmured. He jabbed his chin toward the city.

“For what?”

“Wait.”

Already the shield roof was springing up; the Mongols in rows held their lashed shields over their heads, while others dragged timber through the tunnels and braced them. Tshant paced, watching the work. The pine trunks skittered around on the ice, rolling, so that the men had to dodge and leap over them. His father was an old fool and they should be taking the inner ring now.

“The city,” a man on the snowbank shouted. “They’re doing something in the city—”

“Find cover,” Psin roared.

The silence shattered. Tshant, filling his lungs, bellowed orders. Men dove into the tunnels and packed the space beneath the half-erected roof. Psin started toward Tshant, his eyes turned upward. The moonlight flooded the rings. Psin’s shadow licked at the snow wall.

“Everybody down,” a sentry howled.

Tshant flinched back against the wall. A massive hailstorm—rocks. They were catapulting rocks from the city into this ring. Psin, running, caught one on the shoulder and reeled and collapsed against the wall. The air thundered with falling rocks. They bounced and rolled on the flat ice, pelted the roof, swept the sentries from the wall over Tshant’s head. Somebody screamed. Tshant dove into a tunnel. Abruptly, the storm of rocks ended and the great silence closed in.

“See what I meant?” Psin said, just outside the tunnel mouth.

Tshant crawled out. The ground around him was a field of stones from wall to wall. No sign of the ice below showed through, and in places the stones were piled up into heaps as high as his knees.

“Shake the roof,” Kadan roared.

The Mongols crouched beneath the sagging roof charged to the timbers and rocked them. The roof swayed violently. Rocks bounded down, rolling, splitting on the stones beneath. The roof undulated, and most of the stones cascaded harmlessly off. Kadan stood to one side, rubbing his hands on his coat.

Tshant said, “They must have tested the catapults for distance, back when they built the rings. They knew if they could block us here we’d have trouble getting supplies through.”

Psin nodded. “Better here than outside or in the closest ring. I’ve changed my mind. We have to take that ring tonight. Kadan?”

Kadan stumbled across the field of stones. Tshant could see the rocks turning under his feet, and he saw the stray hands, the heads and boots of men crushed under the hail. If they had not been warned…

“What now?” Kadan said.

“Send a man back and tell Sabotai that we have to take the inner ring before the Russians can find boulders to shoot at us. We need every man here.”

“The Khan wishes.” Kadan leered and plunged into a tunnel, shouting.

Some of the sentries on the outer wall of this ring were running back into position; they had run across the roof on the ring beyond to dodge the fall of stones. One shouted, “Russians coming out the city gate.”

Psin chewed at his mustaches. His eyes turned toward Tshant, as if he meant to ask something, and Tshant stared back. Psin said nothing.

“More stones,” a sentry yelled.

“Inner wall,” Psin called. They plunged across the ring, sliding on the stones, to flatten themselves against the inside wall. Stones pelted down around them—not so strong a shower as the first. A rock bounced from the ground and struck Tshant on the hip. A man gasped, somewhere near. Stones hit something with a sound of splintering bone. They drummed on the roof, and a timber gave way, crashing down.

Psin said, “The tunnels.” He lifted his great voice over the pounding of the falling rocks. “The tunnels—every man.”

Tshant, kneeling, rolled away the rocks blocking the tunnel entrance at his feet. He took hold of the shield to pull it free, and the rock shower stopped. Like a voice in his ear he heard someone in the tunnel before him. He snatched out his dagger. Psin was standing just behind him. Tshant rapped him on the knee with the flat of his dagger and tore the shield away.

No one came out, so he ducked and plunged in. The point of a sword gashed his reaching arm. Like meeting a bear in its cave—he grappled with the Russian. The two of them packed the tunnel. Their shoulders cramped, they muscled each other, grunting, muffled up in their cloaks. Tshant pulled his dagger arm free and stabbed the Russian in the throat. The blood streamed over him, hot and salty, and the Russian sagged, but his hands still plucked at Tshant’s eyes. Tshant stabbed him again.

“Grishka…”

The Russian was dead. Tshant kept him upright in the tunnel, to block anybody coming in from the Russian side. There were several; he could hear their voices. They shoved at the dead Russian and Tshant shoved back. Psin was pressing against him.

Outside there was shouting, there were stones falling again, and a lot of men screamed. Something crashed and the ground shook. Between Psin and the dead Russian Tshant could barely move. His throat constricted. He got his feet up in front of him, planted them in the corpse’s side, and shoved.

The dead man popped out of the tunnel. Tshant on hands and knees raced after, slipping on the bloody ice. Swords clashed in the ring beyond. A Russian face, yellow-bearded, thrust into the tunnel, and Tshant slashed at it with his dagger. Blood leapt from the Russian’s nose and he scuttled out and vanished. Through the tunnel mouth, Tshant saw the moonlight on the ice and the city wall across the way, nothing else. The shouting had died.

“Do we stay here or leave?” he said, throwing his words behind him.

“Stay here,” Psin said. “Everybody else is.”

Other Mongols, wedged into the tunnels, all along the wall. Just like him. “Do we hold all the tunnels?”

“I doubt it.”

A torch thrust into the tunnel. Tshant yelped, fending the blaze off with his hands. His cloak stank abruptly of burning fur. He could not back up and he howled to Psin to move, but Psin did not; Psin flung his own cloak past Tshant, wrapped it around the torch, and pulled it out of the hands of the Russian. He beat at his cloak until the flames died.

Tshant sat still, panting. He gulped for air. His face stung; the Russian had scratched him, the torch had burnt him. He took great lungfuls of air. The silence closed in again, and he shuddered. He wanted to burst out, to stand, to be in the open. His throat clogged up.

“Easy,” Psin said. “Easy.” He took Tshant’s left arm in one hand and tore the sleeve of his shirt away. The wound there dribbled blood. Tshant clutched at his father’s hand. He thought he had to hold onto something. He could not get enough air to breathe.

An arrow bounced into the mouth of the tunnel, but Psin’s cloak, wadded up in front of them, shielded them. More stones pelted the ring behind them.

Psin’s hand lay passively in Tshant’s grasp. His fingers were cramped from hanging on so tightly, and he let go and pushed away from Psin. He heard Psin move a little.

“What now?” Tshant said.

“We wait.”

“But they’ll—”

“Ssssh.”

I sound like a child. He soothes me like a child. He drew himself up. The silence was suddenly bearable.

Stones rolled and crunched behind them, and a soft voice from the middle ring said, “Quyuk and the rest of the army are in the tunnels.” The stones crunched again, and the voice sounded at the entrance to the next tunnel.

Psin shifted his weight. “And now—”

“We die for the glory of the Kha-Khan,” Tshant said, and gathering his cloak plunged out into the open.

For two strides he saw nothing and nothing attacked him; he had a chance to fling the cloak around him before the first arrows came. He heard Psin’s voice roaring behind him. Out of the other tunnels Mongols charged, yipping.

A horde of Russians streamed down on them—mounted, their horses wild-eyed and their swords like scythes. Tshant swung to face them. An arrow thunked into his cloak and the heavy fur stopped it. Only a few Mongols stood between him and the Russian wave. He had his dagger ready; he took a deep breath and ran toward the oncoming horses.

“Eeeeeeeyyyaaaaah!”

The horses trampled down two Mongols before Tshant and swept toward him. A sword flashed toward his eyes. He saw thrashing mane, a beard, a heaving shoulder, and jumped. His arms slid along a horse’s neck and he hung on. The horse staggered, and the Russian lurched in his saddle. Something smacked Tshant across the back. He swung his legs up and booted the Russian in the chest. The horse stumbled to its knees. The Russian hurtled off, and Tshant hooked one heel over the saddle’s high cantle. The horse charged on, neighing.

He waited for the sword to strike off his head, for the axe to cut him in two, but nothing happened and he managed to reach the saddle. He could not find the stirrups, and the reins flew loose around the horse’s knees. All around him riderless horses galloped. He didn’t stop to figure it out. He swept down toward a mass of Mongols, scattering before the charging horses; Russians poured out the gate, and more Mongols bolted from the tunnels. He caught one rein and jerked the horse down a little.

An arrow took his horse in the neck and he threw himself free just before the horse slammed to the ground. Another horse jumped across his prone body. He rolled to the wall and sat up. Overhead the air was laced with arrows, two streams merging: one from the city wall, one from the top of the snowbank. That explained the empty saddles. The horses galloped madly up and down through the heaving pack of Mongols and Russians.

Heavy Russian voices called out, and Mongols answered, high and yelping. Metal screeched on metal. A horse reared straight up, a stump where one foreleg had been, and crashed down on its side. Tshant dodged around it and into the main fighting. With only a dagger he had to get close. He rammed into a Russian on foot and put the dagger in between his ribs, and the Russian looked down at him, eyes round with surprise, and fell.

He whirled to face another. This one carried a lance, and the lance jabbed at him, nuzzling at his cloak. He knocked it aside and jumped in. The Russian struck him in the face with his fist. Tshant sat down abruptly, lunged to one side, and slashed at the Russian’s hamstring. The hide boot parted under the dagger blade, and the Russian grunted and collapsed. A charging horse rushed them. Tshant dove aside, but the Russian only flung up his hands, and a great forehoof smashed the hand and the face beneath it.

Tshant jumped up and looked for the Russian’s lance. The surging lines of men around him caught him like a river current and carried him in a rush toward the gate. The timbre of the Mongol shouting had changed, it was fiercer now, triumphant, and he knew that they were winning. He gasped for breath and yelled along with the rest. The moonlight made it almost as bright as day.

They rushed up against the wall, as if by their weight alone they would smash it down, and the rough wood seemed to tremble before them. On the wall over their heads, women shrieked and sobbed. Tshant paused, his hands flat on the wall, and looked up. The wall could not be manned only by women—

“Climb,” someone behind him screamed. “Quickly—climb the wall.”

That was Quyuk. Tshant flashed a look over his shoulder and saw him on a Russian horse galloping down toward them. The stirrups banged against the horse’s sides, far below Quyuk’s feet. Tshant swung toward the men around him.

“Bend your backs, now. Come on, climb.”

The first row of men bent over, their hands on their knees. Tshant pushed away from them, not meaning to be a pack animal. The next line backed up a step, ran lightly forward, and leapt up onto the backs before them and bent in the same way. The third line climbed up onto their backs, and the fourth onto theirs. Tshant pulled himself up over the crouching men, using belts and shoulders for handholds, his dagger in his sleeve. The top of the wall swayed above him, painted in moonlight. He stopped just long enough to take his dagger in his hand and vaulted over.

The rampart was deserted. All along the wall, Mongols were running. Torches bloomed. Tshant ran for the main gate. His breath burnt in his throat. He stumbled over a catapult’s lashings, almost fell from the rampart, and saw briefly a clot of women and children huddled underneath, their faces white as the ice. He raced to the gate.

Three or four men were already there, struggling futilely with the enormous bar across it. He paused, wiped his dagger on his sleeve, and sheathed it. The engine on the ground beside the wall was a winch. But the bar could not be worked by winch.

He yipped, calling up the Mongols within earshot, and jumped down to the gate. The Mongols followed him, leaping down from the wall. They caught the bar in their hands and with a single shout heaved it out of the cleats and flung it down. With their bare hands they tore the gate off its hinges.

Only a few Mongols came in by the gate. Tshant, watching them go off contentedly to plunder, frowned and climbed back up onto the wall.

What had happened he saw at once. Here on this stretch of wall the Mongols had beaten the Russians, but everywhere else the fighting still blazed on. Probably every Russian able to fight was outside the wall. The Mongols streaming in through the tunnels were slowly overpowering the Russian defense, but they still fought, and in some places they were forcing the Mongols back toward the main gate. In the moonlight the Russian armor glinted, and there was no color, only black and white, even where there was blood.

He saw Quyuk on his huge Russian horse lead a charge straight into a mass of mounted Russians. The fighting surged up all around him. A horse screamed and reared up, and the swords hacked and jabbed at the massed bodies between the two walls. Quyuk’s horse burst riderless out the back of the Russian line and galloped away. Tshant swore under his breath.

Abruptly he realized that someone was attacking him. He swung around. A dozen women with pitchforks and axes lumbered along the rampart toward him. Their faces, slobbered and stained with tears, were like the bloated faces of drowned men. He took a step backward. They screeched and rushed toward him. They could come only two abreast, because of the narrow rampart, but the ones behind shoved at the ones in front in their eagerness to get at him.

He bent his shoulders and launched himself at them, grabbed the pitchfork in the hands of the nearest, and whipped her off the rampart. She thudded on the ground. The others shrieked at him. Their eyes gleamed. Their hair flew around their heads. He jabbed the fork at them, and one woman spread her arms and smiling ran herself onto the triple tines, gasping only a little. He leapt back, jerking the fork loose, and his stomach churned.

The women came on. He could not frighten them back. He swung the fork in great sweeps, knocking them in pairs and threes off the rampart. They hardly seemed to use their weapons, only fell and smashed on the cobblestones below. From under the rampart rose the wailing of children. The last pair of women faltered, whirled, and ran away screaming.

He followed them. They began to cry out for help, ahead of him. One plunged down onto the rampart and lay still. He caught up with her and kicked her over onto her back. She stared at him, white-faced, and her mouth jerked open. She raised her hands to hold him away.

His blood hammered in his ears, and he caught his breath. All the while the woman lay still, her great eyes pleading with him, her hair tangled on the wood of the rampart. The thought of monsters dimmed, and he knelt, one knee on each side of her waist, and dragged her skirts up.

 

Quyuk’s breath sobbed through his teeth. Psin glanced quickly down, saw that his eyes were still closed, and whirled to drive off the Russians beating down on them. His arm ached from holding the sword so high, and whenever another sword smashed into his he felt the jar clean to his shoulderblades. The Russians spilled back, away from him, uncertain. The angle of the wall at Psin’s back and the fighting all around them kept the Russians from attacking effectively. Across the little space between them and Psin they stared, their eyes shadowed under their helmets, their mouths working nervously.

“Come on,” Psin said, in Russian. “Come take me, Christers.” He switched the sword to his left hand and flexed the other arm; one of the Russians cocked his lance and charged in.

Psin chopped awkwardly at the lance, knocked it aside, and struck for the horse. A hoof grazed his side. The horse’s head swung across his shoulder. The Russians behind the horse bored in grimly. He hoisted the sword and fended off their strikes, his legs widespread so that he could dodge from side to side without moving his feet. Somewhere far away something crashed down hard enough to shake the earth. The Russians shied back.

“Leave this one,” one said. “Get a bow. Nicholas—”

Arrows came, but they were Mongol. One of the mounted Russians screamed and pitched off his horse. The others whirled and raced away. Psin looked up and saw Mongols running down the wall above his head. More Russians thundered down the space between the city wall and the snowbank, but they were fleeing and they didn’t pause to attack Psin. He knelt beside Quyuk.

“I’m all right,” Quyuk said. “It’s my shoulder.”

“Hunh.” Psin helped him straighten himself out. He’d thought, when he saw Quyuk weave in his saddle, that Quyuk had another headache. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Are we winning?” Quyuk’s face was strained, dead white around the mouth.

“I don’t know. Stand up.”

“Help me.”

Psin took hold of Quyuk’s good hand. Quyuk braced himself against it and gathered his feet under him. His right arm hung limp and his right shoulder bent at the wrong place. He rose unsteadily and leaned hard on Psin. He swayed, his eyes squeezed shut. Psin jerked off his belt and lashed Quyuk’s bad arm to his side. When he picked him up, Quyuk gasped.

“Are you all right?”

“Hurts. Yes. Do it.”

Psin carried him as gently as he could, but he felt each stride jarring the broken shoulder. Quyuk’s hand was fisted in Psin’s collar. At the nearest tunnel, Psin paused and called, “Is anybody in there?”

“Three of us,” a Mongol voice said. “Nobody but wounded out here.”

“I have the Kha-Khan’s son; get a litter.”

Horses were coming. Psin looked up and saw a band of whooping Russians hurtle around the corner and down this wide stretch. Their swords cut arcs through the empty air.

“Sleds,” the Mongol in the tunnel said. “They won’t fit—”

“Get out here and defend me.”

“Who—”

“Psin Khan. Get out here.”

The Russians, seeing them, were veering to attack. Three Mongols squirted out of the tunnel mouth. They had bows; they knelt and shot. Two Russian horses pitched forward and slid across the ice toward them, kicking. The others whirled and fled back the way they had come. Arrows hummed after them. Rounding the corner, one Russian flung up his arms and fell backward over his horse’s rump. Psin sat down with his back to the tunnel, Quyuk still in his arms, and dug his heels into the ice.

“How goes it?” one of the other Mongols asked.

Psin shrugged. “Ask tomorrow.” He shoved himself backward into the tunnel. Quyuk’s head lay against his neck. He pushed his feet against the sides of the tunnel to keep himself moving. Someone took him by the belt and dragged him out the other side.

“Sleds here, Khan.”

“How—”

“We’ve widened two tunnels.” This was a Kipchak. He spread a cloak on a sled and thrust it over. Psin laid Quyuk on it and folded the cloak around him.

“Be careful. He’s broken his shoulder.”

“Are we winning?”

“I don’t know.”

Across the wall, in or near the city, Mongols were cheering. The moon was setting and the light failed steadily. The Kipchak said, grinning, “I think so. You look tired.”

Psin pried Quyuk’s fingers loose from his collar. “Take care of him.”

Quyuk’s hand tightened abruptly, to pull Psin around to face him. “Why is it I’m only helpless around you, Merkit?”

“Because you can afford to be.” Psin jerked loose and dove into the tunnel and crawled to the other side.

The city was burning. Smoke eddied in the air above him, and embers rained down. The sounds of fighting had died for a moment. He could hear the solitary howl of a baby, inside the wall. He had dropped his sword when he picked up Quyuk, and he couldn’t find it again. He had only the dagger in his belt. He jogged along the wall, looking for another weapon.

This section was almost empty. The blood shone in lakes and dead men and horses covered the ice. Many of the dead were Mongols. Most of them. He stopped and counted, surprised. Of the thirty-four corpses he could see twenty-two were Mongol. That was wrong. Something was wrong here.

From the wall across from him, a Mongol yelled, and Psin ran around the corner to the sounds of fresh fighting. The battle filled the space from wall to wall. Most of the Mongols were on foot, most of the Russians mounted; Psin saw two Mongols darting in and out of the packed horses to slit girths and bellies. The Mongols stood shoulder to shoulder in a breech in the city wall. The gate. Psin took a deep breath and jumped in among the surging horses.

Russian axes and swords smashed down at him. He drew his dagger and plunged it to the hilt in a horse’s chest. When the horse reared he ducked beneath it and slashed at a mailed leg that swung at eye level before him. The rider attached to the leg clubbed at him with an axe. Psin grabbed the horse’s bridle and forced it back, dodging the wild swings of the axe. The Russian screamed a curse, lifted the axe in both hands over his head, and swung hard at Psin. Psin dragged the horse around so that the axe clove into its neck just behind the ears. The horse screamed and plunged to its knees.

“Mongols, down—watch your heads—”

That was Tshant’s voice. Psin went to his hands and knees beside a dead horse. Above him, the arched necks, the swinging arms and swords shut out the night sky. He saw a face, solemn, almost detached, above a long sword with jewels in its hilt. He flattened himself against the dead horse.

Stones pelted all around him. He squirmed, trying to get as much of himself as possible under the horse. Something—a stone, a hoof —smacked the ground beside his head. The dead body beside him quivered. A horse bugled. Something landed hard across his back. He smelled blood, horse, sweat, dead things. Metal clanked hollowly.

The noise rolled away, and he lay still, waiting. Finally he lifted his head. Stones lay all around, and dead horses and men. A Russian in armor sprawled across him, a stone buried in his skull just behind the ear. Psin kicked, and the corpse rolled sluggishly away.

“Hurry up,” Tshant said. “There’s fighting just down the way.”

Psin got to his feet. The smoke was heavier now, and flames crackled just inside the gate. “Who set fire to the city?”

“We did. We thought if they saw it burning they might lose heart.”

“They lose heart, we lose plunder. How is it going?”

“I’m not sure.”

A sword lay among the stones near a dead horse, and Psin went over and picked it up. The weight dragged at his arm. Tshant was watching him, and he forced himself strong and started down the wall. His shoulders ached, and he couldn’t keep his knees from sagging. The light was strange, and looking up at the sky he saw the first streaks of the false dawn reaching through the stars.