The knights' night ride towards the Iret ended all too soon, as Bortai had feared, with the dawn, bloody fingered, and they were still the better part of a league from the river. There had been less clearing of the forest here-they could see the Hawk lands across the river where trees had been cut and burned for more grazing-lands. Here there were several old oxbows thick with willows and more copses than open land, before the braided bed of the Iret. And, as was inevitable in relatively flat landscapes, they soon saw that they'd been spotted. Bortai could see two groups of riders-at least a Jaghun-a hundred men-each, coming up from the east, and another, coming down from the west.
The column of Knights formed a defensive phalanx, with their triple crossed shields giving some shelter… But if the forces of Gatu Orkhan were moving so openly in relatively small numbers here, they must have little fear of the Hawk clan. The constant attrition of the mounted archers would slow the knights, and more and more of the orkhan's men would arrive. The horses would tire, they would be forced to make a stand, probably be cornered, and eventually be killed. It was the nerge hunt way. Bortai had cut a rough lance and attached her handiwork of last night to it. She unfurled it and put it up into the rising light of mother sun. The charcoal hawk stood out against the dun-the nearest to white she been able to find-of what had been a spare shirt taken from one of those they had overcome.
Tulkun looked at it. And beamed. The knights around them merely looked puzzled. The knight Erik was somewhere else in the tight, disciplined column, but Bortai jockeyed her way closer to the huge man she had at first concluded was their battle-shaman. She wished that he had some magic up his sleeve. Perhaps it had been magic that had allowed the knights to survive this long, to know where the ambush lay. She searched for her few Frankish words. "Sky flag?" she said. "On lance?"
He frowned and then obviously got it. Shrugged-quite something to do in the angular plate armor. Gave an instruction to the knight next to him. "When we stop. Cannot do it in gauntlets." He tapped a steel clad glove."
"Give for me?" she asked.
"Von Gherens. Can you tell the lady where to find one?" said the Prince.
He nodded.
A little later a furled envoy-truce pennant was handed along the tight formation to her. It was less than easy while they were on the move, but she managed to attach it to Tulkun's lance, just below the head. Soon that fluttered in the breeze, next to the charcoal Hawk.
An arrow clanged against armor.
From the rearguard, Erik watched the Golden Horde Mongols closing on his pitiful little column. He'd spotted the first scouts just after first light, before the dawn. Since then he'd watched the arrival of a first company to the east, joined by a second company, and then a third coming up from the west. The Mongols had been ahead of them. Well, he'd expected that when he'd rested the knights. The Mongols knew the country. They would have ridden through the night, changing horses, and there would be more men behind them. The knights could not outrun them. They needed a refuge, or place to stand. Erik had gambled on them finding one. It had been a forced gamble. Yet… They'd needed to rest the horses last night.
It seemed as if luck had not favored him, this time.
His keen eyes had picked out the best spot to make a stand. It wasn't very good. A low bluff near the river, still holding some trees, near a big swampy looking oxbow of the old river channel. If he read it right, the oxbow would limit the fronts on which they could be attacked, and, given his second plan, might allow them to retreat on the river at nightfall. Like nightfall, that was still a long way off.
The company now closing from the west dispatched a party of ten riders, galloping in to fire at the knights and retreat.
At this stage all they could do was to rely on their shield-wall and armor. To react would slow them down. Soon the Mongol would begin darting in to attack the tail of the column. Then the rearguard would have to deal with it.
Erik heard the pops of Kari's guns, saw a skirmisher, made confident by the lack of response and thus come in too close, almost fall from the saddle, and race away, clinging to it. Erik smiled grimly. That would keep them a little further off. Emeric had his Magyar knights carry horse-pistols. It was high time the knights of the Holy Trinity did the same. If they lived through this, Erik was determined to see that Manfred's guard at least carried them.
Kari had put them off more thoroughly than Erik could have hoped. They plainly were less used to firearms than most western troops. The Mongol kept a great deal further off. But eventually, as Erik known they would, a charge was made by one of the groups of pursuit. Von Gherens and thirty knights peeled off and turned. The clash was a brief one. The light, mobile Mongol knew they had no need for head-on conflict, yet. They turned and retreated and Von Gherens and his three squads galloped back.
The enemy knew that they could do this all day… And that the knights could not. It was a contest of stamina against strength, and Erik was sure the enemy numbers would increase too, as the day wore on.
They'd lost another Knight by the time they gained the low bluff. It was further to the river than Erik had hoped, a little less than a mile. The bluff itself was not more than thirty five feet higher than the surrounding land. It just appeared bigger because it still carried a good stand of oaks.
At the end of the bluff was a small knoll, with a few left-over boulders that had helped this little spit of land resist the erosion to the valley below. Erik had formed an outer defense line, still mounted, on the edge of the trees. The other knights he had dismount, at least while the enemy themselves regrouped. They'd be foolish to try a frontal assault, and the spreading branches of the trees would help deflect arrows lofted at the knights. The oxbow, still half-full of stagnant water, and densely fringed with willow made a natural moat of sorts around two thirds of the bluff. The enemy would send men across it of course. The Mongol were lightly armored and used to rough terrain. But they'd probably wait until they had a lot more men. They only had, by his estimate, four hundred now, to the hundred and seventy odd Knights of the Holy Trinity. No, first they'd surround them and then send men along the ridge line using the trees for cover. Erik found bombardier Von Thiel. "They need a few little surprises, on that ridge, Von Thiel" he said.
"I've enough powder to plant a few charges, Ritter Hakkonsen. In some of this loose rock-it'll be like shrapnel," said the man cheerfully.
Erik was glad not to be on the wrong side of his cheeriness. "And we'll be needing some intervention when it comes time to get out of here, Bombardier. Maybe, when you've finished that, you can rig us a mangonel of some sort. And there's your little cannon. We need to keep them from easy bowshot, and clear a path when it comes to charging out of there."
"They don't seem too familiar with black powder," said the bombardier. The expression on his blue-pitted face said he intended to teach them all about it, the hard way.
"Well, save the lesson for when they need it most."
It was all they had. Erik had the feeling that it would take magic, prayer, and the intervention of decent sized force to survive here for long. If they had another five hundred men, this would not be an easy place to take by anything but overwhelming force or siege tactics… but he didn't have five hundred men, and it was quite possible that overwhelming force was coming. He went to study the terrain, and to consult with his proctors and Manfred.
So this was how it would all end, thought Bortai. In sight of the ancestral lands of the Clan. Not that a final run would have taken them to safety… but it would have been good to be there. The ancestral Tengeri would have been pleased that they had come to die among them. The Hawk Clan could, drawing on the sub-clans sept to them, had at its height have raised three Tumens-thirty thousand men. And now… here on the borderland, in plain sight, Gatu Orkhan dared to bring his ragtag Jahguns to pursue the Hawk banner. There would have been more dishonor if it had been on the other side of the Iret, she supposed.
The man with the blue-pocked face came to her. She understood only one word in ten. But then Ion came along, and by gesture, she understood that he wanted Ion for some digging. Well, Ion, poor slave, at least not done as much carrying of armor. She went along. The pockmarked faced foreigner was burying some bags. Treasure? Why? And why did he want Ion? Unless he planned to kill him. That was not going to happen, or at least not at the hands of these foreigners! But if they were meant to be hidden… why was he was laying trails of powder?
The ways of foreigners were strange. Perhaps it was some religious ritual. She'd been impressed, despite herself, at the rites they enacted for their dead, the night before. She kept a wary eye on the forest. The Orkhan's men would be in it, further back along the ridge, in as solid a line as possible, making sure that no one fled through the trees. They would advance, slowly, closing the noose, as more and more Jahguns turned up. Now was when the OrKan Erik ought to have split his forces, and hidden a small part, to escape, if that was his intention.
Perhaps she should have told him that.
He came riding up. "Ah. Lady Bortai. I need to ask a few things about the river. You said you know this country?"
She nodded. "That is my Clan-lands on the other side of the river. But they will follow us even there, I think. They come through the woods now. We are encircled."
"Not for very long," said Erik. "Ritter Von Thiel is setting up the trip lines, with wheel-locks to trigger the charges. When those charges go off, it is going to wreak havoc in their surrounding force. I think you, Tulkun and your brother and man and… I can spare you two men, should leave along the ridge. I'd send Manfred too, but he won't go. Let your people know we're crossing into their lands tonight. Now… how deep is that river? It's braided and looks crossable."
Bortai was filled with a number of conflicting emotions. Firstly, disgust that he thought that they would abandon their escort. Yes, it made sense. Well, it would, if the cordon of men on the ridge could be broken. But even a charge of the knights could not do that in the rocks and dense trees. The OrKan's men would be on foot, several deep. It would be good war tactic if they could break through, and the Gatu Orkhan's men were somehow not aware of it. Her father had talked enough about strategies and tactics for her to know that. But she did not wish to do it! Not even if it were possible. Secondly, she was puzzled. He mingled Frankish words with his rudimentary Mongol. Charges? And the War-shaman would not go? Why? "What do you mean?"
"I don't really have time to explain, but get your man, your brother, young David and I'll send Dader and Von Stael with you. You'll probably have to lead your horses. After the explosions." He smiled at her. "Good luck, Lady Bortai. I'm sorry we could not escort you all the way home." He bowed and rode off, leaving her even more puzzled. She went in search of David and her brother.
The boy from Jerusalem was able to explain. "The bombardier has set charges along the ridge. And trip-lines. I was setting those. When our enemies come, he will make it explode."
Bortai had to weigh this. She'd seen the explosions used to aid their escape from the orkhan's camp. She'd seen some cannons before, used up in the Szekely on the borderland in the mountains. They inspired respect. The horde would have bought them, but for Ulaghchi Khan's objections… and the reluctance of the Hungarians to selling. But… could this, would this, make a hole in the cordon? And was it not her duty to her people and her clan and her brother to take him out along the gap created?
"I am staying here," said David, abruptly, before she could even mention his going. "And, no noble lady. I don't know why. I think my wits have gone missing."
"It is orders from the orkhan Erik." Out on the marshy floodplain she could see two more Jahgun riding closer. These must be some of Gatu Orkhan's better men. They were in much closer formation than the ragged-chase of the earlier three Jahguns.
Two knights rode up, bowed to her. Spoke in Frankish. "They say Erik has ordered them to accompany you," translated David.
"But…"
And then, in the fashion of military plans, things went wrong. The Gatu Orkhan's men who were in place had plainly seen the the ordered Jaghun's riding up from the east, and wanted the glory themselves. Someone must have given the order to push the pace through the forest.
Bortai spent the next few moments fighting to stay on her horse, and being terribly glad Kildai and David were not mounted yet. The foreign Knights were plainly far more used to explosions, and so were their mounts.
She could easily believe, now, that the cordon had broken. The other thing she could see-glancing out onto the floodplain-was that beside the disarray of the Gatu Orkhan's besieging troops-whose horses had also not liked the explosions on the ridge, was that the oncoming Jahguns had begun to charge… As had the foreign knights, taking some advantage of the confusion.
But what made her heart leap was the banner that was unfurled and the clan shields exposed. "Hawk!" she yelled in delight.
Kildai whooped.
Erik had expected a good hour's grace until the skirmish line, that was doubtless moving down the ridge, got to them. It made no sense for the Mongol to push the issue until the companies of horsemen he could see approaching on the floodplain were available and integrated. They'd be facing nearly five hundred foes then… And still have several hours before dark. If he was an enemy commander he'd expect them to try to flee in the dark.
The explosions on the ridge took him by surprise. Had they gone off by accident? It could happen so easily. But the Bombardier had told him their men were all pulled back… and he could hear screaming. By the looks of it one of the Holy Trinity Proctors had seen the opportunity presented by the chaos and taken the sortie squad out to punish the Mongol.
Then he saw Bortai, followed by her little brother racing down from the hillside at a full gallop. She was waving her home-made flag and yelling. But he'd told them to escape along the ridge! Had she misunderstood him? The two knights he had assigned to her were riding behind Bortai and her brother, but were being out-paced. They looked more like pursuers than an escort.
Then he saw the banner of the oncoming companies and understood. "Mount up! Mount up and form up."
Falkenberg, already in the saddle rode across. "What is it, Erik?"
"Help," Erik pointed. "Possibly. Those two companies that are fanning out there. They're from Bortai's clan. See their banners and their shields."
"They're a little outnumbered," said Falkenberg.
"Not if we join them."
The older Knight grimaced. "Be a little awkward if they're also after our heads."
"Might be more awkward if those two get killed," said Erik. "Because at the moment it looks like we're chasing them, not sheltering them."
Bortai had barely got to the water-meadow, when she realized just how premature her action had been.
The charge by the two Jahgun of Hawks was not going to reach her before she reached the chaos that was the Gatu Orkhan's troops. They were some distance from the small sortie of Knights. She could yet have handed Gatu a victory in his troops defeat. She and Kildai turned, heading back for the bluff and the trees. An arrow narrowly missed her.
And then the heavy steel of the foreign Knights, lances out, came galloping down from the wooded fringe of the bluff. The Gatu Orkhan's men, realizing that the oncoming Jahguns were foes, now found that they were between their enemies, and worse, their men were disorganized and divided. Many chose the option of flight, then and there.
Bortai allowed herself and her horse to be carried along with the foreign Knights, holding her makeshift lance and flag up, as they galloped toward the Jaghuns of Hawks, scattering Gatu Orkhan's men like chaff, riding down the few who did not choose to flee. And then, the charge began to lose momentum as at the end of the willow-fringed oxbow, they came face to face with the Hawk Clan.
Bortai tried to shoulder her slighter pony forward, yelling to the clan. This could all still go wrong…
Kildai, with years of experience at the great game, was better at it than she was. He'd forced his way into the front, and was waving.
The two sides were still coming towards each other, at a slow canter now, and then breaking into a walk, as the Hawk warriors began yelling, lifting their lance-points high. She could hear Kildai's name being called. As the foreign knights ported their lances, Erik and his Prince came through the press and made a space for her to ride out to greet her brother's men.
"I think they're glad to have them back," said Manfred. "They seem to know the boy. Enough of them were calling his name."
Indeed, grinning, laughing, backslapping-until told off by Bortai-warriors surrounded the two. Tulkun was respectfully greeted. They seemed a little taken aback by the knights, and not know how to deal with them. Slightly warily, seemed the general consensus. But Bortai was not having that situation. She was a forceful young woman, thought Manfred to himself. She rode back to Manfred and Erik, accompanied by an older, scar-faced man. "This Banchu, son of Makai. He lead this Jahgun. He with father," she patted her chest, "in Khesig."
Manfred bowed. It seemed safe. "What's a Khesig?" he asked Erik.
"Imperial guard, I think."
"So they're the children of fellow warrior. A well known one. No wonder they're getting such a welcome."
Bortai proceeded with introductions, in Mongol, to the two of them. Maybe Erik followed some of it. All Manfred understood was Erik's name.
"It appears that you are going up in the world," said Erik, grinning. "I am a war khan. If I follow right, you're getting the credit for the bombardier's explosions from this Banchu. He's impressed. But he says there are more of this Gatu Orkhan's men coming."
"I think we should take this opportunity to get out of here, don't you?" said Manfred.
Erik nodded.