Lords of the Bow (27 page)

“They have taken one of the forts, General,” he said, “and turned the catapults on the other.”

General Zhi Zhong looked calmly at the man, irritated with his show of fear. “The forts could only have thinned so many,” he reminded the man. “We will stop them
here.
”

The messenger seemed to take confidence from the general’s composed manner and let out a long breath.

Zhi Zhong waited for the messenger to control himself, then gestured to one of the soldiers nearby. “Take this one out and whip the skin from his back,” he said. The messenger gaped at hearing the order. “When he has learned courage, you may cease the instruction, or at sixty strokes of the cane, whichever comes first.”

The messenger bowed his head in shame as he was led away, and for the first time that morning, Zhi Zhong was left alone. He swore under his breath for a moment before striding outside his tent, hungry for information. He knew by then that the Mongols were driving Chin prisoners before them, soaking up the defenses with his own people. Zhi Zhong could silently applaud the tactic, even as he sought ways to counter it. Tens of thousands of unarmed men could be as dangerous as an army if they reached his lines. They would foul the crossbow regiments he had spread across the pass. He ordered a waiting soldier to send fresh carts of bolts to the front and watched as they trundled away.

The khan had been clever, but the prisoners would only be a shield until they were dead and Zhi Zhong was still confident. The Mongols would have to fight for every foot. Without space to maneuver, they would be drawn in and slaughtered.

He waited, wondering if he should move closer to the front line. From his viewpoint further back, he could see black smoke rising from the captured fort and cursed again. It was a humiliating loss, but the emperor would not care once the last of the tribesmen were dead.

Zhi Zhong had hoped to kill many of them before opening a path into his army, compressing them further. They would race forward into the gap and find themselves attacked on all sides, the spearhead lost in a mass of veteran soldiers. It was a good tactic. The alternative was to block the pass completely. He had planned for both and he weighed one against the other. He calmed his racing heart, showing a confident expression to the men around him. With a steady hand, he took a jug of water and poured it into a cup, sipping as he stared down the pass.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement in the snow-covered valley. He glanced over and froze for a moment. Dark lines of men were spilling out of the treeline, forming ranks as he watched.

Zhi Zhong threw the cup down as messengers raced through the camp to tell him of the development. The peaks could not be climbed. It was impossible. Even in his shock, he did not hesitate, snapping orders before the messengers could reach him.

“Cavalry regiments one to twenty, form up!” he roared. “Hold the left flank and sweep those lines away.” Horsemen raced to pass on the orders and half his cavalry force began to peel off the main army. He watched the Mongol lines form, striding through the snow toward him. He did not allow himself to panic. They had climbed the peaks on foot and they would be exhausted. His men would ride them down.

It seemed to take an age for twenty thousand Imperial riders to form in blocks on the left flank, and by that point, the Mongol lines had halted. Zhi Zhong clenched his fists as orders sounded up and down the line and his horsemen began to trot toward the enemy, standing in the snow. He could see no more than ten thousand of them, at most. Infantry could not stand against a disciplined charge. They would be destroyed.

As the general watched, his cavalry accelerated, swords raised to take heads. He forced himself to look back at the pass, his mouth dry. They had driven prisoners before them, taken one of his forts, and flanked him over the peaks. If that was all they had, he could still break them. For an instant, his certainty wavered and he considered ordering the pass blocked. No, it had not yet come to that. His respect for the Mongol khan had increased sharply, but the general remained confident as his cavalry thundered down the valley.

CHAPTER 23

A
T NINE HUNDRED PACES AWAY,
the Chin cavalry hit full gallop. It was too early, Kachiun thought. He stood calmly watching with his nine thousand. At least the valley wasn’t so wide that he would automatically be flanked. He could feel the nervousness in the men around him. None of them had ever faced a charge on foot, and they realized how their own enemies must feel. The sun shone on Chin armor and the swords the horsemen raised, ready to crash through the line.

“Remember this!” Kachiun shouted. “These men have not met us in war. They do not know what we can do. One shaft to knock them down, then one more to kill them. Choose your men and on my signal, loose twenty!”

He drew his bow back to his ear, feeling the power of his right arm. This was why he had trained for years, building muscles until they were like iron. His left arm was nowhere near as strong as his right, and the hump of muscle on his shoulder gave him a lopsided look when he was bare-chested. He could feel the ground shake as the mass of riders came on. At six hundred paces, he glanced up and down his ranks, risking a look at the men behind. They had their bows bent, ready to send death to the enemy.

The Chin soldiers yelled as they came, the sound filling the valley and crashing over the silent Mongol lines. They were well armored and carried shields that would protect them from many of the shafts. Kachiun noted every detail as they closed at frightening speed. The farthest killing range was four hundred yards and he let them come through that untouched. At three hundred yards, he could see his men glancing at him out of the corner of his eye, watching for him to release his shaft.

At two hundred, the line of horses was like a wall. Kachiun felt fear gnaw at him as he gave his order.

“Take them!” he bellowed, snarling as he let go. Nine thousand shafts followed on the instant, snapping across the space.

The charge faltered as if it had hit a trench. Men spun out of the saddles and horses fell. Those behind smashed into them at full gallop, and by then, Kachiun had the second shaft on the string and was drawing back. Another volley slammed into the charge.

The Chin horsemen could not have stopped, even if they had understood what was happening. The front ranks collapsed and those who kicked their horses over them were met with another wave of arrows, each man punched by three or four shafts moving too fast to see. Reins were torn out of fingers, and even when the armor or shields saved them, sheer force of impact flung them to the ground.

Kachiun counted aloud as he shot, aiming for the bare faces of the Chin soldiers as they staggered up. If he could not see a face, he aimed for the chest and depended on the heavy arrow tip to punch through the scales. He felt his shoulders begin to burn as he reached his fifteenth arrow. The charging horsemen had run full speed into a hammer, and they had not come closer. Kachiun reached down and found he had used his twenty.

“Thirty paces forward, with me!” he shouted, breaking into a slow run. His men came with him, yanking fresh bundles of arrows from their quivers. The Chin soldiers saw them move and there were still thousands struggling through the lines of dead. Many had fallen without a wound, their horses going down in the press of dying men and animals. The officers barked orders to remount and the soldiers cried out as they saw the Mongols padding forward.

Kachiun held up his right fist and the line stopped. He saw one of his own officers cuff a younger man hard enough to send him staggering.

“If I see you hit another horse, I will kill you myself!” the officer snapped. Kachiun chuckled.

“Twenty more! Aim for the men!” he shouted, the order repeated up and down the line. The Chin cavalry had recovered from their first collapse, and he could see plumed officers urging them onwards. Kachiun took aim at one of them as the man pirouetted on his mount, waving a sword in the air.

Another nine thousand arrows followed Kachiun’s shaft as it took his man through the neck. At this range, they could pick their shots and the volley was devastating. A ragged second charge disintegrated against the whirring arrows, and the Chin soldiers began to panic. A few men galloped unscathed out of the chaos, their shields bristling with arrows. Though it hurt to give the order, Kachiun roared “Horses!” to the men around him, and the animals went down in a crackle of snapping bones.

Ten shafts came in every sixty heartbeats and there was no respite. The bravest of them died quickly and left only the weak and frightened, trying to turn their mounts back into their own men. The lines behind were fouled by bolting horses, their riders lolling in the saddles with arrows through their chests.

Kachiun’s shoulder was aching as he shot his fortieth arrow and waited as the men around him finished their strike. The valley ahead was churned with blood and dead men, a red stain of kicking hooves and flailing soldiers in the snow. There was no way for them to charge now, and though the Chin officers still yelled for them to force a way through, they could not build momentum once more.

Kachiun ran forward without giving an order and his men came with him. He counted twenty paces, then let his excitement override his better judgment, jogging another twenty so that he was dangerously close to the mass of broken men and horses. Only a hundred yards separated the two forces as Kachiun plunged another twenty arrows into pristine snow and cut the knot that bound them. Chin soldiers wailed in terror as they saw the action and the bows bent again. Panic was spreading through their ranks, and as yet more arrows ripped into them, they broke.

At first the rout was slow and as many men died trying to get away as pressed forward from behind. The Mongols fired methodically at anything they could see. The officers went down quickly and Kachiun shouted wildly as he saw the rout spread. Those who had not come near the front ranks were knocked aside and infected by fear and blood.

“Slow down!” Kachiun shouted to his men. He loosed his fiftieth arrow as he called to them, and considered striding even closer to the soldiers to complete the rout. He cautioned himself then, though he wanted to race after the fleeing soldiers. There was time, he told himself. The rate slowed as he had ordered and the accuracy increased even more, so that hundreds of men fell with more than one arrow in them. Sixty, and now the quivers were light on their backs.

Kachiun paused. The cavalry had been shattered and many were racing back with loose reins. They could still re-form, and though he did not fear another charge, he saw a chance to rout them right into their own lines. Moving closer was dangerous, he knew. If the Chin soldiers ever reached his men, the day could still turn in their favor. Kachiun looked around at the grinning faces near him and responded with a laugh.

“Will you walk with me?” he said. They cheered and he strode forward, drawing another arrow from his quiver. This time, he held it on the string as they stalked right up to the first lines of the dead. Many of them still lived and some of the Mongols picked up their valuable swords, taking precious moments to slide them under the sash of their deels. Kachiun was almost knocked down by a loose horse racing across the line. He reached out a hand for the reins and missed, though it was stopped by two of his men further down. There were hundreds of riderless animals and he grabbed for another as it ran, snorting and shying at the solid line of archers. Kachiun quieted the beast, rubbing its nose as he watched the Chin riders begin to reform. He had shown them what his people could do with bows. Perhaps it was time to show what they could do from the back of a horse.

“Take swords and mount!” he shouted. Once more, the order was repeated and he saw his men dash joyfully over the dead to leap into the saddles of Chin horses. There were more than enough, though some of the mounts were still wide-eyed with terror and spattered with the blood of their last rider. Kachiun sprang into the saddle then, standing in the stirrups to see what the enemy was doing. He wished Khasar was there to see this. His brother would have loved the chance to charge the Chin army with their own horses. He bellowed a challenge and dug in his heels, leaning low over the saddle as his mount hit its stride and leaped forward.

The end of the pass was in chaos as Genghis rode over the dead. The crossbows of the Chin soldiers had killed almost all of his prisoners, with half a million iron bolts lying in shifting piles underfoot. Yet some of them had run onto the Chin ranks, berserk in their terror. Genghis had seen them grabbing weapons and barricades with bloody hands.

The organized volley fire became sporadic as the last of them tore at the lines. Hundreds forced their way past the first rank, clawing and kicking in desperation. When they found a weapon, they used it to strike wildly around them until they were cut down.

As Genghis pressed forward he felt bolts zipping by him and ducked in his saddle as one came too close. The vast Chin army was ahead and he had done everything he could. The gap opened as he rode at it and he realized only one side was a wall of rock. From far back, he had thought of the gap as a great gate, but close to, he saw the Chin had raised a huge tree trunk upright on one side. Ropes stretched from the top and Genghis realized it could be dropped across the pass itself, cutting his army in half. If it fell, he was finished. As panic swept through him, his advance staggered to a halt against a hill of dead bodies. Genghis cried out in frustration, waiting to be struck or see the tree fall. He called men ahead of him by name, ordering them forward on foot and pointing to the great bole that would crash down on all his hopes. They struggled to reach the ropes and cut them.

Beyond the gap, Genghis could see the Chin lines swirl. Something was wrong and he risked standing in his stirrups to see what it was. The last of the prisoners were heaving at the wicker barricades that protected the Chin soldiers while they reloaded. Genghis held his breath as his warriors joined the exhausted prisoners, their swords bright lines in the sun. The crossbows had fallen silent at last and Genghis could see gesturing arms calling for more.

They had run out of bolts at last, as he had hoped. The ground was black with the ugly little spikes of iron, and every sprawled body was fat with them. Let the tree stand and he would have his breach yet in the Chin ranks. Genghis drew his father’s sword, feeling the pressure give suddenly like a breaking dam. Behind him, the Mongols lifted lances or long blades and jammed in their heels, forcing their mounts to leap up piles of dead men. The remaining barricades were kicked aside. Genghis passed under the shadow of the huge tree and could not stop as he was carried into the army of the Chin emperor.

The line of horsemen speared into the Chin soldiers, cutting deeply into their ranks. The risk increased with every length they traveled, as they were faced with men not only at the front but at the sides. Genghis hacked at anything that moved, a butcher’s style he could keep up for hours. Ahead he saw a line of panicking cavalry smash into their own lines, breaking them apart. He could not take a moment to look back at the tree with so many blades whirling around him. Only when another line hit the cavalry at full gallop did he glance up, recognizing his own people on the back of the Chin mounts. He yelled hoarsely then, sensing the swelling panic and confusion in his enemies. Behind him the impotent crossbow regiments were being gutted by his men as they cut a path deeper and deeper into the massed ranks. It would not have been enough without the flanking charge, but Genghis saw the riders wreak havoc in the Chin lines, the best horsemen in the world running wild amidst their enemies.

A blade caught his mount in the throat, opening up a great gash that pumped blood onto the faces of struggling soldiers. Genghis felt the animal falter and jumped free, knocking two men down as he hit them with his full armored weight.

His feel for the battle was lost in that instant and he could only continue the fight on foot, hoping they had done enough. More and more of his warriors were surging out of the pass, crashing into the center. The Mongol army came through like an armored fist, sending the Chin ranks reeling.

♦                  ♦                  ♦

General Zhi Zhong could only watch openmouthed as the Mongols gutted his front lines. He had seen his cavalry routed and then driven back into the main army, spreading panic through the ranks. He could have held them steady, he was certain, but then the cursed Mongols followed them in on stolen horses. They rode with astonishing skill, balancing perfectly as they fired volleys of arrows at the gallop, opening a hole. He saw a sword regiment collapse and then the front ranks at the pass crumpled back and a new wave of them sprang through his soldiers as if they were children with swords.

The general gaped, his mind blank. His officers were looking to him for orders, but too much was happening too quickly and he froze. No, he could still recover. More than half his army had yet to meet the enemy, and another twenty cavalry regiments waited further down the line. He called for his horse and mounted.

“Block the pass!” he shouted, his messengers racing through the line to the front. He had men ready for the order, if they still lived. If he could cut off the Mongols coming through the pass, he could surround and destroy those who rode so recklessly through his own lines. He had raised the tree as a last resort, but it had become the only thing that would buy him time enough to regroup.

Tsubodai saw Genghis crash through the end of the pass, his horse wild. He felt the terrible pressure begin to give around him as more and more men followed their khan through the gap. Tsubodai’s Young Wolves bayed in excitement. Many of them were still so hemmed in by men and horses that they could not move. Some had even been turned around in the heaving mass and were struggling to get back to the fighting ahead.

Tsubodai had lost sight of Genghis when he saw one of the ropes above his head grow taut as men heaved on it. He looked up, understanding in an instant that the shuddering tree could be dropped and cut him off from those who had gone through.

His men did not see the danger and kicked and urged their mounts forward, whooping like the young men they were. Tsubodai swore as another rope lost its slackness. The tree was enormous, but it would not take much to pull it down.