Gengis: Lords of the Bow Page 29

  Kachiun turned to the men behind him and found them staring in his direction, waiting for the word.

  “When I give the order, come out at the run. We’ll form three ranks across the valley, as close to them as we can get. You will not be able to hear me over the sound of bows, so pass the word to loose twenty shafts and then wait. I will raise and drop my arm for twenty more.”

  “Their cavalry are armored. They will run us down,” a man said at his shoulder, staring past Kachiun. All of them were horsemen. The idea of standing alone against a charge went against everything they knew.

  “No,” Kachiun said. “Nothing in the world can stand against my people armed with bows. The first twenty shafts will cause panic. Then we will advance. If they charge, and they will, we will put a long shaft through the throat of every man.”

  He gazed back down the valley at the Chin camp. It looked now as if someone had kicked a nest of ants. Genghis was coming.

  “Pass the word to be ready,” Kachiun muttered. Sweat broke out on his forehead. His judgment had to be perfect. “Just a little longer. When we go, we go fast.”

  Almost halfway along the pass, the prisoners came abreast of the first nests of crossbowmen. Chin soldiers had taken positions on shelves of rock fifty feet above the ground. The prisoners saw them first and swung away from the sides, slowing them all as they compressed the center. The Chin soldiers could hardly miss and they sent bolts whirring into the press. As the screams echoed, the front three ranks with Genghis raised their bows. Every one of them could hit a bird on the wing, or three men in a line at full gallop. As they came into range their shafts tore through the air. The soldiers fell onto the heads of those passing below. The bloody crevices were left behind as the warriors went on, forcing the wailing prisoners into a stumbling trot.

  The first pinch between two great shelves of rock came just a little further down the pass. The prisoners funneled toward it, staggering into a run as the Mongols yelled and prodded them with their lances. All of them could see the two great forts that hung over the only path through. That was as far as any scout had managed to see before they had ridden back. After that, they were on new ground and no one knew what lay ahead.

  Khasar was sweating. It had taken a long time to get a thousand men down only three ropes, and as more and more made it safely to flat ground, he had been tempted to leave the others. The snow was deep enough for men to sink to the waist as they moved around, and he no longer believed the trail had been a hunting track for men at the fort, unless he had missed steps cut into the rock further along. His men had found their way to the rear of the fort, but in the darkness, he could not see a way in. Like its partner on the other side of the pass, the fort had been designed to be impregnable for anyone passing through the Badger’s Mouth. For all he knew, those who manned it were hauled up on ropes.

  Three of his men had fallen on the descent, and against all expectations, one of them had survived, landing in a drift so deep that the stunned warrior had to be dug out by his companions. The other two were not so lucky and struck exposed rocks. Neither had called out and the only sound was the hooting of night owls returning to their nests.

  When dawn came, Khasar had moved the men on through the heavy snow, the first ones making slow progress as they tramped it down. The fort loomed blackly above their heads and Khasar could only swear in frustration, convinced that he had taken a tenth of Kachiun’s force for no good reason.

  When he reached a path across their route, he felt a rush of excitement. Nearby, they found a vast pile of firewood, hidden from the pass below. It made sense that the Chin warriors took their wood from the cliffs at their back, piling it up for a long winter. One of Khasar’s men found a long-handled axe buried in a log. The blade was oiled and showed only specks of rust. He grinned at the sight of it, knowing there had to be a way in.

  Khasar froze as he heard the tramp of feet and the wailing voices of the prisoners in the distance. Genghis was coming and he was still in no position to help his brothers.

  “No more caution,” he said to the men around him. “We need to be in that fort. Get forward and find whatever door they use to bring in the wood.”

  He broke into a run then and they followed him, readying swords and bows as they went.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  General Zhi Zhong was at the center of a swirl of running messengers, giving orders as quickly as he received news. He had not slept, but his mind sparked with energy and indignation. Though the storm had passed, the air was still frozen and ice lay on the ground of the pass and layered the cliffs all around them. Frozen hands would slip on swords. Horses would fall and every man there would feel his strength stolen away by the cold. The general looked wistfully to where a cooking fire had been set but not lit. He could have ordered hot food brought, but the alarm had come before his army had eaten and now he did not have time. No one went to war in winter, he told himself, mocking the certainty he had felt in the night.

  He had held the end of the pass for months while the Mongol army ravaged the lands beyond. His men were ready. When the Mongols came in range, they would be met with a thousand crossbow bolts every ten heartbeats, and that was just the beginning. Zhi Zhong shivered as the wind built, roaring through the camp. He had brought them to the only place where they could not use the tactics of plains warfare. The Badger’s Mouth would guard his flanks better than any force of men. Let them come, he thought.

  Genghis squinted ahead as the prisoners streamed under the forts. The pass was crammed with men so far ahead of his own people that he could barely see what was happening. In the distance, he heard screams come back on the frozen air and saw a sudden bloom of flame. The prisoners at the rear had seen it too and they faltered in the mad rush before his riders, terrified. Without an order from him, lances came down and forced them onward into the maw between the forts. No matter what weapons the Chin had, thirty thousand prisoners were hard to stop. Already some of them were past the pinch and streaming out beyond it. Genghis rode on and could only hope that by the time he came under the forts, they would have exhausted their oil and shafts. Bodies lay still on the ground, more and more of them as he closed on the narrow place.

  Above his head, Genghis saw archers on the forts, but to his astonishment, they seemed to be aiming across the pass itself, loosing shaft after shaft at their own men. He could not understand it and a spike of worry came into his thoughts at the development. Though it seemed a gift, he did not like to be surprised when he was hemmed into such a place. He felt the walls of rock pressing on him, forcing him on.

  Closer to the forts he could hear the thump of catapults, now a sound he knew well and understood. He saw a smoke trail crease the air above the pass and a wash of fire spread over the walls of the fort on his left hand. Archers fell burning from their platforms and a cheer went up from the other side. Genghis felt his heart leap. There could only be one explanation and he roared orders to thin the column so that it passed on the right side of the Badger’s Mouth, as far from the left as they could manage.

  Kachiun or Khasar had taken the fort. Whoever it was up there, Genghis would honor him when the battle was over, if they both still lived.

  More and more corpses lay sprawled on the floor of the pass, so that his horse had to step on them, whinnying in distress. Genghis felt his heart hammer in fear as a bar of shadow crossed his face. He was almost under the forts, in the heart of a killing ground designed by long-dead Chin nobles. Thousands of his prisoners had died and there were places he could hardly see the ground for bodies. Yet his ragged vanguard had pushed through, running now in wild terror. The Mongol tribes themselves had hardly lost a man, and Genghis exulted. He passed under the right-hand fort, shouting loudly to those of his people above who had smashed their way in. They could not hear him. He could hardly hear himself.

  He leaned forward in the saddle, needing to gallop. It was difficult to hold his mount to a trot with arrows in the air, yet he controlled himself, holding
up a flat palm to keep the men steady. One of the forts was burning inside, the flames licking out of the killing holes. Even as Genghis glanced up, a wooden platform collapsed in fire, tumbling to the ground below. Horses screamed in distress and some of them bolted, racing after the prisoners.

  Genghis stood in the saddle to look down the pass. He swallowed nervously as he saw a dark line across its end. There the pass was as narrow as the pinch between the forts, a perfect natural defense. There was no way through but over the army of the Chin emperor. Already the prisoners were reaching it and now Genghis heard the snap of crossbow volleys like thunder, so loud in the confined space that it hurt his ears with every strike.

  The prisoners went berserk in their panic, bolts hammering them from their feet as each man was struck over and over, spinning and torn as he fell. They ran into a hailstorm of iron and Genghis bared his teeth, knowing his turn would come.

  The general’s messenger was pale with fear, still shaking at what he had seen. Nothing in his career to that point had prepared him for the carnage of the pass.

  “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

  AT 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.