Until the Sun Falls (47 page)

Buri turned toward Psin. “Do they live?”

“Kiev killed our envoys. They all die.”

Buri nodded. The black banner came down, and the yellow spilled out across the staff. The Mongols encircled the Russians thickly and kept on shooting. Psin heard the Russians bellow in rage and fear. He turned and rode over toward Sabotai.

“That worked well,” Sabotai called. “They were too surprised to meet us.”

Psin jogged up to him. “Ravine?” He looked back at the scarred snow.

“River. Or a canal. Something. With a steep bank. The only other place was well up the river, where the forest closes in.”

Mongke cantered up. “Where did you come from? You came out of nowhere.”

Sabotai explained, his face glowing with pleasure and exertion. Quyuk was sitting his horse a little way off, watching them. His leather armor was fouled with blood.

“Are you all right?” Psin called.

Quyuk nodded. “It’s my horse’s, mostly. They killed one under me.”

Sabotai said, “He’s always in the middle of the fighting, that one. Let’s go take Kiev.”

“Ada,” Djela said. “Isn’t Grandfather’s time up yet?”

“No. Catch.” Tshant threw the end of the felt toward him. Djela picked it up and dragged it out full length. Tshant was lacing it to the yurt framework beside the door.

“Well, when?”

“When what?”

“When will Grandfather be—”

“Not for another eight months. And more.” Tshant put one foot against the masterpole and pulled the lace snug. “Get out another length.”

Djela trotted over to the packhorses and pulled down the top roll of felt. He looked toward Kiev, frowning. The line of yurts circled the city from river to river, and his father was probably right that the Russians wouldn’t leave the shelter of their walls. But the one yurt on the approach looked so lonely. It was closer to the city than to the first row of Mongol yurts, almost within bowshot of the walls.

“Djela.”

“I’m coming.” He towed the felt over, and Tshant unrolled it.

Horses clattered by, on their way up to the lines forming to attack the wall. “Is Grandfather—”

“Stop talking about Psin. Help me get this up.”

Djela sighed and stretched out the felt on the ground. Tshant held the laces in his teeth, pulled the end of the felt up against the poles, and lashed it. He worked his way along the yurt, lacing, while Djela straightened the felt and held it against the framework.

A great shout went up from the city, and Djela whirled. Tshant said, “Look. They’ve got the shield braced up. That was quick.”

Djela nodded. All that morning every slave in the camp had been lacing shields together into a huge mat, and now they had carried it up to the gate and staked it firm with lances. He shaded his eyes. Beneath the shield roof, men chopped furiously at the gate.

“It’s hot under there,” he said. “Quyuk’s not got his coat on.” Quyuk had come out from under to look at the wall and ducked back beneath the shields when the defenders threw stones and filth at him.

“Hurry up,” Tshant said. He had brought over another roll of felt.

Tugging at the roll, Djela craned his neck to see the city. The gate was monstrous, made of brick, but the walls were only of wood; Russians mobbed them. Suddenly they began to chant in unison. From under the shield roof, Mongols streamed, and one—Mongke—grabbed a horse and galloped down toward them.

“What are they saying?” Tshant said. “The Russians.”

Djela strained his ears. “I don’t know the words.”

“I’m sure it’s something pleasant.”

Mongke charged by. A clod of earth spun up by his horse’s hoofs struck the half-covered yurt. Tshant shouted, but Mongke did not pause to answer.

“Here come the damned women,” Tshant said. He pulled Djela back, away from the yurt. Their slaves jogged up, baskets of grain on their shoulders, set down the baskets, and went to work on the yurt. They had been sewing shields.

“Ada, can I—”

“Yes.” Tshant was staring up at the city. “Just be back before dark.”

Djela whooped and ran off toward the tethered horses. He wished he had understood what the Russians on the wall had said; still, that Tshant had asked him pleased him. He jerked his horse’s leadrope loose from the line and scrambled up bareback. The only trouble with knowing Russian was that it reminded him of Ana. But his father had said he had a new brother in the Volga camp, and that was worth not having Ana anymore.

He jogged through the belt of yurts around the city, looking for his grandfather. Psin wasn’t supposed to come into the ordu, but they were having trouble with the great gate, and he might have sneaked in to confer with Sabotai. Three women hanging out wash yelled at him for splashing mud into their baskets, and one set a dog on him. He galloped away, leaving the dog barking in the street behind him. When he reached the place where the plateau dropped off into a steep slope, he reined in and looked toward the city.

There was a wide stretch of flat ground between the gate and the slope, and most of the Mongol army was packed onto its western rim. The gate itself was coated in copper, so pitted and dirtied now it didn’t shine even when the sun shone full on it. The shield roof jutted out from it like a tongue from a mouth. While he watched the shield roof shook and swayed, and the Mongols beneath it bolted free. Other Mongols raced up on foot with bows, to keep the Russians off the wall.

The teeming action delighted him. The whole plateau seethed with men and horses running. Overhead, ravens circled, waiting for the dead. Quyuk, his coat draped over his shoulders, cantered his horse down toward Psin’s yurt; Mongke was riding up from the lower camp, and Tshant and Sabotai trotted together to meet them. They would be changing their tactics. Djela drew a deep breath and let it out in a whoop. The cold wind and the wild action made his blood sing. He whipped his horse into a flat run and bounded down the rocky slope toward the open plain.

Quyuk said, “I have enemies enough. You’ve been just to me, and I trust you, even if you hate me.”

Psin glanced at him. In the darkness Quyuk’s face was unreadable. “I don’t hate you.”

Behind them, in the forest that clogged all this slope, two tumans shifted and murmured in the dark. Quyuk said, “You set Tshant against me. We used to be friends.”

“You set Tshant against yourself. You shouldn’t have tried to bully him.”

“Do you think we’ll take the city tonight?”

“Yes.”

“Tshant is ... I don’t think between here and Korea there’s a better fighter.”

“There isn’t.”

“But he doesn’t use it to effect at all.”

“He’s under a disadvantage,” Psin said. He pulled the top off his quiver. The sword dragged at his belt, and he eased it. Quyuk said nothing, and Psin said, “Why don’t you ask me what it is?”

“Because you’ll tell me anyway.”

“It’s that he is my son.”

“Tell me something I don’t know. You take it so seriously. We’re all working under the same disadvantage. Consider Mongke.”

Psin laughed.

“What was your father like?”

Psin looked up at the city. Its walls were rimmed with torchlight, and he could see the sentries marching along the ramparts. “Big, strong and stupid, like me.”

“That sounds like something I said to you when I was drunk. If I did I didn’t mean it.”

Under the shield roofs, it would be hot, close, and noisy. If a horse stumbled or a man fell, there would be no rising. Sabotai was suddenly enamored of night fighting, probably because of the burning lights.

“I was very fond of my father,” Psin said. “Everybody said it was unusual. It runs in my blood, the sons always hate the fathers. But my father died when I was young, just thirteen. Maybe that was it.”

Quyuk’s horse pawed at the ground, and Quyuk whacked it on the shoulder. He jabbed his chin toward the torchlit wall above them on the crown of the bluff. “They must know we’re coming.”

“Sabotai thinks they’ve lost their heart for fighting.” Most of the Kievan men had died in the fighting outside the city. Besides, half of the Mongols were gathered up in front of the copper gate; they’d been unable to break it, but during the afternoon they’d built another shield roof here, on the south, and chopped the gate-doors to pieces. Once inside, Psin was supposed to see that the copper gate was forced from within. He doubted Kiev had enough men to defend both gates simultaneously.

“Did my grandfather kill your father?”

“Yes,” Psin said.

“Would you be angry if I asked why you were spared?”

“When I went back to my people, after my father was dead, I had two choices. I could go for protection to Totoqua, the Grand Khan of the Merkits, or to Temujin. I went to Temujin.”

“Even though he killed your father.”

Psin nodded. “There goes the rocket.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t feel like dying.” He jerked his head to the standard-bearer. “Two short blues.”

The standardbearer pulled the strings on the lantern, and overhead the rocket exploded. Fountains of light poured down on Kiev.

Every Mongol on this slope yelled, and the sound lifted Psin and Quyuk like a wave and carried them headlong up the stony slope. Sentries rushed madly around toward the south gate. A shower of stones pelted them. Psin took a deep breath and held it. They charged in under the shield roof. The dun tried to swerve away but the weight of horses behind them thrust him on. The air under the roof was stale and stank of hide. Horses collided in the dark and neighed, and a man screamed. The things falling on the roof made it drum. Through the smashed gate faint light glimmered, and they struggled toward it. Horses kicked out. Quyuk yelled, “Slow down, behind,” but the pressure only increased, until Psin and Quyuk squirted through the gate and into the narrow open.

“Watch your head,” Psin shouted. “Let’s go—up the wall.”

He wheeled the dun, whipped him close to the wall, and jumped. The defenders were running away—they were old man, children, women. The rampart lay naked and open. Psin hung at arm’s length from the rampart’s edge, swung himself up, and for a moment lay flat, trying to catch his breath. With a crash the barricades fell apart under the sheer weight of the men rushing through.

Quyuk was beside him, and the standardbearer. The streets leading off from the gate were mobbed with horsemen. Psin couldn’t see a Russian anywhere.

“Two reds, two blues,” he said. “Quyuk. Round up as many men as you can and clear the wall.”

“It’s already—”

The building opposite Psin exploded into flames. Heat washed over him, and he staggered back. Quyuk was running north along the wall, shouting, and half the men packed into the street below him scrambled up onto their saddles and leapt onto the rampart. They drew their swords and charged off, yelling. Psin peeled off his coat. The light from the blazing building would make it hard for Sabotai to see his lanterns.

“Douse the lanterns. Nobody can see them. We’ll have to yell.” He looked back over the wall. The next tuman was mounted on bay horses. The standardbearer was trimming his lanterns, lined neatly against the inside of the rampart. Psin said, “Climb up on the gate frame and tell me what’s happening.”

The man rushed off. Psin knelt and called down to the men moving through the gate. “Who is your commander?”

“Buri.”

“Here,” Buri said. He rode up. “Where do I go?” 

“Get up on the wall and clear it. Go west.” Psin pointed. “No prisoners, remember.” He stood up again and looked down to Sabotai’s post. The lanterns ranged there were blinking steadily.

Buri charged off. On the gate frame, the standardbearer called, “I can’t see any resistance anywhere. Maybe in the houses. The square is full of people. Women, children. Old men.”

“Any Mongols there?”

“No.”

“The copper gate. What’s there?”

“Sentries. A barricade.”

Psin bent down and hailed the nearest officer, a thousand-commander from Buri’s tuman. “Take your men and ride to the copper gate. Force it. There will be men on the outside waiting. There is a barricade and sentries.”

He straightened up and looked down the slope toward Sabotai. The lanterns there were signaling that he didn’t understand Psin’s signals. He swore. The building behind him was still flaming. He took three lanterns, strung them together, and lowered them over the outside of the wall.

“There’s fighting on the wall near the copper gate,” the man on the gate frame shouted. “Buri and his men.”

Psin nodded. He pulled the strings on the lanterns, and Sabotai’s winked back to confirm. Half a tuman broke out of the ordered ranks behind Sabotai’s post and rode toward the south gate. Psin sent the next thousand-commander through the gate down to help Buri.

“Psin,” Mongke shouted. He galloped through the gate and whirled his horse to look up. “There’s no fighting—what do I do?”

“Standardbearer, how do you get to the square?”

“Take this street all the way down,” the man called from the gate frame. He had hooked his legs over the crossbar and was swinging lightly; every time a new band of Mongols struggled through the gate the timbers quaked.

“Go to the square,” Psin said to Mongke. “It’s full of people. Remember that they are not to live—none but the smallest children. And loot the houses.”

Mongke galloped away, and his men raced after him.

“The copper gate’s fallen,” the man on the gate said. “Tshant’s tuman is coming through. Batu is with them—I can see his banner.”

Only Batu would bring banners into a city in the middle of the night. “What’s burning?”

“Only this building.”

“Good.”

“Batu is signaling—he’s sent Tshant to clear the eastern side. Yeeow!”

The gate was coming down. The man clung with both hands. Men streamed through the gate—Kadan, Kaidu. Psin bawled to them to get clear. The frame shook, swayed, and collapsed grandly into the city. The standardbearer leapt clear just before the crossbar broke in half.

Kadan was yelling, and Psin bent to hear him. Kadan cupped his hands around his mouth.

“Sabotai says that we are to start looting if you think—”

“Yes. Go. Start at this end. There shouldn’t be anything burning yet. I haven’t seen a Russian since I came in.”