Rusudan/Chapter 10

UBOTAI THE EAGLE led these squadrons. He had summoned the best of the Horde, the mailed riders of the Merkit tribe and the black-clad Almalyk swordsmen—in all ten thousand—and had taken them at night into the forest, crossing the Kur unseen, fifty miles from the scene of the battle. He had followed gorges and cattle trails, sending scouts ahead to slay any herdsmen or villagers who might be in his path.

So his first squadrons had come up that morning to the heights overlooking the Kur and had descended cautiously, screened by the thick pine growth until they were within a few bowshots of the river.

The Georgians, who had seen the other portion of the Horde in front of them, had paid no attention to the far bank of the Kur where there was no road. Even when Subotai's cavalry appeared they did not think the Mongols could cross the river ice.

But there had been many days of bitter cold, and the nomads who had roamed yearly the bleak lakes and frozen rivers of the steppes knew well enough when ice would bear them, and how it must be crossed. They deployed in long lines, a lance-length between riders and an arrow's flight between the ranks. They moved out upon the white surface of the river at a walk.

Nor did they hasten when the Georgians of the left flank raced to the bank. But their arrows began to whip the mass of hillmen, and when the first rank reached solid ground the shafts of the second rank flew over their heads, wreaking destruction among the Georgians. And above and below the Georgians the cavalry gained a footing unmolested, because the hillmen could not reach the bank in time.

Once across the Kur, the Mongols closed up into solid squadrons and trotted in upon the scattered clans. This time there was no withdrawing. When the arrow flight of a moving squadron swept a group of Georgians, men were cast down as if a blast of wind had struck them.

Their left flank was cut to pieces by arrows and ridden down, and John the Constable, hastening toward the river, ordered the center of his clans to face about.

“Form on the standards!” he cried as he galloped. “Hold your ground. Ax and shield!”

He sent riders to bid the Circassians withdraw and form again. But the Circassian cavalry never reached him. Only a scattering of the tribesmen came back to the standards. The rest, their horses wearied by plunging through the snow, and cut off by the first division of the Mongol's, fought desperately with simitars and began to flee toward the hills.

Of the young nobles who had surrounded Rusudan and who joined in the charge of the Circassians not one was seen alive again. The veteran Mongols, noticing the splendor of their kaftans and shining helms, slew them with arrows and lances.

Nor did the constable return to the knoll where Rusudan sat her horse, with pallid cheeks and tense lips.

The gray sky darkened, and the wind ceased. The mountain wall became a blur of shadow and mist. Twilight drew its veil over the scene. In this vast arena multitudes of shapes moved over the snow and the hoarse roaring of men, the neighing of horses and the clatter of steel stunned the princess of the Khaukesh.

“The real battle begins,” said the crusader quietly.

He had been peering into the shadows, following movements of men unseen by the overwrought maid. He knew that the main body of Georgians, nearly twenty thousand strong, was holding its ground in a half-circle on three sides of them. And he saw where Mongol lancers were pushing around the left of this half-circle, seeking the rear of the constable's array.

Somewhere in the mass of the Horde, Subotai Bahadur sat his horse—man and beast garbed in black lacquer—peering into the obscurity with eyes that seemed to pierce the darkness. Colored lanterns of horn and paper, as large as barrels, hung on the points of long spears, transmitted his orders to his men.

When a lantern was raised or lowered or swung from side to side, a squadron leader somewhere in the groaning and shouting press of fighters commanded his drums to sound—and every rider of that squadron, hearing the roll of kettle drums, pushed forward or freed himself from his foes to gallop to his comrades. And always Subotai shifted his squadrons farther and farther around the Georgians' flank—the dreaded tulughma or swoop that reached an enemy's rear.

OME,” said Hugh.

He reached out and took the girl's rein in his good hand.

It was the hour of darkness before moonrise, and the crusader, listening to the tumult around them, thought that the Mongols had drawn farther away toward the hills. Little fighting was going on near them. In the distance were heard the shouts of the hillmen and the mutter of the drums of the Horde.

“Nay,” Rusudan stirred and drew a deep breath, “I will not forsake the mkhendruli—the warriors.”

“Faith,” growled the crusader, “is there a man, save these few beside thee, that knows you are still on the field? Child, they would give their arms and heads to have you safe in Tphilis if they knew.”

“I am not afraid.”

“Come!” he said again, quietly.

She turned to peer into his eyes beneath the helmet peak. Then she spoke to the score of nobles and mounted squires who had remained at her side. They closed in around her with drawn weapons, and Hugh led Rusudan's Arab into the darkness.

Until now it would have been madness to try to escape toward Tphilis and, though the nearly frantic Georgians had urged her to fly to the hills behind them, she had not stirred. Now, there was no knowing what lay behind them. For an hour the valley of the Kur was like an arena with the lights turned down, the actors moving unseen.

One of the escort urged Rusudan to try to find a strong body of the Khaukesh clans, but she shook her head.

“Can they outpace such cavalry? Shall I burden them with fear? Nay, they might take us for pagans and loose javelins at us. I trust the Frank.”

The horses, except Hugh's gray stallion, were fresh, and his charger was still able to gallop. Before starting, Hugh had thrust Rusudan's loose hair under her hood and had drawn the hood down about her eyes, so that the keen eyes of the Mongols might not recognize a woman—and for another reason.

They passed by knots of fallen men, and here and there a figure dragged itself through the trampled snow, moaning or crying for aid as the riders swept past. Wounded Georgians, who would watch jackals tear at the bodies of their comrades in the hours of that night.

Rusudan shivered, burying her face in her hands. Hugh, looking into the shadows ahead of them, swerved now to the right, now to the left. He could make out companies of Mongols who had dismounted to rest their ponies and wait until moonrise.

Again they plunged past warriors afoot, who sprang aside with lifted sword or ax, shouting hoarse defiance. When the horses slowed their pace and the snow surface loomed unbroken, Hugh thought they had passed beyond the Mongols.

Already the sky over the eastern ranges was filled with an orange glow; the moon would be shedding its light into the valley. The Georgians began to cast about for the road, whipping on their horses.

“Where the ground is dark, the road will be,” said one of them to the princess. They stumbled into gullies and skirted thickets until they came to a ridge and what seemed a low growth of trees. But this dark blur was moving toward them.

“Stop!” Hugh whispered, and Rusudan reined in, her followers doing likewise.

From the dark patch came the creaking of saddles, the faint clicking of wooden bow-cases and the mutter of voices. Hugh felt that the girl was reaching for the simitar at her side.

The dark spot on the snow was a large party of Mongols, evidently a patrol, and they must have seen the Georgians.

“Noyon!” Hugh called out. “Ordu orluk—an officer of the marshal's regiment!”

The rattling of bow-cases ceased, and the patrol reined in.

“Ahatou noyon!” a deep voice made response.

The Mongols moved away, merging into the shadows under the ridge, and Rusudan shivered. When they reached the top of the ridge, Hugh put his charger to a gallop. They were on the road, and in a few moments the haystacks, topped with white cones, of the hamlet appeared, and then the village itself, clear in the moonlight.

N THE road by the tavern that Hugh had passed in the morning stood a sleigh with four horses and a mounted escort. From the sleigh stepped a man in silvered mail, a scarlet cloak wrapped around his shoulders. He glanced at Hugh, and started when he beheld Rusudan's Arab.

“The princess! A golden candle to the good Saints Sergius and Bacchus! Her Highness will be pleased to dismount and avail herself of my sleigh.”

Choaspes had come down the valley to watch events, and had lingered at the inn, loath to leave warmth and wine for the bitter cold. And the tidings he had gleaned of the battle had not inspired him to go on. He had traveled slowly, and his horses were fresh. The Georgians urged Rusudan to follow his advice.

“My Lord the Strategos!” she cried. “Have you word from—of—”

Her voice was choked by something like a sob, and Choaspes swept his hand around the deserted hamlet gravely. Fugitives were pushing past them. All the huts were dark.

But Rusudan would not move from the saddle until a Georgian officer galloped up on a staggering horse. He was without helmet or shield and his reins hung over his saddle-horn. He swayed from side to side as if drunk, and cursed when one of Choaspes' Greeks checked his horse.

“Woe to the sons of Karthlos! Woe! Broken are the clans—slain are the chieftains!”

“What of the constable?” cried Choaspes.

The wounded officer, unheeding, lashed his horse and plunged on, shouting over his shoulder:

“To Tphilis! Let him save himself who can.”

And he was not lost to sight before warriors began to appear on the road and over the fields, lurching as they walked, their shoulders sagging—some pushing forward in silence, some shaking broken weapons at the cloudless sky. Beholding them, Choaspes took Rusudan's stirrup in his hand:

“Come, my lady. Time presses.”

His followers were moving restlessly, climbing into their saddles and gazing down the valley into the haze of moonlight that might reveal the dreaded Mongol lancers at any moment. A contagion of fear was in the air. Moreover the Greek men-at-arms did not wish their horses to be seized by the fugitives.

Rusudan stirred and stretched her arms toward the figures that stumbled through the snow.

“My people!” she cried, her dark eyes tearless.

Long did Choaspes look into her face, no longer that of a mischievous girl, but of a woman who feels her helplessness and the pang of suffering.

“My lady,” he said, with sudden purpose, “the arm of the most magnificent emperor is long and strong to aid. Come!”

Rusudan allowed him to help her from the saddle and to prepare a seat for her in the sleigh beside him. The drivers snapped their whips and the harness bells jangled. The Greek and Georgian riders closed in after it, and no one paid any heed to the crusader, who stood by his spent charger.

Once Hugh thought his name was called, but the sleigh and its escort gathered speed and soon vanished among the cottages. He put his hand on the heaving flank of the gray stallion and glanced at hanging muzzle, the bloodshot eyes.

“Eh, my brother,” he said, “you must rest before we take the road.”

He led the horse across the inn yard into the dark shed and loosened the girths. Then he searched until he found hay piled in a corner, and with a handful of this he rubbed down the horse, spreading a little under the foam-flecked muzzle. The charger had eaten all the snow that was good for him. Hugh threw a pair of saddle-cloths over his back and left him for a moment to enter the tavern, where candles still glowed on tables cluttered with black bread and joints of meat.

From the remnants of food Hugh cut some morsels with his dagger and filled a bowl with wine from one of the kegs. He went back to the shed and sat down beside the horse. For a night and a day and part of another night he had not eaten. The ache of his wound made him so weak that it was an effort to put the bread between his teeth. When he had drunk a little wine, he set the bowl before the charger.

An hour later the horse, that had lifted one foot and was sniffing at the hay, tossed up his head and neighed. Hugh heard the clinking of bit-chains and the soft stamping of hoofs outside the inn.

He looked from the shed and saw a cavalcade of horsemen in the road, and recognized the white charger of the constable. The lord of Tphilis was examining a slender staff in his hand, an ivory staff tipped with a fragile gold crown, now trodden and broken.

Seeing this baton of Rusudan, the crusader approached and stood by the stirrup of the chieftain.

“The princess,” he said, “hath taken the road for Tphilis with her attendants and the Roumis.”

When this was explained to the constable, he clasped his hands together gratefully and breathed deep. His steel-linked hauberk was ripped and slashed about the arms and shoulders and the winged crest was gone from his helmet.

“God did not give victory,” he said.

The clansmen in the street, leaning on their spears or binding up cuts in arm and leg, heard him and answered.

“Eh, thawad, we will hold the castle. We will not be driven from behind walls!”

For a while the constable waited, mustering the men who flocked into the village, asking for tidings. Hugh heard that most of the Georgians had taken to the hills, where they had made an end of pursuit with their axes and javelins. The clans had been broken but not slaughtered. And these men around the constable showed no fear of pursuit, because they knew that experienced warriors guarded their rear. When a thousand had assembled in the hamlet the constable took the road to Tphilis.

The chieftain of the Khaukesh was of the breed of stubborn fighters who are more dangerous in retreat than in a charge, and Hugh understood why the Moslems had never won to Tphilis.

“Will they attack the city, think ye?” the constable asked the crusader.

“Aye, if it lies in their road. Otherwise they will not waste men. They are picked warriors and they mean to pass beyond the Khaukesh.”

To this the constable made no answer. It seemed to him that the Mongols must desire the sack of Tphilis and, besides, he did not see where else they would go.

And Hugh in his turn asked a question—

“The princess—will she seek safety in the cities of the emperor?”

“Nay, she is of the hills—the daghestan. If need be, she will be safe there.”

And the chieftain pointed up at the forested heights outlined in the red glow of the setting moon.

But it did not happen as he had foretold. Within an hour the mass of warriors ahead of them parted and an armed peasant galloped up to the constable, reining in and casting himself on his knees at a distance.

“Ivan Vartabad,” he cried out, “terror has come to the castle!”

“How?”

“Akh, it is not to be known how. Men lie lifeless in the western gate as if wolves had got in.”

All the Georgians within hearing stopped and held their breath, while John the Constable asked whether the castle was lost. Had the pagans reached it?

“Impossible that they should have reached it,” groaned the peasant, holding his head. “They were not seen in the town. But there are many dead in the western gate—aznaurs and Roumi swordsmen. Grigol of Thor hath his skull split—”

“Rusudan—what of her?”

“With my eyes I saw the daughter of Karthlos ride up the ramp into the court at the hour when the moonlight passes from the dome of the Malaki. Now only God knows where she has gone, because the eyes of men can not see her.”

The constable gripped short his reins, and the peasant sprang aside when the white horse plunged forward.

“In the name of the Father and Son, make way!”