* *
The former capital of the once-mighty Rus′ empire had been under siege for ten weeks. The Mongols had attacked Kyiv in the early fall, just as the last of the harvest was being gathered. They arrived on the east bank of the Dnipro, covering the steppe with tents and campfires from horizon to horizon. Kyiv was the largest fortified city that Batu Khan, the leader of the Mongol Horde, had yet attempted to take. His force numbered some 200,000 men. The Khan would not countenance failure.
Ratibor’s cohort was part of a force of 8,000, commanded by Tysiac′kiy Dmytro, that had been sent to the defence of Kyiv by Prince Danylo of Halych. Ratibor had come from the city of Terebovl with some 200 men. Ironically, fifty of these were otroks – lads too young to grow facial hair, mere apprentices of the warrior’s art. The sprawling walled city of Kyiv fielded 12,000 armed men by his calculation. The peasants who had taken refuge here added some 5,000 inexperienced and poorly armed defenders. The result seemed foreordained. But Ratibor was an old hand at this bloody art. He had splintered his lance on the Lyakh, the Uhr, and the Saxon. He had fought brother against brother, Rus′ against Rus′, whenever princelings vied for power.
* * *
The dust was settling, allowing Ratibor to see before him the sea-tide of advancing Mongol-Tatar warriors. Their cries of “Urra! Urra!” were as deafening as the thunderclap. Ratibor gained the top of the tangled barricade and raised his sword high. The rays of the setting sun lit both sword and helm with the colour of fire.
“Slava!” he shouted back.
Ratibor dared not look back to see if any survivors had followed in his steps. He examined his position. The rubble field before him was steep. The enemy would have to climb with both hands, leaving none for a weapon. If Perun was demanding sacrifice, then wagonloads of severed limbs should be a fine offering.
Spears flew past him in poorly aimed flight. These were simply being thrown away, as the enemy could not climb while carrying them. Soon hands began grasping the splintered lumber before him. Ratibor’s sword slashed into action. This was not fighting; it was lumberman’s work. A dozen desperately thrown daggers bounced harmlessly off his shield and hauberk. Since the breach in the defences was as wide as thirty men, he fully expected to be outflanked. And soon there was the clang of sword on sword. But Ratibor easily turned every advantage in the height of his position into swift victory. Only now did he notice that he no longer fought alone. His flanks were well covered by Rus′ warriors.
A roar of “Slava!” from behind assured him that reinforcements in the thousands would soon back him. But before him, the battlefield was slowly changing. The dead and the wounded were filling gaps and low ground while bridging obstacles in the rubble. Fresh enemy fighters now stood on higher ground. Having lost the advantage of height, Ratibor was meeting his opponents face to face. Decades of experience were paying off, but he knew he would tire. He knew this line on the barricades would turn into a great meat grinder – like a butcher extruding meat into a sausage casing. The most cruel of the two armies would be the one to prevail.
The enemy held their dead and wounded as a shield of flesh and simply pushed their way forward. By their dress and armour, Ratibor recognized the dead as Meria and Ves tribesmen of the Ryazan-Volodymyr principalities taken by the Mongols some three years earlier. Whether they were volunteers or slave-soldiers he could not know, but they were being cruelly used to break through the Rus′ defence.
And so it finally happened to Ratibor. Undefeated in combat, Ratibor was finally knocked off his feet by a dead Meria tribesman pushed by dozens of Mongols. Ratibor had been on the left flank, so he rolled down the rubble pile on its east side. Bruised and exhausted, he could not move. He lay among a pile of dead Rus′ warriors. His eyes were closed in pain. He did not know how long he lay there.
“Here is your helmet, Pane Sotnyk.” It was the voice of a young otrok, addressing him as Lord Centurion.
“Is that you? So you’re alive, Vsevolod?” mumbled Ratibor.
“Never you mind,” said Vsevolod. “You have stopped the Mongols.”
Ratibor looked around as he stood up, leaning on his topir. “I have not. The line is now a horseshoe shape. We have lost the high ground.”
A flurry of Rus′ arrows tore into the Mongol ranks. A storm of Mongol arrows replied as the two forces began separating, running for cover.
“The Mongols have taken the wall,” Ratibor said as they scurried for shelter under remnants of shattered buildings on the left flank.
“They have not!” protested young Vsevolod. “We will hold the wall on our sector!”
“Where is Vyshata?”
“He brought the whole cohort here to fight, Pane Sotnyk. Only the otroks are left behind.”
“My God! The Mongols will move along the wall next. Our young otroks are all that will stand in their way. Follow me! Stay under the roofs. We must get back to our own sector.”
The Rus′ were fleeing towards the dytynets, the citadel known as the City of Volodymyr. Behind Ratibor, passage from the battlefield was blocked by accurate archery.
“Vyshata and our cohort are cut off from us,” said Ratibor. “They will be ordered to fall back to the dytynets – if any are still alive. We are on our own.”
The sun had set and it was only the patches of untrampled snow that provided reflected light to navigate by. But the dark of night also blunted the aim of enemy arrows. On their way they met one other Rus′ warrior. A fresh wound scarred his face from the corner of his eye to his chin. His upper lip was peeled back, revealing shattered teeth and bone. He did not speak, and silently joined the pair. Avoiding arrows, they flitted from post to wall through a thicket of shattered wooden buildings. They finally reached the scriptorium building that had served as their quarters for the last months.
“Holy Mother of God!” screamed the monk, Nestor, when he saw Ratibor. He stood in the doorway holding a cross before him as if to repel a vampire.
“It is I,” Ratibor said, then realized that he was totally covered in blood and looked more like demon than man. “Have you never seen the blood of battle before?”
Looking like a blood-spattered devil himself, Vsevolod announced to the gathering otroks, “I have brought our Sotnyk back. All will be well.”
A dozen otroks came running down the ladder from the battlements to greet their commander.
“St. Nicholas will come early tonight,” said Ratibor. “If you boys could open that crate that is standing by the wall, you will find new bows. I had ordered them from our craftsmen.”
Ratibor had barely finished before some fifty boys ran to the far wall of the scriptorium.
“And there are quivers in the sack on the second floor by the big stone,” added Ratibor. “But keep quiet, the enemy does not sleep yet.”
The otroks received new, scaled-down bows to fit the thousands of Mongol arrows that they had been collecting. The quivers, too, were sized for those shorter arrows.
“Panove,” Ratibor addressed the boys, “take all the arrows you can carry and climb to the battlement. Vsevolod, you are their leader. Use all that I have taught you about formations. I will join you soon.”
When the boys were gone, Ratibor called for his dzhura, Kyrylo. The boy brought a tub of water and a towel, then offered cold roasted pork on a dagger to both Ratibor and the scarred stranger. The scar-faced warrior, clearly in great pain, refused all food.
Nestor, the monk, frowned at the commander’s menu. “Pane Sotnyk, those boys can get killed!”
“Look here, dear Nestor,” said Ratibor, scrubbing dried blood off his face and hands, “do you see that city there? Tomorrow, it will be burning. Tomorrow, women and infants, children and soldiers, Christians and Jews, will be dying together. And, living or dead, everyone will look as I look right now, covered in gore. That fate won’t escape any of us. I merely gave those boys a chance