NEAL STEPHENSON, GREG BEAR,
MARK TEPPO, NICOLE GALLAND, ERIK BEAR,
JOSEPH BRASSEY, COOPER MOO
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2012 by FOREWORLD LLC
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by 47North
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781612182384
ISBN-10: 1612182380
Dates, prices, and manufacturing details are subject to change or cancellation without notice.
Publication Date February, 2013
To Erik Artzt, Fraser Mendel, Andrew Somlyo, and Brandon Uttech.
A journey is always more entertaining when in the company of these gentlemen.
CONTENTS
CAST OF CHARACTERS
1241 Veturnœtur
CHAPTER ONE: Leaving Finn
CHAPTER TWO: Factus Sum Tamquam Vas Perditum
CHAPTER THREE: Chinese Fire
CHAPTER FOUR: The Orphan’s Tale
CHAPTER FIVE: Seeking Revenge
CHAPTER SIX: A Colorful Tongue
CHAPTER SEVEN: Lian’s Dagger
CHAPTER EIGHT: An Auspicious Outing
CHAPTER NINE: Quoniam Fortiduo Mea
CHAPTER TEN: The Khagan’s Banner
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Rough Beasts
CHAPTER TWELVE: Sequestered
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Picking Flowers
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: The Paten and the Chalice
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Under the Night Sky
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: God’s Plan
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: The Stone Ring
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: The Roots of Our Stories
CHAPTER NINETEEN: Different Worlds
CHAPTER TWENTY: Raphael’s Book
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Cantate Domino Canticum Novum
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: The Frog and the Stone
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: A Fateful Choice
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: Into Hyperborea
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: Tenebras in Lucem
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: He Never Faltered
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN: The Long and Winding Road
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: In the Shadow of Burqan-qaldun
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE: In the Aftermath
CHAPTER THIRTY: The Gift of the Spirits
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: The Man Who Would Be Pope
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: The Boy and the Tree
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE: Graymane’s Ride
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR: The Noose Tightens
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE: The Night of the Fish Gutter
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX: Summus Pontifex Ecclesiae Universalis
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: The Horse and the Cart
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT: One of Our Khans Is Missing
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE: A Day of Rest
CHAPTER FORTY: Smoke Signals
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE: The Mouse’s Trail
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO: The Archery Competition
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE: In the Enemy’s Camp
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR: The Company, Divided
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE: The Exodus
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX: To Eternal Glory
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN: Uncaged
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT: A Change of Plans
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE: An Imperial Breakfast
CHAPTER FIFTY: Unexpected Allies
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE: The Second Vote
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO: Mongol-a-Mongol
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE: Et Factum Est Ita
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR: The Fight for Hünern
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE: The Cave of the Great Bear
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX: A Binder’s Choice
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN: An Audience with the Khan
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT: Guiding the Empire
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE: The Big Boss
CHAPTER SIXTY: Final Doubts
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE: On the Road to Rome
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO: Arrow’s Flight
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE: The Guan Do
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR: Congregabo Te
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE: The Flight of the Khan
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX: The Strong Heart
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN: Pursuit
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT: Cast Out
CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE: The Death of a Boy
CHAPTER SEVENTY: Ögedei’s Legacy
EPILOGUE: A Tree Has Many Branches
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
In Hünern
Andreas: Shield-Brethren knight initiate
Rutger: Shield-Brethren knight master, quartermaster of the Rock
Styg: Shield-Brethren initiate
Eilif: Shield-Brethren initiate
Maks: Shield-Brethren initiate
Knútr: Shield-Brethren knight initiate
Hans: orphan of Legnica, member of the local gang known as the “Rats”
Ernust: itinerant brewmaster, Hans’s adopted uncle
Father Pius: Roman Catholic priest
Dietrich von Grüningen: Heermeister of the Livonian Order
Sigeberht: the Heermeister’s bodyguard
Burchard: the Heermeister’s bodyguard
Kristaps: the First Sword of Fellin, Livonian knight
Leuthere de Montfont: Templar master
Emmeran: Hospitaller master
Onghwe Khan: Ögedei Khan’s dissolute son
Tegusgal: captain of Onghwe Khan’s personal guard
Ashiq Temür: second in command of Onghwe Khan’s personal guard
Zugaikotsu No Yama: Nipponese ronin
Kim Alcheon: Korean Flower Knight
Lakshaman: Malay knife fighter
In Rome
Father Rodrigo Bendrito: a priest of the Roman Catholic Church
Ferenc: a young Magyar hunter
Ocyrhoe: orphan of Rome
Robert of Somercotes: English Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
Matteo Rosso Orsini: Senator of Rome
Sinibaldo Fieschi: Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
Rainiero Capocci: Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
Giovanni Colonna: Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
Rinaldo de Segni: Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
Tommaso da Capua: Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
Romano Bonaventura: Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
Gil Torres: Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
Goffredo Castiglione: Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
Stefano de Normandis dei Conti: Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
Riccardo Annibaldi: Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
Master Constable Alatrinus: keeper of the Septizodium
Giacomo da Pecorara: Cardinal Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church
Oddone de Monferrato: Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
Frederick II: Holy Roman Emperor
Léna: Binder, presently attached to the emperor’s court
In the East
Feronantus: Shield-Brethren knight master, the Old Man of the Rock
Percival: Shield-Brethren knight initiate
Raphael: Shield-Brethren knight initiate
Yasper: Dutch alchemist, Shield-Brethren companion
Istvan: Hungarian horse rider, Shield-Brethren companion
Cnán: Binder, Shield-Brethren guide
Eleázar: Matamoros, Shield-Brethren initiate
Rædwulf: English longbowman, Shield-Brethren initiate
Vera: leader of the Shield-Maidens
Haakon: Shield-Brethren initiate
Benjamin: Jewish trader
Krasniy: Ruthenian gladiator
Ögedei Khan: Khagan of the Mongol Empire
Gansukh: Mongolian hunter, emissary of Chagatai Khan
Munokhoi: Torguud captain
Namkhai: Torguud wrestling champion
Lian: Chinese slave and tutor
Jachin: Ögedei Khan’s second wife
Alchiq: jaghun commander, known as Graymane to the Shield-Brethren
Tarbagatai: Mongolian hunter
Sübegei: Mongolian hunter
1241
Veturnætur
CHAPTER ONE
Leaving Finn
The Shield-Brethren buried Finn on the hill where they had set up camp. “It is not as grand as one of those burial mounds—the kurgans—we have seen,” Raphael pointed out to Feronantus, “but it has a view of where we came from, and the sun will always warm the ground.” Given the choice, Finn had always preferred to sleep outside, where the sun could find him and warm his bones in the morning. Finn may not have been a sworn member of the Shield-Brethren, but he was a feral brother to many of them.
One by one the members of the Shield-Brethren attacked the rocky ground of the hilltop. Without coming out and saying as much, they all wanted to be the one to dig Finn’s grave, as if the backbreaking labor would somehow assuage their individual guilt. It was not that they valued Finn above their other fallen comrades—the loss of any brother was equally horrific—but each was racked with a sense of responsibility for the circumstances of the hunter’s death.
As he prepared Finn’s body for burial, Raphael tried not to let his thoughts dwell on other members of their company whom they had lost. Or even his own role in the deaths of those dear friends. With Vera’s assistance, he laid the small man’s body on Percival’s cloak—the knight refused to hear otherwise—and arranged Finn’s limbs as best he could. The stiffness that creeps into a man’s body in the wake of death had filled Finn, and one of his arms resisted Raphael’s efforts. His face, once it had been tenderly washed by Vera, was surprisingly boyish. Raphael felt the weight of his years when he saw the delicate lashes and the unlined swath of forehead clearly for the first time. Too young, he thought, to die so far from home.
And he realized how little he knew of Finn. How little any of them knew.
“Wait,” he said to Vera as she made to cover Finn’s face with Percival’s cloak. He strode to his bags and dug out his worn journal and his writing instruments. With the sun peering over his shoulder, he sat and carefully sketched Finn’s face on a blank page. There will be a record, he promised his dead friend. You will not be forgotten.
As Raphael painstakingly tried to capture the essence of Finn’s character—an amalgamation of the peaceful features before him and those memories he had of more exuberant expressions—Vera busied herself with washing Finn’s feet and hands. The leather of his boots had been soft and supple once, but months and months of being in the wilderness had hardened the material into a second skin over Finn’s feet. She tugged at them briefly, and then gave up, opting to run a knife along the thin seams instead.
“Strangely fastidious,” she noted when she got to his hands. Raphael looked up from his sketching as she showed him Finn’s palms. Calloused, as expected, but surprisingly clean. The nails were long, but there was no dirt or filth beneath them.
The Binder, Cnán, approached, and with some interest examined Finn’s hands. “Like a cat,” she said, and Raphael nodded in agreement.
“They’re done with the grave,” Cnán reported. “Though,” she snorted, “I think Percival would like to keep digging.”
Raphael nodded. “Yes, I can imagine he would.”
There had been very little conversation among the company since Alchiq’s attack on Finn; the sudden shock of the Mongol’s assault had left them all wordless. But no words were necessary to comprehend Percival’s grief at having fallen asleep at the watch.
Privately, Raphael thought it was more likely that the Frank had been captivated by an ecstatic vision—much like the one that had come over him in the forest shortly after the death of Taran and the knight’s horse. He tried to push the idea out of his thoughts though, because he did not want to face the dreadful conclusion that followed: illumination brought death to those nearby. What price was being exacted for the guidance the knight was receiving?
Vera indicated to Cnán that she should help with the wrapping of the dead. “It is time,” the Shield-Maiden said to Raphael, her stern eyes unusually soft. “No amount of drawing will bring life back to this face.”
“Aye,” Raphael agreed, and he set aside his tools. He lent a hand, and soon Finn was nothing more than a squat bundle.
The other Shield-Brethren came down from the hill and carefully carried the body to its final resting place. Without speaking, they lowered Finn’s corpse into the deep trough they had hacked out of the rocky hilltop. It was deep, Raphael noted. Deep enough that the body might never be disturbed by the carrion eaters.
Feronantus waved them off, and even Percival relented, letting their aged leader undertake the task of filling the hole by himself. They stood around awkwardly for a little while, watching Feronantus scoop and pack handfuls of sand and rock into the hole. Once a thick layer had been carefully laid over the body to protect it from being crushed during the burial process, Feronantus would shovel dirt in more readily. A cairn would be raised and words would be spoken, but until then, they had little to do but wait.
Death itself was always quick, Raphael reflected, staring off at the distant horizon. It is the survivors who feel pain the longest.
“Where’s Istvan?” Vera asked.
Raphael blinked away from his thoughts and scanned the surrounding countryside. “I don’t know,” he said.
“Chasing Graymane,” Cnán offered, pointing toward the west.
Raphael vaguely recalled their pursuit of the Mongol commander after Finn’s death, the long line of horses strung out across the plain. One by one, their steeds had faltered, until only Istvan and Alchiq remained, two tiny dots dancing in the midmorning heat. “He hasn’t returned?” he asked, caught between surprise and apprehension.
Cnán shook her head. “I find myself hoping that he doesn’t. At least, not today.” She looked at Raphael and Vera, and they both saw their own pain mirrored in the Binder’s eyes. “If he is still hunting, then he might still catch him. If he comes back, we’ll know if he was successful or not.”
Vera nodded. “I don’t want him to return empty-handed either. Better he not return at all.”
None of us are going to return, Raphael thought as he turned and looked back at Finn’s slowly filling grave.
That night the company made no fire, and the stars wheeled dizzyingly overhead. The air grew cold quickly after the sun vanished in a burning haze of gold and red in the west. They hobbled their horses near a band of scraggly brush that the animals appeared to be interested in eating, and then they wandered off to make their respective preparations for sleep.
Raphael tried to make himself comfortable. The lush grasslands surrounding the river had given way to flatter terrain, and he found the sere landscape to be oddly distressing. The muscles in his lower back and thighs kept twitching, phantom fears that the ground would suddenly tilt and he would slide away. But slide away into what? They had passed beyond the edge of the world that he—or any of the Shield-Brethren—knew. His hands pressed against the blanket beneath him, pressing the wool against the hard ground.
His reaction was
not a sign of madness; it was simply a reaction to the unfamiliar. Men were drawn to civilization; only the most severe ascetic among them relished isolation. Penitent hermits craved seclusion. Being away from the squalor of humanity was an integral part of their spiritual monasticism. They could talk more readily to God in the silence of their mountaintop cave or their desert isolation. It was easier to believe that the voice you heard responding to your queries issued from a divine trumpet if there were no other souls nearby.
But he was a soldier. He slept more soundly when surrounded by the sounds of men preparing for war. His mind was less prone to fearful speculation when he rested behind a stout battlement. Even the sounds of domesticated animals were a welcome lullaby: cows calling to one another in the pasture; the nervous clucking of chickens as they scratched in the yard; dogs, barking at shadows.
On the steppes, there was nothing but the sound of the wind through the grasses; when there was no grass, the wind had no voice, and the silence was unsettling.
He heard her bones creak as she lay down next to him. A blanket fluttered like the wing of a large bird, and he shivered slightly as the cloth descended upon his chest and legs. Her breath hummed against the skin of his neck as she pressed her head against his. Their hands found one another beneath the blanket. Beneath the stars.
Her skin was hot. Pressed against her, his mouth seeking hers, he thought they could stay warm enough to survive the night.
In the morning, there was only a fading blush of heat in the base of his throat. A lingering memento of Vera’s kiss.
“This emptiness does not go on forever,” Cnán said. “We have ridden off your maps, but we are barely at the edge of ones I have seen that show the boundaries of the Mongolian Empire.”
“No wonder it is so huge,” Yasper complained. “Do you really control the land if there is nothing there?”
The lithe alchemist slouched in his saddle, his jaw working absently on a piece of salted meat. In the days since they had crossed the river—since they had left Finn behind—Yasper was typically one of the first to break camp, and more often than not, volunteered to take point. At first, Cnán had found it odd that Feronantus usually acquiesced to the Dutchman’s request. While Yasper was not his to command, typically Feronantus would set one of the more proficient scouts riding before the company. Cnán soon realized Feronantus’s strategy: the alchemist was looking for something—a natural deposit of some alchemical treasure. As long as Yasper was keeping an eye out for anything unusual, then he would be a satisfactory scout and Feronantus could allow the other riders some rest.