284. The Distant Eyes of the Grassland (2).
Attila, once a Khazar city, now a city of the North Sea.
There, the Khan of the Alan tribe—a man who could be called a lucky bandit—lowered his head at once, overawed by the Fylkir's overwhelming physique.
Across the steppe beyond the Volga River, a rumor wandered like a ghost.
It was said that if one kept going up and up the Volga, the steppe would give way to frozen earth and sea, and that beyond it all was a divine Khagan who ruled every land, ensuring that the people who lived in that harsher-than-the-steppe environment never starved to death.
Of course, the people of the steppe were no fools. They did not believe in superstitions—ghosts, or arrows that flew a thousand li in one run and unfailingly found their mark with a single shot.
In that frozen land, far harder to survive in than this stern yet warm mother of a steppe, they never starved?
The steppe people had far too much to do to believe such dreamlike tales.
But this winter was cold, terribly cold.
The curse of the steppe, which made the elders of the tribe dread the future the milder the winter arrived. Early frosts, the fearful cold snaps they called Jod or Zud.
Even if humans, those adaptable creatures, somehow managed to adjust, the nomads' very lifeline—their livestock—could not endure this winter. And nomads without livestock had no hope for the days ahead.
Thus, the surviving Pecheneg tribes—those whose tribes had not already perished—gathered beneath their elected king, the Khan, to decide whether to invade eastward or westward once the snows melted a little.
And it was then that the rumor, like a wraith, had spread across the steppe where so many lives had already drawn their last breath.
The steppe people did not ordinarily believe in superstition, but this time the situation was so dire that one might even grasp at divination lots. If they invaded westward, there were the mighty Khazars; if they invaded eastward, the powerful Oghuz and Kimek tribes were rather eyeing the west bank of the Ural River themselves. The frost that fell upon the steppe was impartial, so everyone could only think the same thing.
For it was the natural order of the steppe that the weak died first.
So as the fear that they would all die no matter where they invaded made everything harder, this extravagant rumor reached their ears.
Everyone scoffed, yet one by one they rode out from the gathering place toward their own surviving tribesmen, and at the head of them was the man the nomads called Pechenegs had elected as their Khan.
And the clever Pechenegs had sent the outermost tribes of the steppe between the Volga and the Ural to Attila—that prosperous city on the Volga whose master had suddenly changed.
When the chiefs of the Pechenegs saw the tribes sent out as scouts return laden with grain more precious than gold and treasure, they began galloping madly toward Attila from that moment on.
Watching this from the heavens, a divine eagle and ravens followed the ominous mass migration of the human throng with a certain expectation, and this sudden movement put the Oghuz and Kimek tribes—who had been preparing to strike the western Pechenegs—and even the Samanid Islamic Empire beyond them on edge.
The steppe, frozen solid in the brutal cold of the past winter, was awakening at a rapid pace.
*****
[Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Thunk-thunk— Bang! Bang!]
"Hey! I've driven them all in over here!"
"Then lend me a hand over here too! Maybe there's a rock under this one—think I'll have to dig the ground out a bit?"
"Damn. More shoveling, eh. Wait a moment! I'll report to the Hundred-leader and be right back!"
The mouth of the Volga. A point not far from Attila, roughly half a day's distance to the north.
Jarl Refil Bjornson, overall commander of the 15 Thousand-man Units of the North Sea's 2nd Eastern Expeditionary Army, had pitched a large tent atop a hill raised high with packed earth and sat within it.
Only the eastern side, where the wind blew from, was screened with thick leather; the northern, western, and southern exposures were left wide open. Following the fundamental doctrine of the North Sea army, the encampment was erecting a rectangular palisade, and with a river on one flank, all preparations to repel any reckless enemy challenge were complete.
The work underway now involved driving additional stakes around the core palisade. Had Refil operated mainly on the empire's western side under the Fylkir—where abundant timber would have let him pile up three or four layers of palisade—this steppe was a strange place where, no matter where one looked, there was not a single tree.
Yet no matter how many restrictions there were, a fine commander's skill lay in improvisation. Refil had dismantled surplus materials and a few of the large ships used to transport military supplies, setting sharp, pointed stakes at an angle in positions that would be as awkward as possible from the enemy's perspective.
After all, North Sea vessels would now come and go endlessly along this Volga, so dismantling a few longships would not even be noticeable.
Beside Refil were Stórolf, whetting his hand-axe on a stone, and the Khan of the Bulgar tribe, who kept looking around the encampment with his round eyes.
[Shrrring— Shrrring—]
Stroking out the pleasant sound of the axe-blade grinding in a steady rhythm, Stórolf—who had campaigned under the Fylkir for so many years that he had grown closer to Refil than most brothers—spoke to Refil in a voice that betrayed not the slightest tension.
"Refil, don't your daughters shimmer before your eyes?"
Refil had gotten three daughters in his five years of marriage.
"Of course, every morning I open my eyes and think of my daughters. Don't you?"
Stórolf had gotten four sons and five daughters over his five years of marriage—in truth, starting even before the marriage.
"No, I am too happy right now. My apologies to my sons, daughters, and wives, but to be honest, being at home is harder. Thanks to the Fylkir's help I have no worries about feeding the children, but truly, each day is a war."
Stórolf's face was serene as he spoke calmly, yet for some reason Refil felt as though a single tear was trickling down Stórolf's solid cheek and honest jaw.
Refil of course loved his wife and daughters deeply. So deeply that he understood the Fylkir's example—how, unlike the former Konungrs he had only heard about from his father, the Fylkir had seemed to set aside all earthly ambitions and unhesitatingly pushed his own power outward to those around him, while concerning himself only with his family.
The family he had left in Árós was already Refil's everything.
But at the same time, Refil understood Stórolf's heart intimately. Loving but exhausting, so happy but tiring. His father and grandmother had called this married life and laughed about it.
"...Still, isn't a bustling household a good thing? You must rally yourself—why is Jarl Stórolf, the Fylkir's champion and fiercest sword, so low in spirit?"
"The fiercest swords are my wives, Refil. Of late I have come to fear the night."
Trickle—
This time it was no illusion—a streak of tears truly ran down his cheek.
'Well, he has three wives, after all.'
No wonder the boar-like Stórolf had shed his bulk and transformed into something like a lean wolf. It was not the result of grueling training after all.
Just as pity and fellow-feeling—the bond of husbands—were knitting the two men more closely together, the Bulgar chieftain (Khan), who had looked a little cowed amid the strict discipline and systematic movements of the North Sea army, interjected himself into the conversation through an interpreter he had brought.
"I gather you two Jarls both have children below?"
[Srrrung-srrung- tak.]
"Yes. Khan. Unworthy as I am, they are too good for me. Do you have children as well, Khan?"
Stórolf stowed a hand axe glowing with a fierce blue light at his waist, then drew a sword with a faint green sheen and began to wipe it with a dry cloth. His deep voice held such full respect that it gratified the heart of the one who listened.
"I have children as well. I have seven wives. It is the result of gathering the great and small tribes of the Volga, Oka, and Kama Rivers. Hahaha!"
"By Hel's sacred tresses, good heavens..."
At that shocking remark, Stórolf laid his sword across his knee for a moment, and Refil, who had been sitting upright, also let his mouth fall slightly open and stared at the Bulgar Khan with disbelief in his eyes.
A reaction that would have been seen as a gross breach of etiquette in the rigid courts of the Eastern Roman, Frankish, Abbasid, and other empires, but the Bulgar Khan, understanding that the gazes of the two powerful Jarls of the North Sea were a kind of empathy and concern, felt grateful instead.
Thus, in the realm of married men that transcends people, faith, and culture, just as the two Jarls and the Khan recognized each other as comrades assigned to the same front, hurried footsteps intruded.
[Chalgeurak! Chalgeurak! Tatat!]
Unlike the uniquely pleasing sound of North Sea chain mail, the news that came to the command tent was not pleasing in the least.
"Jarl! The Bulgar scouts have found signs of the enemy! Not far from here!"
The enemy had come.
Four days had already passed since they settled here. It would have been strange had they appeared at any time.
Refil calmly assessed the situation and did what he had to do.
"Cease all work in progress and prepare for battle at once. Shelki Khan, please gather your warriors inside the encampment."
"I shall do so at once! Jarl!"
"Stórolf, you take the reserve. If need be, we may even sally out from the palisade."
"I will obey the orders of the overall commander!"
A clear distinction between public and private was one of Stórolf's virtues.
The chiliarchs followed in a body behind Refil as he rose and strode out, and the camp of the North Sea army, which had lain still in keeping with Refil's temperament, began to stir all at once.
*****
When Sagarya Khagan of the Khazars finally crossed the Don River, shaking off the harrying pursuit of the Magyars, he realized that he had but little time left.
In a time long before his own, when his predecessors had stood against those fearsome turbaned ones alongside the Eastern Roman Empire, the city of Sarkel had been given as a token of friendship.
This city, the second most important in the Khazar Khaganate, had been built from the outset as a fortress to check the west bank of the Don; by sitting squarely astride the spot most suited for a great army to cross the river, it bought precious hours for Sagarya Khagan.
Yet the very urgency of that borrowed time was the problem: if he remained at Sarkel now, he would be crushed under the pressure of enemies pressing in from east and west at once.
Thus Sagarya Khagan had to choose.
Endure a moment of shame and bow his head? Or strike out?
But if he bowed here, were there not too many things weighing on his heart?
The Pecheneg warriors under his command showing signs of deserting, the Khagan's elite losing not only the strength of their bodies but also the strength of their spirit from poor nourishment.
The fact that the small tribes of the steppe, little better than naked, were pursuing Sagarya Khagan with fire in their eyes—that meant the hearts of the steppe were slipping away from the Khazar Khaganate.
Because the might of the Khazar Khaganate was no longer overwhelming. Because stronger and more fearsome ones were pushing in.
Therefore, if he bowed here, the great Khazar empire that Sagarya Khagan's ancestors had built would vanish. Like livestock that breathe their last before a cruel winter, like the countless names that had existed in this land before the Khazars. The prestige and honor more precious than his own life would be cut off in his own generation.
So Sagarya Khagan chose to strike out.
Even setting aside the absurd rumor that Atil's fortress gate had been shattered by a single punch from the Fylkir, now that Atil had fallen into their hands, it was foolish to attack Atil directly.
Because Sagarya Khagan knew the defenses of Atil better than anyone; though he could not comprehend it, now that it had fallen, clinging to it was folly.
So it was to be an attack.
Only an attack could prolong this already finished war. Could accept a defeat slightly less cruel.
And so Sagarya Khagan moved his army, which had by then dwindled to twenty thousand, with ferocious haste. The objective was the place from which those Bulgar low-born scouts had dared to creep as far as Sarkel—the encampment of the North Sea army brazenly stationed on the left bank of the Volga.
If he drew this out, the enemy that would sally out from Atil would seize his rear. He would make one sharp thrust, and if it did not succeed, turn his head north.
'I will exact blood price from the Bulgar bastards.'
[Dugudugudugu-]
Twenty thousand heavy cavalry, armed with the wealth of Atil—a colossal force that would trample any ordinary power straight down—galloped relentlessly and prepared to encircle the sturdy palisade visible in the distance; just as Sagarya Khagan, gauging the range, was about to let the command fall from his lips,
[Hwiiiiing---!]
with an ominous sound slicing through the wind, their arrows flew first and struck.
[Kwakwok! Pak! Chwarreureuk! Kung!]
So great was the force in the arrows that those hit squarely were hurled backward without a single scream, and those grazed turned their heads in relief, only to notice at once that the path of the enormous arrow was deeply gouged.
"Aagh!"
[Ihihihing-! Kung!]
"Keok!"
Horses collapsing and pitching forward everywhere, and the men upon their saddles. Warriors wailing as blood streamed from torn wounds. And riders who continued to race onward, weaving through them, while more great arrows flew in once more.
[Hwiiiiing! Peok! Chwarrreuk-]
"Keuk!"
"Eok!"
Some hurtled backward with their death-gasp, and others shrieked in utter agony.
Through eyes that clenched his jaw hard enough to crack teeth, Sagarya Khagan's superb sight saw the great bows mounted atop their palisade. Great bows laid on their sides.
[Dugudugudugu-]
"Now! Split off!"
"Hyah! Yah!"
"Kkiiii-areureureureu-!"
Having already taken heavy losses, yet spilled water cannot be gathered back. At Sagarya Khagan's command, the Khazar warriors all split to both sides in a beautiful maneuver, and above their heads—
arrows from longbows, far simpler and crudely enormous compared to the composite bows they themselves used, yet flying just as far and just as powerfully, rained down.
[Hwiiiiing- Hwiiing! Shwaeaaak- Shwaek! Pabak! Peobeobeok! Chwarrureuk! Keok! Ihihihihing-! Kwak!]
"Draw your bows! Counterattack!"
Racing through the falling arrows with bloodshot eyes, Sagarya Khagan drew his bowstring with all his might.
[Kkiiik- Tyung!]