Lords of the Bow. Conn Iggulden

the wind. Giam watched as they passed the line he had created and, for a terrifying instant, he thought they would somehow ride straight through the spikes. Then the first horse screamed, tumbling over itself in a great crash. Dozens more went down as the spikes pierced the soft part of their hooves and men were thrown to their death. The thin column faltered and Giam knew a moment of fierce joy. He saw the galloping line waver as the mass of following warriors yanked savagely on their reins. Almost all of those who had run full tilt into the spikes lay crippled or dead on the grass and a cheer went up from the red ranks.

      Giam saw the pike flags were standing proud and he clenched his left fist in excitement. Let them come on foot and see what he had for them!

      Beyond the screaming men and horses, the bulk of the enemy milled without formation, having lost all impetus in the death of their brothers. As Giam watched, the untrained tribesmen panicked. They had no tactics except for the wild charge and they had lost that. Without warning, hundreds turned away to race back through their own lines. The rout spread with extraordinary speed and Giam saw Mongol officers bawling conflicting orders at their fleeing men, striking at them with the flats of their swords as they passed. Behind him, the people of Yinchuan roared at the sight.

      Giam jerked round in the saddle. His entire first rank took a half-step forward, straining like dogs on a leash. He could see the blood lust rising in them and knew it had to be controlled.

      ‘Stand!’ he bellowed. ‘Officers, hold your men. The order is to stand!’ They could not be held. Another step broke the last restraint and the yelling red ranks surged forward, their new armour shining. The air filled with dust. Only the king’s guard held their positions and, even then, the cavalry on the wings were forced to come forward with the others or leave them vulnerable. Giam shouted again and again in desperation and his own officers raced up and down the lines, trying to hold the army back. It was impossible. They had seen the enemy riding in the shadow of the city for almost two months. Here at last was a chance to make them bleed. The militia screamed defiance as they reached the barrier of iron spikes. These were no danger to men and they passed through quickly, killing those warriors who still lived and stabbing the dead over and over until they were bloody rags on the grass.

      Giam used his horse to block lines of men as best he could. In fury, he had the signal horns blow retreat, but the men were deaf and blind to everything except the enemy and the king who watched them. They could not be called back.

      On horseback, Giam saw the sudden change in the tribes before any of his running men. Before his eyes, the wild rout vanished and perfect new Mongol lines formed, the discipline terrifying. The scarlet army of the Xi Xia had come half a mile past the traps and pits they had dug the night before and still raced onwards to bloody their swords and send these enemies away from their city. Without warning, they faced a confident army of horsemen on exposed ground. Genghis gave a single order and the entire force moved into a trot. The Mongol warriors pulled bows from shaped leather holders on the saddles, taking the first long arrows from the quivers on their hips or backs. They guided the ponies with their knees alone, riding with the arrows pointing down. At another barked order from Genghis, they brought their lines to a canter and then instantly to full gallop, the arrows coming up to their faces for the first volley.

      Caught out in the open, fear swept through the massed red ranks. The Xi Xia lines compressed and some at the rear were still cheering ignorantly as the Mongol army swept back in. Giam roared desperate orders to increase the space between the ranks, but only the king’s guard responded. As they faced a massed charge for the second time, the militia bunched even tighter, terrified and confused.

      Twenty thousand buzzing arrows smashed the red lines to their knees. They could not return the volleys in the face of such destruction. Their own crossbowmen could only shoot blindly towards the enemy, hampered by the scramble of their own companions. The Mongols drew and shot ten times in every sixty heartbeats and their accuracy was crushing. The red armour saved some, but as they rose screaming, they were hit again and again until they stayed down. As the Mongols darted in for the close killing, Giam dug in his heels and raced across the face of the bloody lines to the king’s pikemen, desperate to have them hold. Somehow, he came through unscathed.

      The king’s guards looked no different from the militia in their red armour. As Giam took command, he saw some of the militia rushing back through their ranks, chased down by screaming Mongol riders. The guards did not run and Giam gave a sharp order to raise pikes, passed on down the line. The tribesmen saw too late that these were not panicking like the others. Pike blades held up at an angle could cut a man in half as he charged and dozens of Mongol riders went down as they tried to gallop through. Giam felt hope rise in him that he could yet salvage the day.

      The guard cavalry had moved out to defend the wings against the mobile enemy. As the militia was crushed, Giam was left with only the few thousand of the king’s trained men and a few hundred stragglers. The Mongols seemed to delight in hitting the Xi Xia riders. Whenever the guard cavalry tried to charge, the tribesmen would spear in at high speed and pick men off with bows. The wildest of them engaged the guards with swords, looping in and out again like stinging insects. Though the cavalry kept their discipline, they had been trained to ride down infantry on the open field and could not respond to attacks from all directions. Caught away from the city, it was slaughter.

      The pikemen survived the first charges against them, gutting the Mongol horses. When the king’s cavalry were crushed and scattered, those who fought on foot were exposed. The pikemen could not turn to face the enemy easily and every time they tried, they were too slow. Giam bawled orders hopelessly, but the Mongols encircled them and cut them to pieces in a storm of arrows that still failed to claim him with them. Each man who died fell with a dozen shafts in him, or was cut from his saddle by a sword at full gallop. Pikes were broken and trampled in the press. Those who still survived tried to run to the shadow of the walls where archers could protect them. Almost all were ridden down.

      The gates were shut. As Giam glanced back at the city, he found himself hot with shame. The king would be watching in horror. The army was shattered, ruined. Only a few battered, weary men had made it to the walls. Somehow, Giam had remained in the saddle, more aware than ever of his king’s gaze. In misery, he raised his sword and cantered gently towards the Mongol lines until they spotted him.

      Shaft after shaft broke against his red armour as he closed on them. Before he reached the line, a young warrior galloped out to meet him, his sword raised. Giam shouted once, but the warrior ducked under his blow, carving a great gash under the general’s right arm. Giam swayed in the saddle, his horse slowing to a walk. He could hear the warrior circling back, but his arm hung on sinews and he could not raise his sword. Blood rushed across his thighs and he looked up for a moment, never feeling the blow that took his head and ended his shame.

      Genghis rode triumphantly through the mounds of scarlet dead, their armour resembling the gleaming carcases of beetles. In his right hand, he held a long pike with the head of the Xi Xia general on top, the white beard twitching in the breeze. Blood ran down the shaft onto his hand and dried there, gumming his fingers together. Some of the army had escaped by running back through the spikes where his riders could not follow. Even then, he had sent warriors to lead their horses on foot. It had been a slow business and perhaps a thousand of the enemy in all had made it close enough to the city to be covered by archers. Genghis laughed at the sight of the bedraggled men standing in the shadow of Yinchuan. The gates remained closed and they could do nothing but stare in blank despair at his warriors as they rode among the dead, laughing and calling to each other.

      Genghis dismounted as he reached the grass and rested the bloody pike against his horse’s heaving flank. He bent down and picked up one of the spikes, examining it with curiosity. It was a simple thing of four nails joined together so one remained upright no matter how it fell. If he had been forced to take the defensive position, he thought he would have laid bands of them in widening circles around the army, but even then, the defenders had not been warriors as he knew them. His own men had better discipline, taught by a harder land than the peaceful valley of the Xi Xia.

      As Genghis walked, he could see fragments of torn and broken armour on the ground. He examined a piece of it with interest, seeing how the red lacquer had chipped and flaked away at