‘It’s these Green Steppe dung-eaters,’ he shouted. ‘They couldn’t gain a foothold on a cow pat.’
Tsubodai laughed happily, stepping away from the rope to see how the other climbers were moving. All along the wall it was the same: the climbing had stopped, the sounds of battle echoing down from above. As bodies crashed to the rocks around him, he dived back into the lee of the wall.
‘We’ll be down here all day,’ he said. ‘The Khan should have sent the Wolfshead in first. These Greens were useless at Gulgothir, and they’re even worse here.’
His companion grinned and shrugged. ‘Line’s moving again,’ he said.
Tsubodai grasped the knotted rope and pulled himself up beneath Nakrash. He had a good feeling about today – maybe he could win the horses Ulric had promised to the warrior who would cut down the old greybeard everyone was talking about.
‘Deathwalker.’ A pot-bellied old man without a shield.
‘Tsubodai,’ called Nakrash. ‘You don’t die today, hey? Not while you still owe me on that foot race.’
‘Did you see Nestzan fall?’ Tsubodai shouted back. ‘Like an arrow. You should have seen him swinging his arms. As if he wanted to push the ground away from him.’
‘I’ll be watching you. Don’t die, do you hear me?’
‘You watch yourself. I’ll pay you with Deathwalker’s horses.’
As the men climbed higher more tribesmen filled the rope beneath him. Tsubodai glanced down.
‘Hey you!’ he called. ‘Not a lice-ridden Green are you?’
‘From the smell you must be Wolfshead,’ replied the climber, grinning.
Nakrash scaled the battlements, dragging his sword clear and then turning to pull Tsubodai alongside him. The attackers had forced a wedge through the Drenai line, and still neither Tsubodai nor Nakrash could join the action.
‘Move away! Make room!’ called the man behind them.
‘You wait there, goat-breath,’ said Tsubodai.Tll just ask the round-eyes to help you over. Hey, Nakrash, stretch those long legs of yours and tell me where Deathwalker is.’
Nakrash pointed to the right. ‘I think you will soon get a chance at those horses. He looks closer than before.’ Tsubodai leapt lightly to the ramparts, straining to see the old man in action.
‘Those Greens are just stepping up and asking for his axe, the fools.’ But no one heard him above the clamour.
The thick wedge of men ahead of them was thinning fast, and Nakrash leapt into a gap and slashed open the throat of a Drenai soldier who was trying desperately to free his sword from a Nadir belly. Tsubodai was soon beside him hacking and cutting at the tall round-eyed southerners.
Battle lust swept over him, as it had during ten years of warfare under Ulric’s banner. He had been a youngster when the first battle began, tending his father’s goats on the granite steppes far to the north. Ulric had been a war leader for only a few years at that time. He had subdued the Long Monkey tribe and offered their men the chance to ride with his forces under their own banner. They had refused and died to a man. Tsubodai remembered that day: Ulric had personally tied their chieftain to two horses and ordered him torn apart. Eight hundred men had been beheaded and their armour handed over to youngsters like Tsubodai.
On the next raid he had taken part in the first charge. Ulric’s brother Gat-sun had praised him highly and given him a shield of stretched cowhide, edged with brass. He had lost it in a knuckle-bone game the same night, but he still remembered the gift with affection. Poor Gat-sun! Ulric had him executed the following year for trying to lead a rebellion. Tsubodai had ridden against him and been among the loudest to cheer as his head fell. Now, with seven wives and forty horses Tsubodai was, by any reckoning, a rich man. And still to see thirty.
Surely the gods loved him?
A spear grazed his shoulder. His sword snaked out, half-severing the arm. Oh, how the gods loved him! He blocked a slashing cut with his shield.
Nakrash came to his rescue, disembowelling the attacker who fell screaming to the ground to vanish beneath the feet of the warriors pushing from behind.