Reincarnated as Genghis Khan's Grandson, I Will Not Let It Fall-Chapter 48: Skirmish on the Eastern Road

The third clan’s riders came south along the road to meet them before the morning had gone far.

They numbered around two hundred, formed in a loose body that spread across the track and the dry grass on both sides of it. Their headman rode at the front, a broad man on a grey horse, and he pulled up when Batu’s formation came into view ahead of him.

He waited there for Batu to close the distance.

"You sent the rider," Batu said when he reached him.

"He left before first light," the headman said. "The moment I could confirm what was on the road."

"How far did they get when you last had eyes on them."

"Half a day’s ride north of where you’ll find them now. That was before dark." He looked past Batu down the road. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

"They were moving toward the convoy. They knew where it was going."

"Your riders stay on the left of the road," Batu said. "They hold the western ground when we engage. Nothing breaks west."

The headman looked at him for a moment. "Understood."

Batu turned his horse and the formation kept moving. The third clan’s riders fell in on the left edge without further instruction.

Bayan came back from the forward screen before his interval was done. He pulled alongside Batu without ceremony.

"They’re on the road," he said. "A formed body, maybe a mingan and a half of Berke’s riders, maybe more.

Two clan contingents on the flanks, roughly a hundred and fifty to two hundred each from the look of it." He paused. "Convoy dust to the north. Still moving south. The convoy doesn’t know what’s between it and the river yet."

"How much road between the convoy and the enemy’s rear."

Bayan thought. "Two hours at convoy pace. Maybe less. They’re closing."

The battlefield locked in immediately. The enemy was on the road between two Jochid forces, neither of which they could see clearly yet. The clan riders on their flanks gave them width but not depth.

The road itself was the corridor. Flat, straight, open steppe on both sides giving any force room to scatter and reform. He had to fix them on that road before they read the situation and dispersed onto the open ground to the east where the formation couldn’t chase them down efficiently and it would be exposed regardless.

He called the two mingan commanders forward.

Dasang commanded the first mingan. He was a compact man with a long scar across his left forearm who had been at the center drive and said very little in the days since.

"Your mingan takes the road," Batu said. "You advance directly. Keep them on the road in front of you. Stay at arrow range and hold it there. Don’t close to contact."

Dasang nodded. "And if they push through."

"They won’t push through. They’ll try to read their flanks first. Give them something on the road to keep reading."

Dasang turned back to his men.

The second commander was Kerei, taller, younger, his horse already restless under him.

"Wide arc east," Batu said. "Take the full width of the open steppe. Come around that flank before they’ve settled into a facing position. Full pace.

When you’re in arc position, hold. Don’t close until you hear the signal from the road."

Kerei looked east across the flat open ground. "That’s a long arc."

"Then start now."

Kerei was already moving.

Batu looked at the headman, who had brought his horse forward without being called.

"Your men hold the western ground," Batu said. "If any part of their force tries to break west off the road, that’s your engagement. Don’t follow them east. Don’t move north. Hold the western line."

"We hold it," the headman said.

Bayan took his position at Batu’s right without being told. Altan stayed on the left, his eyes on the road ahead, reading the distances without marking them.

The first mingan went forward.

They moved up the road at a canter, the formation spreading from the road surface out across the hard grass on both sides, a wide front with depth behind it. The dust they raised went straight up in the still air and hung there.

Ahead, the track ran north until a slight rise cut off the view. The enemy would be beyond that rise or on it.

They came off the rise into view a few minutes later.

The enemy formation was on the road and on both sides of it, wider than Dasang’s front, the flanking riders pushed out on both sides. It was a formed position, the riders in lines with gaps between the ranks for arrow withdrawal.

A formation built to hold the ground.

Dasang’s front slowed to a walk as the range closed to two hundred meters.

The first volley came from the enemy at one hundred and fifty meters, a wide release across the full enemy front, the arcs of the shafts visible for a moment at the top of their travel before they came down across Dasang’s leading rank.

Three horses went down. Two riders rolled clear. One didn’t. The sound of the impacts carried back up the road.

Dasang’s front returned at the same range. The release was organized, rank by rank, the leading rank releasing and pulling back to reload while the next rank came through.

The enemy absorbed the first return volley and held their line.

Batu watched from behind Dasang’s line. The eastern steppe was visible on his right, and somewhere out there Kerei was in its arc, moving wide across ground the enemy couldn’t see from their current position.

The riders on the far flank had not yet moved to face the arc. They were watching the road.

A second volley came from the enemy, lower and harder this time. Horses in Dasang’s second rank went down in two places, the gaps closing as the depth moved through.

A rider near the road’s edge took a shaft in the leg and kept his position, his horse carrying him forward with its head down.

Dasang’s front released again. The rate was steady, the formation moving as it fired, keeping the pressure continuous.

The riders on the far flank were moving now. A section of them, not all of them, angling north and east. Looking for it. They hadn’t found it. Kerei was still closing on the wide ground.

The shaft hit Batu’s horse on the outer left shoulder and the animal lurched hard to the right, losing a stride before it recovered. The shaft had come from the left edge of the enemy formation, a long-range release from one of the riders at the western end of the line.

The wound was shallow. The horse kept moving.

Bayan had his bow up before Batu had fully read what happened. He sent two shafts at the angle the first had come from, the release fast and wide, closing that direction.

On the road, the exchange was continuous. The sound layered over itself, the collective release and the impacts and the horses screaming when the shafts found them, all of it running together into a single sustained pressure that sat on the chest differently from anything in the life before this one.

The riders on the far flank were still turning. The section that had moved was now facing northeast, which meant the arc was visible to them even if Kerei had not yet reached his position.

If Kerei wasn’t in arc range when that flank fully turned to face him, that dispersal route opened.

Dasang’s formation held its range, keeping the road, keeping the enemy’s front fixed in place while the eastern steppe gave nothing back.

The answer to that question was somewhere out there in the dust Kerei had raised, moving at full pace across ground that gave back no signal yet of whether it had reached its position.