Time’s Eye

Abdikadir had never been a zealot. But now he discovered in himself a passion to put history right. This time Islam would be saved from the Mongol catastrophe, and be reborn. But this wretched war had to be won first—at any cost.

It was comforting, he thought, in the confusion left by the Discontinuity, to have something to do: a goal of unambiguous value to aim at. Or maybe he was just rediscovering his own Macedonian blood.

He wondered what Casey would say to all this—Casey the jock Christian, born in Iowa in 2004, now caught between armies of Mongols and Macedonians, in a time that had no date. “A good Christian soldier,” Abdikadir murmured, “is only ever a klick away from Heaven.” He smiled to himself.

***

Kolya had lain in his hole in the ground under Genghis’s yurt for three days—three days, blind and deaf and in agonizing pain. And yet he lived. He could even sense the passage of time by the vibration of the feet on the floorboards above him, footsteps coming and going like a tide.

If the Mongols had searched him they would have found the plastic bag of water under his vest, the sips of which had kept him alive so long—and the one other item that this great gamble had been all about. But they had not searched him. A gamble, yes, and it had paid off, at least so far.

He had known far more about the Mongols than Sable ever could, for he had grown up with their memory, eight centuries old yet still potent. And he had heard of Genghis’s habit of sealing enemy princes under the floor of his yurt. So Kolya had leaked what information he could to Casey, knowing he would be caught; and, once caught, he had let the treacherous Sable manipulate the Mongols into granting him this “merciful” release. All he had wanted was to be here in the dark, still alive, holding the device he had made, just a meter or so from Genghis Khan.

The Soyuz had not carried any grenades, which would have been ideal. But there were unused explosive bolts. The Mongols would not have recognized what he had brought out of the spacecraft, even had they been watching him carefully. Sable would have known, of course, but in her arrogance she had assumed Kolya was an irrelevance, not capable of hindering her own ambitions. Disregarded, it had been a simple matter for Kolya to rig up a simple trigger, and to conceal his improvised weapon.

He had to wait for the right time to strike. That was why he had had to wait, in the dark and the agony. Three days —it was like surviving three days beyond his own death. But how odd that his body kept functioning, that he had to urinate and even defecate, as if the body thought his story had an epilogue. But these were like the twitches of a fresh corpse, he thought, of a manikin, meaningless in themselves.

Three days. But Russians were patient. They had a saying: that the first five hundred years are always the worst.

***

First light gathered. The Macedonians started to move around, coughing, rubbing their eyes, urinating. Abdikadir sat up. The pink-gray of the brightening sky was oddly beautiful, scattered sunlight against volcano ash clouds, like cherry blossom scattered on pumice.

But he had only moments of peace after waking.

First and last light are the most dangerous times for a soldier, when the eye struggles to adjust to fast-changing light. And, in that moment of maximum vulnerability, the Mongols struck.

They had approached the Macedonian positions in silence. Now the great naccara called out, their camel-borne war drums, and the Mongols surged forward, screaming wildly. The sudden eruption of noise was bloodcurdling, as if some immense force of nature was approaching, a flood or a landslide.

But the Macedonians’ trumpet peals followed only a heartbeat later. Soldiers rushed to their positions. There were brisk commands in the Macedonians’ harsh dialect: Form up, hold your position, hold the line! The Macedonian infantry, eight deep, made a wall of hardened leather and iron.

Alexander had, of course, been prepared. Anticipating this assault, he had let his foe approach as close as he dared. Now was the time to spring his trap.

Abdikadir took his place, three ranks back from the front. To either side were nervous Tommies. Catching their glances, Abdikadir forced a smile and raised his Kalashnikov.

He got his first good look at a Mongol warrior through a gun sight.

The Mongols’ heavy cavalry was at the center of the charge, with the light cavalry following behind. They wore body armor made of strips of buffalo leather, and metal helmets with leather guards over their necks and ears. Each man was loaded with weapons: two bows, three quivers, a lance with a vicious-looking hook on the end, an axe, a curved saber. Even the horses were armored, with broad leather sheets that guarded their sides, and metal caps on their heads. The Mongols, carapaced, bristling with weapons, looked more insectile than human.