Chapter 233: Beneath the Golden Dome

After the fight at the gate, Orkhon had gone to the physician station with his forearm wrapped in whatever cloth a nearby rider had been able to spare. Gal hadn’t seen him since.

He took stock of what remained of the arban. Nasan, Chaqu, himself, four others and the horse wounded during the breach. The animal was still moving well enough, but every turn dragged it left. The injury was affecting its control. If the fighting continued, he would need a fresh mount before the day was over.

They rode north into the city with forty riders from the formation.

Destruction had already spread through the streets. Wood cracked somewhere ahead. Men shouted in Mongolian from several directions. Fires had begun chewing through the nearest buildings. Riders moved block by block through the city in an organized sweep, every group tearing apart a different section at the same time.

The first building they attacked stood three blocks north of the gate on a narrow side street. It was a two-story timber structure. The door had been barred from inside, and the upper shutters were closed.

The riders had already entered the street before the shutters were shut. Someone inside had seen them coming and chosen to stay.

Gal sent two riders around the back and broke the door himself.

The ground floor held a hearth, a low table, and the smell of a room abandoned only moments before.

One man with a hatchet moved the instant the door burst open. Broad-shouldered, thick through the arms and chest, he looked like someone who had spent his entire life working with his hands. He didn’t hesitate. Before advancing, he barked a single word toward the people behind him.

"Begite!"

Two older figures in the rear of the room reacted at once and hurried for the back door.

The man’s first swing targeted the rider entering ahead of Gal. The hatchet slammed into the rider’s forearm, scraping along bone and drawing blood, but the cramped doorway stole power from the strike. The rider stumbled back.

Gal stepped through the opening.

The hatchet was already coming around again, but Gal had closed the distance. Inside the weapon’s reach, the advantage changed hands. His saber flashed across the outside of the man’s wrist. Tendons split. Blood sprayed across the floorboards. The hatchet slipped from numb fingers and clattered to the ground.

The man reacted instantly.

Before Gal could finish the return stroke, a left fist crashed into his face. The blow hammered across his cheekbone with the strength of years of labor behind it.

Gal absorbed it and completed the cut.

The saber struck below the man’s left ear. Steel tore through muscle and deep into the neck. A sheet of dark blood burst from the wound. The man’s knees folded beneath him. He dropped hard, choking on blood, then collapsed motionless.

Outside, two brief sounds came from the alley.

Then silence.

Gal moved into the rear room.

The back door stood open. Beyond it, in the alley, the two older people lay in the morning cold with arrows on their backs. The woman had made it three steps beyond the threshold. The man had made it two.

Gal returned to the front room and gave the order. Anything worth carrying was to be taken.

The building was to be burned.

Nasan emerged as one of the riders set a torch to the thatch. Smoke was already curling from the windows.

He watched it for a moment.

Nasan snorted. "That bastard could swing an axe better than half the fools I’ve seen carrying swords."

The arban continued north.

The streets widened as the residential district blended into the zone between homes and market buildings. Smoke from several separate fires was beginning to merge overhead. Gal counted at least five major columns. Their colors differed depending on what was burning. Thatch produced gray-brown smoke. Market timbers sent up darker black plumes. Something burning in the eastern blocks released smoke so black it climbed above all the others.

At one intersection, three riders from another group were looting a market building. Cloth, a chest, and smaller valuables were being dragged outside. The men worked with efficiency, aware exactly how much time they had.

They glanced up once as Gal’s group passed, saw no problem, and returned to their work.

Chaqu squinted down the street.

"Smoke’s already rising from the northern quarter," he said. "Someone beat us there."

The destruction had spread through every district at once. Riders moved through all sections of the city simultaneously.

Militia appeared everywhere, sometimes in groups, sometimes alone. Some were armed. Others had clearly been caught before they could prepare. Some fought in the streets. Others barricaded themselves inside buildings.

The arban passed the aftermath of two such encounters in a single alley. Weapons lay where men had dropped them. Nearby structures were already beginning to burn.

By the time they crossed the market district, resistance had become less common.

The fires had not.

A Rus woman suddenly ran across the street ahead of them. She sprinted east as fast as she could and never once looked back before disappearing around a corner.

Gal kept riding.

Chasing her served no purpose.

At the end of the market district, the view opened.

For the first time, the gold dome stood unobstructed by rooftops. It was closer than it had appeared from the walls. Buildings around its base were already burning.

The barricade blocked the broad street leading into the church district.

Two overturned market carts formed the center of it. Timber beams had been dragged across the width of the road to strengthen the position.

More than thirty defenders waited behind it.

Gal recognized several survivors from the druzhina who had fought at the gate. Five or six professionals held the flanks. The rest were militia carrying hunting bows and whatever weapons they had managed to gather before the city caught fire around them.

The defenders acted first.

At roughly thirty meters, a hunting bow sent an arrow into the upper neck of the horse ahead of Gal. The shaft buried itself deep. Blood sprayed from the wound. The animal collapsed chest-first without even stumbling, throwing its rider forward onto both hands.

The rider managed to stand.

The horse did not.

A second arrow came at Gal from closer range. The shot ripped through the left shoulder of his coat and scraped the armor plate beneath. The armor turned it aside, but the impact still struck hard.

Gal ignored it and continued forward.

Nasan, Chaqu, and the riders around them already had bows raised.

Nasan’s first arrow found the militia archer who had exposed himself for another shot. The shaft punched into the center of the man’s chest. He staggered backward, blood spilling down his tunic, and disappeared into the barricade.

He did not rise again.

Chaqu targeted one of the druzhina on the eastern flank. His arrow drove through the man’s right bicep. The professional soldier hissed through clenched teeth, blood running down his arm as he transferred his sword to his left hand.

He held his ground.

The charge hit the barricade at full speed.

Horses smashed through the weaker sections where the carts had not been reinforced. The left side collapsed beneath three horses at once. Defenders scattered from the impact.

The wounded druzhina on the eastern flank reacted quickly. Holding his sword in his left hand, he thrust into a gap in a passing rider’s armor near the saddle line. The blade sank deep. The rider cried out and nearly fell from the saddle, clutching at his horse’s mane to stay mounted.

The druzhina managed that single success before two arrows struck him from behind.

The impacts jerked him forward.

Moments later, riders closed around his position from every side.

The druzhina on the western flank fought just as well. He carried a shield and knew how to use it. He held his section longer than anyone else.

At one point he killed a horse outright, driving his sword upward into its neck as it reared against the remains of the barricade. Blood burst across the broken timber. The animal collapsed sideways.

Its rider hit the ground hard and struggled back to his feet.

The western defender survived only until the encirclement formed behind him. Once attacks came from multiple directions, the shield stopped mattering.

Gal felt his own horse pulling left as the charge accelerated. The wound in its neck tightened under the strain. He steered with both heels and brought the animal back into line.

The effort only confirmed what he already knew.

The horse was working harder than it should have been.

Before reaching the church, he would need another mount.

The barricade’s collapse broke the militia’s resolve.

They fled north toward the church district. The riders pursued immediately. In the hundred meters of open ground between the ruined barricade and the nearby alleys, most of the fleeing men were run down.

The street cleared.

The gold dome rose above the nearby buildings, now only a short distance away.

Gal pointed ahead.

"There’s the church. Move."

When Gal’s arban entered the square from the street, another group of roughly fifteen riders was already there.

Their horses stood still.

None of them advanced.

The reason became obvious almost immediately.

Defenders were positioned around the church entrance and near the building’s corners. Above the doorway, still visible through the smoke, Yuri Igorevich’s banner continued to fly.

One of the waiting riders turned as Gal approached.

"The Grand Prince is inside with what’s left of his men. They’ve barred the doors from the inside."

Nasan studied the banner, the entrance, and the defenders around it.

"He picked the toughest hole in the city to die in," he said. "I’ll give him that."

Gal looked at the standard above the church and then at the doors beneath it.

Yuri Igorevich’s banner still flew over the burning city.

And below it, despite everything happening around them, the church doors remained closed.