Chapter 191: End of Volga Bulgaria
The passage was three meters of dark and the courtyard at its far end was bright spring noon. Temur drove into it at pace because there was no room to stop.
The first shaft came from the lean-to on the east wall before his horse had fully went through the passage mouth, aimed at the exit.
It went into the right shoulder low, the horse checking hard against it and stumbling two strides sideways on the stone before Temur drove it left with his heels to push through the exit.
His arban rider coming through behind him took the second shaft through the upper thigh and made a grunt through clenched teeth and kept his horse moving.
The courtyard opened ahead. Twenty-five meters of paving to the back wall.
The defenders spread out in the space, some in the open and two at the lean-to on the east wall. The emir was already at the back with the five personal guards still around him, one hand on his arm, moving him backward toward the wall without turning away from the fight.
Goru came through the passage and his horse took a shaft through the ear on the exit, the point driving through the skull, and the horse screamed and turned hard right on its own.
He let it carry him along the east wall until it stopped and he drew from horseback in that position.
Temur drew his bow and put the first shaft into the near lean-to defender through the chest. The man’s hands went to the shaft and he went back into the lean-to rear wall, hit it and dropped there.
The courtyard archers released continuously, each man on his own timing, the arrows coming without pause.
A shaft found Temur’s left forearm, entering the outer muscle and coming out with both ends exposed. The pain came from the wrist to the elbow and locked his draw hand for one second.
Then he made a short cry, transferred the bow to his right hand, drew one-handed and released into the nearest open-position archer. The accuracy was not what it had been. He released again.
Juqa was on his left and a shaft from the west found his neck below the left ear, through the muscle with the artery intact. He locked his jaw against it and kept firing back, the blood running down his neck and spreading into the coat beneath.
The open-position archer in the center of the courtyard took a shaft through the throat from one of the arban riders, the point going clean through.
The lean-to’s second archer managed one more release before Goru put a shaft through his shoulder from along the east wall, the joint giving under it, the draw dropping out of him, his arm hanging useless but the man still alive behind the lean-to’s lip.
Seven defenders left across the courtyard. The five personal guards still flanking the emir at the wall did not fire.
Temur drove forward.
Juqa’s horse dropped halfway across the paving.
The lean-to’s wounded man had one more release in his left hand and he put the shaft through the base of the horse’s skull as Juqa was crossing the open ground. The horse went forward and down without warning, chest-first into the stone.
Juqa was thrown over the neck, hit the paving on his forearms, rolled, came up with his saber and kept moving on foot.
Goru drove further into the leftmost personal guard, the horse’s shoulder hitting the man and pressing him hard into the wall.
The guard found his footing and drove a short sword up between the iron plates at Goru’s right side, a thrust into the gap at the ribs.
Goru locked his teeth and cut at the man’s neck on the second swing. The blade went deep and the guard went against the stone, sliding down.
Goru kept his seat with one hand pressed against his right side.
Temur drove at the emir. He let the remaining garrison soldiers in the courtyard for his arban to deal with.
Two personal guards set their weapons at mounted height. He pulled right to take the first spear off center and the blade scored along his horse’s neck. The horse turned from the graze, and on the return cut he found the guard’s back between the shoulder blades and the man went forward and down onto the paving.
The second guard drove at his horse’s flank and Temur cut across the man’s forearm before the blade reached the horse, opening it from wrist toward elbow, and the guard dropped to one knee.
Goru came past from the left and put the blade through the kneeling man’s neck from behind.
Buras drove a right-handed thrust through the ribs of the personal guard in the east of the wall and the man folded around the wound and went down.
One of the arban riders cut a standing guard across the throat as the man turned.
Another unnamed rider pressed one guard against the wall with his horse’s weight.
Buras’s horse took a spear through the chest in the fight, the remaining personal guard driving it in from the side as the horse turned. The horse buckled forward and Buras came off it, hitting the stone on his knees and pushing himself upright.
A blade had found his face in the fall, a shallow cut across the left cheek, and the blood ran freely down into his beard.
He put his right hand on his saber and drove the blade through the man who’d speared his horse before the man had pulled the spear back, the thrust going in below the sternum, and the man fell against the wall.
The courtyard was done.
Juqa stood on the paving near the south wall, on foot, his neck wound spreading dark into his collar.
Goru sat on his horse with one hand pressed against his right side.
Buras stood on foot with blood running down his face.
Temur faced them with the shaft still through his forearm, both ends of it still there, his right hand on the saber.
The emir stood at the wall, his back against the wood and his hands at his sides. He was looking at Temur.
Juqa struggled to say, "Does Batu Khan need him alive?"
Temur looked at the emir. Batu had made the decision for Temur once, when Temur had a name worth burning and a chain Batu needed both ends of.
The city was taken and the administration after it would be Batu’s, and there was nothing in the emir worth keeping him alive.
"No," Temur said.
Then he killed him.
The blade went through the emir’s throat.
He went down with his back against the wood and his hands going to his throat.
Temur looked at his arban and turned toward the passage back through the building.
Through the hall’s open far end the smoke above Bulgar’s streets was visible, flat where the wind finally found it and spreading across the sky above the walls.
The city burned. The garrison was finished. The campaign had its base on the Upper Volga and everything that had stood against it here was done.
Temur rode back through the dark of the passage.
