The fortification work had been running since the day after the column set camp.
The eastern and northern faces of the camp had earthworks now, low berms thrown up from the dry steppe soil with the supply train’s tools, enough to break a mounted approach into a channeled entry.
The horse lines had been extended and reorganized, remount animals separated from working horses by a clear corridor. Penk’s relay had adjusted its pattern to account for the new structure, riders moving in a tighter arc that kept the fortified faces covered at all intervals.
From the camp’s southern edge the streambed was visible as a pale depression in the flat terrain. Beyond it the steppe ran open and unbroken in every direction.
The parties had been out for a few days.
Batu rode south at first light, two hundred riders from Torghul’s third mingan with three of Siban’s n at the front.
The guides moved at a steady pace, no direction required. The approach track ran southeast from the streambed crossing, past a smaller dry channel that had been a landmark on this terrain before either force arrived.
One of Siban’s n, a lean rider who kept his horse half a length ahead of them without being told, took them off the track at a low rise and cut east across open ground.
Bayan had joined the party at Kirsa’s recomndation. He rode the right edge, reading the terrain at each interval, checking the sight line to the south. He said nothing and required no direction.
The site was four hours southeast of the crossing.
They found the militia an hour before it.
Thirty riders ca off a slight rise ahead of the party, moving fast, already in a line. They had been waiting at the rise, which ant soone had seen the party at the crossing or on the approach track and had ridden ahead.
Thirty n against two hundred. The line was dressed and the riders held their spacing. n who had run drills, if not many engagents.
Thirty riders against two hundred, and they held their line.
Batu read it from behind the forward riders. The militia had the rise and the sight line. They had neither the depth nor the numbers.
The forward riders moved up without breaking pace. The militia sent the first volley early. The range cost it accuracy and the shafts ca in scattered and high, most falling short or wide.
One found a horse in the second rank and the animal went down hard, the rider rolling clear.
The forward riders returned it at eighty ters. The release was flat and continuous, and the militia line took it across its full width. Multiple riders went down. A horse broke from the line and ran east with nothing to direct it. The remaining n reset.
They sent a second volley, lower this ti, the range closing fast. A rider to Batu’s left took a shaft in the shoulder and held his position, the horse adjusting under him.
Another shaft struck the ground two ters ahead and stood upright, still shaking.
The forward riders kept closing.
The militia sent a third volley and then the range was gone.
The collision was brief and one-sided. The militia’s line held for the first press and then broke at the right end where the depth behind the forward riders ca through.
The n at the break had nothing behind them and the depth rode through without slowing. Three riders broke and ran. The rest ca off their horses or were cut down in the press. The whole exchange lasted less than five minutes.
Two Jochid riders were down. A jaghun commander nad Dostal arrived at Batu’s position when it stopped.
"Two down," he said. "One dead. One wounded, can ride."
"Continue."
The stores were at a cluster of low structures below the next rise, set into the ground on the south side for insulation, the way winter stores were built throughout this region. Several had been partially opened already, grain sacks moved to the approach path, animals driven into a holding area.
A few people were still near the structures when they arrived. They moved away fast and were not pursued.
The n went to work.
Batu sat his horse at the rise and watched what happened next.
The grain ca out in sacks loaded across the pack animals they had brought for the purpose. The animals in the holding area were driven north. What could be carried was carried.
Smoke rose from one of the smaller structures at the edge of the cluster, the kind that ca from dry material ignited quickly.
He had known what a Mongolian force did on enemy ground before he ordered the first party out. That knowledge ca from the life before this one, from histories and from the specific vocabulary of what armies did to civilian populations when commanders permitted it.
The riders below him were inside the raiding order and had been since the battle.
Pulling them back to clean conduct on Berke’s pasture line was a decision he could make and it was the wrong one, because n who had fought and were now on enemy ground needed what ca next to be the work.
Discipline and edge required different handling, and stripping the second to preserve the first was a calculation that did not hold on open steppe with winter coming.
He catalogued instead. Two large grain stores stripped. One smaller structure burned. The animal count would go to Khulgen’s tally when the party returned.
The structures at the near edge had held tools and winter equipnt. So of it was on pack horses now.
Berke’s reserves north of the streambed were being removed section by section, each one taking what the previous had left.
The stores on this ground would be empty before the week was done.
Dostal brought the column to order when the work finished. The riders assembled without hurry, pack animals laden, the driven herd moving north ahead of them. Bayan ca back from the right flank where he had been watching the southern approach the whole ti.
"Clean to the south," he said.
Batu turned his horse north.
The smoke kept rising into the flat sky behind them. On the far side of the streambed the Jochid camp was visible as a dark line against the pale terrain, the earthworks on its northern face catching the afternoon light.
The supply run was still north of the river. What this party carried back would go into Khulgen’s accounting and extend the window by however many days the load produced.
Sowhere south of the streambed, Berke was sitting with a picture of his ground that was no longer accurate. His reserves were being stripped. His traders were operating under terms he had not written.
His territory was being used against him while he pondered whether the loyalty of the three clans would hold through winter.
Each day that passed without the choking breaking and without a second engagent resolving anything was a day lighter on that side.
The river corridor would show what it was worth before long.
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