Reincarnated as Genghis Khan's Grandson, I Will Not Let It Fall

The smoke from Ryazan became visible ten kilometers before the city. From outside the walls, Batu could already see that the separate columns had joined high overhead, forming a single gray-black mass that stretched north and east with the wind.

Relay reports had arrived throughout the assault, about the earthwork breach, the fight at the gate, the raze advancing district by district, the church secured, the prince dead inside it.

The smoke matched every report. Nothing he saw suggested otherwise.

The first city of a Rus principality marked on the campaign map had fallen within the time the logistics planners had expected. No relief force had arrived from Vladimir or Chernigov.

Before noon, the nearby cities would send a rider north carrying news of Ryazan’s fate. Every principality that received that news would face the same problem and make its own decision. Most people, given enough information and enough pressure, reached the same conclusion.

Ryazan existed to provide that lesson.

Batu rode Daichin through the gate.

The streets immediately beyond the main gate were wide enough for the Khar Kheshig to keep formation on either side of him. The dead here belonged to the gate fight. Druzhina warriors and townspeople lay where the battle had overtaken them, some sprawled in widening pools of dried blood, others twisted around shattered shields and broken spears. At distance, fallen horses marked places where mounts had gone down during the assault and had not yet been removed.

The smell carried information of its own. Burning timber dominated it, but beneath that lingered the sharper residue of the pitch compounds used by the projectors against the palisade. Hours had passed since the fire, yet the scent remained trapped in the stone and packed earth around the gate.

Farther inside the city, the sounds changed.

The concentrated noise of battle had ended. In its place came the scattered activity of a trained army carrying out standing orders across a large area. Doors being forced open. Fires burning through buildings on both sides of the street. Riders moving through their routes. Civilians being escorted toward collection points.

Each sound fit a rhythm he recognized.

Suuqai rode on Batu’s left.

"They’re sorting them faster than they did at Bulgar. The men are used to the work now."

Batu kept his attention on the street ahead. The reports had identified the market square as the largest extraction site. That was where he intended to begin his inspection.

The market square contained the largest concentration of survivors left from the morning. The perimeter had been divided into three sections. One held those already assessed and approved for extraction. Another processed those still under review. The third contained those whose assessment had ended differently.

The approved group was substantial. Hours of continuous evaluation, conducted both in the square and at dozens of collection points across the city, had created results.

At the nearest station, a Mongol officer worked through the process efficiently.

People passed through the same sequence. Hands inspected first, then possessions, then a short conversation through an interpreter. Most continued in one direction. A few were redirected into the approved group.

One woman approached the station without an escort. She appeared to be in her mid-forties, broad-shouldered, with heavy callouses along the insides of her thumbs and the outer heels of her palms.

Batu recognized the signs.

Years of delivery work.

Instead of waiting for an interpreter, she spoke broken Mongolian. Not enough for a conversation, but enough to identify her function.

Midwife.

She listed three specific capabilities.

The officer glanced at Batu, who was nearby.

"Says she’s a midwife and can handle difficult births. Worth keeping?"

Batu watched her.

She had observed the sorting process, understood its purpose, and identified the fastest way to demonstrate her value. No one had instructed her to do it. She had reached the conclusion herself.

There was also the fact her competence fit a demand he had.

"She qualifies. Put everything she knows into the extraction record. All of it."

The officer made the notation and directed her toward the approved group. She went without hesitation or ceremony.

A rider from the northern section arrived at the square and delivered a message. The report moved through the chain quickly.

When it reached them, the rider said, "Three groups found in the next quarter. Scribes, metalworkers, and two physicians. We’re ahead of the numbers we had at Bulgar."

Batu compared the size of the approved group against the city’s estimated population.

The difference was significant.

Ryazan had resisted to the end. That meant fewer skilled workers had survived than would have survived in a city that surrendered early. That much was obvious.

The decision behind the raze order never changed.

Every hour gained by defenders increased the cost paid by the population that remained afterward. The next city that made the decision correctly would see the numbers and choose submission.

He noted the result and continued.

The building where Evpraksia of Ryazan was being held stood on the eastern side of the square. She was the wife of Fyodor Yuryevich, son of the Grand Prince, who had died before the siege walls had even been fully manned during the battle at the Voronezh.

She was perhaps twenty years old.

Since her capture, she had refused to surrender the infant in her arms. Izyaslav, six months old, born into a city that had already been fated to this outcome when its prince chose resistance.

Two guards stood outside the entrance. Two more waited within.

She looked directly at Batu when he entered the room.

He immediately identified what he did not see.

Not fear. Not submission.

Before anyone else could speak, she addressed him in Rus. Her voice was strong and formal, using the tone of noble ceremonial speech.

"Proklyatye poganye! Za krov’ Fyodora, za krov’ Ryazani, Bozhe nakarayet vas! Vy ubili nashikh lyudey, otvechayte za eto krov’yu vashey!"

The words came steadily.

It was a curse that had been carefully constructed according to the traditions she had been taught for moments like this. Cursed pagans. For the blood of Fyodor. For the blood of Ryazan. God would punish them. They had killed her people and would answer for it with their own blood.

She held Izyaslav against her chest and delivered every line while looking straight at Batu.

Then came the names of the dead.

Fyodor’s name twice. Others followed. Men and women Batu did not recognize. People she had known personally and could still name.

She never asked for mercy.

She never asked for anything.

Batu allowed her to finish. A interpreter translated her words to him.

Her choice made sense. Every other authority had been stripped away. This was the one form of authority still available to her. She used the language, traditions, and formal structure her culture had prepared for exactly such a moment.

Batu considered the fact the same way he considered everything else he had seen in the city.

"Carry out the order."

Then he turned and walked out of the merchant’s house into the square.

Briefly, they were brought out to the square and executed publicly.

By the time he reached the far side of the square, the smoke above the city remained unchanged.

The church stood at the end of the street north of the market square. Since the siege began, its gold dome had served as a point visible from every road leading to the city.

Now it loomed directly ahead.

The nearby buildings were nearly finished burning. The church itself remained intact because the assault had entered it before the fire orders reached that area. Once troops were committed inside, the fire plan no longer applied.

Torghul waited at the edge of the church square when Batu arrived.

His gaze went from the dome to Batu.

"The last districts will be done by nightfall. What are we leaving standing?"

Batu studied the building.

The gold dome. Stone walls. Heavy timber.

The structure would likely outlast every fire surrounding it. Years after the army departed, it would still remain.

The problem had two parts.

One concerned material value, of the treasury, the accumulated wealth, the icons and metalwork.

The other concerned administration. What the church represented to the Rus population and how it functioned within that society.

The answers might not be the same.

He kept both possibilities open while considering them.

Before he reached a conclusion, a relay rider entered the square. The rider reported first to the relay officer. The message then advanced through the chain at the pace the system had been designed to maintain.

The message came from Nüden.

The first section reported that Gleb Andreyich had been located in the northern quarter, alive and under Nüden protection according to the standing arrangement.

The second section reported that Nüden’s network in the Pronya tributary region had identified four minor noble households. Their lands remained intact and their senior men had not reached Vladimir. Preliminary assessments suggested they would accept tributary terms rather than continue resistance if negotiations came through a recognized local intermediary.

That intermediary was identified as Gleb Andreyich.

The relay officer waited.

Batu looked at the church for a moment longer, then turned toward him. "I want Andreyich in the camp before evening. Send the four names to record and make contact with each household before we march."

The relay officer acknowledged the order and departed immediately.

Behind him, the church’s gold dome still rose above the burning city.

The question of what should be done with the building remained exactly where Batu had left it.