Unhorsed men yanked and sweated at the sandbags, rebuilding the walls as quickly as they could. The Mongols came again, using their horses to ride right up to the walls and then leaping over them, so that they landed tumbling. One by one, those intruders were killed, taken by the same regiment of archers who had assaulted the bridge the night before. Bela began to breathe more easily as the threat of imminent destruction receded. The walls were repaired, his enemies howling outside them. They had taken grievous losses, though nothing like his own. He thanked God he had built the camp large enough to shelter his men.

King Bela stared at the heaps of dead soldiers and horses piled around the edges. They were thick with shafts, some still twitching. The sun was high and he could not believe the time had passed so quickly since the first alarms.

From the back of his horse, he could see the Mongols were still pressing close to the walls. There was only one true gate and he sent archers to cover it against another attack. He saw Von Thuringen gather the knights there in a column and Bela could only watch as they pulled down their visors and readied lances. At a bellow from Von Thuringen, the gate was pulled open. Almost six hundred kicked their chargers into a gallop and rode out into the storm. Bela thought he would not see them again.

He had the wits to send archers to every wall with full quivers. All around him, the snap of bows began and he breathed faster as he heard guttural yells from outside. The Teutonic Knights were in their element, slicing through the Mongol riders, using weight and speed to cut them down as they roared and screamed outside the sandbag walls. Bela could hardly control his fear. Inside the camp, men and horses roiled in a crush, but a great part of his army had been slaughtered in their sleep. Outside, Bela heard the jeers and whoops of the Mongols suddenly choked off as Von Thuringen battered through them. He felt himself grow cold. He would not escape from this place. They had trapped him and he would die with the rest.

It seemed an age before Von Thuringen came back through the gate. The gleaming column of knights had been reduced to no more than eighty, perhaps a hundred. The men who returned were battered and bloody, many of them reeling in their saddles with arrows sticking out of their armour. The Magyar horsemen were in awe of the knights and many of them dismounted to help them down from the saddle. Von Thuringen's huge beard was stained with rusty blood and he looked like some dark god, his blue eyes furious as they fell on the Hungarian king.

Bela needed guidance and he returned the gaze like a deer staring helplessly at a lion. Through the heaving mass of men, Conrad von Thuringen came riding, the marshal's face as grim as his own. Batu was panting as he rode up to Tsubodai. The orlok stood by his horse on a ridge of land that stretched across the battlefield, watching the battles he had ordered. Batu had expected the orlok to be furious at the way the attack had gone, but instead Tsubodai smiled to see him. Batu rubbed at a clot of mud sticking to his neck and returned the smile uncertainly.

'Those knights are impressive,' Batu said.

Tsubodai nodded. He had seen the bearded giant throw his men back. The Mongol warriors had been too close, unable to manoeuvre when the knights came charging out. Even so, the sudden attack had been unnerving for its discipline and ferocity. The knights had hacked their way through his men like tireless butchers, closing the gaps in their own ranks as arrows found them and sent them falling to the ground. Each one that fell took two or three warriors with him, grunting and kicking out until he was held and cut.

'There are not so many now,' Tsubodai replied, though the attack had shaken his certainties. He had not dismissed the threat of the knights, but perhaps he had underestimated their strength in the right time and place. That bearded maniac had found the moment, surprising his tuman just as they were howling for victory. Still, only a few knights made it back. When the volleys of arrows began to snap out from the walls, Tsubodai had given the order to retreat out of range. His own warriors had begun to return the shafts, but the deaths were unequal as Bela's archers shot from behind a stable wall of sandbags. For an instant, Tsubodai had considered another charge to break the walls, but the cost would have been too high. He had them inside their own walls, weaker than any Chin fortress. He doubted they had enough water for so many crammed into the camp.

The orlok stared out across the plains with its heaps of bodies, some still crawling. The attacks had smashed the Hungarian army, shattering their overconfidence at last. He was pleased, but he bit his lip as he pondered how to finish the work.

'How long can they hold?' Batu asked suddenly, echoing his thoughts so closely that Tsubodai looked at him in surprise.

'A few days before their water runs out, no more,' he said. 'But they will not wait until then. The question is how many men and horses, how many arrows and lances, they have left. And how many of those cursed knights.'

It was hard to make a good estimate. The grasslands were littered with the dead, but he could not know how many had survived to reach their king. He closed his eyes for a moment, summoning up the image of the land as if he flew above it. His ragged conscripts were still across the river, no doubt staring balefully at the small contingent who had forced the bridge and held the other side. The king's camp lay between Tsubodai and the river, trapped and held in one spot.

Once again, Batu had mirrored his thoughts.

'Let me send a messenger to bring the foot soldiers back across the river,' Batu said.

Tsubodai ignored him. He did not yet know how many of his Mongol warriors had been killed or wounded that morning. If the king had saved even half his army, he would have enough left to force a battle on equal terms, a battle that Tsubodai could only win by throwing his tumans in hard. The precious army he had brought on the great trek would be reduced, battered against an enemy of equal strength and will. It would not do. He thought furiously, opening his eyes to stare at the land around the camp. Slowly he smiled, and this time Batu was not there before him.

'What is it, orlok? Shall I send a messenger across the river ford?'

'Yes. Tell them to slaughter the king's men across the river. We must retake that bridge, Batu. I do not want the king sending men to the river for water.'

Tsubodai tapped his boot on the ridge beneath him. 'When that is done, I will pull my tumans further back, another mile from this point. Thirst will make their decision for them.'

Batu could only look on in confusion as Tsubodai showed his teeth in what might have been a grin.