After the battle, Ivar sought Rurik out.
"Your stratagem was sound," he admitted, "but I've spotted one flaw that cannot be avoided. The wagon-fort is sluggish. If the nomads simply pack up and move, how do we give chase?"
Rurik offered a seemingly reasonable answer:
Nomad flocks breed in autumn and lamb in spring. Newborns need the better part of a year to grow strong enough to endure their first bitter winter. A lamb born in spring stands a far greater chance of survival than one born in late summer or autumn.
And now it was late April. The Pechenegs' ewes had only just birthed their young. To abandon camp would mean leaving behind both lambs and exhausted mothers. No, they would not flee; they would hunker down.
"I see." Ivar's pale-green eyes glimmered with admiration, curiosity tugging at the corners. "How in Odin's name did you think of that?"
Rurik shrugged. "A bard once mentioned it. I merely remembered."
In truth, it was a tactic of Ming frontier armies, who struck nomads in the spring when mares and ewes were weakened after birthing—a campaign style known as 'raiding the nest'. Combined with autumn grass-burnings and bans on the iron trade, it had sapped the strength of northern tribes with devastating effect. The dynasty's miscalculation lay elsewhere: ignoring the rising threat of the hunting tribes in Manchuria, a neglect that would one day doom them.
By noon of the next day, they reached a Pecheneg camp beside a lake. Wagons had been drawn into a shallow palisade, a ditch scraped outside it—a makeshift fortification.
But their strength was spent. Barely one hundred and twenty defenders remained, many of them grey-haired elders or smooth-cheeked boys.
"Such rabble dare resist?" Ivar scoffed.
Rurik gave the order. The war-band formed a shield wall, pressing forward step by steady step while fifty archers loosed shafts overhead to sap enemy resolve.
When the wall reached the camp's edge, the nomads' courage collapsed. Save for the chief and a few loyal men who fell fighting, the rest scattered with their families. Some might be accepted into other tribes. More would wither on the steppe, their bones left for the ravens.
Rurik took no part in the plunder. He sat alone on the grass, reflecting. A man out of time, he could not be content as a mere swordsman. He sought always the eye of a commander.
"The last battle proved it," he mused. "Light cavalry with sabers and short bows cannot break disciplined infantry. Yet history says cavalry triumphed—Mongols above all. How?"
He gathered pebbles, laying them out as pieces in a game. If he were the horse-lord, how to pierce this hedgehog wall?
Archery harassment? No—mounted bows lacked the range, power, accuracy.
Artillery? Impossible, not with this age's metalwork.
After half an hour's thought, his conclusion was grim: only armored heavy cavalry, charging straight into the shield wall, could shatter order. Sacrifice some to break formation—then the light horse could reap the rest.
His meditation was cut short when Ivar came bounding up, flushed with glee.
"Fortune smiles on us! These nomads had plundered six caravans. All the goods stacked in one tent—Rurik says it would fill three ships. We're rich!"
Rurik followed him and lifted a flap. Inside lay heaps of white pelts, tossed carelessly. A quarter were ruined—mildewed, gnawed by mice, or rotting from poor storage.
"That's not all," Ivar said, leading him to the chief's tent. There, in a chest hidden in the corner, lay a trove of amber.
Rurik picked up a large piece and held it to the sun. Warm and luminous—worth a fortune. At the bottom of the chest lay a ring, Greek letters etched inside its band.
Later, with a Rus tribesman to read it, Rurik learned the name: Bardas.
"Bardas? Was there such a man in history?" he murmured.
Under interrogation, a captive admitted their band had slain a traveling party half a year past—a Greek noble among them, guarded by more than a dozen Rus mercenaries.
Alarm prickled at Rurik. "And what did they take?"
"Some letter," the captive answered offhand. "None of us could read it. The chief tossed it into the fire."
"Burned?" Rurik could scarce believe it. Questioning others brought the same reply. He was forced to set aside his unease—for now—and turn to the division of spoils.
The haul was staggering. The Rus chieftain, pleased beyond measure, declared the furs and amber to Rurik's company, keeping only horses and sheep for his people. He promised, too, to build three fine new ships and send fifteen men to aid in transport.
Among the traders themselves, all agreed on equal shares.
Ivar raised his cup. "That iron sword of mine's shattered. They say the eastern folk are masters of the forge. I'll buy myself a weapon worthy of song."
"I've heard the farthest East spins a wondrous cloth—silk," said Nils, eyes bright with longing. "I'll bring some back for Princess Eve." The man nursed a hopeless passion for King Erik's youngest daughter, and dreamed of silk as his token.
The talk grew raucous as the drink flowed. Rurik noticed Rurik's silence and smirked.
"What's this? Longing for a fair-skinned slave? Shall I lend you the silver?"
Rurik shook his head. "No. I think only of our quarry."
For all their victories, the journey had left him weary in body and spirit. And ahead loomed the true challenge: finding Lord Borg amid the teeming hundreds of thousands in Constantinople—a task near hopeless without official aid.
For two months they lingered in rare peace. Rurik, with little else to do, took archery lessons from Nils, but proved no marksman; what skill he had lay in the sword.
By July, they set out again. The Dnieper ran full in summer, the waters swift but naRurikable. With ease, the ships slipped to the river's mouth.
"What black waters!" Rurik exclaimed, trailing his hand in the surf. "No wonder they call it the Black Sea."
At the captain's order he bent to the oars, and the ship made for a nearby Greek settlement to rest.
Before they docked, Rurik warned them:
"The Greeks built enclaves along the northern coast, trading for grain, honey, and slaves. Their rules are many, their tempers sharp. Cause no trouble."