Four days after Batu told Subutai there was nothing they could plan around, he sent a rider through the camp to find Siban.
The convoy bound for Sarai had already gone two days before, carrying the last of Kiev's counted tribute east under heavy guard. Work crews still moved through the districts the fires had not finished eating, and thin smoke kept rising from rooftops no one had reached yet.
Those problems were no longer his concern.
This one was.
He had not lied to Subutai. There truly had been nothing Subutai could prepare for. That did not mean there was nothing to prepare. It only meant Subutai was not the man who needed to hear it.
Memory gave him the answer.
He remembered enough from another life to know how this kind of uncertainty could slip out of hand when no one moved soon enough. Delay had handed the advantage to the wrong men before the mourning was even over.
He had no intention of letting history wander down that road again.
