Tatar Storm

He bent iron with his bare hands. At the tournament in Cologne, he stood against some of Europe’s finest knights—and triumphed. But nothing could prepare him for the storm riding out of the East. When an archaeologist at a modern-day construction site discovers a copper-bound door bearing the double seal of King Béla IV, she uncovers the last testimony of a vanished world. Inside a sealed chest lie ancient parchments: the chronicle of Detre, son of Máté, a Hungarian knight who witnessed the year his kingdom was brought to the brink of annihilation. Detre is twenty-five, a loyal vassal of King Béla IV. His strength is legendary, and his skill with weapons has won admiration far beyond Hungary. Yet at the marsh-ringed stronghold of Göd, it is not an enemy blade that conquers him, but Noémi, the beautiful daughter of Lord Sebred. In a few peaceful days, love takes root, a shared future begins to unfold, and Detre discovers something worth more than all his victories. But beyond the Verecke Pass in the Carpathians, Batu Khan is coming. The Mongol warriors do not fight by the laws of chivalry. They are swift, disciplined, and merciless. They do not seek single combat, and every retreat is bait, every apparent weakness a trap. By the time Hungary’s nobles understand the enemy before them, villages are burning, unburied bodies line the roads, and the destruction reaches the woman Detre loves. From that moment, the knight must defend his king, his homeland, and the woman to whom he has pledged his life. He pursues a ruthless renegade knight, crosses marshes and ravaged countryside, swims the flooded Sajó River under cover of darkness, infiltrates the Mongol camp disguised as a slave, and enters the hell of the Battle of Mohi—where he witnesses the proud army of the Kingdom of Hungary being torn apart. But Mohi is only the beginning. As King Béla flees and Batu Khan’s armies pour across the kingdom, Detre returns to Göd. In a timber-and-earth stronghold surrounded by marshland, a handful of soldiers, peasants, women, and children must face the most formidable war machine of the medieval world. Outside: thousands of Mongol warriors, siege engines, fire arrows, and ruthless cunning. Inside: wounded defenders, dwindling food, bitter cold, and fading hope. When winter freezes the marsh that once protected them, their refuge becomes a death trap. The siege drags on for months, and Detre slowly realizes that the fortress may already be beyond saving. But he can still prevent the courage, love, and sacrifice of its people from vanishing without a trace. And so he begins to write—so that if they fall, someone, someday, will know how they lived, how they loved, and how they died standing in the path of the storm. Tatar Storm is not a dry, distant account of the Mongol invasion. Rooted in real historical events and rich in authentic medieval detail, it is a cinematic epic of love, brotherhood, sacrifice, and a nation’s will to survive. Kings and khans, Templar knights and nameless defenders are brought together as one of the most devastating campaigns in medieval European history unfolds through the eyes of a single man. For readers who crave visceral battles, an immersive medieval world, and deeply human drama—and heroes who refuse to kneel even when hope is gone—Detre’s chronicle will not let go. History remembered the names of King Béla IV and Batu Khan. Tatar Storm gives a face and a voice to those who bled between them. Open the chronicle and enter Hungary in 1241—where love, honor, and human courage stood against the full fury of an empire.