by Mark Teppo
Master Chucai leaped to his feet and raced to the entrance of the ger. He clawed open the flaps and rushed out. His primary concern was the Khagan’s ger, and he quickly ascertained that it was undamaged and that the figures milling around it were the Imperial Guard. He was too far away to make out individuals among the clustered guards, but he assumed Munokhoi would not tarry long at the Khagan’s ger. He will take the fight to the enemy, Chucai thought as he strode through the maze of tents and wagons. The men guarding the Khagan will be diligent, but they won’t be imaginative.
He had had some reservations about putting the hotheaded jaghun captain in charge of the entire Imperial Guard that was accompanying the caravan to Burqan-qaldun, but Ogedei had ignored his concerns. While he had no doubt Munokhoi would ruthlessly deal with the fools who had mistakenly thought they had stumbled upon a wealthy caravan, it would probably be best to ensure that the Khagan remained safe during the fracas.
Chucai came to a sudden halt. He stared at a nearby tent, watching as a trio of overdressed courtiers struggled to douse the flames slithering across the tent’s roof. Blinking his eyes clear of the dust and ash floating in the air, he slowly turned his head and carefully examined the spread of the fires throughout the camp. An idea swam in the depth of his brain, like an enormous koi in a murky pond, and he tried to remain still so as to not spook it, so that it would come to the surface where he could fully apprehend it. There was a pattern to the fires. They weren’t randomly scattered throughout the camp.
Archers, he noted, firing from an elevated position. He scanned the horizon, trying to spot some sign of where the attack had come from, but the smoke from the fires dirtied the air too much to spot any such sign. This isn’t an accident, he realized, discarding the idea that this attack had been a case of mistaken identity.
Initially, the Khagan had wanted to travel with a smaller entourage-none of his wives, a minimum of supply wagons, and only a single jaghun to protect him. The idea had been ridiculous, and Chucai had dismissed it outright, arguing that the Khagan could travel with no less than a minghan-one thousand men-as his personal security force. And, of course, a thousand men would have required a commensurate increase in supplies, which would have, in turn, increased the amount of time it would take to assemble the caravan. While Chucai thought the desire to travel to Burqan-qaldun was more than a passing fancy on the part of the Khagan, he wasn’t the sort of eager sycophant who would fail to question the ramifications of an idle whim. While the Empire was fairly safe to travel-especially in the heart of territory that had been under Mongol rule for several generations-it didn’t mean that the Khagan’s personal safety wasn’t still of paramount importance. There was always the possibility of attacks by roving bandits-clanless men who would prey on an insufficiently protected caravan or a group of nomadic herders.
But bandits didn’t announce themselves with a volley of flaming arrows. Fire would destroy the very cargo they were hoping to steal.
His own reaction to the attack had been mindless. He had leaped to a conclusion that wasn’t supported by what was actually happening around him. Wasn’t that one of the very lessons Zhu Xi sought to impart in his commentary? This attack was directed at the Khagan; the raiders knew whose caravan they were attacking. The true question-the one he should have been asking earlier-was why?
Chucai heard a distant crump of noise, and he knew at once that it was the sound of black powder igniting. Grimly, he nodded to himself as he began to walk toward the Khagan’s ger again. He wasn’t hurried. He took his time, his gaze sweeping back and forth across the chaos. His height gave him an advantage; while he couldn’t see over the tents, the scurrying frenzy of panicked courtiers and concubines and shouting soldiers did little to block his field of view. Chucai walked and watched, looking for the real reason the camp had been attacked.
If the goal of the attack was to assassinate the Khagan, then why hadn’t they set fire to the Khagan’s ger? Were their archers that unskilled? Chucai doubted that was true. In which case, the fires were a distraction, a means of splitting the Imperial Guard. But why?
Chucai cut to his right, no longer moving directly toward the Khagan’s ger. Something had caught his eye. He wasn’t sure what he had seen, and it was possible he was chasing a ghost, a writhing smoke shadow cast by firelight.
The koi was surfacing in the pond in his mind.
He caught sight of the movement again, and the feeble phantom coalesced into the dim shapes of three men, dressed in dark clothing, skulking between tents. They carried long sticks-spears, though one was longer than the other two.
“Hai!” Chucai shouted, curious to see if these phantoms would bolt like startled rabbits.
The three men froze, dark blots against the dull leather of a tent. If he hadn’t been staring right at them, he might have not seen them. During the day, they would have stood out quite plainly, but in the night-with the haze of the smoke-they were nearly invisible. Which is exactly what the fires were for, Chucai realized. Cover.
“Hai! Men of the Imperial Guard,” he bellowed, directing his voice toward the Khagan’s ger. “To me! There are assassins among us.”
The men moved, two of them sprinting off between the tents; the other man lowered his spear and charged Chucai, hoping to silence the alarm that had given them away.
Master Chucai had but a moment to ready himself. He had no weapon, and briefly he chided himself again for reacting without thinking, but then the man was upon him, screaming at him in Chinese as he thrust the spear.
Chucai flowed like a wisp of smoke, the thick sleeve of his robe sweeping up and around like a fan. Angling his body so that he became a thin reed, he felt his sleeve tug as the spear pierced the silk fabric. His hand kept moving, inscribing the course a bird makes as it dives down on a lake and scoops up an unwary fish. The bird then rises back into the sky, burdened by what it has clutched in its talons. Chucai brought his hand up and turned, feeling the Chinese man struggle to pull the spear out of his sleeve. He clenched his other hand into a fist.
The spearman looked up, a realization dawning on his face that he had underestimated the length of his opponent’s reach, and then Chucai’s fist smashed into his nose. He cried out and fell back, his hands rising to stem the sudden rush of blood.
Simultaneously with the strike to the man’s face, Chucai had closed his other hand around the shaft of the spear and yanked it free of the man’s grip. Dropping his left hand to the spear, he stepped back, whipping the spear around to catch the man under the left arm. As soon as he felt the spear bite into leather, he pulled it back. The man lowered his arms, staggering from the slice, and Chucai stabbed him in the throat.
The other two had vanished among the tents, but Chucai heard shouts coming from up ahead. His alarm had been heard. Pulling the dead man’s spear free, he ran toward the voices.
Soon enough, he caught up with the Imperial Guard. Several had bows, and their arrows had brought down one of the two skulkers. The surviving one stood near the body of his companion, an arrow jutting out of his leg. He held the approaching Mongols at bay with his long spear, and as Chucai approached, he realized the man was holding the Khagan’s spirit banner. The horsehair tassels were matted with blood and dirt, and the point of the shaft was more ornamental than deadly. What stopped the Mongols from attacking the man was a reluctance to damage the spirit banner.
Chucai hurled the spear he had taken from the Chinese man, and it struck the last Chinese man in the hip with such force that he was knocked off his feet. He landed with a thump, and when he struggled to sit up, he was immediately hit by a handful of arrows.
Chucai barked at the guards and they paused, uncertain as to the cause of his anger. Chucai approached the two Chinese men, and a quick glance verified they were both dead. “Look for others,” he snapped at the guards, shaking his head. “Try to capture one alive.”
Dead men were useless to him.
Chucai picked up the spirit banner and ran his fing
ers through its tassels, trying to untangle them. What did they want with it? he wondered. Why sacrifice themselves for a piece of wood covered with old horsehair?
He had never held the banner, much less examined it closely. It was just an old stick that Genghis had started tying horsehair to. We are horse people, he had explained to Chucai, and wherever we are, the wind will be with us too. Over time, the Khagan had added more strands to it, and Chucai had always marveled at how this simple thing had become symbolic of the prosperity of the Empire.
When he ran his hands over the banner, he noticed the texture of the wood. It felt both rough and resilient, as if it were an intricately carved piece of freshly harvested wood. He raised the staff, trying to get a better glimpse of its surface in the flickering light from the fires. His thumb encountered a rough spot, and he peered more closely at the bump.
It was a tiny scar, scabbed over with dried resin, not unlike the sort of growth that forms after a sprig has been cut from a living branch.
In a narrow depression to the east of the Khagan’s great caravan, Lian and her captor reunited with Gansukh and a few other battered Chinese soldiers. Her Chinese captor left her for a moment as he huddled together with the other soldiers, their voices low and clipped. Gansukh lay nearby, on his side, his hands bound tightly behind his back. His face was a mass of shadows and bruises, and to not look at him, Lian turned toward the Khagan’s camp. All that she could see of the great caravan were the lights of the torches and still-burning fires. The sparse grasses of the gentle slope were limned in orange-and-yellow light, like the edge of an enormous and empty stage.
“What is your name?”
Lian turned her head. The Chinese man who had held her hair was done conferring with the others, and they stood nearby, awaiting further instruction. “Lian,” she said. She inclined her head and raised an eyebrow, an imperious look that had worked well on many a sweaty and nervous official. And you are…?
“Luo Xi,” he replied. His lips pulled into a thin smile, fleeting amusement at her airs. Under the dirt and soot, he appeared to have a strong face-handsome, even, in a Southern way that Lian hadn’t seen in years, with strong cheekbones, piercing eyes, and a complexion unmarred by constant exposure to the sun and wind-the opposite of anyone from the steppes. He took off his helmet, revealing a head of thick black hair, and tucked the cap under his arm. He was trying to appear relaxed, but the way his shoulders remained stiff and hunched forward, and the restlessness of his eyes, betrayed his uncertainty.
What was he waiting for?
“I’m from Qingyuan, originally,” said Lian, sensing an opportunity to distract him. “When the Mongols came, they burned the city and took every woman and child as a slave. Many of them”-she swayed slightly, feigning dismay with little effort-“mercifully died soon thereafter. Others…lingered. I was…fortunate. I had useful skills.” She paused, knowing his eyes were on her body. “I had to teach them about Song culture.”
Luo tore his eyes away from Lian’s body and looked over at Gansukh. The captive Mongol had managed to sit up, and he looked like a hungry wolf that had been caught in a snare. Resentful, tense, and ready for any chance he got. “Did they learn?” Luo snorted.
“I would have made better progress teaching pigs.” She laughed derisively and hoped it didn’t sound forced.
“Pigs are already more civilized than these mongrels.”
Lian turned to the Chinese commander and bowed from the waist. “You have my endless gratitude for rescuing me.”
Luo acknowledged the bow with a nod and a slight, formal smile. “A lady in distress is always worth saving.”
“You are far from home, even for the sake of rescuing a lady. Or am I simply an added surprise to your glorious efforts at striking the Khagan down?”
Luo stroked his chin in an effort to hide a secret smile that wanted to spread across his face. “What is the point of killing a single Khan?” he asked. “Will these mongrels not elect another one?”
“Ah, I see you are a clever man, Commander Luo. Your actions are much too sublime and hidden for a simple girl such as myself.”
“And you are much too silver-tongued to be mistaken as such a simpleton, my lady,” Luo replied.
Lian laughed. An unexpected thrill ran through her body, making her shiver. She was very much in danger, as were these Chinese men, and yet the two of them tarried long enough to engage in trivial wordplay. Gansukh would never dream of participating in such an exchange, and it had been so long since she had been around a civilized man that she had forgotten how pleasant such company was. There was a nobility in Luo’s bearing that was unmistakably refreshing.
Luo turned away. He may have sensed the change in their conversation, and unlike Lian, he was not so starved for such talk-or perhaps the reality of their situation pressed more firmly on him than on her. “This filthy mutt,” he said, waving a hand at Gansukh, “he is a special advisor to the Khagan?”
“Indeed,” Lian replied, showing no sign of disappointment, though she felt a tiny panic in her chest. “The Khagan values him highly.”
“Why?”
“He reminds the Khagan of what he once was.”
“And what is that?”
“A man of the steppe.”
Luo laughed. “And why would the Khagan want to be reminded of that?”
Lian shrugged. “I do not know. They value all manner of strange things.”
Luo nodded, his attention turning toward the camp. “Yes,” he said, “they certainly do.” His face grew troubled, and he strode past Lian to get a better view of the camp. He turned back after a moment, and the softness in his face was gone, replaced by a hard certainty, a look Lian knew all too well.
“They have been gone too long,” he snapped at the other Chinese men. “I do not like this.” He gestured at Gansukh. “If she speaks true, then he may be of use to us. Otherwise”-he glanced at Lian-“we are all dead and our efforts have been for naught.” And the look in his eye told Lian that he would not die alone.
Gansukh saw the apprehension in Luo’s eye too, and a low chuckle rumbled out of his throat. One of the other Chinese soldiers smacked Gansukh with the butt of his spear, and the Mongol warrior fell forward, his face driving into the dirt. He rolled over onto his side, and his teeth were bared, a grimace of both pain and joy.
Lian’s heart pounded in her chest. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen. The Chinese would free her and keep Gansukh as a hostage. Given time, she was certain she could convince Luo that the young Mongol would be useful. She knew she was being naive and foolish, but despite everything-the years of captivity, the degradation of being Chucai’s slave, of being forced to teach this savage manners-she found herself reluctant to turn her back on Gansukh. He was something different in an otherwise cruel and barbaric world. She hadn’t lied to Luo; Ogedei did respect Gansukh and might even consider ransoming his return.
Luo roughly grabbed her arm, all pretense of civility gone. “Take her,” he said, shoving Lian toward his men. “And if this dog looks like it might bite, kill it.”
32
The Night of Steel and Fire
Two days later, Cnan was sitting in camp when she heard approaching hooves-a party of perhaps half a dozen. “Approaching hooves” was generally not a welcome sound in Mongol-held territory. Nevertheless, she did not even bother to look up from her mending. It would be the war party that Feronantus had sent out before dawn. They would be returning in high spirits. R?dwulf, Finn, Vera, and Istvan, accompanied by Eleazar or Percival, or whichever sentry had first detected their approach and ridden out to greet them. It was always thus. The Shield-Brethren were never surprised, never caught off guard. She was as safe in this camp as an emperor within the walls of the Forbidden City. Perhaps safer.
Which meant that she was useless, bored, and irritable.
The war party’s tale told around the cook fire was, in many respects, a repeat of the fight in the gully in which Cnan had taken part.
This time, Istvan had lured the Mongol party into the ambush. Alchiq had increased the size of such parties to a full arban and had changed their tactics.
There was no more leisurely tracking of quarry across the plain: when they had seen Istvan against the skyline, they had sent one of their number galloping straight back toward their main camp, while the other nine had come for him. But only eight had pursued the Hungarian in earnest; one other had trailed along deep in their rear. As soon as R?dwulf’s first arrow had taken the leader of the arban out of his saddle, this other had wheeled his pony and ridden for the main Mongol party.
Beyond that, it sounded not unlike the engagement Cnan had witnessed. R?dwulf ’s bow still had the power to surprise the Mongols with its range, and so he had killed a few. Vera, left without weapons, had been given a crossbow by Feronantus from a pack whose contents Cnan found wondrous indeed.
The other Mongols had tried to circle and penetrate the screen of brush in which R?dwulf had concealed himself, but Vera had killed one with a single, silent boltshot. Two more were killed at close quarters by Finn and R?dwulf while Vera went through the tedious process of redrawing and loading her weapon. A bolt in the back had taken down one horseman who had decided to flee, and Istvan had pursued the last two survivors in a running archery battle across the steppe, eventually killing one with an arrow and the other with his scimitar. Immensely pleased with himself, the Hungarian had returned, trailing a short string of ponies and sporting three Mongol arrows that had embedded themselves in various parts of his armor.
Meanwhile, R?dwulf had recovered all but one of his arrows. One, still lost, had missed and likely lay buried in the grass, and he might have been able to find it had they more leisure to search. But many more Mongols would be coming after them soon, and so they dispersed, flying in all directions as fast as they could ride, driving the spare ponies across the grass to lay false trails and then picking their way down into streambeds to complicate the work of those who would soon be tracking them.
