‘You can’t,’ Tsaio-Wen replied. Once again his hand fell to the sword and then dropped away at a guttural snarl from the closest men.
‘Your emperor has written that I can, Tsaio-Wen. Choose to obey me or choose to hang, I do not care which. The emperor has said we will march again. Perhaps we will be destroyed, I do not know. Perhaps we will triumph. It will be easier to decide when we have eaten well and grown strong, I know that. Have you made your decision, Hong Tsaio-Wen?’
‘I will obey the orders of my emperor,’ the man said, promising death with his eyes.
‘You are a wise man to show such obedience and humility,’ Xuan said. ‘You will be a lesson to all of us. Now it says here that there are funds available, so send runners into the city for food. My men are hungry. Send for doctors to tend the weak and sick. Employ servants to clean the barracks and painters to make it fresh. Find roofers to repair broken tiles, carpenters to rebuild the stables, butchers and ice men to fill the basements with meat. You will be busy, Tsaio-Wen, but do not despair. Your work benefits the last Chin army and there is no better cause.’
Tsaio-Wen’s eyes drifted to the papers Xuan held in his hand. Whatever the injustice or humiliation, he dared not refuse. Just a word from one of his senior officers that he had baulked at a lawful order and he would be finished. He bowed his head as if he had to break bones to do it, then turned on his heel and walked away.
Xuan turned to the incredulous smiles on the faces of his men. His son could only stare and shake his head in amazement.
‘None of us thought today would end like this,’ Xuan said. ‘We will grow strong in the months to come. We will eat well and train again with sword, pike and bow. It will be hard. None of us are young men any longer. When we are ready, we will leave this place for the last time. It does not matter whether we ride against the Mongols. It does not matter if we ride into hell. What matters … is that we will leave.’
His voice broke as he said the last words and they cheered him, their voices growing stronger and louder until they echoed across the parade ground and the barracks beyond.
In the gers of the camp healers, Kublai sat in grim silence as the wound on his arm was bandaged by a harried shaman. The man’s hands were deft and practised, working by instinct. Kublai grimaced in pain as the shaman tied off the knot and bowed briefly before moving on. General Bayar was just two cots down, wearing the cold face of indifference as another shaman worked to sew a gash on his leg that slowly dripped dark red blood.
Yao Shu approached, bearing a sheaf of paper with hastily scrawled figures.
‘Where are the Sung guns?’ Kublai asked Bayar suddenly. He did not want to hear the numbers of maimed and dead from Yao Shu, not then. He was still shaking slightly from his own fight on the hill, a quivering deep inside him that had lasted far longer than the swift struggle itself. Bayar stood to answer him, flexed his leg with a wince.
‘We found them still being brought up, my lord, a mile or so back. I have our own men looking them over.’
‘How many cannon?’
‘Only forty, but enough powder and balls for a dozen shots each. Smaller shot than the ones we had.’
‘Then abandon our own. Have oil wiped over them and cover them with oiled linen, but leave them where they are until we have a respite or we make more shot and powder.’
Bayar looked wearily at him. They had received news of two more armies approaching the area, marching hard and fast to support the ones that had gone before. Their only chance was to ride to the first and smash it before they faced a battle on two fronts.
‘Have you retrieved the arrows?’ Kublai asked.
Bayar was swaying as he stood, utterly exhausted. Kublai saw him summon his will to answer, a visible effort that reduced him to awe.
‘I have a minghaan out among the dead, collecting any that can be re-used. We’ll get perhaps half of them back. I’ll have more sent to the camp to be repaired. They’ll bring them up to us when the work is done.’
‘Send them with the wounded men who can’t fight,’ Kublai said. ‘And check the stocks in the camp. I need the fletchers working day and night. We can’t run out.’ He clenched his fist and looked at Yao Shu, waiting patiently. ‘All right. How many men have we lost?’
The old man did not need to consult his lists for the total.
‘Nine thousand and some hundreds. Six thousand of those dead and the rest too badly cut to go on. The shamans say we’ll lose another thousand by morning, more over the next week.’
Bayar swore under his breath and Kublai shuddered, his arm throbbing in time with his pulse. A tenth of his force had gone. He was sore and tired, but he knew the dawn would bring another fight against fresher soldiers. He could only hope the long march had taken the edge off the Sung troops.
‘Tell the men to eat and sleep as best they can. I need them ready before dawn for whatever comes. Send Uriang-Khadai to me.’
‘Lord, you have been wounded. You should rest.’
‘I will, when I am certain the scouts are all out and the wounded are being taken back to the main camp. It will be a cold meal tonight.’
Bayar bit his lip, then decided to speak again.
‘You need to be alert for tomorrow, my lord. Uriang-Khadai and I have everything else in hand. Please rest.’
Kublai stared at him. Though his body ached and his legs felt weak with weariness, he could not imagine sleeping. There was too much to do.
‘I’ll try,’ he promised. ‘When I have spoken to the orlok.’
‘Yes, my lord,’ Bayar said.
A scout came through the camp, searching the wounded and those tending them. Kublai saw him first and his heart sank. He watched the man out of the corner of his eye, seeing him ask someone who pointed in Kublai’s direction. As the scout came up, Kublai glared at him.
‘What is it?’
‘A third army, my lord. Coming from the east.’
‘Are you sure this isn’t the same report I had before?’ Kublai demanded. The man paled to see him angry and Kublai tried to get a hold of himself.
‘No, my lord. They have been marked. This is a new one, around sixty thousand strong.’
‘The wasp nest,’ Bayar murmured at Kublai’s side. He nodded.
Kublai wanted to ride again immediately, but Uriang-Khadai came to him as he was spooning a bowl of cold stew into his mouth and chewing, his eyes glazed.
The orlok had a strange expression on his face as he stood before Kublai. In less than a week, they had survived two major battles, each time outnumbered. Uriang-Khadai had expected the younger man to falter a hundred times, but he had always been there, giving calm orders, shoring up a failing line, sending in reinforcements as necessary. The orlok saw exhaustion in the khan’s brother, but he had not broken under the strain, at least not yet.
‘My lord, the third army is smaller and won’t be in range until tomorrow or the day after. If we ride towards them now, we can rest before the battle. The men will be fresher and if we have to fight twice tomorrow, they have a better chance of living through it.’
Uriang-Khadai was tense as he waited for an answer. He had grown used to the younger man ignoring his advice, but out of a sense of duty, he still gave it. He was ready to be rebuffed.
‘All right,’ Kublai said, surprising him. ‘We’ll ride east and break contact with the large force.’
‘Yes, my lord,’ Uriang-Khadai said, almost stammering his answer. It did not seem enough. ‘Thank you,’ he said.
Kublai put down the empty bowl and rubbed his face with both hands. Apart from being unconscious for a time, he could not remember when he had last slept. He felt dizzy and ill.
‘I may not always listen, orlok. But you have more experience than me. I don’t forget that. We’ll move the main camp out of their range as well. I need to find a safe place for them, a forest or a valley where they can rest. We have to keep moving and they can’t match our pace.’
Uriang-Khadai murmured a respon
se and unbent enough to bow. He wanted to say something to raise the spirits of the young man who sat with his legs sprawled, too tired to move. Nothing came to mind and he bowed again as he withdrew.
Bayar had seen the exchange and strolled over, his mouth quirking as he watched Uriang-Khadai begin to issue the new orders.
‘He likes you, you know,’ Bayar said.
‘He thinks I am a fool,’ Kublai said without thinking, then chewed his lips irritably. Tiredness made it hard to keep his mouth shut. He had to lead without any show of weakness, not invite confidences.
‘No, he doesn’t,’ Bayar replied. He nodded to himself, still watching Uriang-Khadai. ‘Did you see him this morning when the Sung overran the wing? He didn’t panic, just pulled back, re-formed the men and shored up his position. It was good work.’
Kublai wished Bayar would stop talking. The last thing he wanted was to invite one officer to comment on another.
‘He isn’t a natural leader, Uriang-Khadai,’ Bayar said.
Kublai closed his eyes with a sigh, seeing green lights flash across the darkness.
‘The men respect him,’ Bayar went on. ‘They have seen his competence. They don’t worship him, but they know he won’t throw them away for nothing. That means a great deal to the ranks.’
‘Enough, general. He’s a good man and so are you. We all are. Now get on your horse and drag the tumans twenty more miles so we can intercept a Sung lord.’
Bayar laughed at the tone, but he ran to his horse and was wheeling the mount and giving orders before Kublai dragged his eyes open again.
In the years since Mongke had become khan, the numbers in the nation had grown beyond anything Genghis would have recognised. His brother Arik-Boke had benefited from peace on the plains of home and the birth rate had soared. Karakorum had become a settled city, with a growing population outside the walls in new districts of stone and wood, so that the original city was hidden from view. The soil was good and Mongke had encouraged large families, knowing that they would swell the armies of the khan. When he rode out in spring, he took with him twenty-eight tumans, more than quarter of a million men, travelling light and fast. They took no cannon and only the minimum of supplies. With horsemen just like those, Genghis and Tsubodai had swept across continents. Mongke was ready to do the same.
He had tried to be a modern khan, to continue the work Ogedai had begun in making a stable civilisation across the vast territories of his khanate. For years, he had struggled with the urge to be in the field, to ride, to conquer. Every instinct had pulled his mind away from the petty rule of cities, but he had strangled all his doubts, forcing himself to rule while his generals, princes and brothers cut the new paths. The great khanate had been won quickly, in just three generations. He could not escape a sense that it could be lost even faster unless he built and made laws to last. He had fostered trade links and yam stations, strings across the land that bound men together, so that the poorest sheep farmer knew there was a khan as his lord. Mongke had seen to it that each vast region had its khanate government reporting to him, so that those who had suffered could make their complaint and perhaps even see warriors come to answer for them. At times, he thought it was too big, too complicated for anyone to understand, but somehow it worked. Where there was obvious corruption, it was rooted out by his scribes and those responsible were removed from their high positions. The governors of his cities knew they answered to a higher authority than their own and it kept them quiet, whether from fear or security, he did not know. The taxes came in a flood, and rather than bury them in vaults, he used them to build schools, roads and new towns for the nation.
Peace was more effort than war, Mongke had realised early on in his time as khan. Peace wore a man down, where war could give him life and strength. There had been times when he thought his brothers would return to Karakorum to find him a withered husk, ground to nothing under the great stone of responsibility that was always turning above his head.
As he rode with his tumans, Mongke felt himself shedding the weight of the years. It was hard not to think of his trek with Tsubodai, facing Christian knights and battering foreign armies into submission. Tsubodai would have given fingers from his right hand for such an army as the one Mongke now commanded. Mongke had been young then and being back in the saddle with armed ranks before and behind was rejuvenating, an echo of his youth that filled him with joy. His horizons had been too small for too long. Chin lands lay to the south and he would see this new city Kublai had created on the good black soil. He would see Xanadu and decide for himself if Kublai had overstepped his authority. He could not imagine Hulegu ever turning away from the great khan, his brother, but Kublai had always been independent, a man who needed to know he was watched. Mongke could not shake the suspicion that he had better not leave Kublai too long alone.
Hulegu’s letter to him under personal seal had been the only sour moment in months of preparation. Mongke told himself he did not fear the Assassins his brother had stirred from their apathy, but what man would not? He knew he could hold his nerve in a battle, with everything going wrong around him. He could lead a charge and face men. His courage was a proven thing. Yet the thought of some masked murderer pressing a knife to his throat as he slept made him shudder. If there were Assassins dedicated to his death, he had surely left them behind for another year or two.
Arik-Boke had come to Karakorum to take over the administration while he was away. Mongke had made sure he too understood the risk, but his youngest brother had laughed, pointing to the guards and servants that scurried everywhere in the palace and the city. No one could get in unseen. It had eased Mongke’s mind to know his brother would be safe - and to leave the city behind him.
In just fourteen days, his tumans were in range of Xanadu, less than two hundred miles north of Yenking and the northern Chin lands. Half his army were barely twenty years old and they rode the distances easily, while Mongke suffered from lack of fitness. Only his pride kept him going when his muscles were ropes of pain, but the worst days came early and his body began to remember its old strength after nine or ten in the saddle.
Mongke shook his head in silent awe at the sight of a new city growing on the horizon. His brother had created something on the grand scale, turning fantasies into reality. Mongke found he was proud of Kublai and he wondered what changes he would see when they met again. He could not deny his own sense of satisfaction in bringing it about. He had sent Kublai into the world, forcing his younger brother to look beyond his dusty books. He knew Kublai was unlikely to be grateful, but that was the way of things.
They stopped in Xanadu long enough for Mongke to tour the city and work his way through the dozens of yam messages that had gone ahead or reached him while he travelled. He grumbled as he dealt with them, but there were few places he could ride where the yam riders couldn’t find him eventually. The khanates did not remain still simply because Mongke was in the field. On some days, he found himself working as hard as he had in Karakorum and enjoying it about as much.
He stripped Xanadu of food, salt and tea in the short time he was there. The inhabitants would go hungry for a while, but his was the greater need. So many tumans could not scavenge as they went. For the first time in his memory, Mongke had to keep a supply line open behind him, so that there were always hundreds of carts coming slowly south in the wake of his warriors. The supplies backed up while he rested in Xanadu, but when he left, they spread out again, paid for thousands of miles away in Karakorum and the northern Chin cities. Mongke grinned at the thought of his shadow stretching so far. Their food would catch them up whenever they stopped and he thought bandits were unlikely to risk raiding his carts, with the khan’s scouts never too far away.
He pushed the tumans south, revelling in the distances they could travel, faster than anyone but a yam rider able to change horses at every station. For the great khan, the tumans would ride to the end of the world without complaint. On minimum rations, he had already lost some of the
flesh that clung to his waist and his stamina was increasing, adding to his sense of well-being.
Mongke crossed the northern Sung border on a cold autumn day, with the wind blustering along the lines of horsemen. Hangzhou lay five hundred miles to the south, but there were at least thirty cities between the tumans and the emperor’s capital, each well garrisoned. Mongke smiled as he rode, kicking in his heels and enjoying the rush of air past his face. He had given Kublai a simple task, but his brother could never have succeeded on his own. The twenty-eight tumans Mongke had brought would be the hammer that crushed the Sung emperor. It was an army greater than any Genghis had ever put in the field and as he galloped along a dusty road, Mongke felt his years in Karakorum slowly tear into dusty rags, leaving him fresh and unencumbered. For once, the yam riders were behind. Without the staging posts, they could make no better time than his own men and he felt truly free for the first time in years. He understood at last the truth of Genghis’ words. There was no better way to spend a life than this.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Kublai and Bayar sat with their backs against the same massive boulder of whitish grey stone. Uriang-Khadai watched them, his face unreadable. The twin of the huge stone loomed nearby, so that between them was a sheltered area that local sheep must have used every time it rained. The ground there was so thick with droppings that no grass showed at all and everyone who walked through it found their boots getting heavier and heavier as they went.
The sheep had gone, of course. Kublai’s tumans had rounded up eighty or so, and for some lucky warriors there would be hot meat that night. The rest would have to make do with blood from their spare mounts, along with a little mare’s milk or cheese, whatever they had.
Ponies grazed all around them, whickering and snorting as they cropped grass that grew in clumps so thick that it made progress slow over the hills. They could not even trot on such an uneven surface. The horses had to be walked slowly, their heads drooping with weariness.
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