Uriang-Khadai listened with the cold face, giving nothing away as Kublai spoke.
‘You are the khan,’ he said quietly. ‘If you order it, we will go on.’
‘I need more than that at this moment, Uriang-Khadai. We’ve never fought an enemy with the lives of women and children in his grasp. Will the men follow me?’
The older man did not answer for what seemed like an age. At last, he dipped his head.
‘Of course they will. They know as well as you that plans change. It may be the best choice to go on and fight again here, while we have the advantage.’
‘But you want to head north, even so.’
The orlok was visibly uncomfortable. He had sworn an oath to obey, but the thought of his wife and children in the hands of Arik-Boke’s guards was a constant drain on him.
‘I will … follow orders, my lord khan,’ he said formally.
Kublai looked away first. He had known many moments where hindsight showed him a choice, a chance to turn his life one way or the other. It was rare to feel such a moment as it happened. He closed his eyes, letting the breeze pass over him. He felt death in the north, but the smell of blood was strong in the air and he did not know whether it was a true omen or not. When he turned east to face his brother’s distant armies, he felt the same cold shiver. Death lay in all directions, he was suddenly certain of it. He shook his head, as if to clear cobwebs from his thoughts. Genghis would not have wasted a moment. His men knew death, lived with it every day. They slaughtered animals with their hands and knew when a child began to cough that it could mean finding them cold and still. He would not fear such a constant companion. He could not let it influence him. He was khan at that moment and he made his choice.
‘My orders are to go on, orlok. Grab what arrows we can and chase Alandar into the tumans coming up. We hit the next battle group with everything we have.’
Uriang-Khadai turned his horse without another word, shouting orders to the waiting tumans. They looked confused, but they mounted quickly and formed up, ignoring the wounded and dying all around them. The sun was setting, but there were hours of grey summer light to come. Time enough to fight again before dark.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Kublai gave thanks for his brother’s poor decisions as he sighted four tumans riding hard against him. The great general Tsubodai had once employed the same system, five fingers stretching across the land in search of enemies. It was a powerful formation against slow-moving foot soldiers. Against the tumans he commanded, it had a weakness. His brother had formed a separated column a hundred miles long to search the land. Kublai and Uriang-Khadai had hit the end of the sweep and as the column turned to face him, he could work his way down it, bringing almost twelve tumans against each battle group as they reached him. Arik-Boke could still halt and let his tumans join up, but until he did, his warriors were vulnerable to simple numbers and overwhelming strength.
Overall, Kublai and Uriang-Khadai were seriously outnumbered, even after slaughtering Alandar’s men. That disadvantage would dwindle as they cut through the snake piece by piece. In his head, Kublai went over his plans for the thousandth time, looking for anything to improve the odds yet again. He did not have to check Uriang-Khadai was in position. The orlok was more experienced than anyone Arik-Boke could field and his tumans showed it in the way they flowed over the land, moving well together.
The second block of his brother’s tumans was too far away for Kublai to hear their horns, but over the vast plain of green grass, he could see them begin to shift and move in battle formations, reacting to his presence. He frowned as the wind whipped by him, checking the position of the sun. The soft grey twilight lasted for hours at that time of year, but it might not be enough. He hated the idea of having to pull out before the battle was done, but he could not be caught in one place. Every manoeuvre was intended to reduce his brother’s ability to move, while enhancing his own. He could not be caught in the dark, with armies closing on his position.
Against stolid Sung soldiers, he would have kept his final orders to the last moment, too late for the enemy to react to them. As it was, the Mongol tumans he faced could shift and reply just as quickly. Even so, he had the numbers. With Uriang-Khadai keeping order, he sent his men forward in a column, like two stags rushing at each other. At a mile, he felt the first urge to give the final order, his heart beginning to hammer at him. Arik-Boke’s tumans were moving fluidly, darting back and forth as they came on. He did not know who led them, or whether Alandar had reached the apparent safety of their ranks. Kublai hoped he had, so that he could send the man running twice in one day.
At half a mile, they were sixty heartbeats apart. Kublai gave his order at the same moment he saw the enemy tumans swing out to envelop his column head. He grinned into the wind as Uriang-Khadai and his generals matched the formation. Both hammer-heads widened, but Kublai had more tumans and he could imagine how they must appear from the enemy’s point of view, spreading like wings at his back, further and further as his forces were revealed.
It seemed an instant before the arrows flew on both sides. The wide lines could bring many bows to bear and the shafts soared out by the tens of thousands, one every six heartbeats from men who had trained to it all their lives. For the first time, Kublai felt what it was like to meet such a barrage in anger and he had to struggle not to flinch from the whirring air. The volleys spat like a war drum beating, crossing each other in the air. He could hear the thumps of them hitting flesh and metal, the grunts and cries of men on both sides and ahead of him. His own place in the fourth rank was not spared as shafts arced overhead and fell among them. Yet his wider lines could answer with thousands more shafts and the air was blacker on his side as they fired inwards, hardly troubling to aim against so many.
The first volleys broke holes in the galloping front ranks; the second and third tore men and horses away, so that those behind went piling into them. On both sides, the storm of arrows punched through armour. The heavy shields Kublai had picked up in Samarkand were long behind, left to rust on the valley where they had beaten Orlok Alandar. It had been a tactic worth trying, but the true strength of his tumans lay with the archers, the smashing power of bows of horn and birch, drawn back with a bone thumb ring and loosed at the moment when all hooves left the ground. The fourth volley was brutal, the air so thick with arrows that it felt hard to breathe. Thousands were hit on both sides and horses crunched to the ground, turning over at full speed so that their riders crashed down hard enough to kill.
Kublai’s tumans kept their formation better than those they faced. They had spent years in battle against the Sung, against forests of crossbows and enemy pikes. The lines bunched in places where the arrow storm had been thickest, but the rest forced their way through with hardly a drop in speed. In the last moments before impact, they followed the routines drummed into them: bows were jammed onto saddle hooks and thousands of swords were drawn as they reined in slightly, allowing the ranks behind to surge ahead.
Through Kublai’s front ranks came his lancers, each one lowering great lengths of birch as they went. It took enormous strength of arm and shoulder to hold the lances steady at full stretch. They brought them down in the final heartbeat, aiming the point ahead and leaning in, bracing for the impact. With half a ton of horse, rider and armour behind it, the lances slammed through the fish-scale chest-plates worn by the tumans. Kublai’s riders wore no straps to keep hold of the long lances. As they bit, his men let them go, rather than break a collarbone or an arm trying to hold on. The air filled with spinning splinters as ten thousand lances struck and many shattered or broke at the hilt. The enemy rank went down, coughing blood or knocked still and white as they bled inside.
The crash of thousands of warriors meeting each other at full speed became a low thunder of hooves and roaring voices. The two fronts tangled together as they struggled with swords, hacking at each other with insane violence. Kublai’s wide line spread rapidly around to the flanks as Uriang-Khadai continued t
o give calm orders. His tumans there had kept their bows and they sent another dozen volleys from each side, battering the men loyal to Arik-Boke.
They were answered with arrows every bit as powerful as their own, as warriors on the flanks loosed shaft after shaft back at them. The two sides were close in by then, drawing and loosing with grim stoicism, ignoring the deaths around them as they fought on. At the front, Kublai’s tumans were pressing forward, killing and moving, crushing the head of the snake. The flanks began to crumple back, the aim of Arik-Boke’s archers spoiled as those at the head were forced to give ground. Uriang-Khadai rode up and down his ranks barely two hundred yards from the main lines. As the hammer-head compressed, his men kept up their fire. The rain of arrows in return began to dwindle, but they loosed until their quivers were all empty, having sent more than a million shafts into the crush.
Mongol tumans did not retreat, did not surrender, but Kublai’s forces were overwhelming them. His veteran warriors pressed forward at every slight give, forcing them to move back a step and then another, then a dozen more as two ranks collapsed. They could not move to the sides, where Uriang-Khadai watched with cold eyes. The tumans he commanded on the right drew swords with a sibilant rasp that sent a shudder through the flanks. They had the space to kick their mounts into a gallop. Uriang-Khadai yelled an order and his tumans snapped shut on the flanks, swords coming down in short, chopping blows.
The head of the column collapsed and those in the flanks felt the shift, panic swelling all around them. They tried to turn their horses, yanking savagely on reins as they were buffeted by unhorsed men and loose mounts on all sides. The edges of the flanks were hammered back as Uriang-Khadai’s tumans tore into them and those in the very centre turned their backs on the battle and whipped their mounts desperately. Even then, with the decision made to retreat, they could not get clear. There was no room to move and the press of those behind kept them in place, yelling in fear or pain. The killing went on, with the flanks so compressed men could hardly move at all. Kublai’s tumans cared nothing for those who tried to surrender. There was no possibility of mercy. It was too early yet to stop the killing and the carnage was terrible. Men raising their hands were cut down where they stood. Screaming horses had new wounds gashed in their flesh by racing warriors.
Kublai had not entered the fighting beyond the first charge. With a group of his bondsmen, he waited to one side, watching closely and giving orders to shore up the heaving lines. It was like watching a wave surge up around a rock, but the rock crumbled and fell into sand as he looked on. He caught a glimpse of his brother’s orlok, fighting and roaring orders in the centre, already struggling to get away. Alandar would remember this day, Kublai thought with satisfaction, if he lived through it.
Kublai looked up as Uriang-Khadai sent a horn note across the battlefield. In the fading grey light, he could see fresh tumans coming. It would be the centre formation of Arik-Boke’s sweep line and Kublai guessed his brother would be in the squares riding hard at him. The sun had set while the fighting went on. If it had been noon, he knew the moment was right to go on. His men had broken the tumans in the second battle group and lone riders were already streaming away, heading for the safety of their khan as he entered the field.
Uriang-Khadai sounded the horn again and Kublai muttered to himself. He was not blind, or deaf. Plans and stratagems hurtled through his mind and he sat still, transfixed by the opportunity. His men were weary, he reminded himself. Their arrows were gone and their lances were broken. It would be madness to send them in again, in the dark. Yet he could end it all in a day and the thought ate at him. He clenched his fists on his reins, making his gauntlets creak. The horn sounded for the third time, snapping him out of his reverie.
‘I hear you!’ he shouted angrily. Kublai gestured to his waiting bondsmen. ‘Send the signal to disengage. We’ve done enough today.’
He continued to stare out into the distance as the falling note droned out across his tumans. In the dim light, they had been expecting it and they pulled back quickly, forming ranks and resting on the wooden pommels of their saddles as they rode clear, calling and laughing to one another. The dead lay among the dying and Kublai could hear one man scream with astonishing volume, somewhere in the twitching piles they passed. He had to have broken legs to be left with breath to make such a noise. Kublai didn’t see the warrior who dismounted and stalked over to the wounded man, but the sound was choked off mid-cry. He thought suddenly of Zhenjin, worrying for him. It was always a difficult line to walk for a khan and a father. The men understood he would be worried about his fourteen-year-old son among them, but he could give no sign of his fear, nor leave Zhenjin out of harm’s way. Uriang-Khadai usually placed Zhenjin to the rear of any formation without making a point of it. Kublai looked across the field for his son, but he could not see him. He clenched his jaw, sending a silent prayer to the sky father that he was all right. Uriang-Khadai would know. The man missed nothing.
Thousands of Arik-Boke’s forces had escaped the hammer-blow he had dealt them. They kept going as his men formed up and began to trot north. Kublai looked back over his shoulder, over the dead men and horses, to where his brother still rode in a cloud of dry dust. Already, Arik-Boke’s distant tumans were merging with the gloom as darkness overtook them. Kublai tilted his head in a gesture of mocking respect. Orlok Alandar had won free in the final moments and Kublai only wished he could hear the man explain to his brother how he had lost so many men in just a day.
Arik-Boke raged as he leaned forward in the saddle and yelled ‘Chuh!’ to his mount, kicking it savagely in the loins to keep his speed. Sweat was dribbling into his eyes and he blinked against the sting of salt, peering into the distance. The light was almost gone and the tumans ahead shifted and blurred like writhing shadows. He could hear only the galloping horses around him, so that the battle ahead seemed almost dreamlike, robbed of the clash of swords and the screams of men.
The general of one of his tumans was angling his mount to catch up to the khan, the animal’s head lunging up and down with effort. Arik-Boke ignored him, his focus only on those ahead. He knew he had lost contact with the tumans behind, that his long formation had been attacked at one end. He knew very well that the force with him might not be enough to send his brother running, that he should wait and re-form. He had only four tumans in close formation, but another eight were behind. Together, they would be enough, no matter what Kublai had managed to do. Arik-Boke spat into the wind as his brother’s name flitted through his thoughts. His saliva felt like soup in his mouth and heat breathed out of every pore as he rode on, harder and further than he had galloped for years. It had to be Uriang-Khadai who had organised the attack. Arik-Boke knew he should have allowed for his brother turning over command to a more experienced officer. He cursed long and loud, making his closest men look away rather than witness his rage. He should have done a thousand things differently. Kublai was a weak scholar and Arik-Boke thought he would have made chaos of good tumans. Yet they had struck at exactly the right point, at the right moment. They had beaten Orlok Alandar and he could still hardly believe it. The right wing of his sweep should have been the strongest point, but they had rolled it up. Now darkness was coming and they would escape his vengeance.
The plain was long and flat, but the battle was still a tiny, surging throng of dust as darkness came. In the last moments before they were lost to sight, Arik-Boke was sure he saw tumans streaming away to the north. He clenched his jaw, the heat of his body feeling like fuel for the anger within. Karakorum had few defenders, with his entire army in the field. He felt sick at the thought that his brother could take the capital in a quick strike. He had ignored Alandar’s feeble worries, convinced back then that his brother would never get in range of the capital. It should have meant nothing, but Arik-Boke wanted to roar his frustration. Whoever held Karakorum had a claim to rule. It mattered in the eyes of the princes and the small khanates.
His general had reached
him, riding alongside and shouting questions into the wind. At first, Arik-Boke ignored the man, but then the darkness was on them and he was forced to rein in and slow to a canter, then a trot. Their horses snorted and breathed hard and the searing energy drained out of Arik-Boke, leaving a coldness deeper than he had ever felt before. Not till that moment had he seriously considered Kublai might beat him in battle. His mind filled with images of facing the scholar within the length of a sword. It was satisfying but empty, and he shook his head to clear it of foolishness. He rode on, into the night.
All around him, warriors coming the other way were streaming past, keeping their faces down in shame before those they knew. They were joining his tumans at the back in tens and hundreds, coming out of the blackness ahead. Arik-Boke saw one of them wheel his horse, turning to match the trotting line as he tried to come across it. The man was within a horse-length of him and calling out before Arik-Boke knew it was Alandar. The khan’s knuckles were white on the reins as his orlok reached him, bringing a stench of fresh sweat and blood that hung on him like a cloak.
‘My lord khan,’ Alandar said.
He did not need to shout over the noise of the horses any longer. They were barely trotting by then, the black grass flowing under their hooves unseen. Arik-Boke almost called for torches, but there were still hundreds coming away from the battle and he did not know if they were all his own men. It would not do to light himself up in the line.
‘Orlok, I revoke your rank. You will not lead again in my armies.’ Arik-Boke tried to keep his voice calm, but the rage threatened to spill out of him. He wanted to see the man’s face, but the darkness was complete.
‘Your will, my lord,’ Alandar said, his voice unutterably weary.
‘Will you report then? Must I drag it out of you word by word?’ Arik-Boke’s voice grew louder as he spoke, until he was almost shouting. He sensed Alandar flinch from him.
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